On the Good of Patience

As I am about to speak of patience, dearest brothers, and to proclaim its benefits and advantages, where better could I begin than with this, that I see patience is necessary even now for your hearing, so that you cannot even do this very thing, hearing and learning, without patience? For only then is saving teaching and reasoning learned effectively, if what is said is heard patiently. Nor do I find, dearest brothers, among the other ways of heavenly discipline by which the path of our hope and faith is directed toward obtaining the divine rewards, anything more useful for life or greater for glory than that we who rely on the Lord's precepts with the obedience of fear and devotion should above all guard patience with complete observance.

The philosophers also profess to pursue it, but their patience is as false as their wisdom. For how can anyone be either wise or patient who knows neither the wisdom nor the patience of God? For he himself warns about those who think themselves wise in the world and says: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and I will reject the prudence of the prudent.” Likewise the blessed apostle Paul, full of the Holy Spirit and sent to call and form the nations, testifies and instructs, saying: “See that no one plunders you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the elements of the world, and not according to Christ, for in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead.” And in another place he says: “Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks he is wise, let him become a fool to this world, that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written: He catches the wise in their own craftiness. And again: God knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are foolish.” Therefore, if there is no true wisdom there, there cannot be true patience either. For if the patient man is the one who is humble and meek, and we see that the philosophers are neither humble nor meek but very pleased with themselves, and displeasing to God by the very fact that they please themselves, it is plain that there is no patience there, where there is the insolent boldness of affected freedom and the shameless display of a bared and half-naked chest.

But we, dearest brothers, who are philosophers not in words but in deeds, who display wisdom not in dress but in truth, who know the consciousness of virtues rather than the boasting of them, who do not speak great things but live them, let us, as servants and worshipers of God, show by spiritual obedience the patience we learn from heavenly teaching. For this virtue we have in common with God. From there patience begins; from there its glory and dignity take their origin. The origin and greatness of patience proceed from God as its author. The thing that is dear to God is to be loved by man; the divine majesty commends the good it loves. If God is our Lord and Father, let us pursue the patience of one who is both Lord and Father, for servants ought to be obedient, and it does not befit sons to be degenerate.

And what and how great is the patience in God! For, most patiently enduring the profane temples and earthly images and sacrilegious rites set up by men to the insult of his majesty and honor, he makes the day to be born and the light of the sun to rise equally upon the good and the evil; and when he waters the earth with showers, no one is excluded from his benefits, but he bestows the rains without distinction on the just and the unjust alike. We see that, by God's will, with an inseparable equality of patience, toward the guilty and the innocent, the religious and the impious, the thankful and the unthankful, the seasons obey, the elements serve, the winds blow, the springs flow, the abundance of the harvests grows, the fruits of the vines ripen, the trees overflow with fruit, the groves put forth leaves, the meadows flower. And though God is provoked by frequent, indeed continual, offenses, he tempers his indignation and patiently awaits the day of retribution once appointed; and though he has vengeance in his power, he prefers to keep patience long, bearing, that is, with mercy and delaying, so that, if it can be, malice long drawn out may at some time change, and man, wallowing in the contagion of errors and crimes, may turn to God even late, as he himself warns and says: “I do not will the death of the one who dies, so much as that he return and live.” And again: “Return to the Lord your God, for he is merciful and kind and patient and of great mercy, and one who bends his sentence against the evils inflicted.” The blessed apostle Paul, recalling this and calling the sinner back to repentance, sets it forth and says: “Or do you despise the riches of his goodness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that the patience and goodness of God leads you to repentance? But according to your hardness and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath and of the revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to each according to his works.” He called God's judgment righteous because it is late, because it is long and greatly delayed, so that the long patience of God may provide for man's life. Punishment is then paid out to the impious and the sinner when repentance for sin can no longer help.

And so that we may understand more fully, dearest brothers, that patience is a thing of God, and that whoever is gentle, patient, and meek is an imitator of God the Father, when the Lord in his Gospel was giving precepts for salvation and, bringing forth divine admonitions, was training his disciples to perfection, he laid it down and said: “You have heard that it was said: You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven, who makes his sun rise on the good and the evil and rains on the just and the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward will you have? Do not even the tax collectors do so? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing? Do not even the heathen do the same? You therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” So he said that the sons of God become perfect; so he showed and taught that those restored by the heavenly birth are brought to completion, if the patience of God the Father remains in us, if the divine likeness which Adam lost by sin is shown and shines in our actions. What glory it is to become like God, what and how great a happiness to have in one's virtues what can be equal to divine praises!

Nor, dearest brothers, did Jesus Christ, our Lord and God, teach this only in words; he also fulfilled it in deeds. And he who had said that he came down to do the will of the Father, among the other wonders of his mighty works, by which he expressed the signs of the divine majesty, also kept the Father's patience by the constancy of his endurance. In short, all his action from his very coming is marked by patience as its companion: first, in coming down from heavenly sublimity to earthly things, the Son of God does not disdain to put on man's flesh, and, though he was not himself a sinner, to bear the sins of others. Laying aside immortality for a time, he allows himself to become mortal, so that the innocent might be put to death for the salvation of the guilty. The Lord is baptized by a servant; and he who was to give remission of sins does not himself disdain to wash his body in the washing of regeneration. He fasts forty days, by whom others are fed; he hungers and felt famine, so that those who had been in a famine of the word and of grace might be filled with heavenly bread. He contends with the devil when tempted, and, content only to have conquered the enemy, attempts nothing beyond words. He did not preside over his disciples as over servants with lordly power, but, kind and meek, loved them with brotherly love, deigning even to wash the feet of the apostles, so that, while the Lord is such toward his servants, he might teach by his example what a fellow servant ought to be toward his peers and equals. Nor is it to be wondered that he was such toward the obedient, since he could bear Judas to the very end with long patience, take food with his enemy, know the enemy of his own household and not reveal him openly, and not refuse the traitor's kiss. And in bearing with the Jews, what equanimity and what patience: to bend the unbelieving to faith by persuasion, to cherish the ungrateful with kindness, to answer the contradicting gently, to bear the proud with mercy, to yield humbly to persecutors, to wish to gather the killers of the prophets, always rebellious against God, up to the very hour of the cross and passion!

And in the very passion and cross, before it came to the cruelty of death and the shedding of blood, what abusive insults he heard patiently, what mockeries of contempt he endured! He received the spittle of those who insulted him, who a little before had formed the eyes of a blind man with his own spittle; he, in whose name the devil with his angels is now scourged by his servants, himself suffered scourges; he was crowned with thorns who crowns the martyrs with eternal flowers; he was struck on the face with palms who gives true palms to the victors; he was stripped of his earthly garment who clothes others with the garment of immortality; he was fed with gall who gave heavenly food; he was given vinegar to drink who offered the cup of salvation. He, the innocent, he, the righteous, indeed innocence itself and righteousness itself, is counted among criminals, and truth is overborne by false testimonies; he who is to judge is judged, and the Word of God is led silent to the cross. And when at the Lord's cross the stars are confounded, the elements disturbed, the earth trembles, night shuts out the day, and the sun withdraws both its rays and its eyes lest it be forced to look on the crime of the Jews, he does not speak, nor is he moved, nor does he declare his majesty even in the passion itself. Everything is endured to the end, perseveringly and continually, so that full and perfect patience might be completed in Christ.

And after these things he still receives his murderers, if they turn and come to him; and with saving patience, kind in preserving, he closes his church to no one. Those adversaries, those blasphemers, those who were always enemies of his name, if they repent of their offense, if they acknowledge the crime committed, he admits not only to pardon of their crime but to the reward of the heavenly kingdom. What more patient, what kinder, can be said? Even he who shed Christ's blood is given life by Christ's blood. Such and so great is the patience of Christ; and had it not been such and so great, the church would not have the apostle Paul either.

But if we too, dearest brothers, are in Christ, if we have put him on, if he is the way of our salvation, we who follow Christ in the footsteps of salvation should walk by Christ's examples, as the apostle John instructs, saying: “He who says he abides in Christ ought himself also to walk as he walked.” Likewise Peter, on whom the church was founded by the Lord's graciousness, sets it down in his letter and says: “Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow his footsteps, who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth; who, when he was reviled, did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but he handed himself over to one who judged unjustly.”

In short, we find that the patriarchs and prophets and all the righteous, who bore the figure of Christ as an image going before, guarded nothing more for the praise of their virtues than that they held to patience with strong and steady equanimity. So Abel, first beginning and consecrating the origin of martyrdom and the suffering of the righteous, does not resist or struggle against his fratricidal brother, but, humble and meek, is patiently slain. So Abraham, believing God and first laying the root and foundation of faith, when tested in his son does not doubt or hesitate, but obeys God's precepts with all the patience of devotion. And Isaac, prefigured as a likeness of the Lord's sacrifice, is found patient when he is offered by his father to be sacrificed. And Jacob, driven by his brother from his land, patiently departs, and afterwards, with greater patience, as a suppliant brings back to concord, by peace-making gifts, his still more impious persecutor. Joseph, sold and banished by his brothers, not only patiently forgives them, but also generously and mercifully gives them free grain when they come. Moses is often despised and nearly stoned by an ungrateful and faithless people, and yet, gentle and patient, he prays to the Lord for them. And in David, from whom Christ's birth according to the flesh arises, how great and wonderful and Christian a patience: that he often had it in his hand to kill King Saul, who persecuted him and desired to kill him, and yet preferred to spare him when he was subject and delivered to him; and did not repay his enemy, but, when he was killed, even avenged him besides. So many prophets killed, so many martyrs honored with glorious deaths, all came to heavenly crowns by the praise of patience. For the crown of sorrows and sufferings cannot be received unless patience in sorrow and suffering goes before.

But so that it may be known more plainly and fully, dearest brothers, how useful and necessary patience is, let us consider the sentence of God which Adam received at the very beginning of the world and of the human race, when he forgot the precept and transgressed the law he had been given. Then we shall know how patient we ought to be in this world, we who are born in such a way that we labor here with afflictions and struggles. “Because you have listened,” he says, “to the voice of your wife and have eaten from that tree from which alone I had commanded you not to eat, cursed shall the earth be in all your works; in sorrow and groaning you shall eat of it all the days of your life. It shall bring forth thorns and thistles for you, and you shall eat the fodder of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat your bread, until you return to the earth from which you were taken; for you are earth, and to earth you shall go.” We are all bound and constrained by the chain of this sentence until, death having been completed, we depart from this world. We must be in sorrow and groaning all the days of our life; we must eat bread with sweat and labor.

Hence each one, when he is born and received into the lodging of this world, begins with tears; and though still unaware and ignorant of everything, he knows nothing else at that very first birth than to weep. By a natural foresight it laments the anxieties and labors of mortal life, and at its very beginning the untaught soul bears witness by its wailing and groaning to the storms of the world it is entering. For as long as one lives here, one sweats and labors. Nor can any other consolations help those who sweat and labor more than those of patience. And while these are fitting and necessary for all in this world, they are more so for us, who are shaken more by the devil's assaults, who, standing daily in the battle line, are wearied by the struggles of an old and practiced enemy; for whom, besides the various and constant battles of temptations, in the contest of persecutions too patrimonies must be abandoned, prison undergone, chains borne, lives spent, and the sword, beasts, fire, crosses, in short all kinds of tortures and punishments endured by faith and the strength of patience, as the Lord himself instructs and says: “These things I have spoken to you, that in me you may have peace; but in the world, affliction. But take courage, for I have overcome the world.” And if we who have renounced the devil and the world suffer the afflictions and attacks of the devil and the world more often and more violently, how much more ought we to hold to patience, with whose help and company we may endure all hostile things.

It is the saving precept of our Lord and Master: “He who endures to the end, he will be saved.” And again: “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” We must endure and persevere, dearest brothers, so that, having been admitted to the hope of truth and freedom, we may be able to attain truth and freedom themselves; for this very thing, that we are Christians, is a matter of faith and hope. But for hope and faith to reach their fruit, patience is needed. For we do not pursue present glory but future glory, as the apostle Paul also warns, saying: “We have been saved by hope. But hope that is seen is not hope; for what one sees, why does he hope for it? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it through expectation.” Waiting and patience are necessary, so that we may complete what we have begun to be, and may receive, as God presents it, what we hope for and believe. In another place, too, the same apostle instructs and teaches the righteous and those who do works, and who store up heavenly treasures for themselves from the increase of the divine interest, to be patient as well, saying: “Therefore, while we have time, let us work what is good toward all, but especially toward those of the household of faith. And let us not grow weary in doing good, for in its own time we shall reap.” He warns that no one should grow weary in working through impatience, that no one, either called away or conquered by temptations, should stop in the middle of the road of praise and glory, and what went before be lost, while what had been begun ceases to be completed; as it is written: “The righteousness of the righteous will not deliver him on whatever day he goes astray”; and again: “Hold fast what you have, lest another take your crown.” This saying exhorts us to persevere patiently and bravely, so that one who strives for the crown, with praise already near, may be crowned as his patience endures.

Patience, moreover, dearest brothers, not only guards good things but also repels adverse ones. Favoring the Holy Spirit and cleaving to heavenly and divine things, it struggles with the bulwark of its virtues against the deeds of the flesh and the body, by which the soul is stormed and captured. Let us look at a few things out of many, so that from the few the rest may be understood. Adultery, fraud, murder are mortal crimes. Let patience be strong and steady in the heart, and neither is the sanctified body, the temple of God, polluted by adultery, nor is innocence dedicated to righteousness stained by the contagion of fraud, nor, after carrying the Eucharist, is the hand stained with the sword and blood.

Love is the bond of brotherhood, the foundation of peace, the tenacity and firmness of unity; it is greater than both hope and faith; it goes before both works and martyrdom; it will remain with us always, eternal, in the heavenly kingdom. Take patience from it, and, made desolate, it does not last; take away the substance of bearing and enduring, and it continues with no roots or strength. So the apostle, when he spoke of love, joined endurance and patience to it. “Love,” he says, “is magnanimous, love is kind, love is not jealous, is not puffed up, is not provoked, does not think evil, loves all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” He showed from this that it can persevere tenaciously, because it knows how to endure all things. And in another place he says: “Bearing with one another in love, taking care to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” He proved that neither unity nor peace can be kept unless the brothers cherish one another with mutual forbearance and guard the bond of concord through the mediation of patience.

Then, that you should not swear or curse; that you should not demand back what has been taken from you; that, when you have received a slap, you should offer the other cheek to the one striking you; that you should forgive a brother who sins against you not only seventy-seven times but absolutely all his sins; that you should love your enemies; that you should pray for your adversaries and persecutors: will you be able to bear these things except by the firmness of patience and endurance? We see this done in Stephen, who, when he was being killed by the Jews with violence and stones, asked not vengeance for himself but pardon for his murderers, saying: “Lord, do not lay this sin to their charge.” It was fitting that the first martyr of Christ should be such, so that, going before the martyrs to follow by a glorious death, he might be not only a preacher of the Lord's passion but also an imitator of his most patient gentleness. What shall I say of anger, of discord, of rivalry, which ought not to be in a Christian? Let there be patience in the heart, and these cannot have a place there; or if they try to approach, they are quickly shut out and depart, so that there may remain a peaceful dwelling in the heart, where it pleases the God of peace to dwell. So the apostle warns and teaches, saying: “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and anger and indignation and clamor and blasphemy be taken away from you.” For if a Christian has come out of the rage and strife of the flesh as from the whirlwinds of the sea, and has now begun to be tranquil and gentle in the harbor of Christ, he ought to admit neither anger nor discord into his heart, since it is not lawful for him to return evil for evil or to hate.

Patience is also necessary for the various disadvantages of the flesh and the frequent and hard torments of the body by which the human race is daily wearied and shaken. For since in that first transgression of the precept strength of body departed together with immortality, and weakness came with death, and strength cannot be regained unless immortality too has been regained, we must always struggle and contend in this frailty and bodily weakness; and this struggle and contest can be sustained only by the strength of patience. And to examine and test us, various pains are brought upon us, and manifold kinds of temptation are inflicted: losses of property, burning fevers, torments of wounds, the loss of dear ones. And nothing distinguishes the unrighteous and the righteous more than that in adversity the unrighteous complains and blasphemes through impatience, while the righteous is proved by patience, as it is written: “In pain endure, and in your humiliation have patience, for gold and silver are tried in the fire.”

So Job was examined and proved, and raised to the highest summit of praise by the virtue of patience. How many darts of the devil were launched against him, how many torments applied! The loss of his property is inflicted, the bereavement of his numerous offspring imposed; the master rich in wealth and the father richer in children is suddenly neither master nor father. Then comes the devastation of sores, and the devouring punishment of worms consumes his wasting and running limbs. And so that nothing at all might remain that Job did not experience in his temptations, the devil arms his wife as well, using that ancient device of his wickedness, as if he could deceive and mislead all through a woman, as he did at the beginning. Yet Job is not broken by his heavy and thick conflicts, but amid those straits and pressures he proclaims the blessing of God with victorious patience. Tobias too, tested by the loss of his eyes after the magnificent works of his righteousness and mercy, deserved of God greatly by the praise of patience in proportion as he bore his blindness patiently.

And so that the good of patience may shine more, dearest brothers, let us consider, on the contrary, what evil impatience brings. For as patience is the good of Christ, so, on the contrary, impatience is the evil of the devil; and as the one in whom Christ dwells and abides is found patient, so the one whose mind the devil's wickedness has possessed is always impatient. Let us look at the very beginnings. The devil bore impatiently that man was made in the image of God; hence he both perished first and destroyed others. Adam, impatient of the deadly food against the heavenly precept, fell into death, and did not keep the grace received from God with patience as its guard. And that Cain killed his brother, it was because he was impatient of his brother's sacrifice and gift. And that Esau came down from greater things to lesser, he lost his birthright through impatience for lentils. What of the Jewish people, faithless and ungrateful toward the divine benefits: was it not the crime of impatience that they first departed from God? While they could not bear the delays of Moses speaking with God, they dared to demand profane gods, so as to proclaim a calf's head and an earthly image as the leaders of their journey; nor did they ever desist from the same impatience, but, always impatient of teaching and of divine guidance, by killing their prophets and all the righteous they rushed on even to the cross and blood of the Lord. Impatience also makes heretics in the church, and, after the likeness of the Jews, drives rebels against the peace and love of Christ into hostile and furious hatreds. And, not to go through everything one by one, absolutely everything that patience builds up by its works to glory, impatience destroys to ruin.

Therefore, dearest brothers, having carefully weighed both the goods of patience and the evils of impatience, let us hold with full observance the patience through which we abide in Christ and can come with Christ to God. It is abundant and manifold, not confined within a narrow limit or restrained by short boundaries. The virtue of patience extends widely, and its richness and generosity proceed indeed from the source of a single name, but, with overflowing veins, it spreads through many paths of glory; nor can anything in our actions advance to the completion of praise unless it receives from patience the firmness of completion. It is patience that both commends us to God and keeps us for him. It is patience that tempers anger, bridles the tongue, governs the mind, guards peace, rules discipline, breaks the onset of lust, suppresses the violence of pride, extinguishes the fire of rivalry, restrains the power of the rich, refreshes the want of the poor, protects in virgins their blessed integrity, in widows their laborious chastity, in those joined and married their undivided love. It makes us humble in prosperity, brave in adversity, meek against injuries and insults. It teaches us to forgive offenders quickly, and, if you yourself offend, to ask pardon long and much. It overcomes temptations, endures persecutions, completes sufferings and martyrdoms. It is patience that firmly fortifies the foundations of our faith. It is patience that raises aloft the growth of our hope. It directs our action, so that we can keep to the way of Christ while we walk by his endurance. It brings it about that we persevere as sons of God while we imitate the patience of the Father.

And since I know, dearest brothers, that very many, either from the weight of distressing injuries or from resentment against those who attack and rage against them, desire to be avenged quickly, this too must not be passed over in silence at the end: that, set as we are in these whirlwinds of a tossing world and in the persecutions of Jews or heathen and heretics too, we should wait patiently for the day of vengeance and not hurry with complaining haste to avenge our pain, since it is written: “Wait for me, says the Lord, on the day of my resurrection for a testimony, for my judgment is to the assemblies of the nations, that I may receive kings and pour out my wrath upon them.” The Lord commands us to wait and to endure with brave patience for the day of future vengeance. He also speaks in the Apocalypse, saying: “Do not seal the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is now near; and let those who persist in harming harm, and let him who is filthy be filthy still; but let the righteous do still more righteous things, and likewise the holy still holier things. See, I am coming quickly, and my reward is with me, to render to each according to his deeds.” Hence even the martyrs, crying out and, with bursting pain, hastening to their vengeance, are commanded to wait still and to show patience until the times are completed and the martyrs filled up. “And when he had opened,” he says, “the fifth seal, I saw under the altar of God the souls of those slain for the word of God and their witness, and they cried out with a loud voice, saying: How long, O Lord, holy and true, do you not judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth? And a white robe was given to each of them, and they were told to rest a little while longer, until the number of their fellow servants and brothers should be filled up, who would afterwards be killed after their example.”

But when the divine vengeance for righteous blood will come, the Holy Spirit declares through the prophet Malachi, saying: “See, the day of the Lord comes, burning like an oven, and all the foreigners and all the wicked will be stubble, and the coming day will set them on fire, says the Lord.” We read this likewise in the Psalms, where the coming of God the Judge is proclaimed, to be revered for the majesty of his judgment: “God will come manifest, our God, and will not keep silent. Fire will burn before him, and around him a great storm. He will call the heaven above and the earth, to separate his people. Gather to him his righteous ones, those who establish his covenant with sacrifices. And the heavens will declare his righteousness, for God is judge.” And Isaiah foretells the same, saying: “For see, the Lord will come like fire, and his chariots like a storm, to repay vengeance in wrath. For by the fire of the Lord they will be judged, and by his sword they will be wounded.” And again: “The Lord God of powers will go forth and crush the war; he will stir up the contest and cry out against his enemies with strength: I have kept silent; shall I keep silent forever?”

But who is this who says that he kept silent before and will not keep silent forever? Surely he who was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and like a lamb before its shearer, without a voice, did not open his mouth. Surely he who did not cry out, nor was his voice heard in the streets. Surely he who was not stubborn and did not contradict, when he gave his back to the scourges and his cheeks to the blows of the palm, and did not turn his face away from the foulness of spitting. Surely he who, when he was accused by the priests and elders, answered nothing, and, to Pilate's wonder, kept a most patient silence. This is he who, though he was silent in his passion, will not be silent afterwards in vengeance. This is our God, that is, the God not of all but of the faithful and believing, who, when he comes manifest in his second coming, will not keep silent. For though he was hidden before in humility, he will come manifest in power.

Let us wait for him, dearest brothers, our judge and avenger, who will avenge together with himself the people of his church and the number of all the righteous from the beginning of the world. Let him who hastens and hurries too much to his vengeance consider that he who avenges has not yet been avenged himself. In the Apocalypse the angel resists John when he wishes to worship him, and says: “See that you do not do it, for I am your fellow servant and of your brothers. Worship the Lord Jesus.” What and how great is the patience of the Lord Jesus, that he who is worshiped in heaven is not yet avenged on earth! Let us think of his patience, dearest brothers, in our persecutions and sufferings. Let us render to his coming the obedience of full expectation, and let us not, as servants, hasten with irreligious and shameless haste to be defended before our Lord. Let us rather persist and labor, and, watching with our whole heart and steadfast for all endurance, keep the Lord's precepts, so that, when that day of wrath and vengeance comes, we may not be punished with the impious and sinners but honored with the righteous and those who fear God.