On the Governance of God 1.37–1.60

God at once joins to this story the words: “The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah has multiplied, and their sin has become exceedingly grievous.” “The cry,” he says, “of Sodom and Gomorrah has multiplied.” Well did he say that sins carry a cry within them; for great without doubt is the cry of sinners, which rises from earth to heaven. But why does he testify that men’s sins as it were cry out? Because God says his ears are struck by the cries of sins, so that the punishment of sinners may not be postponed. And truly it is a cry, and a great cry, when God’s kindness is overcome by the cries of sins so that he is compelled to punish the sinners. So the Lord shows how unwillingly he punishes even the gravest sinners, saying that the cry of Sodom had risen to him. That is to say: “My mercy urges me to spare, but the cry of sins compels me to punish.” When he had said these things, what followed?

Angels are sent to Sodom; they set out, they enter; they are cherished by the service of the good and harassed by the outrage of the wicked; the wicked are blinded, the upright are saved. Lot with his devout family is led out of the city; the city with its impious inhabitants is burned up. I ask here whether God burned the wicked with judgment or without judgment. Whoever says the Sodomites were punished by God without judgment accuses God of injustice; but if he destroyed the wicked with judgment, he judged. He judged indeed, and judged already, as it were, after the pattern of the future judgment; for it is plain that Gehenna will burn in the future for the punishment of the wicked, and heavenly fire consumed Sodom and its neighboring cities.

In the present, God wished to declare the judgment that is to come, when he sent Gehenna from heaven upon an impious people, as the apostle also says that God condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to overthrow, making them an example to those who would act impiously; though what was done there had more of mercy than of severity. For that he postponed the punishment so long was mercy; that he punished at last was justice. And so when God sent angels to Sodom, he wished to prove this to us, that he punishes even the wicked unwillingly; so that when we read what the angels endured from the Sodomites and saw the enormity of their crimes, the baseness of their offenses, the obscenity of their lusts, God might prove to us that he himself did not wish to destroy them, but that they themselves extorted their destruction.

I could bring forward innumerable instances, but I fear that, while striving to prove the matter sufficiently, we may seem to have woven a history. Moses, placed in the desert, feeds a flock, sees a bush burning, hears God from the bush, receives commands, is exalted with power, is sent to Pharaoh; he comes, he speaks, he is despised, he prevails. Egypt is struck; Pharaoh’s disobedience is scourged, and not in one way only, so that the sacrilegious man might be the more tortured by the variety of punishment. And finally? Ten times he rebels, ten times he is scourged. What, then, do we say? I think that in all these things you recognize that God both cares for human affairs and judges them. For in Egypt then, it is clear, God’s judgment was not single but manifold; for as often as he struck the rebellious Egyptians, so often he judged.

But after what we have said, what followed? Israel is released; having celebrated the Passover, it despoils the Egyptians and departs rich. Pharaoh repents, gathers his army, reaches the fugitives, comes close to their camp, is separated by darkness; the sea is dried, Israel walks through, freed by the obliging patience of the waves. Pharaoh follows; the sea rolls back upon him, he is destroyed with the flood covering him. I think God’s judgment in these events is no longer obscure, and indeed not judgment only but also restraint and patience: for it was patience that the rebellious Egyptians were often struck, judgment that those stubborn in obstinacy were condemned to death.

So after this sequence of events the Hebrew nation, victorious without war, enters the desert. It makes a journey without a road, a traveller without a way, with God going before, honored by divine fellowship in arms, powerful by heavenly guidance, following a moving pillar, cloudy by day, fiery by night, taking on colors suited to the difference of times, so as both to mark off the light of day with a dusky shade and to make the darkness of night shine with flaming brightness.

Add to this springs suddenly born; add waters made wholesome, whether given or changed, keeping their appearance while leaving their nature; add mountain summits opened with bursting streams; add dusty fields gushing with new torrents; add flocks of birds brought into the travellers’ camp, God with most indulgent kindness serving not only the uses but even the pleasures of men; food given daily for forty years by the service of the heavens; the skies continually dewy with sweet food, flowing not only for sustenance but even for delight. Add men who felt in no part of their limbs the growth and decline of human bodies: nails not grown, teeth not worn away, hair always the same, feet not worn, clothes not torn, shoes not broken, an overflowing honor of men reaching even to the dignity of their humble garments. Add to this God descending to earth for the work of teaching a nation; God the Son accommodating himself to earthly eyes; a people of innumerable multitude admitted to the fellowship of divine intimacy, mighty in the honor of sacred friendship. Add to this thunders, add lightnings, the terrible sounds of heavenly trumpets, the dreadful crash of the whole air on every side, the skies roaring with sacred blasts, fires, darkness, clouds full of God, the Lord speaking face to face, the law resounding from the divine mouth, letters, characters, pages cut by the finger of God, a stone volume, a people learning and God teaching, and, with men and angels almost mingled, one school of heaven and earth.

For so it is written that when Moses had reported the words of the people to the Lord, the Lord said to him: “Now I will come to you in the darkness of a cloud, so that the people may hear me speaking to you.” And a little after: “Behold,” it says, “thunders began to be heard and lightnings to flash and a very dense cloud to cover the mountain.” And again: “And the Lord came down upon Mount Sinai, on the very top of the mountain.” And then: “And he spoke with Moses while all saw that the pillar of cloud stood at the door of the tabernacle; and they stood and worshipped at the doors of their tents; the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man is accustomed to speak to his friend.” Since this is so, does God seem to have care of man, granting such great things, bestowing such great things, making a lowly little man a sharer in his speech and admitting him, as it were, to the fellowship of a sacred companionship, opening to him his palms full of immortal riches, nourishing them with a cup of nectar, feeding them with heavenly food? What greater care of his governance, I ask, could he show them, what greater affection, than that, while they lived the life of the present age, they should already possess an image of future blessedness?

But perhaps the reply here will be that God once had this care for men but now has none at all. Why do we believe this? Perhaps because we do not, like them then, eat manna daily, while we reap fields full of wheat harvests? Because we do not catch quails throwing themselves into human hands, while we devour every kind of bird, cattle, and beast? Because we do not catch with open mouths waters leaping from rocks, while we fill our wine-houses with the fruits of the vineyards?

I add something more: that we ourselves, who say that they were then in God’s care and we are neglected by God, if we could take the past goods instead of the present ones, would wholly reject the choice of that condition. For we would not wish to lose what we now have in order to possess what they then enjoyed; not that we now have better things than that nation then had, but because even they, who were then fed daily by the service of heaven and of God, preferred the old gluttony of the belly to the present goods, sad at the most shameful memory of fleshly foods and sickening with a most foul love of onions and garlic; not that what they had used before was better, but because what we do now they did then. They loathed what was and desired what was not; we praise more what was then than what is now, not because, if we had the choice, we would always rather have that, but because this is the usual vice of the human mind,

always to want more what is lacking; and because, as the poet says, other people’s things please us, and ours please others more. There is added also what is almost general to every man, that he is always ungrateful to God; and by this ingrained and, as it were, inborn evil all bind one another to disparage God’s benefits so as not to recognize themselves as debtors. But enough of this. Now let us return to the order of the business begun earlier, although, I think, we have already proved what we proposed not moderately; but let us add something more, if you please, because it is better to prove something more than necessary than perhaps less than the business requires.

The Hebrew people, once freed from the yoke of Pharaoh, transgressed at Mount Sinai and was at once struck by the Lord for its error. For so it is written: “So the Lord struck the people for the error of the calf which Aaron had made.” What greater and plainer judgment could God pass on sinners than that punishment should at once overtake the sinners? And yet, since the whole people was guilty, why was condemnation not sent on all? Because the kind Lord struck a part with the sword of his sentence so as to correct a part by the example, and to show to all at once both strictness by restraining and kindness by pardoning. It was strictness that he chastised, kindness that he spared, though both in unequal measure: more was then given to kindness than to severity. This was so because, since the most indulgent Lord always shows himself more inclined to compassion than to vengeance, though in restraining part of the Jewish host the divine strictness then gave something to judgment and severity, kindness claimed the greater portion of the people for itself, specially and particularly out of mercy for that innumerable people, so that punishment might not consume all whom guilt embraced.

But toward certain persons and families, as we read, God’s strictness is inexorable, as when, while the people rested on the sabbath, the man who had presumed to gather wood was killed; for though the man’s act itself seemed harmless, the observance of the day made him criminal. Or when, of two contending in a quarrel, one was punished with death because he had blasphemed. For so it is written: “Now the son of an Israelite woman, whom she had borne to an Egyptian man among the children of Israel, quarrelled in the camp with an Israelite man; and when he had blasphemed the Lord and cursed him, he was brought to Moses.” And a little after: “They put him in prison,” it says, “until they should see what the Lord commanded; and he spoke to Moses, saying: Bring the blasphemer outside the camp, and let all who heard lay their hands on his head, and let the whole people stone him.”

Is not God’s judgment present and manifest here, and a sentence pronounced by heavenly trial, as it were after the form of human examination? First the sinner was arrested, second brought, as it were, before a tribunal, third accused, then sent to prison, finally punished by the authority of heavenly judgment; and not only punished, but punished under testimony, so that justice, not power, might be seen to condemn the accused, the example serving the correction of all, so that no one afterward would commit what the whole people had punished in one man. By this reasoning and judgment, then, God both now does and always has done all things, so that whatever individuals suffered would serve the correction of all.

So it was too when Abihu and Nadab, men of priestly blood, were consumed by heavenly fire: in them God wished to show not only judgment but present and impending judgment. For so it is written that, when fire had gone out from the Lord and devoured the burnt offering, “Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took their censers and put fire and incense on them, offering before the Lord strange fire, which had not been commanded them; and fire went out from the Lord and devoured them, and they died before the Lord.” What else did he wish to show than his right hand stretched over us and his sword continually hanging over us, who punished the error of these men at once in the very act, and the sinners’ deed was hardly completed before punishment avenged the sin? Though not only this was done in this matter,

but many other things too. For since what was punished in them was not an impious mind but too heedless a rashness, the Lord surely declared what punishment those would deserve who committed anything out of contempt for the Godhead, when even those were struck by God who had sinned only by thoughtlessness of mind; or how guilty those would be who acted against their Lord’s command, when even those were so punished who had done what was not commanded. Moreover, by this God also wished to provide for our correction through the strictness of a wholesome example, so that all lay people might understand how much they must fear the wrath of God, when neither the merit of their father nor the privilege of the sacred ministry rescued the sons of a priest from present punishment.

But why do I speak of those whose thoughtlessness in some way touched God and amounted to an injury to heaven? Miriam speaks against Moses and is punished, and not only punished but punished in the manner of a trial. First she is summoned to judgment, then accused, third scourged. In the rebuke she receives the force of the sentence; in the leprosy she suffers the penalty of the guilty. Yet this coercion humbled not Miriam only but Aaron too, because, though it was not fitting that the high priest be disfigured by leprosy, the Lord’s chastisement scourged him also; and not only this, but in the punishment Miriam suffers, Aaron also is punished as a sharer in the fault; for Miriam is afflicted with punishment so that Aaron may be fined with shame.

Moreover, so that we might recognize that in some cases the form of divine judgment is inexorable, he did not pardon even at the intercession of the one who had been wronged. For so we read that the Lord said to Aaron and Miriam: “Why then did you not fear to speak against my servant Moses? And being angry he went away. And behold, Miriam appeared white with leprosy like snow; and Moses cried to the Lord, saying: I beseech you, Lord, heal her. The Lord answered him: If her father had spat in her face, ought she not to have been covered with shame at least ten days? Let her be separated seven days outside the camp, and afterwards she shall be called back.” Let what we have said of this kind of division and this part of the discourse suffice; for it is endless to argue about everything, which is too long even to enumerate without argument. But let us still add something.

The Hebrew nation regrets having left Egypt: it is struck. It then complains of being wearied by the labor of the journey: it is afflicted. It desires meat: it is scourged. And because, while eating manna daily, it wishes to fill the greed of the belly with allurements, it is indeed sated with the craving it desired, but in that very satiety it is tormented. “For while the food was still in their mouth,” says Scripture, “the wrath of God came up upon them and killed very many of them and struck down the chosen of Israel.”

On rebels against Moses: he is extinguished. Korah reviles: he is overwhelmed. Dathan and Abiram murmur: they are swallowed up. “For the earth opened,” it says, “and swallowed Dathan and covered the congregation of Abiram.” Also two hundred and fifty leading men, as the sacred word testifies, who were called by name at the time of assembly, rose up against Moses. “And when they had stood against Moses and Aaron, they said: Let it be enough for you, since the whole multitude is of holy ones and the Lord is among them: why do you lift yourselves up over the people of the Lord?” And what after this? “Fire,” it says, “went out from the Lord and killed the two hundred and fifty men who were offering incense.”

But though such great things were done, heavenly care did not avail. Coercion was very often applied, but amendment did not follow. For as we, though continually scourged, are not corrected, so they too, though very often struck, were not amended. For what is written? “But the whole multitude of the children of Israel murmured the next day against Moses and Aaron, saying: You have killed the people of the Lord.” And what then? At once fourteen thousand seven hundred men were struck and consumed by divine fire.

Since the whole multitude of the people then sinned, why was it not punished in all? Especially since from the sedition of Korah I mentioned above no one escaped. Why did God wish the whole assembly of sinners to be killed there, and here only a portion? Because the Lord, full of justice and mercy, grants much to his kindness through indulgence and to his severity through discipline. So there he gave to discipline, so that the punishment of all the guilty might serve the amendment of all; here he gave to his mercy, so that the whole people might not perish.

And yet, though he acted so mercifully, because chastisement so often repeated on part of the people did not avail, at last he condemned all to death; which ought to serve our fear and amendment together, so that we who are not corrected at all by their example may not perhaps be punished by their end. For there is no doubt what was done with them. For though the whole Hebrew nation came out of Egypt in order to enter the land of promise, none entered except two holy men. For so it is written: “The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: How long does this most wicked multitude murmur against me? As I live, says the Lord, as you have spoken today before me, so will I do to you: in this wilderness your corpses shall lie.” And what then? “Your little ones,” he says, “of whom you said they would be prey to enemies, I will bring in, that they may see the land which displeased you; your corpses shall lie in the wilderness.” And what next? “All,” it says, “died and were struck in the sight of the Lord.”

What is there that is not in all these things? Do you want to see a ruler? Behold, he both corrects the present and arranges the future. Do you want to see a severe judge? Behold, he punishes the guilty. Do you want to see one just and kind? Behold, he spares the innocent. Do you want to see a judge in all things? Behold, judgment is everywhere. For as judge he accuses and as judge he rules; the judge pronounces sentence, the judge destroys the guilty, the judge rewards the innocent.