書信與論戰集（CSEL） 第 35 章 第 1/4 段

On Faith and Works. It seems to certain persons that all are to be admitted indiscriminately to the laver of regeneration, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord, even if they have refused to change an evil and shameful life marked by most manifest crimes and disgraceful deeds, and have declared, even by open profession, that they will persevere in it.

For example, if anyone clings to a harlot, let it not first be enjoined upon him that he should depart from her and then come to baptism; but even while remaining with her, and confessing — or even openly professing — that he will remain, let him be admitted and baptized, and not be hindered from becoming a member of Christ, even though he should persist in being a member of a harlot; but let him afterward be taught how great an evil this is, and, once baptized, be instructed about changing his morals for the better. For they think it perverse and preposterous first to teach how a Christian ought to live and then to baptize him. But they judge that the sacrament of baptism ought to precede, so that the teaching of life and morals may then follow: which, if he should be willing to hold and keep, he will have acted profitably;

but if he should be unwilling, then, retaining the Christian faith, without which he would perish forever, he will remain in whatsoever crime and uncleanness, yet will be saved as though through fire, like one who has built upon the foundation, which is Christ, not gold, silver, precious stones, but wood, hay, stubble — that is, not just and chaste morals, but iniquitous and unchaste ones. To this argument they seem to have been driven because it moved them that those are not admitted to baptism who, having dismissed their wives, have married others, or women who, having dismissed their husbands, have married others; because the Lord Christ testifies, without any doubt, that these are not marriages but adulteries.

For since they could not deny that it was adultery, which Truth confirms without ambiguity to be adultery, and yet wished to lend support toward receiving baptism to those whom they saw so caught in a snare of this kind that, if they were not admitted to baptism, they would rather live or even die without any sacrament than be freed by breaking the bond of adultery, they were moved by a certain human pity to take up their cause in such a way that they judged all the wicked and disgraceful — even those corrected by no prohibition, set right by no instruction, changed by no penance — ought to be admitted to baptism along with them, thinking that these, unless it were done, would perish forever;

but if it were done, even while persevering in those evils, they would be saved through fire. Answering these men, I say first this: let no one so receive those testimonies of the Scriptures which indicate the present, or foretell the future, commingling of the good and the evil in the Church, as to think that the severity or diligence of discipline is to be altogether dissolved and set aside — being deceived not by those writings, but by his own opinion. For it is not the case that, because Moses the servant of God most patiently endured that commingling of the first people, therefore he did not also avenge it with the sword upon many; and Phinehas the priest transfixed with avenging steel the adulterers found together.

And this assuredly was signified to be done at this time by degradations and excommunications, when in the discipline of the Church the visible sword was to cease. Nor, because the blessed Apostle most tolerantly groans among false brethren, and permits some, even goaded by the diabolical stings of envy, nevertheless to preach Christ, does he therefore judge that man to be spared who had his father's wife — whom he commands, the church being gathered, to be handed over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus — or does he therefore himself not hand over others to Satan, that they might learn not to blaspheme, or does he say in vain:

I wrote to you in the epistle not to keep company with fornicators — not indeed with the fornicators of this world, or the covetous, or robbers, or those who serve idols; otherwise you would have had to go out of this world. But now I have written to you not to keep company, if any who is called a brother be either a fornicator, or a server of idols, or covetous, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a rapacious man — with such a one not even to take food. For what have I to do to judge those who are without? Do you not judge those who are within? But those who are without, God will judge. Put away the evil from among your own selves. Here indeed some understand what is said, 'from among your own selves,' in such a way that each one should put away evil from his own self — that is, that he himself should be good.

But in whichever way it be understood — whether that by the severity of the Church the evil be corrected by excommunications, or that each one, by correcting and setting himself right, should put away evil from himself — nevertheless that which was said above has no ambiguity, where he enjoins not to keep company with those brethren who are named in any of the aforesaid vices — that is, who are known and notorious. But with what mind and with what charity this merciful severity is to be applied, he clearly shows not only in that place where he says: that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus, but also elsewhere, saying: If anyone does not obey our word by the epistle, note that man, and do not keep company with him, that he may be ashamed; and do not esteem him as an enemy, but rebuke him as a brother.

And the Lord Himself, the singular example of patience, who even among the twelve apostles endured the devil up to the passion, and who said: Let both grow until the harvest, lest perchance, while you wish to gather the tares, you also root up the wheat together with them; and who foretold, by that likeness of the net, that the Church, up to the shore — that is, up to the end of the world — would have both good and bad fish; and the rest, whatever He spoke, whether openly or through likenesses, about the commingling of the good and the bad, did not on that account judge that the discipline of the Church was to be omitted; nay rather, He admonished that it was to be applied, when He said: Take heed to yourselves; if your brother sin against you, go, rebuke him between you and him alone.

If he hears you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not hear you, take with you one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may stand. But if he will not hear them, tell the church. But if he will not hear the church either, let him be to you as a heathen and a publican. Then He added the most grievous terror of that very severity, saying also in that place: Whatsoever you shall loose on earth shall be loosed also in heaven, and whatsoever you shall bind on earth shall be bound also in heaven; He also forbids that the holy be given to dogs. Nor is the Apostle contrary to the Lord, because he says: Them that sin, rebuke before all, that the rest also may have fear — while the Lord says: Rebuke him between you and himself alone.

For both are to be done, as the diversity of infirmity of those men admonishes, whom we have undertaken not to destroy, but to correct and to heal; and one is to be healed thus, another otherwise. So too there is a reason for overlooking and tolerating the evil in the Church; and there is again a reason for chastising, rebuking, not admitting, or removing from communion. But men err by not observing the measure; and when they have begun to go pronely to one side, they do not look back at the other testimonies of the divine authority, by which they might be recalled from that inclination and take their stand in the truth and moderation that is tempered from both — and not only in this matter, about which the question now is, but also in many others.

For some, looking at those testimonies of the divine writings by which one God is instilled as to be worshipped, thought the same to be the Father who is the Son and the Holy Spirit; others again, laboring as it were with the contrary disease, when they attended to those things by which the Trinity is declared, and were not able to understand how there is one God — since the Father is not the Son, nor is the Son the Father, nor is the Holy Spirit either the Son or the Father — thought that diversities also of substances must be asserted. Some, looking at the praise of holy virginity in the Scriptures, condemned marriages; some again, following those testimonies by which chaste marriages are proclaimed, made virginity equal to nuptials. Some, when they read:

It is good, brethren, not to eat flesh nor to drink wine, and some similar things, deemed a creature of God, and whatever foods they pleased, to be unclean; while some, reading: Every creature of God is good, and nothing to be rejected which is received with thanksgiving, sank into gluttony and wine-drinking, being unable to remove vices from themselves, unless equal or even greater ones succeeded them from the opposite side.

So too in this present matter now in hand, certain people, looking to the precepts of severity by which we are admonished to correct the unruly, not to give what is holy to dogs, to hold an ecclesiastical despiser as a heathen, and to tear from the frame of the body the member that gives offence, so disturb the peace of the Church that they attempt to separate the tares before the time; and, blinded by this error, they themselves are rather cut off from the unity of Christ. Such is our case against the schism of Donatus — and this not with those who knew that Caecilianus was assailed with charges that were not true but slanderous, and who will not abandon their deadly opinion out of a lethal shame, but with those to whom we say:

Even if those on whose account you are not in the Church had been wicked, you ought nevertheless, by bearing with those whom you could by no means either amend or set apart, to have remained within the Church.

But certain others, on the contrary, running into danger — when they have perceived that a mixture of good and bad in the Church has been shown or foretold, and have learned the precepts of patience (which so establish us in firmness that, even if there seem to be tares in the Church, neither our faith nor our love is thereby hindered, so that, because we discern there to be tares in the Church, we should ourselves withdraw from the Church) — think that ecclesiastical discipline is to be abandoned, granting to those set over the Church a most perverse sense of security, as though it pertained to them only to say what is to be avoided and what is to be done, but to care nothing about whatever anyone may do.

We, however, judge that it belongs to sound doctrine to regulate our life and opinion from both classes of testimony, so that both for the sake of the Church's peace we tolerate the dogs within the Church, and where the peace of the Church is secure we do not give what is holy to the dogs.

When therefore, whether through the negligence of those set over us, or through some excusable necessity, or through hidden creepings-in, we find wicked men in the Church whom ecclesiastical discipline can neither correct nor restrain, then, lest there rise up in our heart the impious and pernicious presumption by which we suppose that we must separate ourselves from these, in order that we be not defiled by their sins, and thus try to draw after us, as it were pure and holy disciples, cut off from the frame of unity as from a fellowship of the wicked — let those passages come to mind.

— those similitudes from the Scriptures and divine oracles or most certain examples, by which it has been shown and foretold that the wicked, mingled with the good in the Church, will be there even to the end of the age and to the time of judgment, and that nothing will harm the good, who have not consented to the deeds of the wicked, within the unity and participation of the sacraments.

But when to those by whom the Church is governed there is present, with the Church's peace preserved, the power of exercising discipline against the wicked or wicked-doers, then again, lest we slumber in slackness and sloth, we must be roused by other goads of precepts which pertain to the severity of correction, so that, directing our steps in the way of the Lord from both classes of testimony, with Him as guide and guardian, we neither grow torpid under the name of patience nor rage under the pretext of diligence.

Preserving therefore this moderation according to sound doctrine, let us see what is at issue — namely, whether men are to be admitted to receiving baptism in such a way that no diligence keeps watch there, lest what is holy be given to dogs; to such a degree that not even the most open perpetrators of adultery and the professed persisters therein seem to be barred from the sacrament of so great a holiness — from which they would beyond doubt not be admitted, if, during those very days on which, being about to receive that same grace, having given in their names, they are purified by abstinence, fastings, and exorcisms, they were to profess that they would lie even with their own lawful and true wives, and would keep no continence in this matter (though at another time lawful) during those few solemn days.

How then is the adulterer who refuses correction admitted to those holy things, when the married man who refuses the observance is not admitted to them? 'But let him first be baptized,' they say, 'and then be taught what pertains to a good life and character.' This is done when perhaps the last day presses upon someone, so that at very few words (in which nevertheless all things are contained) he may believe and receive the sacrament, in order that, if he departs from this life, he may go forth freed from the guilt of all past sins. But if he seeks it while sound and there is space for learning, what other more opportune time can be found for him to hear how he ought to become and to live as a believer, than that when, with a more attentive mind and suspended by the very reverence of religion, he seeks the sacrament of the most healthful faith?

Or do we so far dissemble from our own senses that we do not even remember our own selves — how attentive and anxious we were as to what they who catechized us were enjoining upon us, when we sought the sacraments of that font and were for this reason even called 'competentes'? Or do we not observe others, who year by year run to the laver of regeneration, what they are on those very days on which they are catechized, exorcized, and scrutinized — with how great vigilance they come together, with what zeal they are fervent, with what care they are on tenterhooks? If then is not the time for saying what manner of life befits so great a sacrament as they desire to receive, when will it be?

Or indeed, when they have received it, are they to remain in such crimes even after baptism — not new men, but guilty old ones? So that, with wonderful perversity, you first say to them, 'Put on the new man,' and when they have put him on, afterward it is said, 'Put off the old,' while the Apostle, keeping the sound order, says, 'Put off the old and put on the new'; and the Lord Himself cries, 'No one sews a new patch on an old garment, and no one puts new wine into old wineskins.' But what else does the whole time do, during which they hold the place and name of catechumens, than that they may hear what faith and what manner of life a Christian ought to have, so that, when they have proved their own selves, they may then eat of the table of the Lord and drink of the cup?

For 'he who eats and drinks unworthily, eats and drinks judgment to himself.' But that which is done throughout the whole time during which it has been wholesomely established in the Church that the rank of catechumens should receive those coming to the name of Christ — this is done much more diligently and urgently in those days on which they are called 'competentes,' when they have already given their names for receiving baptism. 'What,' they say, 'if a maiden, unknowingly, has married another woman's husband?' If she is always ignorant of this, she will never on this account be an adulteress; but if she knows it, she now begins from this to be one, from the point at which she has knowingly lain with another woman's husband.

Just as in the law of estates, anyone is most rightly called a possessor in good faith so long as he is unaware that he possesses what belongs to another; but when he has come to know it and yet has not withdrawn from another's possession, then he is held to be of bad faith, then he is justly called unjust. Far be it therefore that, with a sense plainly not human but plainly empty, we should so grieve when disgraceful acts are corrected, as though marriages were being broken up — especially in the city of our God, in His holy mountain, that is, in the Church, where not only the bond but even the sacrament of marriage is so commended that it is not lawful for a man to hand over his own wife to another, which in the then Roman commonwealth Cato is reported to have done not only not blamably at all, but even praiseworthily.

Nor is there need to dispute longer on this point now, since even those to whom I am replying dare not affirm that this is no sin, nor deny that it is adultery, lest they be openly convicted of withstanding the Lord Himself and the holy Gospel. But when it pleases them that such people should first be admitted to receiving the sacrament of baptism and to the Lord's table, even if they have refused correction with a most manifest voice — nay rather, that they ought not to be admonished at all about this matter, but afterward to be taught, so that, if they receive the observance of the precept and correct their fault, they may be held among the wheat, but if they scorn it, they may be tolerated among the tares — they sufficiently show that they are not defending these crimes, nor treating them as though they were light or non-existent.

For what Christian of good hope would think adultery to be no crime or a small one? Yet they suppose that they bring forth from the holy Scriptures the order in which these things are either to be corrected or borne in others, when they say that the apostles acted thus, and they bring forward certain testimonies from their letters, where they are found first to have instilled the doctrine of faith and then to have handed down precepts of morals. And from this they wish it to be understood that only the rule of faith is to be instilled into those about to be baptized, but afterward, to those already baptized, the precepts of life to be changed for the better are to be handed down —

as though they were reading certain epistles of the apostles given to those who are to be baptized, in which they disputed about faith, and others to those already baptized, in which are contained precepts about avoiding evils and establishing good morals. Since therefore it is agreed that they gave their letters to those already Christians and baptized, why are they woven together with both kinds of discourse — namely that which pertains to faith and that which pertains to the good life? Or does it perhaps now please them that we should give neither of the two to those about to be baptized, and render both to the baptized?

But if that is absurd to say, then let them confess that the apostles put into their epistles their teaching complete from both parts, but that for this reason they for the most part instilled faith first and then subjoined what pertains to the good life, because in man himself too, unless faith precede, a good life cannot follow. For whatever a man may seem to do rightly, unless it be referred to the piety which is toward God, ought not to be called right. And if some foolish and too ignorant people were to think the epistles of the apostles were given to catechumens, assuredly they too would confess that precepts of morals which accord with the faith must be imparted, together with the rules of faith, to those not yet baptized —

unless perhaps these men, by their argument, drive us to this necessity: that they would wish the first parts of the apostolic epistles, where they speak of faith, to be read to the catechumens, but the later parts to the faithful, where it is now prescribed how Christians ought to live. But if it is most foolish to say this, then there is no document of this opinion from the epistles of the apostles, why we should for this reason judge that the baptized are to be admonished about faith alone, and the baptized about morals, because they commended faith in the first parts of their letters and afterward, consequently, exhorted that the faithful should live well.

For although the former comes first and the latter after, yet very often both, in one weaving of discourse, are to be preached — both to catechumens, both to the faithful, both to those about to be baptized, both to the baptized, whether that they may be instructed or that they may not forget, whether that they may profess or that they may be confirmed — by a most sound and most diligent teaching. And so to the epistles of Peter, the epistles of John, from which they recall certain testimonies, let them add also those of Paul and of the other apostles. It is on that principle that we must receive the fact which they have noticed, that faith is spoken of first and then morals — which, unless I am mistaken, I have most plainly set forth.

'But in the Acts of the Apostles,' they say, 'Peter thus addressed those who, having heard the word, were baptized in one day, three thousand, so that he preached to them faith alone, by which they should believe in Christ.' When they had said, 'What shall we do?' he answered them: 'Do penance, and let each one of you be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ unto the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.' Why then do they not notice what was said: 'Do penance'? For there is the stripping off of the old life, that the new may be put on by those who are baptized. But to whom is penance fruitful — penance which is done concerning dead works — if he persists in adultery and other crimes by which the love of this world is entangled?

'But,' they say, 'he wished them to do penance only for the unbelief by which they had not believed in Christ.' A wonderful presumption — I do not wish to say anything more grievous — that, when this was heard which was said, 'Do penance,' it is said to be done for unbelief alone, whereas by the evangelical doctrine there was being handed down a life to be changed from the old into the new, wherein assuredly is also that which the Apostle sets down in that sentence: 'He who stole, let him now steal no more,' and the rest, in which he follows out what it is to lay aside the old man and to put on the new. But in these very words of Peter they have that whereby they could have been admonished, if they had been willing to attend diligently. For when he had said:

'Do penance, and let each one of you be baptized in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ unto the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For to us is this promise, and to our sons, and to all who are far off, whomsoever the Lord our God shall have called' — immediately he who wrote the book subjoined and said: 'And with many other words he testified,' saying, 'Save yourselves from this crooked generation.' And they, most eagerly seizing them, received the words and believed and were baptized; and there were added on that day three thousand souls.

Who here does not understand that by 'many other words,' which are passed over by the writer on account of length, Peter did this: that they should save themselves from this crooked generation — since the sentence itself is briefly set down, for the persuading of which Peter was insisting with many words? For the very sum is set down when it is said, 'Save yourselves from this crooked generation'; but with many words Peter was testifying that this should be done. In these words was the condemnation of dead works, which the lovers of this world wickedly do, and the commendation of the good life, which those should hold and pursue who save themselves from this crooked generation.

Now therefore, if it please them, let them try to affirm that he saves himself from this crooked generation who only believes in Christ, even if he persists in whatever disgraceful acts he wishes, even to the profession of adultery. But if to say this is impious, let those to be baptized hear not only what they ought to believe, but also how they may save themselves from this crooked generation. For there it is necessary that they hear how believers ought to live. 'That eunuch,' they say, 'whom Philip baptized, said nothing more than: I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and upon this profession he was immediately baptized.' Does it then please them that men should answer only this and be immediately baptized?

Is nothing to be said by the one catechizing, and professed by the one believing, about the Holy Spirit, nothing about the holy Church, nothing about the remission of sins, nothing about the resurrection of the dead, and finally about the Lord Jesus Christ Himself nothing except that He is the Son of God — nothing about His incarnation from the Virgin, nothing about His passion, about the death of the cross, about the burial, about the resurrection on the third day, about the ascension and session at the right hand of the Father? For if the eunuch, when he had answered, 'I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God,' this seemed sufficient for him, so that, immediately baptized, he departed, why do we not follow this?

Why do we not imitate this and take away the rest, which we hold necessary — even when the shortness of time presses toward baptizing — to express by questioning, so that the one to be baptized may answer to all things, even if his memory has not been free for them? But if Scripture was silent and left to be understood the rest which Philip did with that eunuch to be baptized, and in that which it says:

'Philip baptized him,' it wished it to be understood that all things were fulfilled which, although they are passed over in silence in the Scriptures for the sake of brevity, we nevertheless know are to be fulfilled by the sequence of tradition — in like manner also in that which is written, that Philip evangelized to the eunuch the Lord Jesus, it is in no way to be doubted that those things also were said in the catechizing which pertain to the life and morals of him who believes in the Lord Jesus.

For this is to evangelize Christ: not only to say what things are to be believed concerning Christ, but also what things are to be observed by him who comes to the frame of the body of Christ — nay rather, to say all the things that are to be believed concerning Christ, not only whose Son He is, whence He was begotten according to divinity, whence according to the flesh, what things He suffered and why, what is the power of His resurrection, what gift of the Spirit He promised and gave to the faithful, but also what kind of members He seeks, forms, loves, frees, and leads to eternal life and honour — members of whom He is the head. When these things are said, sometimes more briefly and compactly, sometimes more broadly and richly is Christ evangelized;

and yet not only what pertains to the faith, but also what pertains to the morals of the faithful, is not passed over. This can be understood also in that which they recall the Apostle Paul to have said: 'I judged myself to know nothing among you, except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.' Which they think was said as though nothing else had been instilled into them, so that they should first believe and then, once baptized, learn whatever pertains to life and morals. 'This,' they say, 'was enough and more than enough for the Apostle,' who said to them that although they had many tutors in Christ, yet they had not many fathers, because he himself had begotten them in Christ Jesus through the Gospel.

If therefore he who begot them through the Gospel — although he gives thanks that he baptized none of them except Crispus and Gaius and the household of Stephanas — taught them nothing more than Christ crucified, what then? If someone should say that they did not even hear that Christ had risen, when they were begotten through the Gospel — whence then is it that he says to them: 'For I delivered to you first of all, that Christ died according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again on the third day according to the Scriptures,' if he had taught nothing but the crucified?