On the Governance of God 4 part 4/7

Who then is so faithless or so mad, that he does not consider these things, does not fear these things — who looks out for his substance rather for others than for himself, and, utterly destitute of all supports for the hope of this present life, would lose the one and only plank to which, as a shipwrecked man in the midst of the sea, he might yet cling — and not merely lose it, but cast it away and utterly thrust it from himself, laboring in every way that he leave himself nothing at all whereby he, about to perish, might escape? Chapter 15. Since these things are so, tell me, I beseech you, all you who love Christ: if there can be any men at all so savage and so cruel toward their enemies as these are toward themselves?

For none are so ferocious, so inhuman, that they do not cease to pursue their adversaries when these are already in despair and dying: but these men pursue their very selves even when placed in death. Is this not persecution, or can there be any greater — that a man be disinherited by his own self, be made an outcast from all his goods, and driven as it were into exile by himself? And this not in the common or accustomed manner, but in a new and most cruel one — namely, where the very soul is sent into exile, where the spirit is abdicated from its own means. O how much lighter are the strangers and carnal enemies! For they are the foes only of bodies, but you of souls also. Light, therefore, in comparison with your outrages, is their hatred. For whatever harms in the present age is easy;

that is grievous, that is pernicious, which shall slay in eternity. And therefore the Savior Himself says: 'Fear ye not them that can kill the body, but cannot kill the soul.' Easy therefore is that hatred which harms the body and does not harm the soul, because when the body is harmed the soul is outside of loss, and by the sufferings of the flesh the blessedness of spirits is not interrupted. That, therefore, that is the inexpiable evil, that cannot at all be estimated, which shall damn the whole man entirely without end. And therefore your enemies are lighter to you than you yourselves. For every enmity is dissolved by death: you against yourselves act in such a way that you do not escape your enmities even after death. Chapter 1. In the two preceding books, together with the two parts of your sons —

that is, with the one part a lover of the world, the other bearing the semblance of religion — O my lady the Church of God, we have spoken as it were separately. But in this book, if God grants it, we desire to speak to both, as the case and reason shall demand, now addressing each separately, now both alike together. It remains that, from each of them acknowledging in the course of the reading her own portions, whatever is said by us out of love for God be received with love for God.

Therefore, since in all that we have already said we have recorded that mercy and generosity are the special good of all Christians, and have proved by fitting and many witnesses, as I think, that in these are contained the chief merits of the saints and the remedies of sinners, I do not suppose that more is expected by anyone — especially since, if anyone is desirous of more, he ought to approach the very books of God, which are so full of many and great witnesses that of all the heavenly Scriptures there is almost one single testimony. It remains that we say something against those grounds of faithless answerings which are wont to be set forth by certain persons for the sake of a deadly excuse.

The Savior, speaking in the Gospel, says that for this reason wealth and money are lent to men by the Lord, that what is lent may be repaid with manifold interest, saying to the most greedy debtor: 'Wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sow not, and gather where I have not scattered. Thou oughtest therefore to have given my money to the bankers, and at my coming I should have received with interest that which is mine. Take therefore the talent from him, and give it to him that hath ten talents.' And a little after: 'And cast the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.' Which, although it can also be referred to something else, yet is not unwholesomely fitted also to this place and cause.

For since the bankers of the Savior are rightly understood to be the poor and the needy — because the money which is dispensed to such persons is increased — without doubt whatever is bestowed upon the needy is repaid by God with interest. Whence also elsewhere the Lord Himself more openly bids the rich to distribute the wealth of the world and to make for themselves purses which grow not old. But also in the vessel of His election He signifies that riches are for this reason given by the Lord to the wealthy, that they may grow rich in good work. And therefore I too, the least and most unworthy of God's servants, say that the first and most wholesome duty of religion is that a rich Christian, while he is in this life, should consume the riches of this world for the name and honor of God;

and secondly, that if perchance, hindered by fear or weakness or some necessity, he has not done this, he should at least dispense the whole of it when dying. Chapter 2. But perhaps someone says: 'I have children.' Concerning this indeed the page of the principal little book has already, as I judge, recorded both fitting things and not a few, and the Lord's word suffices sufficiently for this matter, saying: 'He that loveth son or daughter above me is not worthy of me'; but also that prophetic saying which declares that neither fathers are to be judged for sons nor sons for parents, but that each single man is to be saved by his own justification or to perish by his own iniquity: and through this, whatever riches a man heaps up for his sons, this will in no way profit him at the judgment — that he left a rich heir.

But grant that parents can be pardoned if they leave hereditary means to their sons in some part, provided it be to good sons, provided to holy ones; grant too that it can be pardoned even if to bad and vicious ones. They seem to have some show of excuse who say: 'Affection conquered; the force of blood compelled; nature itself drew me into her own right as it were by the hand of love. We knew what the justice of God demanded, what sacred truth required, but we were subdued, we confess, by the yoke of incarnate kinship, and we gave our hands captive to the bonds of love; faith yielded to blood, and the laws of natural affection overcame the devotion of religion.' Something can be said, though it cannot be said wholesomely:

there is the shadow of a little excuse that does not excuse, giving the guilty one the semblance of a little plea, not the security of one free from guilt. For I in no wise promise this to anyone — that it can have a firm support in any matter — who has loved anything more than God, according to that which is written, that this is the judgment to come, that light has come into this world and men have loved darkness rather than light. For to none is it doubtful that the whole of this will be darkness to a man, whatever he has preferred to the divine love. These things, therefore, are so. But grant, as I have said, that indulgence can be shown to parents indulging nature unwholesomely.

What of the fact that some, having no children, nevertheless utterly turn themselves away from regard for their own salvation and the remedy of their sins, and although they lack the seed of their own blood, yet seek out any others whatsoever to whom they may assign the substance of their own means — that is, to whom they may inscribe some shadowy name of kinship, whom they, as imaginary parents, make their sons as it were by adoption, that these may succeed in the place of those pledges which do not exist, with faithlessness begetting them? And thus the most wretched and most impious, though they are not bound by the bonds of children, yet prepare bonds for themselves whereby to bind the unhappy necks of their own souls:

when there is no force of domestic dangers, they summon danger from without, and although the causes of perils are lacking, they nevertheless rush headlong as into voluntary destruction: whose most unhappy errors, with what disposition of mind they are to be received, can seem almost uncertain to some — whether one should be angry at these things or grieve. For error is worthy of grief, impiety of execration: by unhappiness we are drawn to weeping, by faithlessness to anger.

In the one thing there is cause for which we may mourn over the folly of men, in the other cause for which we may be moved for the love of God: that any man at all should be found, or be able to exist, who, having run through the brief span of this unhappy life, now hanging in its very extremity, about to go straightway to the tribunal of God, should think of anything else besides his own end, anything else besides his own departure, anything else besides his own peril, and — having neglected his own hope and soul, which he ought to aid in some measure even in his last moments with all zeal, all effort, all his means and substance — should think of this alone, revolve this alone in his mind: how sumptuously his heir may devour his goods! Chapter 3. Most wretched of all, why are you anxious, why do you seethe, why do you make yourself the author of things about to perish?

Do you perhaps fear lest, when you are dead, there be none to devour what you have left? I would not have you afraid, I would not have you dread it. Would that you yourself were as easily saved as all your goods will perish! O faithlessness, O perversity! Even the common saying has it that all men wish better for themselves than for another. This is a ninth kind of monstrosity: that anyone should be willing to take thought for anyone at all, only not for himself.

Behold, you are about to go, most unhappy of all, to the sacred examination, to that dreadful and unbearable judgment, where to the soul, a pilgrim and anxious, there can be no solace at all except only a good conscience alone, except only an innocent life alone, or — what is next to a good life — mercy; where to a guilty man there is no help except only a generous mind, except only fruitful penitence and copious almsgiving as it were strong hands; where finally, according to the diversity of merits, you will find either the highest good or the highest evil, either immortal reward or torment without end.

And you are thinking about enriching whatever heirs of yours, sighing over the wealth of your kinsmen and relatives — whom above all you might make richer with your patrimony, to whom you might transcribe the ornaments of your various furnishings, whose storerooms you might fill with your abundance, to whom you might leave a greater number of slaves. Most wretched of all, you think how well others may live after you; you do not think how ill you yourself may die. Tell me, I beseech you, O wretch, O faithless one! Since you divide your patrimony among many, since you enrich many with your means, are you so ill-deserving of yourself alone, that you make no place for yourself as heir even among strangers?

Behold, the office of the sacred tribunal awaits you as you are now about to depart from this life; the torturer-angels and the terrible ministers of immortal torments await; and you revolve in your mind the future pleasures of worldly heirs after you, you turn over in your thoughts the delights of others: how well, forsooth, your heir may dine off your goods after you, with what abundance he may fill his belly, how he may distend his stuffed innards, overflowing even to nausea. Most wretched of all, what have you to do with these frivolities, what with these deliriums, what with the folly of this error, what with the ruin of this vanity? Will it be able to succor you amid the highest torments, if he who devours your goods prodigally, elegant and well-fed, belches heartily? Chapter 4.

But concerning these things of which we now speak, if the matter and reason shall require it, we shall subjoin something even after these. Meanwhile I say this in particular, and I admonish with a special admonition: that no one at all should prefer any pledge, however dearest, to his own soul.

For it is not unjust that any Christian should heap up less in this age even for his lawful heirs, provided he succor himself in eternity in many ways, because it is both easier for something here to be lacking to sons than to parents in the future, and present meanness is far lighter than eternal poverty — especially since, whereas there not poverty only but also death and punishment are to be feared, it is surely easier here for the heirs to lack something of the patrimony than there for the testators to lack something of salvation; and this even they themselves, to whom the inheritance is left, if only they have any piety in them, ought especially to wish — that those who leave it may not perish. And if indeed they are unwilling of this, they are far less worthy that anything be left to them, because

not unjustly does a wise testator not leave what an impious heir does not deserve. Therefore it is best that each one take thought for himself and leave all to his own soul and salvation, though there be sometimes not only sons — to whom by nature more seems to be owed — but also other pledges of like merit or condition, that in bestowing and lavishing something upon them justice itself and the worship of God may serve as patron, and to whom something may not only piously be left but also not irreligiously be left:

namely, if there be either parents afflicted by calamity, or faithful brothers, or holy wives, or — that I may at length extend the office of piety further — if there be either needy kinsfolk or destitute relations, or finally the poor of any tie whatsoever, or certainly — which is above all — those dedicated to God. For this is the chief and preeminent thing: if that very thing which one does out of the office of piety, one does out of the affection of religion.

For blessed is he who loves his own with the spirit of divine love, whose charity is the worship of Christ, who in the bond of nature thinks of God the Father of natures, and, converting the gifts of love into sacrifices, prepares for himself so much of immortal gain and blessed fruits, that while he lends to his Lord that which he bestows on his pledges, by this very thing that he grants a temporary liberality to his own, he begets for himself an eternal reward. But now, on the contrary, in the most perverse and most impious manner, nothing at all is left to less by their own than to those to whom more is owed for the reverence of God; piety regards none less than those whom religion especially commends. In short, if any sons are offered to God by their parents, being offered they are set behind all the sons:

they are judged unworthy of the inheritance because they have been worthy of consecration; and through this, in this one thing alone they become cheap to their parents — because they have begun to be precious to God. From which it can be understood that almost no one is cheaper among men than God, whose contempt it surely is, that parents especially spurn those sons who have begun to belong to God. Chapter 5. But those who do these things render, forsooth, an illustrious account of their counsel, saying: 'What need is there that an equal portion of the inheritance be left to sons who are now religious?'

'Nothing therefore is more just, nothing more worthy, than that, because they have begun to be religious, they should beg' — not indeed that this matter is going to oppress them with beggary, in that they are cut off from earthly means, possessing heaven in hope and soon to possess it also in fact, with their God ruling and protecting them, who endows them, together with the immortal hope of things eternal, with a sufficiency also of things temporal; but nevertheless, so far as pertains to the inhumanity of the parents, they are in want, being so left by them that they should be in want: certainly even if some are not utterly turned out of the house and not entirely made outcasts as though interdicted from water and fire, they are left so much inferior to their brothers that, even if they do not suffer want by poverty, they yet seem to want by comparison.

You say: 'What need have the religious of a just portion of the patrimony?' I answer: that they may discharge the office of religion, that by the means of the religious religion may be enriched, that they may give, that they may lavish, that while they have, all who have not may have — nay rather, if their faith and perfection be so great that they have, soon not about to have, more blessed indeed, after they have had, in not having. Why, I ask, O most inhuman parents, do you impose upon them the necessity of a most unworthy poverty? Permit this to religion itself, to which you have handed over your sons: more rightly do they become poor of themselves. If you desire them only to be needy, grant that to their own devotion. Let it be lawful for them, we beseech you, to be willing to become poor: they ought to choose want, not to endure it.

Finally, even if they should endure it, let them tolerate it out of devotion, not suffer it by condemnation. Why do you expel them as it were from nature and disinherit them as if from the right of blood? I too do not wish them to be poor, but that their poverty may nevertheless have its own reward, and that by a glorious exchange they may choose want out of abundance, so that out of the choosing of want they may attain abundance. And yet why do I strive to draw you through the very office of most holy reason toward humanity and piety, when this very thing most opposes it, and this matter makes parents impious which ought to make them pious?

For whereas you ought for this reason to leave more of your patrimony to your religious sons — that through your sons at least something might reach God out of your means — for this very reason you do not leave it to your sons, lest they should have anything to leave to God. Content, forsooth, with an illustrious reasoning and precaution, you refuse to acknowledge them as sons, lest they should recognize themselves to be sons of God, repaying a magnificent recompense for sacred benefits, while you most zealously take care that not even through your own people can the honor of God possess anything — though you possess all things through the gift of God. Why, I ask, so faithlessly, why so impiously? We do not demand that you lavish your own goods upon the Lord: render to God something of His own. Why do you act so greedily, why so impiously?

That which you refuse is not yours to give. Do you then judge it unjust to make religious sons equal in substance to worldly ones? What you are really doing, then, is to make them repent of the religious life they have undertaken — those whom their very religion has made cheap in your eyes. And so the Lord, kind and good, sets Himself in them as their purpose and their profession; but for your part, so far as it lies in you, you are working to make worldly followers out of those to whom you prefer worldly sons. For what else is it than to forbid religion, than to hold religion in contempt for religion's own sake? But perhaps I shall seem unjust in accusing all parents equally in this matter, since indeed not all act with equal iniquity toward their children.

For there are, someone says — there are among parents many who make equal shares for their children, save only that they mark them off by this one condition: that in those very portions which seem to be assigned to the religious ones, they order the use to belong to them but the ownership to others. But this in truth is far worse and more faithless. For it is, as it were, a more bearable impiety to leave a son less along with full ownership than to strip away from him the ownership of the goods altogether. Such a condition can be borne to some degree if something is left under this stipulation to friends, or kinsmen, or neighbours; but to sons, whoever does not grant the ownership of the goods leaves nothing at all.

But the most iniquitous faithlessness of parents has devised how to shut God out entirely from its patrimony — by taking away ownership of the goods from religious children. It gave them the use, that they might have whereby to live; it took from them the ownership, that they might have nothing to leave to God. O novel cunning of an irreligious mind! It has found a way to seem to be providing for its children before God by its very greater impiety toward God. For it has brought it about that the holy offspring, having the use of the goods but not the right to them, should live as though wealthy, yet die as though a beggar; and thus the most faithless testator might depart from this world in full security, since he knew that from his estate nothing at all could reach through to God.

Although even in that very thing which I said above — that religious sons possess through the use of goods some image of wealth — not even this holds, for although the use seems to have something, yet the conscience has nothing; for no one can believe himself rich even for a moment who knows that he has nothing of his own. What are you doing, most wretched faithlessness and error of a pagan, so to speak, irreligiousness? Do you so hate God that you can fail to love even your own sons for this alone — that they belong to God? For some leave their freedmen on better terms than you leave your sons.

For it is a matter of daily practice that slaves — even of servitude not the best, but at least not disgraceful — are granted Roman freedom by their masters, in which indeed they both receive ownership of their peculium and obtain the right to make a will, so that both while living they may hand over their goods to whom they wish, and when dying transfer them by gift; and not only this, but even those things which, while in slavery, they had acquired, they are not forbidden to carry off from their masters' house. So much does the grace of a patron's generosity sometimes bestow on them, that it even detracts from its own right in order to lavish on the freedmen's dominion. How much better, O whoever you are, most faithless father — how much better do those masters deal with their freedmen than you with your children! They give what they give by perpetual right; you, by a temporary one.

They give their freedmen the discretion to make a will; you take it from your children. They, in fine, grant their slaves freedom; you, as it were, consign your sons to slavery. For what else is it than to consign to slavery those whom you will not have possess anything as though free-born? You act, then, after the manner of those who, because they judge slaves who have not deserved well of them unworthy of Roman citizenship, bind them under the yoke of Latin freedom — whom indeed they order to live under the title of freedmen, but do not wish to have anything when they die. For, the right of a last will being denied them, they cannot even bestow by gift, when dying, the things they possess while surviving.

So then you too order your religious sons to be like Latin freedmen: that they may live, as it were, as free-born, but die as slaves; and bound, as though by the chain of Latin freedom, to the right of their brothers, so that even though they seem to be their own masters while they live, they nevertheless die as though set under the others' power. What crime, I ask, do you suppose there is in the title of religion, that for this reason you refuse to believe that those who are religious are your sons — because they have begun to be sons of God? By what expiation of good will, as it were, have they become guilty in your eyes, that you should therefore think they must be held the worse because they choose to be the better? But you say that this is not done by you with such intent.

Which is all one, as if someone were to say that he does evil deeds with a good intent, and commits the crime of impiety with a pious mind. What does it profit, O most inhuman parents, that you assert your religious sons are dishonoured by you with good intent? The thing itself rejects this, the facts refute it. It is too little that you say it in bare assertions; you yourselves are witnesses against yourselves by your deeds. Do you then judge it unworthy that pledges holy and pleasing to God should be put on a level with sons who serve the world? It would be true, and you would judge rightly — if only you used that judgment justly and in the opposite direction, that is, so as to reckon the good sons the ones to be matched.

You would not reckon the wicked and sinners on a par with the holy, and those who surpass in life and merit before God would with you also surpass in favour and honour. For what is more right, what more just, than that those who are better should also be the more honoured; that those who conquer in judgment should conquer also in reward; that those who take precedence in the holy Gospel should take precedence also in a human will; and that in this at least the piety and will of parents should accord with the will of Christ — so that those whom God has preferred by election, their parents too should set before others in dignity? But not only is this not done, but everything is done in the opposite way.

For the defiled are preferred to the pure, the impious to the faithful; darkness is preferred to light, earth to heaven, the world to God. And do such parents suppose they will escape the judgment of God on this ground alone — they who trample down the worship of God and the dignity of His judgment by their unworthiness? But, forsooth, parents say these things are done by them not out of contempt for God, but for cause and reason. 'For to whom,' they say, 'are those who have no children going to leave the substance they leave behind?' I will say to whom — nor will I name those whom I named above, the poor of God, not strangers or persons set far off, lest perhaps it seem harsh or inhuman. I mean those dear and inseparable ones, whom rightly even you who have many offspring set before your children:

those very men themselves, I say, O most faithless parents — themselves, I say, we mean. Can anything nearer to each one than his own self, anything dearer, be found? To each one of you we commend his own soul, his own salvation, his own hope. And do you call yourselves loving because you love your sons? Nothing more harsh can be said of you, nothing more inhuman, nothing so savage, nothing so impious, seeing that from you it can in no way be obtained that you love your very selves. 'Skin,' says the devil in the sacred Scriptures, 'skin for skin, and all that a man has will he give for his life.'

That a man's soul is most dear to him even the devil did not deny; and he who strives to turn all men away entirely from love of their own souls nonetheless confesses that souls ought to be most dear to all. What madness, then, is it that our souls should be held cheap by us — souls which even the devil judges to be precious? What madness is it that they should be held cheap by us — souls which even he says ought to be dear to you, he who tries to make them cheap? And by this, whoever neglect their own souls love themselves even below the devil's judgment. Since these things are so, look to yourselves, you who suppose that religious men have no one to whom to leave their substance; look, at least according to the devil's opinion; look whether they do not have someone — they who have their own selves.

For this portion of the matter now under discussion, I think what we have already said is sufficient; but perhaps you would want it shown to us not by the force of the arguments alone, but also by the authority of examples. I could indeed say that God's commands are greater than all examples, and that it makes no difference — for the increasing of the authority of the divine words — whether men fulfil them or do not fulfil them, since it is certain that their force stands upon the Lord's person and not upon the servants' obedience; and nothing can be added to them or taken from them by us, whose honour through their author, God, is always equal.