How blessed we should all be, if, as promptly as we read that God gives us a hearing, we ourselves were willing so promptly to hear God! But perhaps you say that this, that God is read to look upon the righteous, avails little for the case, because it is not a general regard of the Godhead, but one granted only to the righteous by a special kindness. Now indeed the sacred word has already testified above that the eyes of the Lord behold the good and the evil. But if even now you wish it to be proved more fully, consider what follows; for this is added: 'But the face of the Lord is upon those who do evil, to cut off the memory of them from the earth.' You see without doubt that you cannot complain that God does not look also upon the unjust,
since you understand that the vision of the Lord is indeed general upon all men, but made diverse by the disparity of merits. For the good are looked upon that they may be preserved, the evil that they may be destroyed; and having a share in these latter, you yourself who deny that men are looked upon by God—understand clearly not only that you are seen by the Lord, but also acknowledge beyond doubt that you shall perish. For since the face of the Lord is upon those who do evil for this end, that He may cut off the memory of them from the earth, it is necessary that you who perfidiously deny that you behold the face of God should know the wrath of Him who beholds by your destruction. Concerning, then, the presence and the gaze of God, these things suffice.
2. Let us now see whether He who regards also rules—since the very reason for regarding contains in itself the cause of governing, because He does not regard for this end, that having beheld He should neglect—He who by that very fact is understood not to neglect, because He deigns to regard; especially since the sacred word above testified that the evil are looked upon by God unto destruction, the good unto salvation. By this very thing, surely, the administration of the divine governance is demonstrated; for this is to rule by a just governance and to treat each individual man according to the diversity of merits. But receive nonetheless a fuller testimony on this matter. The Holy Spirit says to God the Father in the psalm: 'Thou that rulest Israel, give heed.' 'Israel' is interpreted 'seeing God':
and since Christians indeed see Him with faith and heart, those who faithfully believe—although God is the governor of all—yet governance is said to be granted by God specially to them who deserve to be ruled specially by the Godhead. Whence you too, whoever you are, if you are a Christian, it is necessary that you believe yourself to be ruled by God. But if you think yourself not at all governed by God along with the rest of Christians, it is necessary that you recognize yourself to be outside all Christians. But if, as we have already said above, you rather seek that which pertains to all men, not that which pertains to Christians alone—behold, the sacred volume evidently says that all things are ruled daily by the nod of the Godhead, and that all things are unceasingly governed by God;
'For He Himself,' it says, 'loves counsel and discipline. For there is no other god whose care is over all. Since Thou art therefore just,' it says, 'Thou disposest all things justly, and with great reverence Thou disposest us.' Behold, you have God ever disposing, ever governing—although in that passage of Scripture not only sacred governance but also human dignity is declared. For in this, that it says 'Thou disposest us,' the power of the divine governance is shown; but in this, that 'with great reverence,' the summit of human dignity is displayed. Elsewhere too in the prophet: 'Do I not,' He says, 'fill heaven and earth?' And why He fills all things He Himself declares: 'Because I am with you,' He says, 'to save you.'
For behold, the Lord shows not only His governance and His filling, but also the power and benefit of that very filling; for the filling of the Godhead has this fruit in itself, that it saves the things which it fills. And therefore in the Acts of the Apostles the most blessed Paul says: 'In Him we live and move and are.' Without doubt He is more than a governor of life, in whom is the very motion of the living. For he did not say that we are moved by Him, but in Him—teaching, of course, that the substance of us all is implanted within the sacred powers, since in Him assuredly we live, from whom we derive this very thing that we are. But the Savior Himself too in the Gospel: 'Behold, I,' He says, 'am with you all the days, even to the consummation of the age.'
He said not only that He is with us, but even that He is with us all the days. Do you, O most ungrateful man, say that He who is with us without ceasing has neither care nor regard for us? What, then, does He do with us? Is He with us for this end, that He should not regard, that He should neglect? And how do both agree in Him, that He who grants His presence to piety should bestow neglect upon impiety? 'For behold, I,' He says, 'am with you all the days, even to the consummation of the age.' Excellently indeed do we interpret the affection of God, if we slander Him as continually neglecting us, when He Himself testifies that we are continually not forsaken by Him.
By this He willed to show that He does not continually depart from us in affection and protection, because He is not absent from us even in presence. We turn the divine love into contempt of ourselves; we change the testimonies of love into arguments of hatred. For this, that He says He is present, we choose to make rather a testimony of hatred than of love. For if the Lord had said that He would be absent, we might perhaps be less able to complain of the neglect of one absent. It is a matter of greater contempt and disdain, if He continually neglects us who continually does not withdraw from us; and He has in Himself more of our hatred, if He remains with us always for this end, that He who never deserts us in presence should always spurn us in affection.
But far be it that this should be believed of the most loving and most merciful God—that He should have willed always to stand by us for this end, that in standing by He might seem to neglect us with greater disdain: far be it that such wickedness should be spoken. For no one, I think, even in the whole human race, is so evil that he would wish to be with any man for the reason that he does not love him, and would desire to use his presence only for this end, that he might despise the one present with a greater fruit of hatred. Let human nature itself either teach or convince us, whether we desire to be with any man for any reason but that we love him with whom we desire to be. And because we surely love him, we desire that our presence should profit him whom we love.
What, therefore, we cannot take away even from an evil man, we take away from God, and we make God worse than the worst of men—who is said to have willed to be with us for this end, that He might neglect us more disdainfully once He was present. But enough of this. 3. It remains that, since we have already proved by the sacred testimonies that all things are both regarded and ruled by God, we should also teach that very many things are judged in this world by the Godhead. When holy David had suffered the injury of insult from Nabal of Carmel, because he deferred to avenge himself, he at once received vengeance with God as executor. And so, when a little later his adversary had been destroyed and overwhelmed by the heavenly hand, he thus spoke: 'Blessed be the Lord, who has judged the cause of my reproach at the hand of Nabal.'
When his persecuting son had likewise driven the same man from his kingdom, the Lord as judge avenged him in a short time—and not merely avenged, but avenged more abundantly than he himself who was being avenged had wished, that God might show, of course, that an injury to those who endure unjust things is graver to Him than to those enduring it themselves. For he who avenges beyond the vow of him who is avenged, what else does he wish to be understood than that he himself is avenged in the one whom he thus avenges? And so, when the parricide son had been raised upon a cross not made by hand, the divine word thus reports the vengeance divinely allotted to him as being announced: 'I bring good tidings, my lord king; for the Lord has today judged for thee from the hand of all who had risen against thee.' 4.
You see how, not by deeds only, as we said above, and by examples, but by the very name and appellation of judgment, God judges even in the present age—let the divine letters prove it through the sacred witnesses. But perhaps you think that this was granted to the holy man specially by God, that He should forthwith judge concerning his adversaries. The day would fail me if I wished to speak of the present sentences and judgments in this world. Yet, that you may evidently recognize that His censure and sacred examination are given not so much to persons as to causes, hear how God the judge, who assiduously gave an evident sentence for David His servant, more often judged against David himself.
And indeed this not in a matter concerning many men, or—what perhaps might have moved God more—concerning holy men, but in the cause of a single man, and a barbarian, and where the person by no means burdened so great a man, had not the cause condemned him. When Uriah the Hittite had been slain—a man of an impious race and a hostile nation—at once the divine word came to David: 'Thou hast smitten Uriah the Hittite with the sword and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast killed him with the sword of the children of Ammon: wherefore the sword shall not depart from thy house forever. Therefore thus says the Lord: Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house, and I will take thy wives before thine eyes and give them to thy neighbor. For thou didst it secretly:
but I will do this word in the sight of all Israel and in the sight of the sun.' What do you say, you who believe not only that whatever we do is not judged, but that we are not regarded at all by God? Do you not see that not even from that secret in which David once fell were the eyes of God in any way absent? Whence you too, who—for the solace, I suppose, of your sins—think that our acts are not considered by God: from this very thing understand that you are always beheld by Christ, and know that you are perhaps to be punished before long, since you see that even holy David could neither hide his one error by the secrecy of hidden recesses, nor rescue himself from present punishments by the privilege even of great works. For what does the Lord say to him?
'I will take thy wives before thine eyes, and the sword shall not depart from thy house forever.' You see how present a judgment so great a man receives at once for a single error. Condemnation followed the fault forthwith, and a condemnation punishing at once, reserving nothing, and immediately restraining the guilty man, not deferring his guilt to the future. And therefore He did not say: 'Because thou hast done this, thou shalt feel the coming judgment of God, and thou shalt be tortured by the future fire of Gehenna,' but 'thou shalt feel present torments,' He says, 'and shalt bear the sword of divine severity already impending over thy neck.' And what after this?
The guilty man, of course, acknowledges his fault—he is humbled, he is stricken with compunction, he confesses, he mourns, he repents, he entreats; he casts away the royal jewels, he lays aside the garments woven with rippling gold, he is stripped of purple, he is dishonored of his diadem, he is changed in dress and in body; he throws off the whole king with his ornaments, and takes up the fugitive penitent with the patronage of ostentatious squalor; he is worn down by fasting, dried up by aridity, poured out in weeping, imprisoned in solitude. And yet the king of so great a name, greater in holiness than in power, preeminent by the prerogatives of his antecedent merits—though he supplicates with so great earnestness—does not escape. And here the only fruit of so great a penitence is that he is not indeed condemned to eternal expiations, but yet in the present does not merit pardon.
Finally, what does the prophet say to the penitent? 'Because thou hast made the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the son who is born to thee shall die.' Besides the punishment of bitter bereavement, God willed also to add this apprehension of the highest torment to the most loving father: that the father himself, who would grieve, should be the cause of death to his most beloved son, since indeed the crime itself would slay the boy born of crime, whom that crime had created. 5. This, then, is the first beginning of the divine chastisement—first, surely, not the only one. For there followed a long series of immense calamities, and from his house the continual succession of unbroken evils did not withdraw. Tamar is defiled by the frenzy of Amnon; Amnon is butchered by Absalom.
A great crime, indeed, is committed by one brother, but a worse one is avenged by the other. Amid these things David the father is punished by the wickedness of both. Two sons sin, but three are lost through the crime of two; for in Tamar virginity is lost, in Amnon even the perdition of Absalom is bewailed. And indeed you would not know which of his two sons so good a father lost more grievously—him who was slain by his brother's hand in this world, or him who perished by his own in the world to come. Now indeed from here, according to the word of God, comes a heap of inestimable evil. The father long suffers his son's snares, he is driven from the kingdom, and, lest he be killed, he departs a fugitive.
A son more impure than one can say, and perhaps more bloodstained; for since he could not slay his father by parricide, he defiled him with incest, and indeed with an incest that, beyond the sinfulness of incest itself, was raised still higher by his deliberate zeal to heap up wickedness, seeing that this outrage, which even in secret would have been abominable, he as persecutor of his father perpetrated in public. The design, forsooth, was that by this most ghastly crime not only might the absent father be dishonoured, but that the eyes of the whole world too might be defiled by that public incest. And now, if we must add the very picture of his flight, what a thing it was, when so great a king, of so great a name, loftier than all kings and greater than the world, fled with only a very few servants from all his own people, once wealthy compared with himself, now beggared compared with himself, alone, fleeing in fear, in disgrace, in grief:
advancing, as Scripture says, with covered head and bare feet, a survivor of his former estate, an exile from his own self, already almost living after his own death, cast down even to the reproach of his own servants (which is grievous) or their pity (which is more grievous still), so that Ziba might feed him, or Shimei not fear to curse him in public. Thus by God's judgment he was made another than himself, so that against him whom perhaps the whole world had feared, one enemy alone might insult him to his face. VI. Where are they who deny that God regards human affairs? Behold, how often the sacred witnesses have taught that, in the person of a single man, God not only regarded but even judged. And why all this?
Why indeed, if not that we might understand that the Lord's censure and correction will always be the same in the world as they have been? And therefore we read that even holy men were once chastised by God's judgment, so that we might know we are to be judged by God as our judge even in the present age; for as God is always, so is God's justice always; as the Lord's omnipotence never fails, so His censure is unchangeable; as God is by right eternal, so His justice is enduring. And therefore all the saints in the sacred books, amid the fears of threatening dangers and the swords of persecutors, call for the present judgment of God. For thus the just man says in the Psalm: Judge me, O God, and distinguish my cause from a nation that is not holy.
And lest this could be dragged over to God's future judgment, he at once added: From the unjust and deceitful man deliver me. Surely he calls for God's present judgment who implores to be freed from the hand of his persecutor. And rightly, in the confidence of a good cause, he prays not so much for the Lord's favour as for His judgment; for the best favour is always granted to a good cause, if it be judged with justice. Elsewhere too most plainly: Judge, O Lord, them that harm me, overthrow them that fight against me; take hold of arms and shield, and rise up to help me. You see that here too it is not the severity of the future examination but the censure of the present judgment that is sought. For this is what he means when he says:
Take hold of shield and snatch up the sword—the shield, that is, for protection, the sword for vengeance—not because God as judge has need of any array, but because in this world these names of terrible things are the instruments of terrible judgments. Speaking to human understanding through the significations of human things, since he was praying to be judged and avenged of his adversaries, he expressed the force of divine punishment through the instruments of this earthly vengeance. Then in another place the same prophet showed what the difference is between God's present and future judgment. For what does he say of the censure of the present examination, addressing the Lord? Thou sittest upon the throne, who judgest equity. And what of God's future and eternal judgment?
He shall judge, he says, the world in equity; and again: He shall judge the peoples with justice. By the very words of the present and future tense he distinguished the time of each judgment. For to indicate the present judgment he set down 'thou judgest'; but to distinguish the future from the present, he afterwards added 'he shall judge.' It is enough, then, to have proved these things concerning God's care over us, His governance and His judgment, by reasoning, by examples, and by testimonies—especially since even the things that are to follow hereafter will all pertain to this same point. Now, if from God, whose business we are conducting, we receive strength to act, we shall attempt both to set forth and to refute the things that our adversaries are wont to say against these matters. I. It is well:
The foundations have been laid of a work begun with pious effort and undertaken out of love for the divine office; and therefore they are not set in soluble mud nor built with perishable stone, but with the strong workmanship of sacred outlay and firmly established by the art of divine teaching—foundations which, as God Himself says in the Gospel, can neither be shaken by raging winds, nor undermined by the flooding of rivers, nor dissolved by the pouring of rains. For since the hand of the divine volumes has, in a manner, framed this work, and the fabric of the heavenly Scriptures has made it solid, it must needs be that these things which have been made are as firm, through the Lord Jesus Christ, as are those firm things which made them.
This edifice, therefore, takes the nature of its condition from its root, and cannot be shaken so long as its authors remain unshaken. For just as in earthly buildings no one can throw down the walls unless he has thrown down the stones and mortar, so no one is able to dissolve the edifice we have built unless he first dissolves that from which it was constructed and completed. And since that can by no means be shaken, we rightly presume also the safety of the edifice, whose standing is upheld by immortal supports.
It is asked, therefore, since these things are so—if everything that is in this world is conducted by the care, governance, and judgment of God—why the condition of the barbarians is much better than ours; why even among ourselves the lot of the good is harder than that of the wicked; why the upright lie low while the wicked grow strong; why especially the unjust powers see all things submit to them. I could indeed reasonably and quite firmly say: I do not know; for I am ignorant of the secret and counsel of the Godhead. It suffices me, for the proof of this cause, to have the oracle of the heavenly word. God, as we have already proved in the earlier books, says that all things are watched by Him, all governed, all judged. If you wish to know what is to be held, you have the sacred writings: it is perfect reasoning to hold what you have read.
But by what cause God does these things of which we speak, do not require of me. I am a man; I do not understand the secrets of God, I dare not investigate them, and therefore I even dread to attempt it, because this very thing is a kind of sacrilegious rashness—to desire to know more than you are permitted. Let it suffice you that God attests that all things are done and dispensed by Him. Why do you ask me why one is greater, another lesser; one wretched, another blessed; one strong, another weak? By what cause God does these things, I do not understand; but for the fullest reason it abundantly suffices that I show these things are done by God. For as God is more than all human reason, so it ought to be more to me than reason that I know all things are done by God.
In this matter, therefore, there is no need to hear anything new: let God as authority suffice for all reasons. Nor is it permitted, concerning those things done by the divine will, to call one thing just and another unjust; for whatever you see and are convinced is done by God, you must needs confess to be more than just. These things, then, concerning God's governance and judgment can be said most readily and most surely. Nor indeed is it necessary that it be proved by my arguments what is proved by this very fact—that it is said by God. And so, when we read it said by God that He continually beholds the whole earth, by this very thing we prove that He beholds, because He says He beholds; when we read that He governs all things He has made, by this very thing we approve that He governs, because He testifies that He governs:
When we read that He dispenses all things by present judgment, by this very thing it is evident that He judges, because He affirms that He judges. For all other things—that is, human sayings—need arguments and witnesses; but God's word is a witness to itself, because it must needs be that whatever incorrupt Truth speaks is the incorrupt testimony of Truth. Yet nevertheless, since our God has willed us to know certain things through the sacred Scriptures, as it were from the secret of His mind and heart—because the oracle of sacred Scripture is in a manner the very mind of God—I will not be silent about whatever God has willed to be known through His own or to be proclaimed. Yet before I begin to speak, I would wish to know one thing: whether I must speak with Christians or with pagans.
For if with Christians, I do not doubt that I shall prove what I am doing; but if with pagans, I shall disdain to prove it—not because I am wanting in proof, but because I despair that what I say will be of profit; for the labour is indeed fruitless and vain where a depraved hearer does not accept the proof. Yet nevertheless, since I think there is absolutely no man of the Christian name who does not wish to be seen as a Christian, I will deal with the Christian. For although it belongs to an impious and paganish faithlessness, it is enough for me that what I say be proved to the Christian. II. You allege, then, this question: how is it that we Christians, who believe in God, are more wretched than all men? Indeed, for answering in this place, it might have sufficed me what the Apostle said to the churches:
Let no one be moved in tribulations; for you yourselves know that we are appointed to this. And therefore, since the Apostle says that we are appointed to this by God—to endure hardships, miseries, and sorrows—what wonder is it if we endure all evils, we who are enlisted to bear all adversities? But since many do not understand these things and think that Christian men ought to receive these as it were the wages of their faith from God—that because they are more religious than all nations, they should also be stronger than all—let us yield to their opinion and view. Yet let us nevertheless see what it is to believe in God faithfully.
For we who wish the reward of belief and faith to be so great in this age ought to consider what that belief or faith itself ought to be. What, then, is belief or faith? In my opinion, it is for a man to believe faithfully in Christ, that is, to be faithful to God, that is, faithfully to keep God's commandments. For just as the servants or stewards of rich men, to whom are entrusted abundant furnishings or opulent storerooms, cannot without doubt be called faithful if they devour the things handed over to them, so assuredly Christian men too are unfaithful if they corrupt the goods assigned to them by God. It is asked, perhaps, what are the goods that God assigns to Christian men?
What, if not all the things through which we believe—that is, through which we are all Christians? First, namely, the Law; then the Prophets; thirdly the Gospel; fourthly the apostolic readings; lastly the gift of the new regeneration, the grace of holy baptism, the anointing of the divine chrism. So that, just as once among the Hebrews—that is, God's peculiar and proper nation—when the judicial honour had passed over into royal power, God called the most approved and most chosen men into the kingdom through the royal anointing, so all Christian men, when after the ecclesiastical chrism they should have done all God's commandments, might be called to heaven to receive the reward of their labour.
Since, then, all these are the things through which faith stands firm, let us see who keeps these so great sacraments of faith, so as to be seen as faithful; for whoever does not keep what is committed to faith must needs be unfaithful, as we have said. And indeed I do not require that he do all the things which the testaments of the two ages command. I remit the censure of the ancient Law, I remit these threats of the Prophets, I remit even the things that cannot at all be remitted—whether the most severe instruction of the apostolic books or the doctrine of the evangelic volumes, full of every kind of perfection. I ask merely who obeys the very fewest of God's precepts. Nor do I speak of those things which so many shun that they almost abhor them.
So far do honour and reverence for God avail among us, that the things we do not do out of undevotion, we even reckon to be worthy of hatred. In short, this—that the Saviour forbids us to be anxious about the morrow—who deigns to hear it? That He commands us to be content with single tunics, who accepts it? That He bids us walk unshod, who would think it ought not merely to be done, but even to be endured? And so I pass these things by. For to this has the faith by which we trust fallen away, that we judge superfluous the things which the Lord willed to be salutary for us. Love, says the Saviour, your enemies, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who persecute and slander you. Who does all these things?
Who deigns to do for his enemies these things which God commanded—I do not say with vows, but at least in words? And even these, if someone forces himself to do them, he does nevertheless with the mouth, not the mind: he renders indeed the service of the voice, but does not change the affection of his soul. And through this, even if he forces himself to pray for his adversary, he speaks but does not pray. It is long to speak of individual things. But I will still add something further, that we may understand that we not only fail to obey all God's words, but obey almost none of His commands. And therefore the Apostle cries out: For if anyone thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself.