On the Governance of God 4 part 5/7

But nevertheless, if human weakness desires to be aided also by the examples of men — namely, that it may the more easily now do what it learns others to have done before — we showed in the first book that these things, which even now are done by not a few imitators of Christ, have been fulfilled not moderately but abundantly, not by very few but by whole peoples, not by the most ancient but almost by the most recent, only lately. For what do the Acts of the Apostles, new and still as it were set before our eyes, declare? 'All,' I say, 'who believed had all things in common.' And again: 'Great grace also was upon them all; for neither was anyone needy among them.'

'For as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them and brought the prices of the things sold and laid them at the feet of the apostles.' And elsewhere too: 'And no one said that anything of what he possessed was his own.' And this was no small number of believers — lest perhaps the authority of the writings should less move someone, while they think it is the example of a few. For what a multitude the primitive Church then was can be recognized even from this alone: that at the very beginnings, straightway, eight thousand men are reported to have joined the Church in two days; and let it lie open to estimation what a multitude of every kind grew together on the remaining days, when two days alone — apart from the disparity of age and likewise of sex — brought forth so great a throng of men.

Hence, since the people was even then so innumerable and so perfect, I ask you, all you parents with whom I am speaking: among those so many and so great thousands of believers then, living in such perfection of faith, were they all with children, or all without children? Neither, I think; for no congregation of the Church is not mingled of both. Therefore any Christians who have no children can understand to whom they ought to leave their substance, since they see to whom those childless ones then left theirs. But if they do have children, let them learn what they too ought to do, since they see that parents then set the love of God before their children. Every age, then, has, every condition has, something to follow:

whoever is a partaker of the faith, let him make himself a partaker of the blessed example. If they then, giving all their goods for God's sake, disinherited even their own selves while living, learn you, we beseech, at least to inherit your own goods while dying. For it behoves you, believe me, not to forget, even amid your children, the salvation of your souls. That your children are your near pledges and most closely joined to you is certain enough; but, believe me, no one is nearer to you, no one more closely joined, than your very selves. Love, therefore — we do not oppose it — love your sons; but nevertheless in a second place after yourselves: so love them that you may not seem to hate yourselves; for love is rash and foolish that is mindful of another and unmindful of itself.

'The son,' says the sacred Scripture, 'shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of his son.' And the Apostle says: 'Each one shall bear his own burden.' Riches left to children, therefore, do not free the parents from beggary; nay rather, means left immoderately to children are the everlasting beggary of the parents, and by this no one is more harmful to parents than sons too much loved. For while these abound in their fathers' goods, the parents are tortured in eternity. Even if the son be so dutiful that, for the sake of cooling his father's torment, he should afterwards desire to share the goods left with his father, it will avail nothing:

since after death the son's dutifulness cannot render back to the father what each one's own want of devotion and faithlessness has denied him. And therefore, according to the Apostle, let each one consider his own bundles, since each one of men shall bear his own burdens. The flames of the unhappy dead are not cooled by the riches of their heirs. That rich man in the Gospel, who was clothed in purple and fine linen — without doubt one who had himself been wealthy in this world — had also enriched his heirs by his death. But it profited him nothing that his brothers lay rich upon his wealth and talents, and he himself could not obtain a drop of refreshment.

They were in abundance, but he in want; they in rejoicing, but he in grief; they in riches, but he in torments; they perhaps continually in luxury, but he ever in the flame. O unhappy and pitiable condition! By his goods he had prepared for others blessedness, for himself affliction; for others joys, for himself tears; for others brief pleasure, for himself perennial fire. Where then were his kinsmen, where his neighbours, where were his sons, if he had them, or his brothers, whom he had remembered and had certainly loved with so great a love that even set in torment he did not forget them? What did they profit him, what did they avail? The unhappy man was tortured, and while others devoured his wealth, he, burning, begged a drop of refreshment and could not obtain it.

And this — if anything can be added to his punishment — he begged to be granted him through the one whom he had once despised; through the one who had rotted away in filth and putrid matter; through the one whose stench and squalor he had shunned from afar; who had fed dogs with the sores of his limbs, whom teeming clusters of worms had furrowed even within the recesses of his corroded body. O condition too grievous and to be mourned! The poor man bought blessedness by beggary, the rich man punishment by his wealth: the poor man, when he had nothing at all, bought eternal riches by his want. O how much more easily could that man, rich with so great a possession of goods, have procured these things — he who, burning amid torments and crying out amid punishments, said:

'Father Abraham,' he says, 'have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, that he may cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame.' The rich man then did not, forsooth, shudder at the hand of Lazarus, once a poor man, nor disdain his help: he begged that his fingers be put into his mouth and that the intolerable flames of his throat be mitigated by the gift of that hand, formerly foul and squalid. O how great a change of things had come about! He then longed to be touched by the one whom he had before disdained even to look upon. Let the rich, then, ponder these things — the rich who are unwilling to redeem themselves by their means, lest they suffer such things. Rich was that man of whom we now speak; rich too are these to whom we now speak. They are of one name:

let them beware lest they be also of one condition. For rich children will not free their guilty parents, nor will an opulent heir, abounding in delights, extinguish the flames of the wretched testator. It is hard that too little should be left by someone to his children and kinsmen; it is much harder to be tortured in eternity. For I think that rich man, while he was being tortured, was not so much delighted by the wealth of his heir.

His heir's wealth did not delight him as much as the torments of his own body tortured him; it did not delight him so much that his heir feasted well as it tortured him that he himself was wretchedly racked; it did not delight him so much that his heir abounded in exquisite delights as it tortured him that he himself was melting away in intolerable fires; it did not delight him so much that his heir fed parasites and gluttons on his abundance as it tortured him that he himself fed the flames with his own marrow.

And I think, if anyone had then given him the power of choice — whether he would rather that his heirs be rich, or that he himself be not in miseries and torments — he would surely have wished them stripped of all their goods, provided only that he might be freed from all his evils; he would have wished to offer up all that he had possessed, provided only that he might escape what he was enduring; he would have wished to give for himself all that substance he had had — the temporal treasures of silver and gold — that he might, if by any means he could, quench with a heaped-up mass of his riches the continual crosses of undying punishments and that perennial burning, and hold back the overflowing globes of fire by opposing to them the immensity of his vast wealth.

And why should I say that he wished to redeem that unending evil with his means? I say something more: he would have wished to hand over his whole substance, that he might procure for himself, set amid the flames, a respite of even one single hour. For, longing for even the poor man's finger dipped in water to mitigate the flames of his throat, how would he not have preferred to purchase respite at whatever price — he who begged with so great earnestness for a small drop of refreshment? But now what did these things profit, or what did it help the wretched man that he then wished to offer all for himself, who had wickedly refused before? Or what did it then profit that he desired to give all — which he had now lost — who had given nothing for himself then, when he possessed all?

For late indeed — as the Holy Spirit says in the Scriptures — late is the repentance of the dead. How so? 'For there is not,' says the divine word to God the Father, 'there is not in death anyone who is mindful of Thee; and in hell who shall confess to Thee?' It testifies that the dead sinner is utterly shut out from the confession of sin, and that no one can afterwards be mindful of God who in this life was forgetful of himself. So completely is all hope utterly cut off from him and every avenue of life barred, that although the one way of salvation for the guilty is to pour out prayers to God and unceasingly to entreat the heavenly mercy, even from this the sinner is condemned by the visitation of deadly forgetfulness, so that there is left to him not even the memory of God, from whom he ought to hope.

Let these things, then, be pondered by those who, while they desire to have rich children after death, are not mindful even in death of the punishments to come: let these things be pondered by those who, that they may have rich heirs in this fleeting and brief life, condemn their very selves to eternal death. In which indeed they love them not so much as they hate themselves, since a love is not so wholesome that provides for the brief span, as the hatred is grievous that will torture in eternity. And therefore our God — as we said long ago in the first little book — bids parents to treasure up for their children discipline, not money; He commands them to bestow things everlasting, not things that perish.

Namely, because a thing of this kind and a holy work profit both children and parents alike — children indeed through the instruction of discipline, parents through the bounty of munificence. For discipline bestows this on children, that they may lay hold of perpetual salvation, and munificence on parents, that they may escape everlasting death. But to whom do we say these things, or why do we say them? Where shall we be able to find open ears or seeing eyes? For all — as we read of the impious — almost all have turned aside, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, there is almost not so much as one. For a new madness has assailed men, worldly as well as even some who have professed religion.

For, as we began to say a while ago, now not only to sons or grandsons — which can be borne on account of the necessity of nature — but even to agnates and cognates, and not only, as they say, in the direct line but also in the collateral and the transverse — nay rather in the reverse and perverse — line, do they consign to those coming into it the goods of their own means, that is, the price of their own redemption. And it makes now almost no difference to men for whom they provide, provided only that they provide not at all for themselves. For if any of those of whom we speak, with death drawing near, have no children, they most faithlessly seek out whom they may call either their neighbours or their kinsmen, or, if this perhaps is lacking, they seek out at least some feigned names of newfangled relationships.

And it makes no difference, as I said, to them whom they remember, provided they forget themselves: it makes no difference whom they say they love, provided they hate their own souls; nor does it make any difference whom they make rich, provided they consume themselves in eternal beggary. O unhappiness! O insanity! What, I ask, have these most wretched of all men so deserved of themselves, that while they serve the pleasures of others, they persecute themselves forever! For you may see certain new and noble neighbours sought out by some with most unhappy vanity; you may see the shameful names of unknown agnations and the ridiculous fictions of recent and most powerful affinities, when someone says of some adoptive and sudden kinsman: 'Him I make my heir, my parent':

or when some widow or maiden of holy profession says: 'Him I write down as my heir, my nearest kin.' And thus certain persons whom throughout their whole life they had held as though outsiders and strangers, they suddenly have as kinsmen at the last; and those who were always strangers to the living begin to be parents of the dying. For they suddenly introduce into their will those whom they never introduced into their affection — and this especially, as I said, either the wealthy, or the noble, or the honoured, and those who, unless they were powerful, would perhaps not have been kinsmen. Ridiculous ambition of the wretched testator, giving the sum of his own means to procure the lie of a kinship, buying at the price of an inheritance the name of an heir, and labouring with all the strength of his patrimony to this end — that that man,

who is written down as heir, may not deny him as a parent; and that the most unhappy testator, by a most foolish and most wretched vanity, having made a noble heir, may seem more honoured in death — he who in his own life was seen to be more lowly. O blindness! O insanity! With what zeal, most unhappy men, do you bring it about that you may be wretched in eternity! With how much less care, how much less ambition, could you have secured for yourselves that you might be blessed forever! Indeed, of this matter I can find no cause at all except only unbelief and perfidy — that is, that they either do not think men are to be judged by God, or do not believe at all that they will rise again.

For there is no one who is certain that he will rise again and be judged by God concerning his good and evil deeds, who does not either provide for his hope and blessedness — that for good deeds he may receive everlasting good — or for his fear and peril — lest for evil deeds he suffer eternal evils. But this, forsooth, seems to be abhorrent to the Christian name: that a Christian should be said not to believe things to come. What, then, is the cause that, if he believes what God has said, he does not fear what God threatens? If he does not believe the words that God has spoken, let him not believe the rewards that God promises. For he does not prove himself to believe the promises of God who does not so act that he may be able to attain to the rewards promised by God.

For in this very life of men, if anyone learns that he is to be judged by this human power and haled to an earthly tribunal, he seeks out advocates, engages patrons, buys the favour and goodwill of the officials, and does all these things from fear of the coming judgment, though he cannot ensure the outcome of the judgment. So that, even if he cannot buy victory itself, he yet buys at great cost the hope of victory. Tell me, whoever you are who say that you believe in the judgment of God: if you believed you were to be judged by God even after the example of the men aforesaid, would you not procure your hope and salvation at any price? But you do not believe, assuredly; you do not believe; and though you wish to assert your credulity by words, you do not believe;

for with words, as the Apostle says, you confess, but by deeds you deny. Finally, that I may prove your faithlessness to your very self and out of your own mouth, tell me, I beseech you, whoever you are, who leave your substance either to some rich kinsman or to a relation by marriage, or, if these perhaps are lacking, even to a stranger: why did you not, sound and whole, renounce it from yourself? Why did you not, safe and vigorous, hand it over to your heirs, but in the will itself most providently sing, and carefully and diligently write down: 'When I have departed from human affairs, then be thou, my most beloved, my heir'?

Tell me, I pray, why to this most beloved of yours, as you yourself say, and most devoted to you, do you for so long give nothing of your own, for so long hand over nothing of your own — as long as you think yourself to be living, but only then when you see that you are about to die? And why do I say 'when you see that you are about to die'? Nay, you most providently guard against this: lest, while you are yet breathing or dying, he should have anything of yours; but only when you are altogether deceased, now dead. And it is a wonder that you permit even this, that your goods should be his when you are now buried, and not rather when you have now been carried out and entombed. Although even in this — in that you say 'when I shall have departed from human affairs' — you seem to have guarded against that very thing. For this is to depart wholly from human affairs: that the whole man, together with his body, should have ceased to be in the presence of human things.

Tell me, therefore, why do you so providently sing these things in your will, why do you so carefully and prudently insert them? Without doubt, because you judge your property necessary to you while you live, because you are unwilling to alienate yourself from your means, and you deem it most iniquitous that, while you are living and whole, another should become rich from your goods, while you yourself are consumed by beggary. It is true, and I do not refuse this reasonable care, and whatever is said by you in this manner I approve. But in one thing, nevertheless, I desire satisfaction from you. What is the reason that you, who think the use of your goods so exceedingly necessary to you, do not think the fruits and income of your means necessary to you after death?

You say without doubt: because for the dead there is no need of anything, nor is anything to be reserved for me against that time, since, deceased and perceiving nothing, I can neither be delighted by the possession of my goods nor tortured by their loss. The cause is evident. Therefore for this reason, while dying, you assign your substance to another, because you yourself cannot after death gather fruits from it. But what of the fact that the most choice vessel of God, the Apostle Paul, testifies and cries out that whatsoever a man shall have sown in this life, this he shall reap after death, and he that soweth sparingly shall also reap sparingly, and he that soweth in blessing shall of blessing also reap? From which he wished it to be plainly understood that those who sow in sparingness cannot reap blessing. For when he says:

'he that soweth sparingly shall also reap sparingly, and he that soweth in blessing shall of blessing also reap,' he clearly placed blessing in bounty alone, and showed that sparing sowers shall reap beggary, bountiful sowers blessing. But perhaps these things, whoever you are, unbeliever, seem to you either too weak or too little plain. What of the fact that the Lord Himself in the Gospel most manifestly teaches that a Christian loses nothing of his good works, saying: 'Whosoever shall give one of these least a cup of cold water to drink, only in the name of a disciple — amen I say to you, he shall not lose his reward'? What could have been said more plainly?

He declared that even that thing would have a reward in the future which in the present had no price: so much honour did He grant to His own worship, that something should exist there through faith which here was utterly nothing by reason of its worthlessness. Yet, lest in this matter certain men should perhaps flatter themselves, thinking that, if they possessed much, they might purchase great things with trifles, He subtly laid down that even for a cup of cold water the reward would not perish, thereby plainly showing not that something great is to be rendered in exchange for something small, but nevertheless that no work of faith, however slight, shall perish. You have therefore an unquestionable assurance of future recompense; you have a surety altogether sufficient for the receiving back of your good works:

One indeed who is of such great faithfulness, and not only of faithfulness but of mercy and love, that He not only pays what He has promised as though it were a debt, but even points out something whereby He makes Himself a debtor. For He who said that He would render a reward for a cup of cold water not only wills to pay what He has received, but even shows certain things which He may pay. Being kind, of course, and full of mercy, and willing to take thought not only for the bounty of the rich but also for the small service of the poor, He pointed out a means whereby even he who had nothing at all to lend might make God in some way indebted to him. XVII.

But perhaps to you, whoever you are that are rich, this work of the poor may seem unworthy of your resources, and you may wish to hear some pledge of the sacred promise pertaining particularly to yourself. You have first that word which God speaks to that rich man in the Gospel: 'Go, sell all your goods, and you shall have treasure in heaven.' Then that word by which, in a prohibitive precept, He generally commands: 'Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven.'

Lastly, those words by which He invites all possessors of worldly things to the work of overflowing bounty in hope of an infinite recompense, saying that everyone who, for the sake of His honour and love, shall bestow either house or field or any other resource for the uses of mercy, shall receive a hundredfold in the future: 'and moreover,' He says, 'he shall possess eternal life.' What greater thing could He have pledged to those who believe in Him, He who promised that He would render a hundredfold to His great lenders? And not only this, but 'he shall possess,' He says, 'eternal life.' This is much more than the recompense of the hundredfold itself, because that very thing which anyone shall have received in the hundredfold, he shall possess for ever.

There will therefore then be no frail and perishable possession, nor one destined to pass away after the likeness of earthly riches, as a fleeting shadow or a vanishing dream. Whatever shall have been given by God will be immortal; whatever shall have been received will remain without end. And by this, as I have said, he receives more than a hundredfold who so receives, because that very fact, that the hundredfold is everlasting, surpasses the price of the hundredfold. XVIII. Since these things are so, and since without doubt he who believes God is destined to receive so great a reward, how is it that you do not think you shall enjoy after death those things which you shall have given to God, of which the Lord promises you not only the use but even increase and a surpassing abundance? Or is it perhaps that you do not wish to receive such great things?

But reason does not allow that you should not wish it. For there is no one among men who, when he is able to be blessed, would rather be wretched; there is no one who, when he might possess the delights of the highest good, would choose to suffer the torment of the highest evil; assuredly no one, none at all, and therefore not even you: unless perchance there be in you some monstrous nature, at variance with the human race, so that you alone are utterly unwilling that it be well with you, you alone flee blessedness, you alone take delight in torments.

But if this is certainly not so, what reason then is there that you should not, even while dying and set in your last moments, do at least this by the duty of a final offering and by every disposal of your goods, that, if you are able to earn it from God, you may be rich and blessed, but if you cannot do that, at least that you may not be wretched, that you may certainly not be burned, that you may certainly not be tormented, that you may certainly not be destroyed in the outer darkness, and not be consumed by flames that burn without end? What reason then, as I have said, is there that you do not do these things? What reason is there that you do not buy eternal goods? What reason is there that you do not fear eternal evils? What indeed, unless that which I have said before, namely that you either do not think you are to be judged by God, or do not at all believe that you shall rise again?

For if you believed, how would you not flee the inestimable evil of the coming judgment and avoid the torments of immortal punishments? But you certainly do not believe, you do not believe; and although you assert otherwise both by speech and by profession, you do not believe; for your speech and profession boast of faith, but your life and your death publish your unbelief. Otherwise, refute me: I wish to be refuted. I do not ask that you prove your credulity to me by the acts of your former life: I am content with the single testimony of your last moments.

Behold, now, behold you are dying, about to go forth from the house of your body, not knowing whither you are to go, whither you are to be led away, to what penal and what foul places you are to be hurried, to whom there remains only one refuge among your last moments, to whom one watchtower of escaping the eternal fire is given—that you might offer for yourself at least what you have in substance, since you no longer have anything else that you can offer to God: and you, unmindful of yourself, forgetful of your own salvation, are thinking about new legatees, sighing over enriching your heir. And doing these things, you say you believe in the judgment of God—you who, when you are to be judged, do not even in your last moments take thought for yourself? And do you say you believe something concerning the salvation of your soul—you to whom nothing is cheaper than your own soul, with whom it almost makes no difference whom you benefit, provided that you harm yourself?

And do you say you believe in the future Judge—in whose sight none is lesser and more despised than the Judge Himself? For you scorn Him so greatly, you so greatly despise Him, that you take no thought even for your own self, provided you may hold His commands in contempt. Either refute me and convict me, if I lie. Behold, He Himself, who is to judge you, your own Judge, cries out to you as you are dying, that you should love no man at all more than yourself in the bestowal of your goods and resources, that as you die you should take thought for no one out of your substance more than for yourself, that you should judge no one nearer to you than your own soul, none dearer. 'For what shall it profit a man,' says the Saviour, 'if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?' This is to say:

What shall it profit you, O most unhappy man, if you either possess the whole world yourself or leave it to your kinsmen, if you suffer the loss of your salvation and of your soul? For the losses of the soul carry away utterly everything with themselves, nor shall a man be able to have anything at all who loses his very self by the loss of a perishing soul. 'Or what,' He says, 'shall a man give in exchange for his soul?' This is to say: do not look, O man, upon money nor possession, and do not hesitate, at least while dying, to offer for your hope as much as you can of your property and resources. For whatever you shall have given for yourself is cheap, whatever you shall have offered for yourself is of little price, because your soul is more precious than all things in comparison.

And therefore do not hesitate at all to give for yourself, because, if you lose yourself, you lose all in yourself: but if you gain yourself, you shall possess with yourself and in yourself all things. XIX. When therefore your Lord cries these things to you, O man, whoever you are, now dying, you stop your mind, you block your ear, and, asserting faith by bare words, you think that words suffice you in place of deeds, and you esteem yourself to have a sufficiently firm support of belief, if you seem to honour with lying words that God whom you despise by your deeds and works. 'My son,' says holy Scripture, 'if you have, do well by yourself, and offer to God worthy offerings.' And elsewhere it says: 'Have mercy on your own soul.' See how merciful is the Lord our God, who asks us ourselves to have mercy for our own sake: