On Patience 14–16

By these strengths of patience Isaiah is sawn in two and does not keep silent about the Lord; Stephen is stoned and asks pardon for his enemies. O most happy too was he who discharged every kind of patience against every force of the devil! Neither the driving off of his flocks, nor those riches in cattle, nor his sons taken away in one onslaught of ruin, nor finally the torment of his own body in its wounds shut him out from the patience and faith devoted to the Lord; the devil struck him with all his strength in vain. For he was not drawn away from his regard for God by so many griefs, but stood as an example and testimony for us of practising patience, in spirit as in flesh, in mind as in body, so that we may not give way either to losses of worldly goods, or to the deaths of those dearest to us, or even to the afflictions of the body. What a bier God built for the devil in that man! What a banner of his glory he raised over the enemy, when that man, at every bitter message, uttered nothing from his mouth except “Thanks be to God”; when he cursed his wife, already worn out by evils and urging him to wicked remedies! How God laughed, how the evil one was torn asunder, when Job with great equanimity scraped off the unclean overflow of his ulcer, when he playfully called back the little worms breaking out of it into the same caves and pastures of his dug-out flesh! So that workman of God's victory, all the darts of temptations blunted by the breastplate and shield of patience, soon recovered from God the soundness of his body, possessed doubled what he had lost, and, if he had wished his sons restored too, would again have been called father. But he preferred that they be given back to him on that day; secure about the Lord, he postponed so great a joy; he endured now a voluntary bereavement, so as not to live without some patience.

So God is a sufficiently trustworthy trustee of patience. If you deposit an injury with him, he is an avenger; if a loss, he is a restorer; if a grief, he is a physician; if death, he is a raiser of the dead. How much is granted to patience, that it has God as its debtor! And not undeservedly: for it protects all his decrees, it has a part in all his commands. It fortifies faith, governs peace, helps love, instructs humility, waits for repentance, sets its seal on confession, rules the flesh, preserves the spirit, bridles the tongue, restrains the hand, tramples temptations underfoot, drives away stumbling blocks, crowns martyrdoms; it consoles the poor, moderates the rich, does not overstrain the weak, does not exhaust the strong; it delights the believer, invites the Gentile, commends the servant to his master and the master to God; it adorns the woman, approves the man; it is loved in the boy, praised in the young man, looked up to in the old; in every sex, at every age, it is beautiful. Come now, if you please, let us grasp its likeness and bearing too. Its face is tranquil and calm, its brow clear, contracted by no wrinkle of sorrow or anger; its eyebrows evenly relaxed in a joyful manner, its eyes cast down in humility, not in unhappiness; its mouth sealed with the honor of silence; its color that of the carefree and harmless; frequent shaking of its head at the devil, and a threatening laugh; its robe about its breast white and close-fitting to the body, as neither puffed up nor soiled. For it sits on the throne of that most gentle and mild Spirit, who is not gathered in a whirlwind, nor darkened by cloud, but is of tender serenity, open and simple, whom Elijah saw the third time. For where God is, there too is his foster child, namely patience. So when the Spirit of God descends, patience accompanies him inseparably. If we do not admit it with the Spirit, will he always stay with us? Indeed, I doubt whether he would remain long: without his companion and servant he must be distressed in every place and time. Whatever his enemy inflicts, he will not be able to bear alone, lacking the instrument of bearing.

This is the reason of patience, this its discipline, these its works: heavenly and true, that is, Christian; not, like that patience of the nations of the earth, false and disgraceful. For so that the devil might rival the Lord in this too, as if on equal terms (except that the very difference between evil and good is equal to the magnitude of each), he too taught his own a patience of their own: I mean that which subjects husbands, sold for a dowry or trafficking in pandering, to the power of their wives; which, for the hunting of legacies from the childless, tolerates with feigned affection all the labor of forced attention; which binds the workmen of the belly, by the subjection of their liberty to the gullet, to insulting patronage. Such pursuits of patience the nations know, and they seize the name of so great a good for foul practices: patient of rivals, of the rich, of those who invite them to dinner, they live impatient of God alone. But let them see to their patience and that of their leader, which the fire beneath the earth awaits. We, however, let us love the patience of God, the patience of Christ; let us repay to him that which he himself paid out for us; let us offer the patience of the spirit, the patience of the flesh, we who believe in the resurrection of the flesh and of the spirit.