On the Governance of God 1 part 7/13

And though our very Saviour cries out to us daily: 'So let your light shine before men, that the sons of men may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven,' we, on the contrary, so live that the sons of men see our evil works and blaspheme our Father who is in heaven. Since these things are so, we may indeed flatter ourselves with the great privilege of the name of Christianity — we who so act and live that, by this very thing that we are called a Christian people, we seem to be a reproach to Christ! But on the contrary, among the pagans, what is there like these things we speak of? Can it be said of the Huns: 'Behold what manner of men they are, who are called Christians'? Can it be said of the Saxons or the Franks:

'Behold what they do who assert themselves to be worshippers of Christ'? Is the sacred and holy Law blamed on account of the savage morals of the Moors? Do the most inhuman rites of the Scythians or the Gepids bring the name of the Lord and Saviour into cursing and blasphemy? Can it be said of any of these: 'Where is the catholic Law which they believe? Where are the precepts of piety and chastity which they learn? They read the Gospels and are unchaste, they hear the Apostles and get drunk, they follow Christ and plunder, they live a wicked life and yet say they hold an upright Law.' Can these things be said of any of those nations? Certainly not:

for it is of us that all these things are said; in us Christ suffers reproach; in us the Christian Law suffers cursing. For it is of us that this is said which we have mentioned above: 'Behold what manner of men they are who worship Christ.' Plainly false is what they say, that they learn good things; false is their boast that they hold fast the precepts of the holy Law. For if they learned good things, they would be good. Assuredly, such is the sect as are its followers: they are, without doubt, what they are taught. It appears, therefore, both that the prophets whom they have teach impurity, and that the apostles whom they read have sanctioned wicked deeds, and that the gospels with which they are steeped preach these very things which they themselves do. In fine, holy things would be done by Christians, if Christ had taught holy things.

And so He who is worshipped may be judged from His worshippers. For how is he a good master whose disciples we see to be so bad? For it is from Him that they are Christians, Him they hear, Him they read. It is easy for all to understand the teaching of Christ: look at what Christians do, and you can clearly know from it what Christ teaches. In fine, how wickedly and impiously the pagans always thought concerning the Lord's sacred rites, the most bloody inquisitions of savage persecutors show, who believed that in the Christian sacrifices nothing else was done than certain impure and abominable things.

Indeed, they judged that the very beginnings of our religion arose from nothing but two most heinous crimes: first, murder, and then — what is graver than murder — incest; and not from murder and incest alone, but — what is something more criminal than incest itself and murder — the incest of sacrosanct mothers and the murder of innocent little children, whom they supposed were not only slain by the Christians but, what is more abominable, even devoured:

and all these things done to appease God, as though He could be more offended by any crime; to expiate guilt, as though there were any greater guilt; to commend a sacrifice, as though the Lord could hold any thing in greater horror; to merit eternal life, as though indeed, even if it could be gained by these things, it were worth so much to arrive at it through crimes so monstrous. We can therefore understand either what manner of men the pagans believed the Christians to be, who worshipped God with such sacrifices, or what manner of God they imagined Him whom they thought had taught these rites. And why is this so?

Why, indeed, but on account of those who are called Christians and are not, who by their disgraceful deeds and shameful acts bring the name of religion into ill repute; who, as it is written, profess that they know God, but in their deeds deny Him, being abominable and unbelieving and unto every good work reprobate; through whom, as we read, the way of truth is blasphemed and the sacred and holy name of the Lord God is violated by the cursing of sacrilegious men? Now how grave and singular an evil of guilt it is to give the name of the Godhead over to the blasphemy of the nations, we are taught also by the example of the most blessed David:

who, though by the suffrage of his righteous deeds he deserved to escape eternal punishment for his offenses through one confession alone, yet could not obtain pardon for this crime even through interceding penitence. For when the prophet Nathan had said to him as he confessed his own errors: 'God hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die,' he at once added: 'Nevertheless, because thou hast caused the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme for this deed, the son that is born to thee shall die.' And what followed after this?

Namely, having laid aside his diadem, cast off his jewels, stripped of his purple, put away from himself all the splendor of royal dignity, when in place of all these he, solitary and groaning, shut up, squalid in sackcloth, drenched with weeping, soiled with ashes, sought the life of his little one with so many suffrages of lamentation, and beat upon the most merciful God with so great an earnestness of prayers — thus praying and beseeching he could not obtain it, although — which is the strongest aid for those who ask — he had believed that he would obtain what he thus asked of God. From which it may be understood that there is no crime of greater guilt than to give the nations cause for blasphemy. For whoever, without the blasphemy of others, has gravely erred, brings damnation upon himself alone:

but whoever has caused others to blaspheme hurls many down with himself into death, and it will be necessary that he be answerable for as many as he has dragged with himself into guilt. And not this alone, but whoever, being a sinner, so sins that he does not by his sin cause others to blaspheme, his sin harms only himself who has sinned, and the sacred and holy name of God is not injured by the sacrilegious cursing of blasphemers. But whoever, in his sinning, has caused others to blaspheme, his sin must necessarily be beyond the measure of human crime, because through the reproaches of many he has done an inestimable injury to God.

But this evil, as I have said, is peculiarly and only that of Christians, because through them alone is God blasphemed — those who learn good things and do evil things; who, as it is written, confess God with words and deny Him by deeds; who, as the same Apostle says, consent to the Law and know His will and approve the things that are more excellent; who have the form of knowledge and of truth in the Law; who preach that one must not steal, and steal; who read that one must not commit adultery, and commit adultery; who glory in the Law and by transgression of the Law dishonor God. And therefore by this very fact Christians are the worse, because they ought to be the better; for they do not approve by deeds what they profess, and by their morals they assail their own profession.

For that wickedness is the more damnable which the title of goodness accuses, and the guilt of an impious man is his pious name. Whence also the Saviour in the Apocalypse says to the lukewarm Christian: 'Would that thou wert either hot or cold; but now, because thou art lukewarm, I will begin to spew thee out of my mouth.' The Lord commands every Christian to be fervent in faith and spirit. For thus it is written: 'that we be fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.' In this fervor of the spirit, then, the ardor of religious faith is shown: he who has much of that ardor is recognized as fervent and faithful; he who has none at all is understood to be cold and a pagan; but he who is between the two, or neither, is a lukewarm Christian, hateful to the Lord; and therefore it is said to him:

'Would that thou wert either hot or cold; but now, because thou art lukewarm, I will begin to spew thee out of my mouth.' This is to say: Would that thou hadst either the warmth and faith of good Christians, or at least the coldness and ignorance of the pagans. For either a warm faith would commend thee to God, or at least ignorance of the Law would for the present in some measure excuse thee. But now, because thou hast already come to know Christ and neglectest Him whom thou hast come to know, thou who wast received as though into the mouth of God through the recognition of faith art cast forth through thy lukewarmness. And this indeed the blessed Apostle Peter also plainly set forth, saying of vicious and lukewarm — that is, evil-living — Christians:

'It were better for them not to have known the truth than, having known it, to turn back from the commandment delivered to them. There has happened to them the thing of the true proverb: The dog returned to his own vomit; and, the sow that was washed, to her wallowing in the mire.' That we may plainly understand this to be said of those who, under the Christian name, live in the filth and impurities of the world, hear what he says of these same men in the same place: 'For if,' he says, 'fleeing the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein and overcome, their latter state is become worse than the former.' And this indeed the blessed Apostle Paul also says in the same manner: 'Circumcision profits, if thou keep the Law:'

'but if thou art a transgressor of the Law, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision.' And that by circumcision Christianity is to be understood, he himself most plainly teaches, saying: 'For we are the circumcision, who serve God in spirit and put no confidence in the flesh.' And hence we see that he compares bad Christians with pagans, and not only compares them, but almost sets them below, saying: 'If, then, the uncircumcision keep the ordinances of the Law, shall not his uncircumcision be counted for circumcision? And shall not that which is by nature uncircumcision, fulfilling the Law, judge thee, who by the letter and circumcision art a transgressor of the Law?' And hence we understand, as I said above, that we are the more culpable —

far more so, we who have the Law of God and yet despise it, than those who neither have it at all nor know it; for no one despises what he does not know. 'Concupiscence,' says the Apostle, 'I had not known, unless the Law had said, Thou shalt not covet.' For they do not transgress against a Law which they do not have, since, as it is written, 'Where there is no Law, neither is there transgression.' And hence, if they do not transgress against a Law which they do not have, then neither do they despise the ordinances of a Law which they do not have, since no one, as I said, can despise what he knows not. We therefore are alike both despisers and transgressors, and hence worse than the pagans, because they know not the commands of God, while we know them; they do not have them, while we have them; they do not do the things they have not heard, while we trample upon the things we have read.

And therefore among them there is ignorance, among us transgression, because it is a lesser guilt of crime not to know the Law than to despise it. I know that all the most faithless men, incapable of divine truth, are able to say against these things which we have spoken: if the guilt of unfaithful Christians is so great that they sin more by passing over the commands of the Lord which they know, than do the pagan nations who know them not, then ignorance would have been more wholesome for these men than knowledge, and it is very much against them that they have come to know the truth. To which this answer must be made: that it is not the truth that harms them, but their vices, nor the Law that hurts them, but their morals. In fine, give me good morals, and the ordinances of the Law are on our side: take away vices, and the Law profits.

'For we know,' says the Apostle, 'that the Law is good, if a man use it lawfully.' Use the Law lawfully, then, and you have made the Law good for yourself. 'For we know,' he says, 'that the Law is good, if a man use it lawfully, knowing this, that the Law is not laid down for the just man.' And hence begin to be just, and you will be free from the Law, because the Law cannot come against morals which are already had in one's morals. 'For we know,' he says, 'that the Law is good, if a man use it lawfully, knowing this, that the Law is not laid down for the just, but for the unjust and disobedient, for the wicked and impious and for sinners, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine.'

And hence it is not so much the Law that is opposed to you, O man, as you who are opposed to the Law; nor does the Law act against you by commanding well, but you act against the Law by living ill. Nay, it is on your side; you are against it. For it counsels you by speaking what is holy; you go against it by doing what is depraved — and not against it only, but also against yourself; for by this very fact that you are against it, you are also against yourself, since in it are your salvation and your life. And hence, while you forsake the divine Law, you abandon your own salvation. We therefore complain of the Lord's Law no otherwise than an impatient sick man is wont to complain of the best physician: who, when by his own fault he has made his diseases grow worse, accuses the unskillfulness of the healer.

As though indeed precepts could cure any infirmity, if the sick man does not obey them, or as though any regimen which the physician prescribes could heal anyone, if the sick man does not himself supply it to himself. What good does wormwood do the stomach, if sweet things follow at once? What do the silences of bystanders avail the frenzied man, whom his own outcry destroys? Or what will the antidote be able to profit him upon whom poison is poured? And so to us likewise the Law is an antidote, but viciousness is poison. The antidote of the Law cannot heal us, whom the poisons of our vices destroy. But of these things we have already said enough before, and, if the matter so requires, we shall say some things also after this, with the Lord's help.

Meanwhile, since we have mentioned above that there are two kinds or sects of barbarians, pagans and heretics, and since we have, as I think, already dealt sufficiently with the pagans, let us also take up the heretics, as the case demands. For someone may say: even though the divine Law does not require of the pagans that they do the commands which they know not, surely it does require it of the heretics, who do know them; for they too read the same things which we read, they have among them the same prophets of God, the same apostles, the same evangelists, and hence either the Law is neglected by them no less than by us, or even much more, because though they read the same Scriptures as ours, they do far worse things than ours. Let us therefore consider both.

They read, you say, the same things that are read by us. How the same, which were once corrupted and badly interpolated and badly handed down by evil authors? And hence they are already not the same, since those things cannot at all be called the very same which are in some part of themselves corrupted. For those things do not have soundness which have lost their fullness, nor do they at all keep their own condition which have been deprived of the power of the sacraments. We alone, therefore, have the Sacred Scriptures full, inviolate, entire, we who drink them either at their very source, or at least draw them, drawn from the purest source, through the ministry of a pure translation: we alone read them well. And would that, as well as we read them, we might as well fulfill them.

But I fear that, since we do not observe well nor read well, it is a lesser guilt not to read holy things than to violate what we have read. The other nations indeed either have not the Law of God, or have it weakened and mutilated, and hence, as we have said, they do not have it who have it thus. For even if there are some of the barbarian nations who in their books seem to have the Sacred Scripture less interpolated or torn apart, yet they have it corrupted by the tradition of their ancient masters, and hence they have tradition rather than Scripture, because they do not hold fast that which the truth of the Law urges, but that which the depravity of an evil tradition has inserted.

For the barbarians indeed, men without any Roman — nay rather, without any human — learning, who know nothing at all except what they hear from their teachers, follow that which they hear; and so it is necessary that they, being ignorant of all letters and learning, who come to know the sacrament of the divine Law by instruction rather than by reading, hold fast the instruction rather than the Law. And so the tradition of their masters and their inveterate teaching is as good as law to them, because they know only that which they are taught. They are therefore heretics, but they do not know it. In fine, among us they are heretics, among themselves they are not; for they judge themselves to be so catholic that they defame us ourselves with the reproach of the heretic's name. What, then, they are to you, that are we to them.

We are certain that they do injury to the divine generation, in that they say the Son is less than the Father; they think us injurious to the Father, because we believe them to be equal. The truth is with us, but they presume it to be with themselves. The honor of God is with us, but they suppose that to be the honor of the Godhead which they believe. They are undutiful, but to them this is the highest office of religion; they are impious, but they think this to be true piety. They err, therefore, but they err with good intent, not from hatred but from affection toward God, believing that they honor and love the Lord — although they do not have the right faith, yet they reckon this to be the perfect charity of God.

In what manner they are to be punished on the day of judgment for this very error of false opinion, no one can know save the Judge. Meanwhile, on this account, as I think, God bestows patience upon them, because He sees that, even if they do not believe rightly, yet they err through the affection of a pious opinion — especially since He knows that they do the things which they know not, while our own men neglect what they believe; and hence that they sin through the fault of their masters, ours through their own; that they are ignorant, ours knowing; that they do what they think right, ours what they know to be perverse. And therefore by a just judgment God's patience bears with them, but chastises us with correction, because ignorance can in some measure be pardoned, but contempt does not merit pardon. For thus it is written:

'The servant who knows not the will of his lord, and does it not, shall be beaten with few stripes; but he who knows and does it not, shall be beaten with many stripes.' Let us not therefore wonder that we are smitten with many stripes, because we sin not from ignorance but from rebellion. For knowing good things, we do not act well, and understanding the discernment of right and wrong, we pursue the wrong: we read the Law and trample upon its lawful ordinances, and we come to know the ordinances of the sacred precepts only for this, that we may sin the more grievously after the injunctions: we say that we worship God, and we obey the devil. And after these things we want to receive good things from God, while we ever add evils to evils: we desire our own will to be done by God, while we are unwilling to do God's will — as though we set ourselves above God.

We wish that God should forever yield to our will, though we all forever resist His will. Yet He is just, even though we are unjust; for He chastises those He judges ought to be chastised, and bears with those He judges ought to be borne with. He wills both to serve one and the same purpose: that chastisement may restrain in Catholics the lust for sinning, and that at some time the patience of God may bring heretics to know the full truth of the faith — especially since He knows that these are perhaps not unworthy of the Catholic faith, seeing that in the comparison He finds them safer than the Catholics themselves. But all these of whom we speak are either Vandals or Goths.

For of the Roman heretics, whose multitude is beyond counting, we say nothing, nor do we compare them either with Romans or with barbarians, because both in faithlessness they are worse than the Romans, and in the foulness of their life they are baser than the barbarians. But this fact not only fails to help us; it even burdens us beyond the burden we already lay upon ourselves — because those whom we allege to be such are themselves Romans. From this we can understand what the whole Roman commonwealth deserves, when one part of the Romans offends God by their life, and another part both by faithlessness and by their life alike; save for this too, that even those very heresies of the barbarians once flowed from the corruption of Roman teaching, and so this crime of ours it is, that the barbarian peoples began to be heretics. (Chapter IIII.)

Furthermore, as concerns the conduct of the Goths or the Vandals, in what respect can we either set ourselves before them or even compare ourselves with them? First, to speak of affection and love, which the Lord teaches to be the chief virtue, and which He commends not only through all the sacred Scriptures but through Himself as well, saying: 'By this shall it be known that you are My disciples, if you love one another' — nearly all the barbarians, at least those of one nation and one king, love one another mutually, while almost all the Romans persecute one another. For what citizen does not envy his fellow citizen? Who shows full charity to his neighbour? All indeed are distant from one another in affection, even if not distant in place; though joined in dwelling, they are severed in mind.

And would that this — evil as it is, and most evil — were only among citizens and neighbours! But this is graver: that not even kinsmen preserve the rights of kinship. For who makes himself near to those nearest him? Who pays to charity what he acknowledges he owes even to the very name of kin? Who is of that disposition which is called kin? Who is as near in heart as he is in blood, in whom the sallow zeal of malevolence does not burn, whose feeling envy has not invaded, to whom another's prosperity is not a torment? Who does not count another's good his own evil? To whom does his own happiness so suffice that he wishes another also to be happy? A good and inestimable thing has now, in very many, become an evil: it is too little for a man to be happy himself, unless another be unhappy.

And now consider what a thing this is — how cruel, how it descends from this very impiety, how foreign to the barbarians, how familiar to the Romans — that they proscribe one another by extortion; nay, not one another, for that would be almost more tolerable, if each suffered what he had done. This is graver: that very many are proscribed by a few, to whom the public taxation is their private plunder, who make the levies of the fiscal debt into their own gains — and this not only the highest, but almost the lowest, not the judges alone, but even those who wait upon the judges. For what cities, or even towns and villages, are there where there are not as many tyrants as there are councillors? Though perhaps they rejoice in the name, because it seems to be powerful and honoured.

For robbers too almost all rejoice and boast, if they are said to be far more savage than they are. Who then, as I have said, is the place where the vitals of widows and orphans are not devoured by the leading men of the cities — and with these, well-nigh those of all the saints? For they hold these too as though widows and orphans, since either they will not defend themselves, out of regard for their profession, or cannot, out of innocence and humility. And so none of them is safe, nor almost any at all — save the highest — exempt from the ravaging of the plundering brigand, except those who are on a par with the very brigands. To such a condition, nay, to such a crime, has the matter been brought down, that unless a man be wicked, he cannot be safe. (Chapter V.) But of course, though there are so many who lay waste the good, there are perhaps some...

...perhaps some who succour men in this devastation, who, as it is written, 'rescue the needy and the poor from the hand of the sinner.' 'There is none that does good, there is almost not so much as one.' Therefore he said 'almost not even one,' because so rare are the good that there seems to be scarcely one. For who lends aid to the harassed and the labouring, when even the Lord's priests do not resist the violence of wicked men? For very many of them either keep silence, or are like those who keep silence, even if they speak; and this many do not out of inconstancy, but out of policy, as they think, and calculation. For they are unwilling to bring forth naked truth, because...

...the ears of wicked men cannot bear it, and not only shun it but even hate and execrate it, and, once they have heard it, not only do they not revere or fear it, but with a still greater stubbornness of swelling obstinacy they despise it. And so even those who could speak keep silence, while they spare the wicked meanwhile, and are unwilling to press upon them the force of open truth, lest by truth too sharply thrust upon them they make them worse. Amid all this the poor are ravaged, widows groan, orphans are trampled underfoot — to such a degree that many of them, even those born of no obscure lineage and liberally educated, flee to the enemy, lest they die under the affliction of the public persecution.

They seek, that is, Roman humanity among the barbarians, because among the Romans they cannot endure barbarous inhumanity; and although they differ from those to whom they flee in rite and differ in tongue, and though they are at odds even, so to speak, with the very stench of the barbarians' bodies and garments, yet they prefer to bear among the barbarians a way of life unlike their own than raging injustice among the Romans. And so on all sides they migrate — to the Goths, or to the Bagaudae, or to other barbarians everywhere holding sway — and they do not repent of having migrated; for they prefer to live free under the appearance of captivity than to be captives under the appearance of liberty.

And so the name of Roman citizens, once not only prized at a great value but purchased at a great price, is now spurned and fled of one's own accord, and is held not merely cheap but almost abominable. And what greater proof can there be of Roman injustice, than that most men — even honourable and noble men, to whom the Roman standing ought to have been the highest splendour and honour — have nonetheless been driven by the cruelty of Roman injustice to the point of not wishing to be Romans? And hence it is that even those who do not flee to the barbarians are nevertheless compelled to become barbarians — as, for instance, a great part of the Spaniards and no small number of the Gauls, in short all whom throughout the whole Roman world Roman injustice has made to be Romans no longer. (Chapter VI.)

Of the Bagaudae now is my discourse — who, despoiled, afflicted, slain by wicked and bloody judges, after they had lost the right of Roman liberty, lost also the honour of the Roman name. And their own misfortune is charged against them; we charge against them the name of their calamity; we charge against them the name which we ourselves made for them: we call them rebels, we call them lost, whom we have compelled to become criminals. For by what other means were the Bagaudae made, save by our iniquities, save by the wickednesses of the judges, save by the proscriptions and rapines of those who turned the name of public taxation into the profits of their own gain, and made the tributary levies into their own plunder?