Tractates 1 part 1/14

BOOK ONE. TREATISE ONE. On Faith. 1. The greatest felicity of Christian faithfulness is to know the nature of faith, which is of such kind and so great that to each man it is not lent by another, but is born of his own will. For the rest, if—as some suppose—it hangs upon the mouth of a teacher, then beyond doubt, when that same teacher either ceases or teaches otherwise, it is destroyed. To this is added that, unless a preceding faith—girt about with all devotion—embrace the introduction of the Law, a faith which by believing renders its effect both to itself and to the Law, that introduction will be empty; for to the unbeliever it cannot render the fruit of the believer. In short, Abraham pleased God by belief without the Law (Gal. ...).

(Gal. 3:6), and the Jewish people displeased God by unbelief together with the Law. Hence there is no doubt that the Law cannot stand without faith, while faith can stand without the Law; otherwise this innumerable throng, happier in its very simplicity, would still lie subject to the dominion of death, if only those learned in the Law had deserved to be justified. But since it is written, The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life (2 Cor. 3:6)—because we are not under the Law but under grace, which compels us to love God and to serve Him alone in the sacrament of the one Trinity once believed, not by argument, not by necessity, but by the will—I judge it most manifest that the simple man is far better than the crafty: for the simple man believes simply all the words of God;

but the crafty man, made foolish by excessive cleverness, confounds himself with vain inquiries. II. But someone will say: if this is so, then the Law profits no one. Far from it! It profits, and that very greatly: for through it the will of God is made known to the peoples; through it we are gathered together and held by heavenly discipline (Rom. 3:20 and 7:7); through it, I say, every kind of sin is denounced, lest anyone perish unawares. It never ceases to admonish, lest anyone excuse his guilt by ignorance: now stern, now gentle, it shows the reward and shows also the sword, about to bestow upon each what he has chosen, so that he may rightly fulfil what he undertakes.

From those who come to it, it demands only the profession of belief, and this only because it cannot see their faith; and if it detects from their conduct that faith is absent, then at once, in anger, it punishes as faithless the very one it has taught; and it testifies that it was promulgated for no other cause than that faith might be vindicated against the faithless. In short, take away sin, and the command of the Law ceases. For the Law, as it is written, is not made for the righteous, but for the sinner: because the just lives by faith (1 Tim. 1:9; Gal. 3:11), the unbeliever unjustly. Therefore whoever esteems the disputation of the Law to be faith errs; whoever confounds two diverse things into one. For disputation, just as it cultivates the Law, so, if it be cunning, uproots faith:

for assuredly there is no faith where faith is sought by inquiry. Then, the Law is common, but faith is private: for the Law ever flows from the parent book, while faith clings tenaciously to its own purpose alone. The Law passes from one to another; faith perishes if at any time or in any way it turns aside from its state. The Law can in some measure reach a man's conscience, but it cannot see it; faith cleanses the conscience to its very marrow, that it owe nothing of guilt even within: for he who fears not his own conscience is the very one who fears not God. Add that the Law is both learned and taught in parts. Add that as a whole it is neither understood nor held.

Add that it is asserted by anyone with arguments according to the quality of his wit. Add that it is desired by all and fulfilled by none. Add that it is an indicator of God's will, not of God's origin or nature. 8. III. It follows that we ought to know whether we should affirm a treatise about faith, or faith as a treatise. If we say a treatise about faith, we shall err grievously: for the nature of faith does not suffer itself to be subjected to the artifice of loquacity, by which nothing else is laboured for save that faith be approved by its own virtues alone; for that cannot be perfect which awaits from elsewhere something necessary to itself. But if we begin to call faith a treatise,

then assuredly it will be neither ours, nor its own, nor even his to whom it is said to belong: for the treatise, while it builds up faith, by that very means by which it builds it up, destroys it; nor will it give to anyone what it does not possess, but rather, that it may not possess it, it still keeps inquiring. I observe, moreover, as the names of the asserters indicate (which, if you take them away, there is no quarrel left for chance contingencies), that there have been many treatises, many faiths—and indeed novel ones, nourished by the labour and favour of litigation: which, because the true one can scarcely be found, I believe, lest the peoples should suffer want, have been put up for sale as merchandise. Yet from among all these, what ought to be chosen can be neither known nor comprehended:

for that cannot be either proper or firm which has an ever-uncertain state: since indeed the choosing of one is the rejection of another; or if all without exception are to be embraced, so that a man should have as many faiths as he has words that he lacks, all the more will he have nothing—because the treatise that begot them, or daily begets them, can still beget more; and on the other hand, when provoked, it again consumes them, by re-treating and refuting according to the powers of wits and arguments. But if, as needs must be, there is one—that noble and ancient faith—which I would say is born not by a treatise but by its very birth: and is moreover greater than the Law, since by believing God to be God it earned its merit, and did not learn to believe but presumed it;

let that ruinous invention of its own treatise tell me what battle it casts forth! 'Lest faith perish,' it says, 'when it is either ill believed or ill taught.' What evil this reasoning is, we shall soon see. IV. Now I desire to know whether faith consists of doctrine, or of belief, or of both. If it consists of doctrine, then those who know no letters do not have faith—but neither do those who do know letters: because by no reasonings can they bring the knowledge and observance of the Law to perfection. If it consists of belief, it needs no interpretation: because, just as it is believed once, so once, from that very thing which has been believed, faith is consummated, and is neither lessened nor increased. But if of both, then the faith of the Patriarchs is half-formed:

and on this account the books of our own constitution, namely of our decree-making, must be assigned to them, that they may be able to be perfect. O how wretched is the faith that words contrive! O how feeble is that whose limbs are daily scattered by sundry argumentations! O how undefended is that which moment by moment craves the patronage of kings, of judges, of the rich, and sometimes even—what is worse—of the Gentiles! O how base and slippery is that with which an alien opinion makes sport! O how adulterous is that which knows not by what author it was born! O how ridiculous is that which, when two Christians contend, is called perfidy by one of them if it is not transferred over, but called faith once it has been transferred!

O how untrue is that which is strong by factions! O how publican-like is that whose secrets even the profane gossip about! O how presumptuous is that which prefers rather to be believed for its own novel tradition than for antiquity, than for God the Lord saying: You reject the commandment of God, that you may establish your own traditions (Mark 7:9). But I do not say this to render the benefit of doctrine thankless, but that each one may know that faith is one thing, a treatise another; and that faith can neither be given, nor known, nor destroyed through a treatise. It cannot be given; for if it can be given by words, it will also be able to be taken away by words. Likewise it cannot be known; for it may happen that a man bears one thing on his lips, another in the inmost recesses of his heart.

Likewise it cannot even be destroyed; for if the faith is true, it can be nothing other than what it is. Therefore, since it is not within human capacity to see the secrets of faith, nowhere, brother, nowhere does your curiosity profit, nowhere your quarrel: because the one whom you suppose, even among your own zealous followers, to be the most faithful, this man is faithless; and the one whom you suppose faithless, this man is faithful. Perhaps someone esteems himself the more faithful in this, if he speaks cleverly—whereas he is rather the more truly faithful who, in sacred preaching, has not stretched the keen edge of his mind further than is permitted: for the matter has come to this, that our faith is investigated to the injury of God. That this would come to pass Solomon announced, and what is to be guarded against he taught in these words:

Better is he who is deficient in understanding yet in fear, than he who abounds in cleverness and transgresses the Law (Sir. 19:21). And again: Be not overwise; and do not argue more than is fitting (Eccles. 7:17). Likewise Paul: Be not high-minded, but fear (Rom. 11:20). 16. V. Since these things are so, why do you constrain the Law by the Law? Why, under the image of faith, do you lay aside faith? Why do you strive to drain the very fount of divinity by philosophical arguments? If you desire to show your skill in the Law, clear away the clouds of the readings. Teach that it is not contrary to itself: teach that all the things it proclaims are to be believed. But if you approve one part of it and reject another part,

how do you seek faith through this, when you yourself make it guilty of unfaithfulness, since you do not believe the whole? But if you are versed in the faith of the spirit, demonstrate some power. Command the mountains to remove themselves. Let the rage of lions vanish at your wonder, their jaws turned to fawning. Beneath your steps let the wave of the sea grow thick, and be made solid with marble stiffness. Let a tiny skiff bear your faith faithfully amid the troubled bosoms of the seething deep. With the bridle of prayer rein back the courses of the Sun and Moon from the chamber of their western prison. Let the seething fire of the panting furnace, its nature conquered, feel through you and with you a refreshing coolness. Breathe back into life the souls of the dead, recalled to the threshold of life.

Drive away diseases from the suffering, heal sicknesses, rejoice in temptations and in torments for the name of the Lord. If hard things befall you, show that you have faith like a grain of mustard seed. But if rather—what is worse—inflamed under the sound of the Law and of faith with love of worldly boasting, you presume that you can, by that very right by which you exist of yourself, compel by arguments, examine, measure, and discern the inestimable and incomprehensible perpetuity of the divinity—that of the begotten God of God and of the Holy Spirit: here I dare not answer you. For it would indeed be safer to seem unskilled than to be sacrilegious. And yet I have one who may stand against you on my behalf:

for the Law, by which you compel me, perhaps the less skilled, to sin, that very Law will mightily blunt and rebuke and confute you, since Solomon says: Seek not things too high for thee, and search not into things too mighty for thee. Think always upon the things that God has commanded thee; and be not curious in many of His works: for the surmise of them has seduced many, and held their understanding in vanity (Sir. 3:22, etc.). Likewise Paul writes back to the curious, saying: O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and how unfathomable His ways! For who has known the mind of God? (Rom. 11:33-34). And do you seek out His nature?

But in another place too he plainly expressed this matter which is here treated, when he speaks to Timothy, instructing him in these words: I exhorted thee to charge certain men that they use no perverse doctrine, nor give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which furnish questions rather than the true account of God, which is in faith. But the aim of the commandment is charity, from a pure heart and a good conscience and a simple faith (1 Tim. 1:3-4). VI. Therefore, if you are a servant of God, avoid foolish and unlearned questions, knowing that they beget strifes. And the servant of God must not be quarrelsome; for strife is the enemy both of charity and of faith: and if anyone loses these, he knows neither things divine nor things human.

These things, if you are religious, observe; if you are truly God-fearing, keep them: concerning that which exceeds the measure of human understanding, decline to dispute. He in a manner denies God, whoever asserts God by argument: for a defence is offered only to the weak; nor can he revere Him whom he thinks to be the product of his own wit—that is, what God was reckoned to be. For the rest, this is the true nobility of faith: that one serve God faithfully (Prov. 10:10); that he place his confidence in Him alone; that he acknowledge himself to be called faithful from fidelity and confidence; that he live with blameless conduct; that he presume to know Him by a good conscience, not by loquacity, which is indeed the mother of sin;

and that he not violate but honour the one fullness of power of the Trinity, which is conceived by one mind and one belief. 19. TREATISE TWO. On Hope, Faith, and Charity. I. In three things consist the foundations of the Christian summit, that is, in hope, in faith, and in charity; which seem so connected one to another that they are mutually necessary to each other. For unless hope go before, for what does faith labour? If faith be not, how shall hope itself be born? And to which two, if you deny charity, both will cease: for neither can faith work without charity, nor can hope work without faith. And so the Christian, if he desires to be perfect, must be built up in these three things;

for if any of these be wanting to him, he will not have the perfection of his work. Hence first of all, hope of things to come is to be set before us, without which we perceive that even present things themselves cannot stand. Indeed, take away hope, and all humanity grows numb. Take away hope, and all arts and virtues will cease. Take away hope, and all things are destroyed. What does a boy do for his schoolmaster, if he hopes not for the fruit of letters? Why does a sailor commit his raft to the deep abyss, if never gain, never the longed-for harbour meets him? Why does a soldier despise—I will not say the injuries of bristling winter or scorching summer, but even himself—if he bears no hope of future glory? Why does a farmer scatter seed, if he gathers not the harvest, the reward of his sweat?

Why does a Christian believe in Christ, if he believes not that the time of perpetual felicity promised to him by Him will come? II. But hope is from faith, which, although it be placed in the future, is nevertheless rightly subject to faith; for where faith is not, neither is hope: for faith is the substance of hope, and hope is the glory of faith; since the reward which hope holds, faith deserves; which indeed fights on behalf of hope, but conquers for itself. Therefore, brethren, it is to be embraced by us tenaciously, and to be guarded with every kind of virtue; upon it we must lean strongly: for it is the immovable, unconquered foundation of our life;

a bulwark alike and a weapon against the assaults of the devil, the impenetrable breastplate of our soul, the compendious and true knowledge of the Law, the terror of demons, the strength of martyrs, the beauty—or rather the wall—of the Church, the handmaid of God, the friend of Christ, the table-companion of the Holy Spirit. To this both things present and things to come are subject; the present, because it despises them; the future, because it presumes them to be its own. Nor does hope fear that they will not come; because it ever carries them with it in its own virtues. This is that which Abraham, against hope, in hope believed God, that he might become the father of many nations (Rom. 4:18). And 'against hope' means that which is impossible and is not seen: but it is made possible by this hope, when God's word is undoubtingly and strongly believed;

for the Lord says: All things are possible to him that believes (Mark 9:22). Hence Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him for righteousness (Gen. 15:6); who was righteous for this reason, that he was faithful; for the just lives by faith (Gal. 3:6); faithful for this reason, that he believed God; for unless he had believed, he could have been neither just nor father of nations. Wherefore it is manifest that hope and faith are of one inseparable nature: because in a man, whichever of these has failed, both die. III. Faith, therefore, is most especially our own proper possession, the Lord Himself saying: Thy faith hath made thee whole (Mark 10:52). Therefore, if it is ours, let us keep it as our own, that we may rightly hope for what is another's;

for no one entrusts his property to a bankrupt, nor will he honour a deserter with triumphal rewards, especially since it is written: To him that has, it shall be given, and he shall abound; but from him that has not, even that which he has shall be taken away from him (Matt. 13:12). Through this, brethren, Enoch deserved to be translated with his body against the law of nature. Through this Noah, escaping, found no one with whom to compare that he had passed through the flood. Through this Abraham attained to the friendship of God. Through this Isaac shone forth beyond the rest (Heb. 11:5, 7, 8, 20). Through this Jacob prevailed to wrestle with God. Through this Joseph subjected Egypt to his dominion (Gen. 32, 41). This made for Moses a glassy ground in the Red Sea (Exod. 14:22).

This, that the wonted measure of its course being set aside, the sun and moon at the desire of Joshua son of Nun put on their bridles to obey him (Josh. 10:13). This brought triumphs to the unarmed David over the armed Goliath (1 Sam. 17). This in Job, amid frequent and immense evils, did not despair (Job 1 and 2). This was the physician in the blindness of Tobit (Tob. 11). This in Daniel bound the mouths of the lions (Dan. 6). This in Jonah turned the whale into a skiff (Jon. 2). This in the army of the Maccabean brotherhood conquered alone (2 Macc. 7). This made the fires gentle for the three children (Dan. 3). This in Peter presumed that the sea could be walked upon with the feet (Matt. 14:29).

Through this the Apostles stripped many of the crowns of swelling ulcers, contagious and scabby with their deformed leprosy, restoring them to gleaming skin. Through this, I say, they commanded the blind to see, the deaf to hear, the dumb to speak, the lame to run, paralytics to be restored, demons to flee from the possessed, and the dead themselves often to return from their tombs together with their own funeral processions, so that all marvelled that tears of joy were made which had just now been tears of bereavement. 22. IV. But it is a long thing, brethren, to go through each one, especially because charity presses forward with stronger claims; which is so endowed above all things that, by its own right, it is the queen of all. Let faith triumph by whatever virtues it will, and let hope set forth many and great things;

yet without this charity both will not stand: faith, first of all, if it love not itself; hope, if it be not loved. Add that faith profits itself alone; charity profits all. Add that faith does not fight for free; but charity is wont to confer benefits even upon the ungrateful. Add that faith does not pass over into another; whereas charity—it is too little to say it passes into another—passes into a whole people. Add that faith belongs to few; charity to all. Add that hope and faith have a season; but charity has no end (1 Cor. 13), it grows at every moment, and the more it is believed by those who love one another in turn, the more it is owed in return. It does not love anyone for his person, because it knows not how to flatter; nor for honour, because it is not ambitious;

not for sex, since to it both are one; not for time, because it is not changeable; it is not envious, because it knows not what envy is; it is not puffed up, because it cherishes humility; it thinks no evil, because it is simple; it is not angry, because it gladly embraces even injuries; it does not deceive, because it itself guards good faith; it lacks nothing whatever, because to it, beyond what it is, nothing is necessary. This preserves the countryside, cities, and peoples settled and at peace. This makes the swords at the sides of kings to be secure. This presses down wars, removes strifes, voids lawsuits, restrains the courts, uproots hatreds, extinguishes wraths. This penetrates the sea, encircles the globe, supplies by commerce to the nations the things they need.

I will quickly proclaim its power, brethren. Whatever nature has denied to places, charity restores. This, by conjugal affection, compels two human beings by a venerable sacrament into one flesh. This bestows upon humanity that which is born. Its is the gift, that there is a dear wife, that there are noble children, that there are true fathers. Its is the gift, that others are near to us, like us, or more than us—be they neighbours or friends. Its is the gift, that we love servants as sons; and they gladly cherish us as masters. Its is the gift, that we love—I will not say acquaintances or friends—but often even those whom we have never seen. Its is the gift, that we recognize the virtues of the ancients from their books, or their books from their virtues. V.

But why then should I linger longer among human affairs, as though they alone were endowed with this affection? Do we not see every kind of living creature testify to charity by congregation and concord; and so all their motions, as by one sense, turned about by love their mistress, so that anyone may understand this cannot happen without the discipline of natural friendship? But what they do for one another in necessities, the well-nigh daily examples of swine—so delightful a struggle, known to all—declare: for when one of their number, perchance set spinning by the fury of a bold wolf, has begun to be led into present peril by tyrannical assaults, all suddenly hasten together; they come to the aid of the one in distress;

again and again they throw themselves headlong against the very weapons of the enemy in eager rivalry; they confound him with a mighty din; and with their squalid tusks thrust forth, they resist as it were in a testudo-formation; and by charity they more easily conquer that which singly, by naked strength, they could scarcely overcome. The very elements too, brethren—diverse enough and at enough variance—an attentive observer would once have caught at strife, had not kindly charity bound them together, endowing them with mutual and equal gifts of temperance, by the faithful offspring of perennial wedlock. There is nothing at all that without this can be pleasing, without this peaceful, without this faithful, without this secure, without this glorious, without this joined to God, without this able to be perfect.

Finally, when the Lord was asked what was the highest precept of the sacred Law, He thus spoke, saying: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, with thy whole soul, and with thy whole strength. And the second is like to this: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two precepts hang the whole Law and the Prophets (Matt. 22:37, 39, 40). Hence it is manifest that love is the substance and natural mistress of all divine virtues: since it is learned from the Law, but is born in our minds: for the Law hangs upon charity, charity does not hang upon the Law, as the Sacred Scripture says: The Law is not made for the just, but for the sinner (1 Tim. 1:9). And that man is the sinner who has not the charity of God:

and on this account he who works wrath is rightly subject to the Law. But perhaps someone may say, the Law is to be despised, because it is not necessary to the just and is burdensome to the sinner. Far from it, brethren: nay rather it is to be venerated, because it is the mirror of truth, because it is a certain rigid form of love: for whatever it has learned from the just, it compels the unjust also to do—doubly renowned, by glorifying the one and correcting the other. VI. It stands established, therefore, that the whole of Christianity is deposited rather in charity than in hope or in faith: as an evident example testifies. Judas Iscariot, the betrayer of the Lord, lost both hope and faith: because charity did not remain in him:

for heresies and schisms too are thus disseminated, when inflated faith and hope are torn away from the foundation of love. But what not only these but the other virtues too would be without charity, learn from a brief indicator: And though I have, he says, all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not charity, I am nothing. And though I distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and though I deliver my body to be burned, but have not charity, it profits me nothing (1 Cor. 13:2-3). For charity, brethren, loves all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Charity never falls away (ibid., 7 and 8). Therefore not undeservedly does the Lord God commend the love of one's neighbour:

since it alone presumes that it can keep what it commands. VII. The first duty of love, therefore, is to render back to God that we have been born; to owe to Him alone that we live; and to retain nothing whatever in the inmost recesses of our heart that we may keep under another's right. But when, by His invitation to this devotion, we have begun to be inhabited by the same, or to dwell in Him, as John says: God is charity; he that abides in charity abides in God, and God in him (1 John 4:16); then at last, brethren, we shall worthily render back charity to Him through Himself, because, an exchange having been made, what is His stands in place of our portions. The next thing is that we also love our neighbours with that affection wherewith we love ourselves:

especially since the very laws of kinship demand this: for the prophet cries out: One God created you. Is not one the Father of you all (Mal. 2:10)? Whoever, therefore, retains the awareness of his own nobility loves his brother: nor does he wait to hear anything from the Law, lest by an admonition something be derogated from his piety; and he loves himself in his brother so much that he would hate himself without him. To the sum of all this it is added, that God made man to His own image and likeness for this end, that by the contemplation of the image we might be moved to reverence the truth; and the matter was left in this condition, that whatever of evil or of good we do to anyone, we should be seen to have done it to God;