Letters 187.29–187.41

Since, then, he justifies more and more those making progress, mortals in whom he dwells, as they are renewed from day to day, hears them when they pray, cleanses them when they confess, so as to present to himself a temple spotless for ever, he is rightly said not to dwell in those who, knowing God, did not glorify him as God or give thanks. For by worshipping and serving the creature rather than the Creator they did not wish to be the temple of the one true God; and so, while they wish to have him along with many, they have more easily brought it about that they do not have him than that they mix him with many false gods. And he is rightly said to dwell in those whom, called according to purpose, he has taken up to be justified and glorified, even before they are able to know his incorporeal nature, which is whole everywhere, as far as it can be known in part, through a mirror and in a riddle, by a human being in this life, however far he has progressed. For many of those in whom he dwells are such as those to whom the apostle says: 'I could not speak to you as spiritual but as carnal, as little children in Christ. I gave you milk to drink, not solid food, for you were not yet able; and even now you are not able.' To them he also says: 'Do you not know that you are the temple of God and the Spirit of God dwells in you?' If the last day of this life finds such people before they reach the spiritual age of the mind, where they are fed not on milk but on solid food, their indweller will complete in them whatever understanding they lacked here, since they have not withdrawn from the unity of the body of Christ, who has become our way, nor from the fellowship of the temple of God. And so that they may not withdraw, they hold perseveringly in the Church the rule of faith common to little and great, and walk in what they have attained; and until God reveals it to them, if they think otherwise in anything, they do not make dogmas of their carnal thoughts, because they do not harden in contentious defences, but, as it were, by walking on rather than standing still, that is, by making progress, they labour to obtain clarity of understanding through the piety of faith.

This being so, those two things that happen in one human being, to be born and to be reborn, belong to two men, the one to that first Adam, the other to the second, who is called Christ. 'But the spiritual is not first', says the apostle, 'but the natural, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, earthly; the second man from heaven, heavenly. As was the earthly, so are those who are earthly; and as is the heavenly, so are those who are heavenly. As we have borne the image of the earthly, let us also bear the image of him who is from heaven.' Again he says: 'Through one man came death, and through one man the resurrection of the dead; for as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive.' He said 'all' and 'all' because no one comes into death except through the one, and no one into life except through the other. In the first it was shown what human choice could do toward death; in the second, what God's help could do toward life. Finally, the first man was only man, but the second God and man; for sin was committed by abandoning God, and righteousness is not achieved without God. And so we would not die unless we came from the members of the former by carnal descent, nor would we live unless we were members of the latter by spiritual connection. Therefore we needed to be born and reborn, but he for our sake only to be born; for we pass by rebirth from sin to righteousness, but he made no passage from any sin to righteousness. Yet in being baptized he commended the sacrament of our regeneration all the more highly by his humility, signifying our old self by his passion and our new self by his resurrection.

For the disobedience of the concupiscence that dwells in mortal flesh, by which the same members are moved even apart from the choice of the will, is reduced by conjugal righteousness to such a measure that children are begotten from lawfully united parents, who yet must be reborn. Christ, however, did not wish his flesh to come through such a union of male and female; rather, from a virgin who felt no such desire in his conception he took for us the likeness of sinful flesh, by which the flesh of sin might be cleansed in us. 'For as through the trespass of one', says the apostle, 'it came upon all men to condemnation, so also through the righteousness of one it comes upon all men to justification of life.' For no one is born except by the working of carnal concupiscence, which is derived from the first man, who is Adam; and no one is reborn except by the working of spiritual grace, which is given through the second man, who is Christ. Therefore, if we belong to the former by being born, we belong to the latter by being reborn; and no one can be reborn before he is born. Clearly he alone was born in a singular way who had no need to be reborn, because he made no passage from sin, in which he never was; nor was he conceived in iniquity, nor did his mother nourish him in sins in the womb, because the Holy Spirit came upon her and the power of the Most High overshadowed her, so that what was born of her is holy and is called the Son of God. For the good of marriage does not extinguish but moderates the evil of the disobedient members, so that carnal concupiscence, limited in a certain way, may at least become conjugal chastity. But the Virgin Mary, to whom it was said, 'And the power of the Most High will overshadow you', in conceiving her holy offspring under such a shade did not burn with any heat of this concupiscence. Apart from this cornerstone, then, I do not see how human beings are built up into the house of God, to have God as indweller in themselves, unless they have been reborn, which they cannot be before they are born.

Whatever opinion, then, we hold about pregnant women, or rather about human beings still placed within their mothers' wombs, whether we think they can or cannot be granted some kind of sanctification, either because of John, who, though not yet brought forth into this light, nevertheless leaped for joy (and who would believe that this could have happened except by the working of the Holy Spirit?), or because of Jeremiah, to whom the Lord says, 'Before you came forth from the womb I sanctified you', nevertheless that sanctification by which we are made each a temple of God and all together one temple of God belongs only to the reborn, which human beings cannot be unless they have been born. And no one will end well the life into which he was born unless he is reborn before he ends it.

But if anyone says that a human being is already born even while still in the mother's womb, and brings forward as testimony from the Gospel what was said to Joseph about the pregnant Virgin, the Lord's mother, 'For what is born in her is of the Holy Spirit', is a second birth then added to this birth? Otherwise it will no longer be the second but the third. But when the Lord spoke about this, he said, 'Unless one is born again', clearly counting as the first birth the one that happens when the mother gives birth, not when she conceives and is pregnant, the birth that is from her, not the one that is in her. For we do not call the child whom the mother has borne 'reborn', as if he were born again who had already been born once in the womb; rather, not counting that birth which makes a woman pregnant, a human being is said to be born by childbirth, so that he may be reborn of water and the Spirit. According to this birth from his mother the Lord himself is said to have been born in Bethlehem of Judea. If, then, a human being can be regenerated by the grace of the Spirit in the womb, since it still remains for him to be born, he is reborn before he is born, which can by no means happen. Accordingly, human beings once born are transferred into the framework of the body of Christ, as into the living structure of the temple of God, which is his Church, not by works of righteousness that they will do, but by being reborn through grace, as from a mass of ruin to the solid foundation of the building. For apart from this building, which is being constructed to be made blessed as God's eternal dwelling, every human life is unhappy and should be called death rather than life. Whoever, then, is to be indwelt by God, so that the wrath of God may not remain on him, will not be a stranger to this body, this temple, this birth. And everyone not reborn is a stranger to it.

The mediator, when he was made manifest, willed the sacrament of our regeneration to be manifest; but to the righteous of old it was somewhat hidden, although they too were saved by the same faith, which was to be revealed in its own time. For we do not dare to rank the faithful of our time above the friends of God through whom these things were prophesied to us, since God so commends himself as the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob that he says this is his name for ever. And if circumcision is believed to have served the ancient saints in place of baptism, what will be answered about those who pleased God before this command was given, yet not without faith, since without faith, as is written to the Hebrews, it is impossible to please him? 'But having', says the apostle, 'the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, I believed, therefore I spoke, we too believe, and therefore we speak.' He would not say 'the same' unless the same spirit of faith had been theirs too. And just as they, when the same sacrament was hidden, believed that the incarnation of Christ was to come, so we believe it has happened. And both by us and by them his coming to judgment is awaited as future; for there is no other mystery of God than Christ, in whom those dead in Adam must be made alive, because 'as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive', as we discussed above.

For this reason God, who is present everywhere and whole everywhere, does not dwell in all, but only in those whom he has made his most blessed temple, or his most blessed temples, rescuing them from the power of darkness and transferring them into the kingdom of the Son of his love, which begins from regeneration. He is said to have a temple in one way as a sign, when it is made by human hands from inanimate things, like the tabernacle of wood, curtains, skins and such movable things, and like the temple built by King Solomon of stones, wood and metals; but in another way in the very reality that was prefigured by those signs. Hence it is said, 'And you, like living stones, are built up as a spiritual house'; and again it is written, 'For we are temples of the living God, as God says: I will dwell in them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.'

Nor should it disturb us that some power is worked through certain people who do not belong, or do not yet belong, to this temple, that is, in whom God does not dwell or does not yet dwell; as through the man who cast out demons in Christ's name, though he did not follow Christ, whom he ordered to be allowed because the commending of his name was useful to many. He also says that many will say to him on the last day, 'In your name we did many mighty works', to whom he would certainly not answer, 'I do not know you', if they belonged to the temple of God which he makes blessed by indwelling. Cornelius too, the centurion, before he was incorporated into this temple by regeneration, saw an angel sent to him and heard him say that his prayers had been heard and his alms accepted. For God does these things as present everywhere, or through his holy angels.

As for that sanctification of Jeremiah before he came forth from the womb, although some take it as a type of the Saviour, who did not need regeneration, yet even if it is taken of the prophet himself, it can quite fittingly be understood according to predestination, just as the Gospel calls 'children of God' those not yet regenerated. For when Caiaphas had said of the Lord, 'It is expedient for us that one man should die for the people, and not the whole nation perish', the evangelist went on at once to add: 'He did not say this of himself, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus was to die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who were scattered.' He certainly called 'children of God' those placed, besides the Hebrew nation, among all the other nations as well, not yet believers, not yet baptized. How then children of God, except according to predestination, according to which the apostle too says that God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world? It was that gathering into one that would make them children of God. For 'into one' is not going to mean some bodily place, since the prophet foretold of such a calling of the Gentiles, 'And they shall worship him, each from his own place, all the islands of the nations'; but 'gather into one' was said meaning into one Spirit and into one body, whose one head is Christ. Such a gathering is the building of the temple of God. Such a gathering is made not by carnal generation but by spiritual regeneration.

God dwells, then, in individuals as in his temples, and in all gathered together into one as in his temple. As long as this temple tosses on the waves in this world like Noah's ark, what is written in the psalm comes about: 'The Lord dwells in the flood'; though because of the many peoples of believers in all nations, whom the Apocalypse signifies by the name of waters, 'the Lord dwells in the flood' can also fittingly be understood. And it goes on: 'And the Lord will sit as king for ever', certainly in his temple itself, then established in eternal life after the tossing of this world. God, then, is present everywhere and present whole everywhere, yet not dwelling everywhere but in his temple, to which by grace he is kind and gracious; and as indweller he is received by some more fully and by others less.

Of our head himself the apostle says: 'For in him dwells all the fullness of the divinity bodily.' Not 'bodily' because God is bodily; but either he used the word figuratively, as though in the temple made with hands God dwelt not bodily but in shadow, that is, by prefiguring signs (for he calls all those observances shadows of things to come, using this very word figuratively; for the most high God, as it is written, does not dwell in temples made with hands); or else 'bodily' is said because God dwells as in a temple in the body of Christ, which he took from the Virgin. Hence it is that when the Jews asked for a sign and he said, 'Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up', the evangelist, explaining what this meant, went on to say: 'But he was speaking of the temple of his body.'

What then? Do we think the difference between the head and the other members is this, that although divinity dwells in any member, however eminent, such as some great prophet or apostle, yet not all the fullness of divinity as in the head, which is Christ? For in our body too there is sensation in each member, but not as much as in the head, where it is wholly present in its fivefold form: for there are sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch, while in the other members there is touch alone. Or is there also, besides the fact that all the fullness of divinity dwells in that body as in a temple, something else that makes the difference between that head and the excellence of any member? There plainly is: that by a singular taking up of that man, one person was made with the Word. For of none of the saints could it be said, or can it be said, or will it be said, 'The Word became flesh'; none of the saints, by whatever excellence of grace, received the name of Only-begotten, so that what the Word of God himself is before the ages would be said of him together with the man taken up. That taking up, then, is singular, and can in no way be shared with any holy men, however excellent in wisdom and holiness. And here is a sufficiently clear and evident proof of divine grace. For who would be so sacrilegious as to dare to assert that any soul could, by the merit of free choice, bring it about that it should be another Christ? How then could one soul alone have merited to belong to the person of the only-begotten Word by a free choice given to all in common and by nature, unless a singular grace had granted it, a grace which it is right to proclaim and wrong to wish to judge?

If we have dealt with these matters properly according to our strength, as far as the Lord has helped, then when you stretch yourself to think of God as present everywhere, and not spread out through spaces set apart as if by some bulk or extension but whole everywhere, turn your mind away from all the images of bodies that human thought is accustomed to turn over. For wisdom is not thought of in that way, nor righteousness, nor finally love, of which it is written, 'God is love.' And when you think of his dwelling, think of the unity and gathering of the saints, above all in heaven, where he is especially said to dwell because there his will is done by the perfect obedience of those in whom he dwells; and then on earth, where he dwells while building his house, to be dedicated at the end of the world. And do not doubt that Christ our Lord, the only-begotten Son of God, equal to the Father, and the same the Son of Man, than whom the Father is greater, is both present whole everywhere as God and in the same temple of God as the indwelling God, and in some place of heaven because of the mode of a true body. But since I delight in speaking with you, I do not know whether I have kept the measure of a sufficient discourse, as if making up for a long silence with talkativeness. But since by the devotion and kindness with which you anticipated me you have so entered my heart that I speak with you as with a true friend, whatever you recognize as usefully worked out in the labour of our pen, give thanks to God; and if you see any faults of mine, forgive them as a very dear friend, wishing me healing with the same sincerity of love with which you grant me pardon.