Which of these do we Christians obey, the command of Christ or that of his apostle? I think we obey neither one. For we are so far from doing anything that inconveniences ourselves, that we choose |87 instead to provide first of all for our own convenience, whatever discomfort this involves for others.
7. Perhaps you may think we are choosing only the greater commandments, which no one follows, and which, as Christians themselves think, cannot be followed in any case, and are passing over others which can be and indeed are followed by all. But this point must be considered first, that no slave is allowed to choose according to his own wishes which of his master's commands he will carry out and which he will not, nor by a most insolent abuse to assume the task that pleases him and reject the rest. Certainly human masters think it impossible to tolerate calmly slaves who hear part of their orders and despise the rest, who, according to their own desires, carry out the commands they think should be performed and trample under foot those they think deserve such treatment. If slaves obey their masters according to their own free will alone, they are not rendering true obedience even when they seem to obey. When a slave obeys only such of his master's orders as he pleases, he is no longer doing his master's will but his own. If then we, who are but weak little men, are still utterly unwilling that our slaves, who are equal to us in their common humanity, though our inferiors in their condition of servitude, should despise us, how unjustly, forsooth, do we scorn our heavenly Master, since we, being ourselves men, yet think we ought not to be despised by men of our own condition! Unless perhaps we have such great wisdom and deep intelligence that we who are unwilling to hear any insults from our slaves wish God to be subject to insults from us, |88 and believe that he deserves to endure from us such treatment as we consider unfit for human endurance.
For this reason, to return to our former topic, any who think that I am talking of the greater commands of God and omitting the lesser, must recognize the unreasonableness of their complaint. There is no just reason for preferring some commands, when all must be performed. As I have already said, just as the servants of carnal masters are by no means permitted to choose which of their master's precepts they are to perform and which they are not, so we, who are the servants of our Lord, ought not to think it in any way permissible to humor ourselves by choosing those commands that please us, or by an abusive indulgence of our pride to trample under foot those that displease us.
8. Let us, however, come to an agreement with those who do not wish us to tell of the greater commands of the Lord, for the reason perhaps that they think they are fulfilling his lesser precepts, though it is not sufficient for salvation to perform the lesser commandments while scorning the greater. It is written: "For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all." Although for this reason it is not sufficient for us to obey all God's small and least commands, yet I agree to speak only of these, in order to show that most Christians have not performed even the least and slightest of their duties.
Our Savior ordered that Christian men should not swear. The men who perjure themselves daily are more numerous than those who do not swear at all. He commanded that no one should curse. Whose speech is not cursing? For curses are always the first instrument of wrath; whatever in our weakness we cannot perform we ardently desire in our anger, and thus in every impulse of our wrathful hearts we use evil wishes as our weapons. Hence every |89 man shows plainly that whatever he wishes may happen to his adversaries he would do to them if he could. Since we ail put our tongues to this wicked use on the slightest provocation, our disregard of the Lord's will shows that we think it will be held of small account by God, who gave these commands. But the Holy Scripture says: "Revilers shall not inherit the kingdom of God." From this we may judge how serious and deadly a crime evil-speaking is, which by itself shuts a man out of heaven, even though the rest of his life may have been good.
Christ ordered that envy be far from us, but we, contrary to his teaching, envy not merely outsiders but even our friends. This is the ruling vice in the hearts of almost all: our greed for eating has its limits, but our greed for slandering others has no end; our appetite for food becomes sated, but our appetite for spite does not. Perchance the punishment for this fault is a slight one? "The slanderous man," says the Holy Scripture, "shall be rooted out." Surely that is a serious and fearful punishment, yet it does not serve to reform us. Every one of us thinks it worth while to endanger himself as long as he may continue to injure others. The retribution for this vice is clearly a suitable one, as it attacks, the doer only; it does no injury at all to the person slandered, but only punishes the man from whose lips the libel comes.
I suppose I seem to be out of my mind in repeating these words, and I can easily bear the appearance of madness in such a case. For the Lord was not speaking senselessly when he enjoined us through his apostle: "Let all clamor be put away from you, with all malice." Both of these evils indeed are ever present with us, but malice more than clamor. Clamor indeed is not always on our lips, but malice is always in our hearts. So I think that if clamor should cease among us, yet malice would remain to the end. |90
Our God orders us also to live without murmuring and without complaints. When in the history of the human race have these been unknown? In hot weather we complain of drought, in rainy weather of floods; if it is a bad season for the crops we complain of scarcity, in a good season, of low prices. We long for plenty, and when we get it we object to it. What could be more wicked or more disgraceful than this? We complain of God's mercy even in this, that he gives us what we ask.
God bade his servants keep all scandal from their sight altogether, and so he said: "Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart," From this we can fully understand how chaste our Savior wished us to be, who even shut out licentiousness from our eyes. Knowing that our eyes are in a way the windows of our souls, and that all evil desires make their way into the heart through the eyes as their natural passageways, he wished us to destroy such desires utterly while they were still outside that they might not spring up within us and put forth their deadly shoots within the soul, if they once germinated in our eyesight. Therefore the Lord said that the wanton glances of lustful men are adulterous, meaning that a man who truly wishes to shun adultery must keep a watch on his eyes. The Savior, indeed, wishing to cultivate a most genuine and perfect sanctity in his worshippers, ordered them to avoid scrupulously even the least offences, on the ground that according to the cleanness of his eyesight, so also is the purity of a Christian's life. Just as a man's eye could not receive a mote of dust without impairing his sight, so our life should not permit any stain of dishonor |91 to find a place in it. Whence come the following words of the Lord: "If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and if thy hand offend thee, cut it off ; it is better for thee, that one of thy members perish, than that thy whole body be cast into hell." If, therefore, according to the word of God, we are dragged down into hell by scandalous actions, surely it is right to sacrifice our eyes and hands in order to escape this punishment. No man should deprive himself of his members, but in the ease of certain domestic relationships so necessary to us that we have come to consider them as eyes or hands, it is right to deprive ourselves of their present service in order to escape the torture of eternal fire. When the choice lies between comfort and life, it is certainly better for the Christian to forfeit his convenience and gain life.
9. In all the points of which we have spoken our Lord has ordered us to obey him, but where are those who obey all his ordinances or even a very few of them? Where are those who love their enemies or do good to those that persecute them, or overcome evil by doing good, who turn their cheeks to those that strike them, who yield their property without a lawsuit to those that rob them? Who is there that permits himself no slander whatever, that injures no man by evil speaking, that keeps his lips silent that they may not break out in bitter curses? Who is there that keeps these least commandments, not to speak of those greater ones which I mentioned a short time ago?
Since this is the case and since we keep none of the Lord's commands, why do we complain of God, who has far more right to complain of us? Why should we grieve that he does not hear us, when we ourselves do not hear him? What right have we to whisper that God does not look upon the earth, when we ourselves do not look up to the heavens? What reason have we to be vexed that our prayers are despised by the Lord, whose commands we despise? |92
Suppose that we were equal to our Lord; what chance is there for just complaint when each side receives the same treatment it gives? And this entirely overlooks a point easily proved, that we are very far from receiving what we give, since God really treats us much more kindly than we do him. For the moment, however, let us act on the assumption that I proposed. The Lord himself spoke thus: "I cried unto you and ye did not hear me: you too shall cry unto me and I shall not hear you." What is more fair and just than this? We have not hearkened, therefore he does not hear us. We have not been mindful of him, therefore he does not consider us. What mortal master, I ask, is content to treat his underlings according to this rule, that he will scorn them only in proportion to their contempt of him? And yet we do not stop with such injurious scorn of God as mortal masters receive from their slaves, since the greatest contempt a slave can show is in not doing what he has been ordered. We, however, bend all our efforts and energy not only to neglecting our orders, but even to acting directly contrary to them. For God commands us all to love one another, but we rend each other in mutual hatred. God enjoins us all to give our goods to the poor, but we plunder other men's goods instead. God orders every Christian to keep his eyes pure; how many men are there who do not wallow in the filth of fornication?
What more can I say? It is a heavy and sorrowful charge that I must bring: the church itself, which should strive to appease God in all things ---- what else does it do but arouse him to anger? Except a very few individuals who shun evil, what else is the whole congregation of Christians but the very dregs of vice? How often will you find a man in the church who is not a drunkard or glutton or adulterer or fornicator or robber or wastrel or brigand or homicide? And what is worst of all, they commit these crimes endlessly. I appeal to the conscience of all Christians; of these crimes and |93 misdeeds that I have just named, who is not guilty of some part, who is not guilty of the whole? You would more easily find a man guilty of them all than of none. And because what I have said; may perhaps seem too severe an accusation I shall go much farther and say that you could more easily find men guilty of ail evils than of a few, more easily find men guilty of the greater faults than of the less. That is, it is easier to find men who have committed the greater sins along with the less than the less without the greater. For almost the whole body of the church has been reduced to such moral depravity that among all Christian people the standard of holiness is merely to be less sinful than others. Some hold the churches, which are the temples and altars of God, in less reverence than the houses of the least important municipal magistrates. The common run of men indeed do not presume to enter the doors, I shall not say of illustrious potentates, but even of governors or presiding officials, unless the official has called them or contracted business with them, or unless the honor due their individual position permits their entrance. If anyone enters without due occasion he is flogged or roughly put out or punished by some humiliation or personal indignity. But to the temples, or rather the altars and sacred shrines of God, all mean and evil men resort violently, entirely without reverence for his sacred honor. I do not mean to deny that all should hasten thither to pray to God, but he who enters to win God's favor should not go out to arouse his anger. The same action should not demand his indulgence and provoke his wrath. It is a monstrous thing for men to keep committing the same sins which they lament having committed, and for those who enter the church to weep for their old misdeeds to go out [to commit new ones]. |94
Go out, did I say? They are usually planning fresh crimes in the very midst of their prayers and supplications. While men's voices do one thing, their hearts do another; while their words lament their past misdeeds their minds plan further wrongs, and thus their prayers increase their guilt instead of winning pardon for it. So the scriptural curse is truly fulfilled upon them, that from their very prayers they go out condemned and their petition is turned into sin.
Finally, if any one wishes to know what men of this sort are thinking in church, let him consider this. When their religious duties are accomplished they all hurry off at once to their accustomed pursuits ---- some, for instance, to steal, others to get drunk, others to commit fornication, others to commit highway robbery ----so that it is perfectly clear that they have spent their time inside the temple in planning what they will do after leaving it.
10. Undoubtedly some men think that all these evils and all the infamous vice of which I have spoken above may be properly ascribed to slaves or to the lowest of men, whereas the freeman's reputation is not spotted by the stain of such disgraceful deeds. Yet what else is the life of all business men but fraud and perjury, of the curials but injustice, of petty officials but slander, of all soldiers but rapine?
Perhaps you think that one need not object to such a charge against characters of this sort. For, you say, their actions fit their professions, so it is no wonder that they act according to their |95 business in life; as if, indeed, God wishes any man to do or profess evil. Or is it no offence whatever to His Divine Majesty that the lower classes are known to commit the greatest crimes, especially when by far the greater part of the human race belongs to this group? Without doubt, the insult that his divinity suffers is proportionate to the number of sinners.
Do you say that the nobles are free from these crimes? At best that is but a small gain, for all the nobles in the world would seem no more than one man in a great crowd of people. Is even this small group free from guilt? First let us consider what the Divine Word says of men of this sort. You remember that the apostle, addressing the people of God, spoke thus: "Hearken, my beloved brethren. Hath God not chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him? But ye have despised the poor. Do not rich men oppress you by their power? Do they not blaspheme that worthy name by the which ye are called?"
The testimony of the apostle is potent, unless perhaps the nobles think that they are exempt from his accusation because he named only the rich. The nobles, however, are either identical with the rich, or, if there are rich men who are not counted in their number, they are practically in the same category, for so great is the misery of our times that no one is considered of higher rank than he who has the greatest riches. It makes little difference which of these the apostle meant, or if he was talking of both; since his words certainly apply to both the rich and the noble, it does not signify which of the two he had in mind. What noble or what rich man ever had any horror of crime? Yet my query was mistaken ---- many indeed do fear it, but few avoid it. They fear in others the crimes they themselves constantly commit, being in a strange manner both the accusers and doers of the same evils. They denounce in public what |96 they do in secret, and for that reason, when they think they are passing judgment on others they condemn themselves even more by their censure.
Let us overlook those men who have the greater guilt, and ask what single rich man or noble there is who preserves his innocence and keeps his hands clean of every sort of crime? It was foolish for me to say of every sort ---- would God they were clean of the greatest! Great men seem to consider it their personal prerogative to commit the lesser crimes as a matter of course. So I shall say nothing of their more ordinary misdoings. Let us see if any one of them is free from the two which we consider capital offences, that is, homicide and sexual vice. Which of them is not either reeking with human blood or smeared with the filth of an impure life? Either one of these is enough to render him liable to eternal punishment, but there is hardly a wealthy man who has not committed both.
11. Perhaps one of this number is thinking to himself: "I am not doing such things now." I commend you if you are not, yet probably you did in the past, and to have stopped is not equivalent to never having done them at all. But if it were, what value would there be in one man's desisting from wickedness when so many persist in their crime? The conversion of one man does not atone for the sins of the many, nor is it enough to appease God that one man should leave off sinning, while the whole human race offends him. Consider too that he who is converted for the sake of escaping eternal death certainly gains a great reward for his conversion in this escape. By no means could he succeed in turning away the punishment of damnation from others. It is a mark of intolerable presumption, and an enormous wickedness, for a man to think himself so holy that he even supposes wicked men can find salvation through him. God spoke thus of a certain land and a sinful people: "Though these three men, Noah, Daniel and Job, were in |97 it, they shall deliver neither sons nor daughters, they only shall be delivered."
No one, I think, will be so shameless as to dare compare himself with such men as these. However much a man may now try to please God, yet to assert one's own morality is an example of the greatest unrighteousness. Thus is destroyed our confidence in the false notion that an innumerable host of sinners can be saved from the evils that threaten them by the intercession of a few good men. For since no one is equal to the three men named above, what hope can any have that countless wicked, men unrelated to them can be saved by a very few good men, when those saints, who were close to God, did not deserve of the Lord that their very members, in the persons of their children," should be saved? It is right that this should be so. Though all sons seem to be members of their parents, yet they must not be considered members of those whose love they have begun to cast aside, inasmuch as the wickedness of their degenerate lives has degraded their natural endowments. So it happens that even we who are said to be Christians lose the virtue of so great a name by our evil vices. It is of no possible benefit to have a holy name without morality, for a life that denies our Christian profession cancels the honor of a glorious rank by the baseness of unworthy actions.
Since then we see practically no group among all the Christians, no corner in all the churches, that is not full of all manner of offence and stained with every deadly sin, why should we beguile ourselves with the name of Christian? Assuredly our guilt is made the greater by this most sacred name, if we belie it by our conduct. The name of Christian aggravates our offences against God, since we continue our sins in the very bosom of the church.
[Footnotes moved to end]
1. See Lactantius op. cit. VII. 1.1: Bene habet, iacta sunt fundamenta, ut ait eximius orator . . .; where Lactantius is quoting Cicero Pro Murena 6. 14.