III. ON THE CHRISTIAN STRUGGLE. The crown of victory is not promised except to those who contend. And in the divine Scriptures we continually find that a crown is promised to us if we shall conquer. But, lest it be tedious to recall many passages, in the apostle Paul it is read most plainly: I have finished the work, I have completed the course, I have kept the faith; now there remains for me a crown of righteousness. We ought therefore to recognize who this adversary is, whom if we conquer we shall be crowned. For he is the very one whom our Lord conquered first, so that we too, remaining in him, might conquer. And indeed the Power of God and Wisdom and Word, through whom all things were made, who is the only Son of God, remains forever unchangeable above every creature.
And since even the creature that has not sinned is beneath him, how much more is every sinful creature beneath him! Therefore, since all the holy angels are beneath him, much more are all the transgressing angels beneath him, of whom the devil is chief. But because he had deceived our nature, the only-begotten Son of God deigned to take upon himself that very nature of ours, so that through it the devil might be conquered, and that the one whom the devil always holds beneath himself might be made to be beneath us as well. He signifies this when he says:
the prince of this world has been cast out—not because he was cast outside the world, as certain heretics suppose, but cast out from the souls of those who cleave to the word of God and do not love the world, of which he is prince, because he holds dominion over those who love temporal goods contained in this visible world; not because he himself is lord of this world, but the prince of those cupidities by which everything that passes away is coveted, so that those who neglect the eternal God and love unstable and changeable things are subjected to him. For the root of all evils is cupidity: which certain men, in their craving, have wandered from the faith and entangled themselves in many sorrows. Through this cupidity the devil reigns in a man and holds his heart.
Such are all who love this world. But the devil is cast out when this world is renounced with the whole heart. For thus the devil, who is the prince of this world, is renounced, when his corruptions and pomps and angels are renounced. And therefore the Lord himself, now bearing the triumphant nature of man, says: Know that I have overcome the world. But many say: How can we conquer the devil, whom we do not see? Yet we have a Master who has deigned to show us how invisible enemies are conquered. For of him the apostle said: stripping himself of the flesh, he made a spectacle of the principalities and powers, triumphing over them confidently in himself.
There, then, the invisible powers hostile to us are conquered, where the invisible cupidities are conquered. And so, because in our very selves we conquer the cupidity of temporal things, it is necessary that in our very selves we also conquer him who reigns in man through those cupidities. For when it was said to the devil, You shall eat earth, it was said to the sinner, Earth you are, and into earth you shall go. Therefore the sinner was given as food to the devil. Let us not be earth, if we do not wish to be eaten by the serpent.
For just as what we eat we convert into our own body, so that the food itself becomes, according to this body, what we are, so by evil ways—through wickedness and pride and impiety—each one is made to be what the devil is, that is, like him, and is subjected to him, just as our body is subjected to us. And this is what is meant by 'being eaten by the serpent.' Whoever, therefore, fears that fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels, let him give effort to triumph over him within himself. For those who attack us from without we conquer within, by conquering the concupiscences through which they hold dominion over us. And those whom they find to be like themselves, they drag with themselves to punishments.
So too the apostle says that he fights within himself against the outward powers. For he says: our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the princes and powers of this world, the rulers of these shadows, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. For even this air, where winds and clouds and storms and whirlwinds occur, is called 'heaven,' as Scripture also says in many places: and the Lord thundered from heaven, and: the birds of heaven, and: the winged creatures of heaven, though it is plain that birds fly in the air. And we too in common speech call this air 'sky'; for when we ask about fair or cloudy weather, sometimes we say: What is the air like? and sometimes: What is the sky like?
I have said this lest anyone suppose that evil demons dwell there where God set the sun and moon and stars. These evil demons the apostle therefore calls 'spiritual,' because even the evil angels are called 'spirits' in the Scriptures. And he calls them 'rulers of these shadows' because he calls sinful men 'shadows,' over whom these hold dominion. Therefore in another place also he says: for you were once darkness, but now are light in the Lord, because from being sinners they had been justified. Let us not, then, imagine that the devil dwells in the highest heaven with his angels, from which we believe he fell. For thus the Manichaeans have erred, who say that before the founding of the world there was a race of darkness that rebelled against God:
in which war those wretched men believe that the almighty God could not otherwise succor himself except by sending a part of himself against that race. The princes of that race, as they say, devoured a part of God and were tempered, so that from them the world could be fashioned. Thus they say that God attained victory with great calamities and torments and miseries of his own members: which members they say were mingled with the shadowy entrails of those princes, in order to temper them and restrain them from fury. And they do not understand how sacrilegious their sect is, in that they believe the almighty God warred with the darkness not through a creature that he had made, but through his very own nature—which it is impious to believe.
And not only this, but also that those who were conquered were made better, because their fury was suppressed; while the nature of God, which conquered, was made most wretched. For they say that through that very mingling it lost its understanding and its blessedness, and was entangled in great errors and disasters. And if they said that it is at some time entirely purified, they would still be asserting a great impiety against the almighty God, whose part they would believe was tossed about for so long a time in errors and punishments without any crime of sin. But now, in their wretchedness, they dare to say further that not even the whole can be purified;
and that the very part which could not be purified serves as a bond, so that by it the tomb of malice is wrapped up and bound; and so that same wretched part of God, which sinned in nothing, is forever there and is fixed eternally to the prison of darkness. This they say in order to deceive simple souls. But who is so simple as not to perceive that these things are sacrilegious, by which they affirm that the almighty God was pressed by necessity to give over his own good and innocent part to be overwhelmed by such disasters and stained by such impurity, and could not free the whole, and would bind with eternal chains what he could not free? Who, then, would not detest these things? Who would not understand that they are impious and abominable?
But when they ensnare men, they do not say these things first—which, if they said them, they would be laughed at or fled from by all—but they select chapters from the Scriptures which simple men do not understand, and through them they deceive unlearned souls by asking whence evil comes. Just as they do with this passage which was written by the apostle: rulers of these shadows, and the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. For those deceivers question and interrogate a man who does not understand the divine Scriptures, as to whence come the rulers of darkness in heaven, so that, when he cannot answer, he may be led astray by them through curiosity, since every untaught soul is curious.
But whoever has well learned the Catholic faith and is fortified with good morals and true piety, even if he does not know their heresy, nevertheless answers them. For he cannot be deceived who already knows what pertains to the Christian faith, which is called 'Catholic,' spread throughout the whole world, and secure against all the impious and sinners—and secure over even its own negligent members, by the governance of the Lord. Since, then, we were saying that the apostle Paul said that we have a wrestling against the rulers of darkness and the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places, and we have proved that this air near the earth is also called 'heaven,' we must believe that we fight against the devil and his angels, who rejoice in our disturbances.
For the apostle himself in another place calls the devil the prince of the power of this air. Although that passage, where he says the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places, can also be understood otherwise—so that he did not say the transgressing angels are in the heavenly places, but rather ourselves, of whom he says in another place: our conversation is in the heavens—so that we, established in the heavenly places, that is, walking in the spiritual precepts of God, may fight against the spiritual forces of wickedness which try to draw us away from there. Rather, then, this must be asked: how we can fight and conquer those whom we do not see, lest the foolish think we ought to contend against the air. And so the apostle himself teaches, saying:
I do not so fight as one beating the air; but I chastise my body and bring it into subjection, lest perhaps, having preached to others, I myself should be found reprobate; likewise he says: be imitators of me, as I am of Christ. Hence it is to be understood that the apostle himself also triumphed within himself over the powers of this world, just as he had said of the Lord, whose imitator he professes himself to be.
Let us also, then, imitate him, as he exhorts, and chastise our body and bring it into subjection, if we wish to conquer the world; for through its unlawful delights and pomps and pernicious curiosity this world can hold dominion over us—that is, those things which in this world bind the lovers of temporal things with pernicious delight and compel them to serve the devil and his angels. If we have renounced all these, let us bring our body into subjection. But lest anyone perhaps ask this very thing—how it comes about that we subject our body to servitude—it can easily be understood and accomplished, if first we subject ourselves to God with a good will and sincere charity.
For every creature, willing or unwilling, is subject to the one God and its Lord. But we are admonished to serve the Lord our God with our whole will, since the just man serves freely, while the unjust serves in bondage. Yet all serve the divine providence; but some obey as sons and do with it what is good; others, however, are bound as slaves, and what is just is done concerning them. Thus the almighty God, Lord of the whole creation, who made all things, as it is written, very good, so ordered them that he does good both by means of the good and by means of the evil. For what is done justly is done well; and it is just that the good are blessed, and just that the evil suffer punishments.
Therefore God does good both by means of the good and by means of the evil, since he does all things justly. Now the good are those who serve God with their whole will; the evil, however, serve by necessity, for no one escapes the laws of the Almighty. But it is one thing to do what the law commands, another to suffer what the law commands. Wherefore the good act according to the laws, the evil suffer according to the laws. Nor let it disturb us that in this life, according to the flesh which they bear, the just endure many grievous and harsh things. For they suffer no evil who can already say what that spiritual man, the apostle, exults and proclaims, saying: we glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation works patience, patience proof, proof hope;
and hope does not confound, because the charity of God is poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. If, then, in this life, where there are so many torments, good and just men, when they suffer such things, can not only bear them with an even mind, but even glory in the charity of God, what must be thought of that life which is promised to us, where we shall feel no trouble from the body? For the body of the just does not rise again to that to which the body of the impious rises, as it is written: we shall all rise again, but we shall not all be changed. And lest anyone think that this change is promised not to the just but rather to the unjust, and suppose it to be penal, he goes on and says:
and the dead shall rise incorruptible, and we shall be changed. Whoever, then, are evil, are so ordered that both each one harms himself and all harm one another in turn. For they crave that which is loved to their ruin and which can easily be taken from them; and this they take from one another in turn, when they persecute one another. And therefore they are tormented from whom temporal things are taken, because they love them; but those who take them away rejoice. Yet such gladness is blindness and utter misery; for it the more entangles the soul and leads it to greater torments. For even the fish rejoices when, not seeing the hook, it devours the bait; but when the fisherman begins to draw it in, its entrails are first wrenched;
then from all its gladness, through the very bait over which it rejoiced, it is dragged to its consuming. So are all who count themselves blessed on account of temporal goods; for they have taken the hook, and with it they wander about; the time will come when they will feel how great the torments are that they devoured with their greed. And therefore they do no harm to the good, because they take from them what the good do not love; for what the good love, and whence they are blessed, no one can take from them. But the torment of the body wretchedly afflicts evil souls, while it strongly purges good ones. So it comes about that both the evil man and the evil angel serve as soldiers of the divine providence; but they do not know what good God works out of them. And so they are given their wages not according to the merits of service, but according to the merits of malice.
But just as these souls, which have a will to harm and a reason for thinking, are ordered under divine laws, so that no one may suffer anything unjust, so all things, both animate and corporeal, are administered in their own kind and in their own order, subjected to the laws of divine providence. Therefore the Lord says: Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them falls to the ground without the will of your Father. For he said this, wishing to show that whatever men count most worthless is governed by the omnipotence of God. For thus the Truth speaks: that the birds of heaven are fed by him and the lilies of the field are clothed by him—the Truth who says that even the hairs of our head are numbered.
But since God himself directly cares for the pure rational souls—whether in the best and great angels or in men serving him with their whole will—while he governs the rest through those very souls, it could most truly be said also by the apostle: for God has no care for oxen. For in the holy Scriptures God teaches men how they should act with men and how they themselves should serve God; but how they should act with their cattle, they themselves know—that is, how they should govern the well-being of their cattle by usage and skill and natural reason, all of which indeed they have received from the great resources of their Creator.
Whoever, then, is able to understand how God, the Founder of the whole creation, governs it through the holy souls that are his ministers in heaven and on earth—since these holy souls too were made by him and hold the primacy in his creation—whoever, then, is able to understand, let him understand and enter into the joy of his Lord. But if we cannot do this, so long as we are in this body and are pilgrims away from the Lord, let us at least taste how sweet the Lord is, because he has given us as a pledge the Spirit, in whom we may feel his sweetness; and let us long for the very fountain of life. There let us be flooded and watered with a sober inebriation, like a tree that is planted beside the streams of waters and gives fruit in its season, and whose leaf shall not fall.
For the Holy Spirit says: but the sons of men shall hope under the covering of your wings. They shall be inebriated with the abundance of your house, and you shall give them to drink of the torrent of your delight, for with you is the fountain of life. Such inebriation does not overturn the mind, but rather snatches it upward and grants forgetfulness of all earthly things; but only if we can now say with all our affection: as the deer longs for the fountains of waters, so my soul longs for you, O God.
But if perhaps, on account of the sicknesses of the soul which it has conceived from love of the world, we are not yet fit even to taste how sweet the Lord is, let us at least believe the divine authority which he willed to be in the holy Scriptures concerning his Son, who was made for him of the seed of David according to the flesh, as the apostle says; for all things were made through him, as it is written in the Gospel, and without him nothing was made. He had mercy on our weakness—which weakness we merited not by his work, but by our own will; for God made man imperishable and gave him free choice of will. For he would not be the best if he served God's precepts by necessity, not by will.
It is altogether easy, in my judgment, to grasp that which those are unwilling to understand who have deserted the Catholic faith and yet wish to be called Christians. For if they confess with us that our nature is not healed except by acting rightly, let them confess that it is not weakened except by sinning. And therefore it must not be believed that our soul is that which God is; because, if it were this, it would be changed for the worse neither by its own will nor by any necessity, since God is understood to be in every way unchangeable—but let it be sought not by those who love to speak what they do not know, in contention and rivalry and desire of vainglory, but by those who, with Christian humility, think of the Lord in goodness and in simplicity of heart, and seek him.
This weakness of ours, then, the Son of God deigned to take upon himself, and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us: not because that eternity was changed, but because he showed to the changeable eyes of men a changeable creature, which he took up with unchangeable majesty. But there are foolish men who say: Why could not the Wisdom of God have freed men in some other way, without taking on a man and being born of a woman and suffering all those things from sinners? To whom we say: He could indeed have done so; but if he had done it otherwise, it would likewise have displeased your folly. For if he had not appeared to the eyes of sinners, his eternal light, which is seen through the inner eyes, they could by no means have seen with their defiled minds.
But now, because he deigned to admonish us visibly, so as to prepare us for invisible things, he displeases the avaricious, because he did not have a golden body; he displeases the unchaste, because he was born of a woman—for the unchaste greatly hate the fact that women conceive and bear; he displeases the proud, because he most patiently endured insults; he displeases the delicate, because he was tortured; he displeases the timid, because he died. And that they may not seem to be defending their own vices, they say that this displeases them not in a man, but in the Son of God.
For they do not understand what the eternity of God is, which assumed a man, and what that human creature itself is, which through its own changes was being recalled to its former firmness, so that we might learn, by the Lord himself teaching, that the infirmities which we gathered by sinning can be healed by acting rightly. For it was shown to us to what fragility a man has come by his own fault, and out of what fragility he is freed by divine aid. And so the Son of God assumed a man, and in him suffered human things. This medicine of men is as great as cannot be conceived. For what pride can be healed, if it is not healed by the humility of the Son of God? What avarice can be healed, if it is not healed by the poverty of the Son of God?
What wrath can be healed, if it is not healed by the patience of the Son of God? What impiety can be healed, which is not healed by the charity of the Son of God? Finally, what timidity can be healed, if it is not healed by the resurrection of the body of the Son of God? Let the human race lift up its hope and recognize its own nature; let it see how great a place it holds in the works of God. Do not despise yourselves, O men; the Son of God took up a man. Do not despise yourselves, O women; the Son of God was born of a woman. Yet do not love carnal things, because in the Son of God we are neither male nor female. Do not love temporal things, because, if they were rightly loved, the man whom the Son of God took up would love them.
Do not fear insults and crosses and death; for if they could harm a man, that man whom the Son of God took upon himself would not have suffered them. All this exhortation, which is now preached everywhere and everywhere venerated, and which heals every obedient soul, would not exist among human affairs if all those things had not been done which are displeasing to the most foolish. Whom does vicious boasting deign to imitate, so that it may be led to attain virtue, if it blushes to imitate him of whom it was said, before he was born, that he would be called the Son of the Most High, and who now among all nations — which no one can deny — is called the Son of the Most High? If we think much of ourselves, let us deign to imitate him who is called the Son of the Most High;
but if we think little of ourselves, let us dare to imitate the fishermen and tax-collectors who imitated him. O medicine that provides for all, that presses down all that swells, that restores all that wastes away, that cuts off all that is superfluous, that guards all that is necessary, that repairs all that is lost, that corrects all that is depraved! Who now would exalt himself against the Son of God? Who would despair of himself, for whom the Son of God willed to be so humble? Who would suppose the blessed life to lie in those things which the Son of God taught were to be despised? To what adversities would he yield, who believes that the nature of man was preserved amid such great persecutions in the Son of God?
Who would think the kingdom of heaven closed to himself, when he knows that tax-collectors and harlots imitated the Son of God? From what perversity would he not be free, who beholds and loves and follows after the deeds and words of that man in whom the Son of God offered himself to us as an example of life? And so now both men and women, and every age, and every rank of this world, have been stirred to the hope of eternal life. Some, neglecting temporal goods, fly to divine things; others yield to the virtues of those who do these things, and praise what they do not dare to imitate;
but a few still murmur and are tormented by empty envy — whether those who seek their own things in the Church, though they seem to be Catholics, or heretics seeking glory from the very name of Christ, or Jews desiring to defend the sin of their impiety, or pagans fearing to lose the curiosity of their vain licence. But the Catholic Church, spread far and wide throughout the whole world, breaking their assaults in former times, has grown stronger and stronger not by resisting but by enduring. Now indeed it laughs at their insidious questions with faith, examines them with diligence, and dissolves them with understanding; it takes no heed of those who accuse it of its own chaff, because it carefully and diligently distinguishes the time of harvest, the time of the threshing-floors, and the time of the barns;
but those who slander its wheat it either corrects if they are erring, or reckons among the thorns and tares if they are envious. Let us therefore subject the soul to God, if we wish to subject our body to servitude and to triumph over the devil. Faith is first, which subjects the soul to God; then the precepts of living, in the keeping of which our hope is made firm and charity is nourished and begins to shine, which before was only believed. For since knowledge and action make a man blessed, as error is to be guarded against in knowledge, so wickedness is to be guarded against in action. But he errs, whoever supposes that he can know the truth while he still lives wickedly.
Now wickedness is to love this world and to reckon as great the things that are born and pass away, and to covet them and to labour to acquire them; and to rejoice when they abound, and to fear lest they perish, and to grieve when they perish. Such a life cannot see that pure and sincere and unchangeable truth, nor cleave to it, nor be moved no more for ever. And therefore, before our mind is purified, we ought to believe what we are not yet able to understand, since it was most truly said through the prophet: unless you believe, you shall not understand.
The faith is very briefly handed down in the Church, in which are commended things eternal — which cannot yet be understood by carnal men — and things temporal, past and future, which the eternity of divine providence has wrought and will work for the salvation of men. Let us therefore believe in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; these are eternal and unchangeable, that is, one God, an eternal Trinity of one substance, God, from whom are all things, through whom are all things, in whom are all things. Nor let us listen to those who say that there is only the Father, and that he has no Son, nor is the Holy Spirit with him, but that the Father himself is sometimes called the Son, sometimes the Holy Spirit.
For they do not know the beginning, from which are all things, and his image, through which all things are formed, and his holiness, in which all things are ordered. Nor let us listen to those who are indignant and angry because we do not say that three gods are to be worshipped. For they do not know what one and the same substance is, and they are deluded by their own phantasms, because they are accustomed to see three animals or any three bodies corporeally set apart, each in its own place. Thus they think God's substance is to be understood, and they greatly err, because they are proud, and they cannot learn, because they will not believe.
Nor let us listen to those who say that the Father alone is the true and everlasting God, but that the Son was not begotten of him but made by him out of nothing, and that there was a time when he was not, yet that he holds the first place in all creation; and that the Holy Spirit is of lesser majesty than the Son and was himself made after the Son; and that of these three the substances are diverse, as gold and silver and bronze.
For they do not know what they say, and from those things which they have been accustomed to see with fleshly eyes they transfer empty images to their disputations, since in truth it is a great thing to behold with the mind a generation which does not come to be out of any time but is eternal, and to behold that very charity and holiness by which the begetter and the begotten are ineffably joined to one another. It is a great and difficult thing to behold these things with the mind, even if it be at peace and tranquil.
It cannot therefore come to pass that those men should see these things who gaze too intently upon earthly generations, and who add to that darkness yet more smoke, which they do not cease to stir up for themselves by daily contentions and struggles, having souls flowing away with the affections of the flesh, like logs sodden with moisture, in which fire only belches smoke and cannot have bright flames. And this indeed can most rightly be said of all heretics. Believing therefore in the unchangeable Trinity, let us also believe in the temporal dispensation for the salvation of the human race. Nor let us listen to those who say that the Son of God, the Christ, is nothing other than a man, but so righteous that he is worthy to be called the Son of God.
For these too the Catholic discipline has cast out, because, deceived by desire of vain glory, they wished to dispute contentiously before they understood what the power of God is, and the wisdom of God, and the Word in the beginning, through which all things were made, and how the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. Nor let us listen to those who say that the Son of God did not take on a true man, nor was born of a woman, but showed to those who saw a false flesh and a feigned likeness of a human body.
For they do not know how the substance of God, administering the whole creation, can in no way be defiled, and yet they proclaim that this visible sun scatters its rays through all the dregs and filth of bodies and everywhere keeps them pure and unstained. If therefore visible pure things can be touched by visible unclean things and not be defiled, how much more did the invisible and unchangeable Truth — taking on soul through spirit and body through soul, the whole man being assumed — free him from all infirmities without any defilement of itself! And so they suffer great straits and, while they fear what cannot happen, namely lest Truth be defiled by human flesh, they say that Truth lied. And when he commanded, saying:
sitinoreuestro: est, est; non, non, etapostolusclamet: noneratinilloestetnon, sedestinilloerat, istitotumcorpuseiusfalsamcarnemfuissecontendunt, utnonsibiuideanturimitariChristum, sinonsuisauditoribusmentiantur. Neceosaudiamus, quitrinitatemquideminunaaeternasubstantiaconfitentur, sedhominemipsum, quitemporalidispensationesusceptusest, audentdicerenonhabuissehominismentem, sedsolamanimametcorpus. hocestdicere: nonfuithomo, sedmembracorporishabebathumana. animamenimetcorpushabentetbestiae, sedrationemnonhabent, quaementisestpropria.
Let it be in your mouth: yes, yes; no, no — and when the Apostle cries out: In him there was not yes and no, but in him there was yes — these men contend that his whole body was false flesh, so that they may not seem to themselves to be imitating Christ if they do not lie to their hearers. Nor let us listen to those who indeed confess the Trinity in one eternal substance, but dare to say that the man himself, who was assumed by the temporal dispensation, did not have a human mind, but only a soul and a body. This is to say: he was not a man, but had human bodily members. For beasts too have soul and body, but they do not have reason, which is proper to the mind.
But if those are to be execrated who deny that he had a human body, which is the lowest thing in man, I marvel that these men do not blush who deny that he had that which is the best thing in man. For the human mind is much to be lamented if it is conquered by its own body: if indeed it was not reformed in that man, in whom the human body itself has now received the dignity of a heavenly form. But far be it from us to believe this, which rash blindness has fabricated and proud garrulity has invented. Nor let us listen to those who say that the man who was born of the Virgin was thus assumed by that eternal Wisdom in the same way that other men are made wise by it who are perfectly wise.
For they do not know the proper mystery of that man, and they think that he had this alone more than the rest of the most blessed, namely that he was born of a Virgin. Yet if they would well consider this very thing, perhaps they would believe that he merited this beyond the rest for the reason that this very assumption has something proper beyond the rest. For it is one thing to be made merely wise through the wisdom of God, and another to sustain the very person of the wisdom of God. For although the nature of the body of the Church is the same, yet who does not understand that there is a great difference between the head and the other members? For if the head of the Church is that man, by whose assumption the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, the other members are all the saints, by whom
the Church is perfected and completed. As therefore the soul animates and gives life to our whole body, but in the head it perceives both by seeing and by hearing and by smelling and by tasting and by touching, while in the other members only by touching, and for this reason all things are subjected to the head for action, but it itself is placed above for taking counsel, because the head in a certain manner sustains the person of the very soul which takes counsel for the body — for there all sense appears — so to the whole people of the saints, as to one body, the head is the mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus.
And therefore the wisdom of God and the Word in the beginning, through which all things were made, did not assume that man as it does the other saints, but far more excellently and far more sublimely, in the manner in which he alone ought to be assumed, in whom wisdom might appear to men, as it was fitting that it be shown visibly. Wherefore other men are wise in one way — whoever they are or could have been or shall be able to be — and in another way that one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who not only has the benefit of that wisdom itself, through which all men are made wise, but also bears its person. For of other wise and spiritual souls it can rightly be said that they have in themselves the Word of God, through which all things were made;
but of none of them can it rightly be said that the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, which is most rightly said of our Lord Jesus Christ alone. Nor let us listen to those who say that only a human body was assumed by the Word of God, and who thus hear what was said — And the Word was made flesh — so as to deny that that man had either a soul or anything of a man except flesh alone. For they err greatly and do not understand that flesh alone was named in that which was said — the Word was made flesh — because to the eyes of men, for whose sake that assumption was made, flesh alone could appear.
For if it is absurd and greatly unworthy that that man should not have had a human spirit, as we treated above, how much more absurd and unworthy is it that he should have had neither spirit nor soul, and should have had this alone which is even in cattle baser and lowest, that is, a body! Let this impiety therefore also be excluded from our faith, and let us believe that a whole and perfect man was assumed by the Word of God. Nor let us listen to those who say that our Lord had such a body as appeared in the dove which John the Baptist saw descending from heaven and remaining upon him in the sign of the Holy Spirit.
For they thus try to persuade that the Son of God was not born of a woman, because, they say, if it was necessary for him to be shown to fleshly eyes, he could have assumed a body just as the Holy Spirit did. For that dove too, they say, was not born of an egg, and yet it could appear to human eyes. To these it must first be answered that in that place where we read that the Holy Spirit appeared to John in the likeness of a dove, we also read that Christ was born of a woman; and one ought not to believe the Gospel in part and in part not believe it. For from where do you believe that the Holy Spirit was shown in the likeness of a dove, unless because you read it in the Gospel? Therefore I too believe from there that Christ was born of a Virgin, because I read it in the Gospel.
But the reason why the Holy Spirit was not born of a dove, in the way that Christ was born of a woman, is this: because the Holy Spirit had not come to set doves free, but to signify to men innocence and spiritual love, which was visibly figured in the likeness of a dove. But the Lord Jesus Christ, who had come to set men free — among whom both males and females pertain to salvation — neither scorned males, because he took on a male, nor females, because he was born of a female. To this is added a great mystery: that, since death had befallen us through a woman, life might be born to us through a woman:
so that from each nature, that is, feminine and masculine, the vanquished devil might be tormented, since he had rejoiced over the overthrow of both; for it had been too little for his punishment if both natures had been set free in us, unless we were also set free through both. Nor do we say this so as to say that the Lord Jesus Christ alone had a true body, but that the Holy Spirit appeared falsely to the eyes of men; rather we believe that both those bodies were true bodies. For as it was not fitting that the Son of God should deceive men, so it was not becoming that the Holy Spirit should deceive men:
but to almighty God, who fashioned the whole creation out of nothing, it was not difficult to form a true body of a dove without the agency of other doves, just as it was not difficult for him to fashion a true body in the womb of Mary without the seed of a man, since bodily creation served the command and will of the Lord both in the inward parts of a woman for the forming of a man, and in the world itself for the forming of a dove. But foolish and wretched men do not believe that what they either cannot do themselves or have never seen in their lifetime could have been done by almighty God. Nor let us listen to those who wish to compel us, for this reason, to number the Son of God among creatures, because he suffered. For they say: if he suffered, he is changeable;
and if he is changeable, he is a creature, because the substance of God cannot be changed. With whom we too say both that the substance of God cannot be changed and that a creature is changeable. But it is one thing to be a creature, and another to assume a creature. The only-begotten Son of God therefore, who is the power and wisdom of God and the Word, through which all things were made, since he can in no way be changed, assumed a human creature, which he deigned to raise up when it was fallen and to renew when it was grown old. Nor was he himself changed for the worse in it through his passion, but rather changed it for the better through his resurrection. Nor for this reason is it to be denied that the Word of the Father, that is, the only Son of God, through whom all things were made, was born and suffered for us.
For we say that the martyrs too suffered and died for the kingdom of heaven; and yet in that suffering and death their souls were not slain. For the Lord says: Do not fear those who kill the body, but can do nothing to the soul. As therefore we say that the martyrs suffered and died in the bodies which they bore, without the slaying or death of their souls, so we say that the Son of God suffered and died in the man whom he bore, without any change or death of his divinity. Nor let us listen to those who deny that such a body of the Lord rose again as was laid in the tomb. For if it had not been such, he himself would not have said to the disciples after the resurrection:
Handle me and see, for a spirit does not have bones and sinews, as you see me to have. For it is sacrilege to believe that our Lord, since he himself is the Truth, lied in anything. Nor let it disturb us that it is written that he suddenly appeared to the disciples when the doors were shut, so that on that account we should deny that it was a human body, because we see it to be against the nature of this body to enter through shut doors. For all things are possible to God. For to walk upon the waters also is manifestly against the nature of this body; and yet not only did the Lord himself walk before his passion, but he also made Peter walk. So therefore after the resurrection also he did with his body what he willed.
For if before his passion he was able to make it shine like the brightness of the sun, why after his passion could he not also reduce it in a moment of time to whatever fineness he willed, so that it could enter through shut doors? Nor let us listen to those who deny that our Lord carried that very body with himself into heaven, and who cite what is written in the Gospel: No one has ascended into heaven, except him who descended from heaven; and they say that, because the body did not descend from heaven, it could not ascend into heaven. For they do not understand that the body did not ascend into heaven; for the Lord ascended, but the body did not ascend, but was lifted up into heaven by him lifting it, who ascended.
For if, for example, someone should descend naked from a mountain, and after he has descended should clothe himself and, clothed, ascend again, we quite rightly say: no one has ascended, except him who descended; nor do we consider the garment which he carried up with him, but we say that he alone who is clothed ascended. Nor let us listen to those who deny that the Son sits at the right hand of the Father. For they say: does God the Father have a right side or a left, as bodies do? Nor do we hold this concerning God the Father; for God is defined and bounded by no form of body. But the right hand of the Father is the perpetual blessedness which is promised to the saints; just as his left hand is most rightly said to be the perpetual misery which is given to the impious:
so that the right and the left be understood not in God himself, but in creatures, in the manner we have said; for the body of Christ also, which is the Church, will be in that right hand, that is, in that very blessedness, as the Apostle says, that he both raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places. For although our body is not yet there, yet our hope is already there. For this reason the Lord himself, after the resurrection, commanded the disciples whom he found fishing to cast their nets on the right side. And when they had done so, they caught fishes, which were all great, that is, they signified the righteous, to whom the right hand is promised.
This is signified by what he also said in the judgement, that he would set the lambs on the right and the kids on the left. Nor let us listen to those who deny that there will be a day of judgement, and who cite what is written in the Gospel, that he who believes in Christ is not judged, but he who does not believe in him is already judged. For they say: if he who believes will not come into judgement, and he who does not believe is already judged, where are those whom he is going to judge on the day of judgement? They do not understand that the Scriptures speak in such a way as to intimate past time for future time: just as we said above, that what the Apostle said of us — that he made us sit together in the heavenly places — has not yet happened;
but because it is most certainly going to happen, it is spoken of as if it had already happened. Just as the Lord himself also said to the disciples: All things that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you; and a little after he says: I have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. How then had he said: All things that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you, unless because he spoke of that which he was most certainly going to do through the Holy Spirit as if he had already done it? So therefore when we hear: he who believes in Christ will not come into judgement, let us understand that he will not come to condemnation. For judgement is said for condemnation, as the Apostle says: let him who does not eat not judge him who eats, that is, let him not think evil of him. And the Lord says:
Do not judge, lest judgement be passed on you. For he does not take away from us the understanding to judge, since the prophet also says: if you truly love righteousness, judge rightly, O sons of men, and the Lord himself says: do not judge by persons, but judge righteous judgement. But in that place where he forbids judging, he admonishes this: that we not condemn anyone whose thought is not opened to us, or of whom we do not know what he will afterward become. So therefore when he said: he will not come into judgement, he said this because he will not come into condemnation; but he who does not believe is already judged — he said this because he is already condemned by the foreknowledge of God, who knows what threatens those who do not believe.
Nor let us listen to those who say that the Holy Spirit, whom the Lord in the Gospel promised to the disciples, came either in the apostle Paul, or in Montanus and Priscilla, as the Cataphrygians say, or in some Manes or Manichaeus, as the Manichaeans say. For these men are so blind that they do not understand the plain Scriptures, or so negligent of their own salvation that they do not read them at all. For who, when he has read, will not understand — whether in the Gospel, where it is written after the Lord's resurrection, the Lord saying: I send the promise of my Father upon you; but sit here in the city until you be clothed with power from on high?
and in the Acts of the Apostles, after the Lord departed from the eyes of the disciples into heaven, when ten days had passed, on the day of Pentecost — do they not attend that most manifestly the Holy Spirit came; and when they were in the city, as he had before warned them, he filled them, so that they spoke with tongues? For the diverse nations which were then present, each one of the hearers understood his own language. But these men deceive those who, negligent of the Catholic faith and even of their own faith, which is manifest in the Scriptures, will not learn, and — what is more grievous and much to be lamented — while they occupy themselves negligently in the Catholic Church, they lend a diligent ear to heretics.
Nor let us listen to those who deny that the holy Church, which is the one Catholic Church, is spread throughout the world, but suppose that it flourishes only in Africa, that is, in the party of Donatus. So deaf are they against the prophet saying: You are my Son, this day have I begotten you; ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, and for your possession the ends of the earth — and many other things which are written, whether in the books of the Old or of the New Testament, so as most manifestly to declare that the Church of Christ is spread throughout the world. And when we object this to them, they say that all these things were already fulfilled before the party of Donatus existed, but they contend that afterward the whole Church perished and that its remnants remained only in the party of Donatus.
O proud and wicked tongue! Not even if they truly lived in such a way as at least to keep peace among themselves afterward! But as it is, they do not attend that in Donatus himself was already fulfilled what was said: with what measure you measure, it shall be measured back to you. For as he tried to divide Christ, so he himself is divided by his own people with daily cutting-asunder. To this also pertains that which the Lord says: for he who strikes with the sword shall die by the sword. For the sword in that place, since it is set in an evil sense, signifies the quarrelsome tongue, with which that unhappy man then struck the Church, but did not slay it. For the Lord did not say: he who kills with the sword shall die by the sword, but he said: he who has used the sword shall die by the sword.
Therefore that man struck the Church with a contentious tongue, by which he himself is now cut to pieces, so that he utterly perishes and dies. And yet the apostle Peter did that then not out of his own pride, but out of a love for the Lord which, though carnal, was still love. And so, being admonished, he put back the sword; but this man did not do so even when defeated, since, when he pleaded his cause with bishop Caecilianus before the bishops at Rome, whom he himself had petitioned, he could prove none of the things which he had alleged; and thus he remained in schism, so as to die by his own sword.
But his people, when they do not hear the prophets and the Gospel, in which it is most manifestly written that the Church of Christ is spread throughout all nations, and when they hear schismatics who seek not the glory of God but their own, sufficiently signify that they are slaves, not free, and that they have the right ear cut off. For Peter, erring in love of the Lord, cut off the right ear of a slave, not of a free man. From which it is signified that those who are struck by the sword of schism are both slaves of carnal desires, not yet led forth into the liberty of the Holy Spirit, so that they no longer trust in man, and that they do not hear what is right — that is, the glory of the Lord spread most widely through the Catholic Church — but hear the left-hand error of human self-inflation.
But nevertheless, since the Lord says in the Gospel that, when the Gospel has been preached among all nations, then the end shall be — how do these men say that all the other nations have already fallen from the faith and that the Church has remained only in the party of Donatus, when it is manifest that, from the time this party was cut off from unity, some nations afterward believed, and that there are still some who have not yet believed, to whom the Gospel does not cease to be preached daily?
Who would not marvel that there should be someone who wishes to be called a Christian and yet is carried away against the glory of Christ with such great impiety that he dares to say that all the peoples of the nations, who even now are still coming to the Church of God and hastening to believe in the Son of God, are acting in vain, because no Donatist baptizes them? Without doubt men would abhor such things and forsake them without delay, if they were seeking Christ, if they loved the Church, if they were free, if they kept their right ear whole. Nor let us listen to those who, although they rebaptize no one, have nevertheless cut themselves off from unity and have preferred to be called Luciferians rather than Catholics. For in that they understand that the baptism of Christ is not to be repeated, they act rightly.
For they perceive that the sacrament of holy washing exists nowhere except from the Catholic Church, yet that these cut-off branches carry with them that form which they had received in the vine itself, before they were cut off. For these are they of whom the Apostle says: 'having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof'; for the great power of godliness is peace and unity, because God is one. This they do not have, because they are cut off from unity. And so, if any of them come over to the Catholic Church, they do not repeat the form of godliness which they have, but they receive the power of godliness which they do not have. For the Apostle most plainly teaches that even branches that have been cut off can again be grafted in, if they do not remain in unbelief.
That the Luciferians understand this and do not rebaptize, we do not disapprove; but that they too willed to be cut off from the root—who would not recognize this to be detestable? And especially so, because that displeased them in the Catholic Church which truly belongs to Catholic holiness. For nowhere ought the bowels of mercy to flourish so much as in the Catholic Church, so that, like a true mother, she neither proudly insults her sinning children nor forgives grudgingly those who have been corrected. For it is not without cause that among all the apostles Peter sustains the person of this Catholic Church; for to this Church the keys of the kingdom of heaven were given, when they were given to Peter. And when it is said to him, it is said to all: 'Lovest thou me? Feed my sheep.'
Therefore the Catholic Church ought willingly to forgive her children who have been corrected and established in piety, since in Peter himself, who bore her person—both when he wavered in the sea, and when he carnally called the Lord back from the passion, and when he cut off the servant's ear with the sword, and when he denied the Lord himself three times, and when afterward he lapsed into superstitious dissimulation—we see that pardon was granted, and that he, corrected and established, attained even to the glory of the Lord's passion.
And so, after the persecution which had been carried out by the Arian heretics, once peace—which indeed the Catholic Church holds in the Lord—was restored even by the princes of this world, many of the bishops who in that persecution had consented to the perfidy of the Arians, having been corrected, chose to return to the Catholic Church, condemning either what they had believed or what they had pretended to believe. These the Catholic Church received into her maternal bosom, as she received Peter after the weeping of his denial, admonished by the cock's crow, or as she received the same Peter, corrected by the voice of Paul after his wicked dissimulation.
These men, proudly receiving this love of their mother and impiously reproaching it, because they did not rejoice with Peter as he rose again after the cock's crow, deserved to fall with Lucifer, who used to rise in the morning. Nor let us listen to those who deny that the Church of God can forgive all sins. And so these wretched men, while they do not understand the rock in Peter and refuse to believe that the keys of the kingdom of heaven were given to the Church, have themselves let them slip from their hands. These are they who condemn widows, if they marry, as adulteresses, and who proclaim themselves cleaner than the apostolic doctrine: who, if they were willing to acknowledge their name, would call themselves worldly rather than clean. For being unwilling to be corrected if they have sinned, they have chosen nothing else than to be condemned along with this world.
For those to whom they deny the pardon of sins, they do not preserve by any soundness, but withdraw medicine from the sick; and they force their widows to burn, whom they do not permit to marry. For they are not to be held wiser than Paul the Apostle, who says: 'I would rather that they marry than burn.' Nor let us listen to those who deny that there will be a future resurrection of the flesh, and cite what the Apostle Paul says: 'Flesh and blood shall not possess the kingdom of God,' not understanding what the same Apostle says: 'This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.' For when this shall have been done, it will no longer be flesh and blood, but a heavenly body. This the Lord also promises when he says:
'They neither marry nor take wives, but shall be equal to the angels of God.' For they will no longer live to men, but to God, when they shall have been made equal to the angels. Therefore flesh and blood will be changed and will become a heavenly and angelic body; 'for the dead shall rise incorruptible, and we shall be changed'—so that both that is true, that the flesh shall rise, and that also is true, that flesh and blood shall not possess the kingdom of God.
Nourished by this simplicity and sincerity of faith, let us be fed and grow in Christ; and, while we are little ones, let us not crave the food of grown men, but let us grow up by most wholesome nourishment in Christ, with good morals and Christian righteousness being added, in which is the perfected and established love of God and of neighbor, so that each of us may triumph over the enemy devil and his angels within himself, in Christ whom he has put on—because perfect love has neither the covetousness of the world nor the fear of the world, that is, neither the covetousness to acquire temporal things, nor the fear lest it lose temporal things. Through these two doors the enemy enters and reigns, who must be driven out first by the fear of God, and then by love.
We ought therefore to crave all the more eagerly the clearest and most evident knowledge of the truth, the more we see ourselves advancing in love and, by its simplicity, having our heart cleansed—because by that inner eye the truth is seen ('for blessed are the pure in heart,' he says, 'for they shall see God')—so that, rooted and grounded in love, we may be strong to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know also the surpassing knowledge of the love of Christ, that we may be filled unto all the fullness of God, and after these contests with the invisible enemy—since to those who are willing and who love, the yoke of Christ is easy and his burden light—we may merit the crown of victory.
On 'The Christian Combat,' page 136, line 14 and following. Retractations II 3. In it, where it is stated: 'Nor let us listen to those who deny that there will be a future resurrection of the flesh, and cite what the Apostle Paul says: Flesh and blood shall not possess the kingdom of God, not understanding what the same Apostle says: This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality; for when this shall have been done, it will no longer be flesh and blood, but a heavenly body'—this is not to be taken as though there will be no substance of the flesh, but the Apostle is to be understood to have designated by the name of flesh and blood the very corruption of flesh and blood, which assuredly will not exist in that kingdom, where the flesh will be incorruptible.
Although it can also be understood otherwise, so that we take the Apostle to have called the works of flesh and blood 'flesh and blood,' and to have said that those will not possess the kingdom of God who have perseveringly loved these things.