論神的治理 第 4 章

BOOK I. 1. Timothy, least of the servants of God, to the Catholic Church spread throughout the whole world: grace to you and peace from God our Father and Christ Jesus our Lord, with the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Among the other grave and deadly diseases of that destructive pestilence which that most ancient and most foul serpent breathes into you with the most grievous malice of his lethal envy and with that most loathsome breath of his venomous mouth, I do not know whether any consumes you with a bitterer plague upon faithful souls, and a fouler blight upon your children, than this: that very many of your own reckon it too little if in this life they lie idle upon the goods handed to them by God for holy use, without the fruit of mercy and kindness, unless they also extend their avarice — that is, the servitude of idolatry — even into the times to come after death. You look about, perhaps, and look closely, wondering who these of yours are whom I name. You have no need of a long inquiry to find them.

All, I say, all — well-nigh all — are what I speak of. For long ago departed that excellent and preeminent blessedness of your primitive people, whereby all who acknowledged Christ transferred the fleeting resources of worldly things into the eternal riches of heavenly possessions, forfeiting the enjoyment of things present for the glorious hope of things to come, purchasing immortal riches at the present cost of poverty. What then? That now, in place of all these, avarice, greed, rapine, and those things allied to them and joined as it were in kindred unity — envies, enmities, cruelties, luxuries, shamelessness, ruinations — have succeeded, because those former things served for the uses of these.

And thus, somehow, with your very felicity fighting against yourself, as much as your peoples have increased, so much almost has vice increased; as much as abundance has come to you, so much has discipline receded; and prosperity of gains has come with great interest of losses. For as the peoples of the faith have been multiplied, faith itself has been diminished; and as her sons grow, the mother sickens; and you have become, O Church, weaker by the very increase of your fruitfulness, and, by growth, sliding backward, and, as it were, less strong in your very strength.

For you have poured out through all the world members bearing the name of religion, yet not having the power of religion; and thus you have begun to be rich in crowds, poor in faith; the richer in multitude, so much the more needy in devotion; broader in body, narrower in mind; and the same, so to speak, both greater in you and lesser in you, growing at once and shrinking by a new and well-nigh unheard-of manner of advance and recession. For where now is that surpassing beauty of yours and the loveliness of your whole body? Where is that testimony of the divine pages, speaking of your living virtues, and saying: 'Of the multitude of them that believed the heart and soul was one, and no one said that anything he possessed was his own'? Of which multitude now — O grief and lamentation! —

you have the reading only, you have not the power; and to that virtue you are present only in knowledge, from it you are absent in conscience. For the greatest portion of your sons is now a trafficker in deadly things, and, like earthly — nay, hellish — hucksters and tavern-keepers, is eager for markets that perish and destroy at once. For buying loss of life at the profit of money, in order to acquire what is not their own, they squander what is their own, committing to the earth mournful treasures that will bring brief joy to their heirs and long sorrow to their authors, defrauding of the use of present things others as well as themselves, storing up in deep pits their infernal wealth, and burying at once both their money and their hope — according, namely, to that saying of our Lord who says:

'Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.' And so they begrudge their own salvation and their own souls, and press down to earth with earthly weights the souls that are called to heaven. For the mind of the hoarder follows its treasure, and is, as it were, changed into the nature of an earthly substance — and this not only now, but also in the future and forever. For since, as it is written, before man are set life and death alike, and he may stretch forth his hand to whichever he wills, it is necessary that each man possess in eternity those things which here he has, as it were, seized with his own hand; and, given over to his own will and choice, he cleaves in the future by fixed lot to those things to which here he cleaved by affection.

II. But of course certain men think themselves immune from this guilt, who perhaps do not have their gold and their possessions in the earth, and yet have them hidden away somewhere. Let no one deceive himself with ridiculous opinions. Whoever, in earthly greed, are slaves to the increasing of their wealth, always bury their gold in the earth. For this is that which the Savior teaches in the Gospel, saying: 'Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth.' And again: 'But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven.' These things cannot be understood according to a carnal hearing. For do all the wicked place their bodily treasures in the earth, or all the good in heaven? Not at all. And therefore the force of the sacred utterance expressed the effects and virtues of spiritual things.

Namely, because to greed and avarice things earthly and hellish are due, but to mercy and generosity things heavenly and eternal, therefore the distinction between an earthly and a heavenly treasure was set forth: that those who hoarded for greed and avarice might know they were placing their wealth in hell, but those who rejoiced to prepare heavenly treasures for mercy and kindness. And so He named the places of the treasures from the merits of the hoarders; for treasures are said to be already there, where the hoarders are destined to be. III. But perhaps the sentence may seem harsh, calling all equally to perfection and constraining all by one law, whereas surely the condition of all is not one and the same.

Indeed it might most rightly be said to these things, that since all wish to live forever, all ought so to act that they may be able to partake of life; for it is most inconsiderate and most foolish that certain men should act so that what they wish by affection and desire, that very thing they seem in fact and deed to be unwilling of. But nevertheless let us consider especially that part of the Christians — that is, of your sons — which is called back from perfection by certain impediments of circumstance and by the bonds of necessity that are, as it thinks, insurmountable. And first in this class, I suppose, are those who allege that they are compelled to seek money and to enlarge their wealth most widely by care for their pledges and by a well-nigh violent love of their children.

As though, forsooth, whoever are fathers can in no wise, or ought in no wise, exist at all unless they are rich, and are unable to love their sons without the multiplication of wealth; or as though virtue and the very marrow of the affections were avarice and greed — because, namely, as those men suppose, just as the body cannot exist without marrow, so love cannot exist without greed. But if this be so, then without doubt natural affection is the cause of every evil, and in it there are not the feelings of good affections but the incentives of vices. And where is that sacred oracle of divine authority: 'Piety is profitable unto all things'? For in this way it is not only not profitable unto all things, but well-nigh unwholesome in all.

For if it is the begetter of greed, it contains far more evil in itself than good, according to that saying of Holy Scripture: 'The root of all evils is greed.' And so, if greed is the root of all evils, and this is begotten from the womb of piety and nourished as it were by its venomous milk, then it is not so much greed that is to be blamed, which is born from piety its parent, as piety itself, from which such a daughter is procreated. Whence it comes that, if piety is so pestilent and so harmful, it profits neither to love nor to be loved, because neither ought parents to seek for themselves a love harmful to them, nor children to desire one that will injure their parents.

Although it brings disease not only to parents but also to children, because it is grievous both to those who bring forth pernicious inheritances, and to those who, amid most dishonorable gain, are reared up as dishonorable heirs. And hence it is that well-nigh all sons succeed to their parents no more in their patrimony than in their vices, and take up their fathers' fortunes no more than their depravities; and thus, ever passing over into the character of their fathers, they begin to possess wickedness before substance. For the goods of their parents they possess only when these are dead, but their character while they are yet living and in vigor:

and thus, before they begin to have their fathers' estates in their own dominion, they have their fathers themselves in their souls; and before they have those things which are falsely called good, they have those things which are truly proved to be evil. IV. What then? Since these things are so, do I perhaps seem to forbid parents their affection for their children? By no means. For what is so savage, so inhuman, so at war with the law, as if we should say that children are not to be loved, when we confess that enemies are to be loved? Or if we should forbid the affection which nature bestows — we who expend even that which nature forbids? Or if we should wrench from the mind that charity which it has — we who strive to implant in it even that which it has not? It is not so:

for we say not only that children are to be loved, but especially and above all things to be loved, and that nothing whatever is to be preferred to them except God alone. For this too is especially to love — to prefer to one's children Him whom it is by no means expedient to put after them. What then, or in what manner, do we say that children are to be loved? By what manner, without doubt, save that in which God Himself has appointed? For there is no better love of children than that which He has taught, who Himself gave the children. Nor can pledges be better loved than if they be loved in Him from whom they were given. In what manner, then, has God bidden that children be loved? I do not say it: let the divine discourse itself say it, which speaks thus to all fathers generally:

that they hand on God's commandments to their sons, that they set their hope in God, and forget not the works of God, and seek out His commandments. And elsewhere also: 'And you fathers,' He says, 'provoke not your sons to wrath, but bring them up in the discipline and correction of the Lord.'

You see what riches God bids be prepared by parents for their children: not monetary treasures, nor sacks heavy with golden metal, having indeed much weight but yet more iniquity; not proud houses towering above lofty cities, nor rooftops raised beyond human sight, nor gables set among the clouds with their airy inhabitant; nor, finally, boundless estates exceeding the very knowledge of their own possessor, who deems it unworthy to endure partners and counts a neighbor's nearness an injury. Not these things, then, does God enjoin, nor does He extend the care of paternal love to the servile duties of earthly administration.

Few are the things He commands, but wholesome; brief, but holy; sparing in precept, but great in fruit; short in writing, but everlasting in blessedness. 'Parents,' He says, 'provoke not your sons to indignation, but bring them up in the discipline and correction of the Lord': that they may set, namely, as the prophet said, that they may set their hope in God, and forget not the works of God, and seek out His commandments. Behold what riches God loves, behold what wealth He requires to be stored up for our pledges, behold what resources He commands to be prepared: faith, namely, and the fear of God, modesty, sanctity, discipline — not things earthly, not vile, not perishing, not fleeting: things surely most glorious.

For since God is the God of the living, not of the dead, He rightly bade those things be prepared for children by which they might live forever, not those by which they might die in eternity. For no one doubts that to well-nigh all evil and faithless men worldly riches are a cause of death rather than of life, according to that which God says: 'How hardly shall they that have money enter into the kingdom of heaven.' And again He says: 'It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven.' Whence also is that which He specially commands, saying: 'Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven.'

By the sayings both before and after, two kinds of treasures are shown: one, namely, wherewith parents may lay up treasure for their children, the other wherewith they may lay up for themselves. For their children, in what manner? That they may educate them in duty and in the fear of God. For themselves, in what manner? That they may lay up for themselves treasures in heaven. Marvelously, namely: that, because money is fleeting but discipline immortal, and well-nigh all parents love their children more than themselves, they should confer on themselves the fleeting goods, on their children the everlasting; and thus provide both for their affection and for their salvation, since with a twofold and immortal good they both make their children eternal through those things which are eternal, and, for the acquiring of blessedness for themselves, convert into things eternal, by good works, those things which are by nature fleeting.

Why then do you burn, paternal love? Why are you stretched out toward acquiring things earthly and perishing? You can bestow on your children nothing greater than if through you they may have this good which they may never wholly lose. It is not necessary, then, that you store up earthly treasures for your son: by nothing will you make him richer than if you make your very son a treasure of God. V. Yet although these things are so, and are true and most wholesome, nevertheless I will not so speak as though I would utterly exclude children from their parents' goods and fortunes. But of this we shall dispute hereafter.

Meanwhile, because certain men do not think they will be guilty if they confer their substance not to the honor of the Gospel, not to their own salvation, not to any duty toward God, but out of lust and faithlessness make it over indiscriminately to whatever heirs, be they irreligious or wealthy, with an impious and pagan vanity: let us briefly consider both by whom those very fortunes were given, and for what purpose they were given; so that, when we have shown both the author and the cause of the thing given, we may more easily be able to prove both to whom it is to be referred and to what use it is to be applied. That all worldly substance is given to all by divine bounty, no man, I think, doubts who can even be reckoned in the number of men.

Unless perhaps someone be of such great wisdom that, though the world itself was given to the human race by God, he should judge that the things which are in the world were not given to men by God. Therefore, if God has bestowed all things on all, it is doubtful to no one that those things which we have received by God's gift we ought to refer to the worship of God, and to expend in His work what we have taken from His bounty. For this is to acknowledge the gift of God and to use the divine benefits well: that with His gifts you should honor Him from whom you received the gifts themselves — which indeed even the examples of human affairs teach.

For if the use of certain goods be granted to some man through the kindness and generosity of another man, and he, unmindful of the one from whom he obtained the enjoyment of those goods, should try to wrest away from that very benefactor the ownership of the thing bestowed and to alienate it, would he not be judged the most ungrateful and faithless of all men, seeing that, forgetting his kind and most liberal benefactor, he wished to despoil him of the rights of his own dominion, the very man who had enriched him with the possession of that use? And so we too have received only the use of those things we hold; for we make use of the resources lent to us by God, and we are, as it were, possessors on sufferance. In the end, going forth from this world, willing or unwilling, we leave all things behind here.

Why then, since we are possessors who hold only the usufruct, do we attempt to wrest from the Lord's ownership, and to alienate, that which we cannot carry away with us? Why do we not use in good faith the little goods given us by God? We held them as long as it was allowed, we held them as long as He who bestowed them permitted. What is more right, what more honorable, than that, when the thing departs from him who had the use of it, the possession should return to Him who granted its use? Indeed even the very voices of God, through the tongues of the sacred Scriptures, command this, saying to each one of us: 'Honor the Lord with thy substance.' And elsewhere He says, 'Pay thy debt.' How devout and indulgent is the Lord our God, inviting us to disburse the abundance of our earthly substance!

'Honor,' He says, 'the Lord with thy substance.' Although all that we have received from Him is His own, He calls it ours so that we may give it—naming it, of course, the property of our own possession, that the reward of the worker may be greater; for the Giver must needs have the more fruit where the largess appears to come from what is one's own. VI. Yet lest by this very thing the human mind should grow insolent—because the Lord had said this substance was ours—He added: 'Pay thy debt.' That is, that whom devotion did not entice to giving, necessity might compel to discharge the debt; and whom his own faith did not draw to the holy work, at least necessity might constrain. First He says, 'Honor the Lord with thy substance,' then, 'Pay thy debt.' This is as much as to say:

If thou art devout, give as though it were thine own; if thou art undevout, pay as though it were not thine own. Thus fittingly did He set forth both the will to give and the necessity to pay. This is indeed to say to every man: To the holy work thou art both urged by exhortation and bound by exaction—give, if thou wilt; pay, if thou wilt not. The Apostle too, admonishing this very thing, charges the rich not to be high-minded, nor to hope in the uncertainty of riches, but in the living God, 'who,' he says, 'giveth us all things to enjoy, unto the willing performance of good works.' In one saying he taught both things: namely, both who it is that gives the riches, and why He gives them.

For by saying that we must hope in God, who supplies all things, he shows that the rich become rich from God; and by adding 'unto the willing performance of good works,' he teaches that this very thing which he said is bestowed by God is granted only for the sake of good works: 'for He supplies,' he says, 'all things unto the willing performance of good works.' That is, He makes men wealthy in substance for this end, that they may be rich in good working—that is, that they may exchange the riches they have received, and, by investing those very resources in good works, may, through using them well, make everlasting the goods of God which they hold as temporary in this age; and thus, acknowledging the gifts of God, they may rejoice in a twofold good, when those who are rich in this age may deserve also to be rich in heaven. VII.

Thus, then, are riches to be gained, thus sought, thus held, thus increased; otherwise it is an incalculable evil not to use well the good things given by God. 'For nothing,' says the sacred Scripture, 'is more wicked than the covetous man'; and riches kept for the destruction of their master are the worst and most deadly kind of disease. It is true. For what is worse, or what more wretched, than if a man should turn present goods into future evils, and that which was given by God for this end—that from it eternal blessedness of life might be procured—should through these very things seek death and everlasting damnation? Herein also this must be considered: that if hoarded riches are kept for a man's harm, how much more surely are they heaped up unto a greater harm.

For how few now among the rich are of such continence that, content to guard their wealth, they are no longer willing to amass it? O the misery of the times and of the Church's people, to what a state has it been reduced! For whereas it is written that to hoard wealth is a kind of great crime, now not to increase it is thought to be a kind of virtue. Therefore, as we said above, in the same way certain men think themselves in no wise guilty if they have not even at death provided for themselves through the disposal of their substance—when in fact they are guilty on this very score, that they kept all their goods right up to death.

Or how shall those not be guilty who with most faithless vanity have transferred their resources to whatever men they please, when even those are to be guilty who have not, in this life, for the honor of God deprived themselves of some part of their goods? This the Lord Himself shows through the Apostle, saying: 'Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for the miseries that shall come upon you: your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.'

Apart from that severity of the divine words which, hidden in mystery, is far greater and more terrible, I think that those things which are plainly stated suffice to strike fear and trembling into all men; for he speaks especially to the rich. He bids them lament, announces evils to come, threatens everlasting fire. And this—that the very threats may be the more to be feared—not on account of murders, not on account of fornications, not for sacrilegious impieties or, in fine, for other vices that with deadly sword and everlasting slaughter cut the throat of souls, but solely and only on account of wealth, on account of insane covetousness, on account of hunger for gold and silver: to show, of course, that these things suffice to bring a man to eternal damnation, even if there had been no other guilt.

What could be said more plainly, what more clearly? He does not say to the rich man: Thou must be tormented because thou art a murderer, thou must be tormented because thou art a fornicator, but: thou must be tormented solely because thou art rich—that is, because thou usest thy riches ill, because thou dost not understand that riches were given thee for the holy work. For riches are not in themselves harmful, but the minds of those who use them ill are criminal; nor are wealth itself the cause of punishment to a man, but the rich make punishments for themselves out of their wealth, since, while they will not use their riches well, they turn those very riches into torments for themselves. 'Ye have heaped treasure together,' he says, 'in the last days.'

Rightly, when he had said 'Ye have heaped treasure together,' he added 'in the last days'—that is, that the guilt of the hoarders might be the greater, since the very end of the age also heaped up the odiousness of their treasures. 'Ye have heaped treasure together,' he says, 'in the last days.' By the treasures covetousness is accused, by the last days unbelief. And through this the guilt is twofold, both of covetousness and of unbelief; for the treasures, which—according to that which God says, 'Thou shalt not covet'—it was assuredly a crime to covet even at another time, it is without doubt a greater crime, through unbelief itself, to heap up even at the end of the world. VIII. Perhaps someone has hitherto judged my discourse harsh. And truly it is harsh—if it has admonished anything not from the authority of the sacred testimonies.

Let it be deemed harsh, if it has held anything of the kind that the Apostle here has proclaimed—not to add that saying of our Lord, whereby He declared all utterly unworthy of Himself who had not renounced everything they possessed. Since these things are so, is it not, I pray, fitting that what we have said should be reckoned most indulgent and most gentle—we, namely, who for men to whom we cannot grant perfect soundness, at least seek the help of a salvation despaired of, and whose life we cannot heal, whose death we try to lighten? For what is perfect health? What but to act well in this life? What is the final cure? What but at least in one's last extremity to procure a good viaticum? What is perfect health?

What but to use well the things delivered by God? What the last remedy? What but at least afterward to do that whereof thou mayest repent that thou didst not do it before? Someone thinks the things I say are harsh: harsh, let them indeed be deemed harsh, unless they are such that, in comparison with the apostolic severity, they seem soft and lenient. For the Apostle summons the rich to lamentation, we to a remedy; the Apostle names riches a fire, we desire to make out of riches waters that quench the fire, according to that saying: 'As water quencheth fire, so alms quencheth sin.' The Apostle testifies that in ill-kept riches there is damnation; I, out of these things whereof he speaks eternal death, desire that all should procure everlasting life:

not indeed that I think it suffices for eternal life for anyone entangled in carnal vices, if—having grown old in his crimes right up to death—he should at his end dispose all his goods well, unless he has first both renounced his sins and cast off that filthy and muddy tunic of his crimes, and received from the hand of the preaching Apostle the fresh garment of conversion and holiness. Otherwise he does not cease to sin, whom, set in his last extremity, mere impossibility, not the will, makes withdraw from his crimes. For he who departs from evil deeds only by death does not forsake his wickedness,

but is forsaken by his wickedness; and through this, being shut out from vice by necessity, he still, I think, sins even then when the means have ceased, because, as regards his mind, he who would yet sin if he could has not yet ceased. Therefore he does not rely on good hopes who sins in life only to this end, that in death he may redeem the mass of his sins, and who thinks thereby that he will escape, not because he is good, but because he is rich—as though indeed God sought not the life of men but their money, and were willing, from all who do evil in hope of redeeming their evils, to accept for their crimes only coins, and, after the manner of corrupt judges, to exact silver, that He might sell off sins. It is not so.

For it is certain that largess profits very greatly—yet not those who live ill in the ultimate hope of a future largess, who commit crimes in the confidence of redeeming their immunity, but those who, deceived either by the slipperiness of their age, or by the cloud of error, or by the fault of ignorance, or finally by the fall of human frailty, at length begin to come to their senses, as though after the death of a most grievous sickness, or as though after the grief of a troubled mind; and just as insane men return to their right mind after frenzy, so these return after error—differing from those in one thing only, that the former rejoice after they have escaped their illness, while these lament after they have received their health. And not without reason.

For the former rejoice the more, the more they perceive that they have regained their soundness; the latter are the more confounded, the more clearly they recognize the disease of their error. Whence it must needs come to pass that the former exult and the latter mourn, because the former impute their sickness to their bodily condition, but the latter their error to themselves; and thus the former are glad at their remedy, and the latter anxious over their guilt. IX.

Wherefore I admonish all, but especially those whom the terror of grave offenses harasses, and in whom a wretched conscience sighs at the recollection of their punishable sins: first, that although they have fallen, they should not linger in their fall, nor wallow in their own mire after the manner of filthy beasts—which, when they have plunged their burning bellies into the mud, in no wise satisfy their foul pleasures unless they roll their whole bodies utterly in the mire.

Let them not, therefore, follow the natural filthiness of these beasts, nor acquiesce in seductively pleasant falls, nor, tarrying in the pit of lusts, bury themselves in their very ruins; but straightway, where they have fallen, let them rise, and let them at once meditate a lifting-up in their fall; and, if by any means it can be done through the swiftness of repentance, let the remedy of the one rising again be so speedy that scarcely can a trace of the fallen appear. Therefore in cases of this kind this is the first work of the cure: that the ailing should shudder at their own diseases, that the wounded should hasten to treat their wounds, and that the wounded should at once pluck the arrows from their bodies. For a poultice or a clasp is best applied to wounds while still warm, and the flesh of the wounds knits itself together the sooner, which is not suffered to gape open long.

For an ulcer in the body, if it festers, spreads wide; and if a cancerous growth follows the wounds, ruin must needs follow the cancer. Therefore these evils must first be shunned by sinners, nor must place be given to the devil, that he who thrust down those standing into a fall may hurl the fallen headlong into death. But if either so great a force of disease, or so great a neglect of the sick, should be, that it draws out the ruin of one's health even to the last days, I know not what to say, I am utterly ignorant what to promise. To call back from the pursuit of the last remedy those in peril is harsh and impious; but to pledge anything in so late a cure is rash.

But nevertheless it is without doubt better that hands withered by however long a paralysis should yet by some effort be raised to heaven, than be utterly dissolved in deadly despair; it is better to leave nothing untried than to give no care to the dying—especially since I know not whether in the last extremity to attempt anything may be medicine, but assuredly to attempt nothing is perdition. And this one thing I know: that whoever has protracted his life to these extremities of a long sickness, it is unspeakable how much of lamentation he owes for his errors, who never acknowledged his faults. X. And what shall be done amid these things? When shall he weep who has lost the days for weeping? When shall he make satisfaction who has forfeited the time of satisfaction? He will flee, forsooth, to long fasts.

This is indeed something, if it be mingled with alms, according to that saying: 'Fasting is good with alms.' But how shall long confession help him, set as he is in his last extremity? Yet he will chafe his flesh with sackcloth and befoul himself with dust and ashes, that the harshness of present severities may compensate for the softness of past pleasure, and that the service of a patronizing injury may loose the guilt of long delights. But when shall he do these things, so great, being now, with his death at hand, shut out even from the doing of moderate things? At last, the severity of faith's judge will subject to the crosses of divers afflictions a man guilty in his own body, that he may, forsooth, by the ambition of a present punishment earn the pardon of an eternal absolution.

But when the body is now failing, where shall the censorious mind exercise its office of strictness? For the judge cannot use the arbitrament of severity, when the accused can no longer endure to be judged. There is, then, one thing only which, with all aids and supports withdrawn, can bring help to one wavering and destitute: namely, that he flee to that sacred and salutary counsel of the most blessed Daniel, who, wishing to heal the Babylonian king, composed for the ulcers contracted from his offense a poultice of mercy, saying: 'Wherefore, O king, let my counsel be acceptable to thee, and redeem thy sins by mercies, and thine iniquities by compassion on the poor: perhaps the Lord will be patient with thy transgressions.' So, then, let this man also do as that one said.

Let him use the medicine offered to another for his own wounds; let him fear the example of disobedient obstinacy; let him consider what he himself shall suffer in death, when he sees what the Assyrian king endured in life. It is a clear proof concerning pride and rebellion. Let him consider whether he himself, if he does not hearken, shall escape death, when he sees that that king, who did not hearken, lost his very self while yet alive. Let him therefore offer, even dying, to deliver his soul from everlasting punishments—since he can now do nothing else—at least his substance; yet let him offer it with contrition, with tears; let him offer with grief, with mourning. For otherwise things offered profit nothing, since they please not by their price but by the affection.

For the gifts are not commended by the mind of the giver to the gifts, but the gifts are commended by the mind; nor does money bespeak faith, but faith bespeaks the money. And through this, he who wishes what he offers to God to profit him, let him offer it in this manner. For man does not confer a benefit upon God in those things he has given, but God upon man in those things He has received—since even what man has is the gift of God and of his own Lord. And through this, in those things which are offered by man, man does not render his own, but the Lord receives His own. Therefore, when anyone offers his resources to God, let him not offer as with the presumption of one giving, but as with the humility of one paying; nor let him believe that he absolves his sins, but that he lightens them; nor let him offer with the confidence of redemption, but with the office of supplication;

nor as one rendering the whole debt, but as one desiring to render even a little out of a great sum; for even if he hands over what he has according to the measure of his goods, he does not render what he owes according to the greatness of his sins. And therefore, though he offers, let him pray God that his offering may please, lamenting this very thing, that he offers late, lamenting and repenting that he did not offer sooner: thus it shall come to pass that, according to the prophet, perhaps God may be propitious to thy transgressions. XI. But someone says: Is he then to offer to God the whole of what he has? Let him not offer the whole of what he has, if he thinks he does not owe the whole of what he has. I do not ask whose is that which is offered, from whom that was received which is now rendered; this alone I say: let him not offer the whole for his debt, if he does not think he owes the whole for his guilt.

Is he then, someone says, to offer the whole, sinner though he be? Nay, nothing, if not with faith; nay, nothing, if not with earnest striving; nay, nothing, if not with prayer; nay, nothing, if not with this mind: that he should reckon this very thing among the chief benefits of God—that He gave the will to offer—and should esteem that more is bestowed on him in those things which he leaves to God than in those which he had before: because this, which is held by man, is temporary, but that which is left to God is everlasting. Is he to offer the whole? someone says. But I say that this whole is little. For what? Does anyone already know whether the things offered compensate for the measure of his sins? Does anyone already know whether there is as much in the office of appeasement as there is in the offense of the peril?

If any man knows for how much he can redeem the offenses of his sins, let him use that knowledge for his redemption. But if he does not know, why should he not offer as much as he can? So that, if he cannot compensate his sins by the greatness of the price, he may at least compensate by the devotion of his mind. For he exhibits the perfect fruit of conscience who leaves nothing within his conscience. Some, without doubt, plead that these things are harsh and immoderate—especially because that prophet of whom we spoke seems to have admonished the Babylonian king only to give much, not to sell off everything. I do not for the moment bring forward the testimonies of the Gospel, nor take refuge in the voice of the speaking God; I do not say that one thing was commanded by the old law, another by the new.

Whence the Apostle too says: 'Behold, old things are passed away; all things are become new; and all things are of God'—by which he assuredly teaches that things are to be done not according to the letter of the old, but new according to God. For the moment I am content with this alone, which the prophet said. For his discourse was with a king, and indeed with a king not of one city, but, as it then seemed, of the whole world—who assuredly could not hand over through a testament to the needy the peoples he ruled, nor give the barbarous nations to the indigent as it were coins, nor turn realms spread far and wide into doles for the poor. And therefore the prophet says, 'redeem thy sins by mercies'—that is: give gold to the needy, since thou canst not give a kingdom;

distribute thy resources, since thou art not able to prolong thy power. And through this he seems to have commanded that he give the whole—the one whom he only did not bid distribute that which he could not disburse. XII. Perhaps we exaggerate the matter with words and exalt it too loftily; let us see, therefore, what this very thing is. 'Redeem,' he says, 'thy sins by mercies.' What is it to redeem anything? I suppose, to give the price of the things that are redeemed. I do not ask what were the sins of that king: let him himself know for how much he ought to redeem the things he did. Thee I address, whose is the cause; thee I appeal to, whose peril is at issue. Do thou this which the prophet said:

'Redeem thy sins by mercies.' Do not leave to God only as much as thou hast, if for thy sins thou dost not think as much as thou hast is needful. Estimate most diligently the faults thou hast committed; estimate the diversities of thy sins; see what thou owest for lies, what for revilings and perjuries, what for the negligences of thy thoughts, what for the impurity of thy speech, what, in fine, for every affection of an evil will. Add, at last, even—if any of these be within thy conscience—those things whereof the Apostle speaks: adulteries, fornications, uncleannesses, drunkenness, filthiness hateful to God, avarice the handmaid of idolatry; and after these perhaps some crimes even contracted from the shedding of human blood.

And when thou hast reckoned up the number of them all, weigh out the prices of each. And after these things I do not require that for thy sins thou hand over to God the whole of what thou hast; render only this which thou owest. But I add, after all these things, that when thou hast handled thy offenses and appraised them, thou wilt owe the more for thy evils, the more cheaply thou hast estimated thy sins; since, as the Apostle says, 'he who thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, deceiveth himself.' Not to say to thee that it was commanded to that king—who was to live yet a while and perhaps was young—that he should nevertheless hasten to redeem his sins: but thou owest so much the more on thine own behalf, in that thou doest these things either dying or on the very point of death.

For great must be the munificence and devotion which could compensate for this: that thou renderest these things to thy Lord only then, when thou canst thyself no longer possess them—especially since to all this is added, that the prophet himself, who calls that king to the redemption of his crimes, through these very things which he says ought to be done, shows him not so much the security of pardon as the way of seeking salvation. For by saying, 'redeem thy sins by mercies, and perhaps God will be propitious to thy transgressions,' this very word which he says—'perhaps'—indicates hope, does not promise assurance.

From which it can be understood how difficult it is for sinners, now set in their last extremity, to attain by any munificence whatever to perfect pardon, when the prophet himself, who urges that the propitiation of God be sought, yet dared not promise that it would be obtained. He gives counsel concerning the act, and yet doubts concerning the effect: he makes himself the exhorter of the doing, not the author of the obtaining. Why so? Because, forsooth, all sinners ought, on their own behalf, even in their last extremity, to attempt everything, even though they can presume upon nothing.

For if that prophet does not promise to a king absolute pardon through the mere largess of good works, a sinner who has done no penance for his errors can understand how great and how ample a munificence is needful for him in his last extremity, who wishes to obtain from the Lord through a late devotion that which he cannot claim by right. I. We have spoken of the remedies of sins—nay rather, of the hopes and consolations of remedies—namely, that this is the first help in seeking salvation, that the sinner should repent of his error; then that, according to the sacred word, he should straightway redeem his sins by mercies; lastly, if he has not done this, that at least, dying, he should leave nothing untried, so that he may succor himself even by the final offering of his goods.

But perhaps this may be answered: If sinful men are held bound by this necessity of redeeming their crimes, then the saints without doubt, being free from crimes, are not so bound, and through this have no cause to bestow their substance, since they have nothing which it is needful for them to redeem by largess. I hear it—but of what sort this is, we shall presently see. Meanwhile, even if there be no past evils which the holy man ought to redeem with all his goods, yet there are everlasting goods which he ought to procure at a great price. But of this more fully hereafter. Now, however, I say freely and constantly affirm this: that there is absolutely no one of the saints who is not in many things a debtor to God, and through this, whatever he gives to his Lord, he does not so much give as pay.

And first, to speak of the general benefits—that is, that whoever thou art, whether of the saints or of the rich, first of all by the benevolence and gift of God thou wast both born and nourished and educated; that thou wast furnished with the things necessary for life, that thou wast enriched even with things not necessary, that thy Lord bestowed on thee more for thy use than the measure of use required, that in the end He extended His gifts beyond thy hopes and—what is greatest and rarest—His gifts surpassed even thy prayers.

And I add, after all these things, that the same Lord who first begot thee by His gift, afterward also saved thee by His passion; that for thy sake, O man—earth and clay, nay rather a tiny portion of earth and clay—the Lord of all things came to the earth, proceeded from flesh and likewise in flesh, humbled even to the shame of human beginning and the filth of swaddling-clothes and the meanness of a manger, enduring the passions of this life unworthy of Himself: the wretched alternations of eating, drinking, sleep, and wakefulness, and the contumelious necessities of this frail intercourse; enduring, in fine, the very fetid dwelling among the men who conversed with Him—peoples of sinners besmeared with the mire of filth, ever guilty by the deeds of an evil conscience committed, exhaling the stench of their base acts from themselves, and therefore incapable of the heavenly precepts and unable to bear the radiance of the sacred splendor, because the brightness of the divine light overwhelmed their eyes darkened by sins.

And not this only, but after all these things add the insolent contradictions of the proud people, add the reproaches, add the revilings, the impious persecution, the false witness, the bloody judgment, the mockings of the people, the spittings, the scourgings—harshest punishments indeed, but indignities harsher than the punishments—the crown of thorns, the cup of vinegar, the food of gall: the Lord of all condemned by men, the salvation of the human race hanging on a gibbet, God dying by the law of an earthly condition. II. Since these things are so, whoever thou art—whether thou art a saint, or believest thyself to be a saint—tell me, I pray, can these things alone be paid off, even if nothing else were owed? For whatever a man endures for God, that can in no wise be paid off which God endured for man;

for even if the passion itself does not differ in the kind of punishments, yet it must needs greatly differ in the diversity of those who suffer. But perhaps thou sayest that in the things we have spoken of there is a debt common to all men, and that in this the whole race of men is indiscriminately liable. It is true. But does anyone therefore owe less, if another also owes the same? Or if the bonds of a hundred men were written for a hundred sesterces each, is the debt of one thereby lightened, if all be debtors of the same number? For 'each one,' says the Apostle, 'shall bear his own burden,' and each one shall render an account for himself. By no means, therefore, is the weight of one lightened by the weight of another, nor is a guilty man absolved by the fellowship of many.

Nor for that reason is a damnation any less loathsome to whoever suffers it, even if the condemned man seem to have many partners in his punishment. Thus what I said above, though it be a general debt, yet is beyond doubt also a particular one; though it be common to all, yet it belongs peculiarly to each individual; thus it reaches all equally, and yet nothing of the whole sum is subtracted from any one. For Christ, just as He suffered for all, so He gave Himself up alike for individuals and for the whole, and expended Himself both for individuals and for all; He gave His whole self to the universal body and His whole self to each single one. And through this, whatever the Saviour bestowed by His Passion, just as the whole body owes Him the whole, so each single person owes Him the whole—except that in this respect individuals owe almost more than the whole body, since each single one received as much as the whole body did.

For where one man receives what the whole body receives, even though the measure be equal, the resentment is greater. Hence it comes about that, although he receive the very same, he seems to owe more, because that one man becomes the more accountable who is compared with all. So much, then, on this matter, since certain of the saints think they are not debtors to God, being unable to estimate the debt. III. But perhaps someone will say that the saints are indeed not free of debt, yet that the debts of worldly men are far greater, whose sins are more numerous. This is as if someone were to say: I am therefore innocent, because another is more guilty; therefore I am righteous, because another is unrighteous; therefore I am exceedingly good, because another is uniquely evil.

For, in the first place, it ill befits a holy mind to reckon that its own goods increase by the evils of others, and to esteem itself the better by comparison with the worse. For it is a most wretched kind of consolation to draw comfort from the miseries of sinful men, when the Apostle bids us rejoice with them that rejoice and weep with them that weep, and that each should consider not the things that are his own, but the things that are others'. But grant that a comparison of this sort seem just and honourable: can it even be reckoned trustworthy? For who is sure enough of that so great and so terrible judgment of God to come? Or who can say: I owe less, he owes more? Who, finally, can presume upon himself or despair of another?

For we shall all, says the Apostle, stand before the tribunal of Christ, and every one shall bear his own burden. 'Then is there nothing at all,' says someone, 'between the saints and sinners?' There is much indeed, and almost immeasurable. But since Scripture says, Blessed is the man who is always fearful, and the mind of the wise man is never secure about his own salvation—although there be much between the saints and sinners, yet I ask of all who profess religion: who, according to his own conscience, is holy enough for himself; who is not trembling at that dread severity of the coming examination; who is secure of his everlasting safety?

But if there be no such one—as indeed there ought not to be—then let any man whatsoever tell me, I beseech him, why he does not strive with all the strength of his substance so that, even by the devoted offering of his death, he may redeem whatever he has contracted by the offence of his life. Yet I would have all my readers know that I am speaking not of all the saints, but only of those who, although they have professed religion, nevertheless do not forsake their riches. For of those who, unencumbered of all burdens, follow the way of the Saviour and purchase Christ, the Lord of the law, not by holiness alone but also by poverty, there is nothing that can be said except only that which the prophet also said: But to me Thy friends, O God, are made exceedingly honourable.

For all these I honour no otherwise than as imitators of Christ; I venerate them no otherwise than as images of Christ; I look up to them no otherwise than as members of Christ; and I make mention of them only for this, that by their remembrance I may be made worthy. IIII. But perhaps those things which we said above may seem injurious to the profession of religion. 'For what,' says someone, 'if a widow be rich, yet not forsaking her widowhood amid a great abundance of wealth? What if a virgin who has professed integrity and is devoted to the sanctity of an undefiled body? What if a marriage without the marital act, denying one's own self to oneself and having oneself as though having not? What if a monk serving God from his cradle? What if a cleric fulfilling the service of the sacred ministry with faithful service?'

Are even these in peril as to the fruit of eternal salvation, if either while living they keep their wealth entire, or dying do not leave it to the needy? My discourse and authority are too slight to pronounce sentence on a question of this kind. Let us therefore see what the tongues of the sacred volumes and the voices of the heavenly precepts declare concerning all these matters, and then most rightly, according to the norm given by God, we shall direct the rule of our opinion. And first, let no one now think he must take refuge in the consolations of ancient examples, so as to say that perhaps certain saints were rich, whether under the law or before the law. For that time has passed away; the order of things is changed. For before the law there was free choice for all whether to possess—

or even to pursue the acquiring of wealth, since as yet the rod of the heavenly prohibitions did not chastise it. For where there is no law, says the Apostle, neither is there transgression. The law therefore made something to be unlawful; for I knew not concupiscence, says the Apostle, except the law had said: Thou shalt not covet. And therefore the riches which before the law God had not reproved, man freely possessed. Under the law also, nonetheless, nearly the same right was available to all, since the law by no means forbade a man to have what he willed, provided it were justly. And so then all the saints without exception used all their possessions according to the bounds prescribed by the law, walking, as we read, in all the commandments and ordinances of God without blame.

So indeed those very ones walked, of whom these things are recorded: as the prophetess Anna, living in fastings and prayers; as that Nathanael, whom we read of, exalted by the praise of being a true Israelite, and marvellous with the Lord and God Himself as witness; as Tobit, surpassing by the magnanimity of his devotion the precepts of the law, who served the burial of dead men even at the peril of his own death, and taking thought for the needy even unto his own need, came into so great an affection of bounty that he assigned to his hired servant a share of all his goods—and this, what makes it the more wonderful, being now rich, and, what is yet more marvellous, rich after poverty; for riches after want commonly kindle a greater greed of possessing. V.

Such, then, were the saints of that time, having all things according to the law, forsaking all things according to the law. And thus every one who obeyed the law was perfect, and he who did less under the law then was as devout as he who does more now under the Gospel; for then the law was, as it were, the Gospel. Hence it comes that he who showed himself obedient to the law then, as it were fulfilled the Gospel. There is no reason, therefore, why anyone should now think he must take refuge in the law; for the old things, as the Apostle says, are passed away, all things are made new. Then there was more of indulgence and more of liberty. Then the eating of flesh was proclaimed, now abstinence; then in a whole lifetime the days of fasting were very few, now the whole of life is as it were one long fast:

then vengeance was allowed to the injured, now patience; then the law was the minister to those who were angry, now it is their adversary; then it held out a sword to the accuser, now charity; then the law indulged even the enticement of the flesh, now the Gospel forbids it even to the sight; then bodily pleasures had a certain license, now even the eyes are commanded to keep their strictness; then the law extended the bed of one husband to the taking of many wives, now by the devotion of chaste affection it binds him even to the excluding of one.

For it remains, says the Apostle, that both they who have wives be as though they had none, and they that weep as though they wept not, and they that rejoice as though they rejoiced not, and they that buy as though they possessed not, and they that use this world as if they used it not; for the fashion of this world passeth away. See how briefly the teacher sent from God has regulated all things and enclosed the whole within one single perfection, not only by forbidding what is unlawful but also by restricting what is lawful, cutting away, that is, both the use of marriage, and the faithlessness of weeping, and the intemperance of rejoicing, and the lust of possessing, and the greed of buying, and finally the very brief and shadowy pleasure of this world. And all this—why?

Why indeed, except—as He Himself said—because the fashion of this world passeth away? How far, therefore, are they from the commandment of God, who, when God has bidden them living to renounce their wealth, desire even when dead to possess it in their kinsmen; or how far are they from that devotion, so as to disinherit their own selves for God's sake, who are unwilling to disinherit even strangers for their own sake? To whom I would gladly and freely say: What madness is this, O most wretched ones! that, in order to make any others whatsoever your heirs, you disinherit your own selves; that, in order to leave others rich even but for a short while, you condemn your own selves to eternal beggary. VI. But perhaps someone asks what this is, that God should now demand more from Christians through the Gospel than from the Jews before through the law.

The reason of this matter is certain: for we now pay more to our Lord, because we owe more. The Jews once had the shadow of things, we the truth; the Jews were slaves, we adopted sons; the Jews received the yoke, we liberty; the Jews the curse, we grace; the Jews the letter that killeth, we the spirit that giveth life; to the Jews a servant was sent as master, to us the Son; the Jews passed through the sea to the desert, we through baptism enter into the kingdom; the Jews ate manna, we Christ; the Jews the flesh of birds, we the body of God; the Jews the hoar-frost of heaven, we the God of heaven:

who, as the Apostle says, being in the form of God, humbled Himself even unto death, yea, the death of the cross—not content, that is, to undergo for us a simple death, unless He had heaped upon that very acceptance of a voluntary slaying the endurance of the utmost torments. For this alone, then, what can a man pay, for whom Christ expended Himself through the last bitterness of punishments? Or what worthy return will he render to the Lord for himself, who owes to God the very One by whom he was redeemed? This, therefore, is the reason why the Lord would have us more devoted to Him: because He purchased our devotion at so great a price. And therefore the most blessed Paul: Who then, says he, shall separate us from the love of Christ?

Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? The Apostle does not say that money alone, nor riches alone, are owed by us to God, but tribulation, distress, famine, the sword, suffering, the pouring out of blood, the breathing forth of the soul, and finally death seasoned with every kind of punishment; whence let all the religious understand that they do not render enough to God, even if they have given all their possessions, because although they dispense all that is theirs, they yet owe their very selves. And therefore, as we had begun to say above, if there be any widow, let her by no means think that the mere name of widowhood suffices her for eternal salvation, but let her see what kind of widow God bids her be in the Apostle, saying:

She that is a widow indeed, and desolate, hopeth in the Lord, and continueth in prayers night and day; for she that liveth in pleasures, is dead while she is living. By one and the same precept the Apostle has set forth two forms of widowhood, the one of life, the other of death: in pleasures he has placed death. Therefore beyond doubt He will not have her be rich whom He does not suffer to be given to pleasures, because all the fruit of riches is placed in the enjoyment of pleasures; otherwise, with the enjoyment of pleasures removed, no motives for wealth remain. VII. Since therefore the Apostle has declared that there is death in the pleasures of a widow, it is plain that He wills all things to be distributed for the fruit of eternal life, who wills nothing to be reserved for the use of death. And therefore he says:

She that is a widow indeed, and desolate, hopeth in the Lord—teaching, that is, that it is too little if she be not a widow given to pleasures, not rich, unless she be cleaving to God, unless devoted to prayer, unless made desolate from all the enticements of the world, and through all these things a widow indeed. And if this be so, whosoever desires to be of life and not of death, let her by no means reckon it sufficient for herself if she has denied herself both pleasures for God's sake and riches, unless by prayer also and by labour she has so merited it as to be seen to be a widow of God: for it is beyond doubt that in whatever manner one has cleaved to Christ in this world, in that manner he shall abide in the body of Christ, according to that saying: My soul hath cleaved after Thee, but Thy right hand hath upheld me.

By which it is declared that only that soul which has cleaved to God in this world, the right hand of God will uphold in the world to come. This, then, is the rule of widowhood. For as to spouses who have professed continence and are full of the Spirit of God, who ought to doubt that they are unwilling to make their goods serve worldly heirs, seeing they have banished their own selves from the world? For how should they assign to others the things belonging to them, who deny their very selves to themselves? For, endowed with so novel a virtue and—what is greater—trampling with the austerity of an admirable continence upon bodily pleasures that were once permitted and, what is more, already known by experience, how should they not vow to God anything of their possessions, who have made God to dwell within themselves? So that, in my judgment at least, even of such a marriage it may most rightly be said:

Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not; for many are the children of the desolate, more than of her that hath a husband. For she is barren who bears not, and desolate who has separated herself from all the enticements of the world, and without husband who so has a husband by no use of a husband that she seems not to have one. Who then would doubt that such spouses, both while they live, live to God in their own substance as in themselves, and when they depart from life, migrate to God with the wealth for which they have lived? For otherwise any of them, if he leaves his goods to those given over to the world and to the world itself, has vainly inscribed upon himself the name of religion: he seems always to have lived for that for which he dies. Concerning spouses, then, these things suffice. VIII.