Tractates 1 part 2/14

For this reason John, that special confidant of the Lord's mysteries, declares without wavering: 'If anyone says, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother, whom he sees, cannot love God, whom he does not see' (1 John 4:20). Let us therefore contend among ourselves, brethren, in a glorious rivalry of mutual love; and by venerating the image of God most worthily, let us make plain what we ourselves owe to Truth itself, knowing that whoever has injured the image stirs up Truth to the ruin of his own soul. Nor is the proof far from what is said. If anyone should by any means violate the countenance of some illustrious King (though only a man), does he not at once pay the capital penalty, as for sacrilege committed?

How much more strongly must we take precaution in the cause of God, whom alone that one fears which, in the powers of nature, is dreaded even by the kings themselves? VIII. But it is necessary for each one to know the proper character of sincere love, lest under the mere sound of the name the rule of truth be betrayed; for there is also another love, truly contrary to our salvation, to which the form of a man is rightly assigned, because it is recognized as temporal and frail. Therefore it is depicted with a childish figure, because its wanton instability is not tempered even by an old man's years. Therefore naked, because its will is shamefulness. Therefore winged, because upon whatever it has conceived a desire, it rushes swiftly.

Therefore it is furnished with darts and torches, because to its unlawful ardors a sword is always joined. Therefore it is blind, because when it has been inflamed it considers neither age, nor beauty, nor sex, nor rank, nor even that sacrosanct affection of true devotion. With its torches this love set Eve's breast ablaze. With its darts it slew Adam. This love attempted to subject Susanna either to the monstrous fires of the two elders or to slaughter her by the parricidal sword. This love demanded that Joseph be its ravisher of a woman; yet even while she stripped him, it did not find him unchaste. This love stormed the synagogue, when it surrendered its own weapons to her. Everywhere turbulent, everywhere it is borne along insane. It promises, it deceives, it gives, it takes away;

now sad, now cheerful, now humble, now exalted, now drunken, now fasting, now accuser, now defendant. It jokes, it plays, it grows pale, it wastes away, it sighs, it conceals, it flatters: it either tempts or deceives, and it fawns worse than it rages. It lets pass no opportunity whatever for doing harm. Do you wish to know what evil it is? In the very fruit of itself it even hates itself. With its poisons the whole world daily seethes; and by its pestilential pleasures all things are so corrupted that whatever is done in it, while by the sacred words we are commanded that it ought not to be loved by us, rightly seems to the wise abominable, as John says: 'Do not love the world, nor the things that are in the world.'

'If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him; for all that is in the world is the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, which is not of the Father, but of the lust of the world' (1 John 2:15-16): for through this the devil, while in various ways he captures and deceives the minds of men, so came to be called Desire by his own luxurious devotees and worshippers. IX. Now therefore let us see whence true love comes, where it resides, and to whom above all it is owed. Surely to Him who made man; who handed to him, as a gift of perpetual love, His own likeness; who gave him the round world; who subjected to his power all the elements of the world with their living creatures;

who commanded for him the years, the seasons, the months, the nights, the days, and the two most brilliant chariots of the royal orbs to serve him with the ever bountiful delight of alternation; who, when man had been slain by the bitterly-sweet poisons of the aforesaid love and plunged into the seat of hell, vivified him by the mystery of His own majesty, and moreover enriched him with a share in the heavenly kingdom. O charity, how holy and how rich! O how mighty! He who has not you has nothing. You were able to change God into man. You made Him, shortened, sojourn for a little while away from the immensity of His majesty. You bound Him fast in a virginal prison for nine months. You restored Eve into Mary. You renewed Adam in Christ.

You provided the sacred cross for the salvation of a world already lost. You emptied death of its power by teaching God to die. It is your doing that, when the omnipotent God's Son is slain by men, none of the two grows angry. You hold the soul of the heavenly people, when you adorn peace, guard faith, embrace innocence, cultivate truth, love patience, and present hope. You make of diverse men—differing in character, in age, in station—out of one nature one spirit, one body. You permit the glorious martyrs to be separated from the confession of the Christian name by no torments, by no novelty of death, by no rewards, by no friendships, by no affections—indeed by no torturer at all, more grievous than these through the gnawing assault upon their devotion.

You, that you may clothe the naked, are content to be naked yourself. To you hunger is a feasting. If the destitute and hungry man eat your bread, it is your wealth to hold in mercy all that you have. You alone know not how to be entreated. You without delay rescue the oppressed, even at your own loss, when they are set in any straits whatsoever. You are the eye of the blind. You are the foot of the lame. You are the most faithful shield of widows. You are a better parent to orphans than either father or mother. Either mercy or joy never permits your eye to be dry. You so love your own enemies that no one can discern what difference there is between them and those dear to you. You, I say, join heavenly things to human, human secrets to heavenly. You guard the things of God. You command in the Father.

You obey yourself in the Son. You exult in the Holy Spirit. You, though being one in three, are by no compact divided; you are moved by no slander of human curiosity. From the Paternal fountain you are wholly poured out into the Son; and yet, wholly poured out, where you are poured you do not depart. Rightly are you called God, because you alone wield the power of the Trinity. TRACTATE III. On Justice. I. Perhaps some learned one among the bystanders may burst into peals of laughter, that I, a most unskilled and tongue-tied man, should dare to dispute anything about justice—concerning whose proper nature men of outstanding genius and learning have set down nothing certain in their enormous books. But let me not be troubled how anyone may mock at me;

for in the Church of God a painted seriousness is not sought, and not pure truth; from which all those have wandered far—and not without cause—who reckoned that the justice of God resides in the powers of eloquence. In short, since they could not grasp it (for neither could they without the teaching of divine wisdom, of which they had no knowledge), they asserted two kinds of justice: one civil, the other natural; of which the Apostle made most open mention when he spoke to the Romans, saying: 'For being ignorant of the justice of God, and wishing to establish their own, they did not submit to the justice of God' (Rom. 10:3).

But since, thinking nothing of the future, they look only to the advantages of the present life, and defend the false against the true in place of the true; thus they lost both, with their hands in the midst of them and their eyes wide open: God's justice, since they think it foolish, because it labors at the expense of its own—I will not say substance, but even, if there be need, of its very welfare—to profit others more than itself: and their own justice, because, although it is falsely clad in the name of wisdom, yet, in consulting its own advantages (which can in no way at all be procured without the disadvantages of others), it cannot by anyone truly most foolish be denied to be unjust. II.

But if they could have known true justice—whose reward is immortality, and which is for that very reason covered with the veil of feigned foolishness, so that a great thing might be sought by great virtues and great labors—they would unhesitatingly choose to be judged just though fools, rather than wise though unjust: especially since now their fraud lies wholly in the open, for they were not able to transpose the reality but the names, defaming justice with the name of foolishness and injustice with the name of wisdom: which names, if you correct them to their proper places and restore them to their own seats, you will find that foolishness rather befits injustice, and wisdom befits justice; which I shall not cease to prove also by the testimonies of sacred law, whose words are these:

'For seeing that, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe' (1 Cor. 1:21). And again more plainly: 'If any man among you seems to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise: for the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God' (1 Cor. 3:18-19). For which cause the same God thus far testifies through the prophet: 'Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the strong man glory in his strength, nor the rich man in his riches: but let him that glories glory in this, to understand and know that I am the Lord, who exercise mercy and judgment and justice upon the earth' (Jer. 9:23-24).

O in how very few words He summed up all this business that is so strenuously transacted in the world! For by these three things, which are the foundations of all vices, as if by certain violent tempests, the whole human race, shipwrecked in every instant, is driven to its destruction. For wisdom, seething with thick arguments, adorned with the persuasive and delightful falsehood of brilliant speech, armed with the trumpet of the voice and the sword of the tongue, draws all deeds to itself, gathers crowds, harangues; it so decides disputes as to sow them, it collects depraved and slippery morals; with its own laws it assails laws; it constrains right by right. Who would not see that it never does, nor ever has done, anything right, in whatever it has done?

Do you wish to know how just it is? It thinks itself wretched unless it has overthrown truth. As for fortitude, which men have in common with savagery, it places all right in its strength; whatever it has prevailed to do, it esteems right: and therefore, without any reverence for divine or human religion, it destroys abruptly with fire and sword, together with its own whole substance, the inhabitants, the cities, and the countryside, fearing nothing at all in the confidence of a death that is its friend; finally, what wisdom by its industry collects through laws, it scatters, sometimes with eyes closed, in a single onslaught. Third is the rich one, avarice, both of which strive to heap up wealth with marvelous speed; for it the whole world soldiers; for it every age serves. O wickedness!

What darkness is this? It is in all men, and by all it is reproached as though it did not exist. It is accused, and yet it is cultivated; it cuts throats, and is loved. It is truly an invincible kind of calamity, to which, when wisdom has been subjugated, virtue too will be enslaved. III. Do you now see clearly that the wisdom of this world is not justice? and indeed not even true wisdom: because it cannot be that a true wise man is not also just; and equally that a just man is not also a true wise man: for a just man cannot be unwise, nor a wise man unjust, reason itself teaching this: for he who is a fool knows not what is good and what is evil, nor can he know what he should reject and what he should hold; and therefore he always sins, which is contrary to justice:

but the just man abstains from all sin: which he does for this reason, that he possesses the knowledge of evil and good, which belongs assuredly to a wise man. Whence it comes about that one who is a fool can never be just; nor wise, whoever has been unjust. Moreover, whether of the just man or of the wise, if one of the two should be lacking—which they supposed possible—that one will assuredly be neither wise nor just. IV. Enough, as I think, have the deceptions of the world been laid bare: in which, since all men deal more skillfully than can be told, it is superfluous to linger. Whence let us now come to true justice, the fountain and mother of all virtues:

which, beyond all the rest, wholly gathers and unfolds itself for the benefit of others, knowing what is owed chiefly to God, claiming nothing for itself, leaving nothing as its own, except that it faithfully and without any boasting performs His will. It is, moreover, wholly conspicuous and diffused before the public: yet in such a way that it desires rather to be felt than seen: plainly cautious, and to what side it should incline, lest in anything it should reproach itself, lest it should ever fail in a work once begun. This justice breaks the yokes of captives by ransoming them: by healing the imprisoned, gentle and ever-watchful care knows the prison better than the prisoners do: it shares sickness with the sick: it does not allow cast-off corpses to lie uncovered and unburied:

upon the poor and wretched, neglecting its own need, it scatters generously and secretly the seeds of piety; it permits itself neither to be entreated, nor to be recompensed with the substitute reward of praise: this it counts a grievous loss, this it esteems a crime: for by leaving nothing to itself, in a blessed covetousness it surpasses avarice: for avarice possesses men, but this possesses God. Hear further with what love, with what devotion it hastens to the proper seat and palm set before it. If anyone challenges it into court to take away its tunic, it willingly grants him its cloak as well; it is reviled, and blesses; it is beaten, and gives thanks; it has its throat cut, and does not resist; moreover, for its slayers it entreats God.

Its one chief and greatest care and caution is, that it owe nothing to the world, that it suffer none of these things deservedly. Those who either have not read the divine writings, or, having read them, have thought them empty, by the favor of a rough and unpolished discourse—yet one that says, 'Unless you believe, neither shall you understand' (Isa. 7:9, according to the LXX rendering)—think it foolish and ridicule it as vain, because, although it could enjoy the goods of the world, it neglects them, and willingly makes itself unhappy; not believing that, by keeping the commandments of God and trampling worldly pleasures with offices of this kind, when it has become victor and free from the bonds of the flesh, it will fully enjoy the inestimable blessedness of promised immortality. V. But what is it to us, what they may say?

A distinguished man, as our own one says: 'God knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are foolish' (Ps. 94:11). Let them leave us our foolishness; let them keep with themselves their wisdom; of which indeed I perceive almost all the followers to be Christians—who think it perfect justice to guard their own and not to seek what is another's, neglecting the command of true wisdom, which is contained in these words: 'If you would be perfect, go and sell all that you have, and give to the poor, and take up your cross, and come, follow me' (Matt. 19:21). About this I know not what anyone could put forward; one thing, however, I know, that there is none of us who does not labor at every moment to have more than he had; and while he strives for this,

he is certainly playing the part of avarice, which is the enemy of justice. So far does it go, that the barns of a few are full of grain, while the belly of very many is empty. Hence for the peoples worse prices than scarcity itself by the measures. Hence fraud, perjury, robberies, lawsuits, and wars: daily by others' bellowings gain is sought; and proscription is called industry; and the coveting of another's property, under the pretext of protecting one's own and of diligence, is pressed with most cunning arguments, so that a man, undefended or innocent, may lose by laws what he has; which is worse than any violence: because that which is snatched by force can sometimes be reclaimed; but what is lost by the circumventions of laws, cannot. Let him glory who will in that justice:

yet let him know that he who is enriched by others' miseries is more wretched than the wretched. Would anyone think him just, who sets the advantage of his household property before piety? who, while men labor under hunger and nakedness, feeds moths, weevils, and worms? who withdraws what he has, by an unhappy tenacity, not only from others but even from his own self? VI. But, you will say, it is just that I keep my own and seek not another's. This too the Gentiles are accustomed to say. But how unjust it is in the sight of God, we shall presently see. Now first of all, most excellent Christian, I desire to know what things are yours, since to those who fear God all things are common, as it is written: 'Now the multitude of them that believed acted with one heart and one mind' (Acts

4:32): nor was there any distinction among them, nor did they reckon anything of their goods as their own, which were theirs: but all things were common to them, as the day, the sun, the night, the rain, the condition of being born and of dying: which divine justice has bestowed equally upon the human race, without any exception of persons. Since these things are so, without doubt he is not unlike a tyrant, who alone possesses what could profit the advantages of very many. What then? That, while the poor man daily dies of oppression, hunger, cold, and injury, you cultivate gold as your friend, guard silver, and hold a costly garment and proud and superfluous ornaments as sacrosanct, like an idol:

you adorn yourself moment by moment, rich in public, richer in private: nor do you understand that, when a man is dying of want, one who could relieve him with such great wealth but does not relieve him, himself seems to slay him. O the slaughter of how many souls hangs upon the trappings of bedecked matrons! the price of one of whose ornaments, if you should dissolve it into money and distribute it to the needs of individuals, you would know from their reviving breath, by the loss of how many that finery is composed. VII. I have children, he says, whom I ought not to strip bare. This is the excuse of unbelief, which the Holy Spirit through the prophet thus far beats down, saying: 'I have been young, and now am old; and I have never seen the just man forsaken, nor his seed seeking bread' (Ps. 37:25):

And again, 'The rich have wanted and suffered hunger; but they that seek the Lord shall not be deprived of any good thing' (Ps. 34:10): which is most easy to prove by example. We remember it recorded in the books of Kings (1 Kings 17) that, in the time of famine, when the whole people everywhere was dying, when Elijah asked for food, a memorable widow gave to him, not a divided portion, but the whole of the last substance of her own and her children's sustenance, and chose rather to die with her children than to pass over justice: for which so illustrious a deed she received from God immortal food, which voracity could not diminish: for by her own diminishing it grew.

In short, the state of these vessels remained ever full and entire, and however much the lasting necessity of expense had taken from them, just so much did renewed fecundity replace. Wherefore, if you desire to be a good father, if provident, if useful, like that Abraham, you ought to love God more than your children, that you may deserve to have them whole, safe, and blessed. But it is a foolish thing, for you to wish to provide the substance of life to those to whom you have given neither birth, nor breathed souls into, nor can bestow salvation. Whence, even if late, restrain your sacrilegious voice, mindful of human frailty, you who, in this very thing of which we speak, are ignorant of what may befall: and lay aside the deceit of a vain excuse.

To ingrates you store up avarice by sin. It belongs to the power of God alone to provide for the advantages of things to come. TRACTATE IV. On Chastity. I. He who cultivates chastity most easily recognizes of how great nobility it is: for it is of such great virtue that it is honorable even to its own enemies. This confirms the foundations of the whole human race: this furnishes to all the propriety of names: this guards the sacred rights of parents, of spouses, and of children: this, conspicuous in either sex, marvelous in every age, not doubtful in any condition, devoted to itself alone, always rightly conscious, wholly subject to no thing, fearing one thing only, that it be more than what it is called.

In short, in solitude—which by the fearful is called occasion—it fears itself as a judge: and it reveres every secret place more than the public. It hates the pestilential blandishments of hostile flesh: and whatever pleasure or gift the world has heaped upon it, it spits out the whole, presuming that it possesses the whole, if only it be pure. It desires no one shamefully: nor does it likewise present itself as desirable to any. In its own state it remains in every place, at every time, consulting honor rather than advantage. Do you wish to know of how great felicity it is? It is loved both by him who possesses it and by him who possesses it not.

If, therefore, its glory often exults even among the Gentiles (although there it cannot be fruitful or true, because it dwells under a shameless robber), how much more glorious ought it to be among the Christian people, who serves its sanctifier, the inviolable God? For if the Church is therefore the spouse of Christ because she is chaste; therefore honored with the yoke of the heavenly bridal chamber, because even after the nuptials she remains thereafter a perpetual virgin: we, who are born of so great a wedlock, ought in every way to strive that we may prove the nobility of our lineage not only by relation, but also by the faith of likeness. Whence, however, I bear myself before you, most beloved brethren, because this, and no ambiguous, affirmation shines forth in you:

For you show that you both have and possess God as Father, since chastity—in which God dwells—you do not merely profess to love, but adorn with your radiant morals. It is therefore a great glory to adorn that by which you are adorned; to preserve that by which you yourself are preserved. Finally, your praise is matched to the praise of chastity: for it furnishes you with holiness, and you furnish it with love. Through it you attain Christ: nay rather, it through you embraces Christ with you. Through it you obtain from God the Father what you ask: nay rather, it through you obtains, on whose behalf you anxiously labor, lest, while it asks for anything, it blush. Blessed, when it is added in boys: more blessed, when in adolescents it happily fears a fall:

most blessed, when in young men it labors to extinguish carnal fires. To be sure, in old men, just as it is to be honored, so it is not to be marveled at: for although it is a victress, yet it shares the palm of its triumph with the rigor of old age: for the battle of concupiscence ceases where, with growing infirmities, by very necessity even the members of the unchaste become chaste. II. Come now, let us briefly publish the fury of its rival, even by a comparison of names, so that what is to be sought, and what to be fled, may most easily be recognized. Under the veil of Christ's name, brethren, Antichrist likewise tries to assert himself chaste, that he may deceive: he drags after himself the sound of chastity's name; but what fruits its author has, he shows.

For it runs about raving through the peoples: and with the burning goads of lusts it hurls the slippery minds of men into corruption, sparing not sex, not age, not piety, not even itself, because he who covets another's modesty first loses his own. To it no pure night and day succeed, for it is always submerged in the storm of its own miry whirlpool, while ever-seething the foulness of lust is perpetrated either in reality or in image. It either bestows or receives rewards, it corrupts or is corrupted; it casts in love, a little after to make of love a hatred. It sows illegitimate heirs, and, knowing the crime, excuses it with the names of piety. It either kills its own offspring or strips them of affection.

It reckons nothing at all base either to suffer or to do, provided that its attempts succeed in their effect. Nevertheless, in the very fruit of itself—in which it is wont to rejoice over the defilement of another's vanquished modesty—it is always unhappy. Finally, after the deed has been perpetrated, it hates both itself and him whom it has conquered. This often proclaimed war upon peaceful nations; this sometimes overthrew robust kingdoms; this triumphed over the marriage-beds of others, subjugated either by base or by cruel deeds; this, frenzied with masculine ardor, discharging by a soldier's pay unknown and unexpected to the very women, taught women to storm their own nature; this set the wages of lust above all in the deaths of parents, of children, of husbands, and of wives;

this not seldom destroyed the names of piety by monstrous intercourse, persecuting indeed the chaste, but consistently slaying only the unchaste; this, I say, moment by moment both gives birth to all that is evil, and has given birth to all that is worse; for in idols it is a goddess, but in their worshippers a handmaid. It procures veneration for itself in the temples, mirth in the theaters, importunity in public, opportunity in any secret places whatsoever. Wanton, sparing neither tongues, nor eyes, nor ears, it jokes, hopes, solicits, fawns, is jealous, rages, is armed with prayers, is armed also with anger, likewise not seldom extorting by force what it could not obtain by blandishments. It always rejoices in the varied interchange of lusts;

and it repents, never arriving at satiety by its slippery profit. It longs to do what it fears to have made public; it attempts absolutely everything, that it may claim everything for itself. It is a new kind of monstrosity. It hates chastity; and yet it desires to seem that which chastity is. III. Meanwhile with marvelous arts it adorns itself, and seeks upon itself its own face, which it does not have. It paints itself upon itself, and, with the varied dye of a procuring master's cosmetic, it clothes its own countenance with alien countenances—being henceforth not what nature has bestowed, but what the temporal whim has dictated to it at the verdict of the mirror. Now it amends, now it deletes the forms it had loved, now it substitutes others, now it brings forth new ones.