Works 1 part 2/7

But among us all things are done in the spirit, and the highest endeavor is to overcome those who love themselves wrongly after the flesh, and in no way are willing to yield to us, fighting against their very selves; so that we have a kind of war against those very ones for whom we wage war, while each one bestows as much zeal in covering and concealing the diseases and vices of his sins as he ought to have had zeal for disclosing his sickness to the physician. 20.

In this they even seem to themselves brave and steadfast against their own salvation, and prudent against their own life, while they hide some sin, as it were a theft, within themselves and within the secret recesses of their mind, as though that which is hidden from men could lie hidden from that Eye which sees all things; or while they 「make excuses in their sins,」 contriving, in defense of their own vices and passions, certain reasonings, and becoming the advocates of their own evils; or surely, like the deaf adder 「which does not heed the voice of the charmers,」 nor yields to the medicines of the wise — by which alone the sickness of the soul is cured — they do not receive the word of him who admonishes;

or surely — which is the ultimate evil — when now openly and shamelessly they defend their sins, and like men out of their minds rush headlong publicly and without shame into every disgrace; and then upon those who somewhat desire to hinder or at least to retard them for their salvation, they even take vengeance as upon enemies and adversaries, 「hating those who reprove in the gates」 and execrating the holy word — most wretched of all men, in that they punish their own selves the more, the more savagely they have raged against their adversaries, like those who, seized by madness and frenzy, tear their own flesh, which out of their minds they suppose to be another's. 21. These are the things for the sake of which I judge this medicine of our discipline to be much more difficult than that which heals bodies alone.

And the more difficult it is, by so much surely it is more precious and more useful. For that medicine indeed treats but a few of the deeper matters, while it carries on most of its art and work before the eyes and in the hands; but in this our medicine, all our care is concerned with the inner man of the heart, and all our endeavor is exercised against the enemy who assails us from within and wrestles against us in the senses. Our whole contest is with him who, using swords against our very selves to our own hurt, delivers us over to death.

Against all these things therefore we must strive with much faith — nay, with our whole faith — and yet more with the grace of God, and also somewhat, as I judge, with our own zeal and labor, which is shown forth in word and deed, that we may be able to cure that which is more precious in us, namely souls, from the languors of vices, or to purge them from the stains of sins. 22. But the end of each medicine — for this remains to be shown — is, in the one indeed, that the health of the body, if it exists, be preserved, or, if it has departed, be recalled. Which it is not sufficiently certain has always profited those who have used it, since we frequently see that strength of bodily vigor has done harm to some, while certain men, trusting in it, give themselves over to robberies or rapines.

Yet these are middling things, like poverty and riches, or lowliness and renown, and the rest like them, which are for that reason called middling, because by the purpose of those who use them they can be drawn either to good or to evil. But the end of the other, that is, of this our medicine, is to incite the soul to virtue, and to snatch it out of this world, and to offer it to God, and either to preserve the image of God which is in it, if it is upright, or to govern it, if it is in peril, or, if it has fallen or been crushed, to repair it — by Christ engrafted in hearts through the Holy Spirit — and at the last to make the man a son of God, and to place him in heavenly blessedness with the heavenly ones. 23.

For this the law was given to us as a schoolmaster; for this, mediating between the law and Christ, the prophets were sent; for this the spiritual law is fulfilled, and Christ, the end of all things, has come. This is what the self-emptied divinity accomplishes; this the assumption of flesh furthers; and this is what we gain from both. This is that new commingling of God and man, that through the One we may be able to have both. For God was commingled with the body, the soul mediating, in order to join together things separated, and to recall to concord and peace things at discord — recalling all things into Himself and through Himself, things first brought forth from the one father of our race:

He took on a soul because of the disobedience of the soul, flesh because of the evil obedience, for which it was likewise condemned, so that, as in flesh and soul there had been condemnation, so in flesh and soul there might come salvation. Christ therefore for Adam, for him who was made under sin, He who was without sin. 24. And the new is brought in for the old, that by His voluntary suffering He who had suffered unwillingly might be healed; namely, that for each of us that which was above us might be restored. There is fulfilled, therefore, the new sacrament of mercy toward him who fell through disobedience. Therefore a new nativity, and a virgin mother, and Bethlehem for Eden, and a manger for Paradise, things small and visible for things hidden and great.

Therefore also the shepherds behold heavenly glory because of the Lamb and the Shepherd; therefore, with a star for guide, the Magi worship and offer gifts, namely that now no one any longer should worship either idols or stars; therefore Jesus is baptized, and testimony is borne to Him from the heavens, and He fasts and is tempted and conquers him who had conquered; therefore demons are put to flight, sicknesses are healed, and the preaching of great things is enjoined upon the least. 25. Therefore the nations rage, and the peoples meditate vain things; therefore wood against wood, and hands patiently stretched out against hands intemperately stretched out:

in place of hands loosed and let go, nails driven through are offered; in place of those things which cast Adam out, hands are offered which embrace the circle of the earth and call it back. In place of humbling, exaltation; in place of the sweet and pernicious tasting, the tasting of gall is undertaken, and death is exchanged for death, darkness for darkness, burial for burial, resurrection for resurrection. All these things are a certain care of God toward us, and a medicine of our infirmity, repairing and reforming the old Adam unto that state from which he fell, and restoring him to the tree of life, from which the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, taken unseasonably and out of due time, had driven us. 26. Of this medicine and healing, therefore, we are the ministers and helpers, whoever of us seem to preside over peoples.

But I know not whether we have made progress even to this much, that we should be able at least to cure our own infirmities, let alone to heal others' languors and to purge the stains of souls with anxious instruction. 27. Then, secondly, the physicians of bodies indeed endure toil, vigils, and anxieties, and, as one of their wisest says, bear others' misfortunes with their own griefs — themselves seeking out and finding some things for healing by their own labor, borrowing some too from others, and there is absolutely nothing that escapes them.

They neglect not even the least thing, but reckon all things great and supreme, whatsoever confer anything toward the health of the body, counting it the highest good if by their industry they seem to confer anything upon this life which we lead above the earth — and sometimes upon the life of the worst of men, for whom it had once been a common good to depart from this world. And even if through these things they take counsel for the life of the good, how great is that which is conferred from this, when the very oldness of age and senescence at once dissolves it! For what is there that each of the good gains from this life, since it is certain that no prudent man ought to love that which by every means he is soon about to give up? 28.

But we, for whom there is peril concerning the salvation of souls, and for whom there is a contest for immortality, and a strife concerning the eternity either of glory or of punishment — of which the one virtue, the other sloth will prepare — how much labor and zeal ought we to take up, how much industry and virtue to apply, that, cured of vices, amended in morals, corrected in purpose, we may be able both to transfer our life from things present to things to come, and to subject and subdue earth to the spirit! As, therefore, one kind of medicine is not applied to all, so neither does the same discourse suit everyone; the same motion does not befit woman and man, or old man and youth, nor poor and rich, the joyful and the sad, the infirm and the vigorous, rulers and subjects.

the wise and the unskilled, the timid and the bold, the irascible and the meek, those advancing and those falling away. 29. And, to search yet more inwardly, the same things will not suit those who are in marriages and those who are free from the conjugal yoke. But again, even among these there is a difference, between those who lead their life in deserts and those who have a common way of living, mixed with others. And again, the same things will not be fitted to those who are rational in faith and clear-sighted in the Scriptures and to those who advance by simplicity alone; nor to those who come down from city life and to those who come from rustic and country life;

not the same things suit the simple and the cunning, nor those engaged in business and those living far from it and at rest, nor those who have been converted after the wounds of sins and those who, before the experience of evil, have chosen the good. In each of these many differences are to be observed, since indeed even their very motions and desires bear very many differences among themselves. Finally, consider again from the very bodily principle of the elements: although we all subsist from the same elements, yet there is in each body a certain proper temperament. 30. And on this account the same medicines do not benefit all, but one needs one medicine or food or drink, another another, and diverse things suit individuals.

So too a discourse variously and diversely composed will cure souls. And to me those very ones who have experienced these things will be witnesses, that some indeed a word alone amends, others examples convert; some are to be incited with goads, others to be held back with bridles — because some are slower and lazier toward good work (who indeed are suitably roused by the blows of words), while others, stirred up overmuch by a fervent spirit, exceed the measure of fairness, just as when a noble and fiery colt, impatient as yet of its still recent yoke, spreads out in too wanton a course beyond the appointed bounds of the turning-posts — whom indeed a word, reining in and recalling them to the appointed lines of the commandments, will better temper. 31.

For many it has been profitable to be praised, for others to be reproved; yet both, if offered at the right time, are beneficial, whereas otherwise, when brought forth out of season, they have done harm. Some a consoling word has corrected, others a rebuke; and for some it is fitting to be reproved before all, for others to be admonished more privately. For some despise more private warnings, but blush at a public mark of censure; while others, when reproved in public, become more shameless, yet revere the secrecy of a private rebuke and repay their obedience as a kind of gift with an honourable and diligent service. 32. For some it is fitting that all things be observed more carefully and scrutinized down to the smallest detail, especially of those who, while they suppose they hide their evils by some artifice, rise up against the rest and are puffed up;

but with others it is right to pass over certain things, so that, seeing, we may seem not to have seen, and hearing, not to have heard, according to the sense of the proverb, lest through rebuke they come to the utmost contempt—those who perhaps blush to enlarge and multiply their faults so long as they think them unknown, but become bold and headlong once the modesty has been broken which was their last and only remedy of amendment. At times too we must be angry with some without being angry, and despise some yet not despising, and despair of some yet not despairing, since the disposition of each one requires it thus;

others, again, we must treat with gentleness, others with humility, joining ourselves, that is, to them and promising one and the same rule of hope. And to overcome some, but at times to be overcome by others, has been better; and sometimes it is fitting to praise and embrace the prosperity and power of some, but the poverty and lowliness of others. 33.

For the order of our discipline does not demand, as the order and kind of virtue and of sloth does—whereby the one is always in praise and the other always in blame—that the sick soul should always receive what is sound and useful and fitting; namely, either to be more sharply corrected, or more gently admonished, or always to choose one of the remedies we have mentioned above; but by some this can be received, by others its opposite, according as the time, or the matter, or the very sickness of souls permits. Yet to distinguish and explain all things in discourse, item by item, so as to describe in order the whole art of healing, I think impossible even for those who have deserved to know the secrets of wisdom itself. 34.

But so far as it has been disclosed to us through the word of God, and as brief experience could discover, I think this must be observed with a general purpose: that just as for those whose discipline it is to walk on tight-stretched ropes on high, to swerve this way or that is peril, and to deviate even a little, however trifling it may seem, is destruction, while all their safety lies in this—if they keep the straight and steady line of their advance—so also in these our actions, into whatever part one swerves and from whatever cause, whether he does it through malice or even through inexperience, it is a matter of the utmost peril. But if he also presides over others, he will become the cause of eternal destruction not for himself alone but also for the rest.

Therefore we must walk on the royal road, and incline neither to the things on the right nor to those on the left, as the proverbial saying also forewarned before. Let it suffice, then, to have recalled these things concerning our vices and passions, and what labour they require for their cure from the good shepherd—namely from him who, according to the sense of Scripture, knowingly knows the souls of his flock and rules the flock according to the Lord's word and pastoral discipline. This we have received from Christ, the true shepherd of all. 35. But the very care of God's word and the method of teaching—how I may be able to set it forth, that I may say last what is first and great—since indeed today, as I see, all are masters and all play the philosopher?

At this I greatly marvel, whether all these whom I see coming forward in the church to deliver a sermon to the people rightly and correctly know how to give to their fellow servants their measure of wheat in due season, and to order their words with judgment, and to expound the truth of our doctrines consistently and reasonably—whatever it is right to discourse concerning the pure beings or the world, concerning matter, concerning the soul, concerning the mind, concerning the intellectual natures whether good or contrary, and, what is greatest and what binds and contains and composes all things, concerning providence and concerning the particulars which seem to happen either against reason—human reason, that is—or according to reason. 36. 37.

But also concerning our first estate and last reformation, concerning the prefigurations and the truth, concerning both Testaments, concerning the first and second coming of Christ, concerning his incarnation and passion and resurrection and ascension into the heavens, concerning the end of all things, concerning the judgment, concerning the recompense whether of the sorrowful or of the good, and above all, and what is first, concerning the blessed Trinity that holds the principle of all things, how one ought to think of it.

Herein consists the height of peril for those who preside over the enlightenment of others: lest, by contracting the discourse into a single substance and person, as one shunning a multitude of gods, anyone suppose there to be mere names only, and, reckoning that the same one is named Father and Son and Holy Spirit, incline through such confusion and intermixture to the impiety of Sabellius—so that, while he supposes that all things are named one, he should signify that each is nothing, since indeed that which is would cease to be once that which is said to be the proper being of each is poured over into the other; or assuredly, what is absurd, a God composed for us out of diverse parts be introduced after the manner of those vulgar fables in which out of diverse forms a single creature is sketched

and depicted into one animal—; nor again, dissecting the nature of God after the madness of Arius and shutting up the abundance of the Godhead within Jewish poverty, so as to ascribe the sum of deity to the unbegotten Father alone, as though fearing lest a corruption of the deity should seem to befall us if God the Father be Father of a true God and of a Son equal to himself by nature; nor again, let them put forward three beginnings of deity contrary to one another and diverse, so that through a plurality of principles they seem to return again to the errors of the pagans, from which there had been a departure.

38. Nor is it lawful, after the manner of Arius, for the deity to be divided into three substances mutually alien and diverse to one another. For one ought not so to suppose that he is rendering to God the Father his due, as to take away from him this very thing, that he is Father—for whose Father will he be, if the nature of the Son is separated from him and associated with the rest of the creatures? For this is not what it is to be a Son: either to be made alien to the Father, or to be commingled with and refunded into the Father—; nor again to suppose that one acts so much on behalf of Christ as not even to preserve for him his very being a Son; for whose Son will he be, if his own origin is not referred to the Father, so that the one is he who begot, and the other is he who is begotten from him?

For the Father is the origin not of anything petty and unworthy, but is the origin of deity and goodness, which is understood and perceived in the Son and the Holy Spirit—in the former as in the Son and the Word, in the latter as in the Spirit proceeding from him. And thus it is necessary that we both confess one God according to the truth of substance, and perceive the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit each to subsist in his own substance. 39. These things I have perhaps drawn out more than the time allowed, wishing to demonstrate the life, or the discourse, or the understanding of him who presides over the peoples, whereby he may become perfect in both and a habitation of the Holy Spirit, through whom alone God is both understood and interpreted and heard.

For it belongs to the pure to touch the pure, and to the holy to know holy things. And this must be known first of all, that it is an exceedingly difficult business, in a mixed and diverse multitude where both the age and the training are varied, while discoursing on such subjects—and as it were striking a certain lyre of many strings—to find and bring forth a word of preaching suited to all, and so to apply, as it were, the plectrum to each, that nowhere may the sound offend the hearing. For from a threefold source hangs the danger of those who speak in the church—from the sense, from the word, from the hearing—so that it very easily happens that one fails in some one point at least, if not in all.

For either the sense is less enlightened, or a sufficient discourse was lacking for the explaining, or the hearing, being too dull, did not receive what was well delivered; and from any one of these chances there arises in all the peril of the truth. And indeed in any other pursuits and teachings the discourse is easily either delivered or received, but in these our schools the very expectation of the hearers begets peril for the one about to speak. 40. For as those who are about to hear of God and to receive a word concerning the highest hope and salvation of all, the more ardent they have been toward the faith, so much the more attentive and scrupulous do they become toward the hearing, so that, if anywhere the speaker's discourse should sound otherwise, they reckon it not a stumbling of the tongue, but condemn it as a betrayal of faith and piety.

And they judge all things not by the reasoning of the teacher but by their own senses, holding fast not to those doctrines which they hear in the church but to those which they bring with them from home—not those they have learned reasonably, but those they have held from a custom that is not approvable.

And this I say is not as yet the vice of very evil men, who, although they do not hold the rule of truth, yet seem to suffer these things religiously and to have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge; and therefore perhaps they will seem not to deserve to be condemned too vehemently, inasmuch as they will not be beaten with many stripes, as not knowing the will of the Lord and therefore not doing it; or perhaps they may even sometime be corrected and amended, since a religious mind, however quickly it is offended, is as readily and easily cured. If perchance some word aptly and fitly applied should strike the heart of them, at once, like a fire-bearing stone struck by a like one, from the spark of light naturally inherent in it, it kindles forthwith the lamps of truth. 41.

But what shall we say of those who, while they seek the glory of boasting and delight to preside over peoples, speak iniquity in the heights, who, like a certain Jannes and Mambres, resist not so much Moses as the truth, and stir up the arms of words against sound doctrine? There is also a third kind of those who gainsay out of inexperience, which inexperience insolence consequently accompanies; and they rush hostilely and insolently against every word, save perhaps such as they themselves have uttered. By these, according to the Lord's saying, the pearls of truth are trampled underfoot in the manner of swine. 42.

There are also others who indeed bring forward no opinion of their own sense, nor hold any form, good or bad, concerning the faith of God, but deliver themselves over to all masters and accept every discourse, as though about to choose out of all what is better and more correct, not knowing that they have chosen no good judges of the truth—namely themselves—and they suppose they can judge concerning those things which they confess they are ignorant of. Then from things that resemble the truth, frequently turned and changed now to this, now to that, and acquiescing in every word, a little later again resisting, they change at once both masters and pursuits, and like dust driven by the wind are easily carried about. But at last they bring forth the fruit of their folly;

for as though wearied by hearing diverse teachers and overcome by weariness, they at once reject all things, and as though made empty and void of all that they had believed, they straightway begin even to despise and deride us, as though we had nothing reasonable in our faith; and they suffer what is wont to befall those who have sore eyes and accuse the light of the sun, or those who, having sore ears, complain that the voices of men are too little sonorous. 43. Therefore it is far more useful for the soul to receive the elements of truth simply and purely, and to inscribe them as it were on wax not yet scored, than over those which were before badly written to overdraw—that is, to bring in the word of faith and truth over bad teaching and perverse doctrines, and to confound the last with the first.

For indeed it is better to travel a road worn smooth and levelled by the constant passing of travellers than one unaccustomed and rough and trodden by no previous footprints; and it is better to sow a field tamed by the exercise of frequent ploughing than one that is a stranger to the furrow and knows not the ploughshare. But that soul I shall better cultivate which has as yet been violated by no plough of the malignant tiller, nor preoccupied by the previous sowing of the worst seed. Otherwise our labour will be doubled, while it is necessary first to thrust out from the heart the forms of malice already conceived, and then to reform the image of goodness on the varying wax of the virtues—so that, as many and diverse as had been the species of depravity in the soul, just so many may be also those of restoration.

Knowledge and discipline of all these things ought to flourish in him to whom the care of forming souls is committed. Of which we now, for the sake of brevity, pass over very many. 44. For as, by way of example, if it could come to pass that out of many animals and little beasts, diverse in genus and species, great and small, fiercer and milder, harsher and gentler, some one single animal or single beast should be composed—surely, if anyone were entrusted with the taming of it, how much labour and toil would press upon him, how much of his industry would be required, that he might meet each one of the beasts or animals according as the manner of each demands or as nature requires!

Since indeed neither is the same voice suited to all, nor are they driven by the same whistlings, so to speak. But not even is the food one and the same for all, nor is the manner of stroking and soothing one for all beasts, so that sometimes by the very same means by which some are calmed, others are roused to fury. By what means, then, will that trainer adapt himself to the several beasts of this single creature? How will he accommodate himself to the nature and disposition of each?

Will it not be necessary for him, although in himself he is simple and constant, to become as varied and as changeable into diverse states as the very diversity of the beasts demands, so that each animal may be cared for according to the opportunity of its nature and disposition, whereby the body of the whole beast, composed of so great a diversity, may rightly persist among itself, the little beasts being mutually moderated, in peace and tranquillity?

Thus he who has undertaken to form and rule this common body of the Church, composed as it were of one animal made out of many and diverse manners and tongues and trainings, yet dissimilar to itself, although he himself ought to be always immovable and the same in himself, has nevertheless the necessity of conforming himself to the manners and trainings of each, and of fitting his discourse opportunely to each. 45. Since indeed some need milk—namely those to whom the first rudiments of religion are still being handed on, and who, being little children in the faith, cannot as yet, so to speak, bear the vigour of manly food;