Etymologies & Works 22 part 1/5

Here begins the second book. I. On wisdom. 1.1. Everyone who is wise according to God is blessed. The blessed life is the knowledge of the Godhead. The knowledge of the Godhead is the virtue of good work. The virtue of good work is the fruit of eternity. 1.2. He who is wise according to the world is foolish according to God. Whence also the prophet says: Every man is become foolish through his own knowledge. 1.3. The first pursuit of knowledge is to seek God, then integrity of life together with the work of innocence. 1.4. No one fully receives the wisdom of God, save he who strives to withdraw himself from all care of worldly actions. Whence also it is written: Write wisdom in the time of leisure, and he who is lessened in action shall himself receive it. 1.5.

It is a mark of no small understanding to have attained the citadel of knowing that one cannot penetrate the secrets of God. But then do we rightly know God, when we deny that we can perfectly know him. 1.6. Sometimes it is fitting to be ignorant of certain things. Yet no one is in greater fault than he who knows not God. 1.7. To seek out the truth belongs to many, but to find it belongs to few. Moreover, those things which are above the understanding of man ought not to be scrutinized. Whatever is above the intellect of man is not to be sought. Rather it must be kept in reserve for the divine counsel, so that this be believed to be justice which has pleased the divine will. For that cannot be unjust which is pleasing to a just Judge. 1.8. All wisdom consists in knowledge and opinion.

But the judgment that comes from knowledge is better than that which comes from opinion. For the one is true, the other doubtful. 1.9. It belongs to the heaping up of greater guilt for anyone to know what he ought to follow, and to be unwilling to follow what he knows. Whence the Lord also says: The servant who knew his lord's will, and did not things worthy of it, was beaten with many stripes; and James says: To him who knows to do good and does it not, to him it is sin. 1.10. Simplicity together with sloth is called folly, but simplicity together with prudence is called wisdom. 1.11. It is useful both to know many things and to live rightly. But if we are not able to do both, it is better that we pursue the zeal of living well than of knowing many things. 1.12.

The knowledge of things does not pertain to the attaining of blessedness, nor is it a great thing to know many things, but it is a great thing to live blessedly. 1.13. To know all prudence profits nothing along with ignorance of God, and to be ignorant of the world does nothing to harm those who know God. But he knows perfectly who knows God first, and knows these other things not for his own sake but for God's sake. 1.14. It harms no one if through simplicity he thinks something unworthy concerning the elements, provided only he pronounces true things concerning God. For although a man may be unable to dispute about incorporeal and corporeal natures, yet a right life together with faith makes him blessed. II. On faith. 2.1. That one cannot attain to true blessedness except through faith;

and that he is blessed who both lives well by believing rightly, and by living well keeps right faith. 2.2. If God is believed in, he is deservedly invoked and sought; and thereby is he then perfectly praised, when he is also believed in. 2.3. Not only is that to be believed which we discern by the sense of the flesh, but rather still that which we behold by the understanding of the mind, that is, God: Without faith no one can please God; for everything that is not of faith is sin. 2.4. Faith is by no means to be wrung out by force, but is to be persuaded by reason and by examples. But those from whom it is violently exacted cannot persevere in it: as one says, by the example of a young tree, whose top if anyone violently bends down, again, when it is released, it at once returns to what it had been. 2.5.

Just as man, created with free choice, of his own accord turns aside from God, so by the proper conversion of his own mind he runs back to God by believing, so that both the liberty of choice may be recognized through his own will, and the benefit of grace through the received truth of faith. 2.6. God looks upon faith in the heart, where men cannot excuse themselves who feign with the mouth the profession of the truth, and retain in the heart the impiety of error. 2.7. Just as the faith which is held on the mouth and not believed in the heart profits nothing, so faith held in the heart shall profit nothing if it be not brought forth by the mouth. For concerning such faith the prophet thus rebukes certain ones, saying: Faith has perished, it is taken away out of their mouth. For the faith which is believed in the heart is brought forth unto salvation by the confession of the mouth.

2.8. That faith is empty without works, and he flatters himself in vain concerning faith alone who is not adorned with good works. 2.9. He who carries the cross ought to die to the world. For to bear the cross is to mortify oneself: to bear it and not to die is the pretense of hypocrites. 2.10. Those who have knowledge of God through faith yet are darkened in their works follow the example of Balaam, who, falling in his work, had open eyes through the faith of contemplation. 2.11. The carnal seek faith not for virtue of soul but for temporal advantage. Whence the Lord also says: You seek me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves. 2.12.

The evil Christian, while he does not live according to the doctrine of the Gospel, easily loses, when temptation arises, even that very faith which he cultivates in word. 2.13. Many are Christians in faith only, but in work they dissent from Christian doctrine. Many also do not love the faith of Christ from the heart, but out of human dread they feign to hold it through hypocrisy, and those who cannot be openly evil are through fear feignedly reckoned good. 2.14. Lovers of the world sometimes fight for the faith, and indeed profit others; but they themselves, entangled in earthly love, do not seek the things of heaven, but defend the faith in word only. 2.15. Certain ones even persecute heretics for the faith, but through arrogance despise those who are within the Church.

They indeed refute the adversaries of the faith on the score of unbelief, but they oppress the faithful with the burden of pride. III. On charity. 3.1. Although some may seem to be partakers of faith and of holy works, yet because they are deprived of the charity of brotherly love, they have no increase of virtue. For as the Apostle says: If I deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profits me nothing. 3.2. Without the love of charity, although one may believe rightly, he cannot attain to blessedness, because so great is the virtue of charity that even prophecy and martyrdom without it are held to be nothing. 3.3. No reward is weighed against charity. For charity holds the primacy of all the virtues.

Whence charity is called by the Apostle the bond of perfection, in that all the virtues are bound together by its bond. 3.4. The love of God is compared to death, Solomon saying: Love is strong as death, for this reason: because just as death violently separates the soul from the body, so also the love of God violently sunders man from worldly and carnal love. 3.5. He who despises the precepts of God does not love God. For neither do we love a king, if we hold his laws in hatred. 3.6. The unity of charity must be kept with holy men, and the more anyone withdraws himself from the world, the more it is needful that he join himself to the fellowship of the good. 3.7a. Charity consists in the love of God and of neighbor.

He preserves in himself the love of God who is not divided from the charity of his neighbor. 3.7b. He who is cut off from brotherly fellowship is deprived of the participation in divine charity. Nor will he be able to love God who is known to err in the love of his neighbor. 3.7c. Christ is God and man: therefore he does not love the whole Christ who hates a man. 3.8. It belongs to the discernment of the good not to hate persons but faults, and not to spurn things rightly said as though false, but to approve them. 3.9. Those who are imperfect in the love of God often resolve to be separated from their vices; but, weighed down by the burden of vices, they roll back again to those vices which they desire to leave. IV. On hope. 4.1. Those who do not cease to do evil seek indulgence from God's mercy by a vain hope;

which they would rightly seek if they ceased from wicked action. 4.2. It is greatly to be feared that we neither persistently sin through hope of the pardon which God promises, nor, because he justly punishes sins, despair of pardon; but, both perils being avoided, let us both turn away from evil and hope for pardon from the mercy of God. For every just man shines with hope and with fear, because now hope raises him to joy, now the terror of hell consigns him to fear. V. On grace. 5.1. Sometimes, when we sin, God does not withdraw his gifts from us, that the human mind may rise up to the hope of divine propitiation. For he could not spurn one converted, whom he provokes by his benefits, though sinning, to return to himself. 5.2. That the confession of man is not of human strength;

for if God does not work in us the confession of good work, why is it said through the prophet: Confession and magnificence are his work? For from him are all good things bestowed on us, grace going before. For we have given no good work through which we might merit to receive the confession of faith. 5.3. The progress of man is the gift of God. Nor can anyone be corrected by himself, but by the Lord. For man has nothing good as his own, whose way is not his own, as the prophet testifies: I know, O Lord, that the way of man is not his own; neither is it in a man to walk and to direct his steps. 5.4. Let the defenders of free choice know that they can prevail in nothing unto the good by their own strength, unless they be sustained by the help of divine grace. Whence also through the prophet the Lord says:

Thy destruction, O Israel; only in me is thy help—as if he were saying, 「that thou perish by thy own desert; that thou be saved by my help.」 5.5a. The heavenly grace does not find man's merit that it may come, but after it has come it makes it, and coming to an unworthy mind, it makes in it the merit that it may reward, since it had found only what it might punish. For what did that thief merit of himself, who from the jaws of death ascended the cross, and from the cross entered paradise? Guilty indeed was he, and he came stained with a brother's blood, but by divine grace he is changed upon the cross. 5.5b. It must be known that our justice is in those things which we do rightly, and God's grace in that we merit it.

For this belongs both to God who gives and to man who receives, just as we also call it our bread, which nevertheless we ask to receive from God. 5.6. Spiritual grace is not distributed to all, but is given only to the elect: For faith is not of all men. Which, although very many receive it, yet they do not attain to the work of faith. 5.7. In the division of gifts, different men receive different gifts of God; yet not all things are granted to one, so that there may be, for the sake of the zeal of humility, something which one may admire in another. For that in Ezekiel the wings of the living creatures strike one against another, there are designated the virtues of the saints provoking one another with mutual affection, and instructing one another by alternate example. 5.8.

The gifts of graces are given, these to one, those to another, nor is it granted to one to have them in such a way that he does not have need of another. 5.9. It is not doubtful that it can come to pass that those whom certain persons surpass in excellence of virtues, being forestalled by God's sudden grace, may forestall those others by a shortcut of sanctity; and while they are last in conversion, they are suddenly made first in the summit of virtue. 5.10. When anyone receives some gift, let him not covet more than what he has merited, lest, while he attempts to seize the office of another member, he lose that which he had merited. For he disturbs the whole order of the body who, not content with his own office, snatches at another's. 5.11a. The wicked receive gifts unto condemnation, because they use them not for the praise of God, but for their own vanity. 5.11b.

They use good things ill who take up in evil uses those things which have been given them by God, such as talent, and the rest of God's gifts. 5.12. We rejoice in many gifts of God, which we recognize we have received from him. For that we are wise, that we are rich, that we are powerful, is not of another, but rather of the divine bounty. Let us therefore use the divine benefits in the best way, so that God may not repent of having given them, and it may be profitable for us to have received them. 5.13. God is said to take away from man some gift, which man did not have, that is, which he did not merit to receive. So also God is said to harden a man, not by working his hardness, but by not taking away that which he himself has nourished in himself.

In no other way is God also said to blind certain men, not that he himself works the same blindness in them, but that on account of their unprofitable deserts he himself does not take away their blindness from them. 5.14. To very many the gifts of God are given, but perseverance in the gift is not given. And hence it is that some have good beginnings of conversion, but are closed with an evil end. The elect, however, receive both the gift of conversion and receive also perseverance in the gift. This therefore is the cause why some both begin well and end well. VI. On predestination. 6.1. Predestination is twofold: either of the elect unto rest, or of the reprobate unto death.

Both are wrought by the divine judgment, so that he always makes the elect to follow things heavenly and inward, and always permits the reprobate to be delighted in things lowest and outward, by forsaking them. 6.2. Just as man is ignorant of the boundary of light and darkness, or what is the end of either thing, so he more fully knows not who before his own end is forestalled by the light of justice, or who is darkened by the shadows of sins even unto his own end, or who after the fall of darkness is converted and rises again unto the light. All these things lie open to God, but are hidden from man. 6.3. Although the conduct of the just in this life may be praiseworthy, yet it is uncertain to men unto what end they are predestined, but all things are reserved for the future examination. 6.4.

Wondrous is the disposition of the heavenly distribution, through which here the just man is further justified, the impious is further defiled; the evil man is sometimes turned to good, the good man is sometimes bent back to evil. One wishes to be good, and is not able; another wishes to be evil and is not permitted to perish; it is given to him who wishes to be good; another neither wishes it nor is it given to him to be good. This one is born in error and dies; that one endures unto the end in the good in which he began. So long does this one stand until he falls; that one, after living long in evil, is at the end saved and, being regarded, is converted. 6.5. The just man wishes to profit in good, and does not prevail; the evil man wishes to harm, and prevails; this one wishes to be free for God, and is hindered by the world; that one desires to be entangled in affairs and does not accomplish it.

6.6. The evil man lords it over the good, the good man is condemned in place of the impious, the impious is honored in place of the just. And in this so great obscurity man is not able to search out the divine disposition, and to ponder the hidden order of predestination. VII. On the converted. 7.1-2. The reward is not promised to those who begin, but is given to those who persevere, as it is written: He who shall have persevered unto the end, he shall be saved. — For then our conversion is pleasing to God, when we complete with a persevering end the good which we begin. For as it is written: Woe to them who have lost endurance, that is, who have not consummated the good work. 7.3. Concerning the indulgence of sins it must be known where, when, and to whom it is given. Where indeed, save within the Catholic Church?

When, save before the day of the coming departure? for behold, now is the acceptable time, behold, now is the day of salvation. To whom, save to the converted who through humility pass over to the imitation of little children? Of whom it is said: Of such is the kingdom of heaven. 7.4-5. No one can ponder how great is the weight of justice, or with how great a ray of splendor justice shines, unless one first, with the whole effort of the mind, be converted to God, so that by the very light with which he is illumined, he may both recognize his own foulness, and understand the light which he did not perceive with a blind heart. — But then can justice be understood to be unattainable, when anyone, being converted, has attempted to follow it, because light is not understood save when it is seen. 7.6.

The judgment which lies in man's power is the grace of conversion, through which we judge ourselves, when, weeping over our evils, we punish them, and cleave more firmly to the good which is from God in us. 7.7. The progress of each converted man is described as threefold, that is: first, of being corrected from evil; second, of doing good; third, of obtaining the reward of good work. For that which the prophet says: Loose the bundles that oppress, is the amendment of evil. But that which he adds: Break thy bread to the hungry, is the doing of good work. And in that which he subjoins: Then shall thy morning light break forth, is the recompense of good work;

therefore it profits not to do good, unless the evil have been corrected, nor will anyone be able to make progress unto the contemplation of God unless he first have been zealous to exercise himself in good works. 7.8. In many ways God terrifies men that they may be converted at least late, and thereupon may the more blush that they have been so long awaited that they might return. For now by threats, now by blows, now by revelations he shakes certain men, so that those who scorn to be converted by their own will may, being moved by terrors, be corrected. 7.9-10. Very many are converted to God from devotion of mind alone, but some are converted by compulsion of blows who from devotion were not being converted, according to the chapter of the psalm which says: With bit and bridle thou shalt bind fast their jaws, who do not draw near to thee.

— But very many, while they are not converted by devotion, are struck by the goads of the scourge; who yet do not even perceive under the lash so as to be in any degree corrected, like Egypt, which both suffered punishments and could not amend. For concerning such the prophet says: Thou hast struck them and they did not grieve; thou hast bruised them and they refused to receive discipline. 7.11. Certain secular men, swollen with elation of mind, having afterward been converted to God, follow Christ with religious obedience, and those who before swelled with worldly loftiness, afterward change that very elation into the zeal of humility. 7.12a.

There are certain ones who have already been converted in secret, whose conversion, because it does not go forth to public view, are still thought, in human estimation, to be such as they were; yet already in God's eyes they have risen up. 7.12b. Likewise certain ones are still seen by human judgment to stand, yet already in God's eyes they have fallen. 7.13. Many are reprobate among men, and elect before God; and likewise many are thought elect among men, and before God are reprobate, as Solomon teaches: I saw, he says, the impious buried, who, while they lived, were in a holy place, and were praised in the city as men of just works. Let no one therefore think himself elect, lest perhaps he already be reprobate before God. VIII. On the beginnings of the converted. 8.1.

The kind of conversion to God is threefold: of the beginning with sweetness, of the middle with labor, of perfection with rest. But nevertheless very often some begin from sweetness, others from the bitterness of temptations. 8.2. Let every converted person first begin from the weeping over sins, and so pass over to the desire of things heavenly. For first the vices which we have committed must be purged by tears, and then, with the purified keenness of the mind, let us contemplate that which we seek, so that, while beforehand by weeping the darkness of sin is wiped away from us, with the cleansed eyes of the heart the things heavenly may be freely beheld. 8.3. It is first necessary to be converted to God through fear, that by dread of the punishments to come the carnal enticements may be overcome. Then it behooves, fear being cast off, to pass over to the love of eternal life.

For perfect charity casts out fear; but he who fears has punishment, and is not perfect. Whence the Apostle also says: For you have not received the spirit of bondage again in fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption; through which, namely, no longer does the punishment of sin oppress slaves, but the love of justice renders them free. 8.4. It is necessary for every converted person that after fear he ought to rise up to the love of God as a son, lest he always lie under fear as a slave. For then do we show the love of our conversion, if anew we love as a Father him whom before with a servile mind we truly dreaded as a Lord. 8.5. The beginnings of the converted must be cherished in gentle ways, lest, if they begin from harshness, being terrified they run back to their former lapses.

For he who instructs a converted person without gentleness knows how to exasperate rather than to correct. 8.6. Every converted person is first to be corrected from his work, but afterward from his thought, so that he may first restrain the wicked act, then the appetite and the fault, so that what no longer appears in work may by no means persist in thought. 8.7. Every new conversion still has a commingling of the former life: therefore that virtue ought by no means to go forth to the eyes of men, until the old manner of life be utterly rooted out from the soul. 8.8. Whosoever from a worse state has begun to be better, let him beware of being lifted up by the virtues received, lest through vainglory he fall more grievously than he lay before through the lapse of vices. IX. On the conflict of the converted. 9.1.

If any converted person desires straightway to trample down all the goads of the flesh, and strives to undertake the highest of the virtues, if perhaps he still endures some adversities from the troubles of the flesh, let him not be broken, because the dispenser of good things knows how to repress the vice of adversity by a succession of virtues. 9.2-3. Then does anyone more acknowledge himself to be burdened by the assault of vices, when he has drawn near to the knowledge of God; just as the people of Israel are pressed with a heavier burden by the Egyptian, when through Moses the divine knowledge is opened to them. — For vices before conversion have, as it were, peace in man; but when they are expelled, they rise up with sharper force. And those things become hostile to the converted which flatteringly favored the sinner;

and likewise those things become caressing to the converted which stood adverse to the sinner. 9.4. God's servant has many conflicts from the recollection of past works; and many, even after conversion and against their will, endure the movement of lust, which nevertheless they endure not unto condemnation, but unto probation, namely that they may always have, for the shaking off of sloth, an enemy whom they may resist, provided only they do not consent. Whence also let the servants of God know that they are indeed already cleansed from sins, but yet are still assailed by the interruption of shameful thoughts. 9.5. Before conversion goes the crowd of sins, after conversion follows the crowd of temptations; the former cast themselves in our way that we may not be converted to God, the latter thrust themselves upon us that we may not with the free eyes of the heart behold God:

the insolence of both tumults begets in us disturbance, and often by manifold deceit cuts off our intent. 9.6. It is useful for God's servant to be tempted after conversion, so that from the torpor of negligence he may, through the exercise of vices assailing him, prepare his mind for the virtues. X. On lax conversion. 10.1. Lax conversion leads many back into their former errors, and dissolves them by lukewarmness of living; therefore let every converted person shun the examples of these, lest, while thou beginnest the fear of God from lukewarmness, thou be again immersed in worldly errors. 10.2. The lukewarm in conversion does not perceive idle words and vain thoughts to be harmful;

but if he has awakened from the torpor of the mind, those things which he esteemed light he straightway dreads as though horrible and atrocious. 10.3. Fraud and slothfulness are to be feared in every good work. We commit fraud against God as often as, concerning our good work, we praise ourselves and not God. We act with slothfulness as often as through torpor we work languidly the things that are God's. 10.4. Every art of this world has zealous lovers, and men most prompt to carry it out; and this comes about because it has the present recompense of its work. But the art of the divine fear has very many followers who are languid, lukewarm, congealed by the inertia of sloth; but this comes about because their labor is deferred not for a present, but for a future recompense:

and therefore, while the recompense of reward does not straightway follow their labor, their hope being almost dissolved, they grow faint. Whence also a great glory is prepared for those who consummate the beginnings of the life of good conversion with a more solid increase, and are thereby prepared to be the more illustrious in earning the recompense, the more firmly they both begin and consummate the labors of the hard journey. 10.5. Certain ones in the first ardor of conversion gird themselves for the virtues; but as progress accedes, while they lean immoderately upon earthly things, they are darkened by the dust of base appetite. Whence the Lord also says concerning the good seeds:

But that which fell among thorns, these are they who hear the word of God, and by the care of the world, or by the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and it is made without fruit. 10.6. The newly converted ought by no means to be advanced in outward cares. For if they be entangled at once, like a little tree planted and not yet fixed by the root, they are alike shaken and dry up. 10.7. A change of place sometimes avails the converted for the salvation of the soul. For very often, when the place is changed, the disposition of the mind is also changed. For it is fitting to be plucked away even bodily from thence, where anyone has served enticements; for the place where anyone has lived wickedly presents to the mind's gaze that which he there either thought or did. XI. On the examples of the saints. 11.1-2.

For the conversion or correction of mortals, the examples of the good avail much. For, apart from the examples of the perfect, the ways of beginners cannot make progress toward living well. — The reprobate, however, do not attend to the documents of the good, that they might imitate them unto better things, but they set before themselves the examples of the evil, which they use unto the worse for the perversity of their own manners. 11.3. For this usefulness are written down the ruins and restorations of the saints, that they may make hope of human salvation, lest anyone after a lapse despair of pardon by repenting, while he beholds that the restoration of the saints was even after ruin. 11.4.

Let those given over to wickedness understand for what benefit the examples of the saints are set before them: namely, either that they may have those whom they should imitate unto their own restoration, or else that by comparison with them they may be punished the more harshly for their disobedience. God has set forth the virtues of the saints as an example to us, so that just as we may receive the rewards of righteousness through imitating them, so the torments for persevering in evil may be the graver. For if the divine precepts by which we are admonished were lacking to spur us on to good, the examples of the saints would suffice us in place of a law.