反亞流神學文集 第 9 章 第 2/6 段

For with God, who is severe and good, the prayer of the one who groans is then heard, then the weeping of the one who asks is heeded, then salvation is granted to the one who weeps, if he has been converted to God with the humility of a contrite heart. For it is necessary that God, having pity on the sinner, should forgive, if only the sinner, being converted, acknowledge his iniquity. Indeed, holy David for this reason effectually found the divine mercy, because, being converted through the humility of a contrite heart, he condemned by acknowledging what he had done wickedly, and did not delay to punish, by repenting, the lust of the evil deed into which he had fallen; for if he did not punish that whereby he was held guilty, without doubt he himself would be punished.

Being converted unto penance, therefore, he acknowledged his own crime; he feared lest, being condemned, he should have acknowledged the penalty. Repenting, he himself in himself took vengeance by acknowledging, that which he wished to be forgiven him by the Lord. Indeed, when he had said: 'Have mercy on me, O God, according to thy great mercy; and according to the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my iniquity. Wash me yet more from my injustice, and cleanse me from my sin' (Ps. 50:3–4); immediately he added in what follows: 'For I acknowledge my iniquity, and my sin is always before me' (Ps. 50:5). He acknowledged his iniquity, not that he might by sinning increase it the more, but that he might by repenting wash it away;

and thus true conversion removed the dominion of sin, which culpable delight had introduced. And because David, converted with his whole heart, groaned, immediately he was made whole; and thus in him was fulfilled that which is enjoined by the prophet: 'If thou be converted and groan, thou shalt be saved.' CHAPTER XIII. Furthermore, conversion is enjoined both from impiety and from iniquity. For both provoke the wrath of God against themselves: because God abhors and condemns both, as Paul says: 'For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all impiety and injustice of men' (Rom. 1:18). And Solomon says—which blessed Peter also inserted in his own writings: 'If the just man shall scarcely be saved, where shall the sinner and the ungodly appear?'

(Prov. 11:31, according to the Septuagint; 1 Pet. 4:18). Whence not without cause the Vessel of Election, who was full of divine charity, just as he was shaken with great sorrow and grief of heart for those who sinned in the faith, so he testified that he mourned for those who, being established within the Church and living unchastely and licentiously, did not undertake penance. For concerning the Jews, whom the impiety of an unbelieving heart possessed, he thus speaks: 'I speak the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sadness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I wished myself to be an anathema from Christ, for my brethren, who are my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites' (Rom. 9:1–4).

But concerning those who, placed within the Church, persisted in evil works, he thus speaks to the Corinthians with a medicinal discourse: 'Lest again, when I come, God humble me among you, and I mourn many of them that sinned before, and have not done penance for the uncleanness and fornication and lasciviousness that they have committed' (2 Cor. 12:21). Surely the Apostle would not mourn in sorrow for these, nor be humbled in grief for those, if he believed that to the impious and the iniquitous who exacerbate the divine justice, remission of sins should be conferred without conversion of heart; since the remission of sins itself takes effect only in conversion of heart;

at least in those who, now using the judgment of their own will, being converted by the help of the divine gift, with their life changed for the better, cease not to run to ask remission of the sins whose commission either ignorance impelled them to unknowingly, or—which is worse—the defiance of their will enticed them to knowingly. For this reason the Prophet prays to God: 'The sins of my youth and my ignorances remember not' (Ps. 24:7). And our Savior says: 'The servant who knew not the will of his lord, and did things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes; and the servant who knew the will of his lord, and did unworthy things, shall be beaten with many stripes' (Luke 12:47–48).

Whence the Apostle also confesses that he sinned in ignorance, with these words: 'I give thanks to him who hath strengthened me, Christ Jesus our Lord, for that he counted me faithful, putting me in the ministry, who before was a blasphemer and a persecutor and contumelious; but I obtained mercy, because I did it in ignorance, in unbelief' (1 Tim. 1:12–13). Lest anyone, therefore, flatter himself concerning ignorance, the Apostle's word must be heeded, who indeed declares that he acted in ignorance, yet does not deny that he sinned; nay, he calls himself the first (1 Tim. 1:15) of all sinners: the first, namely, not in the course of time, but in the excess of iniquity.

Thus, therefore, he obtained mercy in this, that the sins which he had committed in ignorance, being enlightened he acknowledged, and being converted he forthwith renounced. And this comes to pass, that we may recognize—as the apostle James teaches us—that 'every best gift and every perfect gift cometh down from above, from the Father of lights' (James 1:17). For when he finds in the sinner that for which he ought justly to be condemned, he himself freely grants conversion to the sinner, through which the torments of just condemnation may be removed. CHAPTER XIV. In every sinner, therefore, who now uses the judgment of his own will, the benefit of the divine gift is begun through conversion of heart.

But as for infants, we know that they are saved not by their own will, but by the right belief of the faithful who confess on their behalf. For it agrees with the judgment of truth that infants should be absolved by the ministry of another's confession, whom it is established are bound by the bond of another's iniquity: so that, while others confess spiritually, they may receive the benefit of justification—they who, while others begat them carnally, bear original sin; and just as, at their first birth, the carnal intercourse of their parents harmed those not yet born and doing nothing, so, at their second birth, may the spiritual affection of the faithful confessing on their behalf profit them, though they know it not.

As for those, therefore, who are now able to render an account of their own acts, none shall be brought forth blessed except him who, renouncing evil acts, has been converted to God with all humility of heart. 'Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered' (Ps. 31:1). Whosoever, therefore, bears the iniquity of his own will and working, cannot receive any blessedness, unless he be converted to that very Bestower of blessedness. CHAPTER XV. For by sins the heart is blinded, but by remission it is enlightened. For just as to be blinded is nothing else than to be deprived of light, so a healed eye, in as much as it is able to enjoy the vision of light, in that much lacks the defect of blindness.

Yet that eye will by no means be able to see the light, unless the light shed itself into it. The eye, therefore, by the infusion of light, is able to perceive the vision of light. So too, when remission of sins is given to men, without doubt the blindness of the heart is expelled, so that the light of justice may be discerned by the inner eye. But how can it come to pass that the obscurity of darkness be removed, if the infusion of light be not granted? Therefore God, to those whose own sins he forgives, infuses the light of true conversion. Wherefore, just as any blind man, so long as he is blind, cannot see the light, so any iniquitous or impious man does not receive remission of sins, unless, prevented by the gift of gratuitous justification, he be converted to God with his whole heart:

for the effect of that very remission consists in the conversion of the heart. But to him to whom the grace of conversion is not granted, remission of sins is not bestowed. For what else is it to obtain remission of sins, than to be freed from the dominion of sin? For (as the Truth says) 'everyone that committeth sin is the servant of sin' (John 8:34). But how is he believed to enjoy the resplendent gift of liberation, who is not free from the most foul servitude of sin? For this reason, that the condemnation of those who say, 'Let us do evil, that good may come' (Rom. 3:8), is just, we have learned from the teaching of the Master of the nations, at whose preaching we have likewise heard:

'That neither fornicators, nor idol-worshippers, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor liers with mankind, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor railers, nor extortioners, shall possess the kingdom of God' (1 Cor. 6:9–10). To the Galatians also that same excellent teacher thus admonishes: 'Now the works of the flesh are manifest,' he says, 'which are fornication, uncleanness, luxury, idolatry, sorceries, enmities, contentions, jealousies, wraths, quarrels, dissensions, sects, envies, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like; of which I foretell you, as I have foretold, that they who do such things shall not obtain the kingdom of God' (Gal. 5:19 ff.).

Because, therefore, God is just, so long as these do such things, they do not obtain the kingdom of God; but because the same God is merciful, therefore the wicked, if they cease to do such things by which they defiantly exacerbate God, and, humbled and corrected, are converted to God, shall without doubt obtain the kingdom of God. For just as the work of justice is not overcome, so neither is the work of mercy removed. And therefore God has so disposed the possession of his kingdom, that, because he is just, he grants it not to the impious and iniquitous; but because he is merciful, he denies it not to anyone who is truly converted. CHAPTER XVI. But conversion is then proved true in a man, if impiety and iniquity be driven out of the heart.

Nevertheless, between impiety and iniquity this difference is wont to be pronounced: that impiety either holds a depraved faith in God, or none; but iniquity pollutes life with evil morals. Impiety blasphemes God, iniquity harms one's neighbor. Impiety, moreover, out of the lowliness of the flesh, measures the Most High, striving to proclaim the sacrament of unconquered piety to the reproach of the divine nature; or it denies that God the Son of God was conceived and born in human flesh, and assigns to the true God not the truth of flesh but only the appearance of a false vision; or it so confesses the flesh of Christ to be from the flesh of the Virgin, that it denies it was conceived in the assumption of flesh;

or with impious confusion says that the same is Father whom it calls Son and Holy Spirit; or with perverse separation introduces distinct natures of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit; or does not believe the flesh of the Son of God to be taken from the flesh of Mary the Virgin, but does not hesitate to assert that it was brought down from heaven; or wishes to withdraw something of human nature from Christ, so as to deny that God the Only-begotten, in the human flesh received, received also a rational soul, that is, the full soul of a man. It is a crime of impiety, if anyone should say that not all spiritual and corporeal nature was created good by God; but on the contrary should wish to assign a substance proper to evil:

whereas all evil exists not from the origin nor from the state of a natural property, but arises from a defect of voluntary thought:

not because a good nature receives an evil nature—since there is no evil nature—but because, the order of love being forsaken, the rational creature, which was made for the love of the Creator, while, despising the Creator, it either clings to created things or to false thoughts, being made worse, prefers temporal things to eternal, the lowest to the highest, mutable things to immutable. Similarly those who say that the just and the iniquitous are to be judged not by the diversity of their works, but by the communion of the sacraments, wishing that it profit no one if among the unjust he live justly in the Catholic Church—as though eternal retribution, whether of punishment or of the kingdom, awaited each not according to the quality of his deed, but according to fellowship in the sacrament.

These things, therefore, which have been intimated by us above, and many others which are brought forth by heretics and schismatics against the Catholic and apostolic faith, are reckoned as the vice of impiety. For that very separation shows them to be impious, which makes such men not associates but adversaries of the ecclesiastical body. For they would not be separated in body and in place from the assembly of ecclesiastical unity, unless first they had departed from the ecclesiastical faith with a corrupt heart; nor would they be sundered by open impiety from the lawful wedlock of the word of God, unless they conceived perfidious and perverse thoughts by the adulterous sowing of the diabolical defilement;

which, wickedly cherishing them with inward assent, they afterwards bring forth by nefarious speech, so that, like the viper burst asunder by their own offspring, they perish. For with vipers, to give birth is the same as to perish. Whose young, as is reported, having burst asunder the bowels by which they were conceived, so come forth into the light, that they bring death upon their parents. When, therefore, any impious depravity is either conceived by assent, or even generated by profession, it slays the soul with eternal death. Consenting to corruption, for this cause it is inwardly inflated with the conception of infidelity, that afterward, burst by its own birth, it may die. Such the apostolic authority designates with these words: 'Now as Jannes and Mambres resisted Moses;'

'so these also resist the truth, men corrupted in mind, reprobate concerning the faith' (2 Tim. 3:8). If anyone, therefore, disputing contrary things, and separating himself from goodness, perversely withstands the ecclesiastical faith, he is without doubt called impious. But if anyone, persevering in the body of Catholic unity, joined in the fellowship of the sacraments, is given over to disgraceful deeds and crimes, he is wont to be called iniquitous, not impious. Whereof it is not now for us to dispute. This, however, we say: that not every iniquitous man is impious, although every impious man is iniquitous. CHAPTER XVII. That conversion, therefore, is pleasing and acceptable in the sight of God, in which both the rectitude of faith is preserved, and the rule of a good life is kept:

that is, so that first a right opinion concerning God be held, and then the charity divinely commanded be shown to one's neighbor. For then does a man rightly love himself, when, devoted and humble, he sets the love of God before himself. Then also does he love his neighbor, if he takes counsel for his neighbor as much as he can, that he may come to God by right faith and good conversation. But the charity of one's neighbor is to be kept by a twofold reasoning: namely, that one neither inflict on another anything which he would not wish inflicted on himself, nor deny to the needy the help of a good work as far as he can, since neither would he wish it denied to himself, if he likewise were in need. Whence we recognize ourselves to be instructed by the word of our Savior, who says: 'What you would that men should do to you, the same do you also to them.'

'For this is the law and the prophets' (Matt. 7:12). Christ did not say, As men have done to you, so do you also to them—lest we should believe that evil is to be returned for evil to him who has done us some evil, or think that a benefit is to be denied to anyone from whom we knew no benefit had been bestowed on us; since a Christian ought to every man either to bestow beforehand or to render the help of benevolence, so that both he may return good for good, and may forestall evil with goodness. For it is said to us by the Lord:

Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who persecute and slander you, that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven, who makes his sun to rise upon the good and the wicked, and sends rain upon the just and the unjust (Matt. v, 44, 45). Now the good faithful suffer persecution not only from those who, standing outside, strive with faithless barkings and perverse doctrines against the dogmas of the Catholic Church; but also from those who indeed seem to be within the Church, yet, living wickedly, are found to resist the ecclesiastical tradition not in word, but in deed.

When the good behold such men, they groan grievously, and the good soul, moved with holy feeling, is tormented, since it cannot escape the awareness of another's perversity, though it cannot give consent to it. CHAPTER XVIII. For within the Catholic Church, in the present age, the just and the unjust are held mingled together, that is, by the communion of the sacraments, not of morals; by the fellowship of belief, not by likeness of conduct. Not, therefore, in heart, but in body; for by profession, not by deed. Now therefore, as long as, according to the preaching of blessed Paul, in a great house there are not only vessels of gold, but also of wood and of clay, and some indeed unto honor, but some unto dishonor (2 Tim. ii, 20);

within the Church, indeed, there are both the unjust and the just, but outside the Church there is no just man. And upon the Lord's threshing-floor, until the dreaded coming of the winnower is awaited, and the separation of the winnowing is deferred to the very last, the chaff is mingled with the wheat in local fellowship. But whatever place is outside the Lord's threshing-floor, although the name of husbandman be pronounced there, there only the chaff that is snatched away by the wind can remain. Yet because so great is the omnipotence of our Husbandman that none can prevail against his will;

whoever in the present life, being converted, has run back to the lawful place of the Lord's threshing-floor, if he perseveringly holds in right faith the purpose of a good life, he will not be chaff, but wheat, nor will he be handed over to the fires to be burned, but will be gathered into the barn, enriched with fruits pleasing to God. CHAPTER XIX. In the Catholic Church alone, therefore, is the remission of sins given and received; and the Bridegroom himself calls her his one dove, his one elect, whom he founded upon the rock, to whom he gave the keys of the kingdom of heaven, to whom also he granted the power of binding and loosing, as Truth itself truly promises to blessed Peter, saying:

Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it; and to thee I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth shall be bound also in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth shall be loosed also in heaven (Matt. xvi, 18, 19). From this Church, which received the keys of the kingdom of heaven, whoever is outside walks not the way of heaven, but of hell; nor does he journey toward the home of eternal life, but runs toward the punishment of eternal death; and this not only if he remains a pagan without baptism, but even if, baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, he persists as a heretic.

For a man does not obtain true life through the merit of baptism, if anyone baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, whether within the Church or outside the Church, nevertheless has not ended this life within the Catholic Church; nor will he live through the sacrament of ecclesiastical baptism who has not held the fellowship of ecclesiastical charity. For that man is saved by the sacrament of baptism whom the unity of charity has held within the Catholic Church until the end of the present life. CHAPTER XX.

But if anyone either goes forth baptized from the Church, or, baptized outside the Church in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, has not before the end of the present life been restored to the Catholic Church, he will not lack death, but he will lack rest: for at the time of the flood likewise, whoever did not enter into the ark of Noah (Gen. vi, 21) was not saved by the flood, but slain, nor did he find salvation in the water, but death. For that water, in which was prefigured the sacrament of baptism, raised up on high to heavenly things, lifted from the earth, all whom it found in the ark; but the rest, whom it found outside, it slew, having overwhelmed them.

And when Jericho was perishing, whomever the house of Rahab the harlot enclosed, Joshua commanded to be preserved unharmed (Josh. vi, 25); but the rest, whom that house did not contain, the destruction of a single death consumed. In that ark, therefore, and in that house, one and the same Church was prefigured; but in those who perished outside the ark by the flood, and in those who died outside that house by the sword, the mystery of a twofold signification may be considered. For I judge, so far as it now seems to me for the present, that it is not incongruous to believe that in the signification of the flood the baptism of Christian confession went before;

so that we may recognize that heretics, if they remain outside the Church, earn by baptism punishment, not life, and that those who, denying Christ, depart from the Catholic Church, will perish in eternal punishment. Blessed Peter, indeed, expounds the sacrament of the ark with these words: In the days when the patience of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being built, in which few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water: which also, in a like figure, baptism now saves you, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the examination of a good conscience toward God (1 Pet. iii, 20, 21). But where is a good conscience, save where there is also faith unfeigned? For the apostle Paul teaches:

That the end of the commandment is charity from a pure heart, and a good conscience, and faith unfeigned (1 Tim. i, 5). Why, then, did the water of the flood not save, but slay, those placed outside the ark? Without doubt it prefigured that every heretic, though possessing the sacrament of baptism, is to be plunged into hell by no other waters than those very waters by which the ark is raised to heaven. For destruction by water befalls them for no other reason than that the bosom of the ark does not contain them: in which alone can he live who does not wish to perish in the life-giving waters. CHAPTER XXI. This mystery of the ark blessed Cyprian, most blessed martyr, expounds, writing in the book On the Simplicity of Prelates, or rather, according to the ancient copies, On the Unity of the Catholic Church:

The spouse of Christ cannot be defiled: she is incorrupt and chaste; she knows but one home, and with chaste modesty she guards the sanctity of one bedchamber. She keeps us for God; she assigns to the kingdom the sons whom she has begotten. Whoever, separated from the Church, is joined to an adulteress, is cut off from the promises of the Church: nor shall he attain to the rewards of Christ who forsakes the Church of Christ: he is a stranger, he is profane, he is an enemy. He cannot have God for his Father who has not the Church for his mother. As whoever was outside the ark of Noah could not escape, so also he who is outside the Church shall not escape.

It is certain, therefore, both from the preaching of the blessed apostle Peter and from the exposition of the holy martyr Cyprian, that in the ark of Noah there stood a figure of the Church, and in the waters of the flood a figure of baptism. In that house too of Rahab the harlot, which, when Jericho was perishing, alone at Joshua's command was preserved unharmed with all whom she had within herself, there was signified, in the sacrament of Christian confession, as it seems to me, the Catholic Church gathered from the nations. She, indeed, having cast off the filth of her former fornication, secretly received Joshua's two spies: that is, either the chaste knowledge of both Testaments, or the love of God and of neighbor:

because both in those two Testaments the love of God and of neighbor is conveyed, and on these two commandments the whole law with the prophets is known to hang (Matt. xxii, 40). This impious harlot, who before had prostituted herself to idols, receiving Joshua's spies, was made faithful and chaste: and guarding them from their pursuing enemies, she did not overwhelm them, hidden in the lower parts, but concealed them secretly, lifted up onto the upper story of her house. And it is called a sun-room (solarium) for this reason, because it is flooded with the light of the sun. But what is the sun of the human heart, save he of whom it is said through the prophet: But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise, and health in his wings (Mal. iv, 2)?

Concerning this rising sun, Zechariah in the Gospel thus prophesies: For the Dayspring from on high hath visited us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death (Luke i, 78, 79). For Habakkuk too the prophet thus proclaims the ascension of Christ and the firmness of the ecclesiastical order under the name of sun and moon: The sun was lifted up, and the moon stood in its order (Hab. iii, 11, according to the Seventy). The heart, therefore, of every one of the faithful is not incongruously called a spiritual sun-room, which is wholesomely illumined by the rays of that supernal sun.

Rahab the harlot, therefore, kept Joshua's spies, whom she hid in the sun-room of her house, on high in the upper parts, that is, illumined with spiritual knowledge, in the inmost love of an enlightened heart, so that she might sing that prophetic saying by the truth of her deed: In my heart have I hidden thy words, that I might not sin against thee (Ps. cxviii, 11). True faith, therefore, which is conveyed by the divine words, is then not handed over to persecutors, then is guarded inviolate and unharmed in the heart of the faithful, if the soul perseveres fixed not upon earthly and perishable and carnal promises, but upon heavenly and spiritual ones, and does not gaze upon the things that are seen, but upon the things that are not seen: For the things that are seen are temporal, as the Apostle says;

but the things that are not seen are eternal (2 Cor. iv, 18). But whoever holds the Christian faith for this end, that he may acquire earthly and transitory things, that man places Joshua's spies not in the upper parts of his house, but in the lower; where, when they have been placed, they can more easily both be found by enemies and destroyed. For every persecutor and enemy of the Church spiritually destroys those, and brings upon them the ruin of eternal death, whose heart he has found entangled with earthly and perishable things.