On the Governance of God 1 part 1/13

PREFACE. To the holy bishop Salonius, Salvian sends greeting in the Lord. Almost all men who have thought it belongs to the cultivation of human duty to hammer out some work of language by the zeal of their talents, have labored with special care on this: that, whether they clothed with their pen matters useful and worthy or useless and unworthy, they should merely illuminate the mere sequence of things with the brilliance of words, and by their speaking kindle light for the very subjects they wished to speak of. And so to this side very many writers of worldly concerns, of either kind of literature, betook themselves, not sufficiently considering upon how commendable subjects they were spending themselves, provided only that whatever they said they either sang in polished and charming verse or narrated in brilliant oration.

For all in their writings pleaded only their own causes, and, consulting more their own praises than the benefit of others, they strove not to be reckoned wholesome and salutary, but scholarly and eloquent. And so their writings are either swollen with vanity, or infamous with falsehood, or filthy with the foulness of words, or vicious with the obscenity of subject matter; so that truly, since—chasing only the praise of their talents—they spent their care on such unworthy matters, they seem not so much to have illuminated their talents themselves as to have condemned them.

But we, who are lovers of matter rather than of words, pursue the useful rather than the applaudable, and do not seek that the empty ornaments of the ages be praised in us, but that the wholesome profits of things be praised; in our little writings we wish there to be not allurements but remedies, which, forsooth, may not so much please the ears of the idle as profit the minds of the sick, being about to carry back from both a great fruit through heavenly gifts. For if this saving remedy of ours shall have healed the not-good opinion of some concerning our God, the fruit will be no small one, in that I shall have profited many. But if this does not come to pass, this very thing perhaps will not be unfruitful, that I have attempted to profit.

For the mind of a good pursuit and a pious vow, even if it has not found the effect of the work begun, nevertheless has the reward of the will. From here, then, let me begin. I. God is said by certain persons to be careless of human actions and, as it were, neglectful of them, inasmuch as He neither guards the good nor restrains the wicked, and therefore in this age the good are for the most part wretched, the wicked happy. Indeed, to refute this, since we deal with Christians, the divine word alone ought to suffice. But because many have in themselves something of pagan unbelief, they will perhaps be delighted also by the testimonies of pagans—of chosen and wise ones.

We prove, therefore, that not even those thought this concerning carelessness and neglect, who—being without the true religion—could by no means know God, because they did not know the law through which God is recognized. Pythagoras the philosopher, whom philosophy itself looked up to as, so to speak, its own master, discoursing on the nature and benefits of God, spoke thus: A soul passing and diffused through all the parts of the world, from which all living creatures that are born take life. How then is God said to neglect the world, which by this very fact He surely loves enough, in that He extends His very self through the whole body of the world? Plato and all the schools of the Platonists confess God to be the governor of all things.

The Stoics testify that He, in the place of a pilot, ever remains within that which He governs. What could they have felt more rightly and more religiously concerning the affection and diligence of God, than to say that He is like a pilot? Understanding this, surely: that just as a sailing pilot never removes his hand from the helm, so God never wholly withdraws His care from the world; and just as that pilot, catching the breezes and avoiding the rocks and gazing up at the stars, is all at once wholly devoted to his work in the duty as much of body as of heart, so likewise our God neither turns away from the totality of all things the office of His most worthy vision, nor removes the governance of His providence, nor takes away the indulgence of His most kindly love.

Whence also that example of mystical authority, by which Maro wished to prove himself no less a philosopher than a poet, saying: For God goes through all lands and the tracts of the sea and the deep heaven. Tullius too: "Nor indeed can God Himself," he says, "who is understood by us, be understood in any other way than as a certain mind, free and unbound and separated from all mortal admixture, perceiving and moving all things." Elsewhere too he says: "Nothing is more excellent than God: by Him therefore the world must necessarily be governed. God is therefore obedient or subject to no nature: He Himself therefore governs all nature—unless perhaps we, forsooth the wisest, should so feel as to believe that He, by whom we say all things are governed, at once both governs and neglects."

Since therefore all men, even those without religion, compelled by nature itself and by a certain necessity, have said that all things are both perceived and moved and governed by God, how do certain persons now think Him careless and neglectful, who both perceives all things by His subtlety, and moves them by His strength, and governs them by His power, and guards them by His kindness? I have said what the chiefs of both philosophy and eloquence have judged concerning the majesty and governance of the supreme God. And I have brought forward the most noble masters of each most excellent art for this reason, that I might more easily show that either all others felt the same, or at least dissented without any authority.

And indeed I cannot find any who have differed from the judgment of these, apart from the ravings of the Epicureans or of certain Epicurizers, who, just as they joined pleasure with virtue, so joined God with carelessness and torpor, so that it appears that those who so feel pursue not only the sense and opinion of the Epicureans, but also their vices. II. I do not think that to prove now a matter so plain we ought even to use divine testimonies in this place, especially since the sacred discourses so abundantly and evidently contradict all the propositions of the impious, that, while we satisfy their subsequent calumnies, we may also more fully refute even those things which have been said above.

They say, then, that all things are overlooked by God, because He neither restrains the wicked nor protects the good, and therefore that in this age the condition of the better is decidedly worse: that the good are in poverty, the wicked in abundance; the good in weakness, the wicked in strength; the good ever in mourning, the wicked ever in joy; the good in wretchedness and abjection, the wicked in prosperity and dignity. First, then, from those who either grieve or accuse that this is so, I ask this: whether they grieve about the holy—that is, about true and faithful Christians—or about the false and impostors.

If about the false, the grief is superfluous which grieves that the wicked are not happy, since assuredly whoever are wicked become worse by success in affairs, rejoicing that their zeal for wickedness turns out well for them; and therefore for this very reason they ought to be most wretched, so that they may cease to be wicked—men who vindicate for their most shameless gains the name of religion, and hold forth for their most sordid dealings the title of sanctity: whose wickednesses, forsooth, if their miseries be compared, they are less miserable than they deserve, because, placed in whatever miseries, they are nevertheless not so miserable as they are wicked.

By no means, therefore, should one grieve for these, that they are not rich and happy; and much less for the holy, because, however wretched they may seem to the ignorant, they nevertheless cannot be anything other than blessed. It is superfluous, moreover, that anyone should think them wretched, whether by weakness, or poverty, or other things of this kind, in which they trust themselves to be happy; for no one is wretched by another's perception, but by his own. And therefore they cannot be wretched by anyone's false judgment, who are truly blessed by their own conscience; for none, as I think, are more blessed than those who act according to their own mind and their own wish. They are humble, the religious—this they will; they are poor—they delight in poverty; they are without ambition—they spurn ambition;

they are without honor—they flee honor; they mourn—they yearn to mourn; they are weak—they rejoice in weakness. For "when I am weak," says the apostle, "then am I powerful." And not without reason does he so judge, to whom God Himself thus speaks: "My grace is sufficient for thee; for strength is made perfect in weakness." By no means, therefore, is this affliction of infirmities to be grieved over by us, which we understand to be the mother of virtues. And so, whatever it may be, whoever are truly religious must be called blessed, because amid however hard, however harsh things, none are more blessed than those who are what they wish to be.

Although there are wont to be some who, pursuing base and obscene things, even if they are blessed according to their own opinion—because they obtain what they wish—yet in the thing itself are not blessed, because what they wish they ought to have been unwilling to wish. But the religious are for this reason more blessed than all, because they both have what they wish, and better things than what they have they cannot possibly have at all. And so labor and fasting and poverty and humility and weakness are not burdensome to all who endure them, but to those unwilling to endure. For whether these things be heavy or light, the mind of the endurer makes them so. For just as nothing is so light that it is not heavy to him who does it unwillingly, so nothing is so heavy that it does not seem light to him who carries it out gladly.

Unless perhaps we suppose that to those ancient men of old-time virtue—the Fabii, the Fabricii, the Cincinnati—it was burdensome that they were poor, who were unwilling to be rich, since forsooth they conferred all their zeal, all their endeavors, upon the common advantages, and enriched the growing strength of the republic by their private poverty. Did they endure that frugal and rustic life then with groaning and grief, when they took their cheap and rustic food before the very hearths at which they had cooked it, and were not permitted to partake of it except toward evening? Did they take it ill that they did not, with a greedy and rich conscience, hoard up talents of gold, when they even restrained the use of silver by laws?

Did they then think it a penalty of allurement and greed that their purses were not stuffed full of golden coins, when they judged a man of patrician rank unworthy of the senate-house because he had wished to be rich to the amount of ten pounds of silver? They did not, I suppose, despise a poor manner of dress in those days, when they wore a garment rough and short, when they were summoned from the plough to the fasces, and, in the very robe of consular dignity that was to invest them with distinction, they wiped away the sweat-soaked dust with those imperial togas which they were about to assume. And so in those days those poor magistrates possessed a wealthy commonwealth, whereas now a rich office makes the commonwealth poor.

And what madness, I ask, or what blindness is it, that men should believe private riches can stand firm while the commonwealth is destitute and begging? Such, then, were the ancient Romans of old, and thus in their day they despised riches though they knew not God, even as now those who follow the Lord scorn them.

And yet why do I speak of those men, who out of concern for enlarging the empire brought their contempt of their own resources to the service of the public wealth, and, though poor in private, nevertheless abounded in the common riches; when even certain Greeks, followers of wisdom, without any regard for public advantage, stripped themselves of nearly all use of their household property out of eagerness to attain glory, and not only this, but even raised the summit of their teaching to the point of despising pain and death, declaring, indeed, that the wise man is blessed even in chains and torments? So great did they will the power of virtue to be, that a good man can never fail to be blessed.

If, then, those men are not counted wretched even by certain wise men now, men who reaped no fruit of their labour save only present praise, how much more ought religious and holy men not to be counted wretched, who both receive the delights of present faith and shall obtain the rewards of future blessedness? One of those men of whom we complain once said to a certain holy man who held rightly according to the rule of truth—that is, that God governs all things and, as far as He knows it needful for the human race, tempers His moderation and His guidance—he said: "Why, then, are you yourself sick?" This, of course, was said with the following sense and judgment, namely:

If God, as you suppose, governs all things in this present life, if God dispenses all things, by what reason is a man whom I know to be a sinner healthy and strong, while you, whom I do not doubt to be holy, are infirm? Who would not marvel at a man of so profound a heart, who reckons the merits and virtues of religious men worthy of such great recompense that he thinks in this present life the flesh and the bodily vigour of the saints ought to be their reward? I answer, then, not in the name of one religious man only, but of all: You ask, then, whoever you are, by what reason holy men are infirm? I answer briefly: holy men make themselves the weaker precisely because, if they were strong, they could scarcely be holy.

For I think that all men without exception are made strong by food and drink, but weak by abstinence, dryness, and fasting. It is no wonder, then, that those are weak who reject the use of those very things by which others are made strong. And there is a reason why they reject them, since Paul the apostle says of himself: "I chastise my body and bring it into subjection, lest perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway." If even the apostle thinks that weakness of body is to be sought for himself, who wisely avoids it? If the apostle fears strength of the flesh, who reasonably presumes to be strong? This, then, is the reason why men devoted to Christ are weak and wish to be so.

But far be it from us to think that, by that argument by which we trust they are the more loved, religious men are neglected by God. We read that Timothy the apostle was very weak in the flesh. Was he then neglected by the Lord, or because of his infirmity did he not please Christ, who chose to be weak for this very purpose, that he might please Him? And the apostle Paul himself, though Timothy laboured under excessive infirmities, nevertheless permitted him to take and sip only a very little wine: that is, he wished him to have such regard for his infirmity as would not, however, allow him to attain to strength. And why so? Why, beyond doubt, save because, as he himself says: "The flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh"?

"For these," he says, "are contrary the one to the other, so that you may not do the things that you would." Not without prudence did someone say in this place that, if because of the resisting strength of the body we cannot do the things we desire, then we must be weakened in the flesh so that we may do the things we long for. "For weakness of the flesh," he says, "sharpens the vigour of the mind, and when the limbs are afflicted, the strength of the body is transferred into the virtues of the soul. The marrow does not burn with base flames, hidden incentives do not kindle a mind ill in health, the wandering senses do not run riot through varied delights, but the soul alone exults, rejoicing while the body is afflicted, as though an adversary had been subdued." This, then, as I have said, is the cause of infirmity in religious men:

and that this is so, you too, I think, no longer deny. But there are perhaps, you say, other and greater matters—namely, that they suffer many harsh and bitter things in this life, that they are taken captive, that they are tortured, that they are slain. It is true: but what shall we do with the fact that the prophets too were led away into captivity, and the apostles also endured torments? And surely we cannot doubt that they were then most of all the care of God, when they suffered these things for God's sake. But perhaps you say that by this very fact you all the more prove your point—that God neglects all things in this world and reserves the whole for the judgment to come, since the good have always suffered all evils and the wicked have done them. This is not, indeed, an unbelieving assertion, especially because it confesses that there will be a judgment of God.

But we say that the human race is so to be judged by Christ, that nevertheless even now we believe God governs and dispenses all things as He deems reasonable; and we affirm that He will so judge in the future, that we nevertheless teach He has always judged even in this world. For while God ever governs, He ever also judges, since governance itself is judgment. In how many ways would you have us prove this? By reason, or by examples, or by testimonies?

If by reason: he is so devoid of human understanding and so estranged from that very truth of which we speak, who does not recognize and see that this most beautiful work of the world, and the inestimable magnificence of things above and below, is governed by the same One by whom it was created, and that the Maker of the elements will also be their Governor; who, that is, with the same power and majesty by which He founded all things, likewise moderates them by the same providence and reason—especially since even in those things which are administered by human action nothing at all subsists without reason, and all things thus draw their preservation from providence, just as the body draws its life from the soul;

and therefore in this world not only empires and provinces, and civil and military affairs, but also lesser offices and private households, and finally the very flocks and every least kind of domestic animal, are held together by nothing but human ordering and counsel, as though by a certain hand and helm. And all these things, without doubt, by the will and judgment of the most high God: namely, that by that example the whole human race might govern the particular parts and members of things, even as He Himself governs the sum of the whole mundane body. But in the beginning, you say, of created things these were established and disposed by God; yet, once the universe of things had been accomplished and perfected, He removed from Himself all care of earthly things and sent it away:

fleeing labour, perhaps, He banished it from His place, and, shunning the trouble of weariness, or being occupied with other business, He abandoned a part of things because He could not attend to the whole. God, then, you say, removes from Himself the care of mortals. And what, then, is our reason for divine religion? What cause is there for worshipping Christ, or hope of propitiating Him? For if God neglects the human race in this world, why do we daily stretch out our hands to heaven? Why with frequent prayers do we seek the mercy of God? Why do we hasten to the houses of the Church? Why do we make supplication before the altars? For we have no reason for praying, if the hope of obtaining is taken away. You see, then, how foolish and empty is the assertion of this persuasion:

for if it is accepted, absolutely nothing of religion is preserved. But perhaps you take refuge in this, and say that we worship God out of fear of the future judgment, and that we labour at all this worship of present duties in order that on the day of the future judgment we may deserve to be acquitted. What, then, does the apostle Paul mean when he daily commands in the church and bids us continually to offer to our God prayers, supplications, petitions, and thanksgivings? And all this for what cause? For what, indeed, save, as he himself says, "that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life in all chastity"? He bids us make supplication and pray to the Lord for present things, as we see, which surely He would not bid us do unless He were confident that He could be prevailed upon.

How, then, does anyone suppose God's ears open for the obtaining of the good things of the time to come, but closed and stopped up for present things? Or how do we, making supplication in the church, beg present welfare from God, if we think we are not to be heard at all? No vows, then, are to be made by us for our safety and prosperity. Nay rather, that the modesty of our supplication may commend the voice of the petitioner, we should perhaps say: "Lord, we do not ask for the prosperity of this life, nor make supplication for present goods; for we know that Your ears are closed to these entreaties, and that You do not lend a hearing to prayers of this kind, but we ask only for those things which are to come after death."

Granted, then, that such a petition does not lack utility: how does it stand to reason? For if God removes His care from regard of this world and closes His ears to the prayers of petitioners, then without doubt He who does not hear us for present things does not hear us for future things either—unless perhaps we believe that Christ, according to the diversity of prayers, either grants or refuses His ears, that is, that He closes them when asked about present things and opens them when asked about future things. But no more need be said of these matters; for they are so foolish and so frivolous that we must beware lest the very thing that is said for the honour of God should seem to be an injury to God.

For so great is the reverence due to sacred majesty, and so awe-inspiring, that not only ought we to shudder at those things which are said by them against religion, but even those things which we ourselves say on behalf of religion we ought to speak with great fear and discipline. Therefore, if it is foolishly and impiously believed that the divine goodness despises the care of human affairs—well then, He does not despise it; and if He does not despise it, He governs; and if He governs, by that very fact that He governs He judges, since there can be no governance unless there be continually judgment in the governor. But perhaps someone may think it too little that reason declares this, unless it be proved by examples.

Let us see in what manner God governed the world from the beginning, and we shall thus show that He has always governed all things in such a way that we may at the same time teach that He has also judged. For what does Scripture say? "God, then, formed man of the slime of the earth, and breathed into him the breath of life." And what afterward? "He placed him," it says, "in the paradise of delight." What next? He gave him, that is, a law, imbued him with precepts, and shaped him by instruction. But what followed after these things? Man transgressed the sacred commandment, underwent the sentence, lost paradise, and received the penalty of damnation. Who in all these things would not see both God the Governor and God the Judge? For He established Adam innocent in paradise, and expelled him guilty.

In the establishing there is ordination, in the expulsion there is judgment. For when He placed him in the place of delight, He ordained; but when He expelled him guilty from the kingdom, He judged. This, then, concerning the first man, that is, concerning the father. What of the second, that is, of the son? "It came to pass," says holy Scripture, "after many days, that Cain offered of the fruits of the earth gifts to the Lord. Abel also offered of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat. And the Lord had respect to Abel and to his gifts, but to Cain and to his gifts He had not respect." Before I speak of the more evident judgment of God, I think that even in the things we have already mentioned there is a certain censure of judgment;

for in this, that God accepts the sacrifice of the one and rejects that of the other, He most evidently passed judgment both on the righteousness of the one and on the iniquity of the other. But this is little. Cain, then, paving the way for his coming crime, drags his brother into the wilderness, and with the solitude abetting him carries out the deed—most impious and at the same time most foolish, who believed it enough for the perpetrating of the greatest wickedness if he avoided the sight of men, though about to commit fratricide with God as witness. Whence I think that there was already in him then that opinion which is now in many, namely, that God does not regard earthly things and does not see the deeds of wicked men.

Nor is it doubtful, since after the crime had been committed and he was confronted by the word of God, he answered that he knew nothing of his brother's murder. So far did he deem God ignorant of his deed, that he believed the most savage wickedness could be covered by a lie. But he found it otherwise than he had thought. For God, by whom he supposed his crimes were not seen while he was killing, he perceived did see when he was condemned. Here now I wish to ask of those who deny that human affairs are now either regarded by God, or governed, or judged, whether in the things we have mentioned all things are the reverse.

For I think that He is present who is at the sacrifice, and He governs who chastises Cain after the sacrifices, and He is solicitous who seeks the slain from the slayer, and He judges who condemns the impious murderer with just retribution. In which indeed this too is not amiss, namely, that we should not now wonder that holy men suffer certain hardships, when we see that already then God allowed the first of the saints to be slain even through the greatest wickedness. By what reason indeed He permits this, it belongs neither to human weakness to know by full inquiry, nor to discuss at this time. Meanwhile it is enough to prove that all things of this kind come to pass not through God's negligence or carelessness, but are permitted by counsel and dispensation.

But we can by no means call that unjust in which we cannot deny that there is a divine judgment, since the highest justice is the will of God; for that which the Godhead does is not on that account unjust, because man is not able to grasp the force of divine justice. But let us return to our purpose. We see, then, in the things that have been said, that nothing was done through God's carelessness, but that of these things divine disposition ordained some, patience endured some, and sentence avenged some. But perhaps some think we have not sufficiently proved these things we say, since it is by a few instances: let us see whether we can make this very thing manifest also by all.

When, then, the multitude of the human race had grown and multiplied, together with its iniquity, "God, seeing," says holy Scripture, "that there was much malice of men on the earth, and that all the thought of the heart was bent upon evil at all times, it repented Him that He had made man on the earth, and being touched inwardly with grief of heart, He said: I will destroy man whom I created, from the face of the earth." Let us consider how in all these things both the solicitude of the Lord and His severity alike are indicated. For first He says "God seeing"; second, "touched inwardly with grief of heart"; third, "I will destroy," He says, "man whom I created."