VIII. THE BOOK ON THE NATURE OF THE GOOD. The highest good, than which there is nothing higher, is God; and therefore it is an unchangeable good; therefore truly eternal and truly immortal. All other goods are only from Him, but not of Him. For what is of Him is what He Himself is; but the things which were made by Him are not what He Himself is. And therefore, if He alone is unchangeable, all things that He made, because He made them out of nothing, are changeable. For He is so omnipotent that He can make good things even out of nothing — that is, out of that which is not at all — both great and small, both heavenly and earthly, both spiritual and corporeal. But because He is also just, He did not make equal to that which He begot of Himself the things which He made out of nothing.
Since, therefore, all goods, whether great or small, through whatever grades of things, cannot be except from God; and since every nature, insofar as it is a nature, is good: every nature cannot be except from the highest and true God — because all goods, even those not highest but near to the highest good, and again all goods even the lowest, which are far from the highest good, cannot be except from the highest good itself. Every spirit, therefore, even a changeable one, and every body is from God: this is all created nature. For every nature is either spirit or body. The unchangeable Spirit is God; changeable spirit is created nature, but better than body;
but body is not spirit — except that the wind, because it is invisible to us and yet its force, which is not small, is felt, is in a certain other manner called 'spirit.' Now, for the sake of those who, since they cannot understand that every nature — that is, every spirit and every body — is by nature good, are moved by the iniquity of spirit and the mortality of body, and on this account attempt to introduce another nature of malignant spirit and of mortal body which God did not make: we think that they can be led to the understanding of what we say. For they confess that no good can be except from the highest and true God, which is both true, and sufficient for their correction, if they are willing to attend to it.
For we Catholic Christians worship God, from whom all goods are, whether great or small; from whom is all measure, whether great or small; from whom every form, whether great or small; from whom every order, whether great or small. For all things, the more they are measured, formed, and ordered, the more surely are they good; but the less they are measured, the less formed, the less ordered they are, the less good they are. These three, then — measure, form, and order — to say nothing of the innumerable things which are shown to pertain to these three, these three therefore, measure, form, order, are as it were general goods in the things made by God, whether in spirit or in body.
God, therefore, is above every measure of the creature, above every form, above every order — and not above by spaces of place, but by ineffable and singular power, from whom is all measure, all form, all order. These three, where they are great, are great goods; where they are small, are small goods; where they are none, there is no good. And again these three, where they are great, are great natures; where they are small, are small natures; where they are none, there is no nature. Every nature, therefore, is good. Accordingly, when it is asked whence evil comes, one must first ask what evil is: which is nothing else than the corruption either of natural measure, or of form, or of order. That nature, then, is called evil which is corrupted;
for uncorrupted it is certainly good. But even the corrupted itself, insofar as it is a nature, is good; insofar as it is corrupted, it is evil. Now it can happen that a certain nature, which is more excellently ordered in natural measure and form, may even when corrupted be still better than another which is incorrupt but is more lowly ordered in lesser natural measure and form. Just as in the estimation of men, according to the quality which lies open to the sight, corrupted gold is certainly better than incorrupt silver, and corrupted silver is better than incorrupt lead: so also in more powerful and spiritual natures, a rational spirit corrupted through an evil will is better than an irrational one incorrupt;
and any spirit, even corrupted, is better than any body, even incorrupt. For a nature which, when present to a body, furnishes it with life, is better than that to which life is furnished. But however much the created spirit of life may be corrupted, it can furnish life to a body; and therefore, though corrupt, it is better than that body, however incorrupt. But corruption, if it should take away all measure, all form, all order from corruptible things, no nature will remain. And therefore every nature which cannot be corrupted is the highest good, as God is. But every nature which can be corrupted is itself also some good: for corruption could not harm it except by taking away and diminishing what is good.
But to the most excellent creatures — that is, to rational spirits — God granted this: that if they are unwilling, they cannot be corrupted; that is, if they preserve obedience under the Lord their God and so cleave to His incorruptible beauty; but if they are unwilling to preserve obedience, then, since willingly they are corrupted in sins, unwillingly they are corrupted in punishments. For God is such a good that it is well with no one who forsakes Him; and among the things made by God, the rational nature is so great a good that there is no good by which it is made blessed except God. Sinners, therefore, are set in order among punishments: which ordering, because it does not befit their nature, is therefore penalty; but because it befits their fault, it is therefore justice.
But the rest, which were made out of nothing, which are certainly inferior to the rational spirit, can be neither blessed nor wretched. Yet because according to their measure and form they too are good, and could not be — though lesser and least goods — except from the highest good, God, they are so ordered that the weaker yield to the stronger, the less able to the more able, the less powerful to the more powerful, and thus earthly things are in concord with the heavenly, as things subject to those that excel them. And there comes to be, in things departing and succeeding, a certain temporal beauty in its own kind, so that not even the very things which die, or cease to be what they were, disfigure or disturb the measure, form, and order of the whole creation:
just as a well-composed discourse is certainly beautiful, although in it the syllables and all the sounds run past as if by being born and dying. But of what kind and how great a penalty is owed to each fault is a matter of the divine judgment, not the human: which judgment, even when it is remitted to the converted, is great goodness with God; and when it is paid as owed, there is no iniquity with God, because a nature is better ordered so that it justly grieves in punishment than that it should rejoice with impunity in sin. Yet even so, having some measure and form and order, in whatever extremity it is still some good: which if they be wholly withdrawn and utterly consumed, there will therefore be no good, because no nature will remain.
All corruptible natures, therefore, would not be natures at all unless they were from God; nor would they be corruptible if they were of Him, because they would be what He Himself is. Therefore, in whatever measure, whatever form, whatever order they are, it is because God is He by whom they were made; but they are not unchangeable because it is nothing out of which they were made. For it is a sacrilegious audacity to equate nothing and God, if we should wish that which was made by Him out of nothing to be such as that which was born of God. Wherefore neither can any harm be done to the nature of God at all, nor can any harm be done unjustly to any nature under God, because even when some do harm unjustly by sinning, the unjust will is imputed to them; but the power by which they are permitted to do harm
is only from God, who knows — even when they themselves know not — what those ought to suffer to whom He permits them to do harm. All these things being so plain, so certain, if those who introduce another nature which God did not make were willing to attend to them, they would not be filled with such great blasphemies as to place such great goods in the highest evil, and such great evils in God. For it suffices, as I said above, for their correction, if they are willing to attend to it, that the truth compels them, even unwilling, to confess that all goods whatever are only from God. Therefore great goods are not from one and small goods from another, but both great and small goods are only from the highest good, which is God. Let us therefore recall goods as great as we can, which it is worthy to attribute to God the author.
And when these are taken away, let us see whether any nature will remain. All life, both great and small; all power, both great and small; all safety, both great and small; all memory, both great and small; all understanding, both great and small; all tranquillity, both great and small; all virtue, both great and small; all abundance, both great and small; all sense, both great and small; all light, both great and small; all sweetness, both great and small; all measure, both great and small; all beauty, both great and small.
All peace, both great and small, and whatever things similar to these can be found, and above all those things which are found throughout all things, whether spiritual or corporeal; all measure, all form, all order, both great and small, are from the Lord God. Whoever chooses to make evil use of all these goods will pay the penalty by the divine judgment; but where none of these is present at all, no nature will remain. Yet among all these things, whatever things are small are, in comparison with greater things, called by contrary names: just as in the human figure, because there is greater beauty, in comparison with it the beauty of the ape is called ugliness. And it deceives the imprudent, as though the one were good and the other evil;
and they do not attend to the ape's own proper measure in its body: the symmetry of its members on both sides, the harmony of its parts, the preservation of its wholeness, and the rest, which it would be tedious to enumerate. But, so that what we are saying may be understood and satisfaction may be given even to the very slow — or even that the obstinate, who resist truth most openly, may be compelled to confess what is true — let them be asked whether corruption can harm the body of an ape. If it can, so as to make it more hideous, what does it diminish except the good of beauty? Hence something will remain as long as the nature of the body subsists; accordingly, if by the good being consumed the nature is consumed, then the nature is good. Thus too we call the slow contrary to the swift; yet a thing that does not move at all cannot even be called slow.
So too we call a low voice contrary to a high one, or a rough voice contrary to a melodious one; but if you take away entirely every kind of voice, there is silence where there is no voice — which silence, precisely because there is no voice, is nevertheless wont to be set over against voice as its contrary. So too the bright and the dark are called two contraries; yet even dark things have something of light, and if they were entirely without it, there is darkness, which is the absence of light, just as silence is the absence of voice. Yet even these privations of things are so ordered within the universe of nature that to those who consider wisely they hold their alternating turns not unbecomingly. For God, by not illuminating certain places and times, made the darkness as fittingly as the day.
For if we, by withholding the voice, becomingly interpose silence in our speaking, how much more does He becomingly make the privations of certain things, as the perfect Artificer of all things? Hence also in the hymn of the three children even light and darkness praise God — that is, they beget His praise in the hearts of those who consider well. Therefore no nature is evil in so far as it is nature; but to each nature nothing is evil except the diminishing of its good. And if by diminishing it were consumed away, then just as no good, so no nature would be left — not only such a nature as the Manichaeans introduce, in which so many goods are found that their excessive blindness is astonishing, but even such as anyone at all might introduce. For not even that matter which the ancients called hyle is to be called evil.
I do not mean that which Manichaeus, in his most senseless folly, not knowing what he says, calls hyle — the fashioner of bodies (whence it was rightly said to him that he introduces another god; for no one can fashion and create bodies except God: for they are not created unless measure and form and order subsist in them, which cannot be, nor be good, except from God — a point which I think even they now confess). Rather, by hyle I mean a certain wholly formless matter, without quality, from which those qualities that we perceive are formed, as the ancients said. For from this too wood is in Greek called hyle, because it is fit for those who work, not so that it should itself make anything, but so that from it something may be made.
Therefore not even this hyle is to be called evil, which can be perceived by no form, but can scarcely be conceived by the total privation of form. For it too has the capacity to receive forms; for if it could not receive the form imposed by the artificer, it certainly would not be called matter at all. Moreover, if form is some good — whence those who excel in it are called shapely (formosi), as from beauty of form (species) they are called comely (speciosi) — then without doubt the capacity for form is also some good; just as, because wisdom is a good, no one doubts that to be capable of wisdom is a good. And because every good is from God, no one ought to doubt that even this matter, if there is any, is not except from God. Magnificently, therefore, and divinely did our God say to His servant: 'I am who I am,' and:
'Thou shalt say to the children of Israel: He who is hath sent me to you.' For He truly is, because He is unchangeable; for every change causes that which was not to be. Truly, then, He is who is unchangeable; the rest, which were made by Him, received their being from Him, each according to its own measure. Therefore to Him who supremely is, nothing can be contrary except that which is not; and through this, just as from Him is everything that is good, so from Him is everything that is natural, since everything that naturally is, is good. And so every nature is good, and every good is from God; therefore every nature is from God. But pain — which some judge to be especially an evil — whether it be in the soul or in the body, cannot itself exist except in good natures.
For this very thing, that it resists so as to feel pain, in a certain way refuses to cease to be what it was, because it was some good. But when it is forced toward the better, the pain is useful; when toward the worse, it is useless. In the soul, therefore, pain is produced by the will resisting a greater power; in the body, pain is produced by the sense resisting a more powerful body. But there are evils without pain that are worse; for it is worse to rejoice in iniquity than to grieve at corruption. Yet even such rejoicing cannot exist except from the attainment of lower goods; but iniquity is the abandonment of better goods. Likewise in the body, a wound with pain is better than putrefaction without pain, which is specifically called corruption:
which the Lord's dead flesh did not see — that is, did not undergo — as it had been foretold in prophecy: 'Neither wilt thou give thy Holy One to see corruption.' For who denies that He was wounded by the piercing of the nails and struck by the lance? But even that which is properly called by all the corruption of the body — that is, putrefaction itself — if it still has something to consume deeply, the corruption grows by diminishing the good. But if it consumes it utterly, then just as no good, so no nature will remain, because now the corruption will have nothing to corrupt. And therefore not even the putrefaction itself will be, because there will be nothing at all where it might be.
Indeed, for this reason things that are small and slight are already, by common usage of speech, called moderate (modica), because some measure (modus) remains in them, without which they would now be not moderate but altogether nothing. But those things which, on account of excessive advance, are called immoderate, are blamed by that very excess; yet even they, being under God, who 'has arranged all things in measure and number and weight,' must necessarily be restrained by some measure. But God must not be said to have measure, lest it be thought that an end of Him is being spoken of. Nor for that reason is He immoderate, He by whom measure is bestowed on all things, that they may be able to exist in some measure. Nor again ought God to be called moderate, as though He had received measure from someone.
But if we say that He is the supreme measure, perhaps we say something, provided that in what we call supreme measure we understand the supreme good. For every measure, in so far as it is measure, is good: whence all things measured, modest, and modified cannot be spoken of without praise, although under another understanding we set measure for end, and say 'no measure' where there is no end — which is sometimes said with praise, as it is said: 'and of His kingdom there shall be no end.' For it could also be said, 'there shall be no measure,' so that measure would be understood as put for end; for he who reigns in no measure certainly does not reign at all.
An evil measure, then, or an evil form, or an evil order are so called either because they are less than they ought to have been, or because they are not accommodated to those things to which they ought to be accommodated: so that they are called evil because they are alien and unfitting — as if someone were said to have acted in no good manner (measure) because he did less than he ought, or because he acted as in such a matter he ought not to have acted, or more than was fitting, or unsuitably: so that the very thing which is censured as done in an evil manner is justly censured for no other reason than that measure was not there preserved.
Likewise a form is called evil either in comparison with a more shapely and more beautiful one, because this is a lesser form and that a greater — not in bulk, but in comeliness — or because it does not suit this thing to which it is applied, so that it appears alien and unfitting: as if a naked man were to walk about in the marketplace, which gives no offense if he be seen in the bath. Similarly order too is then called evil when order itself is less preserved: whence there is not order there, but rather disorder is the evil, when either less is ordered than ought to be, or not as it ought. Yet where there is some measure, some form, some order, there is some good and some nature; but where there is no measure, no form, no order, there is no good, no nature.
These things, which our faith holds and which reason has in some fashion traced out, must be fortified by the testimonies of the divine Scriptures, so that those who cannot attain them by a lesser understanding may believe the divine authority, and on this account may deserve to understand; while those who do understand, but are less instructed in the Church's writings, may not think that we are rather bringing these things forth from our own understanding than that they are in those books. And so, that God is unchangeable is thus written in the Psalms: 'Thou shalt change them, and they shall be changed; but Thou art the selfsame'; and in the book of Wisdom, concerning Wisdom itself: 'remaining in herself, she reneweth all things.' Whence also the apostle Paul: 'to the invisible, incorruptible, only God'; and the apostle James:
'every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no change nor shadow of a moment.' Likewise, that what He begot of Himself is that which He Himself is, is thus briefly stated by the Son Himself: 'I and the Father are one.' But that the Son was not made — seeing that all things were made through Him — is thus written: 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God; the same was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him was made nothing' — that is, nothing was made without Him.
For the ravings of men are not to be heeded, who suppose that in this place 'nothing' is to be understood as something, and think that someone can for this reason be driven to a folly of this kind, because 'nothing' (nihil) is placed at the end of the sentence. 'Therefore,' they say, 'it was made, and therefore, because it was made, that nothing is something'; for they have lost their sense through the zeal of contradicting, and do not understand that it makes no difference whether it is said 'without Him nothing was made' or 'without Him was made nothing' — because even if it were said in that order, 'without Him nothing was made,' they could none the less say that that nothing is something, because it was made.
For as regards that which really is something, what difference does it make whether it be said 'without him a house was made' or 'without him was made a house,' so long as it is understood that something was made without him, which something a house is? So then, because it is said 'without Him was made nothing,' since nothing at all is not something — when it is truly and properly said — whether it be said 'without Him was made nothing' or 'without Him nothing was made' or 'nothing was made,' it makes no difference. But who would wish to speak with men who, at this very thing which I said, 'it makes no difference,' are able to say: 'therefore it makes some difference (something), because that nothing is something'?
But those who have a sound brain see the most manifest fact, that the same thing is understood when I said 'it makes no difference (nihil interest)' as would be understood if I were to say 'interest nihil.' But these men — if to someone they should say, 'What have you done?' and he should answer that he has done nothing — it follows that they slander him, saying: 'You have therefore done something, because you have done nothing; for that nothing is something.' But they have the Lord Himself too placing this word at the end of a sentence, where He says: 'and in secret I have spoken nothing.' Let them therefore read, and be silent. Since, then, God made all things which He did not beget of Himself, but made through His Word, not from those things which already were, but from those which were not at all — that is, from nothing — the apostle thus says:
'who calls the things that are not, as though they were.' But more plainly it is written in the book of Maccabees: 'I beseech thee, my son, look upon heaven and earth and all that is in them; behold and know that God made us out of things that were not.' And that which is written in the Psalm: 'He Himself spoke, and they were made' — it is manifest that He did not beget these things of Himself, but made them by His word and command; but what was not of Himself was assuredly from nothing. For there was nothing else out of which He might make them. Concerning which the apostle says most plainly: 'For of Him and through Him and in Him are all things.'
But 'of Him' (ex ipso) does not signify the same as 'from Him' (de ipso). For that which is of Him can be said to be 'ex ipso'; but not everything which is 'ex ipso' is rightly said to be 'de ipso.' For heaven and earth are 'ex ipso,' because He made them, but not 'de ipso,' because not of His substance. Just as some man, if he beget a son and make a house — of him is the son, of him is the house; but the son is from him (de ipso), the house from earth and wood. But this is because he is a man, who cannot make anything out of nothing; whereas God, of whom are all things, through whom are all things, in whom are all things, had no need of any matter which He Himself had not made, to assist His omnipotence.
But when we hear 'all things of Him and through Him and in Him,' we ought certainly to understand all natures that naturally are. For sins are not of Him, which do not preserve nature but vitiate it. And that these sins are from the will of those who sin, Holy Scripture testifies in many ways, especially in that place where the apostle says: 'But dost thou think this, O man, who judgest those who do such things and doest them, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God? Or dost thou despise the riches of His goodness and patience and long-suffering, being ignorant that the patience of God leads thee to repentance?'
'but according to thy hardness and impenitent heart thou treasurest up to thyself wrath in the day of wrath and of the revelation of the just judgment of God, who will render to every man according to his works.' And yet, although in God are all things which He founded, those who sin do not defile Him, of whose wisdom it is said: 'she reacheth everywhere by reason of her purity, and no defiled thing cometh into her.' For it is fitting that, just as we believe God to be incorruptible and unchangeable, so we should consequently believe Him also to be incapable of defilement. But that He Himself made even the least goods — that is, the earthly and mortal — is understood without doubt from that place of the apostle, where, speaking of the members of our flesh, he says: 'because if one member be glorified, all the members rejoice with it;'
'and if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it.' There too he says this: 'God has set the members, each one of them in the body, as He willed'; and: 'God has tempered the body, giving more abundant honor to that which lacked it, that there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should be alike careful one for another.' But this which the apostle thus praises in the measure and form and order of the members of the flesh, you find in the flesh of all animals, both the greatest and the least, since all flesh is reckoned among earthly goods and thereby among the least. Likewise, that to each fault such and so great a penalty is due, belongs to the divine judgment, not the human, as it is thus written: 'O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
'how unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!' Likewise, that by the goodness of God sins are forgiven to the converted, this very thing — that Christ was sent — sufficiently shows, who died for us not in His own nature, wherein He is God, but in ours, which He assumed of a woman. This goodness of God toward us, and His love, the apostle thus proclaims: 'God commendeth His charity toward us,' he says, 'in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us; much more then, being now justified by His blood, shall we be saved from wrath through Him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved by His life.'