There obedience alone could hold the palm; disobedience alone fell into punishment. 240. Sometimes God instructs the good through the wicked, and through the temporal power of those to be condemned He exercises the discipline of those to be delivered. 241. With the mercy of God the confession of the penitent avails very much. The sinner by confessing makes Him propitious, whom by denying he does not make ignorant. 242. The virtue of the humble is not to glory in knowledge, since it is common to all. As the use of light, so is the participation of truth. 243. He is not without royal power who has learned to command his body reasonably. For truly he is a ruler of the earth who governs his own flesh by the laws of discipline.
244. As regards the works that are done outwardly, both he who fears punishment and he who loves justice do not act against the commandment. And therefore they are indeed alike in deed, but unlike in heart; similar in their action, dissimilar in their will. 245. A man worships that which he loves. Hence, because God is found to be greater and better than all things, He is to be loved above all, that He may be worshipped. 246. The heart is right with God when God is sought for God's own sake. 247. It springs from benevolence, not from malice, when the just man rejoices that vengeance has gone forth upon the wicked; for it is not the destruction of the sinner that pleases him—whom he wished to be corrected—but the justice of God, by which he knows that many can be converted.
248. He does not overcome evil with good who is good on the surface and evil in the depths, sparing in deed yet raging in heart, gentle in hand yet cruel in will. 249. To every good work love leads, and the fear of God. To every sin love leads, and the fear of the world. Therefore, in order that good may be laid hold of and evil shunned, one must discern what ought both to be loved and to be feared. 250. No misfortune breaks the man whom no prosperity corrupts. 251. The rich man who is such that he despises in himself whatever it is by which pride is wont to be puffed up, is poor before God. 252. The steps of ascent to God are the affections of piety. Your journey is your will. By loving you draw near, by neglecting you draw away.
Set upon the earth, you are joined to God if you love the things that are dear to God. 253. God, when something is wrongly asked of Him, is angry by granting it, and shows mercy by not granting it. 254. It is incredible that a man does not lie to avoid being caught, who lies in order to catch another. 255. Although everyone who lies wishes to conceal what is true, yet not everyone who wishes to conceal the truth lies. For very often we hide the truth not by deceiving but by being silent. For the Lord did not lie when He said: 'I have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.' 256. In the first man it became plain what man's free will availed unto death; in the second, what God's help availed unto life. For the first man was nothing but man, but the second man was God and man.
Therefore sin came about by forsaking God; justice does not come about without God. 257. The letter of the law, which teaches that one must not sin, kills if the quickening Spirit is absent. For it makes sin to be known rather than avoided, and therefore to be increased rather than diminished, since to evil concupiscence is added even the transgression of the law. 258. If God's commandment is fulfilled out of fear of punishment, not out of love of justice, it is fulfilled in a servile manner, not in a free one. And therefore it is not truly fulfilled at all. For it is not good fruit which does not proceed from the root of charity. 259. The law of God is according to nature; and when men do the things of the law, they do them naturally, the vice being overcome which had taken away from nature the safeguard of the law.
And so, when by grace the law of God is written in our hearts, the things of the law are done naturally—not because grace has been forestalled by nature, but because nature has been restored by grace. 260. Let no one glory in that which he seems to have, as though he had not received it, nor think that he has received it because the letter appeared outwardly to be read, or sounded forth to be heard. For 'if justice is by the law, then Christ died in vain.' But further, if He did not die in vain: 'Ascending on high, He led captivity captive, He gave gifts to men.' From thence has whoever has. But whoever denies that he has from thence, either truly has not, or that which he has shall be taken from him. 261. Man had been made immortal. He wished to be God.
He did not lose that he was man, but he lost that he was immortal. And from the disobedience of pride was contracted the penalty of nature. 262. The praise of faith is to believe things not seen. The reward will be to rejoice in the attainment of the things believed. 263. As milk passes only through flesh, that it may feed the little one who cannot eat bread, so unless the Wisdom of God, which is the bread of angels, had deigned to come to men through the flesh, no one could approach to contemplate the divinity of the Word. Because, therefore, the light could not be comprehended by the darkness, that very Light underwent the mortality of darkness, and through the likeness of sinful flesh gave participation in the true Light.
264. A good odor is a good reputation, which whoever has by the works of a good life, while he follows the footsteps of Christ, in a manner pours upon His feet the fragrance of precious ointment. 265. There is no difficulty in going without, except when there is greed in possessing. And therefore that alone is rightly loved which is never lost to one's good. 266. He who abounds in foolish eloquence is the more to be guarded against, the more the hearer is delighted by him in things that are useless to hear, and supposes that the one whom he hears speaking ornately is also speaking truly. 267. The mark of good natures is plainly this: in those who discourse, to love the truth in words, not the words themselves. For what good is a golden key, if it cannot open what we wish?
Or what harm does a wooden key do, if it can do this? Since we seek nothing but that what is shut be opened. 268. Every sinner, insofar as he is a sinner, is not to be loved; and every man, insofar as he is a man, is to be loved for God's sake. But God is to be loved for His own sake, from whom all who love Him have both that they are and that they love Him. 269. The Lord says: 'I am the way and the truth and the life.' That is: through Me one comes, to Me one arrives, in Me one abides. For when one arrives at Him, one also arrives at the Father, because through the Equal, He whose Equal He is, is known—the Holy Spirit binding and cementing us together, that in the highest and unchangeable Good we may abide without end.
270. We find many who wish to deceive, but no one who wishes to be deceived. Since one does this knowingly and another suffers it unknowingly, it is plain enough that, in one and the same matter, the one who is deceived is better than the one who lies—seeing that it is better to suffer iniquity than to do it. 271. Between temporal and eternal things there is this difference: that something temporal is loved more before it is possessed, but grows cheap once it has come. For nothing satisfies the soul except the true and certain eternity of incorruptible joy. But the eternal is loved more ardently when attained than when desired. For no one esteems it more than it actually is, so that it should become cheaper, because more was hoped for than is found.
But such is the excellence there, that love will attain far more than either faith believed or hope desired. 272. Those who do not find in the Holy Scriptures the truth which they seek labor under hunger. But those who do not seek what they have at hand waste away in the languor of disdain. And the peril of both is equal, since blindness withdraws the food of wisdom from the former, and lack of appetite from the latter. 273. 'The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the future glory that shall be revealed in us.' Let the world rage and roar, let it rail with tongues, let it flash with weapons. Whatever it does, how great will that be in comparison with what we are to receive? I weigh what I suffer against what I hope. This indeed I feel, but that I hope for.
And yet incomparably greater is what is hoped for than what is inflicted. Whatever it is that rages against the name of Christ, if it can be overcome, it is tolerable; if it cannot, it profits toward the more swiftly obtaining of the reward, and the end of temporal evil passes into the receiving of eternal good. 274. Since on the two precepts of charity hang the whole Law and the Prophets, how much more also the Gospel, by which the Law is not abolished but fulfilled, and concerning which the Lord says: 'A new commandment I give you, that you love one another'? For charity renews men; and as malice makes them old, so love makes them new.
275. When God reproves the human race and drives it on with the scourges of loving chastisement, He exercises discipline before judgment, and very often does not choose whom He scourges, being unwilling to find one whom He would condemn. But He scourges both the just and the unjust together, because there is no one who can boast that he keeps his heart chaste, or that he is clean from sin. Thus even the crowns of the just come from the grace of His mercy. 276. The labor of the godly is a training, not a condemnation. For we ought not to be disturbed when some holy person endures grievous and undeserved things, if we have not forgotten what the Just of the just and the Holy of the holy endured.
His Passion surpasses all passions, for with the Author of the universe there is no comparison of any creature whatsoever. 277. The misery of the human race, from which we see no man exempt from his birth to his death, would not pertain to the just judgment of the Almighty, if there were no original sin. 278. The omnipotence of the all-sustaining Creator is the cause of subsisting for every creature. And if this power should at any time cease from governing the things it has founded, at once the form and nature of all things would fall away together. Accordingly, what the Lord says—'My Father works until now'—shows a certain continuation of His work, by which He at once holds together and administers all things. In which work also His own Wisdom perseveres, of which it is said:
'She reaches mightily from one end to the other, and orders all things sweetly.' And this the Apostle perceives when, preaching God to the Athenians, he says: 'In Him we live, and move, and are.' If He were to withdraw His work from created things, we could neither live, nor move, nor be. And therefore God is to be understood to have rested from all His works in such a way that He now founds no new nature, not that He has ceased to hold together and govern the things He has founded.
279. With the observance of the Sabbath—which was prefigured by the rest of a single day—now taken away, he observes a perpetual Sabbath who, in hope of future rest, is intent upon holy works, and yet does not glory in his very good deeds as though they were his own and as though they were of things he had not received, knowing that He works within him who at once both works and is at rest. 280. The rest of God, for those who rightly understand it, is that by which He has need of no one's good. And therefore it is sure even for us in Him, because we are made blessed by the good which He Himself is, not He by the good which we are. For we too are something good from Him, who made all things very good, among which He made us also.
Furthermore, besides Himself there is no other good thing which He Himself did not make; and on this account He needs no good belonging to another, who has no need of the good He has made. 281. With the movements of created things, times began to run. Hence before the creature, times are sought in vain, as though times could be found before times. For if there were no movement, whether of spiritual or corporeal creature, by which through the present, future things might succeed to past things, there would be no time at all. But the creature certainly could not be moved, if it did not exist. Therefore time began rather from the creature than the creature from time. But both are from God. For 'from Him, and through Him, and in Him are all things.'
282. When the Savior says that not one sparrow falls to the ground without the will of God, and that the grass of the field, which is soon to be cast into the oven, He Himself yet forms and clothes—does He not confirm that not only this whole part of the world, assigned to mortal and corruptible things, but even its meanest and most abject particles, are governed by divine providence, lest we suppose that those things whose causes we cannot comprehend are disturbed by chance motions? 283. The rational soul ought to be lifted up to those things which most excel in the nature of spiritual realities, so that it may savor the things which are above, not the things which are upon the earth.
284. God, the founder of natures, does nothing in His miracles against nature, nor is that which is new to custom contrary to reason. To us, therefore, unusual things seem contrary—we to whom the course of nature has become known otherwise—but not to God, for whom that is within nature which He has done. 285. It is credible that every body can be changed into every body. But to believe that any body whatever can be converted into a rational soul is absurd—since God is omnipotent in such a way that He never overturns the institutions of His own reason. 286. It is natural for us to wish to live; but to live wickedly is no longer of nature, but of a perverse will, which justly is followed by punishment.
287. Just as the air is not made luminous by the present light, but becomes luminous—for if it had been made so, and not rather became so, it would remain luminous even when the light is absent—so man is illumined when God is present, but is straightway darkened when He is absent. From Him one departs not by intervals of place, but by aversion of the will. 288. Great is the benefit to man of serving God when He commands, even when the reason of the command is unknown. For by commanding God makes useful whatever He has willed to command. Concerning which there is no need to fear that He should enjoin things not profitable; nor can it come to pass that one's own will should not fall upon a man with the great weight of ruin, if by exalting it he set it above the will of the Superior.
289. How excellent a good human nature is appears most of all in this: that it has been given to it that it can cleave to the nature of the highest and unchangeable Good. But if it should be unwilling, it deprives itself of that Good, and this is an evil to it, whence by the justice of God torment also follows. For what is so unjust as that it should be well with the deserter of the Good? Sometimes, however, the evil of the higher Good lost is not felt, while a lower good that has been loved is possessed. But it is divine justice that he who by his will has lost what he ought to have loved should lose with grief what he did love, and that the Creator of natures should everywhere be praised. For it is still a good thing that one grieves over the good he has lost. For unless some good had remained in his nature, there would be in his punishment no grief over the good lost.
290. The desire to do harm can come from each one's own depraved soul. But there is no power except from God, and this by His hidden and deep justice, since 'there is no iniquity with God.' 291. How great and of what kind a good God is, is shown evidently also from this: that it is well with no one who departs from Him. For both those who rejoice in deadly pleasures cannot be without the fear of grief, and those who do not at all feel the evil of their own desertion, through the greater stupor of pride, are seen by others who have learned to discern these things to be pressed by how great a misery—so that, if they are unwilling to receive the medicine for avoiding such things, they may yet avail as an example by which such things can be avoided.
292. Just as true reason teaches that a creature is better which nothing unlawful at all delights, so the same reason teaches that one is good which has it in its power so to restrain unlawful delight that it rejoices not only over the other lawful and rightly-done things, but also over the very restraint of that depraved delight. 293. 'Great are the works of the Lord, sought out according to all His wills.'
He foresees that some will be good, and creates them; He foresees that some will be evil, and creates them—offering Himself to be enjoyed by the good, bestowing many of His gifts even on the evil, mercifully pardoning, justly avenging, and again mercifully avenging, justly pardoning; fearing nothing from anyone's malice, needing nothing from anyone's justice, taking no thought for Himself from the works of the good, and taking thought for the good even from the punishments of the evil. 294. Since pride is the love of one's own excellence, but envy is the hatred of another's happiness, whence each arises is plain. For by loving his own excellence, a man either envies his equals, that they should be made equal to him, or his inferiors, lest they be made equal to him, or his superiors, because he is not made equal to them.
Therefore by being proud each one becomes envious—not by being envious proud. 295. 'The fullness of the Godhead is said to dwell in Christ bodily'—not because the Godhead is a body, but because the sacraments of the Old Testament are called shadows of things to come; by reason of the comparison with shadows it is said that the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Christ bodily, in that there are fulfilled in Him all the things which were prefigured in those shadows; and thus in a manner He Himself is the body of the preceding shadows—that is, He Himself is the truth of those figures and significations.
296. The godly action in this life is to worship God, and in His grace to fight against the inward vices, and not to yield to them as they incite and compel even to unlawful things; and where there is yielding, to ask earnestly, with the affection of religious piety, for pardon, and for God's help that there be no yielding. But in paradise, if no one had sinned, there would be no action of piety in conquering vices, because it would be the permanence of happiness to have no vices. 297. The fortitude of the heathen is made by worldly desire, but the fortitude of Christians by the charity of God, which is poured out in our hearts—not through the choice of the will, which is from us, but through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
298. There cannot be any evil except in some good, because it cannot exist except in some nature. And every nature, insofar as it is a nature, is a good. 299. A reward is owed to good works, if they are done. But grace, which is not owed, goes before, that they may be done. 300. Circumcision of the flesh was commanded by the law, because it could not better be signified that original sin is taken away through Christ, the author of regeneration. For every man is born with a foreskin, just as with original sin. And the law commanded the flesh to be circumcised on the eighth day, because Christ rose on the Lord's day, which after the seventh, the Sabbath, is the eighth.
And the circumcised man begets one uncircumcised, transmitting to him that which he himself already lacks—just as the baptized man transmits to the son whom he begets in the flesh nevertheless the guilt of origin, from which he himself is now free. 301. The first man Adam died of old, yet in such a way that after him the second man is Christ, although so many thousands of men arose between the former and the latter. And therefore it is manifest that to the former belongs everyone who is born of that succession of propagation, just as to the latter belongs everyone who is reborn in him by the bounty of grace. Hence it comes about that the whole human race are, in a manner, two men, the first and the second.
302. In no way are the judgments of God to be compared with the judgments of men; nor is it to be doubted that He is just, even when He does what seems unjust to men. 303. The just man is born of God, not of man, since he is made just by being reborn, not by being born. Hence too the regenerate are called sons of God. 304. Human nature, although it is evil because it is vitiated, is yet not evil, because it is a nature. For no nature, insofar as it is a nature, is evil, but altogether good. Without which good no evil can exist, because there cannot be any vice except in some nature—although without vice there can be a nature either never vitiated or healed.
305. It is the just judgment of God that each one should perish by his own sin—since God does not make sin, just as He did not make death. And yet He slays the one whom He judges worthy of death. Whence it is read: 'God did not make death,' and it is read: 'Death and life are from God.' That these two are not contrary to one another, anyone surely sees who distinguishes the divine judgments from the divine works—because it is one thing not to have appointed a mortal being in creating, another to punish a sinner in judging. 306. God indeed made the world, and absolutely all bodies. But that a corruptible body should weigh down the soul, and that the flesh should lust against the spirit, is not the preceding nature of man as instituted, but the consequent penalty of man condemned.
307. By however many vices any nature whatsoever may be disfigured, its institution is always good. For just as the institution of the body is good even when it is born sickly, and the institution of the mind is good even when it is born foolish, so the institution of man himself is good when he is born subject to original sin. 308. As some parents aggravate original sin, so some lighten it. But no one takes it away except He of whom it was said: 'Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him who takes away the sins of the world'—to whom no good of man is impossible, no evil incurable. 309. It pertains not to the merits of men, but to the mercy of God, when out of that mass of the first man, to whom death is deservedly owed, anyone is set free.
For there is no iniquity with God, because He is unjust neither in remitting nor in exacting what is due. And there pardon is free, where the punishment could have been just. 310. Human nature, even if it had remained in that integrity in which it was created, would in no way preserve itself without the help of its Creator. Hence, since without the grace of God it cannot keep the salvation it has received, how without the grace of God can it repair what it has lost? 311. Every sinner is inexcusable, whether by the guilt of origin or by the addition also of his own will, whether he who knows or he who is ignorant, whether he who judges or he who does not judge.
For in those who were unwilling to understand, ignorance itself is, without doubt, sin; but in those who could not understand, it is the penalty of sin. Therefore in both there is no excuse, but a just condemnation. 312. To be led is, beyond doubt, more than to be ruled. For he who is ruled does something, and is therefore ruled that he may act rightly. But he who is led is scarcely understood to do anything himself. And yet the grace of the Savior so prevails upon our wills that the Apostle does not hesitate to say: 'As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.' Nor can free will do anything better in us than to commend itself to Him who cannot do evil.
313. To be freed from the body of this death, every languor of the concupiscence of the flesh being healed, is to receive the body not unto punishment but unto glory. 314. God does many good things in man which man does not do. But man does none which God does not cause man to do. 315. The justice according to which the just man lives by faith, since it is to man from God through the spirit of grace, is true justice. And although this is said—not undeservedly—to be perfect in some just men, according to the capacity of this life, yet it is small in comparison to that great justice which the equality of the angels receives. Not yet having which, a man both, because of that justice which was already within, called himself perfect, and, because of this which was still lacking, called himself imperfect.
But clearly this lesser justice makes merit, that greater one makes reward. Hence he who does not follow the former does not attain the latter. 316. Concerning the one sole Mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, the catholic faith knows that for us He deigned to undergo death—that is, the penalty of sin—without sin. For just as He alone was made the Son of man, so that we through Him might be made sons of God, so He alone took up, without evil merits, the penalty, just as we through Him receive, without good merits, grace. For just as nothing of good was owed to us, so neither anything of evil to Him. Therefore, commending His love toward those to whom He was about to give undeserved life, He willed to suffer for them undeserved death.
317. Just as to those who, wishing to be justified in the law, fell from grace, the Apostle most truly says: 'If justice is by the law, then Christ died in vain,' so to those who think that the grace which the faith of Christ commends and receives is nature, it is most truly said: 'If justice is by nature, then Christ died in vain.' For here already there was the law, and it did not justify. Here already there was also nature, and it did not justify. Therefore Christ did not die in vain, so that both the law might be fulfilled through Him who said, 'I came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it,' and nature, lost through Adam, might be repaired through Him who said that He had come to seek and to save that which was lost.
318. To be able to have faith, as to be able to have charity, belongs to the nature of men. But to have faith, as to have charity, belongs to the grace of the faithful. But since the will to believe is prepared by the Lord in some, and not prepared in others, one must discern what comes from His mercy, what from His judgment. For 'all the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth.' But 'His ways are unsearchable.' Unsearchable, therefore, are both the mercy by which He freely sets free, and the truth by which He justly judges. 319. No one lifts up another to that in which he himself is, unless he descend somewhat to that in which the other is. 320. What powers of harming the love of human glory has, he does not feel except one who has declared war upon it.
Because even if it is easy for anyone not to covet praise while it is denied, it is difficult not to be delighted by it when it is offered. 321. He despises all the wealth of the world who despises possessing it, not only as far as he was able, but even as far as he wished. In which one must beware lest elation creep in. For it is more useful for earthly opulence to be held humbly than to be abandoned proudly. 322. To no angry person does his own anger seem unjust. Hence from all indignation one must quickly return to the gentleness of meekness. For an obstinate emotion easily passes into hatred of him who is not quickly pardoned. 323. He who gave the law, He Himself gave also grace.