XIV. ON PATIENCE. The virtue of the soul which is called patience is so great a gift of God that patience is even predicated of him who bestows it on us, whereby he waits for the wicked that they may be corrected. Thus, although God can suffer nothing, and patience takes its name from suffering, nevertheless we not only faithfully believe God to be patient, but even wholesomely confess it. But who could explain in words what the patience of God is like and how great it is—whom we call one who suffers nothing and yet is not impatient, nay rather is most patient? That patience is therefore ineffable, yet not nonexistent, just as is his zeal, his anger, and whatever else is of this kind. For if we conceive these things as though they were ours, in him they are none.
For we feel none of these things without distress; but far be it that we should suspect the impassible nature of God to endure any distress. But just as he is zealous without any envy, is angry without any perturbation, has mercy without any grief, repents without the correction of any depravity of his own, so he is patient without any passion. Now therefore I shall explain what sort of thing human patience is—which we are able to grasp and ought to have—as much as the Lord grants and as much as the brevity of the present discourse allows. The patience of man which is right and praiseworthy, and worthy of the name of virtue, is that whereby we bear evils with equanimity, lest with an inequitable mind we forsake the goods through which we may come to better things.
Wherefore the impatient, while they are unwilling to suffer evils, do not bring it about that they be rescued from evils, but that they suffer graver evils. But the patient, who prefer to bear evils by not committing them rather than to commit them by not bearing them, both make lighter those things which they suffer through patience, and escape the worse things in which they would be plunged through impatience. But they do not lose the great and eternal goods, while they do not yield to temporal and brief evils, since 'the sufferings of this present time are not worthy,' as the Apostle says, 'of the glory to come, which shall be revealed in us'; and again he says: 'that which is temporal and light of our tribulation worketh in us, in an incredible measure, an eternal weight of glory.'
Let us observe, then, dearly beloved, how many hard things men endure amid toils and sorrows for the sake of things they love with a vicious love; and the more they think themselves made happy by these things, the more unhappily do they desire them. How many most perilous and troublesome things are borne with the utmost patience for false riches, for empty honours, for frivolous delights! We see men greedy for money, for glory, for wantonness, who, that they may attain the objects of their desire and, once obtained, not be deprived of them, bear the sun, the rains, the ice, the waves, and the most stormy tempests, the roughness and uncertainty of wars, the blows of monstrous wounds and dreadful gashes — not by any unavoidable necessity, but by a blameworthy will. Yet these, in a certain way, seem to be permitted forms of madness.
For avarice, ambition, luxury, and the enjoyments of various games are reckoned to belong to innocence, provided that for their sake no crime or outrage be committed which the laws of men forbid. Nay more, whoever, without defrauding anyone, has undergone great toils and sorrows either to keep or increase his money, or to win or retain honours, or in contending in the arena, or in hunting, or in giving some applauded theatrical performance — it is a small thing that he is restrained by no reproaches from the vanity of the crowd; he is, over and above, extolled with praises, since, as it is written, the sinner is praised in the desires of his soul. For the strength of desires produces the endurance of toils and sorrows;
and no one, except for the sake of what delights him, willingly takes upon himself to bear what torments him. But these desires, as I have said — for the fulfilling of which those who burn with them endure with the utmost patience many hard and bitter things — are reckoned lawful and conceded by the laws. What of this: that even for the sake of open crimes, not to punish them but to perpetrate them, men bear many most grievous things? Do not the authors of secular letters speak of a certain most notorious parricide of his fatherland, that he could bear hunger, thirst, and cold, and that his body was patient of fasting, of frost, of wakefulness, beyond what is credible to anyone?
What shall I say of robbers, all of whom, when they lie in wait for travellers, endure sleepless nights, and, to seize the innocent as they pass, fix a guilty mind and body beneath whatever harshness of the sky? Some of them are even said to torture one another, so that the practice against punishments differs in no way from the punishments themselves. For perhaps they are not so tormented by the judge, that the truth may be sought from those who suffer, as by their own accomplices, that it may not be betrayed by those who endure. And yet in all these things it is a hardness rather to be wondered at than praised — nay, neither to be wondered at nor praised, for it is no patience at all, but a hardness to be wondered at, a patience to be denied;
there is nothing there rightly to be praised, nothing profitably to be imitated; and you would judge a mind the more justly worthy of a greater punishment, the more it subjects the instruments of the virtues to the vices. Patience is the companion of wisdom, not the handmaid of concupiscence; patience is the friend of a good conscience, not the enemy of innocence. When therefore you see anyone patiently suffering something, do not straightway praise the patience, which is shown only by the cause of the suffering. When that cause is good, then this patience is true; when that cause is not polluted by desire, then this patience is distinguished from falsehood. But when that cause is held in a crime, then men greatly err in the name of this patience.
For it is not the case that, just as all who know are partakers of knowledge, so all who suffer are partakers of patience; but those who use their suffering rightly, these are praised by the truth of patience, these are crowned with the gift of patience. Nevertheless, since men wonderfully endure many dreadful things for their lusts or even for their crimes, and finally for this temporal life and safety, they sufficiently admonish us how much ought to be endured for the good life, that it may afterwards be able to be eternal also, and, without any limit of time, without loss of any advantage, secure in true felicity. The Lord says: In your patience you shall possess your souls. He does not say: your farms, your praises, your luxuries — but: your souls.
If therefore the soul endures so much to possess that whereby it perishes, how much ought it to endure lest it perish! Then, to say this which is not blameworthy: if the body endures so much for the safety of its flesh, under the hands of physicians cutting or cauterizing, how much ought the soul to endure for its own safety amid the fury of any enemies whatsoever! For physicians, lest the body die, take counsel for the body through pains; but enemies, by threatening the body with pains and death, drive it on, that both soul and body may be destroyed in Gehenna. And yet even the body itself is then more providently cared for, if its temporal safety be despised for the sake of justice, and its pain or death be most patiently endured for the sake of justice.
For the apostle speaks of the redemption of the body, which is to be at the end, where he says: And we ourselves groan within ourselves, awaiting the adoption, the redemption of our body. Then he adds: For by hope we were saved; but hope that is seen is not hope. For what a man sees, why does he also hope for it? But if we hope for what we do not see, we await it through patience. When therefore certain evils torment but do not extort evil works, not only is the soul possessed through patience, but also, when through patience the body itself is for a time afflicted or lost, it is taken up again into eternal stability and safety; and by pain and death there is procured for it inviolable soundness and blessed immortality.
Whence the Lord Jesus, exhorting his martyrs to patience, promised the future integrity of the body itself, without the loss — I will not say of a limb — but even of a hair. Amen I say to you, he says, a hair of your head shall not perish; so that, since no one, as the apostle says, ever hated his own flesh, the faithful man may watch over the couch of his flesh rather through patience than through impatience, and by the inestimable gain of future incorruption may compensate for whatever present losses of it. But although patience is a virtue of the soul, yet the soul uses it partly in itself, partly in its body.
In itself the soul uses patience when, with its body unharmed and untouched, it is provoked by any adversities or by the foulnesses or goads of things or words to do or say something which is not expedient or fitting, and it patiently bears all evils, lest it itself commit anything evil in deed or word. Through this patience we endure, even when we are sound in body, that amid the scandals of this age our blessedness is deferred. Whence it was said, as I mentioned a little before: For what we do not see we hope, we await it through patience.
By this patience holy David bore the reproaches of one who reviled him; and though he could easily have avenged himself, not only did he not do so, but he even restrained another who grieved and was stirred up on his behalf, and used his royal power rather in forbidding vengeance than in exercising it. Nor was his body then afflicted with any disease or wound, but the time of humility was acknowledged, and the will of God was borne, for whose sake the bitterness of insult was drunk with a most patient mind. This patience the Lord taught, when, at the servants being stirred by the mixture of tares and wishing to gather them, he said that the master of the household had answered: Let both grow until the harvest. For that ought to be patiently borne which ought not hastily to be removed.
Of this patience he himself furnished and displayed an example, when, before the passion of his body, he bore with the devil Judas — before he revealed him as the betrayer — as a thief; and before the experience of the chains and the cross and death, he did not deny the kiss of peace to his treacherous lips. All these things, and any others there may be which it would take long to recount, pertain to that mode of patience whereby the soul patiently sustains in itself, not its own sins, but whatever external evils, with its own body altogether unharmed.
But there is another mode of patience, whereby that same soul bears whatever troublesome and grievous things in the sufferings of its own body — not, like foolish or malicious men, for the sake of attaining vain things or perpetrating crimes, but, as was defined by the Lord, for the sake of justice. In both modes the holy martyrs contended — for both they were sated with the reproaches of the impious, where the soul, its body untouched, sustains whole certain wounds as it were of its own; and in their bodies they were bound, they were imprisoned, they were afflicted with hunger and thirst, they were tortured, they were cut apart, they were torn to pieces, they were burned, they were slaughtered — and with unmoved piety they submitted their mind to God, while they suffered in the flesh whatever came into the mind of a cruelty seeking it out.
Assuredly the contest of patience is greater when it is not a visible enemy who, by persecuting and raging, urges one to wickedness — one who, openly and manifestly, is overcome by him who does not consent — but when the devil himself, who through the sons of unbelief, as through his own vessels, pursues the sons of light, secretly and hiddenly assaults through his own self, pressing on with fury, that something be done or said against God. Such an one holy Job experienced, vexed by both temptations, but in both, by the strength of steadfast patience and the arms of piety, unconquered.
For first, with his body unharmed, he lost all that he had, so that his soul, before the torment of its flesh, might be broken by the withdrawal of the things men are wont to prize highly, and might speak something against God at the loss of those things for whose sake he was thought to worship him; being struck also by the sudden bereavement of all his sons, so that those whom he had received one by one, he lost all at once — as though their multitude had existed not that his felicity might be adorned thereby, but that his calamity might be increased thereby. But when, having endured these things, he remained unmoved in his God, he was fixed to the will of him whom he could not lose except by his own will; and for the things he lost he held fast him who took them away, in whom he might find what should never perish.
For it was not he who took them away who had the will to harm, but he who had given the power. The enemy assailed the body also, and struck, not the things that were external to the man, but now the man himself in the part he could. From head to foot pains burned, worms swarmed, gore flowed down: in the rotting body the soul remained whole, and bore the dreadful torments of the decaying flesh with inviolate piety and uncorrupted patience. His wife was at hand, yet brought no help to her husband, but suggested blasphemy against God. For the devil, when he had taken away his sons also, had not left her behind as one unskilled in harming, having already learned in Eve how necessary she was to the tempter.
But now he had not found another Adam whom he might capture through a woman. This man was more cautious in his pains than that one in the groves: that one was conquered amid delights, this one conquered amid punishments; that one consented to enticements, this one did not yield to torments. Friends also were at hand, not to console him in his evils, but to suspect evils of him. For they did not believe that one who suffered so much was innocent, nor was their tongue silent about that which his conscience did not have — so that, amid the monstrous torments of the body, the soul too might be cut with false reproaches. But he, sustaining in his flesh his own pains, in his heart the errors of others, rebuked the folly of his wife, taught his friends wisdom, and everywhere preserved patience.
Let those look upon this man who bring death upon themselves, when they are sought for life, and by taking it from themselves deny both the present and the future. If they were compelled to deny Christ, or to do something against justice, like the true martyrs, they ought rather to bear all things patiently than impatiently to inflict death upon themselves. But if for the sake of fleeing evils it could rightly be done, holy Job would have destroyed himself, that he might escape such great evils of the devil's cruelty in his goods, in his sons, in his own members. Yet he did not do so. For far be it that a wise man should commit against himself what not even a foolish woman suggested. For even if she had suggested it, he would deservedly have heard here too that which he heard when she suggested blasphemy:
You have spoken like one of the foolish women. If we have received good things from the hand of the Lord, shall we not endure evil things? For indeed he would have lost patience itself, whether by blaspheming, as she had wished, or by killing himself — which not even she had dared to say — he should die and be among those of whom it is said: Woe to those who have lost patience. And he would rather have increased than escaped his punishments, being one who, after the death of his body, would be snatched away either to the punishments of blasphemers or of murderers, or even worse than parricides.
For if a parricide is more wicked than any other murderer, because he kills not only a man but also a kinsman, and among parricides themselves, the nearer the one whom each has slain, the more monstrous he is judged: without doubt he is worse who kills himself, because no one is nearer to a man than himself. What then do those wretched men accomplish, who — when here too they must pay the due penalties both for the violence they have brought upon themselves and afterwards not only for their impiety against God but also for the very cruelty they have exercised upon themselves — moreover seek even the glories of martyrs? Since, even if they suffered persecution for the true testimony of Christ and killed themselves lest they suffer anything from persecutors, it would rightly be said to them: Woe to those who have lost patience!
For how is the just reward of patience rendered, if impatient suffering too is crowned? Or how shall he be judged innocent, to whom it was said: You shall love your neighbour as yourself, if he commits upon himself the murder which he is forbidden to commit upon his neighbour? Let the saints therefore hear from the holy Scriptures the precepts of patience: Son, drawing near to the service of God, stand in justice and fear, and prepare your soul for temptation; humble your heart and endure, that your life may grow in the last things. Accept whatever befalls you, and endure in pain, and in your humility have patience; for gold and silver are tried in the fire, but acceptable men in the furnace of humiliation. And in another place it is read:
Son, do not faint under the discipline of the Lord, nor be wearied when you are rebuked by him; for whom the Lord loves he corrects, and he scourges every son whom he receives. What is here placed, 'the son whom he receives,' is in the testimony cited above: 'acceptable men.' For this is just, that we who were dismissed from the former felicity of paradise on account of an obstinate craving for delights should be received back through the humble patience of afflictions — fugitives by doing evil, brought back by suffering evil; there acting against justice, here suffering for justice. But whence true patience — which is worthy of the name of this virtue — is to be obtained must be inquired. For there are those who ascribe it to the strength of the human will.
not the strength they have from divine help, but that which they have from free choice. But that error is proud; for it belongs to those who abound, of whom it is said in the psalm: Reproach to those who abound, and contempt to the proud. This, then, is not the patience of the poor, which does not perish forever. For here the poor receive it from that rich one, to whom it is said: You are my God, for you have no need of my goods. From whom is every best gift and every perfect gift; to whom the needy and poor man cries out, who praises his name, and by asking, seeking, knocking says: My God, deliver me from the hand of the sinner, from the hand of the transgressor of the law and of the unjust one. For you are my patience, O Lord, my hope from my youth.
But those who abound, and disdain to be in need before the Lord, lest they receive true patience from him, glorying in their own false patience, wish to confound the counsel of the poor man, since the Lord is his hope; nor do they perceive that, while they are men and ascribe so much only to their own — that is, to the human — will, they run into that which is written: Cursed is everyone who places his hope in man. Whence, even if it should befall them that they sustain certain hard and harsh things by that very most proud will — whether lest they displease men, or lest they suffer graver things, or by pleasing themselves and loving their own presumption — this must be said to them of patience which the blessed apostle James says of wisdom:
This is not the wisdom that descends from above, but earthly, natural, devilish. For may not the false patience of the proud be, just as the false wisdom of the proud is? But from whom is true wisdom, from him is also true patience. For to him the poor in spirit sings: My soul is subject to God, for from him is my patience. But they answer and speak, saying:
Just as the will of man, without any help of God, by the strength of free choice endures so many grievous and dreadful things, whether in soul or in body, that it may fully enjoy the delight of this mortal life and of sins, why does not that same will of man, by those same strengths of free choice — not looking to be divinely helped for this, but sufficing to itself by natural possibility — most patiently sustain whatever of toil or pain is brought upon it, for the sake of justice and eternal life? Or is indeed, they say, the will of the wicked fit, without God helping, to exercise themselves in torments for the sake of iniquity, and, before they are tortured by others, to torture themselves;
the will of those who love the delays of this life is fit, God not helping, to persevere in a lie amid the most atrocious and long torments, lest, confessing their crimes, they be ordered to be killed — and yet the will of the just is not fit, unless strengths be supplied to them from above, to bear whatever punishments either for the very beauty of justice or for the love of eternal life? Those who say these things do not understand that each of the wicked is the harder to bear whatever evils, the greater is in him the cupidity of the world; and each of the just is the stronger to bear whatever evils, the greater is in him the charity of God.
But the cupidity of the world has its beginning from the choice of the will, its progress from the pleasantness of enjoyment, its firm foundation from the bond of habit. The charity of God, however, is poured forth in our hearts, not indeed from ourselves, but through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. Accordingly, from him is the patience of the just, through whom is poured forth their charity. Praising and commending which charity, the apostle among its other good qualities said that it also bears all things. Charity, he says, is magnanimous; and a little after he says: it endures all things. The greater therefore the charity of God is in the saints, the more do they bear all things for the sake of that which is loved; and the greater the cupidity of the world is in sinners, the more do they bear all things for the sake of that which is coveted.
And through this, the true patience of the just is from that source whence in them is the charity of God; and the false patience of the wicked is from that source whence in them is the cupidity of the world. Wherefore the apostle 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 concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the ambition of the age — which is not of the Father, but is of the world. This concupiscence, then, which is not of the Father but of the world, when it is more vehement and ardent in a man, the more does each become the more patient of all troubles and pains for the sake of what he covets.
For this reason, as we said above, this patience is not one descending from above; but the patience of the pious is one descending from above, from the Father of lights. Thus the former is earthly, the latter heavenly; the former natural, the latter spiritual; the former devilish, the latter godlike — since the concupiscence, whereby it comes to pass that sinners obstinately endure all things, is of the world; but the charity, whereby it comes to pass that those who live rightly bravely endure all things, is of God. And therefore for that false patience the human will can suffice without the help of God, being the harder the more covetous it is, and enduring evils the more tolerably the more it itself becomes worse;
but for this, which is true patience, the human will, unless helped and inflamed from above, does not suffice; because the Holy Spirit is its fire, by which, unless it be kindled to love the impassible Good, it cannot bear the evil which it suffers. For as the divine eloquences testify, God is charity, and he who abides in charity abides in God, and God in him. Whoever therefore contends that the charity of God can be had without the help of God, what else does he contend but that God can be had without God? But what Christian says this, which no madman would dare to say? Exulting therefore in the apostle, true, pious, and faithful patience says with the mouth of the saints: Who shall separate us from the charity of Christ? Tribulation? Or distress? Or persecution?
Or famine? Or nakedness? Or peril? Or the sword? As it is written: For your sake we are put to death all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter. But in all these things we more than conquer through him who loved us — not therefore through ourselves, but through him who loved us. Then it follows and he adds: For I am certain that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the charity of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. This is that charity of God which is poured forth in our hearts, not from ourselves, but through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us;
but the concupiscence of the wicked, on account of which there is in them false patience, is not from the Father, as the apostle John says, but is of the world. Here someone will say: If the concupiscence of the wicked is of the world, through which it comes to pass that they bear all evils for the sake of what is coveted by them, how is it said to be of their will? As though indeed they themselves too were not of the world, since the world is loved by them, while he is forsaken through whom the world was made; for they serve the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed unto the ages. Whether therefore by the term 'world' the apostle John signified the lovers of the world, the will that is of them is surely of the world;
or if by the name 'world' he has embraced heaven and earth and whatever is in them — that is, the whole creation — then without doubt the will of the creature, which is not of the Creator, is of the world. For which reason the Lord says to such: You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world. But to the apostles he says: If you were of this world, the world would love what is its own. But lest they arrogate to themselves more than their measure demanded, and lest this — that he said they were not of the world — they should think to be of nature and not of grace, But because, he says, you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Therefore they were of the world; for, that they might not be of the world, they were chosen out of the world.
But demonstrating that this election is not of merits preceding in good works, but the election of grace, the apostle thus says: And at this present time also a remnant has been saved through the election of grace; but if by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. This is the election of grace — that is, the election whereby men are chosen through the grace of God; this, I say, is the election of grace, by which all human good merits are anticipated. For if it is given for any good merits, then it is no longer given freely, but rendered as a debt; and through this it is not called grace by the true name, where the reward, as the same apostle says, is not reckoned according to grace, but according to debt.