6. Who now denies that God watches over human actions? Behold how often the Scriptures have shown in the case of one man that God not only observed, but also judged his acts! And why? Why indeed, except that we should understand that the Lord's verdict and coercion are always to be exercised in this world as they were then? So we read that even holy men were punished aforetime by God's judgment, to teach us that we too must always be judged in our present life by God. For as God always is, so is his justice eternal. As God's omnipotence is never-failing, so is his verdict unchangeable. As long as his law endures, so long also shall his justice remain. Therefore all his saints in their sacred books, amid the imminent fear of martyrdom and the swords of the persecutors, demand that the immediate judgment of God be established. For thus said the just man in a psalm: "Judge me, O God, and plead my cause against an ungodly nation." And that this might not be construed as a reference to some future judgment of God, he added at once: "Deliver me from the deceitful and unjust man." Certainly it is the immediate judgment of God that he demands who begs to be freed from the hands of the persecutor. In his consciousness of a just cause the psalmist did well to pray for God's justice rather than for his favor, for the best verdict is always given to the righteous cause if the case is conducted with justice. |76
Elsewhere also the psalmist spoke most clearly, saying: "Judge, O Lord, them that injure me; fight against them that fight against me; seize arms and shield and stand up for mine help." You see in this case that he does not demand the severity of a future trial, but the verdict of immediate justice.
For what are his words? "Take up the shield and seize the sword" ---- the shield, of course, for protection and the sword for vengeance ---- not that God's judgment needs such weapons, but because in this world the names of dreaded arms are the instruments of dread judgments. Speaking to human intelligence in figures drawn from human life, since he was praying for judgment and for vengeance on his adversaries, he expressed the power of God's punishment in terms of the instruments of earthly vengeance.
Lastly, the same prophet showed elsewhere the great difference between the present and the future judgments of God. For what did he say to the Lord about his verdict in the present trial? "Thou sittest on the throne and judgest." And what about the future and everlasting judgment of God? "He shall judge the world in righteousness;" and again: "He shall minister judgment to the people in uprightness." By these words surely he made a clear distinction in time between the present and the future judgments of God. For to indicate the present he wrote, "thou judgest," and to distinguish the future from the present he added, "he shall judge."
Sufficient proof of God's care for us and of his government and judgment has now been given by reason, by examples and by authority, especially since the books to follow are all to be concerned with the same proof. Now if we receive from God, whose work we are performing, strength to complete our task, we shall attempt to bring to light and to refute the customary arguments opposed by our adversaries to these essential doctrines.
[Footnotes moved to the end]
1. Proverbs 15. 3.
2. Psalms 33. 18-19.
3. Note the converse of this statement already given in 1.7 supra: "The divine wrath is the punishment of the sinner."
4. Ibid. 34. 15.
5. Ibid. 34. 16.
6. Ibid. 80. 1.
7. Ecclesiasticus 39.10; Salvian has diligit for the diriget of the Vulgate, though the latter reading would express his idea better than the verb he uses.
8. Wisdom 12. 13, 15, 18.
9. Jeremiah 23. 24.
10. Ibid. 42. 11.
11. Acts 17. 28.
12. Matthew 28. 20.
13. I Samuel 25. 39.
14. II Samuel 18.31.
15. That is, not a Hebrew.
16. II Samuel 12. 9-12.
17. Ibid. 12. 14.
18. Here Salvian seems to overlook II Samuel 13.39: "And the soul of King David longed to go forth unto Absalom: for he was comforted concerning Amnon, seeing he was dead."
19. I have followed here Pauly's conjecture: in comparatione comitatus sui soliti solus.