On the Duties of the Clergy 1.47–2.3

If anyone, then, keeps the evenness of his whole life and the measures of individual actions, and keeps order too, consistency of words and deeds, and moderation, in his life that seemliness excels and shines as in a kind of mirror. Let pleasant speech be added, however, so as to win the goodwill of hearers, and let him show himself agreeable to friends, to fellow citizens, or, if possible, to all. Let him show himself neither a flatterer nor one to be flattered by anyone; for the one belongs to cunning, the other to vanity. Let him not despise what each person, and especially the best man, thinks of him; for in this way he learns to show reverence to the good. For to neglect the judgments of the good belongs either to arrogance or to dissoluteness, of which the one is ascribed to pride, the other to negligence. Let him also beware of the movements of his own mind; for he must observe and watch himself, and as he must be on guard against himself, so he must also protect himself. For there are movements in which there is that appetite which bursts forth as with a kind of impulse; hence in Greek it is called ὁρμή, because it suddenly carries one away with a kind of force. There is no small force of mind and nature in these. Yet this force is twofold: one placed in appetite, the other in reason, which reins in appetite, makes it obedient to itself, leads it where it wishes, and, as by diligent teaching, instructs it what should be done and what avoided, so that it obeys a good tamer. For we must be careful not to do anything rashly or carelessly, or anything at all for which we cannot give a probable reason. For the reason for our action, even if it is not given to all, is examined by all. Nor do we have anything by which we can excuse ourselves. For though there is a certain force of nature in every appetite, yet the same appetite is subject to reason by the law of nature itself and obeys it. Hence it belongs to a good watchman so to look ahead in his mind that appetite neither runs ahead of reason nor forsakes it; lest by running ahead it disturb and shut it out, and by forsaking it abandon it. Disturbance takes away constancy; abandonment betrays cowardice and accuses sloth. For when the mind is disturbed, appetite spreads itself wider and further and, as with a wild impulse, does not accept the reins of reason nor feel any guidance of the charioteer by which it could be turned back. Hence often not only is the mind agitated and reason lost, but the face too is inflamed with anger or lust; it grows pale with fear, cannot contain itself for pleasure, and exults with excessive joy. When these things happen, that natural censorship and gravity of character is cast off; nor can that constancy be kept which alone, in conducting affairs and counsels, can keep its authority and hold to what is seemly. A graver appetite arises from excessive indignation, which the pain of an injury received usually kindles. On this the precepts of the psalm which we set in our preface instruct us sufficiently. And it happened beautifully that, as we were about to write on duties, we used in our preface a statement that itself belongs to the teaching of duty. But since above, as was fitting, we touched only briefly on how each one can take care not to be roused by an injury received, fearing that the preface would become too long, I think we must now discuss it more fully. For the place is fitting to speak, among the parts of temperance, of how anger is to be repressed.

We wish to show from the divine Scriptures, if we can, that there are three kinds of men who receive injury. One is of those whom the sinner insults, reviles, and tramples upon. Because justice is lacking in them, shame grows and pain increases. Very many of my own order, of my own number, are like these. For if anyone does me injury, weak as I am, perhaps, weak though I am, I forgive the injury done me. If he brings a charge against me, I am not so great as to be content with my conscience, even though I know myself free of what he alleges; but, as a weak man, I want to wash off the mark on my honest name. So I demand eye for eye and tooth for tooth, and repay abuse with abuse. But if I am one who is making progress, though not yet perfect, I do not return the insult; even if he pours in abuse and floods my ears with insults, I am silent and answer nothing. But if I am perfect (I speak for the sake of example, for in truth I am weak), if, then, I am perfect, I bless the one who curses me, as Paul too blessed, who says: “We are cursed, and we bless.” For he had heard the one who said: “Love your enemies, pray for those who slander and persecute you.” So Paul suffered persecution and endured it, because he conquered and softened human feeling for the sake of the reward set before him, that he might become a son if he loved his enemy. Yet we can show that holy David too was not unequal to Paul in this kind of virtue. First, when Shimei cursed him and brought charges against him, he was silent and humbled himself, and kept silent from his goods, that is, from the consciousness of his good works; then he even sought to be cursed, because by that cursing he gained divine mercy. See how he kept humility, justice, and prudence for earning grace from the Lord. First he said: “He curses me because the Lord told him to curse.” You have humility; for he thought that what is commanded by God should be borne calmly, like a little slave. Second, he said: “See, my son, who came out of my body, seeks my life.” You have justice; for if we suffer worse things from our own, why do we take it ill when things are inflicted by strangers? Third, he says: “Let him alone, that he may curse; for the Lord has told him, that he may see my humiliation, and the Lord may repay me for this cursing.” And not only did he bear him when he reviled, but he also left him unharmed when he threw stones and followed him; indeed after the victory he gladly pardoned him when he asked pardon. I have inserted this to teach that holy David, in the spirit of the Gospel, was not only not offended at the one who reviled him but even grateful to him, and delighted rather than exasperated by the injuries, for which he thought a reward would be paid to him. Yet though perfect, he still sought more perfect things. He grew hot with the pain of injury, as a man; but he conquered as a good soldier, he endured as a strong athlete. The end of patience is the expectation of the promises, and so he said: “Make known to me, Lord, my end and the number of my days, what it is, that I may know what is lacking to me.” He seeks that end of the heavenly promises, or that time when each will rise in his own order: “Christ the firstfruits, then those who are Christ’s, who believed in his coming, then the end.” For when the kingdom has been handed over to God and the Father, and all powers abolished, as the Apostle said, perfection begins. Here, then, is hindrance, here is weakness even of the perfect; there, full perfection. And so he asks for those days of eternal life which are, not those which pass away, that he may know what is lacking to him, what is the land of promise bearing perpetual fruits, what the first mansion with the Father, what the second, what the third, in which each will rest according to the measure of his merits. Those things, then, are to be sought by us in which there is perfection, in which there is truth. Here is the shadow, here the image, there the truth: the shadow in the Law, the image in the Gospel, the truth in heavenly things. Formerly a lamb was offered, a calf was offered; now Christ is offered; but he is offered as man, as receiving suffering; and he offers himself as priest, to forgive our sins: here in an image, there in truth, where he intercedes for us with the Father as an advocate. Here, then, we walk in an image, we see in an image; there face to face, where there is full perfection; for all perfection is in the truth.

So while we are here, let us keep the image, that there we may come to the truth. Let there be in us the image of justice, the image of wisdom; for we shall come to that day and shall be judged according to the image. Let the adversary not find in you his image, not rage, not fury; for in these is the image of wickedness. For the adversary, the devil, like a roaring lion, seeks whom he may kill, whom he may devour. Let him not find greed for gold, nor heaps of silver, nor the idols of vices, lest he take from you the voice of freedom. For that is the voice of freedom, that you say: “The prince of this world will come, and in me he will find nothing.” So if you are sure that he will find nothing in you when he comes to search, you will say what the patriarch Jacob said to Laban: “Recognize whether anything of yours is with me.” Rightly blessed was Jacob, with whom Laban could find nothing of his own! For Rachel had hidden his golden and silver images of gods. So if wisdom, if faith, if contempt of the world, if your grace hides all faithlessness, you will be blessed; because you do not look to vanities and false follies. Is it a small thing to take away the adversary’s voice, so that he cannot have the authority to accuse you? So he who does not look to vanities is not troubled; but he who looks to them is troubled, and most vainly. For what is gathering riches but vain, since seeking perishable things is vain enough? And when you have gathered them, how do you know whether you will be allowed to possess them? Is it not vain that a merchant should travel night and day to amass heaps of treasure, gather goods, be troubled about the price lest perhaps he sell for less than he bought, hunt out the prices of places, and suddenly either rouse robbers against himself by the envy of his famous trade, or, not waiting for calmer winds, impatient of delay while he seeks gain, fall into shipwreck? Or is not he too troubled in vain who amasses with the greatest labour what he does not know to which heir he will leave? Often what the miser gathered with the greatest anxiety a luxurious heir tears apart with headlong squandering; and a shameful glutton, blind to the present, improvident of the future, swallows up as in a whirlpool what was long sought. Often too the hoped-for successor incurs envy for the inheritance won and, by a swift death, passes on to strangers the gains of the succession he entered. Why, then, do you weave in vain a spider’s web, which is empty and fruitless, and hang up like nets the useless abundance of riches? Even if they flow in, they profit nothing; rather they strip you of the image of God and clothe you with the image of the earthly. If anyone has the image of a tyrant, is he not liable to condemnation? You lay aside the image of the eternal emperor and set up in yourself the image of death. Cast out rather from the city of your soul the image of the devil, and raise up the image of Christ. Let this shine in you, in your city, that is, let it shine forth in your soul, which blots out the images of vices. Of these David says: “Lord, in your city you will bring their images to nothing.” For when the Lord has painted Jerusalem after his own image, then every image of the adversaries is destroyed.

But if by the Lord’s Gospel even the people itself has been formed and instructed to despise riches, how much more ought you Levites not to be held by earthly desires, whose portion is God? For when the earthly possession was being divided by Moses among the people of the fathers, the Lord excepted the Levites from sharing in the earthly possession, because he himself would be the measuring-line of their inheritance. Hence David says: “The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and of my cup.” Indeed “Levite” means “he is mine” or “he is for me.” Great, then, is his office, that the Lord says of him: “He is mine”; or as he said to Peter about the stater found in the fish’s mouth: “You shall give it to them for me and for you.” Hence the Apostle too, having said that a bishop ought to be sober, chaste, orderly, hospitable, apt to teach, not avaricious, not quarrelsome, ruling his house well, added: “Deacons likewise must be grave, not double-tongued, not given to much wine, not pursuing shameful gain, holding the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience. And let them also be proved first, and so let them minister, having no charge against them.” We notice how much is required in us: that the minister of the Lord abstain from wine, that he be supported by the good testimony not only of the faithful but also of those outside. For it is fitting that public opinion be the witness of our acts and works, lest the office be disparaged; so that he who sees a minister of the altar adorned with fitting virtues may praise their author and revere the Lord who has such servants. For the praise of the Lord is where there is a clean possession and a blameless discipline of the household. As for chastity, what shall I say, when only one union, and not a repeated one, is permitted? So in marriage itself the law is not to repeat marriage, nor to enter into union with a second wife. Many think it strange that a marriage repeated even before baptism should create impediments to election to office and to the privilege of ordination, when even sins are not usually a hindrance if they have been remitted by the sacrament of the washing. But we must understand that by baptism guilt can be remitted, but law cannot be abolished. In marriage there is not guilt but law. What belongs to guilt, then, is released in baptism; what belongs to law in marriage is not dissolved. And how can one be an exhorter to widowhood who has himself frequented marriages? And you know that the ministry must be kept unoffending and unspotted and not violated by any conjugal intercourse, you who have received the grace of the sacred ministry whole in body, of uncorrupted modesty, strangers even to conjugal union itself? I have not passed this over, because in many more out-of-the-way places men have begotten children while they exercised the ministry or even the priesthood; and they defend it as by ancient custom, when the sacrifice was offered at intervals of days; and yet even the people was purified for two or three days, that it might come pure to the sacrifice, as we read in the Old Testament; and they washed their garments. If there was such observance in the figure, how much in the truth? Learn, priest and Levite, what it is to wash your garments, so that you may present a clean body for celebrating the sacraments. If the people was forbidden to approach its victim without washing its garments, do you, unwashed in mind and body alike, dare to make supplication for others, dare to minister to others? The duty of the Levites is no small one, of whom the Lord says: “Behold, I choose the Levites from the midst of the sons of Israel in place of every firstborn that opens the womb among the sons of Israel; these shall be their ransom, and the Levites shall be mine. For I sanctified to myself the firstborn in the land of Egypt.” We know that the Levites are not counted among the rest but are preferred to all, being chosen out of all and sanctified, like the firstborn of fruits and the firstfruits that are assigned to the Lord, in which is the paying of vows and the redemption of sins. “You shall not take them,” he says, “among the sons of Israel; but you shall appoint the Levites over the tabernacle of witness, to stand over all its vessels and over whatever is in it. They shall carry the tabernacle and all its vessels, and they shall minister in it, and they shall pitch their camp around the tabernacle; and when it moves, the Levites shall take down the tabernacle, and when the camp is pitched, they shall set up the tabernacle again. Any foreigner who approaches shall die.” You, then, have been chosen out of the whole number of the sons of Israel, reckoned among the sacred fruits as a firstborn, set over the tabernacle, to stand guard in the camp of holiness and faith—if a foreigner approaches it, he shall die—and placed to cover the ark of the covenant. For not all see the depths of the mysteries, because they are covered by the Levites, lest those see who ought not to see, and those take them who cannot keep them. Moses indeed saw spiritual circumcision, but covered it, so as to prescribe circumcision in a sign. He saw the unleavened bread of truth and sincerity, he saw the Lord’s passion; he covered the unleavened bread of truth with bodily unleavened bread, he covered the Lord’s passion with the sacrifice of a lamb or a calf. And good Levites have kept the mystery under the covering of their faith; and do you think small what has been entrusted to you? First, that you see the deep things of God, which belongs to wisdom; then, that you keep watch for the people, which belongs to justice; that you defend the camp and guard the tabernacle, which belongs to fortitude; that you show yourself continent and sober, which belongs to temperance. Even those outside have set down these as the principal kinds of virtues, but they judged the order of community higher than that of wisdom, though wisdom is the foundation, and justice the work, which cannot stand unless it has a foundation. And the foundation is Christ. First, then, is faith, which belongs to wisdom, as Solomon says, following his father: “The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord.” And the law says: “You shall love the Lord your God; you shall love your neighbour.” For it is fine that you bring your grace and duties into the fellowship of the human race. But this is the first seemliness, that you assign to God what you have most precious, that is, your mind, than which you have nothing more excellent. When you have paid your debt to your Maker, you may bring your works to beneficence and to the help of men, and bring aid to their needs, either by money or by service or by any office whatever, which lies wide open in your ministry: by money, to help; by paying a debt, to free one who is bound; by service, to undertake to keep what someone who entrusted it fears to lose. It is a duty, then, to keep and return a deposit. But sometimes a change happens, through time or necessity, so that it is not a duty to return what you have received: as if someone, an open enemy, bringing aid to the barbarians against his fatherland, demands back his money; or if you return it to one when there is someone present to extort it; if you restore it to a madman, when he cannot keep it; if you do not deny a deposited sword to a lunatic, with which he may kill himself, is it not against duty to have paid it back? If you knowingly receive things gained by theft, so that the one who lost them is defrauded, is it not against duty? It is also sometimes against duty to fulfil a promise, to keep an oath; like Herod, who swore that he would give the daughter of Herodias whatever she asked, and carried out the killing of John so as not to break his promise. And what shall I say of Jephthah, who sacrificed his daughter, who had met him first as victor, to fulfil the vow he had made, that he would offer to God whatever met him first? It would have been better to promise nothing of the kind than to fulfil the promise by parricide. How much counsel it takes to foresee these things, you are not unaware. And so a Levite is chosen to guard the sanctuary, so that he may not be deceived in counsel, not desert the faith, not fear death, not act intemperately, so that he may show gravity in his very appearance: one who should have not only a continent mind but also continent eyes, lest even a chance meeting violate the brow of sobriety; for “He who looks at a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her in his heart.” So adultery is committed not only by the defilement of the deed but also by the intention of the look. These things seem great to us and too severe, but in a great office they are not superfluous; since so great is the grace of the Levites that Moses said of them in the blessings: “Give to Levi his men, give to Levi his manifest ones, give to Levi the lot of his choice, and his truth to the holy man, whom they tempted in temptations, they cursed at the water of contradiction. He who says to his father and mother, I do not know you, and did not acknowledge his brothers, and disowned his sons: he kept your words and observed your covenant.” They, then, are his men and his manifest ones, who have no guile in their heart and hide no fraud, but keep his words and ponder them in their heart, as Mary too pondered; who know that their parents are not to be preferred to their duty, who hate violators of chastity, avenge the wrong done to purity, know the times of duties—what is greater, what lesser, what suits which time—and follow only what is honourable; and indeed where there are two honourable things, think that the more honourable is to be preferred: these are rightly blessed. If anyone, then, makes known the justices of God, let him put on the incense: “Bless, Lord, his strength; accept the works of his hands,” that he may find the grace of the prophetic blessing with him who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.

In the former book we treated of the duties that we judged befitting the honourable, in which no one has doubted that the blessed life lies, which Scripture calls eternal life. For so great is the splendour of the honourable that tranquillity of conscience and security of innocence make life blessed. And so, as the rising sun hides the globe of the moon and the other lights of the stars, so the brightness of the honourable, where it flashes with true and incorrupt beauty, overshadows the other things that are thought good according to bodily pleasure, or famous and illustrious according to the world. Blessed indeed is that life which is valued not by the judgments of others but is perceived by one’s own inner senses, as its own judge. For it does not seek popular opinion as any reward, nor fear it as any punishment. So the less it pursues glory, the more it rises above it. For to those who seek glory, glory is their reward in the present and a shadow of the future, which hinders eternal life; as is written in the Gospel: “Truly I say to you, they have received their reward”; of those, that is, who, as if with a trumpet sounding, are eager to publish the liberality they show the poor. Likewise of fasting done for show: “They have,” he says, “their reward.” It belongs to the honourable, then, to do mercy and to keep a fast in secret, that you may be seen to seek a reward from your God alone, not also from men. For he who seeks it from men has his reward; but he who seeks it from God has eternal life, which none can grant but the author of eternity, as in that saying: “Truly I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.” Hence Scripture more expressly called the blessed life eternal life, so that it should not be left to be valued by men’s opinions but be committed to divine judgment.

So among the philosophers, some placed the blessed life in freedom from pain, like Hieronymus; others in knowledge of things, like Herillus, who, hearing knowledge of things wonderfully praised by Aristotle and Theophrastus, set it alone up as the highest good, though they had praised it as a good, not as the only good. Others said pleasure, like Epicurus; others, like Callipho and after him Diodorus, interpreted it so that the one joined to pleasure, the other to freedom from pain, the fellowship of the honourable, because without it there cannot be a blessed life. Zeno the Stoic held that the honourable is the only and highest good; but Aristotle or Theophrastus and the other Peripatetics asserted that the blessed life lies in virtue, that is, in the honourable, but that its blessedness is completed also by goods of the body and external goods. But divine Scripture placed eternal life in the knowledge of the Godhead and in the fruit of good work. Indeed the Gospel supplies testimony for both assertions. For of knowledge the Lord Jesus said: “This is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” And of works he answered thus: “Everyone who has left house, or brothers, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or fields for my name’s sake will receive a hundredfold and will possess eternal life.” But lest this be thought recent, and treated by the philosophers before it was preached in the Gospel (for the philosophers, that is, Aristotle and Theophrastus, or Zeno and Hieronymus, were earlier than the Gospel but later than the prophets), let them learn how long before the name of philosophers was heard both things were plainly expressed by the mouth of holy David. For it is written: “Blessed is he whom you instruct, O Lord, and teach out of your law.” We have also elsewhere: “Blessed is the man who fears the Lord; he will delight greatly in his commandments.” We have shown this concerning knowledge, whose reward the Prophet said is the fruit of eternity, adding that in the house of this man who fears the Lord, or is instructed in the Law and delights in the divine commandments, are “glory and riches, and his righteousness endures for ever and ever.” Of works too he added in the same psalm that the reward of eternal life is ready for the just man. For he says: “Blessed is the man who is merciful and lends; he will order his words in judgment; for he will not be moved for ever. The just man will be in everlasting remembrance.” And below: “He has scattered, he has given to the poor; his righteousness endures for ever.” Faith, then, has eternal life, because it is a good foundation; and good deeds have it, because the just man is proved by words and deeds. For if he is practised in words and idle in works, he refutes his prudence by his deeds; and it is graver to know what you should do and not to have done what you knew should be done. On the other hand, to be vigorous in works but unfaithful in disposition is as if you wished to raise the beautiful pinnacles of a roof on a faulty foundation: the more you build, the more falls; for without the protection of faith good works cannot remain. An unsafe anchorage in port holes the ship, and sandy soil quickly gives way and cannot bear the weight of a building set on it. There, then, is the fullness of reward, where there is perfection of virtues and a certain equality of sobriety in deeds and words.

And since knowledge of things alone has been rejected, either as empty, according to the superfluous disputations of philosophy, or as a half-complete opinion, let us consider how plain a judgment divine Scripture gives on a matter about which we see the questions of philosophy to be so manifold, tangled, and confused. For Scripture asserts that nothing is good except what is honourable, and judges virtue blessed in every state of things, neither increased by bodily or external goods nor diminished by adversity; and that nothing is so blessed as what is foreign to sin, full of innocence, filled with the grace of God. For it is written: “Blessed is the man who has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seat of pestilence; but his will was in the law of the Lord.” And elsewhere: “Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord.” Innocence and knowledge, then, make one blessed. We noticed above, too, that the blessedness of eternal life is the reward of good work. It remains, then, that, setting aside the advocacy of pleasure or the fear of pain (the one of which it spurns as broken and soft, the other as unmanly and weak), it should show that the blessed life stands out in pains themselves. This can easily be taught, since we read: “Blessed are you when they curse you and persecute you and say every evil against you for righteousness’ sake. Rejoice and exult, for your reward is abundant in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” And elsewhere: “Whoever wishes to come after me, let him take up his cross and follow me.”