On the Christian Life preface–9

That I, a sinner and the least of all, more foolish than the rest and more unskilled than everyone, should dare to admonish you by frequent letters to pursue the way of holiness and righteousness, it is not confidence in my own righteousness, nor skill in wisdom, nor the glory of knowledge that compels me, but only the love for you which I have conceived in heart and mind according to God. It so urges and provokes me, a sinner and ignorant, to speak that, though I do not know how to speak, I cannot keep silent. I would wish, then, and would gladly desire, that you had the acquaintance of those whose wisdom is more abundant, whose eloquence is greater, whose knowledge is richer, and whose conscience is freer from every contagion of sins, who could rightly instruct you by words and by examples. For besides the fact that the darkness of folly and ignorance has so blinded our mind that it cannot perceive or say anything divine, the conscience of all our sins also convicts us besides, so that even if it could have some light it hides it; and so it comes about that, besides having nothing to say, we cannot confidently bring forward even what we have, because conscience forbids. Yet do you, until someone more skilled and better can appear to you, be content meanwhile with our rough admonitions, and pardon love, whose way is not to consider what it offers, nor to seek what it does not have, but gladly to bestow all that it has. Look not so much at the appearance of its gift as at the willingness of its mind, and consider carefully what that love could deny you which could give all that it had. It would have offered even what it did not have, if it could, since it could offer all that it had. He thirsts, then, but little, who cannot be content meanwhile with the water of a running stream until he comes to a richer and purer spring. Nor do I think that he is very hungry who, when he has common bread, waits for fine white loaves. So you too, dearest sister, whom I am sure greatly hunger and thirst for heavenly things, eat common bread meanwhile, until you find loaves white with fine flour; drink the water of a small and muddy stream, until you draw purer water from a richer one. And meanwhile let not our bread displease you, though it seems rustic. For rustic bread seems rougher, but it is stronger, and satisfies a hungry stomach and strengthens a weary one more quickly than the bread that seems fine and white. Now, then, I will speak as well as I can, and explain, as I am able, what it befits a Christian to do. I find no more fitting place to begin than first to discuss the very name "Christian" and to explain why anyone is called a Christian. HERE BEGINS THE BOOK.

None of the wise and faithful is unaware that "Christ" means "anointed." It is plain that the anointed were always only holy men, fully worthy of God, and none other than prophets or priests or kings. And so great was the mystery of that anointing that among the Jewish people not all, but quite few out of very many, deserved to receive it; and this until the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, whom God anointed with the oil of gladness, that is, with the Holy Spirit, above his fellows. From that time those who believe in him and have been cleansed by the sanctification of his baptism are anointed, not some, as it had been under the Law, but all, as prophets and priests and kings. By the example of this anointing we are admonished what we ought to be: that in those in whom the anointing is so holy, the way of life may be no less holy. For from the sacrament of this anointing comes the name and title both of Christ and of all Christians, that is, of those who believe in Christ: a name which he takes in vain who does not imitate Christ. For what does it profit you to be called what you are not, and to usurp a name that is not yours? But if it delights you to be a Christian, do the things that are Christ's, and take the name of Christian for yourself deservedly. Or perhaps you desire not to be, but to be called? That is quite shameful and wretched, to want to be called what you are not. For no one passes over to Christ in such a way as to be called a Christian and not be one. He who is called a Christian professes that he has Christ as Lord. And he truly has him, if he obeys and serves him in all things. If not, he who calls himself the servant of one whom he will not serve is not Christ's servant but his mocker and derider. Hence a double judgment is kept for him: for mocking God, whom he called Lord without cause, and for the quality of his sin.

But the long patience of the merciful God makes many unbelieving, shameless and faithless people sin without fear, so that they do not think God the avenger of their sins because he does not wish to punish sinners at once. Wretched and ungrateful, careless of their own salvation, they impute even this to God, that their destruction is deferred, not knowing that the providence of God is maintained for a double reason: that the human race may be served by his long patience, and that he may not be judged impatient if he willed to condemn sinners immediately. For if he were not so patient, the human race would long ago have ceased from its origin; nor would we have righteous people from among sinners, if God wished to punish at once those who sin. For we know and read of some who formerly, deceived by the blindness of ignorance or by faithlessness or by the vanity of youth, were held liable to many and various kinds of sins, and afterwards, through the most merciful patience of God who bore with them, were converted from error and did even greater works of righteousness than the sins they had committed before. For God does not forgive sins but defers them; nor does he free a persevering sinner from death, but waits patiently that he may be converted, even late, and live; as the blessed apostle Peter says: "The Lord does not delay his promises, but acts patiently for your sake, not wishing any to perish, but all to be turned to repentance." He, as one devoted, kind and merciful, does not strike you at once, so that you may recognize how great his goodness toward you is and how great his mercy, he who would rather wait for you, a sinner and ungodly, and save you when converted, than punish you as you sin; as the Lord himself speaks through the prophet, and shows with the kindness of his own voice how much mercy and goodness he wishes to bestow on man, saying: "And if the wicked man turns from all the iniquities he has done, and keeps my commandments, and does judgment and righteousness and mercy, he shall surely live and shall not die; all his transgressions which he has committed shall not be remembered; in the righteousness which he has done he shall live." And: "Do I at all desire the death of the unrighteous, says Adonai the Lord, rather than that he turn from his evil way and I make him live?" And elsewhere: "The iniquity of the wicked shall not harm him, on whatever day he turns from his iniquity." And again: "Turn, sons, turning, and I will heal your brokenness." See how God warns and calls you to turn from your sins, even late, so that you may be saved. See how he urges one already liable to death to live, how gently, how mercifully he invites, so that he does not deny a father's love even to sinners; and he still calls them sons who by sinning have lost God as Father; as he himself testifies elsewhere, with a tearful voice and a pitiable lament, that he has lost sinners, saying: "I have become childless; I have lost my people because of their sins." Know from this, then, how God loves you, whom he would rather have live than perish. And do you despise and look down on him who loves you more than you love yourself, who wills that you live when you desire to die? "I do not will," says the Lord, "the death of sinners, but that they be converted and live." You, then, willed to die by sinning; he wills you to live by turning. O fool, O irreverent and ungrateful one, who do not consent even in this to God, who wishes to have mercy on you, who would rather save you by his goodness than have you perish by your sin!

Let none of us, then, flatter ourselves on this account; let no one deceive himself with a foolish and vain supposition; let no one sin securely and freely because the wrath and judgment of God do not come upon sinners at once, so as to think from this that he has sinned with impunity because he is not immediately destroyed; but let him know that God defers rather than overlooks, and that his wrath, rather than pardon, will come upon sinners suddenly and unexpectedly; as it is written: "Do not say, I have sinned, and what sad thing has happened to me? For the Most High is a patient repayer." And elsewhere: "Do not delay to turn to the Lord, and do not put it off from day to day; for his wrath will come suddenly." This is fulfilled in many on whom, for their excessive sins, the wrath of God both comes in the present and is kept for the future. But no one understands this, no one recognizes it; nor does anyone suffering adversity think it inflicted for his own evils, but supposes that what he has endured belongs to ordinary experience rather than to his crime. And so God does not seem to punish sinners in the present, because when he punishes it is not recognized. For there are many, whom no one perceives, who because of the multitude of their sins are judged even in the present, before the day of judgment. Or let anyone say whether he has been able to see a sacrilegious man, a man of blood, a robber, a forger, a murderer, a thief, a cheat, an adulterer, or one guilty of other crimes, live long even in the present time? For we have seen the examples of very many, by which we can prove that the wicked and ungodly, when the end of their sins has been completed, are judged even in this time, and that the present life is denied them no less than the future. But he can understand this more easily who has watched, through various times, the destruction of various judges who lived ungodly and wicked lives. The more exalted their power, the greater their boldness for sinning, which believes that everything it can do is lawful for it; and while those who judge others do not fear another's judgment, they are headlong in sin. So it comes about that those who do not fear the judgment of man in doing wrong feel God as judge and avenger. Of these, some who had often shed the blood of innocent souls so felt the wrath and judgment of God that they themselves were afterwards forced to shed their own blood, who had gladly shed another's. Others who had committed similar things were so struck down by God's indignation that they lay unburied and became food for wild beasts and the birds of the sky. Others again, who had unjustly slain an innumerable multitude of people, were cut to pieces limb by limb, so that the cutting of their limbs was no less than the number of those they had caused to be killed. And those by whose judgment many women were made widows when their husbands were unjustly slain, and many orphans left when their fathers were killed, on whom besides bereavement beggary and nakedness were brought (for they added to impiety and cruelty what was lacking, by despoiling also the children of those they had caused to be killed): now their own wives are widows and their sons orphans, and daily need the bread of others. Does it not seem to you that the testimony of God was fulfilled in them, threatening and saying: "You shall not afflict the widow and the orphans. If you afflict them and they cry out to me, I will hear their cry, and I will be angry in my mind, and I will slay you with the sword, and your wives shall be widows and your sons orphans"? O unworthy wickedness! O criminal deed! O excessive and unbearable cruelty! Two most savage and atrocious things are done at one time: murder is done that robbery may follow; husbands are killed, fathers are killed, so that widows and orphans may be despoiled more easily; and so each rejoices in another's death as if he himself were not to die some day. Rightly, then, is God moved by such cruelties and impieties. Rightly he shows his judgment in some even before the time. Rightly neither present nor future life is granted to such people. By their example we are admonished not to think that the wicked and ungodly can escape the judgment of God even in the present. But it befits us rather to hold this: that each person is borne by the patience of God so long as he has not yet filled up the limit and end of his sins; when this is completed, he is struck at once, and no pardon is any longer kept for him.

That there is a fixed measure and limit of sins is declared by the testimony of God himself. And that each is judged sooner or later, as he has filled up the measure of his sins, is most plainly shown when God speaks to Abraham about the destruction and burning of the Sodomites and Gomorrhaeans, who had already filled up their sins, saying: "The cry of the Sodomites and Gomorrhaeans is full, and their sins are very great and full." But what does he say of the Amorites, who had not yet finished their sins, who are known to have been destroyed many years after the aforesaid cities were burned? "The sins of the Amorites are not yet full until now." By this example we are most plainly instructed and taught that each is brought to an end according to the fullness of his sins, and is borne with, so that he may be converted, as long as he has not reached the full heap of his offences. Let no one deceive himself, I say, let no one mislead himself: God does not love the wicked; he does not love sinners; he does not love the unjust, the rapacious, the cruel, the ungodly; but he loves the good, the righteous, the devout, the humble, the innocent, the gentle; as it is written: "For you are not a God who wills iniquity. The wicked shall not dwell beside you, nor shall the unjust remain before your eyes. You hate all who work iniquity; you will destroy all who speak a lie."

But someone says: Why is it that we see the good also perish with the wicked? They do not perish but escape, who are freed from the company and persecutions of the wicked and transferred to rest. Those indeed die and perish whom, as they leave this world, the torment and punishment of a still greater judgment awaits. For the good are called before their time, so as not to be troubled longer by the harmful; but the wicked and ungodly are taken away, so as not to persecute the good any longer. The righteous are called from pressures, tribulations and straits to rest; but the ungodly are snatched from luxuries, riches and delights to punishment. For the former go to judge, the latter to be judged; the former to be avenged, the latter that vengeance may be executed on them; as it is written: "But the righteous, if he is overtaken by death, will be in refreshment." And again: "Living among sinners, he was taken away." And again: "For his soul was pleasing to God; therefore he hastened to take him out of the midst of iniquity." And again: "With the ungodly the journey is to death; but they are in peace." You see, then, that this dissolution of the body is rest for the righteous and the worshippers of God, not punishment; and that when they are dissolved they are freed rather than perish. And therefore the faithful neither fear nor dread that dissolution, but rather desire and long for it to come, through which they understand that rest, not punishment, is given them. But the wicked and ungodly, conscious of their crimes, rightly dread it with natural foresight, knowing well that through it they are judged. Therefore, with this reason given and accepted, we ought not to sin at all, especially since we know that judgment for sinners is both in the present and kept for the future.

Nor let us flatter ourselves in this, merely in the name, that we are called Christians; but let us believe that we shall be judged for this too, if we claim for ourselves in vain a name that is not ours. Or if anyone is so unbelieving, so faithless, so stubborn, so obstinate, so bold, that he does not fear the wrath and indignation of God the judge, which will one day come, let him at least blush at human custom; and let him see how stupid, how foolish, how senseless he is judged even by the gentiles themselves, whose vanity and madness are so great that he takes for himself a name that is not his. For who is so vain and wretched as to dare to profess himself an advocate when he does not know letters? Who is so insane and senseless as to profess himself a soldier, not knowing how to bear arms? For no one obtains any name without cause. To be called a shoemaker, one must make shoes; that someone be called a smith or craftsman, skill in the craft brings it about; that someone be called a merchant, he sells dearer what he bought cheaper. By such examples we recognize that there is no name without an act, but every name comes from an act. How, then, are you called a Christian, in whom there is no act of a Christian? "Christian" is a name of righteousness, goodness, integrity, patience, chastity, prudence, humility, kindness, innocence and devotion; and how do you defend and claim it for yourself, in whom of so many things not even a few remain? He is a Christian who is one not in name only but in deed; who imitates and follows Christ in all things; who is holy, innocent, undefiled, untouched; in whose breast malice has no place, in whose breast only devotion and goodness abide; who knows not how to harm or injure anyone, but to bring help to all. He is a Christian who, after Christ's example, knows not how to hate even enemies, but rather to do good to those who oppose him, and to pray for his persecutors and foes: for whoever is ready to injure or harm anyone lies when he says he is a Christian. He is a Christian who can say with a just voice: "I have harmed no one; I have lived justly with all."

But lest anyone think or believe that I speak from my own mind, or suppose that he can easily despise me because I speak by my own will rather than by the authority of the law, I will now begin to bring forward examples from that law itself, old as well as new, by whose precepts the way to life is opened to us, and to show what God commanded the human race to observe from the first state of the world, and in what he was always pleased or offended. For I read that after Adam, who was the first formed by God (of whose case I need not speak now), at the beginning of the world Cain and Abel were full brothers; of whom one pleased God because he was innocent and righteous, while the other, because he was unjust and guilty, could not please God. Then, after some time had passed, Scripture shows that Enoch was very righteous, to whom righteousness brought so much that he did not even know present death, but was singularly caught up to immortality out of the midst of all mortals. By his example it is shown that one righteous person is dearer to God than very many sinners. Noah too was righteous, and we know what the merit of righteousness gained for him: that life was given to him alone with his family, while the whole world was condemned by the flood. What Abraham obtained by the merit of faith and righteousness Scripture testifies: that at that time he alone was the friend of God on earth, since he alone had been found righteous. And that Lot, when all were perishing, was set free from the burning of the Sodomites, what else was it than the merit of righteousness? It would be long to go through them one by one and review the merits of all.

It befits us to know how God taught the Jewish people, whom he chose to belong to himself first, from the seed of Abraham, above the other nations; what he commanded them to do and observe in order to please him. In the first place, that he made them migrate into a foreign province, that is, into Egypt, leaving the region in which they had always wished to dwell and deserting their homeland, I think was done not without cause nor without the providence of God. I think the reason was this: God, wishing to train his people, whom he had chosen, in mercy, devotion, righteousness and the other good works, willed that they should for a time be strangers and captives in a foreign country, so that they might learn the misery of captivity and of exile and of toil, and might afterwards more readily know how to have mercy on strangers and toilers, having first learned the miseries of exile themselves. For no one has pity on a stranger and newcomer so willingly as one who knows the hardships of exile. No one so brings a guest without a roof into his own lodging as one who has needed another's. No one so feeds the hungry, no one so gives drink to the thirsty, as one who has suffered thirst and hunger. No one so readily covers the naked with his own clothes as one who knows the harm of nakedness and cold. No one so helps the afflicted, wretched and toiling as one who has experienced the chances of afflictions, miseries and toils. Rightly, then, God, the teacher of mercy and devotion, who was afterwards to give the law through which he would hand on to his people the precepts of mercy and devotion and all good works, willed that they should first suffer all pressures, tribulations and straits in a foreign land, so that afterwards they might more readily have mercy on those suffering such things, and obey his commands. So you may think of him as a good farmer, who before he sows the seed tames the earth for a long time with ploughs and rakes, lest the seed he is going to entrust to it perish: so too God first long softens and tames his people before he imparts to them the seed of saving commands. Finally, so that it may be plainer that they endured these things for this reason, let us look at the commands of the Lord himself, saying: "You shall not afflict the stranger, nor oppress him, for you too were strangers in the land of Egypt." And again we read: "God is great, who does not accept persons nor take gifts, doing justice for the proselyte, the orphan and the widow. Love to give bread and clothing, for you yourself were in the land of Egypt." And elsewhere he says: "When you reap the harvest in your field and forget a sheaf, you shall not go back to take it; it shall be for the proselyte and the orphan and the widow, that God may bless you in the works of your hands; and you shall remember that you were a servant in the land of Egypt; therefore I command you this word." From this it is easily seen and recognized that that people was afflicted with all miseries for this reason, that it might be taught by its own example to have mercy on others; as it is written: "For you taught your people by such works that the righteous must be humane." What kind of people he wishes his own to be is, I think, widely evident; and by what works it can please him is proved by very many examples. But lest what we have said seem too little to show his will, let us add the precepts of the Law and the Prophets, and prove by the testimonies of the old as well as the new law what pleases God and always has pleased him, and what he has commanded most often to be done and observed. "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength"; and "You shall love your neighbour as yourself." That this is the chief command of the Law and the Prophets is proved by the testimony of our Lord and Saviour, who says: "On these two commands hang the whole law and the prophets." This cannot be annulled or changed: that every precept both of the Law and of the Prophets consists in these two commands, and that he has fulfilled the law who has been able to fulfil these; for nothing else is sought in the old law than that you love God and your neighbour. And truly he is the fulfiller and doer of the law who sins neither against God nor against his neighbour,

But what it is to love God and what to love one's neighbour I ought by no means to pass over or conceal. He loves God who obeys him in all his commands. He loves God who keeps his laws and precepts. He loves God who, as God is holy, also sanctifies himself, as it is written: "Be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy." He loves God who fulfils also the saying of the prophet: "You who love the Lord, hate evil." He loves God who thinks nothing but heavenly and divine things. For God is a lover of nothing but holiness and righteousness and devotion; and he loves God who does nothing other than what God is seen to love. What it is to love God, the teaching of our Lord and Saviour declares, saying: "He who hears my words and does them, he it is who loves me." If, then, he loves God who does what God commands, he who does not do it does not love him. And everyone who does not love, hates. Hence it is clear and plain that God is hated by those who do not keep his commands; of whom I think the prophet said: "Did I not hate those who hated you, Lord, and pine away over your enemies? I hated them with perfect hatred, and they became my enemies." The righteous prophet hates sinners, adulterers and the unjust, and those who spurn God's commands; as he says in another place: "I saw the transgressors of the covenant, and I pined away." And again: "I have hated the wicked, and loved your law." See, then, how righteous, how upright and holy we ought to be, for whom not only is it unlawful to live wickedly, but even to keep acquaintance with those who live wickedly. The blessed apostle too shows this plainly, who commanded that bread should not even be broken with sinners, saying: "If anyone named a brother among you is a fornicator, or greedy, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a robber, do not even eat with such a one." God wished his people to be holy and a stranger to every contagion of injustice and iniquity. He wished it to be such, so righteous, so devout, so pure, so spotless, so simple, that the gentiles would find nothing in it to reproach, but something to admire, and would say: "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people he has chosen as his inheritance." Such ought the worshippers and servants of God to be: gentle, grave, prudent, devout, blameless, untouched, spotless; so that whoever sees them is amazed and marvels and says: "Truly these are men of God, whose way of life is such." The man of God ought so to show himself and act that there is no one who does not wish to see him, who does not desire to hear him; that no one, when he sees him, does not believe him to be a son of God; so that the prophetic saying may truly be fulfilled in him: "His mouth is sweetness, and he is altogether desire." For if a Christian shows himself such, if a servant of God shows himself such, that by his way of life he becomes equal to those who serve demons and idols, God will begin to be blasphemed through him, and it will be said: "What a Christian servant of God! Whose acts are so evil, whose works so base, whose way of life so worthless, whose life so ungodly, so criminal, so luxurious, so sordid!" And he will be guilty of that prophecy: "For the name of God is blasphemed through you among the gentiles." But woe to those through whom the name of the Lord has been blasphemed. For God desires and requires nothing more from us than that his name should be magnified by all through our acts; as it is written: "Offer the sacrifice of praise." For this is the sacrifice which God seeks and loves above all victims: that through the works of our righteousness his name may be praised everywhere, and that he may be proved to be the true God by the act and work of his servants. Those, then, love God who practise nothing but what glorifies his name.