66 prophet says, "The light of Thy counte- sought for with the whole strength of the ance is stamped upon us. Paul teaches mind, it cannot possibly be found. But when that the Holy Spirit is God, and therefore it is sought as it deserves to be, it cannot withis no creature; and the prophet says, Thou draw or hide itself from its lovers. Hence sendest Thy Spirit from the highest." For its words, which you too are in the habit of God alone is the highest, than whom nothing repeating, "Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, is higher. Paul shows that the Trinity is one and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be God, when he says, "To Him be glory;" 3 opened unto you: "Nothing is hid which and in the Old Testament it is said, "Hear, shall not be revealed." It is love that asks, O Israel, the Lord thy God is one God." 4 love that seeks, love that knocks, love that reveals, love, too, that gives continuance in CHAP. 17. APPEAL ΤΟ THE MANICHEANS, what is revealed. From this love of wisdom, CALLING ON THEM TO REPENT. and this studious inquiry, we are not debarred by the Old Testament, as you always say most falsely, but are exhorted to this with the greatest urgency. 66 30. What more do you wish? Why do you resist ignorantly and obstinately? Why do you pervert untutored minds by your mischievous teaching? The God of both Testaments 32. Hear, then, at length, and consider, is one. For as there is an agreement in the I pray you, what is said by the prophet: Wisdom is glorious, and never fadeth away; passages quoted from both, so is there in all the rest, if you are willing to consider them yea, she is easily seen of them that love her, and found of such as seek her. She preventcarefully and impartially. But because many expressions are undignified, and so far adapt-eth them that desire her, in making herself first known unto them. Whoso seeketh her ed to minds creeping on the earth, that they early shall have no great travail; for he shall may rise by human things to divine, while find her sitting at his doors. To think, theremany are figurative, that the inquiring mind may have the more profit from the exertion of fore, upon her is perfection of wisdom; and finding their meaning, and the more delight whoso watcheth for her shall quickly be without care. when it is found, you pervert this admirable For she goeth about seeking such arrangement of the Holy Spirit for the purpose as are worthy of her, showeth herself favoraof deceiving and ensnaring your followers.bly unto them in the ways, and meeteth them in every thought. For the very true beginAs to the reason why divine Providence permits you to do this, and as to the truth of ning of her is the desire of discipline; and the apostle's saying, "There must needs be the care of discipline is love; and love is the many heresies, that they which are approved keeping of her laws; and the giving heed may be made manifest among you," it would unto her laws is the assurance of incorruption; take long to discuss these things, and you, Therefore the desire of wisdom bringeth to and incorruption maketh us near unto God, with whom we have now to do, are not ca-i pable of understanding them. I know you a kingdom."9 Will you still continue in dogged hostility to these things? Do not things thus stated, though not yet understood, make it evident to every one that they contain something deep and unutterable? Would 31. We must therefore in your case try not said! Forthwith you would abjure all your that you could understand the things here to make you understand divine things, which is impossible, but to make you desire to unsilly legends and your unmeaning material derstand. This is the work of the pure and imaginations, and with great alacrity, sincere guileless love of God, which is seen chiefly in take yourselves bodily to the shelter of the love, and full assurance of faith, would bethe conduct, and of which we have already most holy bosom of the Catholic Church. said much. This love, inspired by the Holy Spirit, leads to the Son, that is, to the wisdom of God, by which the Father Himself is CHAP. 18.-ONLY IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH known. For if wisdom and truth are not well. To the consideration of divine things, which are far higher than you suppose, you bring minds quite gross and sickly, from being fed with material images. IS PERFECT TRUTH ESTABLISHED ON THE HAR- 33. I could, according to the little ability I have, take up the points separately, and could expound and prove the truths I have learned, which are generally more excellent and lofty than words can express; but this OF cannot be done while you bark at it. For not CHAP. 19. DESCRIPTION OF THE DUTIES in vain is it said, "Give not that which is TEMPERANCE, ACCORDING TO THE SACRED holy to dogs.' Do not be angry. I too SCRIPTURES. barked and was a dog; and then, as was right, instead of the food of teaching, I got the rod of correction. But were there in you that love of which we are speaking, or should it ever be in you as much as the greatness of the truth to be known requires, may God vouchsafe to show you that neither is there among the Manichæans the Christian faith which leads to the summit of wisdom and truth, the attainment of which is the true happy life, nor is it anywhere but in the Catholic teaching. Is not this what the Apostle Paul appears to desire when he says, "For this cause I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant unto you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the height, and length, and breadth, and depth, and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye may be filled with all the fullness of God?" Could anything be more plainly expressed? 34. Wake up a little, I beseech you, and see the harmony of both Testaments, making it quite plain and certain what should be the manner of life in our conduct, and to what all things should be referred. To the love of God we are incited by the gospel, when it is said, "Ask, seek, knock; "3 by Paul, when he says, "That ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend; " by the prophet also, when he says that wisdom can easily be known by those who love it, seek for it, desire it, watch for it, think about it, care for it. The salvation of the minds and the way of happiness is pointed out by the concord of both Scriptures; and yet you choose rather to bark at these things than to obey them. I will tell you in one word what I think. Do you listen to the learned men of the Catholic Church with as peaceable a disposition, and with the same zeal, that I had when for nine years I attended on you: there will be no need of so long a time as that during which you made a fool of me. much, a very much, shorter time you will see the difference between truth and vanity. 35. It is now time to return to the four virtues, and to draw out and prescribe a way of life in conformity with them, taking each separately. First, then, let us consider temperance, which promises us a kind of integrity and incorruption in the love by which we are united to God. The office of temperance is in restraining and quieting the passions which make us pant for those things which turn us away from the laws of God and from the enjoyment of His goodness, that is, in a word, from the happy life. For there is the abode of truth; and in enjoying its contemplation, and in cleaving closely to it, we are assuredly happy; but departing from this, men become entangled in great errors and sorrows. For, as the apostle says, "The root of all evils is covetousness; which some having followed, have made shipwreck of the faith, and have pierced themselves through with many sorrows." And this sin of the soul is quite plainly, to those rightly understanding, set forth in the Old Testament in the transgression of Adam in Paradise. Thus, as the apostle says, "In Adam we all die, and in Christ we shall all rise again.' Oh, the depth of these mysteries! But I refrain; for I am now engaged not in teaching you the truth, but in making you unlearn your errors, if Í can, that is, if God aid my purpose regarding you. 8 36. Paul then says that covetousness is the root of all evils; and by covetousness the old law also intimates that the first man fell. Paul tells us to put off the old man and put on the new. By the old man he means Adam who sinned, and by the new man him whom the Son of God took to Himself in consecration for our redemption. For he says in another place, "The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven, heavenly. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy; and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. as we have borne the image of the earthy, let us also bear the image of the heavenly,' that is, put off the old man, and put on the new. The whole duty of temperance, then, In a is to put off the old man, and to be renewed in God,—that is, to scorn all bodily delights, and the popular applause, and to turn the whole love to things divine and unseen. Hence that following passage which is so admirable: "Though our outward man perish, 6 And 99 10 CHAP. 20.—WE ARE REQUIRED TO DESPISE ALL 37. Bodily delights have their source in all those things with which the bodily sense comes in contact, and which are by some called the objects of sense; and among these the noblest is light, in the common meaning of the word, because among our senses also, which the mind uses in acting through the body, there is nothing more valuable than the eyes, and so in the Holy Scriptures all the objects of sense are spoken of as visible things. Thus in the New Testament we are warned against the love of these things in the following words: "While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal." 3 This shows how far from being Christians those are who hold that the sun and moon are to be not only loved but worshipped. For what is seen if the sun and moon are not? But we are forbidden to regard things which are seen. The man, therefore, who wishes to offer that incorrupt love to God must not love these things too. This subject I will inquire into more particularly elsewhere. Here my plan is to write not of faith, but of the life by which we become worthy of knowing what we believe. God then alone is to be loved; and all this world, that is, all sensible things, are to be despised, —while, however, they are to be used as this life requires. CHAP. 21. -POPULAR RENOWN AND INQUISI- of wisdom, a thing of great value and to be sought with the whole mind, the apostle, with great prudence, that he might not be thought to deter from the love of wisdom, has added the words, "And the elements of this world." 5 For some people, neglecting virtues, and ignorant of what God is, and of the majesty of the nature which remains always the same, think that they are engaged in an important business when searching with the greatest inquisitiveness and eagerness into this material mass which we call the world. This begets selves as inhabitants of the heaven of which so much pride, that they look upon themthey often discourse. The soul, then, which purposes to keep itself chaste for God must refrain from the desire of vain knowledge like this. For this desire usually produces delusion, so that the soul thinks that nothing exists but what is material; or if, from regard to authority, it confesses that there is an immaterial existence, it can think of it only under material images, and has no belief regarding it but that imposed by the bodily sense. We may apply to this the precept about fleeing from idolatry. 39. To this New Testament authority, requiring us not to love anything in this world," especially in that passage where it is said, 66 Be not conformed to this world," -for the whatever he loves, to this authority, then, point is to show that a man is conformed to if I seek for a parallel passage in the Old Testament, I find several; but there is one book of Solomon, called Ecclesiastes, which at great length brings all earthly things into utter contempt. The book begins thus: "Vanity of the vain, saith the Preacher, What profit vanity of the vain; all is vanity. hath a man of all his labor which he taketh under the sun?' 8 If all these words are considered, weighed, and thoroughly ex-, amined, many things are found of essential' importance to those who seek to flee from the world and to take shelter in God; but this re38. Popular renown is thus slighted and quires time and our discourse hastens on to scorned in the New Testament: "If I other topics. But, after this beginning, he wished," says St. Paul, "to please men, I goes on to show in detail that the vain are should not be the servant of Christ." Again, those who are deceived by things of this sort; there is another production of the soul formed and he calls this which deceives them vanity, by imaginations derived from material things, not that God did not create those things, and called the knowledge of things. In refer- but because men choose to subject themselves ence to this we are fitly warned against in- by their sins to those things, which the divine quisitiveness to correct which is the great law has made subject to them in well-doing. function of temperance. Thus it is said, For when you consider things beneath your"Take heed lest any one seduce you by philosophy." And because the word philosophy originally means the love and pursuit 5 Coll. ii. 8. 61 John ii. 15. 9 Retract. i. 7, 3:-"I found in many manuscripts the reading, 'Vanity of the vain.' But this is not in the Greek, which has Vanity of vanities.' This I saw afterwards. And I found that the best Latin manuscripts had vanities and not vain. But the truths I have drawn from this false reading are self-evident." self to be admirable and desirable, what is this but to be cheated and misled by unreal goods? The man, then, who is temperate in such mortal and transient things has his rule of life confirmed by both Testaments, that he should love none of these things, nor think them desirable for their own sakes, but should use them as far as is required for the purposes and duties of life, with the moderation of an employer instead of the ardor of a lover. These remarks on temperance are few in proportion to the greatness of the theme, but perhaps too many in view of the task on hand. CHAP. 22.-FORTITUDE COMES FROM THE LOVE OF GOD. the New Testament, where it is said, "Tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience and experience, hope;" and where, in addition to these words, there is proof and confirmation of them from the example of those who spoke them; I will rather summon an example of patience from the Old Testament, against which the Manichæans make fierce assaults. Nor will I refer to the man who, in the midst of great bodily suffering, and with a dreadful disease in his limbs, not only bore human evils, but discoursed of things divine. Whoever gives considerate attention to the utterances of this man, will learn from every one of them what value is to be attached to those things which men try to keep in their power, 40. On fortitude we must be brief. The and in so doing are themselves brought by love, then, of which we speak, which ought passion into bondage, so that they become with all sanctity to burn in desire for God, is the slaves of mortal things, while seeking igcalled temperance, in not seeking for earthly norantly to be their masters. This man, in things, and fortitude, in bearing the loss of the loss of all his wealth, and on being sudthem. But among all things which are pos- denly reduced to the greatest poverty, kept sessed in this life, the body is, by God's most his mind so unshaken and fixed upon God, righteous laws, for the sin of old, man's as to manifest that these things were not great heaviest bond, which is well known as a fact, in his view, but that he was great in relation but most incomprehensible in its mystery. to them, and God to him. If this mind were Lest this bond should be shaken and dis- to be found in men in our day, we should not turbed, the soul is shaken with the fear of be so strongly cautioned in the New Testatoil and pain; lest it should be lost and de- ment against the possession of these things in stroyed, the soul is shaken with the fear of order that we may be perfect; for to have death. For the soul loves it from the force these things without cleaving to them is much of habit, not knowing that by using it well more admirable than not to have them at all.3 and wisely its resurrection and reformation will, by the divine help and decree, be without any trouble made subject to its authority. But when the soul turns to God wholly in this love, it knows these things, and so will not only disregard death, but will even desire it. 43. But since we are speaking here of bearing pain and bodily sufferings, I pass from this man, great as he was, indomitable as he was: this is the case of a man. But these Scriptures present to me a woman of amazing fortitude, and I must at once go on to her 41. Then there is the great struggle with case. This woman, along with seven chilpain. But there is nothing, though of iron dren, allowed the tyrant and executioner to hardness, which the fire of love cannot sub- extract her vitals from her body rather than due. And when the mind is carried up to a profane word from her mouth, encouragingGod in this love, it will soar above all torture her sons by her exhortations, though she free and glorious, with wings beauteous and suffered in the tortures of their bodies, and unhurt, on which chaste love rises to the em- was herself to undergo what she called on brace of God. Otherwise God must allow the them to bear. What patience could be lovers of gold, the lovers of praise, the lovers greater than this? And yet why should we of women, to have more fortitude than the be astonished that the love of God, implanted lovers of Himself, though love in those cases in her inmost heart, bore up against tyrant, is rather to be called passion or lust. And and executioner, and pain, and sex, and yet even here we may see with what force the natural affection? Had she not heard, mind presses on with unflagging energy, in" Precious in the sight of the Lord is the spite of all alarms, towards that it loves; and death of His saints?" 5 Had she not heard, we learn that we should bear all things rather "A patient man is better than the mightiest?' than forsake God, since those men bear so Had she not heard, "All that is appointed much in order to forsake Him. CHAP. 23.-SCRIPTURE PRECEPTS AND EXAM- 42. Instead of quoting here authorities from 1 Rom. v. 3. 4. 2 Job. i. 2. 196 3 [It is interesting to observe how remote Augustin was from attaching superior merit to voluntary poverty, or to other forms of asceticism as ends in themselves. What he prized was the ability to use without abusing, to have without cleaving to the good things which God provides.-A. H. N.]. 4 2 Mac. vii. 6 Prov. xvi. 32. 5 Ps. cxvi. 15. THE LOVE OF GOD, OF WHICH LOVE THE RE- thee receive; and in pain bear it; and in CHAP. 25.-FOUR MORAL DUTIES REGARDING abasement keep thy patience: for in fire are gold and silver tried?" Had she not heard, The fire tries the vessels of the potter, and for just men is the trial of tribulation?"" These she knew, and many other precepts of fortitude written in these books, which alone existed at that time, by the same divine Spirit who writes those in the New Testament. CHAP. 24.-OF JUSTICE AND PRUDENCE. 44. What of justice that pertains to God? As the Lord says, "Ye cannot serve two masters," 3 "3 and the apostle denounces those who serve the creature rather than the Creator, was it not said before in the Old Testament, "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve?" I need say no more on this, for these books are full of such passages. The lover, then, whom we are describing, will get from justice this rule of life, that he must with perfect readiness serve the God whom he loves, the highest good, the highest wisdom, the highest peace; and as regards all other things, must either rule them as subject to himself, or treat them with a view to their subjection. This rule of life, is, as we have shown, confirmed by the authority of both Testaments. 46. I need say no more about right conduct. For if God is man's chief good, which you cannot deny, it clearly follows, since to seek the chief good is to live well, that to live well is nothing else but to love God with all the heart, with all the soul, with all the mind; and, as arising from this, that this love must be preserved entire and incorrupt, which is the part of temperance; that it give way before no troubles, which is the part of fortitude; that it serve no other, which is the part of justice; that it be watchful in its inspection of things lest craft or fraud steal in, which is the part of prudence. This is the one perfection of man, by which alone he can succeed in attaining to the purity of truth. This both Testaments enjoin in concert; this is commended on both sides alike. Why do you continue to cast reproaches on Scriptures of which you are ignorant? Do you not see the folly of your attack upon books which only those who do not understand them find fault with, and which only those who find fault fail in understanding? For neither can an enemy know them, nor can one who knows them be other than a friend to them. 45. With equal brevity we must treat of prudence, to which it belongs to discern be47. Let us then, as many as have in view tween what is to be desired and what to be to reach eternal life, love God with all the shunned. Without this, nothing can be done heart, with all the soul, with all the mind. of what we have already spoken of. It is the For eternal life contains the whole reward in part of prudence to keep watch with most the promise of which we rejoice; nor can the anxious vigilance, lest any evil influence reward precede desert, nor be given to a man should stealthily creep in upon us. Thus the before he is worthy of it. What can be more Lord often exclaims, "Watch; and He unjust than this, and what is more just than says, "Walk while ye have the light, lest God? We should not then demand the redarkness come upon you. 198 And then it is ward before we deserve to get it. Here, said, "Know ye not that a little leaven leav- perhaps, it is not out of place to ask what is eneth the whole lump?" And no passage eternal life; or rather let us hear the Becan be quoted from the Old Testament more stower of it: "This," He says, "is life eterexpressly condemning this mental somno- nal, that they should know Thee, the true lence, which makes us insensible to destruc- God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast tion advancing on us step by step, than those sent." " So eternal life is the knowledge of words of the prophet, He who despiseth the truth. See, then, how perverse and presmall things shall fall by degrees." On this posterous is the character of those who think topic I might discourse at length did our that their teaching of the knowledge of God haste allow of it. And did our present task will make us perfect, when this is the reward demand it, we might perhaps prove the depth of those already perfect! What else, then, of these mysteries, by making a mock of have we to do but first to love with full affecwhich profane men in their perfect ignorance tion Him whom we desire to know? Hence fall, not certainly by degrees, but with a arises that principle on which we have all headlong overthrow. 66 Feclus. xxvii. 6. 3 Matt. vi. 24. s Deut. vi. 13. 11 John xvii. 3. 12 12 Retract, A. -. § 4:-"I should have said sincere affection rather than full; or it might be thought that the love of God will be no greater when we shall see Him face to face. Full, then, must be here understood as meaning that it cannot be greater while we walk by faith. There will be greater, yea, perfect fullness, but only by sight." |