If you wish to be perfect, go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven—renouncing, that is, in such a way that I reserve for myself absolutely nothing out of them, and to this dispensing I have added the martyrdom of the burning of my flesh, so that I deliver my body for Christ, and yet am either impatient or wrathful or envious or proud, or am inflamed by the wrongs of others, or seek my own things, or think the things that are evil, or do not patiently and gladly endure all the things that can be inflicted upon me—it will profit me nothing, this renunciation and burning of the outer man, while I am still entangled in my former vices in the inner man; because, despising the simple substance of this world in the fervour of my first conversion—that substance which is defined as neither good nor evil but midway—I have taken no like care to cast away the harmful resources of a vicious heart, nor to be touched by the Lord's charity, which is patient, which is kind, which does not envy, is not puffed up, is not provoked, does not act perversely, seeks not the things that are its own, thinks no evil, which bears all things, endures all things, and finally, which never allows its follower to fall by the supplanting of sin.
We ought therefore to hasten with all urgency, that our inner man too may cast away and disperse all the riches of his vices which he contracted in his former manner of life. These, cleaving perpetually to body and soul, are properly our own, and unless, while we are still set in this body, they have been cast away and cut off, they will not cease to accompany us after our departure. For just as virtues, or that very charity which is their fountain, when acquired in this age, render their possessor beautiful and splendid even after the end of this life, so vices transmit to that everlasting abode the mind darkened and, as it were, infected with foul colours.
For the beauty or the deformity of the soul is begotten by the quality of virtues or vices, from which a certain hue is drawn upon it, which either renders it so splendid that it deserves to hear from the prophet: And the King shall desire your beauty; or else black, foul, and deformed, so that it confesses the stench of its own baseness and says: My scars have festered and are corrupted, because of my foolishness; and the Lord Himself says to it: Why is the wound of the daughter of My people not bound up? And for this reason these are our own proper riches, which abide perpetually with the soul, which no one of things, no one of enemies, will be able either to confer upon us or to take away.
These are our own proper riches, which not even death itself will be able to separate from the soul; by renouncing which we can attain to perfection, or, entangled by which, we can be punished with eternal death. For in a threefold manner riches are understood in the Holy Scriptures, that is, bad, good, and middle. And bad indeed are those of which it is said: The rich have been in want and have suffered hunger; and: Woe to you rich, for you have received your consolation—which riches also to have cast away is the highest perfection. In distinction from which, those are the poor who are praised in the Gospel by the Lord's voice: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven; and in the psalm: This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him; and again:
The poor and needy shall praise Your name. There are also good riches, which to have acquired is a matter of great virtue and merit, which the just man possessing is praised, David saying: The generation of the upright shall be blessed. Glory and riches shall be in his house: and his justice remains unto the age of the age; and again: The redemption of a man's soul are his own proper riches. Concerning which riches it is said in the Apocalypse to him who, not having them, is blameworthily poor and naked: I will begin, He says, to vomit you out of My mouth.
Because you say that you are rich and wealthy and have need of nothing, and know not that you are miserable and wretched and poor and blind and naked, I counsel you to buy of Me gold tried in the fire, that you may become wealthy, and be clothed in white garments, that the shame of your nakedness may not appear. There are also middle riches, that is, those which can be either good or bad. For to either part they are transferred according to the will or the quality of those who use them. Concerning which the blessed Apostle says: Charge the rich of this world not to be high-minded, nor to hope in the uncertainty of riches, but in God, who gives us abundantly all things to enjoy; to do good, to give easily, to communicate, to lay up for themselves a good foundation for the future, that they may lay hold of true life.
Which riches again that rich man in the Gospel, retaining and by no means supplying to the needy—from whose crumbs poor Lazarus, laid before his gates, desired to be filled—is consigned to the intolerable fires of Gehenna and to eternal burning. Forsaking, therefore, these visible riches of the world, we cast away not our own but others' resources, however much we may boast that they were either acquired by our own labour or transmitted to us by the inheritance of our parents. For nothing, as I have said, is our own except this alone, which, possessed in the heart and cleaving to our soul, can by no one whatsoever be taken away. But concerning those visible riches, Christ speaks rebukingly to those who, retaining them as their own, are unwilling to share them with the needy:
If you have not been faithful in what is another's, who will give you what is your own? Clearly, therefore, that these riches are another's, not only does daily experience teach, but the very sentence of the Lord marked it by this appellation. But concerning the invisible and most excellent riches Peter speaks to the Lord: Behold, we have left all things and followed You: what then shall we have? Who indeed are certain to have left nothing more than the most worthless and torn nets. All of which, unless they be understood in this renunciation of vices, which is truly great and highest, we shall find neither that the apostles left anything precious, nor that the Lord had anything on account of which He should bestow upon them so great a glory of blessedness, that they deserved to hear from Him:
In the regeneration, when the Son of Man shall sit on the throne of His majesty, you also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. If, therefore, these men, who perfectly renounce those earthly and visible resources, cannot for certain causes attain to that apostolic charity, nor can with unimpeded vigour ascend that loftier and (belonging to very few indeed) third grade of renunciation, what shall they have to judge concerning themselves, who, not even perfectly laying hold of the first renunciation—which is very easy—and retaining the ancient filth of their moneys with their former unbelief, suppose that they may boast merely of the bare name of monks for themselves?
Therefore the first renunciation of which we spoke is of things that are another's, and for that reason by itself alone it does not suffice to confer perfection upon the one renouncing, unless he arrive at the second, which is truly the renunciation of things that are our own. Having attained which, by the expulsion of all vices we shall also ascend the summits of the third renunciation, through which we not only transcend in soul and mind all things that are done in this world or possessed piecemeal by men, but also the very fullness of all the elements—which is thought to be magnificent—despising it as subject to vanity and soon to pass away, regarding, at any rate, according to the Apostle, not the things that are seen but the things that are not seen:
for the things that are seen are temporal, but the things that are not seen are eternal; so that at last we may deserve to hear that supreme word which is said to Abraham: And come into the land which I shall show you. By which it is clearly shown that, unless one has fulfilled those three higher renunciations with all the ardour of the mind, he cannot attain to this fourth, which is granted in place of recompense and reward to the one who perfectly renounces, so that he may deserve to enter the land of promise, no longer sprouting for him the thorns and thistles of vices:
which, after the expulsion of all passions, is possessed by purity of heart in this body; which not the virtue or the industry of the labourer, but the Lord Himself promises that He will show, saying: And come into the land which I shall show you. By which it is manifestly proved both that the beginning of our salvation comes about by the calling of the Lord, who says: Go forth from your land; and that the consummation of perfection and purity is likewise bestowed by the same, when He says: And come into the land which I shall show you—that is, not the land which you may be able to know of yourself or to find by your own industry, but the land which I shall show you, not only when you know it not, but even when you do not seek it.
From this it is plainly gathered that, just as, roused by the Lord's inspiration, we run to the way of salvation, so too, led by His teaching and illumination, we arrive at the perfection of the highest blessedness. GERMANUS: In what, then, does our free will consist, and how is it to be reckoned to our own praiseworthy diligence, if God both begins and completes in us all that pertains to our perfection? PAPHNUTIUS: This would rightly have troubled you, were there in every work or discipline only a beginning and an end, and no middle part intervening as well.
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And so, just as we know that God works the occasions of salvation in diverse ways, so it is ours to serve, whether more earnestly or more slackly, the occasions granted by the Godhead. For as it was the offer of the God who calls, 'Go out from your land,' so it was Abraham's obedience in going out; and as the words 'and come into the land' are the work of the one who complies, so the words that are added, 'which I shall show you,' are the grace of God who commands and promises.
Yet we ought to be assured that, even though we exercise every virtue with tireless efforts, we can by no means attain perfection by our own diligence or zeal, nor does human industriousness suffice by the merit of its labours to reach so sublime a reward of blessedness, unless we have obtained it with the Lord cooperating with us and directing our heart to that which is profitable. Therefore, praying with David, we ought at every moment to say: 'Perfect my steps in Your paths, that my footsteps be not moved,' and: 'He set my feet upon a rock,'
and: 'He directed my steps'—so that our will, which is borne down more readily toward vices, whether through ignorance of the good or through the allurement of the passions, that invisible ruler of the human mind might deign rather to turn back toward the pursuits of the virtues. That this is so we read most plainly sung in a single verse through the prophet: 'I was thrust and turned about so that I should fall'—wherein the weakness of free will is designated—'and the Lord upheld me'—again the help of the Lord is shown ever joined to it, whereby, lest we utterly collapse through free will, when He has seen us stagger, by the reaching out, as it were, of His hands He sustains and strengthens us. And again: 'If I said, My foot is moved'—slippery, that is, by the faculty of the will—'Your mercy, O Lord, was helping me.'
Again he joins God's help to his own instability, because, lest the foot of his faith be moved, he confesses that this was not of his own industry but of the Lord's mercy. And again: 'According to the multitude of my sorrows in my heart'—which surely arose in me from free will—'Your consolations have gladdened my soul': coming into my heart through Your inspiration and unlocking the contemplation of the future goods which You have prepared for those who labour for Your name's sake, they not only took away all the anxiety of my heart but even conferred the highest gladness. And again: 'Unless the Lord had helped me, my soul had almost dwelt in hell.'
He testifies that surely by the perversity of free will he would have dwelt in hell, had he not been saved by the Lord's help and protection. For 'by the Lord, and not by free will, are the steps of a man directed, and when the just man falls'—by free will alone, that is—'he shall not be bruised.' Why? 'Because the Lord puts under His hand.' This is to say most openly: no one of the just is sufficient of himself to obtain righteousness, unless at each single moment, as he staggers and is falling, the divine mercy has put beneath him the props of His hand, lest he perish utterly cast down when he has collapsed through the weakness of free will.
Nor indeed have holy men ever testified that they obtained by their own industry the direction of the way by which they walked, striving toward the advancement and consummation of the virtues; rather they begged it of the Lord, saying: 'Direct me in Your truth,' and: 'Direct my way in Your sight.' Another, moreover, proclaims that he perceived this very thing not only by faith but even by experience and, as it were, in the very nature of things: 'I know, O Lord, that a man's way is not in himself, nor is it for a man to walk and to direct his own steps.' And the Lord Himself says to Israel: 'And I will direct him like a flourishing fir tree; from Me is your fruit found.'
The knowledge of the Law itself, too, they desire to obtain daily, not by the industry of reading, but by the teaching and illumination of God, saying to Him: 'Show me Your ways, O Lord, and teach me Your paths,' and: 'Open my eyes, and I shall consider the wondrous things of Your Law,' and: 'Teach me to do Your will, for You are my God,' and again: 'You who teach man knowledge.' Blessed David also asks to obtain from the Lord that very understanding by which he might recognize the commandments of God—which he surely knew to be written down in the book of the Law—saying: 'I am Your servant; give me understanding, that I may learn Your commandments.'
Surely he possessed both the understanding once granted him by nature, and he certainly had ready at hand the knowledge of God's commandments, which were held written down in the Law. And yet, that he might grasp this more fully, he prayed to the Lord, knowing that what has been implanted by the nature of his condition could by no means suffice for him, unless by the daily illumination of the Lord his very perception were enlightened by the same, to understand the Law spiritually and to recognize its commandments more clearly—the very vessel of election also proclaiming more brightly this which we say: 'For it is God who works in you both to will and to accomplish, according to His good will.'
What could be said more plainly than that he declares both our good will and the consummation of the work to be fulfilled in us by the Lord? And again: 'For to you it has been granted for Christ's sake not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for Him.' Here too he declared that both the beginning of our conversion and faith, and the endurance of sufferings, are given to us by the Lord. Understanding this, David likewise prays that this same thing be granted him by the Lord's compassion, saying: 'Confirm, O God, this which You have wrought in us'—showing that the beginnings of salvation, bestowed by the gift and grace of God, do not suffice for him, unless they be perfected by that same mercy of His and by His daily help. For it is not free will, but the Lord, who looses the fettered.
It is not our own strength, but the Lord, who raises up the crushed; not the industry of reading, but the Lord, who enlightens the blind—which in Greek is said 'kyrios sophoi typhlous,' that is, 'the Lord makes the wise blind'; not our own caution, but the Lord, who guards the strangers; not our own fortitude, but the Lord, who lifts up (or supports) all who are falling. But we say these things not so as to empty out, as though vainly and superfluously to be spent, our own zeal or labour and industry, but that we may know that without God's help we can neither strive nor make our efforts effective for laying hold of so immense a reward of purity, unless it be granted us by the Lord's help and mercy. For 'the horse is prepared for the day of battle,'
'but from the Lord is help, for a mighty man is not powerful by his own strength.' We ought therefore always to sing with blessed David: 'My strength and my praise'—not free will, but the Lord—'and He has become salvation to me.' The teacher of the nations too, not ignorant of this, proclaims that he was made fit for the ministry of the New Testament not by his own merit or sweat, but by God's compassion: 'Not that we are sufficient,' he says, 'to think anything of ourselves as from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God.' Which may be said in less proper Latin but more expressively: 'our fitness is from God.' Finally there follows: 'who has also made us fit ministers of the New Testament.'
To such a degree, moreover, did the apostles perceive that all things pertaining to salvation were bestowed on them by the Lord, that they asked that faith itself be granted them by the Lord, saying: 'Increase our faith,' not presuming its fullness by free will, but believing it to be conferred on them by the gift of God. Finally, the same Author of human salvation teaches us how slippery and weak our very faith is, and by no means sufficient of itself, unless it has been strengthened by the Lord's help, saying to Peter: 'Simon, Simon, behold Satan has desired to have you, that he may sift you like wheat; but I have prayed to My Father that your faith fail not.'
Another, feeling this happening in himself and seeing his faith, as it were, driven by the waves of unbelief against the rocks of a ruinous shipwreck, asks the same Lord for help for his faith, saying: 'Lord, help my unbelief.' To such a degree, therefore, did the men of the Gospel and of the apostolic company perceive that all good things are consummated by the Lord's help, and were so far from being confident that they could keep even their very faith unharmed by their own powers or by the freedom of the will, that they asked that it be either helped in them or given to them by the Lord. And if in Peter it needed the Lord's help lest it fail, who will be so presumptuous and blind as to believe that he does not need the Lord's daily help for keeping it?
Especially since the Lord Himself in the Gospel plainly expressed this very thing, saying: 'As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me,' and again: 'For without Me you can do nothing.' How foolish, then, and how sacrilegious it is to attribute anything of our good deeds to our own industry and not to God's grace or help, is plainly proved by the Lord's own attestation that without His inspiration or cooperation no one can display spiritual fruits. For 'every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights.' Zechariah too: 'For if anything is good, it is His, and if anything is best, it is from Him.'
And therefore the blessed Apostle steadfastly says: 'What do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as though you had not received it?' The blessed Apostle likewise declares that the fullness of the endurance by which we are able to bear the temptations brought upon us consists not so much in our own strength as in God's mercy and moderation: 'No temptation has taken you but such as is human. But God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted above what you are able, but will make with the temptation also a way out, that you may be able to bear it.' The same Apostle teaches that God also fits or strengthens our souls for every good work, and works in us the things that are pleasing to Him:
'Now may the God of peace, who brought back from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep in the blood of the eternal testament, Jesus Christ, fit you in every good thing, working in you what is pleasing before Him.' He prays likewise that this may come to pass for the Thessalonians, saying: 'Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and God our Father, who has loved us and given us eternal consolation and good hope in grace, exhort your hearts and confirm them in every good work and word.' Finally, that the very fear of God, by which we may hold Him firmly, is poured into us by the Lord, the prophet Jeremiah plainly testifies in the person of God, saying thus: 'And I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear Me all their days, and that it may be well with them and with their children after them.'
'And I will make with them an everlasting covenant, and I will not cease to do them good; and I will put My fear in their heart, that they may not depart from Me.' Ezekiel too: 'And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within their bowels; and I will take away the heart of stone from their flesh, and I will give them a heart of flesh; that they may walk in My precepts, and keep My judgments, and do them; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God.'
By these testimonies we are most plainly taught that the beginning of a good will is granted to us by the Lord's inspiration, when He draws us to the way of salvation, whether by Himself, or through the exhortation of some person, or through necessity; and that the perfection of the virtues is likewise bestowed by Him; but that it is ours to follow the exhortation and help of God, whether more slackly or more earnestly, and that for this we most justly earn either reward or punishment, according as we have either neglected or striven to conform, by the devotion of our obedience, to His dispensation and providence conferred upon us by His most kindly condescension. This is plainly and openly described in Deuteronomy:
'When,' it says, 'the Lord your God shall have brought you into the land which you are entering to possess, and shall have destroyed many nations before you—the Hittite and the Girgashite and the Amorite, the Canaanite and the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, seven nations of much greater number and mightier than you—and the Lord shall have delivered them to you, you shall smite them to utter destruction. You shall make no covenant with them, nor contract marriages with them.' That they are brought into the land of promise, that many nations are destroyed before them, that nations of greater number and mightier than the people of Israel are delivered into their hands—this Scripture declares to be God's grace.
But whether Israel smites them to utter destruction, or spares and reserves them, and whether or not it makes a covenant with them, and whether or not it contracts marriages with them—this Scripture testifies to be their own concern. By this testimony it is plainly distinguished what we ought to ascribe to free will and what to the Lord's dispensation or daily help: that it belongs to divine grace to furnish us the occasions of salvation and favourable outcomes and victory, but that it is ours to carry out the benefits granted by God, whether more intently or more sluggishly. This same principle we see quite plainly expressed also in the healing of those blind men. That Jesus passes before them is of divine providence and condescension's grace; that they cry out and say:
'Have mercy on us, O Lord, Son of David,' is the work of their own faith and belief. That they receive the sight of their eyes is the gift of divine compassion. But that even after the reception of any gift both God's grace and the exercise of free will persist, the example of the ten lepers who were healed together also declares. Of these, while one by the goodness of his own will renders the giving of thanks, the Lord, seeking the nine and praising the one, shows that He keeps constant the care of His help even toward those unmindful of His benefits. For this very thing is the gift of His visitation, that He either receives and approves the grateful or seeks out and reproves the ungrateful.
Yet it befits us to believe with unshaken faith that nothing at all is done in this world without God. For it must be confessed that all things are done either by His will or by His permission—namely, that the things which are good are believed to be perfected by God's will and help, but the things which are contrary, by His permission, when, on account of our wickedness and hardness of heart, divine protection forsaking us allows the devil or the ignominious passions of the body to lord it over us. This too we are most plainly taught by the words of the Apostle, who says: 'Wherefore God delivered them up to passions of ignominy,' and again: 'Because they did not think it fit to have God in their knowledge, God delivered them up to a reprobate sense, to do the things that are not fitting,' and the Lord Himself through the prophet:
'And My people did not hear My voice, and Israel did not attend to Me. Wherefore I let them go,' He says, 'according to the devices of their hearts; they shall walk in their own devices.' GERMANUS: This testimony most plainly demonstrates the free will that is spoken of: 'If My people had heard Me,' and elsewhere: 'And My people did not hear My voice.' For when He says 'if it had heard,' He shows that the judgment of either consenting or not consenting lay in its own power. How then is our salvation not to be placed in ourselves, since He has granted us the faculty of either hearing or not hearing? PAPHNUTIUS:
You have indeed considered acutely this which is said, 'If it had heard Me'; but you have by no means attended to who it is that speaks to the one who hears or does not hear, nor to that which follows: 'I would surely have humbled his enemies to nothing, and laid My hand upon those that afflicted him.' Let no one, therefore, distorting by a perverse interpretation these things which we have brought forward to prove that nothing is done without the Lord, try thus to seize them for the defence of free will, so as to attempt to take away from man God's grace and daily provision, by means of that which is said: 'And My people did not hear My voice,' and again:
'If My people had heard Me, if Israel had walked in My ways,' and so forth; but let him consider that, just as the faculty of free will is demonstrated by the people's disobedience, so God's daily provision toward it is shown by Him crying out, as it were, and admonishing. For when He says, 'If My people had heard Me,' He plainly shows that He had spoken to them first. That this is done by the Lord not only through the Law written in letters, but also through daily admonitions, He is wont to show, according to that which is said through Isaiah: 'All the day I have stretched out My hands to a people that does not believe Me and contradicts Me.' Both things, therefore, can be proved by this testimony which says: