Works (CSEL) 15 part 10/31

Hence the Lord did not wish to have what he might lose, and therefore he came here poor, lest the devil should have anything to take away. Do you wish to know how true this is? Hear the Lord himself saying: 'The prince of this world comes, and in me he finds nothing.' He did not wish even to be the father of a few, that he might be [father] of all — yet in vain would he be tempted by the ulcers of the body, who would despise all the sufferings of the body, [doing this] at the same time to show us that to him an unstained victory was due, the enemy of the body being driven off. But the one [Job] is tempted as a man in his own things, this one [Christ] in public things; from the former the patrimony is taken away, to the latter the kingdom of the world is offered. Nor was the devil wholly without deceit, fearing to provoke the Son of God: the former he tempts with injuries, the latter with rewards. The former says, as a little servant:

'The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away'; the latter, conscious of his own nature and ordering, laughs that his own things are offered to him. And, to return to that [story of Job], messenger rushes upon messenger, the wounds are doubled, yet the strong athlete is not troubled in mind. A woman is brought in, the allurement of the first deceit; the latter [Christ], born through a virgin, did not have [a wife] liable to error. Friends are brought in, who by their depraved counsels might oppress him as he resisted, but 'in all the things that happened to him, Job nowhere sinned with his lips in the sight of God.' For as to his cursing the day, saying: 'Let that day perish in which I was born,' and below:

'And let him curse it who cursed that day, who is to overpower the great whale' — this pertains to prophecy, in that our Lord Jesus Christ overpowered the devil as the whale of this stormy age, and desires the day of his own carnal generation to perish, that his day may be counted in regeneration. 'Let the worldly day perish,' he says, 'that the spiritual day may arise.' Therefore in temptation holy Job was speaking mysteries; for he who was conquering the world was beholding Christ. Let us therefore not fear temptations, but rather glory in temptations, saying: 'When we are weak, then we are strong'; for then the crown of righteousness is woven.

But those [words] are perhaps fitting for Paul; we, however, since there are many crowns, ought to hope for whichever one. In the world the laurel is a crown, the shield is a crown. But for you the crown of delights is set forth: 'for the crown of delights shall overshadow you.' And elsewhere: 'With the shield of his will he shall encompass you,' and 'with glory and honor, whom the Lord loved, he crowned [him].' Therefore he who wishes to give the crown sends temptations, and if ever you are tempted, know that a crown is being prepared. Take away the contests of the martyrs, you have taken away the crowns; take away the torments, you have taken away the beatitudes. Is not the temptation of Joseph the consecration of virtue? Is not the wrong of the prison the crown of chastity?

How could he have obtained a share in the kingdom in Egypt, had he not been sold by his brothers? That this was done by God's decision, that the just man might be proved, he himself showed, saying: 'that it might come to pass, as on this day, that a great people might be fed.' We ought not, therefore, to fear the temptations of the world as evils, by which good rewards are obtained, but rather to pray, in contemplation of the human condition, that we may undergo those temptations which we are able to bear. 'And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee.' In this place the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, who says:

'The region of Zabulon and the land of Nephtalim, and the rest who dwell along the seacoast, and those by the sea and beyond Jordan, of Galilee of the nations — the people who sat in the shadow of death saw a great light.' For who is the great light but Christ, who enlightens every man coming into this world? Then he took the book, that he might show himself to be the one who spoke in the prophets, and might remove the sacrileges of the faithless, who say that the God of the Old Testament is one and the God of the New another, or who say that the beginning of Christ is from the virgin; for how did he begin from the virgin, who before the virgin was saying: 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me'? You see the Trinity coeternal and perfect. The Scripture of the Law proclaims him both God and man, perfect in each:

it speaks of both the Father and the Holy Spirit. For the Holy Spirit is shown as fellow-worker, when in bodily form, like a dove, he descended upon Christ, while the Son of God was baptized in the river, [and] the Father spoke from heaven. What greater testimony, then, do we seek than that, with his own voice, he signified himself to have been the one who spoke in the prophets? He is anointed with spiritual oil and heavenly power, that he might water the poverty of the human condition with the eternal treasure of the resurrection, turn away the captivity of the mind, illumine the blindness of souls, [and] proclaim the year of the Lord, spread over perpetual times — [a year] that knows not how to return into the round of toil, [and] grants to men a continuance of fruit and of rest.

And he so stooped himself to all services that he did not even disdain the office of a reader; but we [were] impious, who denied the faith of his divinity — which was to be gathered from the miracles of his works — on account of the contemplation of his body. 'Amen I say to you that no prophet is accepted in his own country.' Not slightly is envy betrayed, which, forgetful of civic charity, bends the causes of love into bitter hatreds. At the same time, by this example and likewise by the oracle, it is declared that in vain you would await the help of heavenly mercy, if you envy the fruits of another's virtue; for the Lord is a spurner of the envious, and from those who persecute the divine benefits [shown] in others he turns away the miracles of his power.

For the act of the Lord's flesh is a manifestation of his divinity, and his invisible things are shown to us through those which are visible. Not idly, therefore, does the Savior excuse [the fact] that he worked no miracles of power in his own country, lest perchance anyone should think that affection toward [one's] country ought to be of less worth to us. For he who loved all could not but love his fellow-citizens; but they who envy renounced for themselves the charity of their country; 'for charity envies not, is not puffed up.' Yet the country is not without a share of divine benefits. For what greater miracle than that Christ was born in it? See, therefore, what evil envy brings.

Because of envy the country is judged unworthy that a citizen should work [miracles] in it — [the country] which was worthy that the Son of God should be born in it. 'In truth I say to you: there were many widows in the days of Elijah.' Not because they were the days of Elijah, but [days] in which Elijah worked, or because he made it day for those who in his works saw the light of spiritual grace and were converted to the Lord; and therefore heaven was opened to those beholding eternal and divine mysteries, [and] was closed when there was famine, because there was no abundance of recognizing the divinity. But of this we have written more fully, when we wrote about widows. 'And there were many lepers in the times of Elisha the prophet, and none of them was cleansed but Naaman the Syrian.'

Evidently this saving word of the Lord instructs us and exhorts us to the zeal of venerating the divinity, in that no one is shown to be healed and freed from the spotted disease of the body except him who by religious service strove after health; for divine benefits are bestowed not on those who sleep, but on those who keep watch.

And by a well-fitted example of comparison the arrogance of the envious citizens is beaten back, and the Lord's deed is taught to agree with the ancient Scriptures, since in the books of Kings also we read that the gentile man Naaman was freed from the spots of leprosy by the prophetic oracle, while leprosy consumed very many of the Jews in body and mind alike — since indeed history relates that even those four who, compelled by famine, made their way into the camp of the Syrians were lepers. Why, then, did the prophet not cure his brothers, not cure his fellow-citizens, not heal his associates, while he healed strangers, healed those who had not the observance of the law and the fellowship of religion — except because medicine is [a matter] of the will?

Is not the divine gift [a matter] not of race, but chosen by prayers, [and] not conferred by the right of nature? Learn to ask what you desire to obtain; the advances of heavenly gifts do not follow disdainful men. But although the simple exposition shapes the moral disposition, yet the grace of the mystery is not hidden. For since the later things are derived from the earlier, so too the earlier are built up by the later. For we said in another book that in that widow, to whom Elijah was sent, a type of the Church was set forth beforehand. It is fitting that the people should follow the Church.

That people, gathered from foreigners, that people formerly leprous, that people formerly spotted, before it was mystically baptized in the river — the same, after the sacraments of baptism, washed clean from the spots of body and mind, began to be now no longer leprosy, but an immaculate virgin without wrinkle. Rightly, therefore, is Naaman described as great in the sight of his lord and admirable in countenance, since in his type the salvation to come for the gentiles is declared; who, by the counsel of a consecrated girl — who, the strength of her [fellow-]citizens being broken, had come as a captive into the hostile power — being admonished by the prophet to hope for salvation, is healed not by the command of an earthly king, but by the liberality of divine mercy. Why is he commanded to immerse with the mystical number? Why is the river Jordan chosen?

'Are not Abana and Pharphar,' he says, 'rivers of Damascus, better than the Jordan?' But, angry, he preferred these; [yet] having reflected, he chose the Jordan; for anger knows not the mystery, faith knows it. Learn the grace of saving baptism: he who as a leper had immersed, emerged faithful. Learn that the spiritual sacraments are signified: a remedy of the body is sought, [a remedy] of the mind is obtained; the flesh is washed, the disposition is washed. For I see that the leprosy not of the body more than of the mind was cleansed, when, after baptism, the filth of the old error wiped away, he refuses that he will offer victims to strange gods — the victims which he vows to the Lord. Learn also the precepts of fitting virtue: he proved his faith who refused the rewards. Learn from the teaching of both words and deeds what you should follow.

You have the Lord's precept and the prophet's example: to receive freely, to give freely, and not to sell the ministry, but to offer it; for the grace of God is not priced at a fee, nor is gain sought in the sacraments, but the obedience of the priest. Yet it is not enough if you yourself do not seek gain: the hands of your household, too, must be restrained. And this alone is not demanded, that you keep yourself alone chaste and unspotted; for the Apostle did not say 'yourself alone,' but 'keep yourself chaste'; therefore not only your own [chastity is required], [free] from such traffickings, but the chastity of your house also; for the priest ought to be irreproachable, well set over his own house, having his children subject with all chastity.

'But if anyone knows not how to preside over his own house, how shall he have care of the Church?' Instruct, therefore, your household, exhort, guard; and if a servant should deceive you — for I do not except human frailty — let him, being caught, be repudiated by the prophetic example. Quickly does leprosy follow base wages, and money ill-gotten defiles body and soul. 'You have taken money,' he says, 'and from it you shall possess field and vineyard and olive-groves and flocks. And the leprosy of Naaman shall cleave to you and to your seed forever.' You see that by the deed of the author the succession of the heir is condemned; for the guilt of a sold mystery is inexpiable, and the heavenly vengeance for [violated] grace passes to posterity.

Finally, the Moabites and the rest shall not enter until the third and fourth generation — that is, so long (to interpret more simply) until the manifold succession of generations should abolish the guilt of the authors. But although those who sinned against God by the error of idolatry seem to be punished to the fourth generation, surely the sentence seems harsher by which the seed of Gehazi is condemned forever, by prophetic authority, on account of the greed of possessing — especially since our Lord Jesus Christ, through the regeneration of the [baptismal] laver, has given to all the remission of sins — unless you understand the seed [to be] of vices rather than of race?

For just as those who are the children of the promise are reckoned as good seed, so also those who are the children of error are reckoned as evil seed. For the Jews too are 'from the father, the devil,' not indeed by the succession of the flesh, but of crime. Therefore all the covetous, all the avaricious, possess the leprosy of Gehazi together with their riches, and by ill-gotten gain have amassed not so much a patrimony of goods as a treasure of crimes, with eternal punishment and brief fruit. For although riches are perishable, the punishment is perpetual, because 'neither the avaricious, nor the drunkard, nor the one serving idols shall possess the kingdom of God.' 'And all in the synagogue, hearing these things, were filled with wrath, and rose up, and cast him out of the city.'

The sacrileges of the Jews, which long before the Lord had foretold through the prophet, and in a verse of a psalm had declared what he would suffer when set in the body, saying: 'They repaid me evil for good' — these he teaches in the Gospel to have been fulfilled. For while he himself was spreading benefits among the peoples, they were inflicting injuries. Nor is it a wonder that they lost salvation, who cast the Saving One out of their borders; for the Lord is a moral teacher, who taught his apostles by his own example to become all things to all, who neither rejects the willing nor binds the unwilling, nor resists those who cast him out, nor fails those who ask. So elsewhere [he treated] the Gerasenes: when they could not endure his powers, he left them as the weak and ungrateful.

At the same time, understand that the suffering of the body was not of necessity, but voluntary, and that he was not seized by the Jews, but offered up by himself. For when he wills, he is seized; when he wills, he falls; when he wills, he is hanged; when he wills, he is not held. And here he had ascended to the brow of the mountain, to be cast down, and behold, through the midst of them — the mind of the raging men being suddenly changed or stupefied — he went down; for the hour of the passion had not yet come. Indeed, he still preferred to heal the Jews rather than destroy them, that by the ineffectual outcome of their fury they might cease to will what they could not accomplish. You see, therefore, that here too it was of his divinity what he wrought, and there it was of his will that he was seized. For how could he be held by a few, who is not held by the multitude?

But he did not wish the sacrilege to be of many, so that he might turn back the odium of the crime of the cross upon its authors, and indeed be affixed [to the cross] by a few, yet die for the whole world. 'And in the synagogue there was a man having an unclean spirit,' and below: 'But rising up from the synagogue, he entered into the house of Simon and Andrew. And Simon's mother-in-law was held by great fevers.' See the clemency of the Lord the Savior. Neither moved by indignation, nor offended by [their] wickedness, nor wounded by the wrong, he does not desert Judaea; nay rather, unmindful of the wrong, mindful of clemency, now by teaching, now by delivering, now by healing, he soothes the hearts of the unbelieving people. And well did holy Luke first set before us the man delivered from the spirit of wickedness, and then substitute the woman's healing.

For the Lord had come to heal both sexes, and he who was first created had to be healed first, nor was she to be passed over who had sinned more by the fickleness of mind than by depravity. That the works of the Lord's medicine began on the Sabbath signifies that the new creation began thence where the old creation had before ceased; and that the Son of God is not under the law, but above the law — this he designated at the very beginning — and that the law is not loosed, but fulfilled. For the world was made not through the law, but by the Word, as we read: 'By the word of the Lord the heavens were established.' The law, then, is not loosed, but fulfilled, so that the renewal of man, now slipping [into ruin], may come to pass. Whence the Apostle also says: 'Stripping off the old man, put on the new, who is created according to Christ.'

And well did he begin on the Sabbath, that he might show himself to be the Creator, who would interweave works with works and carry on the work which he himself had already begun — just as, if a builder plans to renew a house, he begins to undo the old [structure] not from the foundations, but from the rooftops. And so there he first sets his hand where he had before ceased. Then he begins from the lesser things, that he may come to the greater. To deliver from a demon, men too can do, but [only] in the word of God; to command the resurrection to the dead belongs to the divine power alone. Nor ought it move anyone that in this book the devil is brought in as the first to have spoken the name of Jesus of Nazareth. For Christ did not receive his name from him — [the name] which the angel brought down from heaven to the virgin:

It is a mark of his shamelessness that he should be the first to usurp something among men and bring it to men as if it were new, by which he might strike [into them] the terror of his power. Indeed, in Genesis too he was the first to name God to man; for thus you have it: 'And he said to the woman: Why indeed did God say that you should not eat from every tree?' Both, therefore, were deceived by the devil and healed by Christ. Follow the rest, and learn the mysteries of the Gospel reading, and in the healing of two recognize the sacrament of common salvation. For 'just as in Adam all die, so in Christ all are made alive.'

Who is that one who in the synagogue had the unclean spirit of a demon, but the people of the Jews, who, bound and entangled as if by serpentine coils in the snares of the devil, defiled the feigned cleanness of the body with the filth of the inner mind? And well [it was] that in the synagogue there was a man who had an unclean spirit, because he had lost the Holy Spirit. For the devil had entered where Christ had gone out. At the same time it is shown that the nature of the devil is not wicked, [but his] works iniquitous. For him whom by [his] superior nature he confesses as Lord, by [his] work he denies. And in this appears his wickedness, and the wickedness of the Jews, that he so poured out upon the people the blindness of a frenzied mind, that the people deny him whom the demons confess. O inheritance of the disciples, worse than the master's!

The former [the devil] tempts the Lord by word, these [the Jews] by deed; the former says, 'Cast yourself down,' these set upon him to cast him down. If we weigh these things by a deeper counsel, we ought to understand the health of soul and of body, so that first the soul, which was laboring under the snares of the serpent, may be set free. For the soul would never be conquered by the body, unless it were first tempted by the devil. For since the soul drives, vivifies, and governs the body, how would it be dragged off captive into the body's allurements, unless it too were bound by the chains of some higher power? Indeed, Eve did not hunger before the cunning of the serpent tempted her, and therefore against the very author of sin the medicine of salvation had first to work.

Perhaps too, in the type of that woman, the mother-in-law of Simon and Andrew, our flesh was languishing with the various fevers of sins and burning with the immoderate allurements of diverse desires. Nor would I say that the fever of love is less than that of heat. And so the one fever inflames the soul, the other the body; for our fever is lust, in that desires are fiery. Whence the Apostle also says: 'If they do not contain themselves, let them marry; for it is better to marry than to burn.' Our fever is extravagance, our fever is wrath, which, although they are vices of the body, yet entangle fire in the bones and thoroughly assail the mind, the soul, and the senses. This [flesh] is first solicited by the devil's art. For a good field, clothing, a jewel, is the persuasion of the serpent.

The favor of honors, the loftiness of powers, the sweetness of banquets, the form of a harlot — this is the snare of the devil, and as it were a certain alluring address of spiritual wickedness, which, through the allurement of the flesh (which is quickly softened by a kind of feminine fickleness), casts down the soul also from its standing; for the soul does not desire the form of a woman before the eye of the body [does]. Indeed, what you have not seen you will not love; but where the flesh has lusted, the constancy of the sympathizing soul also grows faint, and the mind is bent by the fellowship of love — for 'the two are one flesh' — and so death creeps in, the deed of the crime taking effect, the devil tempting, the flesh persuading.

Yet the fever of the soul is more vehement than that of the body, and therefore for the soul's pleasure the body's health is for the most part despised, nor does one abstain from dangers. Whence it does not seem amiss to recall how Theotimus, when he was suffering from a grave affliction of the eyes and loved his wife — the faculty of intercourse being forbidden him by the physician — being impatient of desire and swept away by the impulse of lust, could not restrain himself. For, knowing and well aware that he would lose his eyes, before he came together with his wife, in the very heat of his burning desire and amid the apparatus of his wonted habit, he said: 'Farewell, dear light.' Thus lust is more blazing than fever, and more grievously casts [a man] down and inflames him.

But when one recovers his senses from the frenzy, then the sight of the inner conscience is opened, and repentance of the deed follows, and each one blushes at the shame of his own crime. Then God is feared, and the sinner wishes to hide himself, but cannot; then the flesh is accused, the devil is charged — the former as the bawd of vices, the latter as the author of error. The deformity is laid bare; for every secret is naked before God, nor are the secrets of disgraceful deeds veiled by those fig-leaves, that is, by the bodily covering or worldly boasting. And each one, with a mind conscious of sin, dreads the divine judgment, saying:

'Let the mountains fall upon me, in which I may hide myself, in the clefts of the rocks, when he comes to shatter the earth.' Then the flesh generates for the soul thistles and thorns — that is, the bitings of cares and anxieties and the burnings which the soul itself has surrounded itself with through the concupiscence of the flesh. For the soul is fastened, as if by certain nails, to bodily pleasures, and, once it has clung [to them], plunged into earthly desires, it can only with difficulty fly back to the height, whence it descended, without the favor of God. For, bound by the snares of its own deeds and liable to the allurements of worldly delights, it is now held [captive].

This Adam, therefore, this Eve, the Lord came to deliver — of whom the one was made to the image of God, the other receiving the virtue of her own husband; and as long as she was subject to the stronger, they bore in one spirit one will pleasing to God, and, placed in paradise, they wrought the nourishment of God's heavenly life. But after the flesh began to persuade something different and not to keep its own law, having become exiles of paradise, they fell back, by the desert of sin, into this lower and submerged place. Nor let anyone think it incongruous if Adam and Eve are reckoned in the type of soul and body, since they are reckoned also in the type of the Church and Christ. For when the Apostle said that two are in one flesh, he added:

'This is a great sacrament,' he says, 'but I speak of Christ and of the Church.' If, then, there can be such a mystery in the most high God, much more can there be one in our souls. But the soul clings fast, it is transfixed, it is taken captive, and inflamed with the fevers of the body it sickens through fellow-suffering with the flesh. A physician must be sought. Yet who is so great a one as may heal the ulcers of a wounded mind? What man is so great that he can come to the aid of others, when he cannot help himself? Who can restore life to others, when he himself cannot escape death? For all died in Adam, since through one man sin entered into this world, and through sin death, and so it passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned. The death of all, therefore, is the fault of that one man.

Finally, holy men were sent, and prophets too were sent, to speak the divine oracles, yet they were able to accomplish nothing. Let us seek, then, some physician among the angels or archangels. But how can they bring me protection that I sin not, when an archangel himself could not refrain from sin? How will an angel be able to recall me to paradise, when Satan himself and his angels could not keep the seat they had received? 'And going up into one ship, which was Simon's, he asked that they would draw back a little from the land.' There the Lord bestowed upon many various kinds of healings, and the crowd was held back from its zeal for being healed neither by time nor by place. Evening came on, yet they followed; the lake lay before them, yet they pressed on.

And therefore he went up into Peter's ship. This is that ship which, according to Matthew, is still tossed by the waves, but according to Luke is filled with fishes, so that you may recognize both the beginnings of the Church amid the tossing and her later abundance overflowing; for they are fishes who sail through this life. There Christ still sleeps among the disciples; here he commands. For he sleeps for the fearful, he keeps watch for the perfect. But in what manner Christ sleeps you have heard him say in the prophet: 'I sleep, and my heart waketh.' And holy Matthew rightly thought that the token of eternal power should not be passed over, where he commands the winds. For it is no human teaching, as you have heard the Jews say: 'By a word he commands the spirits,' but the mark of heavenly majesty.

That the troubled sea is stilled, that the elements obey the command of the divine voice, and that things without sense receive a sense of obedience—herein the mystery of divine grace is revealed, that the billows of the world grow calm, that at a word the unclean spirit is quieted; the one is not refuted, but both are celebrated. You have a miracle in the elements, you have a lesson in the mysteries. Therefore, because holy Matthew had given a foretaste of those things, holy Luke chose for himself that ship in which Peter was fishing. The ship that has Peter is not troubled; the ship that has Judas is troubled. Although many merits of the disciples were sailing there, yet the treachery of the betrayer was still tossing it about. In both ships there was Peter, but he who is firm by his own merits is troubled by those of another.

Let us therefore beware of the treacherous one, let us beware of the betrayer, lest through one man many of us be tossed about. Thus this ship is not troubled in which prudence sails, where treachery is absent and faith breathes. For how could that ship be troubled over which he presided in whom is the firm foundation of the Church? There, then, is trouble where faith is small; here is security where love is perfect. Finally, although the others are commanded to let down their nets, yet to Peter alone is it said: 'Launch out into the deep,' that is, into the depth of disputations. For what is so deep as to behold the depth of the riches, to know the Son of God, and to take up the confession of his divine generation? Although the human mind cannot grasp this by the inquiry of full reason, yet the fullness of faith embraces it.