246. Alienae nobis divitiae sunt, quia praeter naturam sunt; neque nobiscum nascuntur, nequenobiscum transeunt: Christus autem noster est, quia vita est. Denique In sua propria venit, et sui eum non receperunt (Joan. I, 11). Ergo nemo dabit quod vestrum est; quia vestrum non credidistis, vestrum non recepistis.
Therefore, the Jews seem to be accused of both fraud and greed. And therefore, those who were not faithful in their possessions, which they knew to be someone else's (for the produce of the earth is given by the Lord God for the common use of all), should certainly have shared with the poor: and they did not deserve to receive Christ, whom Zacchaeus offered half of his possessions to acquire (Luke XIX, 8).
248. Therefore, we do not serve others because we must acknowledge no lord except Christ: There is only one God, the Father, from whom all things come, and we are in him; and there is only one Lord, Jesus, through whom all things exist (I Cor. VIII, 6). So, is the Father the Lord, or the Son God? But the Father is also the Lord, for the heavens were established by the Word of the Lord (Psal. XXXII, 6); and the Son is God, who is blessed above all forever (Rom. IX, 5). Therefore, how can one serve two masters? For there is one Lord, because there is one God; indeed, you shall worship the Lord your God, and serve Him alone (Matth. IV, 10). Hence it is clear that the dominion of the Father and Son is one. But if it is not divided, let it be entirely in the Father, entirely in the Son. Therefore, because we profess the Trinity of one deity and one dominion, we confess one God and one Lord. However, those who speak of different powers of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit introduce many gods and many lords into the Church by the vice of Gentile error.
Book Eight
(Vers. 16.)
(Verse 16) The Law and the Prophets were until John.
Not because the Law has failed, but because the preaching of the Gospel has begun; for the lesser things seem to be fulfilled when the greater things follow. And therefore let us use force for the kingdom of heaven; for whoever uses force, hastens with strong zeal and does not grow sluggish with inactive desire. Therefore, the violence of faith is religious, while sloth is criminal. The Law established many things according to nature; so that it might call us to the pursuit of justice with a greater indulgence for natural desires; but Christ cut into nature, for He also cuts off natural pleasures; and therefore let us use force for nature, so that it does not sink into earthly things, but raises itself to heavenly things.
(Vers. 18.)
(Verse 18.) Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and the one who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery.
2. First, we must talk about the law of marriage, so that later we can discuss the prohibition of divorce. Some people believe that every marriage is from God, especially because it is written: What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate (Mark 10:9). Therefore, if every marriage is from God, then every marriage cannot be dissolved. But how did the Apostle say: But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so (1 Corinthians 7:15)? In this, he both wonderfully did not want the cause of divorce to reside among Christians and showed that not every marriage is from God; for Christian marriages are not joined together by God's judgment with pagans, since the Law forbids it.
3. But that which Solomon says comes to mind: Fathers divide house and wealth among their children, but a wife is prepared for a man by God (Prov. XIX, 14). And whoever reads it in Greek does not think it is contrary. For the Greek well said ἁρμόσεται; for harmony is said to be the fitting and appropriate joining together of all things. Harmony is when the pipes of an organ are connected in order, it holds the grace of a pleasing melody, and the proper arrangement of the strings maintains concord. So, there is no harmony in their marriage when a Christian man is unlawfully joined with a pagan woman. Therefore, where there is marriage, there is harmony; where there is harmony, God joins together. Where there is no harmony, there is conflict and disagreement; and this is not from God, because God is love (1 John 4:8).
Therefore, do not divorce your wife, lest you deny God, the author of your union. Moreover, if you are tolerant and correct the habits of strangers, even more so should you tolerate and correct the habits of your wife. Listen to what the Lord has said: 'Whoever divorces his wife makes her commit adultery' (Matthew 5:32). For if it is not permissible to change one's spouse while the husband is alive, the desire to sin can easily creep in. Therefore, the one who is the author of the error is also guilty of the fault. With whom is a woman who has just given birth abandoned? To what stumbling step is the ancient woman pushed down? Harsh, if you exclude the parent, you hold the pledge, so that you add an insult to charity and also an injury to piety; harsh, if because of the mother you also drive away the children together; when the children should rather redeem the fault of the parent. How dangerous, if you expose the fragile age of a young girl to error! How impious, if you abandon her old age, whose youth you have deflowered! Therefore, should the commander-in-chief dismiss with dishonorable pay the veterans, and thus remove them from the possession of their empire, and should a farmer push out from his land the exhausted worker? Is it wickedness when done to subjects, but righteousness when done to equals? (33 quaest. 2, c. An quod)
So you dismiss your wife as if it were a right, without any crime; and you think it is allowed to you, because human law does not prohibit it; but divine law does prohibit it. If you obey men, fear God. Hear the law of the Lord, to which even those who enact laws obey: What God has joined together, let no man separate (Matthew 19:6).
6. But not only this heavenly precept, but also a certain work of God is dissolved. Do you tolerate, I pray, your children, while you are alive, to live under a stepmother; or while their mother is unharmed, to live under a stepmother? Suppose she does not marry after being divorced. And should not these things displease you, to whom she keeps faith with an adulterer? Suppose she does marry. This is your crime of necessity; and the marriage which you imagine is adultery. For what does it matter, whether you allow it openly by confessing the crime, or admit an adulterer under the guise of a husband, unless that it is more serious to have made the law of the crime than the theft?
7. But perhaps someone may say: How did Moses command to give a bill of divorce, and to dismiss a wife? (Deut. XXIV, 1). He who says this is a Jew; he who says this is not a Christian. And therefore, because he objects to this, which is objected to the Lord, let the Lord respond to him: For the hardness of your hearts, Moses permitted you to give a bill of divorce, and to dismiss your wives: but from the beginning it was not so (Matth. XIX, 8). Moses permitted, he says, not God commanded; but from the beginning the law of God is. What is the law of God? A man shall leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be two in one flesh (Gen. II, 24). Therefore, he who divorces his wife, tears his flesh, divides his body.
But this passage shows that the things that are written because of human frailty are not written by God. Hence also the Apostle says: I, not the Lord, declare that a wife should not separate from her husband (1 Cor. 7:10). And further on: To the rest I say, not the Lord: if any brother has an unbelieving wife, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her (Ibid., 12). Therefore, where there is inequality in marriage, there is no law of God. And he added: But if the unbeliever separates, let him separate (Ibid., 15). At the same time, the Apostle denied that the law is divine, so that any marriage can be dissolved; he neither commanded nor gave authority to anyone who wants to leave, but he removed blame from the one who is abandoned. These are moral teachings.
9. (Verse 17.) However, because he had mentioned above that he came to preach the kingdom of God, and after saying that not one jot or tittle of the Law will fall, he added: Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery. The Apostle rightly admonishes, saying that this is a great mystery concerning Christ and the Church (Ephesians 5:32). Therefore, you find a marriage which no one doubts is joined by God, since he himself says: No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him (John 6:44); for only he could unite these marriages. And therefore Solomon said mystically: A wife is prepared for a man by God (Prov. XIX, 14). Christ is the man, the Church is the wife; by charity the wife, by integrity a virgin. Therefore, let not persecution separate whom God has drawn to the Son, let not lust turn them away, let not Philosophy plunder them, let not Manichaeism contaminate them, let not Arianism turn them away, let not Sabellianism infect them. God has joined them, let not the Jew separate them. All are adulterers who desire to adulterate the truth of faith and wisdom.
10. Who is that book, he says, of the divorce of your mother, whom I dismissed (Isaiah 50:1)? You have heard divorce, believe in marriage. You have heard what the man himself says to the Jewish people: Behold, you have been sold in your iniquities, and I have dismissed your mother in your sins (Ibid.). So stay in your father's house, stay with your husband, strive to please your husband. May your mind, which you have believed in God, be a strong woman, like that either of an ecclesiastical soul or of the Church, of which Solomon says: Who shall find a strong woman (Proverbs 31:10)? But more precious than precious stones is the one who is like this: her husband trusts in her (Ibid., 11). Let us see what she does for her husband, what is her work, what is her service, why Christ trusts in her.
11. A good wife dresses her husband. Let our faith clothe Jesus with her own body, let her dress her flesh with the glory of her divinity: just as that woman made two garments for her husband, so that she may honor him in the present and in the future age. This woman is not of average worth, as shown by her weaving; her husband shall find not soft wool threads in her hands, but the work of precious virtue. May her hands be lifted to the innocent, may her work be measured by the pound, may she weigh the burden of her character, and may she know how to keep the measure of her deeds. She weaves a glorious covering of labor, anxiously awaiting her husband's return, sighing and desiring to be with her husband, saying: My husband makes delay in coming, I will hurry to him myself; I will meet him face to face, when he begins to come in his glory.
12. Come, Lord Jesus, to find your bride, undefiled, uncorrupted, who has not violated your house, nor neglected your commandments. Let her say to you: I have found Him whom my soul loves (Song of Songs 3:4); let her bring you into the house of wine (for wine gladdens the heart of man) (Psalm 104:15), let her be intoxicated in the spirit, recognize the mystery, and speak the oracle.
(Vers. 19.)
(Verse 19) Now there was a certain rich man who was clothed in purple.
13. The story seems more like a narrative than a parable, especially when a name is mentioned. But it is not in vain that the Lord depicted the wealthy man, who had indulged in worldly delights, as being in torment in the perpetual hunger of the underworld: to whom rightly belonged five brothers, that is, the five senses of the body, which were united by a certain natural relationship and were burning with excessive and countless desires. But Lazarus, he placed in the embrace of Abraham, as it were in a peaceful bosom and a retreat of sanctity; so that, not enticed by the pleasure of the present, we may not remain in vices; or, overcome by weariness, flee the difficulties of labor. Therefore, whether Lazarus is poor in the world but rich in God, or whether someone apostolic is poor in word but rich in faith (for not all poverty is holy, nor are wealth criminal; just as luxury defames wealth, so holiness commends poverty), therefore, an apostolic who holds true faith does not require the trappings of words, the deceit of arguments, or the ornate veils of ambitious sayings. Instead, he receives a borrowed reward, attacking the heretics Manichaeus, Marcion, Sabellius, Arius, and Photinus (for they are nothing but brothers of the Jews, bound by the bonds of treachery), and also restraining the desires of the flesh, which, as I said, are fanned by those five senses. He receives, I say, a borrowed reward, for which the compensation is the abundance of resources and the interest of perpetuity.
14. (Vers. 20, 21.) Nor do we consider it foreign, that we should believe this treatise to be about faith as well, which Lazarus gathered from the table of the rich man: the sores of which, according to the literal meaning, the fastidious rich man would have shuddered at, and could not bear the stench of the sores while the dogs licked them, as the odor was disgusting even to the air itself: although the insolence and pride of the rich can be expressed by appropriate signs, for they are so forgetful of their human condition that, as if surpassing nature, they take pleasure in the miseries of the poor as incentives to their own delights, they mock the needy, insult the destitute, and take away from those whom it is fitting to pity.
Therefore, both of them, if anyone wishes to do so, may collect like Lazurus. I consider him similar to the one who was beaten repeatedly by the Jews, for the patience of the believers and for offering the wounds of his body to be licked by certain ones like dogs, because it is written: 'They will turn at evening, and they will suffer hunger like dogs'. This mystery was recognized by that Canaanite woman, to whom it is said: 'No one takes the bread of children and gives it to dogs'. He recognized this bread, not as the bread that appears, but as the one that is understood; and for this reason he responded: Certainly, Lord, for even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table (Ibid., 27). Those crumbs are from that bread. And because bread is the word, and faith is of the word, the crumbs are like certain doctrines of faith. Therefore, the Lord responded to show that what she said was faithful: O woman, great is your faith (Ibid., 28)!