Works (CSEL) 15 part 9/31

He became weak to the weak through the suffering of the body, that He might gain them; in short, He became all things to all: poor to the poor, rich to the rich, weeping with those who weep, hungering with the hungry, thirsting with the thirsty, abounding with those who abound. He is in prison with the poor man, He weeps with Mary, He feasts with the apostles, He thirsts with the Samaritan woman, He hungers in the desert, that the food of the first man, which he had tasted by transgression, might be loosed by the Lord's fasting. To our peril Adam loosed the hunger for the knowledge of good and evil; to our profit He took on that hunger. Then Jesus was led into the desert by the Spirit, that He might be tempted by the devil.

It is fitting to recall how the first Adam was cast out from paradise into the desert, that you may observe how the second Adam returned from the desert to paradise. For see how, by His own toils, condemnations are undone, and how divine benefits are restored along His own footsteps. From the virgin earth came Adam, Christ from the Virgin; the former made to the image of God, the latter the image of God; the former set above all irrational animals, the latter set above all living things. Through a woman came folly, through a Virgin wisdom; death through a tree, life through the cross. The former, stripped of spiritual things, covered himself with the coverings of a tree; the latter, stripped of worldly things, did not desire the coverings of the body. In the desert Adam, in the desert Christ.

For He knew where He could find the condemned one, whom, the error being undone, He might recall to paradise. But since, clad in worldly coverings, the man could not return, nor can anyone be an inhabitant of paradise unless he be naked of fault, He put off the old man and put on the new, so that — since divine decrees cannot be undone — the person rather than the sentence might be changed. But since in paradise, without a guide, he had lost the way he had received, how could he from the desert, without a guide, retrace the way he had lost, where temptations are very many?

The striving toward virtue is difficult, the slipping into error easy, since the nature of virtue is the same as that of woodlands: just as, if as yet small plants raise themselves from earthly things toward the heights, while their age grows up in tender foliage, exposed to the venom of the savage tooth they can easily either be cut down or burned; but if a plant has founded itself with a deep root and has lifted itself in the height of its branches, in vain is the sturdy tree now assailed by the bites of beasts, or by the strength of countrymen, or by the storms of various winds.

Whom, then, was He to set as a leader against so many enticements of the age, against so many wiles of the devil, since He knew that our struggle is first against flesh and blood, then against the powers, against the rulers of this darkness of the world, against the spiritual forces of wickedness which are in the heavenly places? Was He to set an angel? But the angel too fell; legions of angels scarcely availed for individuals. Was He to direct a seraph? But the seraph himself came down to earth, into the midst of a people having unclean lips, and with a coal applied cleansed the lips of one prophet only. Another leader had to be sought, whom we might all follow. Who could be so great a leader, who would profit all, but He who is above all? Who could set me above the world but He who is greater than the world?

Who could be so great a leader as to be able to govern male and female, Jew and Greek, barbarian and Scythian, slave and free with one leadership, but Christ alone, who is all things and in all? For there are many snares wherever we advance: snares in the body, snares in the law, snares on the pinnacles of temples, on the ledges of walls they are stretched out by the devil; snares among the philosophers, snares in lusts — for the eye of a harlot is the snare of the sinner — a snare in money, a snare in religion, a snare in the pursuit of chastity. For by tiny moments the human mind is bent, and is frequently driven this way and that according to the cunning of him who persuades.

The devil sees some religious man, reverently deferring to God and esteeming what is sacred, incapable of any injury: in his very religion he trips him up, making him not believe that the Son of God truly took on this our flesh, this our body, this frailty of our members — although indeed it was the body that suffered the passion, while the Godhead remained exempt from injury. Thus from religion arises fault; for everyone who denies that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. He sees a man whole and unimpaired in chastity: he persuades him to condemn marriage, that he may be cast out from the Church and from the pursuit of chastity, and be separated from a chaste body. Another has heard that there is one God, from whom are all things; he adores and venerates Him.

The devil lies in wait for him, closes his ears lest he hear that there is one Lord, through whom are all things; thus by excessive piety he drives him to impiety, so that, while he separates the Father from the Son, he confounds the Father and the Son and thinks there is one person, not one power. And so, while he does not know the measure of faith, he incurs the calamity of unbelief. How, then, shall we avoid these snares, that we too may say: 'Our soul has been snatched like a sparrow from the snare of the hunters; the snare is broken, and we are delivered'? He does not say, 'I broke the snare'; David did not dare to say this, but:

'Our help is in the name of the Lord' — that he might show whence the snare would be loosed, that he might prophesy that One was to come into this life who would crush the snare prepared by the deceit of the devil. But the snare could not be better crushed than if He had displayed some prey to the devil, so that while the devil hastens to the prey, he might be bound by his own snares, that I might be able to say: 'They prepared snares for my feet, and they themselves fell into them.' What prey could there be but the body? It was therefore necessary that this deceit be practised upon the devil, that the Lord Jesus might take on a body — and this corruptible body, this weak body, that He might be crucified out of weakness. For if it had been a spiritual body, He would not have said: 'The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.'

Hear, therefore, both voices — both of the weak flesh and of the willing spirit. 'Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me': this is the voice of the flesh. 'But not what I will, but what You will': you have the devotion and vigour of the spirit. Why do you reject the Lord's condescension? It is of His condescension that He took on my body; it is of His condescension that He took on my injuries, that He took on my infirmities, which surely the nature of God could not feel, since even the nature of man has learned to despise or to bear and endure them. And therefore let us follow Christ, according to what is written: 'After the Lord your God you shall walk, and to Him you shall cleave.' To whom shall I cleave but to Christ, as Paul said: 'He who cleaves to the Lord is one spirit'?

Let us therefore follow His footsteps, that from the desert we may be able to return to paradise. See by what roads we are led back. Now Christ is in the desert: He acts the part of man, He instructs, He forms, He exercises, He anoints with spiritual oil. Then, where He saw the man grown stronger, He leads him through the cornfields and fruitful places — when the Jews complained that His disciples were plucking ears of grain from the field on the sabbath, for already He had set His apostles to cultivated and fruitful work in the field — and afterward He set him in paradise at the time of the passion; for thus you have it: 'When Jesus had said these things, He went out with His disciples across the brook Cedron, where there was a garden, into which He Himself entered with His disciples.'

That a garden is better than even a fertile field, the prophet teaches in the Song of Songs, saying: 'A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse; a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed; your shoots are a paradise.' For that is the pure and immaculate virginity of the soul, which is led astray by no terror of punishments, by no enticements of worldly pleasure away from the faith, by no love of life. And finally, that man has been recalled by the power of the Lord, this evangelist above the others testifies, who alone introduces the Lord saying to the thief: 'Amen I say to you, today you shall be with me in paradise.'

Jesus, therefore, full of the Holy Spirit, is led into the desert: by counsel, that He might provoke the devil — for unless he had contended, that One would not have conquered for me; by mystery, that He might free that Adam from exile; by example, that He might show us that the devil envies those who tend toward better things, and that then we must be more on guard, lest weakness of mind forsake the grace of the mystery. 'Forty days' — you recognize a mystical number. For you remember that for so many days the waters of the abyss were poured out, and that by a fast of so many days sanctified, the clemency of a calmer heaven was restored to the prophet; for so many days of fasting holy Moses earned the receiving of the Law.

For so many years the fathers, set in the wilderness, obtained the bread of angels and the grace of heavenly nourishment, and they did not deserve to enter the land of promise before they had fulfilled the time of the mystical number; and by the Lord's fast of so many days the entrance into the gospel is opened to us. Hence, if anyone desires to attain the glory of the gospel and the fruit of the resurrection, he ought not to be a transgressor of the mystical fast, which both Moses in the Law and Christ in His Gospel prescribed by the authority of both Testaments — that the contest of virtue is a faithful one. But what does it mean that the evangelist noted that the Lord hungered, when we see nothing of the kind expressed concerning the fast of Moses and Elijah? Surely the endurance of men is not stronger than God?

But He who for forty days could not hunger showed that He hungered not for the food of the body but for salvation, and at the same time that He might provoke the adversary who was now afraid, who had been wounded by the fast of forty days. And therefore the Lord's hunger is a pious deceit, so that in that very matter in which the devil, fearing greater things, was now on his guard, the devil, enticed by the appearance of hunger, might tempt Him as a man, lest the triumph be hindered. Learn at the same time that mystery of the Holy Spirit. This was the one work and judgment: that Christ should offer Himself to be tempted by the devil. 'And the devil said to Him: If You are the Son of God, say to this stone that it become bread.' We are taught chiefly three darts of the devil, with which he is wont to be armed to wound the mind of man: one of gluttony, another of vainglory, a third of ambition.

And he began from that whence he had already conquered. And therefore I begin to conquer in Christ from that whence I was conquered in Adam — provided that Christ, the image of the Father, be to me the example of virtue. Let us therefore learn to beware of gluttony, to beware of luxury, for it is a dart of the devil. A snare is stretched out when the table of a royal banquet is prepared, which often bends the steadfastness of the mind. For we ought to avoid the snare not only when we hear the words of the devil, but even when we see his resources. You have therefore learned the dart of the devil: take up the shield of faith, the breastplate of abstinence. But what does such an opening of speech mean: 'If you are the Son of God,' except that he had recognized that the Son of God was to come? But he did not think that He had come through this weakness of the body.

It is one thing to explore, another to tempt: he both professes to believe Him to be God and tries to mock Him as man. But see the arms of Christ, by which He conquered for you, not for Himself. For He who by His majesty showed that stones could be turned into bread by the transfusion of another nature, teaches that nothing is to be done by you at the devil's discretion nor for the display of virtue. At the same time, in that very temptation learn the crafty cunning of the devil. He so tempts that he may explore, he so explores that he may tempt. Against him the Lord so deceives that He may conquer, and even conquers in such a way that He may deceive. For if He had changed the nature, He would have betrayed the Creator. He therefore answered in a middle way, saying: 'It is written that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.'

You see what kind of arms He uses, by which He defends man, hedged about and fortified against the assault of spiritual wickedness and against the incitements of gluttony. For He does not, as God, use power — for what would that have profited me? — but, as man, He summons help common to Himself, so that, intent on the food of divine reading, he may neglect the hunger of the body and acquire the nourishment of the heavenly word. Intent on this, Moses did not desire bread; intent on this, Elijah did not feel the hunger of a more prolonged fast.

For he who follows the word cannot desire earthly bread, since he receives the substance of heavenly bread — for it is not doubtful that divine things surpass human, and spiritual things bodily — and therefore he who desires the true life awaits that bread which through an imperceptible substance strengthens human hearts. At the same time, when He says, 'Man does not live by bread alone,' He shows that it was man who was tempted, that is, our manhood that He assumed, not His own divinity. There follows the dart of vainglory, by which one easily falls into sin, because while men desire to boast of the glory of their own virtue, they fall away from the place and station of their merits. 'And He led Him,' it says, 'into Jerusalem and set Him upon the pinnacle of the temple.'

For such is vainglory, that while each one thinks to ascend to higher things, he is thrust down to lower things by the usurpation of lofty deeds. 'And he said to Him: If You are the Son of God, cast Yourself down.' Truly a devilish voice, which strives to hurl the mind of man down from the higher step of merits. For what is so proper to the devil as to persuade each one to cast himself down? Learn therefore, you too, to conquer the devil. The Spirit drives you, follow the Spirit. Let not the enticement of the flesh call you back; full of the Spirit, learn to despise pleasures. Fast, if you wish to conquer. It follows that the devil thinks you are to be tempted through the man; Christ, as the stronger, is tempted face to face, you through the man. And it is the devil's word when a man says:

'You are strong: eat and drink, and you will be the same tomorrow.' Do not trust yourself; do not be ashamed to need the safeguards which Christ did not need. And yet He did not neglect them, that He might teach you, saying: 'Take heed lest your hearts be weighed down with wine and surfeiting.' Paul was not ashamed, who said: 'So I strive, not as one beating the air.' The apostle indeed did not beat the air, but he scourged the airy powers. 'But I chastise my body,' he says, 'and bring it into subjection, lest perhaps, having preached to others, I myself should be found a castaway.' At the same time the devil reveals his own weakness and malice, since the devil can harm no one unless one casts oneself down. For he who, leaving heavenly things, chooses earthly things, runs into a kind of voluntary precipice of a slipping life.

At the same time, since the devil saw his dart blunted, he who had subjected all men to his own power began to judge Him to be more than a man. But the Lord again did not think that even those things which had been prophesied concerning Himself were to be done at the devil's discretion, but, the authority of His own divinity being preserved, He met his cunning, so that — since he had put forward an example of the Scriptures — he might be conquered by the examples of the Scriptures; for it is given to God to conquer by power, but Scripture conquers for me. Learn here too that Satan transforms himself as an angel of light, and from the divine Scriptures themselves often prepares a snare for the faithful. Thus he makes heretics, thus he disembowels faith, thus he assails the rights of piety.

Therefore let not the heretic ensnare you, because he can bring forward some examples from the Scriptures, nor let him claim for himself that he seems learned. The devil too uses testimonies of the Scriptures, but not that he may teach, but that he may circumvent and deceive. He has recognized someone attentive to religion, renowned for virtues, mighty in signs and works: he stretches out the snare of vainglory, that he may puff up such a man with pride, so that he may not trust himself to piety but trust to vainglory, and not impute it to God but claim it for himself. And therefore the apostles commanded the demons not in their own name but in the name of Christ, lest they should seem to claim anything for themselves. Thus Peter heals the paralytic, saying: 'In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, rise and walk.' Learn also from Paul to flee vainglory.

'I know a man,' he says, 'whether in the body or out of the body I know not, God knows, that he was caught up into paradise and heard ineffable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter. On behalf of such a one I will glory, but on my own behalf I will not glory except in my infirmities.' Therefore here too the devil, since he perceived him to be strong, put forward vainglory, which deceives even the strong; but the Lord answered: 'You shall not tempt the Lord your God.' In which you recognize that both the Lord and God — Christ — and the Father and the Son are of one power, according to what is written: 'I and the Father are one.' And therefore, if the devil objects 'one,' meet him with what is written:

'I and the Father are one' — and distinguish the 'one,' lest you separate the power; distinguish the 'one,' lest you sever the Father and the Son. 'And the devil led Him again onto a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.' Well are worldly and earthly things shown in a moment of time. For it is not so much the swiftness of the sight that is indicated as the frailty of fleeting power that is expressed; for in a moment all those things pass away, and often the honour of the age has departed before it has come. For what of the age can be lasting, when the ages themselves are not lasting?

We are taught here to despise the blasts of empty ambition, since every worldly dignity lies subject to diabolical power, fit for use but frail and empty as to fruit. [But how does the devil here give power, while elsewhere you read that 'all power is from God'? Can anyone serve two masters, or receive power from two? Is it then a contradiction? By no means. But see that all things are from God. For neither is the world without God, since the world too was made through Him; but although it was made by God, yet its works are evil, because the age is set in the wicked one, and the ordering of the world is from God, but the works of the world are from the evil one. So too the ordering of powers is from God, but the ambition for power is from the evil one.

Finally, 'There is no power,' it says, 'except from God; and the powers that exist have been ordained by God' — not given, but ordained — and 'he who resists the power,' it says, 'resists the ordinance of God.' Here too, although the devil says that he gives power, yet he does not deny that all those things have been permitted to him for a time. And so He who permitted has ordained; nor is the power evil, but he who uses power evilly. Finally, do you wish not to fear the power? Do good, and you will have praise from it. Therefore the power is not evil, but ambition is.

Finally, the ordering of power is from God to such a degree, that he who uses power well is God's minister.] 'He is,' it says, 'God's minister to you for good.' Therefore there is no fault in the office, but in the minister; nor can the ordinance of God be displeasing, but the action of the one who administers it. For, to derive an example from heavenly things to earthly: the emperor gives an honour and receives praise. But if anyone has used the honour evilly, the fault is not the emperor's, but the magistrate's. Crimes have their own guilty party, not because the power implicates each one, but because his own service does. What then? Is it good to use power, to pursue honour? Good, if it be conferred, not seized. Yet distinguish this very good. For one is the good in the age, another the use of perfect virtue.

For it is good that the zeal for knowing the Godhead be hindered by no occupations. For although there are many goods, yet there is only one eternal life. And this is eternal life, that they may know You the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. And therefore the greatest fruit of eternal life — and God alone is the rewarder of eternal life — is this: that we adore God alone and our Lord, and serve Him alone, so that He alone may reward us with the most ample fruit; that we flee all things which lie subject to diabolical power, lest, like an evil tyrant, he use the savagery of received power upon those whom he has found within his kingdom. Therefore power is not from the devil, yet it is liable to the snares of the devil.

Nor yet is the ordering of powers thereby evil, because the powers are liable to evil; for it is good to seek God, but a certain winding and error of that very seeking creeps in. For if the seeker be turned by perverse interpretation into sacrilege, the offence of the one seeking is turned to something worse than if he had not sought. Yet the fault is not the seeking's, but the seeker's; nor is the seeking liable to evil, but the disposition of the one seeking. But if he who seeks God is often tempted on account of the frailty of the flesh and the straits of the mind, how much more is he who seeks the world liable to it!

And by this very fact ambition is the more pernicious, in that it is a kind of flattering procuress of dignities, and often those whom no vices delight, whom no luxury could move, whom no avarice could subvert, ambition makes guilty. For it has favour in public, peril at home; and, in order to lord it over others, it first serves. It is bowed in submission, that it may be given honour; and while it wishes to be more lofty, it becomes more lowly, since in power itself what excels is another's; for it commands the laws, but serves itself. Someone will perhaps say that only he who has done evil fears; yet he who sails the sea fears more. And on the contrary, one standing on the immovable station of the lands is not wont to fear shipwreck.

But if he mounts the moving element, he becomes liable to more frequent perils. Flee therefore the sea of the age: you will not fear shipwreck. Even though the gusts of the winds frequently lash the tops of the breathing trees, yet, the roots being made firm, there is no downfall; but on the sea, when the winds rage, even if not the shipwreck of all, yet the peril of all is present. So too, against the adverse blasts of spiritual wickedness, no one is safe on the sand or on the open sea, and the ships of Tharsis are often crushed by a violent wind. These things morally. For the rest, as regards the mystical order, you discern the chains of the ancient error undone along its own footsteps, so that first the snare of gluttony, second of facility, third of ambition was loosed.

For Adam was enticed by food, and having transgressed by easy assent into the place of the forbidden tree, he incurred also the crime of rash ambition, while he aspired to the likeness of divinity. And therefore the Lord first loosed the bond of the ancient injury, that we, the yoke of captivity shaken off, might learn to conquer crimes by the protection of the Scriptures. But if the Lord Jesus did not desire what was his own, why do you seek what belongs to others? If the Creator of all despised the glory of the world by the virtue of undertaking poverty, why do you disdain what you were born to, and crave what is not your due? Why do you demand, for your own torment, that those things be lasting which cannot be lasting for your use? Beware of snares, beware of deceits.

And by this very fact, that the cunning devil, in order to overthrow man, shakes the whole world with deceit and fights with all the allurements of the age, his flatteries are the more to be guarded against by you. It was not food that had swayed Eve, nor had forgetfulness of the commandments deserted her, but the alluring ambition of the promised honor deceived her. Had she wished to worship the Lord alone, she would not have sought what was not her due. And therefore a remedy is given, by which you may blunt the dart of ambition, that we may serve the Lord alone; for religious devotion is free from ambition. 'And when every temptation was finished, the devil departed from him for a time.' As the sources, well-nigh, of all crimes, these three kinds of vices are shown to be;

For Scripture would not have said that every temptation was finished, unless in these three lay the matter of all transgressions, whose seeds are to be guarded against in their very origin. The end therefore of temptations is the end of desires, because the causes of temptations are the causes of desires. And the causes of desires are: the delight of the flesh, the appearance of glory, the greed for power. How religious it seems that you should not refuse the company of a Christian woman! Yet thence comes frequent temptation. If the devil sees men attentive to God, he makes suggestions in order to deceive; but you, though you presume upon your resolve, beware the temptation, knowing [your] nature.

These three, if you remember, Paul also prescribed as to be guarded against, designating that there are three kinds of sins, free from which he awaited the crown of righteousness. For 'neither,' he says, 'were we in word of flattery, nor in occasion of avarice, God is witness, nor seeking glory from men'; and therefore he conquered the devil, [and] sought the crown. You see therefore that the devil himself is not persistent in his zeal, that he is wont to yield to true virtue. And though he does not cease to envy, yet he dreads to press on, because more often he shrinks from being triumphed over. So, having heard the name of God, 'he departed,' it says, 'for a time'; for afterward he came not to tempt, but to fight openly.

The divine Scripture therefore teaches you that your struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the snares of the spiritual [foe]. You see the magnificence of the Christian man, who contends with the rulers of the world, and, though set upon earth, by the virtue of his soul decides [the battle] against the spiritual wickednesses which are in the heavenly places. For we do not contend over earthly things, so as to fight on earth, but, spiritual rewards being set before us concerning the kingdom of God and the inheritance of Christ, the spiritual impediments must first be overcome. The crown is set before us, the contests must be undergone. No one can be crowned unless he has conquered; no one can conquer unless he has first contended. Of the crown itself, too, the fruit is greater where the labor is greater;

for narrow and strait is the way that leads to life, but broad and spacious that leads to death. And therefore we ought by no means to fear temptation; for it is the cause of victory, the matter of triumphs. That rich man, who felt no temptation in the world, is among the dead in torments; that poor Lazarus, who was so afflicted and worn by poverty and disease that his sores were licked by dogs, wretched in the labor of this life, sought the crown of eternal glory; for many are the tribulations, not of just anyone, but of the just. Indeed, whom the Lord loves he often chastens. Peter was tempted that he might deny; he denied that he might weep. And what shall I say of the rest?

Job indeed had been proved by God; but although he had been proved, yet he was not [yet] victor. His devotion had been proved, yet he did not have the reward of virtue, and therefore he is offered up to be tempted, that he might be rendered more glorious. It matters too that you observe the degrees of that contest. The devil has not one dart; he plies his arrows, that he may conquer either by reward or by weariness. First he wounds with desire, second with [natural] affection, third with bodily health; for he fights with the ulcers of mind and body alike. The very diversity also of temptations is according to the diversity of those who contend. The rich man is pressed by loss of wealth, the father by the loss of his children, the man by pains, the body by ulcers. How great these darts!