Works (CSEL) 14 part 7/28

Let us therefore, placed here, follow the pillar of fire, which may illumine us placed in this body and show the way, that for the future the cloud of night may refresh us, whereby we may be able to relieve the cruel burnings. But see what Scripture says: 'The bows,' it says, 'of the sinners let the Lord break.' Now God set his bow in the cloud when the floods had ceased, that calm might be restored. Whence it is to be believed that the adversary and the malicious one bends his bow, that he may stir up tempests for quiet souls and rouse blasts.

Let us pray therefore that the Lord our God may dissolve the bow of malice, that he may be present to his poor and needy one, who for the fear of God knows not that riches are to be coveted, nor the estates of lesser men to be seized, nor widows to be stripped of the inheritances left them by their forefathers. 'Better is a little to the righteous than the many riches of sinners.' Therefore riches are not accused, but the riches of sinners — unless perhaps because the sinner said: 'All these things have been delivered to me, and to whom I will I give them'; and then because riches the more inflame the torch of greed, and each one, while he desires greater things, does not turn aside from the byways of sinners. Whence also the Savior said: 'Make for yourselves friends of the mammon of iniquity.'

For it is the wealth of iniquity that is in the power of the devil, that it may be conferred on whomever he will. That also can be understood, that 'better is a little to the righteous than the many riches of sinners,' because there is a certain man rich in words, as are the philosophers of this world disputing about sacrileges, about the motion of the stars, about the star of Jupiter and Saturn, about the generations of men, about the worship of idols, about geometry and dialectic. The philosophers therefore are rich in speech, but poor in faith, destitute of truth. And there are very many simple priests of the Lord, poor in speech, but sublime in abstinence and virtue. The former speak treachery to many, the latter assert the faith to few;

the former lose their priests daily, but this poor man gains for the Church peoples and a number of believers. Whoever therefore shall have heard these men and seen the quality of their works will say: 'Better is a little to the righteous than the many riches of sinners.' From this Solomon derived that saying which he set down as it were his own: 'Out of much talking you shall not escape sin.' Dialectic therefore pours forth riches of words; piety preserves the fear of God. Therefore he who is here sparing in words, rich in spirit, would rather fear than vaunt empty words of truth. For fear is the discipline of wisdom; loquacity is the shipwreck of innocence and virtue and the incentive to falling and to fault.

'Because the arms,' he says, 'of the sinners shall be broken,' so that their acts may not be able to bring hindrance to the righteous, that the rod of sinners be not left over the lot of the righteous. And Paul says: 'May God crush Satan under your feet.' For if his arm be crushed, he himself shall be wholly crushed, so that his devices may be trodden down like the poisons of a serpent. But the Lord confirms the righteous when the arm of the adversary is dissolved, and therefore the righteous says: 'And you have confirmed me upon your hand'; and Job says: 'The hand of the Lord has touched me.' The Lord therefore sent his hand upon his servant and upon the hand of the sinner — which he had sent against him by the power he had received — and crushed his arm. So the devil was deceived by his own speech, who said:

'Put forth your hand upon him, and let us see whether he will not bless you to your face' — for he did not dare to say 'curse,' but left it to be understood. The Lord put forth his hand, and Job was confirmed; he who was thought to be about to curse began to bless; for the divine hand, when it touches, heals the righteous, it does not wound. He put forth his hand, and every stain of the leper departed; he touched the eyes of the blind, and, blindness driven away, the light of their eyes shone again. Pray therefore always that you may be confirmed, since you too who stand, see that you do not fall. We ought to stand, that we may be confirmed by the Lord. The world is slippery; we quickly slip; therefore let us pray that the Lord may deign to establish and confirm us. Do not suppose that the Lord knows not your way; if you are righteous, he knows it.

Believe the prophet who says: 'The Lord knows the ways of the spotless, and their inheritance shall be spotless; they shall not be confounded in the evil time.' He who knows Christ is known by the Lord; he knows the righteous, he does not know the unrighteous. Therefore to the unrighteous he will say: 'Depart from me, all you who work iniquity; I know you not' — that is: because you are unworthy of divine knowledge; I know you not, because you yourselves were unwilling to know me. Your works know me not, your deeds know me not; even if you say that you know me, your sins refute you. Every sin is from the evil one, but he who does not sin abides in me; this John wrote. What shall I say of the Lord, who disdains to know the impious? Paul disdains it, who said:

'If anyone among you is a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge the things that I write to you; but he who is ignorant shall be ignored,' and elsewhere it is thus said: 'The Lord knows who are his.' Let us therefore be the Lord's, that the Lord may know us, and let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity. The Greek has: 'The Lord knows the days of the spotless'; for there are the days of Elijah, there are the days of Nebuchadnezzar. Therefore the Gospel has: 'in the days of Elijah, when heaven was shut.' It was night for the faithless, but for Elijah it was light; heaven was shut for the faithless, but for Elijah it lay open; there was famine for the faithless, but for Elijah abundance. For he could not hunger to whom the heavenly things ministered food, nor did he hunger who himself fed others.

Therefore the day is righteous for itself even in darkness, because the light also shines in the darkness. Joseph too was in Egypt, and noonday shone upon him, as he said above. But to the sinner God said: 'Why do you declare my righteous decrees?' Righteousness is light, for it stands written above: 'And he shall bring forth your righteousness as the light.' You have, then, something that may shine within you, if you follow after righteousness. The day is bright for you, the night gives you light, for to the faithful even the night shall be lit up like the day. The Lord therefore knows the day of the righteous, because he himself enlightens every man coming into this world, that is to say:

that man who lives according to the image and likeness of God, who knows himself to be his man, so that he may flee the neighing lust of horses, the rage of wild beasts, the timidity of little hares, the cunning of foxes, the rapacity of wolves; that man who so conducts himself as though he had come fresh into this world, who was born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh, but of God. You have come, then; do not remain behind, do not cling to earthly things. And that you may know that the days are good, hear him who says: 'Abraham saw my day and was glad.' He has a good day who knows the good Son of God to be good God and confesses him as Lord. And again he himself warns us that we ought to beware, because the days are evil. Which days are evil? Those, surely, in which evil is found, which comes from the Evil One.

Or perhaps the days of this age are evil, because the world lies in the power of the Evil One. Yet we read also of an evil day after this age: 'In the evil day the Lord shall deliver him,' that is, in the day of judgment, on account of the punishments of many. For it is necessary that the unrighteous be tormented and that the righteous suffer with them, since the angels too rejoice when one sinner is saved from death. They suffer compassion, then, when one is punished, even though we read elsewhere: 'The righteous shall rejoice when he sees the vengeance of the ungodly' — a matter I reserve for its proper place, though you may often have heard why he rejoices; but let us not pile occupations upon occupations. 'The Lord knows the days of the undefiled,' because his grace and fullness has mercy on undefiled innocence; he does not have mercy on those who go astray.

These have no day, because they flee the light; of whom it is beautifully said: 'Their days pass away like a shadow.' The knowledge of God therefore belongs to his condescension, not to our seeing. His eyes are light; whomever he looks upon he enlightens; and so his eyes are the day of the righteous. Hence also their inheritance shall be for ever, because they sought eternal goods, not the gains of a temporal inheritance, and they shall have nothing to be ashamed of in the evil time, that is, of the heavenly judgment, and in the days of famine they shall be satisfied, because man does not live by bread alone, but by every word of God. But what man? 'I know a man in Christ fourteen years ago — whether in the body I know not, or out of the body I know not, God knows — caught up in such manner even to the third heaven.'

That man, then, who is in Christ, who does not know himself to be in the flesh, who walks not in the flesh but in the spirit, that man who is caught up not only to heaven, but even to the third heaven, and is caught up to paradise and hears words which it is not lawful for a man to speak, who glories not in his own virtues but in his infirmities — he himself lives not by bread alone, but by every word of God. For the word of God is life, because 'the Word was made flesh.' Hence the evangelist excellently said: 'What was made in him was life.' The Alexandrians indeed and the Egyptians read: 'All things were made through him, and without him was made nothing that was made,' and putting in a stop, they add: 'In him was life.' Let that distinction be safe for the faithful;

I, for my part, am not afraid to read: 'What was made in him is life,' and it gives the Arian nothing to lay hold of, because I do not consider his poisons, but recognize the custom of sacred reading. For he did not say 'the Word was made before all beginning,' he did not say 'the Word was made'; but if you desire to hear what he did say: 'The Word,' he says, 'was with God.' That was with God which worked together with him, which ruled together with him. He did not say 'the Word was made,' but he said: 'God was the Word.' But God is not a thing made, but the Maker and Creator. Open your ears and hear: 'All things were made through him, and without him was made nothing'; you learn him to be the Son, in whom is the fullness of the Godhead. Open your ears a little further and hear him say:

'What was made in him is life.' 'In him,' he says, 'it was made' — not 'the Word of God was made.' Or if this stirs you to slander, because he said 'in him it was made,' do you then also slander God the Father, because the Son of God said: 'But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his works may be made manifest, because they are wrought in God'? Or because David said: 'I will confess to you, O Lord, for you have heard me and have become my salvation,' that is, you have been turned for me into salvation, you have worked for my salvation? I could use other passages, but I do not wish you to believe me, lest you suppose these are arguments of cleverness, not testimonies of truth.

Let the son of thunder himself, the very one who reclined on the breast of Christ, the one to whom the Lord did not keep silent his secrets, to whom Peter made a sign that he should question the Lord — and he questioned, and the Lord revealed — let him himself expound what he understood concerning that which he said: 'What was made in him is life.' Hear him then interpreting, since he was already guarding against your slanders, O Arian: 'That which was from the beginning, which we have heard and seen with our eyes, which we have beheld and our hands have handled, of the word of life — and the life appeared.' It is therefore flesh that appeared in Christ, or rather Christ in the flesh; he himself is our life in all things. His divinity is life, his eternity is life, his flesh is life, his passion is life.

Hence also Jeremiah says: 'Under his shadow we shall live.' The shadow of his wings is the shadow of the cross, it is the shadow of the passion. His death is life, his wound is life, his blood is life, his burial is life, his resurrection is the life of all. Do you wish to know how his death is life? In his death we were baptized, that we might walk with him in newness of life. And he himself says: 'Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falling into the earth dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it brings forth much fruit.' He himself, as the grain, was for our sake released in body and died, that he might bring forth much fruit in us. His death, therefore, is the fruit of life. What was made in him, then, is life. Flesh was made in him — it is life;

infancy was made in him — it is life; judgment was made in him — it is life; death was made in him — it is life; the remission of sins was made in him — it is life; the wound was made in him — it is life; the mockery was made in him — it is life; the division was made in him — it is life; the burial was made in him — it is life; the resurrection was made in him — it is life. See how many things were made in him, by which the deeds of our life have been transformed, so that what had perished might be restored. Last of all, the selling was made in him — it is life; the redemption was made in him — it is life. He was sold to death by Judas, bought by the Jews unto death, that by his precious blood we might be redeemed unto life.

This is the life that was made, this is the life that appeared, this is the life that we saw, this is the life that was with the Father, because he who was in the beginning, the same was born of a virgin, that he might be life to those who were to die. Let us question this very passage set before us. What is 'a man in Christ'? This is what was made in Christ, in whom all things were made, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things were created through him and in him, and he is before all, and all things consist in him, that is, in his power. A man, therefore, in Christ, who was made according to his image and likeness; a man in Christ, who is wholly in Christ.

For just as God, through the unity and fullness of the Godhead, the Father is wholly God in the Son and the Son in the Father, so by way of striving and the affection of devotion — to use it as an illustration, not a comparison — a man is wholly in Christ; for he who cleaves to the Lord is one spirit. A man in Christ, therefore, is not that earthly man, not that man of sin, but the man of Christ. What, then, is troubling about 'what was made in him is life,' if a man — chiefly the inner man — was made in him, crucified in him, renewed in him, buried in him and buried together with him, raised up in him? What is troubling, as I said, in its being written: 'What was made in him is life,' when a man has said: 'In God we shall do mightily'?

If you ask what life it is — let it move you that it was made in him — receive this: surely life is the Church. It was made in him, in his rib; in him Eve was raised up again. And Eve means 'life,' that is, what was made; for Eve, who had perished, was made safe through the Church, that is, through the begetting of her own children, as it is written, because 'a sober inheritance amended the offense of the one before.' Hence Paul himself was caught up unto life, who before had been a persecutor unto death. We have wandered rather far afield, in order to speak about that man who lives not by bread alone, but by every word of God. Let us return to the psalm: 'And therefore the undefiled shall not be confounded in the day of judgment, and in the days of famine they shall be satisfied. The wicked, failing like smoke, shall fail away.'

The Greek has ἐξέλιπον, that is, 'they have failed.' You see someone who has suddenly attained to the insignia of power and honor; you judge him exalted. You see that he has met with success; do you not say of him: 'Where is this man, honored and exalted? He has failed.' For that reason the Greek said more, because precisely where one is believed to be honored and exalted, there he is forestalled by his own failing, so that you grasp that the flows of the rivers have passed by sooner than they have come, and, while you wait for the streams to arrive, they have flowed away while you are still expecting them. On the contrary, the humble and meek, while they are subjected to the rich and oppressed, are exalted from their own lowliness and have suddenly shone forth. And therefore Paul took pleasure in his infirmities, not in his strengths.

But let us consider, lest anyone suppose that he gloried in revelations, and let us repeat his words, that he may defend himself as a master of humility: 'I know,' he says, 'a man in Christ fourteen years ago — whether in the body I know not, or out of the body I know not, God knows — caught up in such manner even to the third heaven.' He says it was revealed to him fourteen years before, and yet he held and suppressed the revelation so long, nor would he have spoken of it, had he not judged it useful for us to speak of it, lest we be lifted up by revelations. For if Paul did not glory in so great a grace, neither ought we to glory. The young man himself did not glory: shall the old man glory?

Then he could not deny that he had been caught up even to the third heaven, and yet he testified that he did not know whether he had been caught up in the body or out of the body. Therefore he glories not in knowledge, but in ignorance, and proclaims the grace of God toward himself. What belongs to knowledge he denies, what belongs to charity he confesses; for knowledge puffs up, but charity edifies. And again he said 'a man caught up in such manner'; in what way he had been caught up — whether in the body or out of the body — he recalled to be uncertain to himself. Here you have the balance of wisdom. He sets one as in Christ, and himself as another, who says: 'I know not.' What is another's he exalts, what is his own he humbles. 'And he heard,' he says, 'unspeakable words.' He did not say 'I heard,' but he did not deny that another had heard.

And so modestly he chose to declare himself a witness rather than a seer, and shrank from seeming to be an arbiter of heavenly secrets. For to bear testimony belongs to truth; not to shrink from the merit of a revelation belongs to one who boasts. And therefore he says: 'For such a one I will glory, but for myself I will not glory.' But what does it mean that he says a man heard — that man in Christ — things which it is not lawful for a man to speak? How does this fit, that it should not be lawful for a man to speak what it was lawful for a man to hear? If it is not lawful for the very man who heard to speak, how was it entrusted to him to hear what was not permitted to be spoken? What is this discrepancy? If it is entrusted to another man, who was the outer man, how could the man come to know what it was not lawful for the man to hear?

Hence it seems that the grace of speaking did not fail that man who was in Christ, to whom it did not fail, but that to those who would hear, the place, the time, and the merit were lacking. For he heard in heaven, and so it was judged not fitting that he should speak on earth what he had heard in heaven, since on this very earth there is such a distinction, that what is sung in one region is not sung in another, according to what is written: 'How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?' Indeed the Hebrews did not sing in the land of their captivity what they had been accustomed to sing in their own homeland. This is the land of captivity; another is the land of liberty; this is the land of sin, that of eternal rest; this is the land of the valley, that the land of heaven.

Therefore in heaven Paul now proclaims those things which on earth he formerly could not proclaim; for the secrets of wisdom are to be spoken among the perfect. And yet what does the mention of this revelation accomplish, except to teach that one ought by no means to glory in revelations, but in infirmities, because infirmity is both the remedy of revelation and the exercise of strength, while on the contrary revelation is the slippery occasion of pride? For lest Paul himself, who was caught up to the third heaven, should be lifted up by the loftiness of the revelation, he received a thorn of the flesh. Infirmity therefore came to his aid, lest the grace should be turned into peril. Infirmity, then, is more useful than the grace.

That same infirmity is also the workshop of strength, as the Lord testified, because 'strength is made perfect in infirmities.' Indeed this very man, after the revelation, asked for the remedy of healing and did not obtain it; yet in his infirmity he did not seek a remedy, but finished his course and found the crown. 'The sinner,' it says, 'borrows and does not repay, but the righteous has mercy and gives.' This too fits the person of Paul, because the righteous has mercy and gives. See him dividing the oracles of the Lord, see him lending out the Lord's silver at interest. He received one mina and returned two, received two and returned four, received five and returned ten.

He did not bind up in a napkin what he had received, but distributed it to the moneychangers, and what he had distributed he received back with interest. Thus he both freed the receiver from a very great sin, lest the Lord's money should perish with him, and himself merited to be set over ten cities. What the ten cities are, recognize in the epistles which he wrote — even though the apostles are not bound by a prescribed number, to whom it was said: 'Go through the whole world and preach the gospel to every creature.' Here, then, from Jerusalem, through the East and Illyricum and Italy, he dispensed the Lord's money. And lest anyone should suppose that he was lending out his own, he testified that the money was the Lord's, saying:

'To those who are joined in matrimony I give charge, not I, but the Lord, that the wife depart not from her husband,' and elsewhere: 'Do you seek a proof of him who speaks in me, Christ?' Indeed the king himself, in whom there is a figure of the Lord, said this: 'You ought to have committed my money to the moneychangers.' 'My money,' he says, not 'yours.' The righteous, therefore, has mercy and gives. How he gives, hear him say: 'I teach in all the churches.' But the sinner borrows and does not repay. See the rich man borrowing and not returning, the poor man receiving and immediately repaying, lest he be longer in debt to another. These are the moral matters.

See now the mystical poor man, that is, the simple man who fears the name of God, hearing the word about chastity and paying it, hearing about mercy and paying it, hearing about meekness and not growing angry; but that rich man, arrogant and proud, hearing indeed, but casting the words of God behind him, hearing about the condemnation of luxury and indulging in luxury all the more. Indeed the Church pays what she received, the synagogue does not pay. Recognize that the Church pays: 'They were yours,' it says, 'and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word,' and elsewhere: 'For the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me.' The Church therefore returned the money of love which she had received from the Lord, but the synagogue did not return it. And so it is said concerning the Jews:

'If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin,' because they certainly heard and did not believe. It is proved, therefore, that sinners borrowed and did not repay. The sinner, then, is always in want, but the righteous abounds and gives, whose conscience is rich. Therefore the Jews were in want amid their riches — rich, they were in want and hungered — but the Christians did not fail amid the riches of their simplicity. The righteous, then, is good, and so the Scripture added: 'For those who bless him shall possess the earth, but those who curse him shall perish.' How does the righteous possess the earth, or what earth, when the Scripture says:

'Shall you dwell alone upon the earth?', and elsewhere: 'Woe to those who dwell upon the earth' — which belongs to rebuke and to curse? Of what earth, then, is the possession blessed? Not of this earth which is hidden by darkness and filled with bitterness, but of that which flows with honey and milk, that is, having the grace of sweetness and the brightness of eternal light. Receive the sweetness of good honey, nay, above honey: 'Sorrow and sadness and groaning have fled,' because the grace of sweetness shall shut out the bitterness of human frailty. And elsewhere: 'And he shall wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, nor mourning.' Receive also the brightness of milk: 'And they shall not need a lamp nor the light of the sun;

for the Lord himself shall give them light, and they shall reign for ever and ever.' There is also a mystical righteous one who has mercy and gives, who gave us all the words which he received from the Father, and remitted to us the debt of our sins, and paid his own blood for our debts, that we might not be in another's debt, but that as a good creditor he might hold us in his own debt. There is also that sinner who gathered what he did not bring forth, and borrowed what he did not hold, and will not restore what he received. Hear that the devil borrowed: 'To you,' he says, 'I will give all this power and their glory, for they have been delivered to me, and to whom I will I give them, if falling down you will worship me.'

Most wicked one, you received it for testing, not for death — that is, you received it that God's servants might be proved, not that they might be destroyed; you received it that God might be worshiped, not that he might be denied. You received the things of the world; why do you snatch away the things that are eternal? You received the things that are of the world; why do you wish to carry off the things that are Christ's? Give those to whom you will, we do not begrudge it; why are the things we ourselves desire begrudged to us by you? Do you wish to be worshiped, you who, being more wicked than all, are unworthy even of servitude itself? 'By the Lord the steps of a man shall be directed.' The Greek said διαβήματα, that is, 'crossings,' and therefore it is said to you: 'If you pass through the water, the rivers shall not close over you.'

Cross over, then; do not stop, like a good traveler who, when he comes to some milestone of the road, does not stand still but passes on; and you too are on the road, as long as you are set in this course. If Paul had stood still, he would not have finished his course. See lest for this reason he should say to you also: 'You who stand, see lest you fall'; for he who has crossed over cannot fear that he may fall. 'I saw,' he says, 'the ungodly highly exalted and lifted up above the cedars of Lebanon, and I passed by, and behold, he was not.' Seeing therefore the ungodly highly exalted, he who did not stand did not stumble; if he had stood still, he would have admired him and followed him, he would have stumbled and fallen like the ungodly. Therefore Moses, seeing the bush shining and not burning, said: 'Passing by, I will see this great sight.' He who passes from this world sees a great sight;

he who looses the bonds of this knot, by which we are bound to this body, sees a great sight. Moses sees many miracles in Exodus; another who is not in the exodus does not see such great things. The same Moses passed over; the people of the fathers also passed over, because they were going out from the land of captivity. And so their steps were directed by the Lord, for whom by night a pillar of fire shone, by day a pillar of cloud, that neither the heat of the day might afflict the travelers nor the darkness of night bring hindrance to the wayfarers. And do you too earn it by your deeds, and beg by your vows, that your steps may be directed by the Lord, that your feet may not be moved, because it is written: 'But my feet were almost moved, my steps had well-nigh slipped.'