Letters 140.68–140.85

"And my soul," he says, "lives for him": for him, certainly, not for itself, like the souls of the proud, who rejoice in their own private good and recoil with empty elation from the common good of all, which is God. Let us by all means avoid this, and seek rather to enjoy the common true good of all good people than to rejoice in our private good, so that he who lives may no longer live for himself, as the apostle says, but for him who died and rose for them. For by this he became mediator, to reconcile us through humility to God, from whom by ungodly pride we had departed far. For not only is what I set down above written, "The beginning of all sin is pride," but this also is read there: "The beginning of pride is for men to apostatize from God." Let no one, then, live for himself but for Christ, doing not his own will but Christ's, and remaining in his love, just as he too did the will of the Father and remains in his love. For he spoke these things in his Gospel, admonishing us and exhorting us by his example. But if he, though in the form of God he is equal to the Father, yet through the form of the servant which he took for our sake declared that he did not do his own will but the Father's, how much more ought we, despising our own private will, by which we were darkened, to approach that common light, so as to be enlightened and our faces not be ashamed, the light which enlightens every man coming into this world, so that our soul may live for him! For he goes on to add this about us too, when he says: "And my seed will serve him"; since "he who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; and the good seed are the sons of the kingdom."

All these things said in this psalm, then, since they referred not to the present time but to the prophecy of things to come, as the events themselves also show, he wished to conclude it in such a way as to show that he was not pointing out present things or narrating past ones but prophesying future ones. "The generation to come," he says, "will be announced to the Lord, and they will announce his righteousness to a people that will be born, whom the Lord has made." He does not say, "The Lord will be announced to the generation to come," but "The generation to come will be announced to the Lord." This is not to be taken as if something were announced to one who does not know, so that he may know; but as the angels announce not only God's benefits to us but also our prayers to him. For it is written, where an angel says to men, "I offered the remembrance of your prayer"; not that God then learns what we want or what we need ("for your Father knows," says the Lord, "what you need before you ask him"), but because the rational creature, obeying God, has need to refer temporal causes to the eternal truth, either by asking what may be done for it or by consulting what it should do; and this is a devout affection of the mind, so that the creature may be built up, not so that God may be instructed. For this too is a kind of testimony of the rational creature that it is not itself the good by which it becomes happy, but that unchangeable good by participation in which it is also made wise.

Or it was said thus, "The generation to come will be announced to the Lord," as if it were said: those who announce will please the Lord, not themselves; so that to announce to the Lord would be like living to the Lord. So it is said: "He who eats, eats to the Lord, and he who does not eat, abstains to the Lord." For to this he added, "and gives thanks to God," to show what "he does it to the Lord" means, that is, he does it to his praise. For then a thing is done rightly, justly, devoutly, when a good work is done to the praise of him by whose grace it is given that it be done. And so, even if someone wishes to understand these words in such a way that their order is this: "The generation to come will be announced to the Lord," that is, that generation will be announced which is to come to the Lord, namely the generation of the devout and the holy (since the generation of the ungodly and wicked will come not to the Lord but to itself), there is no departure from the same meaning, by which the soul's participation in the Selfsame is understood; that is, that the rational creature, since it is changeable, does not become happy unless, turned from its own changeable good with humble piety, it takes its stand in the unchangeable and common good, which is God, from whom it departed by proud ungodliness. Advancing in this affection, whatever good it does, it does to the Lord, that is, to the praise of him whose grace it received in order to do it; hence the thanksgiving which is celebrated in the inmost mystery of the faithful.

What follows, "And they will announce his righteousness to a people that will be born, whom the Lord has made," confirms the earlier sense. For what was said there, "The generation to come will be announced to the Lord," is said here as, "They will announce his righteousness." For that very generation which was prophesied to come, the generation of the devout and holy, is the righteousness of God, not their own, lest they be among those who, ignorant of the righteousness of God and wishing to establish their own, did not submit to the righteousness of God. For that righteousness of God is commended in the words, "ignorant of the righteousness of God": the righteousness by which we are righteous from his grace, so that we ourselves may be his righteousness when we live righteously, believing in him who justifies the ungodly; not that by which he himself is righteous, his eternal and unchangeable righteousness. This righteousness, then, by which we are righteous by God's gift, is signified in that psalm where it is written, "Your righteousness is like the mountains of God." For the mountains of God are his saints, of whom it is said elsewhere, "Let the mountains receive peace for your people." And much has been written about these mountains in figurative speech, which it would take long to mention now. But because God does this very thing, justifying human beings, by a most hidden judgment, since he does it by free grace ("but if by grace, not by works; otherwise grace is no longer grace"; for good works begin from the time we are justified; we are not justified because they went before; and this is the depth of which we have already said much above), in the same psalm, when he had said, "Your righteousness is like the mountains of God," he at once added, "Your judgments are like a great abyss." From there he comes to the salvation common to men and beasts, because that too is from God's mercy, and says: "Men and beasts you will save, O Lord, as your mercy has been multiplied, O God"; so that from this we may understand that we receive also that everlasting and immortal salvation, of which the apostle says, "For in hope we were saved," freely, like this one which is common to men and beasts, not from works, lest anyone be lifted up; since we do good works from his justification. "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared that we should walk in them." That salvation, then, is free, of which it is said in another psalm: "Salvation is the Lord's, and your blessing is upon your people."

Just as, then, when we read, "Salvation is the Lord's," the salvation meant is not that by which the Lord is saved but that by which those are saved whom he saves, so when we read of God's righteousness in the words, "ignorant of the righteousness of God and wishing to establish their own," that righteousness is not to be understood by which God is righteous, but that by which human beings are righteous whom he justifies by his grace. For they are saved from the same source from which they are righteous; since what he said, "It is not the healthy who need a physician but those who are sick," he went on to explain by saying, "I came not to call the righteous but sinners." "Not according to works of righteousness which we have done, then, but according to his mercy he saved us through the washing of regeneration"; in which grace "we were saved in hope." Hence it is added in that psalm: "But the sons of men will hope under the shelter of your wings; they will be inebriated with the abundance of your house, and you will give them to drink of the torrent of your pleasure; for with you is the fountain of life; in your light we shall see light. Extend your mercy to those who know you, and your righteousness to those who are upright in heart." The opposite of this righteousness of God, then, is pride, by which one trusts as if in one's own works; and so it follows there: "Let not the foot of pride come to me."

This righteousness, by which his faithful are righteous while living meanwhile by faith, until they are brought by perfect righteousness to sight, as by perfect salvation even to the immortality of the body itself, is the grace of the New Testament. Hence the apostle says in another place: "We are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were exhorting through us; we beseech you for Christ, be reconciled to God"; and then he adds: "Him who knew no sin he made sin for us" (that is, a sacrifice for sins; for in the law the very offerings made for sins were called sins), "so that we might be the righteousness of God in him": that is, in his body, which is the church, of which he is the head, we might be the righteousness of God, which they, being ignorant of it and wishing to establish their own, that is, glorying as it were in their own works, did not submit to the righteousness of God. Hence also in this psalm, when he had said, "They will announce his righteousness," he goes on to add: "to a people that will be born, whom the Lord has made." For what people is there that the Lord has not made, as regards their being human beings, he who created even the cattle, from whom is all life and every made and created nature? But "whom the Lord has made" is to be understood in such a way that not only their being human but also their being righteous is understood to be made by him, according to what I have already more than once mentioned as said by the apostle: "We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared that we should walk in them."

The changeableness of the rational soul, then, is reminded that it may know that it cannot be righteous, saved, wise, or happy except by participation in the unchangeable good, and that it cannot be good to itself by its own will, but only evil. For by its own will it turns away from the unchangeable good and is corrupted by that turning away; nor can it be healed by itself, but only by the free mercy of its creator, which in this life establishes it, living by faith, in the hope of eternal salvation. Let it therefore not be high-minded, but fear, and by that chaste fear cleave to God, who has cleansed it from its own uncleanness, by which it loved lower goods in a disordered way, as from a kind of spiritual fornication. And let it not be lifted up by human praise, lest it be among the foolish virgins who rejoice in the praise of others (for this is the last of your questions), doing good works for the sake of that empty praise, not for the sake of their conscience, where God is their witness; but let it be among the wise virgins, where it may say what the apostle says: "For this is our glory, the testimony of our conscience." For this is to carry oil with oneself, not to buy it from those who sell, that is, from flatterers; for flatterers sell their praise like oil to fools. Of this oil it is said in the psalm: "The righteous man will correct me in mercy and rebuke me; but the oil of the sinner will not anoint my head." He chose to be rebuked mercifully by the righteous, and in a way struck, rather than to be praised by the flattery of the sinner so that his head might grow in pride.

It seems to me a reply of mockery when the wise virgins say to them, "Go rather to those who sell and buy for yourselves," as it is written in a certain book of wisdom where it says to the scorners: "And I will laugh at your destruction." But the reply by which those asking for oil were told, "Lest perhaps there not be enough for us," was said not in despair but in humility; for who would so presume on his own conscience as to be sure that it can suffice him at the judgment of God, unless he judges the merciful mercifully? For "judgment without mercy to him who has shown no mercy." The lamps themselves, lit, are good works, of which the Lord says: "Let your works shine before men, so that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father who is in heaven." The intention of the wise virgins extends this far: they wish their good works to be seen by men, not so that they themselves may be praised by them, but so that God may be glorified, from whom they have the power to work well; and so they rejoice in the inner good, which is before God, where alms are given in secret, so that the Father who sees in secret may repay. And therefore their lamps do not fail, because they are fed by inner oil, that is, by the intention of a good conscience, by which whatever shines before men in good works is done before God for his glory. But the lamps of the foolish virgins, who do not carry this oil with them, fail; that is, their good works do not shine perseveringly when human praise has been withdrawn, for the sake of which they did them, carrying their intention only so far as to be seen by men, not so that the Father who is in heaven might be glorified. That intention is of everlasting glory, by which the soul knows that it owes it to God that it has been justified to do good works, and therefore loves to be praised in him, not in itself. Hence elsewhere the man of God sings: "In the Lord my soul shall be praised," so that "he who glories may glory in the Lord."

But what does it mean that in the same Gospel reading it is written that all slept while the bridegroom delayed? If we understand this sleep to be that, as the judgment which Christ is to come to carry out seems to delay, love grows cold as iniquity abounds, how shall we place the wise virgins there, when they are rather among those of whom it is said, "But he who perseveres to the end will be saved"? It is said, then, "They all slept," because not only the foolish, who do good before men for the sake of human praise, but also the wise, who do it so that God may be praised, experience this death; for people of both kinds die. And this death is often called in the Scriptures the death of sleepers, because of the future resurrection as an awakening. Hence the apostle says: "Concerning those who sleep, I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers"; and in another place: "of whom most remain until now, but some have fallen asleep"; and countless other testimonies on this are found plainly in the Scriptures of both Testaments. Hence that poet too says, "Sleep, the kinsman of death"; and if you pay attention, you will find many passages even in secular literature where death is compared to sleep. The Lord therefore signified that there would be a time when, amid the tribulations and temptations of this world, his coming would be awaited and hoped for from moment to moment, as near and imminent, for which those who are seen to be in his household should prepare themselves. For this is what he says, that they went out to meet the bridegroom and the bride: the bridegroom, the Son of God; the bride, either because he will come in the body which he took from the virgin, or because the church herself will then appear more glorious, as the members run together to the gathering of the whole body, and as they run together its greatness will be shown.

He called them virgins because of continence; and ten, that is, five and five, because of the number by which the bodily senses are counted, in which continence dwells when one abstains from shameful and unlawful pleasures. The lamps, as has been said, are good works, especially those belonging to mercy, and a praiseworthy way of life itself, which shines even before men. But it matters greatly with what intention of mind it is done; so he calls some wise and others foolish, but he distinguishes them by this: that the foolish did not take oil with them, while the wise took oil in their vessels, that is, in their hearts, where the very participation in the inmost and highest good takes place. Hence in a certain psalm, when it had been said, "Offer the sacrifice of righteousness and hope in the Lord," he says: "Many say, Who shows us good things?" Then, to make clear for love of what good we ought to work righteousness, that is, to offer the sacrifice of righteousness, he says: "The light of your face, Lord, is sealed upon us; you have put gladness in my heart." Whoever works well and lives praiseworthily even in the sight of men with the intention of this good, in which he already shares somewhat and is to share more fully and perfectly, has oil with him, by which his good works, shining even in the sight of men, are not extinguished; because love does not grow cold in his heart as iniquity abounds, but perseveres to the end. This oil the foolish virgins do not have with them, since, attributing to themselves whatever good work they do, they must be puffed up with pride, and because of this vice so delight in human praise that by the joy of it they seem to glow and shine in whatever good they do.

"But while the bridegroom delayed, they all slept." For he will not come when he is hoped for, but at midnight, when it will be very obscure, that is, hidden, whether he is coming. Hence he says that at midnight a cry was raised: "Behold, the bridegroom comes; go out to meet him." Doubtless this cry is that very trumpet which the apostle mentions when he says: "For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will rise incorruptible." By the name of trumpet he wishes some most evident and most glorious sign to be understood, which in another place he calls the voice of the archangel and the trumpet of God. It is also called in the Gospel the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ himself, which those who are in the tombs will hear and will come forth. All those virgins, then, both wise and foolish, rise and trim their lamps, that is, prepare to give account of their works.

But then, because by the evidence of that cry and by the resurrection of the dead there will be no doubt of the judgment now at hand and present, every consolation of human praise will be withdrawn. For there will be no leisure to discuss another or to judge another, or to favor and support another, when each one will carry his own burden and think of the account to be given of his own deeds. And so the minds of the foolish virgins will indeed be carried along by their own habit, but, finding no human praise, they will fail. For they did not genuinely say, "With you is my praise," or, "In the Lord my soul shall be praised," nor did they glory in the Lord, when, ignorant of the righteousness of God, they established their own righteousness. And so they ask the wise for oil, that is, some consolation; they neither find nor receive it, since the wise answer that they do not know whether even their own conscience will suffice for themselves, by which they await mercy under that judge: for when he sits on his throne, who will boast that he has a chaste heart, or who will boast that he is clean from sin, unless mercy triumphs over judgment? Mercy will be upon those who did works of mercy with this intention, that he might have mercy on them from whom they knew they had received what they had; and they did not boast as if they had not received it but had of themselves the means to please, like the foolish, who both please themselves as if with a good prepared by themselves for themselves, and are praised by flatterers or by those in error as though they were something. But "if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing," as the apostle says, "he deceives himself. But let each one test his own work, and then he will have glory in himself alone and not in another." This is to carry oil with oneself, not to depend on another's praise. But what glory will he have in himself except him to whom it is said, "My glory, and the one who lifts up my head," so that, as must often be said, "he who glories may glory in the Lord"?

Accordingly, the wisdom that dwells in the wise virgins, in keeping with what it foretold when it said to the scorners and to those refusing to accept sound teaching, "And I will laugh at your destruction," says to the foolish virgins: "Go rather to those who sell and buy for yourselves"; as if it said: Where are those who deceived you with most false praises, when you were also deceived by yourselves, because you gloried in yourselves, not in the Lord? And when it says, "And while they were going to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him," this seems to me to be understood thus: that with the vicious affection of their heart they will gape after the empty glory which they pursued with the elation of a vain mind. And this very craving is signified in the words, "while they were going to buy." But the bridegroom came, and those went in with him to the wedding who were ready, that is, who carried in their heart the true faith and true piety by which they could be fitted into the number and fellowship of the saints who glory not in themselves but in the Lord, so as to enter with them into that joy of which it is said, "Enter into the joy of your lord," where there will be perfect participation in the unchangeable good, of which now a kind of pledge is held by faith, so that we may live according to this grace, in so far as we live to God and not to ourselves.

Accordingly, in what follows, "Afterward the other virgins also came, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us," it is not said that they had bought oil and so came, for there was no longer any source, but that they sought mercy too late, when it was already the time of judging and separating the good from the reprobate. And rightly they are answered, "Truly I say to you, I do not know you"; for he says this from whom nothing is hidden. But "I do not know you" is nothing other than "You do not know me," since you choose to trust in yourselves rather than in me. For when it is said that God knows us, he grants us knowledge of himself, so that by this we may understand that not even this is to be attributed to ourselves, that we know God, but that we should attribute this knowledge too to his mercy. Hence, when the apostle said in a certain place, "But now knowing God," he corrected himself and said, "or rather known by God"; what else did he wish to be understood than that he himself had made them knowers of him? But no one knows God except one who understands that he is the highest and unchangeable good, by participation in which one becomes good; which is set down in the conclusion of this psalm: "They will announce his righteousness to a people that will be born, whom the Lord has made"; from which comes also what is in another psalm: "He made us, and not we ourselves." For this is to be referred not to the nature by which we are human beings, of which nature the same one is creator who created heaven and earth and the stars and all living things, but rather to what the apostle says: "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared that we should walk in them."

I think your five questions have been sufficiently resolved while I lingered on this sixth of mine, which I put to myself, on the grace of the New Testament, for the sake of which the Word was made flesh; that is, he who was the Son of God became man, taking our nature without losing his own, so that power might also be given to us who receive him, that we who were men might become sons of God, changed for the better by participation in the unchangeable good, not for temporal happiness but for adoption to eternal life, which alone is happy. Hence I thought it good also to run through the prophetic psalm whose first verse he recalled in his passion, showing how God forsakes us and in what other way he does not depart from us, gathering us to eternal goods, while sometimes usefully granting temporal goods and sometimes usefully withdrawing them, so that we may learn not to cling to them; lest, despising the inner light which belongs to the new life (hence this very psalm took its title "for the morning taking up", as for a new light), we should willingly dwell in the exterior darkness, from which those who do not turn from it to the inner things are sent into the outer, lest, joined to the devil and his angels, we be punished with the final condemnation. Understanding, then, our pilgrimage in this life, let us be crucified to the world, stretching out our hands in the breadth of good works, persevering with long-suffering to the end, and having our heart on high, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God, and attributing all this not to ourselves but to his mercy, whose deep judgments weary every searcher. For this is the breadth, length, height, and depth, not idly fabulous but usefully true, from which we may come also to the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge and be filled with all the fullness of God.

I know, moreover, with what far from superfluous anxiety I have wished, on the occasion of the questions you put to me, to commend the grace of the New Testament to you more fully. For it has adversaries who, troubled by its depth, refuse to attribute to God, but would rather claim for themselves, the fact that they are good. Nor are they such as you could easily despise; they live continently and are praiseworthy in good works, and they believe in no false Christ, as the Manichaeans and very many other heretics do, but in the same true Christ, equal and coeternal with the Father, and truly made man, believing that he has come and awaiting his coming; yet they are ignorant of the righteousness of God and wish to establish their own. For not in vain did the Lord, when he mentioned both those who went in with him to the wedding and those against whom he shut the door and to whom he answered, "I do not know you," call both virgins because of continence, five because of the desire of the flesh subdued, endowed with the fivefold sense, both adorned with lamps because of the most brilliant praise of good works and good conduct in the sight of men, both going to meet the bridegroom because of the expectation by which Christ's coming is hoped for, but nevertheless some wise and others foolish, because the wise took oil in their vessels while the foolish did not carry it with them. Alike in so many things, he shows them unlike in this alone; in this alone he gives them different and opposite names.

For what is so closely joined as virgins and virgins, five and five, adorned with lamps, going to meet the bridegroom, these and those alike? And what is so opposite as wise and foolish? Namely, because the former carry oil in their vessels, that is, the understanding of the grace of God in their hearts, knowing that no one can be continent unless God gives it, and counting it wisdom to know whose gift this is; whereas the latter, not giving thanks to the giver of all good things, became vain in their reasonings, and their foolish heart was darkened; claiming to be wise, they became foolish. Of these, indeed, we must by no means despair now, before we sleep; but if they sleep in this state, and when that cry has been raised by which the bridegroom will be announced as now present, they awake, that is, rise again, and remain outside, it will not be because they are not virgins, but because, not knowing whence they have what they are, they are foolish virgins, and rightly they will be outside, because they do not carry with them the affection of inner grace.

When, therefore, you find such people, let them not persuade you of the emptiness of their vessels, but rather you persuade them of fullness. Hence the apostle says: "Whoever thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know"; and soon, showing what he meant, he says: "But whoever loves God is known by him." He did not wish to say "has known him", but by saying "is known by him" he wished to commend more expressly that this too is from him, that we love him. For "the love of God is poured out in our hearts," not by ourselves, but "through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us." And one must love God little who thinks he has been made good not by him but by himself. And how can such a person glory not in himself but in the Lord? For whoever glories that he is good ought to glory in him by whom he was made good; and so whoever thinks he was made good by himself will consequently glory in himself, not in the Lord. But the whole aim of the grace of the New Testament, by which we have our heart on high, since "every best gift and every perfect gift is from above," works to this end, that we may not be ungrateful; and in the very giving of thanks nothing else is done but that "he who glories may glory in the Lord." You have a book, long indeed, but, I think, not superfluous. But love also to read the writings of the church, and you will not find many things to ask of me; but by reading and pondering, if you also pray purely to God, the giver of all good things, you will learn thoroughly all things worth knowing, or at least most of them, by his inspiration rather than by any human being's admonition. And yet, by the very fact that we approve with unerring judgment one who admonishes us well from outside, what else do we testify than that we have the inner light as our teacher?