Latin original · 27 verses · some words can be tapped for a gloss · long chapter, split into parts; this part covers 284:114–284:140 (140 verses in all)
For if we compare these robes to the appearance of our garments, let us also inquire after some others, lest in storing these away they should be in want. But this is ridiculous, which straightway occurs, because it departs from the true and necessary interpretation. Concerning the delay of vengeance a complaint arose. Unto the end of the times, that is, of ours—for upon us the ends of the ages have come—that the delay may be believed; to wash this away, the souls are clothed with robes, lest they be thought altogether naked without a greater protection. For the account of souls despoiled of the body is one thing, that of men still living in the flesh is another. For us the fleeces of sheep, and the work of woman, procure garments; for them their merits make the raiment.
When, therefore, after the complaint of the martyrs, the souls are wrapped in robes, they are gifted with a divine protection, with which that vessel of election too desired to be over-clothed; which garment when Adam had lost, he was found naked even in paradise. In fine, the operation indicates what we ought to understand by the robes. If we believe the martyrs asked for vengeance, then we believe that for the meanwhile they received something unto consolation. If, on account of the robes, as though certain largesses of garments, the complaint was quieted: for whom did not these first gifts too merit?
But since, as I have said, the varieties of virtues, with which the illustrious souls are divinely fortified, are designated in the robes, therefore after the second munificence, according to the form of their petition, let them show what they seem to have obtained against those persecutors who dwell on the earth, and what they shall yet have hereafter: while by an equal persecution they slay their fellow-servants, until the foreordained number of witnesses is filled. Here too this is not to be received idly, that between the two times of persecutions this voice of the martyrs went before, so as to designate that those blaspheme who marvel that they have in our time obtained something new. For while we see that persecutions were cruel, and believe that they are to come:
this middle time, therefore, in which the martyrs who went before are recompensed, is this time of ours. And therefore now they work, not out of the merit which they had always had, but out of the virtue which they have lately obtained. CHAP. XV.—Perhaps it may move someone, what it is that they are bidden to wait, if now the virtue about to bring judgment upon the demons has burst forth unto the maturity of their punishment—they are admonished to await the resurrection. But this glory had been promised to them also in the songs of David, in these words: 'They shall rejoice in their beds' (Ps. 149). While they are buried, surely, they shall rejoice. He put 'beds' for 'sepulchres,' from which they are also to rise again, when they shall have been roused by the voice of the archangel and the trumpet of God (1 Thess. 4). 'Beds,' therefore, they are truly called,
in which they now rest. Although they shall rejoice in their beds, this was first to be in the future, namely when they should rise from their sepulchres. Which is so far fulfilled, that we see them without doubt rejoice in their beds. For what other such gratulation could enter their souls, than when before those very beds—that is, as we have said, the sepulchres of the saints—their own enemies, whom they once believed they had slain, now profess that they both live and avenge themselves, and that not without the bitterness of torments? This is what these robes—which a special largesse repeated—conferred upon them; through them both those who were not named are implored, and those who were not known are celebrated, and those who were not seen appear. These robes, that we may make an end.
Until now they did not have these things, but now they have begun to have them. Under this figure that woman is praised in Solomon who makes double garments for her husband: one in the patience of suffering, the other in the strength of vindication. Thus it is holy and pious for us to read; otherwise we ought not even to speak, lest either our unbelief or our ignorance sink down into the darkness of heathenism through blasphemous disputation, since prophecy went before precisely for this end, that it might bring light to the things that were to come. Now it remains that we believe those things to have been done by divine power which we have proved to be both foretold, and not so much foretold as also asked for.
But if these things were also asked for, and granted to none other than those who asked, what wonder is it if they do not conceal that they received beforehand either what they had prayed for or what they rejoice in? They exact punishments from those who dwell upon the earth: those whom accusation seizes, these does their power assail. For they themselves dwell upon the earth who possess the minds of men that possess earthly things; and when the martyrs demand these for torment, they intercede even on behalf of those whom they had possessed. Finally, they so deal with their very objects of desire as to shut them out from their earthly dwelling, that is, from the earthly men they had beset. Or do they complain that demons are tormented, and do we favour our enemies?
The martyrs rise up against them with an almost jealous indignation, and lament that these are endured for so vast a stretch of ages; and we too feign to marvel what this may be, as though they ought not, even in our own time, to pay what they deserve from Adam onward. But that this miracle should seem first to have arisen at Milan, or to have been granted to the good Ambrose—who does not see that our faith was thereby confirmed by divine testimonies against the perfidy of the Arians?
For when in Italy the catholic faith had endured intolerable tyranny under Auxentius, at last, the Lord granting the old liberty—even though already at that time when, as foretold, Ambrose was set in his place, it drew breath again—yet to this very man, for the confounding of his adversaries and, namely, for our hope, all the glory of the heavenly ones, and all the martyrs likewise, gave their consent; for although they had long since had a time of appearing, they were seeking a man to whom they might reveal themselves—him assuredly to whom they might be disclosed under that faith which had made them martyrs. Thus it was granted to Ambrose what was denied to Auxentius, since the very things that Auxentius blasphemed, Ambrose proclaimed. But since this power of the martyrs was to pass through all the provinces (for it is to all, not to Am-…
…brose alone that it must be given, without respect of persons), nevertheless it necessarily went forth first in Italy, over which Arian unbelief had held sway. For signs are given not to believers but to unbelievers (1 Cor. 14). For those who demand a sign from the Lord are unbelievers: the scribes demand, the Pharisees demand; the apostles are silent, and believe, and follow. And therefore it is not to be wondered at that the divine power works through the tombs of the saints, since the heretical mind could not be cured even by its own remedies, that it might at length follow the bishop with whom the martyrs themselves, by the very revelation of their powers, had deigned to be in communion. CHAP. XVI.
—Now let us return to the meditation of the perfect man, out of which this heap grew before its measure was filled up. Behold, this disputation is of those very meditations of which David says: For blessed is he who shall meditate in the law of the Lord day and night (Ps. 1). And truly it is difficult for one who has entered the forest of the law to separate out the material of individual questions, since one so touches another—by certain little branches, as it were—in the fellowship of instruction, that what is begun cannot be unfolded without the beginning of another. Behold, how beautiful it is to know this man of ours: not only not to be astounded at such things, when other matters, as though certain chance occurrences, do not move him, but to distinguish the kinds of operations.
And because the demons themselves also work, it is his to understand the natures of things—which are true, which false; to have known is not to be deceived, not to err, not to assign to the enemy what is God's, nor to adjudge to God what is the demons'; to know the times, to recognize the signs, to have the will of the Lord made known to him; and to venerate some of God's marvels with thanksgiving, and to shun others with fitting execration. Such a man even men of the world have praised, Virgil saying: Happy is he who could know the causes of things. A fine sentiment, if he had come to it by his own path, so that it might appear he was ignorant of what he praises: having omitted the first things, he celebrated the second. For by a preposterous order he even overturned the office of the wise man:
since it is not the causes of things, but the Creator of things, who must be sought—through whom, if we have learned Him, we shall enter into the causes of things. But with Him omitted, how shall we be able to have the causes of things known to us, when He who first made these things, and then to what end He made them, must be sought out? But when the Author of things is found, we shall find also the causes of things. This the man saw so little that, in the very passage where he proclaimed him who could recognize the causes of things to hold the principal place, in what he adds—since he had adored the gods as though performing a lesser work—he lets anyone recognize that they were not the creators of things, from whom the knowledge of things is distinguished as, so to speak, alien; nor ought they to be worshipped, if they cannot furnish these things which are praised as the first.
But they do not know those things of which they were not the makers. Finally, having stripped even the invention of those things from their gods, they assign it to human genius—namely, to those who excel in wisdom, in that they do not worship idols—so that now man is more powerful than their gods, if by loftier reflection he has arrived at these things which their gods are ignorant of. And he has enjoined that gods be worshipped by those who, being full of folly, cannot find out the causes of things, and whose breast, to use his very words, cold blood shuts in. Yet still our man both knows that to worship God is the principal wisdom, and has the causes of things ascertained; he does not seek to excel by the Syracusan reasoning of a worldling sage, but by the teaching of Him whom he worships, whom he sought out before the causes of things:
since the Founder of things goes before the things themselves—He who admonished him at what times what things were to come, whose disposition no one knew apart from Him who disposed it, since no one knows the things of God save the Spirit of God. But we, as the Apostle says, have not received the spirit of this world, but the Spirit that is of God (1 Cor. 2); and therefore we are skilled in the things that are His, taught not by the words of human wisdom, but by the Spirit of God and by His bounty poured out upon us. This is that folly of worldly men; this is the wisdom of the called: to consider always in the heart, What shall I render to the Lord for all the things that He hath rendered to me? (Ps. 116). To have Him always in the mouth, since He is the Word; to hunger after Him, since He is the Bread.
By His Spirit even to go out of the mind as though drunk, since it is the cup of the New Testament, and wine from the vine which He had before brought over out of Egypt—which vine is the people Israel, or their fathers, from whom the Lord Jesus Christ proceeded according to the flesh. To speak of Him at all times, since His Spirit has conveyed new tongues to us. But what are these new tongues, if not these: to be in the world, and to hold no discourse about the world; to speak to the people in other tongues than the people has been wont to speak among itself? Moreover, this too is to speak in other tongues: to confess God as one, from one who was accustomed to confess many gods; and in our faith to speak and profess Him as one in new tongues, and to believe the Trinity.
To love Him also, because He intercedes for us; to fear Him, because the Father hath given all judgment to the Son; to adore Him at every moment; to ask of Him the things needful for us and pleasing to Himself—He who wills to be asked through Himself, so far that He shows the very words to the one asking; He who, and this is new among us, alone loves those who ask Him. He also who, and this is marvellous, is angry only if He be not asked. For it is unbelief to have presumed nothing of God. He believes Him able to do nothing, who does not ask for what he judges Him able to do.
This is that, most beloved son, the narrow way; this is that eye of the needle through which the laden do not enter, nor beasts assigned their burdens. Since the entrance is narrow and tiny, it not only does not admit these shapeless beasts of burden with their loads, but even frustrates the very gaze of our eyes, if it be distracted in manifold ways. Whence the Lord too says through the prophet: Be still and see (Ps. 46); and when will it be that one can enter into what, through the occupations of the world, has not even begun to be found? CHAP. XVII.—We have filled up the questions proposed with their divisions, by showing forth the outer man and the inner, when we showed what the holy life is, and in what act it is set, by what zeal it is held, by what substance it is…
…sustained, we have shown; and its whole course, briefly—though rather by leaps, if it may be so said, than by steps, on account of our haste—we have carried through even to the end. But why it may not be esteemed even by the men of this world, receive the reason, since my verbosity delights you, which you judge too negligently while you attend more zealously to divine things. When he who first brought into us the seed of death had subjugated this world—that is, the suffering of man—to himself, man being overcome, and had taken the kingdom of that world, its king already captured, under his own feet and dominion, and was using all the things that are in the world as though they were his own private possessions and the spoils of his victory:
lest at any time man should seek his lost wisdom, or the testament of life owed to him, he so infected all things with the juices of his craft, that he both clothed folly with the colour of wisdom, and overshadowed death with the allurements of a counterfeit life, so that men might not flee evils, seeing they did not discern the better things set over against them. Finally, from that time the human race goes about everywhere thus; folly is held for wisdom, the Psalmist saying: For the sinner is praised in the desires of his soul, and the wicked is blessed (Ps. 10). Then that is thought to be life which is death, and evils deceive under the appearance of good, since, to the fraud of the understanding, the semblance of all good things cloaks vice. For riches, which will not follow after the death of man, are loved.
The honour of high office, which fades away through a successor, is coveted; to have done injury is counted virtue; to possess what belongs to another is power; to circumvent the innocent is shrewdness; not to savour of Christ is wisdom; to shudder at a prophet is eloquence: thus all things are full of errors, thus by an inborn darkness the world is enwrapped through the minds of men, one attacking another, and to such a point is truth obscured, that to have lain in the bosom of death is called blessedness. When that God, ever mindful of us and our affairs, saw through the wisdom of the world—by which the world, its own trifler, had found itself falsifiers—that His own wisdom had been forsaken:
it pleased Him also, on the contrary, against the cunning of that old schemer, to make use of His wisdom concerning innumerable vices, and to veil the height of knowledge—which none will be able to search out as it is—and His own wisdom, with folly, and to hide His own life with a certain obscurity of death, so that he might not be able to attain to wisdom who in this world had fled the reputation of folly, and might not approach to His life who had not held death in contempt. For thus He sent His Son our Saviour into man—that is, He clothed His Wisdom with flesh, which is foolishness; He made His Way to suffer the cross, which is death.
Thus He destroyed adverse things by adverse, and by operations unlike those of the ages before, He shattered the engines of that crafty artificer's ingenuity, so that by certain salutary footprints, though impressed, the death-dealing brands of that one might be blotted out. But this pursuit, unless we shall desire it—because that which is foolish of God is wiser than men (1 Cor. 1)—we shall not hold fast His wisdom. And this death, which is the cross, unless we shall love it—because that which is weak of God is stronger than men—we shall not be able to enter into His life. What then follows, save that, forsaking both the wisdom and the life of the world, we both suffer ourselves to be held as fools, and ever wish to die with the Lord?
…that in the hope of His coming, which will be the revelation of both things, we may deserve to have some part. For then, when all the veils are rent, each and every thing shall be discerned as it truly is: that is, worldly folly, stripped of the wrappings of false wisdom, shall be set forth; and death, uncovered of the veil of counterfeit blessedness—its mouth ever gaping and its throat open into the deep—shall come forth as the enemy of things vital. Then too the heavenly wisdom, which is worldly-wise called folly, having interposed the height of the knowledge of God, shall enter without the labour of any lucubration, and true life, obscured by no darkness of death, shall shine, through our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom is honour unto the ages of ages. Amen. CHAP. XVIII.
—You see, O son, with what sickness the soul of one under suspicion labours, who does not consider these things. I have applied soothing remedies to the little body, whereas, if I neglected it, the soul would be the stronger—the soul which is weakened when the outer man is fortified. But may your frequented prayers heal this soul which I have said is corrupted by the disease of folly—you whose soul, unstained by the crimes of the world, is able to succour others. For the sick man cannot apply a cure of his own health to those pierced through by illness, and one gasping cannot heal the depth of another's wounds. Only he who is sound will heal the infirm; the sighted does not lead the blind through precipices. Do you therefore, as one wise, supplicate the Lord, that what I have not been wise in, I may be wise in; and by your intercessions, as by certain remedies, cause me to be healed.
Let someone reproach me that I have proceeded into a delightful disputation of lofty matters, so that I might not have a repentance proportioned to my deserts, or that, unworthy, I have suddenly ascended the narrow chair of Moses as a disputant of such things. But truly I have done this out of love for you, not by any usurpation of my own. For I had read the saying to the sinner, that he should not dare to declare the justices of the Lord through his own mouth. But if, against the prohibition, I have presumed for the sake of my love for you, in that your grace will deign to make compensation: that you not so easily bring to publication these little letters, which are not fully corrected (as appears from the very characters in which they are traced); and even if I could not be modest on my own behalf as I ought, let at least your modesty spare my bashfulness.
And because they have from me the fact that they are badly written, let them have from you the fact that they be kept hidden. Farewell, and love us in the Lord, in whom you are loved by us.