Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 64 part 13/15

'and the things you have prepared, whose shall they be? So is he who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.' Likewise the same passage, down to 'and his soul has sinned.' According to Luke, chapter 12: 'A certain man from the crowd said to him: Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me,' down to 'and the things you have prepared, whose shall they be? So is he who lays up treasure for himself.' The Apostle to Timothy, First Epistle: 'We brought nothing into this world, and truly we can carry nothing out; but having food and clothing, with these let us be content. For those who wish to become rich fall into temptation and the snare of the devil and many desires, which profit nothing and do harm, which plunge a man into ruin and perdition. For the root of all evils is covetousness,'

'which some coveting have made shipwreck of their faith, and have plunged themselves into many sorrows. But you, O man of God, flee these things.' 99. CONCERNING SPIRITUAL SACRIFICE. In Psalm 4: 'Sacrifice the sacrifice of justice, and hope in the Lord.' Likewise in Psalm 49: 'Offer to your God the sacrifice of praise, and render your vows to the Most High; and call upon me in the day of your tribulation, and I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.' Likewise there: 'The sacrifice of praise shall honor me; there is the way by which I will show him my salvation.' Likewise in Psalm 50: 'A sacrifice to God is a troubled spirit; a contrite and humbled heart God does not despise.' Likewise in Psalm 95:

'Give to the Lord, you families of the nations, give to the Lord glory and honor, give to the Lord the glory due to his name. Take up sacrifices and enter into his courts. Worship the Lord in his holy court.' Likewise in Ecclesiasticus: 'A saving sacrifice is to heed the commandments and to depart from all iniquity.' Likewise in Proverbs: 'The beginning of the good way is to do good things; these are more acceptable with God than to sacrifice victims.' 100. THAT EACH ONE IS JUDGED BY HIS OWN WORK. In Psalm 9: 'The nations are stuck fast in the destruction that they made; in the snare that they hid their foot is caught. The Lord is known as executing judgments; in the works of his own hands the sinner is caught.' Likewise in Proverbs:

'For by their own impiety they take away their own soul.' Likewise there: 'A man's iniquities catch him, and each one is bound fast with the cords of his own sins. He dies with countless others because he is without discipline; and out of the abundance of his own life he is cast out and perishes through his folly.' Likewise in Proverbs: 'As an unripe grape is harmful to the teeth and smoke to the eyes, so is iniquity to those who use it.' Likewise in the book of Wisdom: 'That they might know that by whatever things a man sins, by these also he is tormented.' Likewise there: 'But man kills himself through his own malice.' Likewise in the Gospel according to Matthew: 'By your words you shall be justified, and by your words you shall be condemned.' Likewise according to John: 'But he who does not believe is already judged.'

Likewise in Leviticus: 'But of your brothers, the children of Israel, let no one oppress his brother with sighing.' Likewise in Ecclesiasticus: 'Do not despise a man who turns away from sin; remember that we are all liable to correction.' Likewise there: 'As sparrows and flying birds, so an empty curse shall not come upon anyone.' 101. THAT THE LORD HAS LEFT MAN TO HIS OWN CHOICE AND DOES NOT WISH ANYONE TO PERISH. In Ecclesiasticus: 'The Lord from the beginning established man, and left him in the hand of his own counsel. He added his commandments and precepts, if you are willing to keep the commandments and to perform acceptable faith. He set before you water and fire: stretch out your hand to whichever you wish. Before man are life and death, good and evil: whatever pleases him shall be given to him.'

Likewise there: 'He has commanded no one to act impiously, and has given no one license to sin.' Likewise the Apostle to Titus: 'For this is good and acceptable before God our Savior, who wishes all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.' Likewise James the Apostle: 'From where come wars? From where come quarrels among you? Is it not from your desires that war in your members, and are most pleasant to you?' — 'our God, who wishes all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.' 102. CONCERNING SORROW FOR SIN. In Proverbs: 'As a moth to a garment and a worm to wood, so sorrow harms the heart of a man.' Likewise there: 'A glad heart makes good health, but the bones of a sorrowful man dry up.' Likewise in Ecclesiasticus:

'Blessed is the man who has not slipped by the word of his mouth, and is not pricked by sorrow for sin. Happy is he who has not had sadness, and has not fallen from his hope.' 103. THAT IN BAPTISM ALL SINS ARE FORGIVEN AND THAT ONE MUST WALK IN NEWNESS OF LIFE. Paul the Apostle to the Romans: 'But God commends his charity toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ suffered for you; much more now, being reconciled in his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.' Likewise there:

'Or do you not know, brothers, that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we were buried with him through baptism into death, so that as Christ rose from the dead, so also we might walk in newness of life. For if we have become planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall also be so in that of his resurrection; knowing that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, so that we might no longer serve sin — for he who has died is justified from sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live together with him; knowing that Christ, rising from the dead, dies no more; death shall no longer have dominion over him.'

'For in that he died, he died to sin once for all; but in that he lives, he lives to God. So also consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.' Likewise there: 'Therefore I myself with the mind serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.' Likewise there: 'I beseech you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God, your reasonable service.'

'And do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the newness of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, and what is good and well-pleasing and perfect.' Likewise to the Corinthians: 'Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, as you are unleavened. For our Passover, Christ, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.' Likewise there: 'Do not be deceived:'

'neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor the effeminate, nor adulterers, nor abusers of themselves with men, nor thieves, nor the avaricious, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor the rapacious shall possess the kingdom of God. And such indeed you were, but you have been washed, but you have been sanctified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.' Likewise to the Ephesians: 'This therefore I say and testify in the Lord, that you no longer walk as the Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind, having their understanding darkened, alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart, who, despairing, have given themselves over to lewdness, to the working of all uncleanness and avarice.'

'But you have not so learned Christ, if indeed you have heard him and been taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, that you put off, according to your former way of life, the old man, who is corrupted according to the desires of error. And be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man, who according to God is created in justice and holiness and truth.' Likewise Peter the Apostle, Second Epistle:

'May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the full knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, who now by his divine power has bestowed on us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own illustrious power, by which honorable and very great promises are granted to us, that through these you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped that which is in the world through the lust of a perishing life. But you also, all of you, make haste, supplying in your faith virtue, in virtue knowledge, in knowledge self-control, in self-control patience, in patience godliness, in godliness friendly brotherhood, and in the affection of brotherhood charity.'

'For if these things are yours and abound, they will make you neither idle nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he to whom these things are not at hand shall receive blindness, vanity, and forgetfulness, if he is not cleansed from the contagion of his former sins.' 104. CONCERNING THE SUBSTANCE OF GOD. In Psalm 68: 'I am stuck fast in the mire of the deep, and there is no substance.' Likewise in the prophet Jeremiah: 'They have not heard the voice of substance; from the birds of the heaven to the cattle they have fallen away in mind and have perished.' Likewise there: 'For who has stood in the substance of the Lord and seen his word? Who has given ear and heard?' Likewise there:

Had they stood firm in my counsel and had they heard my words and had they taught my people, I would have turned them away from their most wicked devices. 105. THAT SPIRITUAL ARMS MUST BE TAKEN UP AGAINST SPIRITUAL WICKEDNESS. In Deuteronomy: But if you go out to wage war against your enemies, then you shall keep yourself from every evil thing. Likewise the Apostle to the Romans: Therefore let not sin reign in your mortal body, so that you should obey it; neither present your members as weapons of iniquity unto sin, but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as weapons of righteousness unto God. Likewise to the Corinthians, the second epistle:

For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh — for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God to the pulling down of strongholds — casting down reasonings and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, leading captive every thought into obedience to Christ. Likewise to the Ephesians: For the rest, be strengthened in the Lord and in the power of his might. Put on the armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil: for our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.

Therefore put on the armour of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and in all things be perfect, having your loins girt about with truth, and clothed with the breastplate of righteousness, and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, in all things taking up the shield of faith, wherewith you may be able to quench all the flaming darts of the most wicked one, and the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying through every prayer and supplication at all times in the Spirit, and watching thereunto always with all perseverance in every prayer for all the saints. Likewise to the Thessalonians, the first epistle: Let us not sleep, but let us watch and be sober. For they that sleep sleep in the night, and they that are drunk are drunk in the night.

But let us, since we are of the day, be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has not appointed us to wrath, but to the obtaining of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep we may live together with him. 106. THAT ONE MUST FIRST DO AND SO TEACH. In the Gospel according to Matthew: Whosoever shall loose one of these least commandments, and shall so teach men, he shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whosoever shall do and so teach, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. Likewise there: Not everyone that says to me:

Lord, Lord, shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that does the will of my Father who is in heaven, he shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. Likewise to the Romans: For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified before God. Likewise to the Corinthians, the first epistle: I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so I fight, not as one beating the air; but I chastise my body and bring it into subjection, lest, having preached to others, I myself should become a castaway. Likewise to the Romans: Therefore you are inexcusable, O man, whosoever you are that judge; for wherein you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you that judge do the same things. But we know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who do such things.

But do you think this, O man, you that judge those who do such things and yet do them yourself, that you shall escape the judgment of God? 107. THAT ONE MUST PLACE NO HOPE IN MAN. In Psalm 117: It is good to hope in the Lord rather than to hope in man; it is good to trust in the Lord rather than to trust in princes. Likewise in Psalm 145: Put not your trust in princes, nor in the sons of men, in whom there is no salvation. Likewise in the prophet Jeremiah: Cursed is the man that has his hope in man, and makes flesh his arm, and whose heart departs from God. Likewise there: They that trust in man are accursed, for God made them nothing. Likewise in the prophet Micah: Woe, for your vengeances have come; now shall be their trials.

Trust not in friends, nor put your hope in leaders. Likewise John the Apostle: There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has torment, and he that fears is not made perfect in love. 108. THAT THE MOURNING MUST BE COMFORTED AND THE SICK VISITED. In Ecclesiasticus: Fail not to be with them that weep in their gathering, and walk with those that mourn; be not slow to visit the sick, for by these things you shall be established in love. Likewise the Apostle to the Romans: Rejoice with them that rejoice, weep with them that weep; be of the same mind one toward another. 109. THAT ONE MUST NOT CALL EVIL GOOD NOR GOOD EVIL. In Proverbs: He that judges the just to be unjust, and the unjust to be just, is an abomination before God. Likewise there:

He that says the just is wicked shall be cursed by peoples and hateful to the nations; but they that rebuke the wicked shall hope for better things. Likewise in the prophet Isaiah: Woe to those who call that which is evil good, and that which is good evil; who call darkness light, and light darkness; who make bitter sweet, and sweet bitter. 110. THAT ONE MUST ABSTAIN FROM LUXURIES. In Ecclesiasticus: He that is delicately nurtured from childhood shall become a servant, and in the end shall grieve over himself. Likewise in the prophet Amos: You that sleep upon beds of ivory and are wanton upon your couches, that eat the kids from the flocks and the sucking calves from the herds, that clap your hands to the sound of instruments, and reckon these things as everlasting and not as fleeting:

who drink strained wine and anoint themselves with the finest ointments, and grieve nothing over the ruin of Joseph. Likewise the Apostle Paul to the Romans: Let not then our good be blasphemed. For the kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. For he that in this serves Christ pleases God and is approved by men. Let us therefore follow after the things of peace, and keep among ourselves the things of edification. Do not for the sake of food destroy the work of God. All things indeed are clean, but it is evil for the man who eats through giving offence. It is good not to eat flesh and not to drink wine, nor anything whereby your brother is made to stumble or is offended or is made weak. Likewise to the Corinthians, the first epistle:

And everyone that strives in the contest is temperate in all things; they indeed that they may receive a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible one. I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so I fight, not as one beating the air; but I chastise my body and bring it into subjection, lest perchance, having preached to others, I myself should become a castaway. Likewise to Timothy: But she that is truly a widow and desolate hopes in God and continues in prayers night and day; but she that lives in luxuries, though living, is dead. Likewise there: But avoid the younger widows; for when they have grown wanton against Christ, they wish to marry, having condemnation because they have made void their first faith. Likewise in the epistle of the Apostle James:

And you have lived in luxury upon the earth and been wanton; you have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter. Likewise in the prophet Jeremiah: They that ate dainties have perished in excess; they that were nursed upon scarlet have embraced dunghills. Likewise Peter the Apostle, the second epistle: For if the angels, though they are greater in strength and power, do not bring against the Lord an execrable judgment:

but these, like brute beasts naturally born for capture and destruction, and who, because they are ignorant, curse things they do not understand, shall perish in their own corruption, receiving the reward of unrighteousness. They count it pleasure to riot in wickedness; they are defiled by luxuries and infamous in the utmost pleasures, given to feasting, having eyes full of adultery and that cease not from sin; they seduce unstable souls and have a heart trained in covetousness — greedy and accursed children, forsaken, who have strayed from the way of truth. 111. THAT THOSE SET IN NEED AND IN SORROW MUST BE RESCUED. In Proverbs: Deliver those who are led to death, and redeem those who are being slain; do not spare. But if you say, I do not know this man, know that the Lord knows the hearts of all:

and he that fashioned the spirit of all, he knows all things, who renders to every man according to his works. Likewise in Ecclesiasticus: Deliver him that suffers wrong from the hand of the proud, and be not faint-hearted in your soul when you judge. Be merciful to the fatherless as a father, and as a husband to their mother; and you shall be as an obedient son of the Most High, and he will have mercy on you more than a mother. Likewise in the prophet Isaiah: Seek judgment, rescue him that suffers wrong, judge for the fatherless, and justify the widow. And come, let us reason together, says the Lord: and if your sins be as scarlet, I shall make them white as snow; but if they be as crimson, I shall make them white as wool. Likewise in the prophet Jeremiah: Rescue the plundered one from the hand of those who wrong him.

Likewise in Proverbs: Do not hand over a servant into the hands of his master, lest perchance he curse you and you be destroyed. Likewise in Psalm 81: Rescue the poor, and deliver the needy from the hand of the sinner. 112. THAT MAN, PEOPLES OR NATIONS ARE CALLED A VINEYARD. In Leviticus: You shall not sow your vineyard for a double crop, and you shall not cover yourself with a garment woven of a double texture, which is an abomination. Likewise in Deuteronomy: For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and their branch of Gomorrah; their grape is a grape of gall, a cluster of bitterness among them. Likewise in Psalm 79: You brought a vineyard out of Egypt, you cast out the nations and planted it; you made a way before it, and you planted its roots and it filled the land.

Its shadow covered the mountains, and its boughs the cedars of God. You stretched out its shoots even to the sea, and its branches even to the rivers. Why then have you broken down its wall, so that all who pass by the way pluck its grapes? The boar out of the wood has laid it waste, and the wild beast has fed upon it. O God of hosts, turn now, look down from heaven and see, and visit this vine, and set right that which your right hand has planted. Likewise in the Song of Songs: The vineyards have blossomed in fragrance, and everywhere is fragrance. Who is this that comes up from the desert? Like the shoot of the vine perfumed with the smoke of incense. Likewise in the prophet Isaiah: For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the man of Judah his newly beloved planting.

I waited that it should bring forth grapes, but it brought forth thorns. Likewise in Proverbs: The foolish man is like a field, and the man who lacks prudence like a vineyard: if you leave him, he will be filled with thorns and will become as chaff and be forsaken, and the walls of his fences will be dug up. Likewise in the prophet Jeremiah: Many shepherds have laid waste my vineyard and defiled my portion; they have made my desirable portion a wilderness. Likewise there: I planted you an altogether fruitful and true vine; how then are you turned into the bitterness of a strange vine? Likewise in the prophet Hosea: Israel is a good vine within a wall, its fruit most plentiful according to the multitude of its fruits. Likewise in the prophet Joel:

A strong and innumerable nation has come up upon my land: its teeth are like the teeth of a lion, and its jaw-teeth like a lion's whelps. It has laid my vineyard waste and stripped bare my fig trees; searching it out it has searched it and cast it away, and made its branches white. Likewise in the Gospel according to Matthew: Jesus said: The kingdom of heaven is like a householder who went out early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard. And when he had agreed with the labourers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And going out about the third hour, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and said to them: Go you also into my vineyard, and whatever is just I will give you. And they went.

And again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour and did likewise. And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing, and said to them: Why stand you here idle all the day? And they said: Because no one has hired us. And he said to them: Go you also into the vineyard and labour. And when evening was come, the lord of the vineyard said to his steward: Call the labourers and give them their wages, beginning from the last unto the first. Likewise there: And he said to them: Hear another parable. There was a certain man, a householder, who planted a vineyard and set a hedge about it and dug a winepress in it and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country.

But when the time of the fruits drew near, he sent his servants to the tillers of the vineyard, that they might receive the fruit of the vineyard. And the husbandmen, having seized the servants, beat one, killed another, and stoned another. And again he sent other servants more than the first, and they did likewise. But at the last he sent his only son, saying: They will reverence my son. But they said among themselves: This is the heir; come, let us kill him and possess his inheritance. And having seized him they cast him out of the vineyard and killed him. When therefore the lord of the vineyard shall come, what will he do to those husbandmen? And they said: He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let out his vineyard to other tillers who shall render him the fruit in their seasons. 113.

THAT HOLY MEN ARE CALLED IN THE LIKENESS OF CLOUDS. In the prophet Isaiah: But now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away its wall, and it shall be for a spoil; and I will break down its fence, and it shall be for a treading down; and I will command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. Likewise in Deuteronomy: Let my speech be awaited like rain, and let my words come down like dew, as showers upon the grass, and as snow upon the hay. Likewise in the prophet Isaiah: Let the heaven rejoice from on high, and let the clouds rain down righteousness; let the earth bring forth mercy and righteousness together. Likewise there: Who are these that fly as clouds, and as doves with their young come to me? Likewise Jude the Apostle concerning the ungodly:

Clouds without water, carried about by winds. 114. THAT MEN BEAR THE IMAGE OF TREES AND OF HAY AND OF EVERY BIRD AND OF BEASTS. In Psalm 28: The voice of the Lord that prepares the cedars, and reveals the thickets. Likewise in Psalm 51: But I am like a fruitful olive tree in the house of the Lord. Likewise in Psalm 91: The just shall flourish like the palm tree, and shall be multiplied like the cedar that is in Lebanon. Planted in the house of the Lord, they shall flourish in the courts of the house of our God. Likewise in Psalm 127: Your children like young olive plants round about your table. Likewise in the prophet Hosea: And in that day I will make for them a covenant with the beasts of the field and with the birds of the sky and with the creeping things of the earth. And judgment shall spring up like grass on untilled ground.

Likewise in the prophet Ezekiel: And I myself will take from the choice of the cedar, and from the top of their heart I will pluck a shoot, and I will plant it upon a high mountain, and I will hang it upon the lofty mountain of Israel, and I will plant it, and it shall bring forth a branch and bear fruit and become a great cedar. And under it every bird shall rest, and every winged thing shall rest under its shade, and its branches shall be restored. And all the trees of the field shall know that I am the Lord, who humble the high tree and exalt the lowly tree, who dry up the green tree and make the dry tree flourish again. Likewise in the prophet Isaiah: All flesh is grass, and all the glory of men as the flower of grass.

The grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord endures for ever. Likewise there: Behold, I will do new things which now shall spring forth, and I will make a way in the desert and a river in the dry land. The beasts of the field shall bless me, the sirens and the daughters of the sparrows, because I have given water in the desert and rivers in the dry land, to give drink to my chosen race, the people whom I have gained for myself, that they may declare my mighty deeds. For I will give water in the thirst to those who walk in the drought; and I will put my Spirit upon your seed, and it shall spring up like grass in the midst of water, and like a willow beside the streams of water. And all the trees of the field shall clap with their branches. Likewise in Psalm 102: Man, his days are as grass, and as the flower of grass, so shall he flourish. Likewise in Psalm 128: