Works (City of God, On the Trinity, etc.) 43 part 1/5

I. 1. You have asked me, brother Deogratias, that I should write something to you concerning the catechizing of the uninstructed, which might be of use to you. For you said that often at Carthage, where you are a deacon, there are brought to you those who are to be first instructed in the Christian faith, because you are esteemed to have an abundant faculty for catechizing, both by the doctrine of the faith and by the sweetness of speech: but that you yourself almost always suffer straits as to how that very thing whereby we are Christians by believing may be fittingly imparted; whence the narration is to be begun, and to what point it is to be carried through; whether, the narration being ended, we ought to add some exhortation, or precepts only, by whose observance he to whom we speak may know that the Christian life and profession is to be maintained.

And you confessed and complained that it had often befallen you that, in a long and lukewarm discourse, you yourself became worthless in your own eyes and grew wearisome to yourself, still more so to him whom you were instructing by speaking, and to the others who were present as hearers: and that by this necessity you were compelled to constrain me, by that charity which I owe you, not to be reluctant, amid my occupations, to write something to you on this matter. 2. But I am compelled, not only by that charity which I owe you familiarly, but also by that which I owe universally to our mother the Church, by charity and service, if by my labour — which by the bounty of our Lord I am able to render — the Lord bids that those same persons whom He has made my brethren be aided, in no wise to refuse, but rather with a ready and devoted will to undertake it.

For the more I desire that the Lord's money be more widely distributed, the more it behoves me — if I know that any of my fellow-servants the dispensers feel any difficulty in the disbursing — to do what in me lies, that they may be able easily and expeditiously to do what they diligently and zealously wish. II. 3. But as to what pertains properly to your own consideration, I would not have you moved by the fact that you have often seemed to yourself to have a mean and wearisome discourse. For it may be that it did not so seem to him whom you were instructing, but that, because you were desiring that something better should be heard, that which you were saying seemed to you unworthy of the ears of others. For to me too my own discourse almost always displeases.

For I am greedy of something better, which I often enjoy within, before I begin to unfold it in sounding words: and when I prove less than it is known to me within, I am saddened that my tongue could not suffice to my heart. For I wish that whoever hears me may understand all that I understand; and I feel that I do not speak so as to bring this about: chiefly because that understanding floods the mind as it were with a rapid flash; whereas that utterance is slow and long, and far unlike it: and while this is being unrolled, already that has hidden itself away in its secret places: yet because it has in a wondrous way imprinted certain traces upon the memory, those traces endure along with the little delays of the syllables;

and from these same traces we effect sounding signs, which are called a language, whether Latin, or Greek, or Hebrew, or any other; whether these signs be thought, or even be uttered by the voice; whereas those traces are proper neither to Latin, nor Greek, nor Hebrew, nor of any other nation, but are wrought in the mind as is the countenance in the body. For anger is called one thing in Latin, another in Greek, and yet another by the diversity of other tongues; but the countenance of an angry man is neither Latin nor Greek. Not, therefore, do all nations understand, when anyone says, I am angry, but the Latins only: yet if the affection of the kindled mind come forth into the face and make a countenance, all who behold the angry man perceive it.

But neither is it permitted so to draw forth and as it were spread out, through the sound of the voice, into the sense of the hearers those traces which the understanding imprints on the memory, as the countenance is open and manifest: for those are within in the mind, this is without in the body. Wherefore it must be conjectured how far the sound of our mouth is distant from that stroke of the intelligence, when it is not even like to the impression of the memory itself. But we, for the most part vehemently ardent for the profit of the hearer, wish to speak just as we understand at the time, when through that very intentness we cannot speak: and because we do not succeed, we are distressed, and, as though we spent our labour in vain, we languish with weariness:

and from this very weariness the same discourse becomes more languid and duller than it was, whence it led us to weariness. 4. But often the zeal of those who desire to hear me shows me that my eloquence is not so frigid as it seems to me: and that they take something useful from it, I recognize from their delight; and I diligently strive with myself not to fail in rendering this ministry, in which I see them well receive what is rendered. So too you, from this very fact that there are more often brought to you those who are to be instructed in the faith, ought to understand that your discourse does not so displease others as it displeases you: nor ought you to think yourself unfruitful, because you do not unfold as you desire the things which you discern; since perhaps you cannot even discern them as you desire.

For who in this life sees save in a riddle and through a glass? (1 Cor. 13:12) Nor is love itself so great that, the darkness of the flesh being rent asunder, it penetrates into the eternal serenity, whence even these things that pass away somehow shine forth. But because the good advance from day to day toward seeing the day without the revolution of heaven and without the incursion of night, which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it ascended into the heart of man (1 Cor. 2:9): there is no greater cause why in instructing the uninstructed our discourse should grow worthless to us, save that it pleases us to discern in an unwonted manner, and it wearies us to speak in the wonted manner. And in very truth we are heard far more gladly when we too are delighted with the same work:

For the thread of our discourse is affected by our very own gladness, and it flows out more easily and more acceptably. It is therefore no difficult task to prescribe which of the things that are set before us for belief should be narrated, and how far the narration should extend; nor how the narration is to be varied, so that at one time it may be shorter and at another longer, yet always full and complete; and when the shorter and when the longer form is to be used. But the greatest care is this: by what means it may be brought about that each one may catechize with gladness (for the more gladly he can do it, the more pleasing he will be). And indeed the precept concerning this matter is ready at hand. For if even in bodily wealth 'God loveth a cheerful giver' [2 Cor. ix.], how much more in spiritual things?

[7] But that this cheerfulness should be present for the hour belongs to the mercy of Him who gave these commands. And so we shall discuss first the manner of narration, which I have learned that you desire [see chapters iii-vi]; then the manner of instructing and exhorting [chapters vii-ix]; and afterwards the procuring of this cheerfulness [chapters x-xiv], according as God shall suggest. III. 5. The narration is full when each one is first catechized from that which is written, 'In the beginning God made heaven and earth' [Gen. i. 1], down to the present times of the Church.

Yet we ought not on that account to recite from memory the whole Pentateuch, and the whole books of Judges and of Kingdoms and of Ezra, and the whole Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles, if we have learned them word for word, or to unfold and explain in our own words, by narrating, all that is contained in these volumes; for neither does the time allow it, nor does any necessity demand it. Rather we should embrace the whole summarily and generally, in such a way that certain more wonderful things are chosen out, which are heard with greater pleasure and are set as it were at the very joints; so that we ought not to display them as though wrapped up in coverings and at once snatch them away from sight, but rather, dwelling upon them a little, we should as it were unfold and spread them open, and offer them to the minds of our hearers to be examined and admired;

but the rest we should weave in by inserting them in a swift passing-over. Thus even those things which we most wish to commend stand out the more by the subordinating of the others; nor does he whom we wish to rouse by our narration arrive at them wearied; nor is his memory, whom by our teaching we ought to instruct, thrown into confusion. 6. In all things assuredly we ought not only to keep in view the end of the precept, which is 'charity out of a pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfeigned' [1 Tim. i. 5], to which we should refer all that we say; but also the gaze of him whom we instruct by our speaking must be moved toward this and directed thither.

For all the things that we read in the holy Scriptures were written before the coming of the Lord for no other reason than that His coming might be commended, and the future Church, that is, the people of God throughout all nations, which is His body, might be prefigured; together with all the saints being joined and reckoned in, who even before His coming lived in this age, so believing that He would come, as we believe that He has come. For just as Jacob, while he was being born, first put forth his hand out of the womb, by which he even held the foot of his brother who was being born before him, and then indeed the head followed, and after that of necessity the rest of the members [Gen. xxv. 26]:

but nevertheless the head precedes in dignity and power not only those members which followed, but also the very hand which went before in the birth; and although not in the time of appearing, yet in the order of nature it is prior: so also the Lord Jesus Christ, although before He appeared in the flesh and, as it were, came forth from the womb of His secrecy to the eyes of men as the Mediator of God and men, the man 'who is over all, God blessed for ever' [Rom. ix. 5], He sent before Him in the holy Patriarchs and Prophets a certain part of His body, by which, as by a hand, announcing beforehand that He was to be born, He also overthrew the people that proudly went before Him, tripping them up with the bonds of the law as with five fingers:

(because He did not cease to be foretold and prophesied as about to come through five epochs of the ages; and in harmony with this, he through whom the law was given wrote five books: and those who understood carnally in a proud way, and wished to establish their own righteousness [Rom. x. 3], were not filled with the blessing by the open hand of Christ, but were held back by a hand clenched and closed: and so 'their feet were bound, and they fell; but we are risen and stand upright' [Ps. xx. 8 (xix. 9)]). Although therefore, as I have said, the Lord Christ sent before Him a certain part of His body in the saints who went before Him in the time of birth, nevertheless He Himself is the head of the body, the Church [Col. i. 18];

and all those men cleaved to that same body of which He is the head, by believing in Him whom they foretold. For they were not torn away by running ahead, but rather were joined on by their obedience. For although a hand can be sent forth before the head, yet its connection is under the head. Wherefore all the things that were written before were written that we might be taught, and they were figures of us, and in a figure these things happened unto them; but they were written for our sakes, upon whom the ends of the ages have come [Rom. xv. 4; 1 Cor. x. 11]. IV. 7. But what greater cause is there of the Lord's coming than that God might show His love toward us, commending it vehemently; because 'while we were yet enemies, Christ died for us' [Rom. v. 8, 10].

And this indeed for the reason that 'the end of the commandment and the fulfilling of the law is charity' [1 Tim. i. 5; Rom. xiii. 10]; that we also may love one another, and, even as He laid down His life for us [1 John iii. 16], so we also may lay down our life for the brethren: and as for God Himself, since 'He first loved us' [ibid. iv. 10], and 'spared not His own only Son, but delivered Him up for us all' [Rom. viii. 32], if it irked us to love Him, at least now let it not irk us to love Him in return. For there is no greater invitation to love than to anticipate in loving: and that heart is too hard which, though it was unwilling to bestow love, is yet unwilling to repay it.

But if in those very shameful and sordid loves we see that those who wish to be loved in return do nothing else than open up and show, by such proofs as they can, how greatly they love, and strive to put forward that image of justice, so that they may in a manner demand that a return be made to them by those souls which they are contriving to allure; and they themselves burn the more ardently, when they perceive that those minds which they desire are now stirred by the same fire; if therefore even a soul that was sluggish is roused when it feels itself loved, and one that was already fervent is the more kindled when it learns that it is loved in return:

it is manifest that there is no greater cause by which love may either be begun or increased, than when one who does not yet love comes to know that he is loved, or when one who loves first either hopes that he can be loved in return, or already proves it. And if this is so even in base loves, how much more in friendship? For what else do we guard against in the giving of offence to friendship, except that the friend should not think that we either do not love him, or love him less than he himself loves us? For if he should believe this, he will be colder in that love by which men mutually enjoy one another in familiar intimacy: and if he is not so weak that this offence makes him grow cold from all affection, he holds himself in that love by which he loves not to enjoy, but to be of service.

It is worth while, however, to observe how, although even superiors wish to be loved by their inferiors, and are delighted with their zealous deference toward them, and the more they perceive this, the more they love them; nevertheless with how great a love the inferior kindles when he has felt himself loved by his superior. For love is there more welcome, where it does not burn with the dryness of need, but flows forth from the abundance of beneficence. For that love springs from misery, this from mercy. And now indeed, if the inferior had even despaired of being able to be loved by the superior, he will be moved unspeakably to love, if of His own accord that Superior has deigned to show how greatly He loves him who would by no means have dared to promise himself so great a good.

But what is higher than God who judges, and what more desperate than man who sins? Who had bound himself over the more to be governed and subjugated by the proud powers which cannot make blessed, the more he had despaired that care could be taken of him by that Power which does not wish to be exalted by malice, but is exalted by goodness. 8. If therefore Christ came chiefly for this reason, that man might come to know how greatly God loves him; and that he might come to know it in order that he might be inflamed into the love of Him by whom he was first loved, and might love his neighbour at the bidding and showing of Him who, by loving not a neighbour but one wandering far away, became a neighbour; and if all the divine Scripture that was written before was written to foretell the coming of the Lord;

and whatever was afterwards committed to writing and confirmed by divine authority narrates Christ and admonishes to love: it is manifest that not only the whole Law and the Prophets hang on those two commandments of the love of God and of one's neighbour [Matt. xxii. 40]—which was still the only holy Scripture when the Lord said this—but also whatever volumes of the divine letters were afterwards profitably written down and committed to memory. Wherefore in the Old Testament there is a concealment of the New, and in the New Testament there is a manifestation of the Old. According to that concealment, those who understood carnally, being carnal, both then and now have been subjugated by penal fear.

But according to this manifestation, the spiritual—both then those to whom, as they knocked with piety, even the hidden things were laid open, and now those who seek without pride, lest even the open things be closed—understanding spiritually, have been set free by the gift of charity. Since therefore nothing is more contrary to charity than envy, and the mother of envy is pride: the same Lord Jesus Christ, God-man, is both a token of the divine love toward us, and an example of human humility among us, so that our great swelling might be healed by the greater contrary remedy. For a proud man is a great misery: but a humble God is a greater mercy.

With this love, therefore, set before you as it were an end, to which you refer all that you say, so narrate whatever you narrate that he to whom you speak, by hearing may believe, by believing may hope, by hoping may love [1 Cor. xiii. 13]. V. 9. Out of the very severity of God, by which the hearts of mortals are shaken with a most salutary terror, charity is to be built up, so that, rejoicing to be loved by Him whom he fears, one may dare to love Him in return, and may fear to displease His love toward him, even though he might do so with impunity. For it very rarely happens—nay rather never—that anyone comes willing to become a Christian who has not been struck by some fear of God.

For if he wishes to become a Christian by expecting some advantage from men whom he thinks he cannot otherwise please, or by avoiding some disadvantage from men whose displeasure or enmities he dreads; he wishes rather to pretend than to become one. For faith is not a matter of the body that pays respect, but of the mind that believes. But plainly the mercy of God is often present through the ministry of the catechist, so that, moved by the discourse, he now wishes to become that which he had resolved to feign: and when he has begun to wish this, then let us reckon that he has come. And it is indeed hidden from us when he comes in mind, whom we already see present in body: but nevertheless we ought so to deal with him, that this will may come to be in him, even if it is not.

For nothing is lost, since, if it is present, it is assuredly strengthened by such action of ours, although we may be ignorant at what time or at what hour it began. It is indeed useful that we be forewarned beforehand, if it can be done, by those who know him, in what state of mind he is, or by what causes he has been moved to come to embrace religion. But if there is no other from whom we may learn this, he himself is also to be questioned, so that from what he answers we may draw the beginning of our discourse. But if he has come with a feigned heart, desiring human advantages, or fleeing disadvantages, he will assuredly lie: nevertheless from that very thing that he lies, the beginning is to be taken; not so as to refute his lie, as though it were certain to you;

but so that, if he has said that he came with such a purpose (which is truly to be approved, whether he speak the truth or a falsehood), then, approving and praising such a purpose as that with which he answered he had come, we may make him take delight in being such as he desires to appear. But if he has said something other than what ought to be in the mind of him who is to be imbued with the Christian faith; then, more blandly and gently rebuking him as untutored and ignorant, and by demonstrating and briefly and gravely praising the truest end of Christian doctrine, lest you either take up the time of the future narration, or dare to impose it before his mind is composed, you may make him wish that which he did not yet wish either through error or through pretence. VI. 10.

But if perchance he answers that he has been divinely admonished or terrified into becoming a Christian, he affords us a most joyful entrance for beginning, how great is God's care for us. Certainly his attention is to be transferred from miracles or dreams of this kind to the more solid way of the Scriptures and to surer oracles: so that he may know that even that admonition which was mercifully bestowed on him beforehand, was given before he should cleave to the holy Scriptures.

And assuredly it is to be shown to him that the Lord Himself would not admonish or compel him to become a Christian and to be incorporated into the Church, nor instruct him by such signs or revelations, unless He wished him to pursue more securely and safely a way already prepared for him in the holy Scriptures, where he should not seek visible miracles, but should grow accustomed to hope for invisible ones, and should be admonished not while sleeping but while waking. From that point now the narration is to be begun, from that which 'God made all things very good' [Gen. i. 31], and to be carried on, as we have said, down to the present times of the Church: in such a way that the causes and reasons of the several matters and deeds which we narrate may be rendered, by which we may refer them to that end of love [1 Tim. i.

5], from which the eye neither of one who does anything nor of one who speaks is to be turned away. For if the feigned fables of the poets, devised for the pleasure of minds whose food is trifles, are nevertheless attempted to be referred to some usefulness by those who are held and called good grammarians—although even that be a vain usefulness and greedy for worldly fattening—how much more does it befit us to be more cautious, lest those things which we narrate as true be believed without the rendering of their causes, either through empty pleasantness, or even through pernicious desire. Yet let us not so assert these causes, that, the thread of the narration being abandoned, our heart and tongue run out into the knots of a more difficult disputation;

but let the very truth of the reason applied be as it were the gold that binds the order of the gems, yet not disturbing by any immoderation the series of the ornament. VII. 11. The narration being finished, the hope of the resurrection is to be intimated, and, according to the capacity and strength of the hearer, and according to the measure of the time itself, we must treat, against the empty mockeries of unbelievers, of the resurrection of the body, and of the future last judgment—of its goodness toward the good, its severity toward the evil, its truth toward all; and, the punishments of the wicked being recalled with detestation and horror, the kingdom of the just and faithful, and that heavenly city, and its joy, are to be proclaimed with longing.

Then indeed the weakness of man is to be instructed and animated against temptations and scandals, whether without or within the Church itself: without, against Gentiles or Jews or heretics; within, against the chaff of the Lord's threshing-floor [Matt. iii. 12]. Not that a disputation should be held against each single class of the perverse, and all their depraved opinions be refuted by set questions: but for a brief time it is to be shown that it was thus foretold, and what is the usefulness of temptations for the instructing of the faithful, and what the medicine in the example of God's patience, who has determined to permit these things even unto the end.

But when he is being instructed against those whose perverse throngs corporeally fill the churches, at the same time let the precepts of Christian and honourable conduct also be briefly and becomingly recalled, lest he be so easily seduced by drunkards, misers, cheats, gamblers, adulterers, fornicators, lovers of spectacles, binders-on of sacrilegious remedies, enchanters, astrologers, and diviners of whatever vain and evil arts, and the rest of this kind, and reckon that it will go unpunished for him, because he sees many who are called Christians love and cling to and defend and urge and persuade these things.

For what end has been appointed beforehand for those who persevere in such a life, and how such are to be tolerated within the Church itself, from which in the end they are to be separated, is to be taught from the testimonies of the divine books. It is also to be foretold that he will find in the Church many good Christians, truest citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem, if he himself begins to be one. Finally, he is diligently to be admonished that his hope be not placed in man: because neither can it easily be judged by man which man is just; and if it easily could be, examples of the just are not therefore set before us that we might be justified by them, but that, imitating them, we might know that we too are justified by their Justifier.

For hence will come to pass that which is most of all to be commended, namely, that when he who hears us—nay rather hears God through us—has begun to make progress in morals and knowledge, and eagerly to enter upon the way of Christ, he may not dare to ascribe it either to us or to himself; but may love both himself, and us, and whatever other friends he loves, in Him and for His sake who loved him while an enemy [Rom. v. 10], that by justifying He might make him a friend. Here now I do not think you need an instructor, so that when times are occupied, whether yours or those of your hearers, you may act briefly; but when they are more ample, you may discourse more amply: for this the very necessity prescribes with none admonishing. VIII. 12.

But this plainly is not to be passed over: that if anyone to be catechized comes to you polished with the liberal doctrines, one who has already resolved to be a Christian, and has come for this purpose that he may become one, it is altogether most difficult that he should not have come to know many things of our Scriptures and writings, being already instructed in which he has come merely for participation in the sacraments. For such men are wont, not in the very hour in which they become Christians, but beforehand, to inquire diligently into all things, and to share and discuss the movements of their mind with those with whom they can. With these, therefore, we must deal briefly, and not by hatefully hammering in what they know, but by modestly touching upon it; so that we may say that we believe they already know this or that:

and in this way to run over cursorily all the things which are to be inculcated upon the rude and unlearned: so that, even if this learned man knows anything, he may not hear it as from a teacher; and if he is as yet ignorant of anything, while we mention those things which we believe he already knows, he may learn it. Nor indeed is he himself uselessly questioned by what things he has been moved to wish to be a Christian:

so that if you see he has been persuaded by books, whether canonical or of useful commentators, you may say something at the beginning about these, praising them according to the diversity of their merits—of the canonical authority, and of the most skilful diligence of the expounders—and most of all commending in the canonical Scriptures the most salutary humility of their admirable loftiness, but in the others, according to each one's ability, a style of more sonorous and, as it were, more polished eloquence, suited to prouder and thereby to weaker minds. Assuredly it is also to be drawn out from him, that he may indicate whom he has chiefly read, and to what books he has more familiarly cleaved, whence he was persuaded to wish to be associated with the Church.

And when he has said this, then, if those books are known to us, or if we have at least received from ecclesiastical report that they were written by some catholic man of note, let us gladly approve. But if he has fallen upon the volumes of some heretic, and, not knowing perchance what the true faith disapproves, has held it in his mind and thinks it to be catholic; he is diligently to be taught, the authority of the universal Church being set before him, and that of other most learned men flourishing in its truth by both disputations and writings.