Tractates 2 part 6/6

Which things, on the contrary in good works, we have come to know by reading ... he should show that he is not able to do, as the prophet says: who is wise and shall perceive these things, and shall understand and shall know them? for the ways of the Lord are right and the just shall walk in them, but the ungodly shall languish in them. Wherefore you also, clothed with the arms of faith, sanctify your souls unto obedience through the Spirit, and, building yourselves up into the temple of the Lord, apply love, simple in brotherhood, unto the glory of divine affection; for so it is written: all flesh is as grass and all the glory of man as the flower of grass;

the grass is withered and the flower has fallen, but the word of the Lord abides for ever; as the Lord says in the gospel: enter by the narrow gate, for I say to you, many seek to enter in and shall not be able. In which it is not that a narrow entrance is appointed for the saints, but, because all friendship of the world is enmity against God, and human nature is more easily persuaded by delight than by labour, let us understand that, where the will of present things is sought, the promise of the future life is not held. So finally in the gospel the poor man's mite is more pleasing; the resting place of Abraham is called his bosom, and that of Phinehas;

for the unmerciful rich man the fire of Gehenna is found to be his dwelling — not that punishment is absolutely set for the rich, and that despair of returning to the Lord is appointed for the wealthy, but because nothing is established at the beginnings, nor is anyone ascended through what is steep, as the apostle says: charge the rich of this world not to be highminded, nor to hope in the uncertainty of riches, but to be rich in good works; so that, while through alms and a good life we make our way of striving toward the Lord, as it were by steps gradually withdrawn, we may come to the things which are highest.

The narrative of prophetic discourse, steeped in divine words and, like a proposed theme, setting forth the deeds announced in its title, does not utter the mere memory of mortal times—those which, by the connivance of human perception, ever come into being amid chance movements toward some end—as though for the instruction of public opinion. Rather, in recounting the deeds of kingdoms, while one assails another in order to conquer it, it teaches that which is the one and only office of the prophetic work in us: namely, after escaping from those things that are in the world through the desire of a perishing life, to keep our conscience free from all fault amid so many wars of the vices, and thus that God the Father of so great a gift must be acknowledged; so that whoever shall recognize that all which the prophet endured in persecution, and which Christ God conquered in His own passion, was written for our instruction—

may, leaning upon the useful and necessary way of understanding the commandments, take up amid so many unexplored troubles of human life and the measurable battles of this age—unworthy of God—the breastplate of righteousness, the helmet of confidence, the shield of equity, and, as it is written, the two-edged sword of the divine mouth; and, clad in the armor of faith, kindled by the zeal of a burning spirit, with the bonds of this age burst asunder, may render his whole self back to that divine nature from which he set forth, to God, to Christ, of whom he is alike the debtor and the witness of His image—understanding that, amid the walks of divine words, all Scripture is wholly man, since the Gospel word testifies that every account of things has been fulfilled in us, as Paul also says:

"Whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or death or life, all are yours, but you are Christ's, and Christ is God's"; for, living in this age according to those patterns into which we enter—whether by the disposition of a good nature or by the desire of a transgressing life—into the fellowship of those same patterns we are gathered after death, whether unto glory ... And therefore whoever, turned to faith in Christ, shall have come to know the first, the middle, and the last—all things that were done through the Lord and all that are to come thereafter—necessarily separating temporal from eternal, false from true, and parting the perishable from the sure, when he shall have seen himself to be of divine kind, holding for himself one undivided God, exults in those things which are subject neither to a beginning nor to an end;

but everything that holy David did, trusting in God amid the uncertainties of conflicts and the slaughters of wars against the alien peoples, he does not receive as something written merely as a memorial of an age, but rather he recognizes what avails in us—partly by our own fear, partly by the fear of the body—the daily wars of sins and the variety of worldly desires, while we pursue uncertain things in place of sure ones and contend amid things not our own; as David himself says in the Psalms: "Lord, deliver me from my hidden things, and from those of others spare Thy servant; for I acknowledge my iniquity, and my sin is ever against me."

For all things that have either been done or written were therefore so written, that the mind of God, displaying invisible things by means of visible ones, might speak in a discourse most fitting to human understanding; and that every man who desired God—whatever in the choice of a people, of a homeland, of the prophets, in place, time, day, month, in delight or in conflict, he might discern in the Scriptures as acceptable to God—if, disposing himself through those things provided by God, he had advanced toward the apprehension of religious understanding, might recognize that all that is written is written about himself; and, walking in newness of life, whether anything were granted to powers or to kings, might grasp this one thing alone from the prophetic voices: that whatever is friendly to the world is found hostile to Christ, as the Apostle says:

"All friendship with the world is enmity against God," and again: "All the lust of the flesh and the desire of the eyes and the ambition of human life are not of the Father, but are of this world; and the world passes away, and its lust; but the word of the Lord abides forever." For although the weakness of human understanding compels us to seek in the words of prophetic discourse the appearances of earthly things as though they were indications of higher powers—so that, with the familiarity of visible things admonishing us, we may relax the straits of human frailty into unaccustomed meanings, with a religious expectation of learning—nevertheless nature itself teaches us that these are the things which [pertain to conversion].

either fight or domineer in us through the tribulation of terrors or the flattery of prosperous things, so that, building up again the very things we had pulled down, we return to those things we had renounced; for it makes no difference to the devil whether by fear of evils or by the persuasion of prosperous things the occasion and material of sin be furnished to a life estranged from God—except that, in our captivities, the habit of miseries is more tolerable than the ruin of prosperous things, as the prophet says concerning this: "Hear me, O my people; for as your exactors defraud you, so also they who pronounce you blessed lead you astray, that they may confound the paths of your feet."

And therefore holy David introduces the title of a psalm, set down for the instruction of the converted, after the two Syrias had been subdued, into the exultation of one triumphing; so that whoever recognizes the title of the psalm, set down for instruction and for David's thanksgiving when he was saved amid wars, in the understanding of the prophetic discourse, undertaking the work of divine understanding and seeing in himself the wars of his own desires, may spurn the errors of human frailty; and conquering the two Syrias—that is, the two principles of sins, by which it is given, one through the office of the soul, the other through that of the body, to will or to do something worldly—being clad, as it is written, in the armor of faith, may wage the triumph over the vices and may earn the unfading crown of a manner of life dedicated in Christ, as it were by certain wages of victorious warfare; for these things:

is the glory of the perfect good, if, as it is written, the sanctification of the body is cultivated at the price of the will. Finally, since with us nothing finite has limits, and with a step fixed upon the slippery we set no measure to uncertain things, we are taught even by apostolic voices that daily wars of conflicts arise in us, as Paul says to us: "The flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh; these two are in conflict with one another, so that we do not do the things that we will." And because the perception of human understanding and the reasoning of common opinions could not at once be capable of the apostolic discourse and the heavenly counsel, the Apostle Paul, in what follows, showing why, when we sin, the flesh conquered by vices and the ambition of human life lie beneath us, says:

"You have not a wrestling against flesh and blood, but against the principalities and powers of this world, the rulers of these darknesses, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places"; as John also says: "I saw three unclean spirits like three frogs coming forth from the mouth of the false prophet and from the mouth of the beast; and these are the three spirits of demons who go forth to trouble the kings of the earth." And again David himself, showing what fights within us, says: "Lord, I acknowledge my iniquity, and my transgression is ever against me." And the Apostle, speaking of this, says: "Whence wars, whence quarrels among you? Is it not from your own desires, which war in your members?"

so that whoever should desire the work of the divine precepts in himself, conquering in himself all the wars of the vices, should abstain not only from the lusts of the flesh but also of the thoughts, that is, of the spiritual hosts of wickedness; and despising in himself the poisonings of the heathen demons, the man given over to the world should recognize to whom he owes the tributes of sins, to whom the wages of vices, to whom the fears of terrors, to whom the honors of passing dignities; and, having repudiated all those things whose end is death and in which he is rebuked when taught, owing his whole self to God, becoming himself that which the psalm is, should enter into the exultation of the psalm-singing discourse, as David says: "O God, Thou hast cast us off and destroyed us; Thou hast been angry, and hast had mercy upon us."

Yet in this discourse of the psalm, the mind turned to God is carried beyond the perception of natural understanding, and through these things the way of incorrupt blessedness is opened to each one who understands. For it is fitting in this place, in such a discourse of the psalm, against the cunning wiles of the plotting devil, to cry out with the free voice of the man saved in Christ: "Where, O death, is thy sting? Where, O death, is thy victory?"

Behold, God, while He chastens, loves, and instructs by the acknowledgment of sin rather than punishes; and, since no other nature is thine [O devil] except either to force into the evils of sin, or, after one has been struck and taken captive by poison, to drive him on into those things which thou thyself shalt have persuaded—by Christ's teaching we know that, baptized in Christ, when we are pulled down in those things which are alien to God, we are reformed into those things which are proper to us; and that to those sinning unto the end it is a penalty, but to us being converted it is, in conviction, instruction; as David himself says: "Who is like unto Thee, O Lord? For Thou hast shown me tribulations, and turning me, quickening me, Thou hast taught me." And again Isaiah says: "Lord, in the womb we have conceived and brought forth the spirit of salvation which Thou hast given upon the earth."

In this, although we ourselves prove in ourselves what kind of man he ought to be who, living by faith unto a new birth, moderates his understanding toward those things which are worthy of God's substance—nevertheless, in order that the arrangement of the Scriptures might use, for our understanding, examples of deeds as though they were incorrupt testimonies, and, commending the love of God in us, might more easily show the opinions of mortal things warring within us, if it should approve what is said by the forms of words and the parables of things—thus Rebecca, the mother of a happy womb and bringing forth the decrees of the divine promise, displaying the works of the world and of God striving against each other in us, while she impatiently endured the strife of her entrails, burst forth into the prophecy of a free sorrow, saying:

"Why is this thus with me, if it be so?" To her the voice of the Lord replied and taught: "Two peoples are there, and two nations in thy womb." Of which the Apostle Paul also, making it manifest, declares, saying: "I see another law warring in my members against the law of my mind, and leading me captive into the law of sin." And, in order to show, in the two nations and the two peoples, what is the people and nation of God, and what is the people of the vices, He willed the old man to be put off from us with all his deeds and lusts, and us to be reformed into the new, saying:

"As we have borne the image of him who is of clay, let us bear the image of Him who is of heaven"; so that he who should believe himself of divine kind, despising those things which are earthly and following Christ, might consecrate himself unto the heavenly glories. Thus the two testaments, set down unto faith—the one loosing the yoke of servitude, the other dividing out the work of grace—bore the name of the old and the new; so that in both, one man being set, possessing in himself the work of the divine nature and of the earthly flesh—since there is no fellowship of light with darkness, of Christ with Belial—might restrain by the law of discipline that which was of the flesh, and might not deny himself to God, whose image and likeness has appeared in him.

Thus, understand, on the one side a discipline of cursing, on the other a grace of blessings, has been established; so that, although there are diverse mansions with our God, and He wills all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth, yet let none of you be ignorant that between two kingdoms—between the synagogue of Satan and the church of God's commandments, that is, the works of the world and the words of God—lies the conversation of our life; and that which is of God is called ours, but that which is of the world, because it is contrary to God, is therefore found to be alien from us also; and to the latter we renounce, the former we believe.

And so, for those established amid things of this kind, on this side stands the promise of the divine commandments, on that side presses the intention of diabolical temptation; on this side the faith of Christ, on that side the faithlessness of the world urges; on this side peace, patience, long-suffering, gentleness, and the rest that are of this kind; on that side wrath, the sister of avarice, fornication the friend of darkness, ambition ignorant of its own fortune, the more wretched watchfulness of greed for riches, fury unskilled in God, the delight of the belly and the gullet, the glory of shameful things, the desire of the eyes, and the persuasion of diabolical pomp, as though it were simple, in the deception of spectacles.

Into which things, when man is snatched away through diverse ways—the condition of life and death being set before us—we know not the contests of the world and the wars within us for so long as, dwelling in God, refuting alien things, we hold fast the words of the Lord; for if we acknowledge that for which we are rebuked, and conquer those things that are adverse, then necessarily walking in newness, as the text of the psalm shows, having received the wine of compunction, we shun the bow and the darts of the pursuing devil, knowing that we cannot be free from sins unless we be saved by the remission of baptism and by the redemption of the divine cross.

In this part of the psalm-singing discourse, it is fitting for those whom constant faith calls to the pursuit of truth not only to receive it by hearing, but to look into it with the mind: namely, how the psalm accommodates itself to every weakness of our understanding, and, by the arrangement of its discourse, tempering the measure of the prophetic work, smoothing the arduous path of divine understanding as though by a gentler slope, sets it up for an easier ascent; so that, since for those converted to faith it is easier to know the evils of their own sins than to understand the dispensation of the divine nature in themselves, and it is readier for man to refuse sin than to will the divine, thus in the psalm an order most suited to the progress of readers might follow—so that, the knowledge of God being reserved for the course of the psalm (since God is not known except through Himself), first the Lord's rebuke and the acknowledgment of sin might make an entrance for the divine gift; and where man, made a place for his own nature, should recognize what God willed, the discourse of the perceptive narrative might follow, saying:

"God has spoken in His holy one," so that he who had sanctified himself to God might, with the Lord speaking in him, hear God speak in His holy place; and might measure all that human virtue was thought to have done in the histories of the saints by the laws of his own nature, weighing it among the divine professions of the witness held concerning himself; so that the prophetic discourse, speaking once and preaching two things—the exultation of the man saved in Christ and the glory of Christ triumphing in man—bearing as it were a twinned insignia, might lay open for the instruction of our learning; so that, while we come to know the deeds of the saints, we might hold the triumph of a good life by the full dispensation of the things spoken.

For Shechem, whose division is the joy of man and of Christ, is the land of the regions of the alien peoples, where Jacob's daughter, of the chosen man, seized by the occasion of a passing journey, while, captivated by the sights of her eyes, she marvels at alien things, lost both the dignity of the chosen race and the glory of virginity; she, punished in vengeance for the crime committed, is divided and, as a testimony for memory—lest God's people suffer any such thing among alien things—is subjugated. Ephraim and Manasseh are the two sons of holy Joseph, whom, with Egypt subjugated to himself, he merited in the fruitfulness of offspring, as it were unto the fruit of perfected truth. Gilead possessed the firstfruits of these;

from Judah, whence a king is sought, God was born in the flesh; and because, by the perseverance of faith, Ruth the Moabitess merited a divine offspring in conception, Moab is called the tabernacle of hope. Idumea is the land of faithlessness, where the shoe of the divine journey is stretched out. The Allophyli (Philistines), for the deliverance of the Lord's ark, with the idol Dagon vanquished, are subjugated to the divine equipage. Through all which the principle of our doctrine, stretching itself, shows the work of God saving in Christ and the journey of the sanctified man; for Shechem is conquered, and the valleys of the tabernacles are measured, if—we believing in Christ born through a virgin, and that nature of carnal lust which arose as the cause of corruption being conquered—and...

that the body, given back not to fornication but to the Lord, divided by the immortal words of the precepts, may be held worthy of the tabernacles of Christ and of the glories of the resurrection to come.

And thus, the world being conquered as though Egypt subjugated, in Ephraim and Manasseh, who labor, fruit is given; and no other leader is sought except from Judah, since, those being saved by Christ's passion, nothing else is found for leadership except that God willed to come into the flesh; nor is there any other hope for those persevering, except that the encirclement of the world—that is, the land of faithlessness—be conquered, so that, by the shoe of the Lord's feet—that is, the Gospel of peace—being shown, Dagon, the work of the world, may be destroyed, and, the ark of the testament—which we are—being delivered, the alien speech of the Allophyli who persuade alien things may be overcome; so that he who shall have come to know those things which are set in regions, spoken in places, proclaimed in kings, may, by a disciplined work, conquer the places, kingdoms, and regions of the vices in himself; and although he understand what was prophesied concerning God,

yet let him recognize that it is set down for him as a certain pattern of life, since, as those coming into this world from the beginning even unto the end are deceived by united ways of malice, so by united faith and correction we are saved. Holy Father, almighty God, who, forming the temple of Thy manifold grace and the tabernacle of the Church ordained in Thee, stretching out the measures of immeasurable glory, hast taught—with Christ as the author in Thee—that in Thee one [there should be] both the fullness of invisibility, which the Father owes to the Son, and the visibility of acknowledgment, which the Son owes to the Father in the operation of the Holy Spirit; thus setting in Thee the boundary of every defined thing and the receptacle of things infinite, so that for us coming from Thee, the one, Thou mightest open one going-forth, and for us returning to Thee one entrance, into the rising of the Son rising in Thee; and although they tend toward Thy tabernacle from the diverse ways of callings, yet all might enter to Thee by one entrance, that of the working Christ; so that he to whom He should have closed Himself might not have access to Thee, because he had not known the Father of the Son in the Son and the Son of the Father in the Father.

For Thou art God, who, when in all the origins of powers, within and without, both supereminent and internal, both poured around and poured into all things, art believed to be one God—invisible in the Father, visible in the Son, and, united into the work of the two, art found to be the Holy Spirit—because Thou art to Thyself the author of that which Thou art, and showest nothing outside Thyself that might appear more excellent than Thyself; and although our mind, undertaking the work of an inexplicable understanding, is shut up within the error of human weakness, yet it apprehends from the prophetic voices one measure of a religious judgment concerning Thee: namely, that we know Thee thus to be one God in all things, so that we hold no place either of the made thing or of the working that is not in Thee, nor any outside Thee;

and thus, since Thou both possessest and art possessed, Thou art found neither wholly outside in anything, nor not in all things. For in Thee and through Thee is the whole administration of all proceedings: Thou art the Father of souls, Thou the Brother to the sons, Thou the Son to the brothers, Thou the Friend to the elect, Thou the Nearest to those drawing near, Thou the operation of the spirits, Thou the beginning of the archangels, Thou the work of the angels, Thou art the whole empowering of the powers; through Thee are the works of all things arranged; Thou hast distinguished the parts of each several thing, and, joining the elements together among themselves, hast placed the boundaries of a disciplined work, giving in them the spirit of life, so that those things which, though of themselves could do nothing, yet animated by the greatness of the One working, might fulfill the ministry of the service bound to them through Thee.

And after these things, looking upon the earth, Thou broughtest forth the living soul; which, although it was not of its own self, yet, lest the word of the precept be empty—where Thy command was the beginning of those things which were not—by the animation of the precept the earth brought forth that which it itself did not have.

And Thy command became nature in things to be prepared, so that, bringing forth a work from nothing, the first things appeared unformed and darkened, and afterward Thou mightest distribute to insensible things sensibility, to dark things sight, to brute things smell, sound to hard things, and to things hardened, hearing; so that everywhere, with Thee furnishing the matter of things, which the command had brought forth shapeless, the word might dispose it unto the use of Thy work, and, calling each single thing by its own name—if it should be lifted up, the erect things; that the inclined things might slope; that the pressed-down things might be filled; that it might open the level places, and cover the hidden things of the forests—so that to Thee alone all the glory of created things might sing in unison, unto the acknowledgment of Thy knowledge; to whom, although mute things could not confess in speech, yet reason, speaking by the arrangements of things, would not deny the testimony of Thy omnipotence.

... [the text here is fragmentary and uncertain] ... what worthy exchange shall we give to Thee for our souls, holy Father, almighty God? Or what is man, that Thou art mindful of him, or the son of man, that Thou visitest him—except that, having been sent forth into the glory of so great a work, we acknowledge that we are Thy fashioning in the good works which Thou hast prepared, that we should walk in them? And therefore our perception and speech proclaim Thee, because through Thee we have been made indestructible, where [being made] like ...