but because he knew that they, in doing these things as soldiers, were not murderers but ministers of the law, and not avengers of their own injuries but defenders of the public safety, he answered them: 'Do violence to no one, accuse no one falsely, and be content with your wages.' But because the Manichaeans are accustomed openly to blaspheme John, let them hear the Lord Jesus Christ Himself commanding that this wage be rendered to Caesar which John says ought to suffice the soldier. 'Render,' He says, 'to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.' For to this end are tributes paid, that pay may of necessity be furnished to the soldier on account of wars. Deservedly too He praised the faith of that centurion who said:
'I too am a man set under authority, having soldiers under me; and I say to this one, Go, and he goes; and to another, Come, and he comes; and to my servant, Do this, and he does it' — He praised his faith, He did not command the desertion of that military service. And now to dispute concerning just and unjust wars would be long and unnecessary. For it matters for what causes and under what authorities men undertake to wage wars; yet that natural order, fitted to the peace of mortals, demands this: that the authority and deliberation for undertaking war rest with the prince, while soldiers owe the ministry of carrying out the commands of war to the common peace and safety.
Now a war that is undertaken by the authority of God — to terrify, to crush, or to subjugate the pride of mortals — it is not lawful to doubt that it is rightly undertaken; for not even that war which is waged out of human desire can do any harm to the incorruptible God, nor even to His saints, to whom rather it is found to be of profit, for the exercise of patience, the humbling of the soul, and the bearing of paternal discipline. For no one has any power over them except what has been given him from above. For there is no power except from God, whether commanding or permitting.
Since, then, a just man, even if he chances to serve as a soldier under a king who is a man and even sacrilegious, can rightly wage war at that king's command, preserving the order of civic peace — for as to what is commanded him, either it is certain that it is not against God's precept, or whether it be so is uncertain, so that perhaps the iniquity of commanding makes the king guilty while the order of serving shows the soldier innocent — how much more innocently does he conduct himself in the administration of wars who wages war at God's command, whom no one who serves Him is ignorant cannot command anything evil? But if for this reason they think that God could not have commanded war to be waged — because the Lord Jesus Christ afterward said, 'I say to you, do not resist evil;
but if anyone strikes you on your right cheek, offer him the left also' — let them understand that this preparation is not in the body but in the heart; for there is the holy chamber of that virtue which dwelt also in those ancient just men, our fathers. But the order of the dispensation and distribution of the times demanded that first even earthly goods themselves — to which both human kingdoms and victories over enemies are reckoned — should appear to pertain to nothing but the power and disposal of the one true God; for the sake of these goods, above all, the city of the impious, spread throughout the world, is wont to make supplication to idols and demons.
Hence too the Old Testament, at the fitting time to unveil the secret of the kingdom of heaven, covered it over with earthly promises and in a certain manner overshadowed it more darkly. But when the fullness of time came, so that the New Testament might be revealed, which was veiled by the figures of the Old, it had now to be shown by evident testimony that there is another life, for which this life ought to be despised, and another kingdom, for which the adversity of all earthly kingdoms ought to be borne most patiently. Accordingly, those through whose confessions, sufferings, and deaths it pleased God to bear this witness are called martyrs, which in Latin is interpreted 'witnesses';
whose number so flourished that, if Christ — who called Saul from heaven and, having made a sheep out of a wolf, sent him into the midst of wolves — had willed to arm them, gathered together, and to aid them in fighting, as He aided the Hebrew fathers, what nations would have resisted? what kingdoms would not have yielded? But that a most illustrious testimony might be borne to the truth — by which it was now to be taught that God is to be served not for the sake of temporal happiness in this life, but for the sake of eternal happiness after this life — that which is commonly called unhappiness had to be undergone and borne for the sake of that happiness.
And so, in the fullness of times, the Son of God, made of a woman, made under the law, that He might redeem those who were under the law, made of the seed of David according to the flesh, sends His disciples as sheep in the midst of wolves and warns them not to fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; He promises too the restored integrity of that very body, even to the repair of a hair; He calls Peter's sword back into its sheath and restores the enemy's severed ear to its former form; He says that He could have commanded legions of angels to destroy His enemies, had not the cup been to be drunk which the Father's will had given; He drinks it, going before; He offers it to those who follow; He reveals the virtue of patience by His precept and confirms it by His example.
Wherefore God raised Him from the dead and gave Him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things heavenly, earthly, and infernal, and every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus is in the glory of God the Father. Here, then, the patriarchs and prophets reigned, that it might be shown that God gives and takes away these kingdoms; the apostles and martyrs did not reign here, that the kingdom of heaven might rather be laid open as the thing to be desired. Those waged royal wars, that it might appear that such victories too are granted by the will of God; these were slain without resisting, that they might teach that a mightier victory is to be slain for the faith of the truth.
Although even there the prophets knew how to die for the truth, as the Lord Himself says: 'from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zacharias' — and this after it had begun to be fulfilled. This was prophesied in the Psalm, under the figure of Solomon — which in Latin is interpreted 'peaceable' — concerning the Lord Christ, for He Himself is our peace: 'And all the kings of the earth shall adore Him, all nations shall serve Him.' Christian emperors too, bearing full confidence of piety in Christ, have won a most glorious victory over sacrilegious enemies who had placed their hope in the mysteries of idols and demons.
For by most manifest and well-known proofs — some of which certain persons have now committed to written record — the oracles of the demons deceived those, while the predictions of the saints strengthened these. But if it seems marvelous to these vain men that God commanded one thing then to the dispensers of the Old Testament, where the grace of the New was veiled, and another thing to the preachers of the New Testament, where the obscurity of the Old was unveiled, let them attend to the Lord Christ Himself changing what He had said and saying something different: 'When I sent you,' He says, 'without purse and scrip and shoes, did you lack anything?' And they said, 'Nothing.' He said therefore to them, 'But now, let him who has a purse take it, and likewise a scrip; and let him who has none sell his tunic
and buy a sword.' These men certainly, if they found such divergent things in two separate testaments, the Old and the New, would even on this account cry out that the two testaments are contrary to each other. What, then, will they now answer, when this same One says: 'Before, I sent you without purse and scrip and shoes, and you lacked nothing; but now, let him who has a purse take it, and likewise a scrip, and let him who has a tunic sell it and buy a sword'? Do they now understand how, with no inconstancy on the part of Him who commands, but by the reason of Him who dispenses, according to the diversity of the times, precepts or counsels or things permitted are changed?
For if they say that He spoke this about taking a purse and scrip and buying a sword for the sake of a certain mystery, why do they not admit that for the sake of a certain mystery the same one God then commanded the prophets to wage wars and now forbade the apostles to do so? For in what we have recalled from the Gospel, there were not merely the words of the Lord, but the deeds of the obedient disciples also followed. For then they went without purse and scrip and lacked nothing, as His question and their answer declared. And now they said to Him, when He had commanded about buying a sword: 'Behold, here are two swords.' And He answered: 'It is enough.' Hence too Peter was found armed, when he cut off the ear of the persecutor;
where his spontaneous audacity is restrained, because he had not been commanded to strike in the same way that he had been commanded to take up the sword. Assuredly the Lord's will lay hidden, why He had commanded arms to be carried which He did not wish them to use. Nevertheless, it pertained to Him to command with reason, but to them to carry out the commands without questioning. By slanderous ignorance, therefore, is Moses reproved for having waged wars — Moses who deserved to be reproved less if he had waged them of his own accord than if he had not waged them at God's command;
but to dare to reprove God Himself for having commanded such things, or to refuse to believe that a just and good God could command such things, belongs to a man who — to speak more mildly — is unable to consider that to divine providence, which extends through all things highest and lowest, neither is what arises new nor does what dies perish, but that each single thing, whether of natures or of merits, either gives way or succeeds or remains in its own order; and that the right will of men is joined to the divine law, while disordered desire is restrained by the order of the divine law, so that neither does the good man will anything other than what is enjoined, nor can the evil man do more than what is permitted — yet in such wise that he cannot do it with impunity, whatever he has unjustly willed.
And through this, in all the things which human weakness dreads or fears, iniquity alone is justly condemned; the rest are either the tributes of natures or the deserts of faults. Now a man becomes unjust when he loves for their own sakes things that are to be used for the sake of something else, and seeks for the sake of something else things that are to be loved for their own sakes. For thus, as far as in him lies, he disturbs within himself the natural order which the eternal law commands to be preserved. But a man becomes just when he seeks to use things for no other reason than that for which they were divinely instituted, and to enjoy God Himself for His own sake, and himself and his friend in God for the sake of that same God. For he loves his friend for God's sake, who loves in his friend the love of God.
But whether iniquity or justice, unless it were in the will, it would not be in our power. Furthermore, if it were not in our power, no reward, no punishment would be just — which no one understands rightly except one who is a fool. But ignorance and weakness — so that a man either does not know what he ought to will, or cannot do all that he has willed — comes from the hidden order of punishments and from those inscrutable judgments of God, with whom there is no iniquity. For the sin of Adam has been made known to us by the faithful word of God; and that in him all die, and that through him sin entered into this world, and through sin death, has been truly written.
And that from this punishment the body is corrupted and weighs down the soul, and the earthly habitation presses down the mind that ponders many things, is most true and most well known to us; and that from this just punishment none is delivered save merciful grace, is certain. And hence the Apostle, groaning, cries out: 'Unhappy man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.' But what the distribution of the judging and pitying God may be — why one thus, and another otherwise — is done by hidden yet just causes.
Yet not for that reason are we ignorant that all these things are done by the judgment or mercy of God, though by measures and numbers and weights set in secret, by which all things are disposed by God the Creator of all things that are naturally, the Author not indeed of sins, yet the Orderer even of sins, so that those things which would not be sins unless they were against nature are so judged and ordered that they are not permitted to disturb or disfigure the nature of the universe, being assigned to the places and conditions of their own merits.
Since these things are so, and since, through this secret of the judgments of God and the motions of human wills, by the same prosperities some are corrupted while others use them temperately, and by the same adversities some fail while others make progress, and since human and mortal life itself is a temptation upon the earth — who among men knows what profits or harms him: in peace to reign or to serve or to be at leisure or to die, and in war to command or to fight or to conquer or to be slain? Yet this is certain: that whom it profits, it profits only through divine benefit, and whom it harms, it harms only through divine judgment. Why, then, do we leap into rash reproaches — and would that they were of men and not of God?
Let the dispensers of the Old Testament, who were likewise the foretellers of the New Testament, have served God by slaying sinners; let the dispensers of the New Testament, who were likewise the expounders of the Old Testament, have served God by dying at the hands of sinners — yet both served the one and the same God, through diverse and fitting times, teaching that temporal goods are both to be sought from Him and to be despised for His sake, and that temporal troubles both can be imposed by Him and ought to be borne for His sake.
What, then, did Moses command or do that was cruel, when, holily zealous for the people committed to him and desiring them to be subject to the one true God, after he learned that they had slipped away to fabricating and worshiping an idol and had prostituted their shameless mind to demons, taking vengeance with the sword upon a few of them — whom God Himself, whom they had offended, had by His deep and secret judgment willed to be struck down — both in the present salutarily terrified them and sanctioned discipline for the future? For that he did what he did out of no cruelty but out of great love, who would not recognize in his words as he prayed for their sin and said: 'If you forgive them their sin, forgive it; but if not, blot me out of your book'?
Therefore everyone who is piously prudent, comparing that slaughter and this prayer, sees assuredly and most plainly, sees how great an evil it is for the soul to fornicate through the images of demons, when he rages so who loves so. So plainly the Apostle too, not cruelly but lovingly, delivered a man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. He delivered others also, that they might learn not to blaspheme. The Manichaeans read apocryphal scriptures written under the name of the apostles by I know not what cobblers of fables — scriptures which, in the times of their own writers, would have deserved to be received into the authority of the holy Church, if holy and learned men, who were then alive in this life and able to examine such things, had recognized that they had spoken truth.
There, nevertheless, they read that the apostle Thomas, when he was at a certain wedding banquet as a stranger and utterly unknown, and was struck on the palm by a certain servant, imprecated upon the man a continuous and savage vengeance. For when he had gone out to the fountain, whence he was to serve water to the banqueters, a lion rushing upon him slew him, and his hand — with which he had struck the apostle's head with a light blow — was torn from his body, and, according to the word of that same apostle who so wished and imprecated it, a dog carried it to the tables at which the apostle himself was reclining. What could seem more cruel than this?
But because there — unless indeed I am mistaken — this too is written, that he asked pardon for the man in the age to come, a compensation of a greater benefit was made, so that both the apostle might be commended to strangers, by this fear, as to how dear he was to God, and provision might be made in eternity for that man, after this life which is one day to end. Whether that narrative be true or invented, it is now no concern of mine. For certainly the Manichaeans, by whom those scriptures which the ecclesiastical canon rejects are accepted as though true and genuine, are at least hence compelled to confess that that virtue of patience, which the Lord teaches when He says:
'If anyone strikes you on your right cheek, offer him the left also,' can exist in the preparation of the heart, even if it be not displayed by a gesture of the body or by the utterance of words — since the apostle, struck on the palm, rather prayed to God that the injurious man might be spared in the age to come, while in the present that injury was not left unavenged, which he either offered the other side to the striker or admonished him to strike again. He assuredly held inwardly the affection of love, and outwardly required the example of correction.
Whether this be true or invented, why are they unwilling to believe that God's servant Moses laid low the fabricators and worshipers of the idol with the sword out of such a mind, when even in his words it sufficiently appears that he so entreated pardon for a sin of this kind that, unless he obtained it, he wished himself to be blotted out of the book of God? And what likeness is there between an unknown man struck on the palm, and God delivering the people from the slavery of Egypt, leading them across the divided sea, covering their pursuing enemies with the waves — God, forsaken and despised when an idol was preferred to Him? But if we compare the very punishments, what likeness is there between being slain by the sword and being butchered and torn to pieces by wild beasts? — since indeed judges serving the public laws command that those guilty of a greater crime be exposed to the beasts rather than struck with the sword.
There remain the abusive and sacrilegious reproaches of Faustus, to which I now respond as the Lord, speaking to the prophet Hosea, said: 'Take to yourself a wife of fornication, and beget children of a harlot.' In which scripture their unclean heart has been so blinded that they do not even understand the most manifest words of the Gospel, where the Lord says to the Jews: 'Harlots and publicans shall go before you into the kingdom of heaven.' For what is against the truth of mercy, what is hostile to the Christian faith, if a harlot, forsaking fornication, be changed into a chaste marriage? And what is so incongruous and alien to the faith of a prophet as that he should not believe all the sins of a shameless woman, changed for the better, to be forgiven?
And so, when the prophet took a harlot to wife, both provision was made for the woman's correction of life, and the sacrament of a figure — of which we shall speak presently — was expressed. But who does not see, in this deed, what rather offends the error of the Manichaeans? Namely, because harlots are wont to take pains not to become pregnant; accordingly a woman remaining a fornicatress pleased those men better, so as not to bind their god, than one made the wife of one man so as to bear children. But concerning Solomon, what shall I say, except that he is more gravely refuted by the testimony of his own faithful and holy Scripture than by the petulant and trifling revilings of Faustus?
For that Scripture spoke truly and faithfully about him — both what good he had formerly possessed, and what evil he had forsaken by doing the good in which he had at first stood. But that man, with eyes closed, or rather extinguished, was going not by whatever light manifesting his way led him, but was rushing on to wherever malevolence, hurling him headlong, carried him. For by this very thing the holy books have all the more instilled into their religious readers and choosers how chastely holy men possessed several wives — namely, because Solomon, who possessed them not in that manner but rather for lust than for offspring,
was disapproved and reproved in these words, so that he was called a lover of women, and thence, having slipped and been plunged into the depths of idolatry, was, by that same truth which accepts the person of no one, exposed. Now, therefore, having already treated of all the persons through whom Faustus thought the scriptures of the Old Testament were to be blamed, and having rendered to each his fitting discourse — whereby either the men of God were defended against the calumnies of heretics and of carnal men, or, though the men were reproved, the Scripture was nonetheless shown to be praiseworthy and venerable — let us next see, in the order in which Faustus in accusing recalled those men, what also the very deeds of the men signify, what the prophecies convey, what future things they foretell:
which we have already done concerning Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, whose God He willed Himself to be so called, as though He were the God of them alone — He who is the God of the whole creation, not without cause bestowing so great an honor on them, save because He knew in them that which He alone could also perfectly and supremely know: a sincere and preeminent charity; and because in those three fathers He in a certain manner consummated the great and marvelous sacrament of His future people, whom they begot not only into freedom through free women — as through Sara and Rebecca and Leah and Rachel — but also into servitude, as through the same Rebecca was born Esau, to whom it was said:
you shall be the servant of your brother; and through handmaids one is born not only into servitude, as through Hagar, but even into freedom, as through Bilhah and Zilpah. For so also within the people of God, through spiritual free-born men, some are born not only into praiseworthy freedom—like those to whom it is said, 'Be imitators of me, as I also am of Christ'—but even into damnable servitude, as Simon was born through Philip; while through carnal servants some are born not only into damnable servitude, namely those who imitate them, but even into praiseworthy freedom, those to whom it is said: what they say, do; but what they do, do not do.
Whoever in the people of God prudently recognizes this great mystery guards the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace even to the end, cleaving to some and bearing with others. We have done this concerning Lot also, demonstrating what Scripture recounted in him as praiseworthy, what as blameworthy, and what was to be understood as signified in the whole affair. It follows that we consider the deed of Judah, that he lay with his daughter-in-law, and what it signified of things to come. But first a preface must be spoken, lest anyone of small consideration be offended that from certain evil deeds of men in the holy Scriptures certain things not evil but good are signified as future. For divine providence everywhere preserves the power of its goodness, so that—
just as from the intercourse of adulterers a man is formed and born—God's good work out of man's evil deed, as we already said in the preceding discourse concerning the fruitfulness of seeds, not the foulness of vices—so in the prophetic Scriptures, which narrate not only the good deeds of men but also the evil, since the narration itself is prophetic, something is signified concerning the evil deeds of men, indeed concerning future good things, not by the working of one who sins, but of one who writes.
For Judah, when overcome by lust he went in to Tamar, did not bear this intention in his passion, that something should thereby be signified pertaining to the salvation of men—just as neither did that Judas who betrayed the Lord intend that anything should thereby be brought about pertaining to that same salvation of men. Moreover, if out of so evil a deed of that Judas the Lord made so good a work, that by the blood of His own passion He redeemed us, what wonder is it if His prophet—concerning whom He Himself says, 'For he wrote of Me'—signified something good out of the evil deed of this Judah, so that by his ministry he might teach us?
For the prophet as narrator, under the disposing and inspiring of the Holy Spirit, gathered those deeds of men whose insertion would not be devoid of a foreshadowing of the things which he had intended to prophesy. But for signifying certain good things it makes no difference whether the deeds by which they are signified be good or evil. For what does it matter to me, when in reading I wish to learn something, whether I find black Ethiopians written in red lead and white Gauls in ink? Yet if I saw not writing but such a painting, without doubt I would find fault with it. So in the deeds of men, which are set forth for imitating or avoiding, it matters more whether they be good or evil.
But as for those things which are written or spoken for the sake of signifying, it makes no difference in the morals of the doers what praise or blame they deserve, provided only they have some necessary congruity for prefiguring the matter that is being treated. For just as Caiaphas in the Gospel—as far as pertained to his harmful and pernicious mind, and finally as far as pertained to the very words (if in them you attend to the will of the speaker) by which he was working to have a just man unjustly slain—these words were indeed evil, yet, he not knowing it, they signified a great good, when he said: 'It is expedient that one man should die and not the whole nation perish'; and it was said of him: 'This he said not of himself, but being high priest he prophesied that Jesus should die for the nation':
so the deed of Judah, according to his lust, was evil, but, he not knowing it, it signified a great good; for of himself indeed he did evil, but not of himself did he signify good. But this, which I thought must necessarily be prefaced, let it avail not only for this deed of Judah but also for the rest, if any evil deeds of men occur by which something good has been prophesied by the narrator. In Tamar, therefore, the daughter-in-law of Judah, is understood the people of the kingdom of the Jews, to whom kings, as it were husbands, were furnished from the tribe of Judah. Fittingly her name is interpreted 'bitterness'; for she herself gave the Lord a cup of gall.
Now two kinds of leaders who did not act rightly among the people—the one of those who did harm, the other of those who profited nothing—are signified in the two sons of Judah, of whom one was wicked or savage before the Lord, the other spilled upon the ground lest he give seed to make Tamar fruitful. And there are no more than two kinds of men useless to the human race: one of the harmful, the other of those unwilling to render benefit, and, if they have any good in this earthly life, wasting it, as it were spilling it upon the ground. And since in evil he is the prior who harms, before him who profits not, therefore the wicked one is called the elder, and the one who spilled upon the ground the younger.