Etymologies & Works 21 part 3/4

For He also teaches things ineffable, which human speech cannot utter. Before the coming of the Lord, only the prophets and a few righteous ones out of the whole people merited the gift of the Holy Spirit. But after the coming of the Lord, the Holy Spirit was distributed to all believers, according to that which the Lord speaks through the prophet, saying: 'And it shall be in the last days, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh.' For now to all nations the grace of the Holy Spirit has been given, and not among a few as in the people of Israel, but in the whole multitude of believers the grace of the Holy Spirit abides. Sometimes the gifts of the Holy Spirit are conferred upon the unworthy and reprobate, as prophecy was given to Saul and to Balaam.

Whence also many at the end will say to the Lord: 'We have done mighty works in your name.' To whom the Lord will say: 'I know not whence you are.' Not only the holy prophets of the Jewish people awaited the coming of Christ by prophesying, but there were also among the nations very many holy men possessing the gift of prophecy, to whom Christ was revealed through the Holy Spirit and by whom His coming was awaited, such as Job, such as Balaam, who assuredly foretold the coming of Christ. The conversion of the Gentiles was hidden from the old people, but nonetheless it was in the counsel of God that it should come to pass. And then the coming of Christ was secretly foretold by the holy prophets through the Holy Spirit, as the prophet says: 'When the years shall have drawn near, you shall be known;

when the time shall have come, you shall be shown.' Now indeed it is openly revealed which then lay hidden to the carnal, but was known to the spiritual; yet it was not yet manifestly declared, because the time of its showing had not come. XVI. On the Church and Heresies. Twofold is the beauty of the Church: one which she attains here by living well, the other by which she shall there be glorified out of recompense. On account of Christ, twofold tribulations exist for the Church: that is, either those which she endured from the pagans in the martyrs, or those which she suffers from heretics in diverse contendings. But she overcomes both through the grace of God, partly by enduring, partly by resisting.

The holy Catholic Church, just as she patiently tolerates within herself those who live evilly, so she repels from herself those who believe evilly. The holy Church, against the obstinacy of the Gentiles and heretics, most earnestly pursues wisdom and patience; but wisdom is exercised when she is tempted with words, patience is exercised when she is tempted with swords. [For now she is attacked with persecutions, now she is harassed with false assertions.] The Church has been enlarged by the doctrines occasioned by heretical depravity, for before she flourished by a simple faith alone. By the occasion of heretics, therefore, teachers were multiplied in the faith, and through the keenness of heresies the masters of the Church increased. For then the assertion of truth is more clearly manifested, when any dissension has come to light.

The holy Church is therefore called Catholic, in that she is universally diffused throughout the whole world. For the churches of heretics are confined within parts of the world; but this one, spread abroad, is diffused throughout the whole earth, the Apostle Paul bearing witness: 'I give thanks,' he says, 'to God for all, because your faith is announced in the whole world.' Heresies are found to dwell either in some corner of the world or in one nation. But the Catholic Church, as she is extended through the whole world, so also she is constructed of the fellowship of all nations. What are heresies, but those who, having forsaken the Church of God, chose private fellowships? Of whom the Lord says: 'My people has done two evils:

they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and have dug out for themselves broken cisterns which cannot hold water.' The cause of heresy, for what reason it exists, is namely for the exercise of faith. But the force through which it exists is the obscurity of the divine Scriptures, in which the heretics, groping in darkness, understand something other than the matter really is; nor can they exist, because that very thing which heresies are, they already are not. For by perceiving evilly, they do not acquire being; for they tend toward nothing. The heretics learn their lies with enormous zeal, and with vehement labor they strive that they may not come to the unity of the Church. Of whom it is fittingly said through the prophet: 'They have taught their tongue to speak a lie, and they have labored to act wickedly.'

While the heretics in turn tear one another to pieces, when they lead one another into their own sects, yet they so mutually clash together that against the Church they contend with an equal spirit of error, and those who are mutually divided are together as one in their hostility to the Church. To those who, because heresies are of such strength, seem to have the truth, this must be answered: are diseases now therefore to be set forth for salvation, because for the most part they so generally occupy the world that they leave little room for salvation? Heretics cannot have pardon, except through the Catholic Church, just as the friends of Job could not of themselves appease God toward themselves, unless Job had offered sacrifice for them.

The good works which heretics do, and their righteousness, profit them nothing, the Lord testifying through Jeremiah: 'Because you have forgotten me, behold I will announce your righteousness, and your works shall not profit you.' Heretics, although they fulfill the law and the prophets, yet from the fact that they are not Catholics, God is not in their assemblies, the Lord Himself testifying: 'If Moses and Samuel should stand before me, my soul is not toward this people: cast them out from my face, and let them go forth.' By Moses indeed and Samuel understand the law and the prophets, which although the heretics strive to fulfill in deed, yet on account of the impiety of their error they are cast forth from the face of God, and are separated from the assemblies of the righteous.

The pagan and the heretic—the one because he was never with the people of God, the other because he withdrew from the people of God—both, withdrawing from Christ, belong to the body of the devil. Those who pass over from idolatry to Judaism or heresy, according to the prophet, slip from evil to evil, and have not known the Lord, because from the error of unbelief they have passed over into another error. Whosever doctrine anyone follows, of him he is also called son; just as through the prophet the Lord says that the Amorite is the father and the Hittite the mother of Israel—not indeed by being born, but by imitating—so also, in the better sense, they are called sons of God who keep the precepts of God. Whence we too, not by nature but by adoption, cry out to God saying:

'Our Father, who art in heaven.' Not only by nativity, but also by imitation, can any be called sons of someone; for the Jews are called, according to the flesh, sons of Abraham, but according to their manner of life, sons of the devil. And by this, those are the seed of Abraham who imitate his faith, not those who are begotten of his flesh. From the error of an author, both the name and the fault are drawn by some, so that one is reckoned by the name of him whose error he also follows, as is said to the Church of Pergamum in the Apocalypse: 'You have those who hold the doctrine of Balaam and of Jezebel.' Thyatira, therefore, is said to have the doctrine of Balaam on account of imitation, not on account of bodily presence. XVII. On the Gentiles.

The philosophers of the Gentiles, not seeking God as they ought, fell in with transgressor angels, and the devil became for them a mediator unto death, just as Christ for us unto life. The philosophers of the world are much praised for measuring times and the course of the stars, and for examining the elements, and yet they had this from none but God. For flying proudly aloft like birds, they described the air; and diving into the depths like fish, the sea; and walking like cattle, the earth. Yet with the whole mind they were unwilling to understand their Author. Why can the brute animals not be questioned? Because they do not know how to reason;

therefore the Gentile men are not unlike the animals, who, not considering such things and loving these things the more, have vanished away even to the worship of them. Christ is the Way. If anyone does not walk in it, there is no way for him to come to God. The philosophers of the world assuredly knew God, but because the humility of Christ displeased them, they crossed over into a trackless place, and not into the way. And therefore, becoming vain, they changed the glory of God into a lie, and forsaking the straightness of the way, they fell into the windings of errors. First, it is for each to know what he seeks, and second, that he may grasp what he seeks. For it is an imperfect wisdom to know whither you are to tend, and not to know the road by which it is expedient to go.

For what does it profit if someone, in a time of famine, sees a land of plenty, and yet is ignorant of the way by which he may go to it? Behold, everyone seeks his homeland, but has lost the way; he walks by wandering, not by advancing, and the more he walks, the more he is distanced from what he seeks. He who deserts the royal way—that is, Christ—even if he sees the truth, he sees it from afar, because, except through the way, there is no manner in which he may draw near to it. But if, walking through the desert, he runs into a lion, let him blame himself, when he has stuck fast in the jaws of the devil. XVIII. On the Law. Likewise, the way by which one goes to Christ is the law, through which those go to God who, as it is, understand Him.

The loftiness of the holy Scriptures is like mountains of pasture, to which, when any of the righteous ascends, he rejoices to have found the refreshment of unfailing pasture. In the holy Scriptures, as on lofty mountains, both perfect men have the heights of understanding, to which they raise the steps of contemplation like stags, and the simple, like small animals, find modest understandings, to which they, being lowly, take refuge. Sacred Scripture, to the weak and those of little sense, according to the letter, seems lowly in its words; but with more excellent men it advances higher, while it lays open to them its mysteries, and by this it remains common to both the little ones and the perfect.

Sacred Scripture is varied according to the understanding of each reader, just as the manna, which gave to the old people a varied savor according to the delight of each; for according to the capacity of the senses the Lord's word suits each, and although it is diverse according to each one's understanding, yet in itself it remains one. Therefore in the holy books some things are found obscure, some open, so that the understanding and zeal of the reader may be increased. For if all things lay open, being at once understood they would grow cheap. Again, if all things existed closed, they would forthwith beget diffidence. Lest, therefore, despair arise concerning the obscure things, those which are manifest give satisfaction; and lest weariness arise concerning the things understood, those which are closed excite desire.

For many things, the more deeply they lie hidden, the more they afford exercise to the mind. In the sacred Scriptures, things that are yet to come are often recounted as though already done, as in that saying: 'They gave me gall for my food, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.' But why are things future written as though past, unless because those things that are still to be accomplished in deed have already been accomplished in the divine predestination? To us, then, those things happen in time which are foreseen by the Creator of all things without time. For this reason prophecy mingles the deeds of things to come with present matters, so that those future things may be believed even as these present ones are seen to be fulfilled.

For in its own manner Scripture speaks of things to come through things present, as under the person of Jerusalem it speaks of the Church, and as under the person of Ephraim it speaks of heretics. For divine works words are very often set down, because God works not by the labor of hands but by the command of speech, as it is written: 'He spoke, and they were made; he commanded, and they were created.' That in the holy Scriptures one and the same sentence is twice repeated is either for the sake of confirmation or of mystery, as law and grace, as beginning and perfection, as good and better. The divine law is distinguished into three parts, that is, into history, into precepts, and into prophecies.

History is in those things which have been done, precepts in those which are commanded, prophecy in those which are pronounced as things to come. The divine law is to be understood in a threefold manner: first that it be grasped historically, second tropologically, third mystically. Historically indeed according to the letter, tropologically according to moral knowledge, mystically according to spiritual understanding. Therefore we ought so to hold the faith of the history that we must both interpret it morally and understand it spiritually. Three and seven, the precepts are ten; but three pertain to the love of God, seven to men. Those three which pertain to God were written on one tablet; the remaining seven on a second.

On the first tablet of the three commandments, this is the first: 'You shall love the Lord your God.' On the second: 'Honor your father and your mother.' Hence it is that the Savior also, when the scribe asked which was the first commandment in the law, said: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one God; this is the first.' But the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' For he named one precept from the first tablet, which pertains to the love of God; but the other from the other tablet, which pertains to the love of man. Concerning the seven rules of the law. Certain wise men have said that among the other rules of the utterances of the holy Scriptures there are seven. The first rule is concerning the Lord and his body.

That which speaks of one or to one, and in one person, shows now the head, now the body, as Isaiah says: 'He has clothed me with the garment of salvation, as a bridegroom decked with a crown, and as a bride adorned with her jewels.' For in one person named by a twofold title he made manifest both the head, that is the bridegroom, and the Church, that is the bride. Accordingly it is to be noted in the Scriptures when the head alone is written of, when both head and body, or when he passes from either to both, or from one to the other; and thus let the prudent reader understand what befits the head and what befits the body. The second rule is concerning the true and the mixed body of the Lord: for certain things seem to befit one person which nevertheless are not of one.

As is that saying: 'You are my servant, Israel; behold, I have blotted out your iniquities like a cloud, and your sins like a mist. Return to me, and I will redeem you.' This does not agree with one and the same, for there is one part whose sins he has blotted out and to whom he says, 'You are mine,' and another to whom he says, 'Return to me, and I will redeem you' — who, if they turn back, have their sins blotted out. For by this rule Scripture speaks to all in such a way that both the good are rebuked along with the wicked, and the wicked are praised on account of the good; but what pertains to whom, he who reads prudently will learn. The third rule is concerning the letter and the spirit, that is, concerning the law and grace: the law by which we are admonished to do the precepts, grace by which we are helped to carry them out.

Or that the law is to be understood not only historically but also spiritually. For we ought both to hold the faith of the history and to understand the law spiritually. The fourth rule is concerning species and genus, by which a part is taken for the whole and the whole for the part, as when God speaks to one people or one city, and yet it is understood to touch the whole world. As in the Psalms: 'And the daughters of Tyre,' he says, 'will worship him with gifts.' The daughters of Tyre, the daughters of the nations, from species to genus; for by Tyre, then a neighbor to that land where the prophecy arose, he signified all the nations that would believe in Christ. Whence it well follows: 'All the rich of the earth will entreat your countenance.'

So also through the prophet Isaiah, when the Lord threatens against the Assyrian, saying: 'I will crush the Assyrian in my land, and on my mountains I will trample him,' and 'Babylon, that glorious one, renowned among kingdoms, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.' For although through the prophet Isaiah the Lord threatens against a single city, Babylon, yet while he speaks against it, he passes from species to genus, and turns his discourse against the whole world. Certainly, if he were not speaking against the entire globe, he would not add below in a general way: 'And I will destroy the whole earth,' and 'I will visit upon the world its evils,' and the rest that follow pertaining to the destruction of the world. Whence he also says:

'This is the counsel which I have purposed upon the whole earth, and this is the hand stretched out over all the nations.' Likewise, after under the person of Babylon he has reproved the whole world, saying: 'And I will destroy,' he says, 'the whole earth, and I will visit evils upon the cities,' and the rest that follow pertaining to the destruction of the world — again he returns to the same city, as it were from genus to species, saying the things that specifically befell that city: 'Behold, I will stir up against them the Medes.' For when Belshazzar reigned, Babylon was captured by the Medes. So also in the burden of Egypt, under the person of the same he wishes the whole world to be understood, by saying:

'And I will make the Egyptians run against the Egyptians, kingdom against kingdom' — although Egypt is written to have had not many kingdoms but one kingdom. The fifth rule is concerning times, by which either the greater part of a time is introduced by the lesser part, or the least part of a time is understood by the greater. As with the three days of the Lord's burial, when he lay in the sepulcher for neither three full days and nights, yet nevertheless the whole three-day span is reckoned from a part. Likewise a part from the whole, as is that saying: 'And the days of the life of man shall be a hundred and twenty years,' though only a hundred are found up to the flood, from the time these things were decreed by the Lord.

Or as that which God had foretold, that the children of Israel would serve in Egypt for four hundred years and thus go forth from there. Yet they did not serve for four hundred years, because, while Joseph held dominion, they had dominion over Egypt; and again the whole is set down from a part, because they did not go forth immediately after four hundred years, as had been promised, but after four hundred and thirty were completed they departed from Egypt. There is also that figure concerning times by which certain things which are to come are recounted as though already done, as is that saying: 'They pierced my hands and my feet, they numbered all my bones, and they divided my garments among themselves,' and things like these, in which future things are spoken of as if they were already accomplished.

But why are things that were still to be done recounted as already done? Because those things which are still future to us have already been done in God's eternity. Wherefore, when something is proclaimed as still to be done, it is said according to us. But when things that are future are said to be already done, they are to be received according to God's eternity, with whom all things that are to come are already done. The sixth rule is concerning recapitulation. For recapitulation is when Scripture returns to that whose narration had already passed by. As, when Scripture had commemorated the sons of the sons of Noah, it said that they were in their tongues and their nations; and yet afterward, as though this too followed in this order of times:

'And the whole earth,' it says, 'was of one lip, and all had one speech.' How then were they according to their nations and according to their tongues, if there was one tongue for all, unless because the narration returned by way of recapitulation to that which had already passed? For recapitulation is when the causes of things past are mingled with deeds to come. As in Genesis, when it says that man was made on the sixth day, it again recapitulates his forming, saying: 'The Lord God formed man in his own image.' And likewise, where, when all the works had been completed and it says that God rested on the seventh day, it adds by way of recapitulation:

'These are the generations of the heavens and the earth, when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made heaven and earth, and every shrub of the field before it sprang up upon the earth; for the Lord God had not yet rained upon the earth, and there was no man to till the ground, but a spring rose up from the earth, watering the whole surface of the earth.' All these things are woven, by way of recapitulation, into the series of the narration among things to come, although these too are seen to have been accomplished within the six days. The seventh rule is concerning the devil and his body, by which often things are said to his head which rather befit his body; but often things seem to be said of his members which fit none but the head.

As in Isaiah, where, when the prophetic word had said many things against Babylon, that is against the devil's body, it again turns the oracle's sentence back to the head, that is to the devil, saying: 'How have you fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, who rose in the morning?' and the rest. For from the name of the body the head is understood, as is that saying in the Gospel about the tares mingled with the wheat, when the Lord says: 'An enemy has done this,' calling the devil himself a 'man' and by the name of the body designating the head. Likewise, by the name of the head the body is signified, as is said in the Gospel: 'I chose you twelve, but one of you is a devil,' surely indicating Judas, because he was the body of the devil.

For the apostate angel is the head of all the wicked, and the body of this head are all the wicked. And he is so united with his members that often what is said to his body is rather to be referred to him; and again what is said to him is transferred to his members. Concerning the difference of the Testaments. Some for this reason do not receive the Old Testament, because one thing is done in the ancient time and another in the new, not understanding that God, by a certain great dispensation, granted to each time what was fitting to it, as in the law he commands marriages, in the Gospel virginity; in the law that eye be taken for eye, in the Gospel that the other cheek be offered to the striker. But those things were for a time to a frail people, these to a perfect one.

Yet in both, each was suited to its time as fitting; and on account of this change God is not to be believed changeable, but rather from this he is to be proclaimed all the more admirable, because, remaining unchangeable, he granted with great dispensation what was expedient for each time, as we have said. Under the Old Testament sins were of lesser fault, because in it there was present not truth itself but the shadow of truth. For in the New Testament, by loftier precepts, certain things made manifest, which among that people had served as shadows of the truth, are commanded to be forsaken by us. For there fornication and the requital of injury were permitted, and did no harm; but in the New Testament they are condemned with grave chastisement if they be committed.

On the Creed and the Lord's Prayer. The symbol of faith and the Lord's Prayer suffice for the little ones of the Church to lay hold of the kingdom of heaven in place of the whole law. For all the breadth of the Scriptures is comprised in that same Lord's Prayer and in the brevity of the Creed. Whence also the prophet Isaiah says: 'I have heard an abridgment from the Lord God of hosts over the whole earth. Attend and hear my utterance.' But this abridgment is understood either of that which the Lord says, that the whole law and the prophets hang upon the two precepts of the love of God and of neighbor, or on account of the Lord's Prayer itself or the brevity of the Creed, in which, as has been said, all the breadth of the Scriptures is confined. On Baptism and Communion.

That the Catholic Church alone has baptism unto salvation, the prophet Zechariah testifies: 'In that day,' he says, 'there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to those dwelling in Jerusalem, for the washing of the sinner and of the unclean woman.' For the house of David and Jerusalem is the Church of Christ, in which abides the fountain for the washing away of sins. But heretics do this only by an imaginary display, and therefore to them baptism is given not for the remission of sins but as a testimony of punishment. For original guilt alone the newly born infants pay penalties in hell, if they have not been renewed through the laver. Accordingly the infant newly born is condemned with cause if it is not regenerated, because it perishes by the guilt of its origin.

Why are the little ones, who lack original sin through baptism and do not yet have their own transgression, torn by beasts and other punishments? This then is the reason: baptism frees from eternal punishment, not from the chastisement of the present life; for if men were freed from present punishment through baptism, they would think that this present freedom was the reward of baptism, not that eternal one. Therefore, the guilt of sin being loosed, there yet remains a certain temporal punishment, so that that life may be sought more ardently which will be free from all punishments. No one of the faithful denies that even after baptism, by which sins are blotted out, we ought daily, as long as we are in this world, to be converted to God.

Which, although it must be done daily without intermission, yet it will never suffice to have done it. Those who are in their mothers' wombs cannot for this reason be baptized together with the mother, because he who has not yet been born according to Adam cannot be reborn according to Christ; for regeneration cannot be spoken of concerning one whom generation has not preceded. Of those who within the Church live not according to the dignity of the Church, but destroy by their works the faith which they hold in word, it is read: 'They are multiplied above number' — that you may understand, in the kingdom of the predestined. Those who live wickedly in the Church and do not cease to communicate, thinking themselves to be cleansed by such communion, let them learn that it profits nothing to their cleansing, since the prophet says: