Sermons & Tracts 6 part 11/11

Nor would anyone, even the most demented, say that these things are to be understood as fictitiously or figuratively deceiving; since they were spoken by those who narrated the deeds done, as they remembered them. Just as these things, therefore, testify that He had a body, so they indicate that He had a soul by those affections which cannot exist except in a soul: which we nonetheless read, as the same Evangelists narrate them. And Jesus marvelled (Matth. VIII, 10), and was angry (Mark III, 5), and was made sorrowful (Mark III, 5), and rejoiced (John XI, 15), and many innumerable such things. Just as also those things which are joined show the offices both of the body and of the soul: such as that He hungered (Matth. IV, 2), that He slept (Matth. VIII, 24), that wearied from the journey He sat (John IV, 6),

And other things of this kind. For they cannot say that the anger of God and gladness, and some motions of this kind, are also spoken of in the ancient Books, and that it does not therefore follow that God must be believed to have had a soul. For those things were said by prophetic imaginations, not by narrative manifestation. For members of God are also spoken of—hands, and feet, and eyes, and face, and the like: and just as these do not indicate that He has a body, so neither do those a soul. But just as it is something narrated when the hands of Christ and His head are named, and the rest which indicate His body; so also those things which, in the same tenor of narration, are named concerning the affections of the soul, indicate His soul.

But it is foolish to believe the Evangelist narrating that He ate, and not to believe him that He hungered. For even if it does not follow that everyone who eats hungers—for we read that an angel ate (Gen. XVIII, 8), but we do not read that he hungered: nor that everyone who hungers eats, if he either restrains himself by some duty, or lacks food and the means of eating—yet the same Evangelist narrates both (Matth. IV, 2 and IV, 11), both are to be believed; because the indicator of the deeds done thus wrote down both as things that were to be done and done. And just as, because He ate, it cannot be understood without a body; so, because He hungered, it could not come to pass without a soul. 4.

Nor does that empty and inept calumny frighten us, with which they, enviously resisting, say: Therefore He was placed under necessity, if He had these affections of the mind truly. For we easily answer: Therefore He was placed under necessity, because He was seized, scourged, crucified and died: so that at last, without obstinacy, if they will, they may understand that He thus took up the passions of the mind, that is, the affections, by the will of the dispensation, yet truly, as it pleased Him, in the same way that He took up the passions of the body by the same will of the dispensation, without any necessity. Just as we die not by our will, so also we are born not by our will:

But He exhibited both by His will, as was fitting, and yet exhibited them most truly. Just as, therefore, no one tears us or them away, under the name of necessity, from faith in the most true passion through which His body is shown; so neither does anyone by that very name of necessity deter us from faith in the most true affection, through which we acknowledge His soul; nor ought it to deter them from consenting to the Catholic faith, if only that ruinous shame of changing an opinion—an opinion false, yet long and rashly defended—does not deter them. LXXXI. On Quadragesima and Quinquagesima. 1. The whole discipline of wisdom, which pertains to the instructing of men, is to distinguish the Creator and the creature, and to worship Him as ruling, and to confess this as subject.

Now the Creator is God, from whom are all things, through whom are all things, in whom are all things (Rom. XI, 36), and therefore the Trinity, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. But the creature is partly invisible, as the soul; partly visible, as the body. To the invisible the number three is attributed; wherefore we are commanded to love God threefold, with the whole heart, with the whole soul, and with the whole mind (Matth. XXII, 37): to the body the number four, because of its most evident nature, that is, hot and cold, moist and dry. To the whole creation, therefore, the number seven is attributed. Wherefore every discipline distinguishing and discerning the Creator and the creature is intimated by the number ten:

Which discipline, so long as it is temporally signified by bodily motions, consists in believing, and by the authority of past things coming and passing away nourishes the little ones as though with milk; that it may make them fit for the contemplation which does not come and pass away, but ever remains: in which contemplation each one, if he has remained in faith concerning the things divinely narrated to him as done temporally for the salvation of men, or things to be done which are still foretold as future, and has hoped for the things promised, and with untiring charity has taken care to fulfil what the divine authority enjoins, will rightly conduct the life of this necessity and time, which is commended by the number forty.

Since the number ten, which intimates the whole discipline, multiplied four times—that is, multiplied by the number which is attributed to the body, because through the motion of the body the administration is carried on, by which we said the faith consists—makes up the number forty. Thus it obtains also a stable wisdom needing no time, which is commended by the number ten, so that to forty are added ten; because the equal parts of the number forty, added together, arrive at fifty. Now the number forty has equal parts: first forty in units, then twenty in twos, ten in fours, eight in fives, five in eights, four in tens, two in twenties.

One, therefore, and two and four and five and eight and ten and twenty, added together, make fifty. Wherefore, just as the number forty, its equal parts being computed, produces something more than ten, so that it becomes fifty: so the time of faith in the things done and to be done for our salvation, being conducted with equity of life, obtains the understanding of stable wisdom; so that the discipline may be strengthened not only by believing, but also by understanding. 2. And therefore the Church which now is, although we are the sons of God, yet before it appears what we shall be, acts amid labours and afflictions, and in it the just lives by faith (Rom. I, 17). For unless you believe, He says, you shall not understand (Isa. VII, 9).

And this is the time in which we groan and grieve, awaiting the redemption of our body (Rom. VIII, 23), which is celebrated as Quadragesima (Lent). But we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is (1 John III, 2): when the ten shall be added to the forty, so that we may deserve not only to believe the things that pertain to faith, but also to understand the manifest truth. Such a Church, in which there will be no mourning, no admixture of evil men, no iniquity, but joy and peace and gladness, is prefigured by the celebration of Quinquagesima (Pentecost).

Therefore, after our Lord had risen from the dead, having spent forty days with His disciples—the very thing intimated by this number, namely the temporal dispensation which pertains to faith—He ascended into heaven (Acts I, 9), and after ten other days had passed He sent the Holy Spirit (Acts II, 1-4): that is, so that by a certain breathing and burning of love and charity, He might add the ten to the forty, for the beholding not of human and temporal things, but of divine and eternal things. And therefore now this whole, that is, the fiftieth number of days, is to be marked by the celebration of joy. 3.

But these two times—that is, the one of labour and solicitude, the other of joy and security—our Lord also signifies by the nets cast into the sea. For before the Passion it is said of the little net cast into the sea, that they caught so many fish that they could scarcely draw it to shore, and that the nets were breaking (Luke V, 6-7). For they were not cast on the right side; for the Church of this time has many bad men: nor on the left; for it has also good men: but at random, that it might signify the mingling of the good and the bad.

But that the nets were broken signifies that many heresies went forth when charity was violated. But after the Resurrection, when He wished to foreshow the Church of the future time, where all shall be perfect and holy, He commanded the nets to be cast on the right side; and great fish were caught, one hundred and fifty-three, the disciples marvelling that, though they were so great, the nets were not broken (John XXI, 6, 11). Their magnitude signifies the magnitude of wisdom and righteousness; but the number signifies that very discipline made perfect both by the temporal dispensation and by the eternal regeneration, which we said is commended by the number fifty.

For because then there will be no need of bodily aids, and the soul will be filled with faith and wisdom; because we said the number three is attributed to the soul, we take fifty three times, and they make one hundred and fifty, to which number the Trinity is added, in which all that perfection is consecrated in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit: thus they become one hundred and fifty-three, which is the number of the fish caught on the right side. LXXXII. On that which is written: For whom the Lord loves He chastens; and He scourges every son whom He receives (Heb. XII, 6). 1. Many, murmuring under the discipline of God, raise a question, when they see the just often suffering grievous troubles according to this life:

As if for this reason it profited them nothing that they serve God, because they suffer either the common labours, and indifferently of bodies and losses and insults and all the rest which mortals reckon evils, or even suffer more than others for the word of God and for righteousness, which, burdensome to sinners, stirs up against its preachers tumultuous seditions or plots or hatreds. To these it is answered that, if this life alone belonged to men, a just life would seem not altogether absurdly either to profit nothing, or even to do harm.

Although there have not been lacking those who so weighed the sweetness of righteousness and its inward joy against all bodily labours and troubles, which the human race suffers according to the condition of its mortality, together also with all those things which, on account of righteousness itself, are most injuriously devised against those who live justly, that, apart from the hope of a future life, they would be more pleasantly and gladly tormented for the love of truth than the luxurious would feast for the desire of drunkenness. 2.

But to those who nevertheless think God unjust, when they see the just in griefs and labours; or who, if they do not dare to call God unjust, either judge that He does not care for human affairs, or that He has once established the necessities of the fates, against which He Himself does nothing, lest He be believed to disturb by inconstancy the order of things arranged by Himself; or hold some other opinion, namely that God, being in some respect weak, cannot ward off these evils from the just: to these it must be said that there would have been no future righteousness in men, if God did not care for human affairs.

For all that righteousness of men which the human mind is able both to hold fast by acting rightly and to lose by sinning would not be impressed upon the soul, unless there existed some unchangeable righteousness, which would be found whole by the just when they turned toward it, and would be left whole by sinners when they turned away from its light. And this unchangeable righteousness is assuredly God's; nor would He extend it to enlighten those who turn to Him, if He had no care for human affairs. But if He allowed the just to suffer grievous things merely because He would not go against the order of things established by Himself, He would not Himself be just;

not because He wills to preserve His own ordinance, but because He so ordained the very order of things that the just should be afflicted with undeserved punishments. Now whoever supposes that God is in any way powerless to repel the evils which the just endure is therefore foolish, because he does not understand that, just as it is wicked to call God unjust, so it is wicked to deny that He is almighty. These points concerning the question we have undertaken having been briefly established for the present—since to doubt that God Himself is both just and almighty belongs to the most pernicious iniquity—

no more probable reason presents itself why righteous men should for the most part labor in this life, except that this is expedient for them. For the righteousness of men which now exists, for the receiving of everlasting salvation, is one thing; and another was the righteousness that man, once set in paradise, ought to have had for retaining and not losing that same everlasting salvation. For as it is the righteousness of God to command useful things, and to distribute punishments to the disobedient but rewards to the obedient, so it is the righteousness of man to obey useful precepts. But since blessedness is in the soul as health is in the body—just as in the body itself one kind of medicine is prescribed so that good health may not be lost, and another so that health once lost may be recovered—

so in the whole condition of man, one set of precepts was given at that time, so that he might preserve immortality, and another set is now enjoined, so that he may receive it. And just as in the health of the body, if anyone, by not obeying the physician's precepts by which that same good health is to be guarded, falls into some disease, he receives other precepts that he may be healed—which often do not suffice, if the disease is severe, unless certain remedies are applied by the physician, remedies frequently harsh and bringing pain, which nevertheless avail for the recovery of health; whence it comes about that a man, though now obeying the physician, still suffers pains, not only from the disease itself not yet cured, but also from the remedy of the medicine—

so man, having fallen through sin into the diseased and calamitous mortality of this life, because he refused to obey the first precept by which he should have guarded and held fast everlasting salvation, received a second set of precepts, obeying which he is indeed not absurdly said to live righteously, yet nevertheless the troubles he suffers he suffers either from the disease itself not yet cured, or from the remedy of the medicine. To which remedy is assigned that which is written: 'For whom the Lord loves He chastens, and He scourges every son whom He receives.' But those who, not obeying the most wholesome precepts, live wickedly, even increase their diseases; and either from these they suffer countless labors and pains of miseries even in this life;

or else, when punishments too are applied, so that what is not sound may be touched and pained, they are mercifully warned in what evil they are, that, turned toward the medicine, they may be made whole by the grace of God. And if they despise all these things—that is, the precepts of words and of sufferings—they will deserve, after this life, a just and everlasting damnation. Therefore he can say that these things are done unjustly who, thinking that only the mortal life which we now lead exists, does not believe the things divinely foretold to be future—one who is to weigh out most grievous torments for the persistence of his sins and his unbelief. LXXXIII. On marriage, in that which the Lord says: 'Whoever puts away his wife, save for the cause of fornication,' etc. (Matt. v, 32).

If the Lord admits only the cause of fornication for putting away a wife, and does not forbid a pagan marriage to be dissolved, it follows that paganism is reckoned as fornication. Now it is manifest that the Lord makes the cause of fornication alone an exception, when He speaks in the Gospel of putting away a wife. But a pagan marriage is not thereby forbidden to be dissolved, because when the Apostle gave counsel on this matter—that a believer should not put away an unbelieving spouse who is willing to remain with him—he says, 'I say, not the Lord': so that the Lord is understood not indeed to command that the spouse be put away, lest the Apostle should seem to give counsel contrary to His command, but nevertheless to permit it;

so that no one is held in that matter by the necessity of a command, but may act freely by the will of counsel. Nevertheless, if anyone should assert that the Lord admits, as a cause for leaving a wife, only that fornication which is commonly called fornication—that is, the fornication committed by unlawful intercourse—he can say this: that the Lord, when He spoke on this matter, spoke concerning both believers, both husband and wife, so that if both are believers, neither is permitted to leave the other except for the cause of fornication; here paganism cannot be understood, because each is a believer. For thus the Apostle also seems to distinguish, when he says: 'But to those who are in marriage I command—not I, but the Lord—that the wife depart not from her husband;

but if she departs, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband.' Here too it is understood that if a woman has departed from her husband for that one cause by which alone the dissolution of a marriage is permitted, she ought to remain unmarried; or, if she does not contain herself, she should rather be reconciled to her husband—whether he be corrected, or at any rate be tolerated—than marry another. And it follows, and he says, 'And let not the husband put away his wife': briefly indicating in the husband the same rule which he was enjoining in the woman. Having set these things forth from the precept of the Lord, he then continues thus: 'But to the rest I say—not the Lord—if any brother has an unbelieving wife, and she consents to dwell with him, let him not put her away;'

'and the woman, if she has an unbelieving husband, and he consents to dwell with her, let her not put away her husband' (1 Cor. vii, 10-13). Here he gives to understand that the Lord spoke of these things so that neither should put away the other, if both were believers.