Works (CSEL) 16 part 11/34

in place of houses he is sufficient for himself, so that he is the dwelling of the Lord and the temple of God, than which nothing can be more precious. For what is more precious than God, or what is lacking to that man who can say: 'May it not befall me to glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world'? In this man the prince of this world cannot claim partnership for himself, in whom he finds nothing of his own. And therefore the Lord, who came to teach that God might become a portion to us, says: 'For the prince of this world comes, and in me he finds nothing'; and deservedly, wishing us to be his imitators, he says: 'Do not possess gold, nor silver, nor money.' Hence Peter, showing that his portion was in God, not in the world, says:

'Silver and gold I have none, but what I have I give you: in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, rise up and walk' — that is: my portion is Christ; therefore in the name of Jesus Christ rise up and walk, that is: in my portion I am rich, in my portion I am powerful. Deservedly I lay claim to such fruits of this portion, that health and life may be granted. For this is the patrimony of that portion which I have chosen for myself. He said this to a lame man, and he who was lame from his mother's womb rose up. How then could Peter feel the losses of his portion, who was restoring those of nature? Why you have no silver and gold, Peter, tell us; tell us also what that is which you say you have, you who said that you had left all that you had.

For thus you spoke to the Lord: 'Behold, we have left all things and followed you' — that is: we did not seek the things that are of the world, we did not seek a share of possessions, but we chose you as our portion. You have left, then, Peter, before all things, whatever you had: whence have you what you say you have? The lame man rises and is raised up by the sound of your speech; you give health to others, you who yourself were in need of the help of your own salvation. You have left, then, what you had, and you have taken what you did not have. Christ is your portion, Christ is your possession; his name is bountiful to you, his name is fruitful to you, his name pays you tributes, and good tributes, not of money but of grace.

Your portion is not dried up by drought, not washed away by rain, not scorched by cold, not shaken by storm; the sun shall not burn you by day, nor the moon by night. Keep the portion you have chosen; for that is a portion which earthly shares cannot equal. For what is there that can be compared with these, of whom God says: 'And I will dwell in them'? What is more magnificent than a heavenly lodging, what more blessed than a divine possession? 'And I will walk about,' he says, 'in them.' Others complain about the narrowness of their land; in you God has an ample possession, in which he says he walks about, that is, finding the spaces of a roomy habitation, he who encloses the earth in his hand: for thus it is written: 'Who has measured the waters with his hand, and heaven with a span, and the whole earth in his closed hand?'

To him for whom the world is narrow, you are an ample house. 'The Lord,' he says, 'is my portion.' The martyr says this: let us therefore live for him for whom to die is glorious. In other words how well did Paul say this, showing that he had no portion in the world! For thus it is written: 'Up to this very hour we both hunger and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted with blows, and have no fixed abode, and we labor, working with our own hands; we are reviled, and we bless; we suffer persecution, and we endure; we are blasphemed, and we entreat; we have been made as it were the offscourings of this world, the refuse of all, even until now.' Perhaps it may disturb you that he said they were the refuse of the Spirit: for it is not so.

But this seems so to worldly men, who think that the highest glory or honor lies in riches. Do not these men think all to be refuse, whoever comply with them on account of riches, and admire them for their wealth, fear them for their power, praise them for their nobility? But Paul reckoned all these things to be losses rather than gains, and therefore he says: 'The things that were gains to me, these I have counted, for Christ's sake, to be losses, for the surpassing knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I am reckoned as dung, that I may gain Christ.' 'I am reckoned,' he says. This is not my own opinion, but another's;

for frequently that poor man is reckoned worthy of mockery and execration on account of the filthiness of his garments or the scars of his wounds, because he has no portion on earth. And yet his portion is in heaven; his soul has there laid up for itself a patrimony, because it heard Jesus saying: 'Do not lay up for yourselves treasure on earth, but lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven.' But the rich cannot hear this; they have closed ears, dulled by the sound of bronze; coin resounds for them more than the divine words. In short, a certain rich man approached the Lord, who did not have the Lord as his portion. For he had many possessions, but the Lord is not numbered among many things; for he does not deign to have partnership with the world.

For what portion has righteousness with iniquity? This rich man therefore says: 'What shall I do that I may possess eternal life?' The Lord answers him: 'You know the commandments: you shall not commit murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not bear false witness' — showing that eternal life lies in these commandments. But he, wishing to justify himself, says: 'All these I have done; what remains for me?' To whom the Lord, wishing the Lord to become his portion, not money, not possessions, but the true God, says: 'If you wish to be perfect, go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven, and come, follow me.'

But that man, whose portion was gold and silver, without which he could not exist, and with which the Lord could not be his portion, became sorrowful. Hence the Lord pronounced that it is impossible for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven, but that what is impossible through human desires, this can be made possible through divine grace alone. Elsewhere too he says: 'Whoever shall leave father or mother, house or brothers or sisters, shall receive a hundredfold in this age, and shall possess eternal life.' Perhaps you may say:

surely he who, by leaving his house — by 'house' understand his whole property — who by leaving his kinsfolk has followed God, is the portion of the Lord, and to him God is his portion; he has also eternal life; and because, having received the hundredfold, he becomes rich in this age, the rich man, you say, enters into the kingdom of heaven. Then, if the Lord gives a hundredfold of those things which even singly were wont to bring hindrance to the receiving of the eternal inheritance, he therefore returns a hundred possessions for one possession, a hundred pounds of gold for one pound. Indeed we have known many in this age, who gave their goods to the poor, to have been enriched with a more abundant treasure. And it is a most beautiful passage, that they may even be incited to mercy.

But they ought not to demand a worldly reward of this kind from the Lord, nor to hope for the things that are of the world, but rather, because to those who have left all things God is their portion. He himself, assuredly, is the perfect reward of the virtues, who is reckoned not by the enumeration of the hundredfold, but by the estimation of perfect fullness. 'I,' he says, 'am your God.' He did not say 'I will be,' but 'I am already, I already dwell, I already possess.' He removes delay where he finds the confession of the just. Indeed elsewhere he says: 'Today you shall be with me in paradise.' He promises something future, but that which is future he does not allow to be deferred by the space of a single day. In short, he could have said: 'You shall be with me in paradise'; but he added 'today,' lest by delay the grace should be lessened. But the Lord Jesus does not say only to him:

'Today you shall be with me in paradise,' but he says also to you: 'You shall be with me in paradise,' if you confess the Lord Jesus, if you seek his patronage for yourself, if you also say: 'Remember me, Lord, when you come into your kingdom.' But to you he does not say: 'Today you shall be with me'; he says to the martyr: 'Today you shall be with me in paradise.' To you he does not say it, because you are still established in this feverish body, in this body that lusts, in this body that still desires earthly things. But when you can say: 'You have broken my bonds' — that is: you have loosed the course of this life, you have freed me from this body of death — then he will say to you: 'Today you shall be with me in paradise.' You have, therefore, O man, among many things set before you, also a portion of this kind.

The Lord has set before you among portions: possessions, gold among portions, silver among portions, honors among portions, nobility among portions; he has set forth among portions even himself. You have very many portions; choose which you think best. Let not the number disturb you, but let grace rouse you; let not labor turn you away, but let the fruit invite you. In the divine portion there are groans and labors. Hence also the holy Apostle, to whom God was a portion, says: 'We are heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer together that we may also be glorified together.' You see that, where the inheritance of Christ is, there ought to be fellowship in suffering.

And he who suffers together does not suffer perfunctorily, but so as to fill up the tribulations of Christ in his own body, just as Paul was filling them up, and Jeremiah was filling them up, who says under this very letter: 'It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions are not at an end; he will renew them like the morning light. Many are my groans, and my heart has failed. The Lord is my lot, I said; therefore I will wait for him.' He, therefore, who has waited for the Lord, is the lot of the Lord. Hence also David, who says: 'I waited for the Lord, and he looked upon me,' in this place professes that God is his portion. How rare is he who claims this for himself! It is claimed not by nobility, not by riches! In short, that rich king says:

'I too am indeed a mortal man, like all others, and of the earthly race of him who was first made; and in my mother's womb I was fashioned into flesh in the time of ten months, curdled in blood from the seed of man and the pleasure that accompanies sleep; and I, being born, drew in the common air, and in like manner fell upon the earth, and my first cry was like that of all at birth; I was nourished in swaddling clothes and with great cares.' And he added: 'For no one of kings had a different beginning of birth; there is therefore one entrance for all into life, and a like departure.' And because he saw that the beginning he sent forth weeping was common, he labored to be a portion of God, and called upon him, and the spirit of wisdom came upon him.

But the voluptuous choose another part, who say: 'Let us fill ourselves with precious wine and ointments, and let not the flower of the season pass us by; let us crown ourselves with roses before they wither'; and further on: 'For this is our part, and this is our lot.' How great a thing it is to despise riches, but how rare is this very thing! Surely Moses too could have been the successor of the king, brought up by the king's daughter. He could therefore have been not only as Pharaoh but even Pharaoh, and Pharaoh could have been like Moses — for both were men — but all the power of man lies in the will (affection). Moses did not wish to be king, though he might have been by birth, but he judged the reproach of Christ to be preferred to the treasures of Egypt. But by fleeing power he became more powerful: for he was made a god to king Pharaoh.

Pharaoh was king, but he was not a god; Moses was made a god to him, that is, terrible to the king himself, whom the king might dread and fear. But this was the power of holiness; in the congregation of such gods God stands and judges. And you too, if you wish to be a god to sinners, a terror to kings, an object of reverence to others, so that they may seem to be subject to you as to a god, because you work in the name of God — despise the things that are of the world, and strive to prefer the reproach of the Lord's passion to all riches. I call it a reproach, which to those people may seem a reproach, that is: to the Jews a stumbling block, to the Gentiles foolishness, but to us the power of God and the wisdom of God.

But Pharaoh, thinking this a reproach — that is, want, ignobility, insults — chose rather to be the portion of the devil than of God; and therefore he who would not be subject to God subjected himself to the intercession of a man. Therefore, because the holy prophet David was the portion of God, he rightly says: 'I said that I would keep your law' — he means assuredly the spiritual law, just as Paul also shows. For those who have interpreted the law carnally do not keep the law, but transgress it. Let us come to the second verse, which is thus: 'I besought your countenance, O Lord, with my whole heart; have mercy on me according to your word.' We read in the Old Testament that Moses prayed that he might see the face of God, and it was answered him: 'No one shall see my face and live.'

Let us first understand this mystically. Moses received the figure of the law. The law announces Christ through hidden mysteries; it did not show him face to face, as the Gospel showed him. For in it he spoke face to face. Although in the Gospel a man born of a virgin appeared, yet the Word showed himself through his works. And perhaps this was declared to Moses, that the people of the Jews would die, because they had seen Christ face to face and had not believed. But if you refer it to the law, Christ is also the end of the law, according to that apostolic saying: 'For Christ is the end of the law, according to the law, to everyone that believes'; and the carnal interpretation of the law died, where the Lord Christ Jesus showed forth its spiritual grace.

Or assuredly because all of us who have put on Christ and have been baptized into Christ are dead to sin, since while we lived we were held fast by the bonds of the law. But when we died in Christ, we were indeed put to death to the law through the body of Christ, that we might belong to another, namely to him who rose again from the dead. But this is the mystical meaning. The moral sense of the ancient narrative, however, makes us remember what we ought to recall concerning holy Moses, who asked God to show himself to him and that he might see him face to face. The holy prophet of the Lord surely knew that he could not behold the invisible God face to face. Yet his holy devotion exceeds all measure, and he supposed that even this was possible to God, that with bodily eyes he might cause that which is incorporeal to be apprehended.

This error is not blameworthy, but rather a desire pleasing and insatiable, in that he longed to hold his Lord as it were by the hand and to see him with the gaze of his eyes. He knew that man had been made to the image and likeness of God. For when he was chosen by the Lord to deliver the people, he was filled with the spirit of wisdom; he had seen that angel and his countenance in glory. Indeed, terrified by his shining light, he saw the bush burning and yet not consumed. He began to marvel at the sight and the brightness; he drew near, provoked by desire and by grace, to consider that brightness in the bush more attentively.

And so, if he received such ardor and was seized by so great a desire when he had seen the angel in the flame of fire out of the bush, that, although gripped by dread he dared not gaze, yet he wished to gaze, how much more did he long to see the Lord's countenance bodily, saying within himself that that countenance was full of light, full of glory, full of power, full of divinity! I can say or feel nothing further about God: for when a man has finished, then he begins, and when he has made an end, then is he at a loss, as it is written, because the eternal majesty of God is incomprehensible.

The effect of his request was indeed in vain, but the affection of the servant was commendable, who, advancing beyond his own nature by his devotion, was judging from the Lord's angels how much more he would desire in the Lord's countenance, by which he yearned to satisfy his longing. He knew that in man himself there would be one glory after death, another splendor. For as star differs from star in brightness, so also is the resurrection of the dead; which, though it is sown in corruption, yet rises in incorruption, rises in glory, rises in power, rises a spiritual body. He therefore who could know this rightly presumed to desire to see the face of God, which he would behold once the death of the body had been undergone.

Such a form indeed he had received, and the Lord now so approved him, that the heavenly minister and executor of the oracle did not differ from the angels. And therefore, since he knew that the angels of the little ones daily behold the face of the Father who is in heaven, he supposed that he ought already to see it, as one forgetful of the body and having laid aside the flesh, like that man who, while still placed in the body, when he was caught up into paradise, said that he did not know whether he was caught up to the third heaven in the body or out of the body. For the saints, even when they bear a body, are nevertheless not in the flesh but in the spirit, since those who are in carnal desire and conduct cannot please God. But the saint's conduct was not in the flesh but in heaven, as Paul shows.

And what shall we say of the commendable desire for the divine countenance? Take men: if they hear that someone is noble, that someone is brave, that someone is wise, they long to see him, reckoning him as it were above a man. The emperor comes forth, to whose royal power a part of the world has been committed: all run together, and amid so great a multitude they yearn to look upon him alone, and they judge that there is something more in the emperor's face than the brilliance of his purple. Do you marvel that God's countenance is desirable, when every human affection marvels at a man conformed to its own kind? From this we are also given to understand that everyone yearns to come before the emperor who is guilty of no crime.

For even if the conscience bears guilt, yet the secret recesses of the heart conceal it, provided he is not entangled in a public charge nor any crime of his made plain. In short, where any persons have been called to account, they are forbidden to present themselves both to the emperor and to the judges themselves, just as the base persons of pimps and harlots are kept away from the sight of either judge or emperor, lest the sight of the most shameful offend the brightness of the royal countenance. But he who is of good conscience, guilty of no crime, comes forward into the midst as one innocent. From these things, then, let us grasp the affection of holy Moses. As one innocent, with as it were a certain countenance of conscience, he desired to see the face of God, to open to him the face of his inner mind.

Both Moses and holy David himself yearned to be more fully known, who elsewhere says: Prove me, O Lord, and try me; for he would not wish to be proved if he recognized any crime in himself, nor to be tried if he knew himself liable to grave passions. Free therefore from sin, he eagerly offered himself to God. But perhaps, because he was not yet through the more frequent visitations of God cleansed from vice, he may not have been perfect at the outset, inasmuch as a little before it had been said to him: Loose the sandal from thy feet, that sandal surely which he had brought from Egypt, that is, the covering of his bodily conduct. Therefore the Lord says to him: No man shall see my face and live. Consider when this was said. It had not yet been said to him:

I will make thee a god to king Pharaoh. He was still a man, and therefore this is said to him. An advancement was owed to him, that he should become a god, and therefore it was said to him: 'I spoke concerning a man. Cease to have the sins of a man, and thou shalt see my face: for he who sees my face must be without sin.' But because man cannot be without sin, therefore, that he might grow up into the appellation of god, he is admonished. And what shall I say of the appellation of god? Be an angel, that is, a minister of the divine command; obey the commandments of the Lord. When thou shalt be an angel, thou shalt see the face of God. It is a great thing to see the countenance of God. The law tells thee to present thyself three times in Jerusalem. The Lord Jesus himself says: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

You perceive what is required of you, that you may see God, you to whom the prerogative of life is set forth, namely of seeing God. Cleanse therefore your heart, that you may be created as it were anew with a renewed spirit; cast away from your heart all defiled thoughts; let there be nothing by which your affection is stained; let the mind be single, let there be pure sincerity. To such the Lord deigns to show himself, when they have laid aside the covering of the body. Now let us speak of the remaining part of this very verse. Have mercy, he says, on me according to thy word. Mercy indeed is a portion of justice, so that if you are willing to give to the poor, this mercy is justice, according to that saying:

He hath dispersed, he hath given to the poor, his justice remaineth for ever. Then, because it is unjust that one conformed to you should not be helped by his fellow, especially since the Lord our God willed this earth to be the common possession of all men and to furnish the fruits of all things—but greed has parceled out the rights of possessions—it is therefore just that, if you claim something as private which has been bestowed in common upon the human race, nay upon all living creatures, you should at least sprinkle something thence to the poor, so that you may not deny sustenance to those with whom you owe the partnership of your right. It belongs to mercy also to forgive sin; and it is both mercy and justice. In short, divine Scripture ascribes to justice the pardon of sins, according to that saying:

what was read today: Blessed is the wood that is made through righteousness, but cursed is the wood that is made by the hand of men. The former it referred to the cross of the Lord, the latter to the error of the Gentiles who venerate wood. But what is the justice of the cross, except that the Lord Jesus Christ, ascending that gibbet, crucified the bond of our sins and cleansed by his own blood the sin of the whole world? Wherein then is God just, except in this, that he knew he had fashioned man from the slime of the earth, which earth is surely subject to corruption and to the vice of slippery passion?

Therefore the Lord, who according to the soul made you to his own image and likeness—that is, rational, just, chaste (for in this you are to the image of God, if you are just, that you may be the image of justice; if you are chaste, that the figure of the undefiled may shine forth in you)—knowing therefore that according to the frailty of the body man lies open to corruption, as one just he granted indulgence for the faults of frail and slippery nature. And lest perhaps someone should say: 'Why then did Adam lie under a curse and a sentence? Was God unjust?'—by no means. But because, as to one frail and weak, he had prescribed beforehand what he should beware of (for the weak ought not to usurp, but to obey commands), therefore he held him guilty of transgression rather than condemned him for a mere lapse.

Against him therefore proceeded the just sentence of severity, because he wished to know what it did not profit him to know. But to us, who are held bound by an inherited bond, who are in this flesh which, worn out by the prejudgment of our forebears and already accustomed to sins, could not rise up, he granted indulgence as one just: for justly did he pardon the heir who labors under the prejudgment of his author. There is therefore a just mercy, but there is also an unjust mercy. In short, it is written in the law concerning a certain one: Thou shalt not have mercy on him; and in the books of Kingdoms you read that Saul incurred offense for this reason, because he had pity on Agag, the king of the enemies, whom the divine sentence had forbidden to be preserved.

As if someone, moved by the entreaties of a robber's sons and bent by the tears of his wife, should think that one ought to be acquitted to whom the disposition for brigandage still breathes—would he not deliver the innocent to destruction, who frees one who is plotting the destruction of many? Surely, if he restrains the sword and looses the chains, why does he release into exile? Why does he not snatch away, by some gentler means he can, the capacity for brigandage, who could not wrest away the will for it? Then, between two men—that is, an accuser and a defendant deciding at equal peril concerning life—the one if he had not proved his case, the other if he had not been convicted by the accuser—should the judge not follow what justice requires, but, while he pities the defendant, condemn the one who proves the charge, or, while he favors the accuser who cannot prove it, doom the innocent?

This therefore cannot be called a just mercy. In the Church herself, where above all it is fitting to show mercy, the form of justice ought to be held to as far as possible, lest anyone who has been withheld from the fellowship of communion should, by a brief little tear and one prepared for the occasion, or even by more abundant weeping, by the easiness of the priest extort the communion which he ought to ask over very many seasons. Does he not, when he indulges one unworthy, cause very many to be provoked to the contagion of falling away? For the easiness of pardon furnishes an incentive to sinning. This has been said to the end that we may know that, according to the word of God, according to reason, mercy is to be dispensed to debtors.

If the physician himself, finding within the scar of a creeping wound, when he ought to cut away the disease of the ulcer lest it spread more widely, yet, bent by the tears of the sick man, should cover with medicaments what ought to have been laid open by the knife—is not that an unprofitable mercy, if, on account of the brief pain of incision or cauterization, the whole body wastes away and the use of life perishes? Rightly therefore the priest too, like a good physician, ought to cut away the wound from the whole body of the Church lest it spread more widely, and to expose the poison of the crime that lies hidden, not to coddle it, lest, while he thinks one ought not to be excluded, he make many worthy whom he must exclude from the Church. Rightly therefore the apostle exhorts us by a divine example, saying:

Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: toward those indeed who fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou shalt continue in his goodness—showing that the people of the Jews was rightly separated from the body of the Church, lest the poison of perfidy should contaminate the Church, but that the people of the Gentiles was received by the goodness of the Lord and glories in the gift of obedience. Rightly therefore does the divine goodness support this one, so long as he remains in the divine goodness; but if he too falls away, he shall be condemned according to the quality of his crime. By which grace the Lord is described as both light and fire, that he may shine like a lamp to one walking in darkness, lest he who seeks the brightness of the light should be able to stray any longer.