On Patience 19–25

This being so, what is a man using his own will in this life, before he chooses and loves God, but unrighteous and ungodly? What, I say, is a man, a creature straying from his Creator, unless his Creator is mindful of him and chooses him freely and loves him freely? For he himself cannot choose or love unless, having first been chosen and loved, he is healed; for through blindness he does not see what he should choose, and through sickness he loathes what he should love. But perhaps someone will say: “How does God first choose and love the wicked, so as to justify them, when it is written, You hate, O Lord, all who work iniquity?” How do we suppose, except in a wonderful and ineffable way? And yet can we not also conceive that a good physician both hates and loves a sick man? For he hates him because he is sick, and he loves him in order to drive out the sickness.

Let these things be said because of love, without which there cannot be true patience in us; for in the good it is the love of God that endures all things, as in the wicked it is the desire for the world. But this love is in us through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. Hence from whom we have love, from him we have patience. But when desire for the world patiently bears the burdens of any calamity, it boasts of the powers of its own will as of the numbness of disease, not of the robustness of health. This boasting is insane; it belongs not to patience but to madness. That will seems the more patient of bitter evils, the greedier it is for temporal goods, because it is the emptier of eternal ones.

But if an unclean and devilish spirit stirs up the human will and inflames it with deceptive visions and persuasions, and, joined to it in malignant conspiracy, makes it, whether maddened by error or burning with appetite for some worldly delight, bear wonderfully whatever seems unbearable, it does not follow that an evil will cannot exist without the instigation of another, unclean spirit, as a good will cannot exist without the help of the Holy Spirit. For that there can be an evil will even without any spirit seducing or inciting it is shown sufficiently in the devil himself, who is found to have become a devil by his own will, through no other devil. So an evil will, whether it is carried away by desire, or held back by fear, or spread out by joy, or contracted by sadness, and in all these disturbances of the mind despises and endures whatever is heavier for others or at another time, can also seduce itself without the prompting of another spirit; and, by falling away from higher things and slipping into lower, the more pleasant it has judged what it seeks to gain, or fears to lose, or rejoices to have gained, or grieves to have lost, the more tolerably it bears for its sake whatever is less to it in suffering than that is in enjoyment. For whatever that is, it is from the creature, whose pleasure is known. For in a certain way, by familiar contact and connection, the beloved creature lies close at hand to the loving creature for experiencing its sweetness.

But the pleasure of the Creator, of which it is written, “And you will give them drink from the torrent of your pleasure,” is of a far different kind; for he is not a creature, as we are. Unless, then, love of him is given to us from there, there is no source from which it could be in us. And so a good will, by which God is loved, cannot be in a man except one in whom God also works to will. This good will, then—that is, a will faithfully subject to God, a will kindled by the holiness of heavenly ardour, a will that loves God and its neighbour for God's sake—whether through love, as when the apostle Peter answers, “Lord, you know that I love you,” or through fear, of which the apostle Paul says, “With fear and trembling work out your own salvation,” or through joy, of which he says, “rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation,” or through sadness, such as he says he had, and great, for his brothers—whatever bitter and harsh things it suffers, it is the love of God that endures all things, which is not poured out in our hearts except through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. Hence, as devotion does not doubt at all, just as the love of those who love holily is a gift of God, so is the patience of those who endure devoutly. For the divine Scripture neither deceives nor is deceived; and it has testimonies of this not only in the old books, where it is said to God, “You are my patience,” and “From him is my patience,” and where another prophet says that we receive the spirit of fortitude, but it is also read in the apostolic letters: “For it has been given to you for Christ, not only to believe in him but also to suffer for him.” Let not what one hears has been given to him, then, make his mind proud, as though it were his own.

But if someone who does not have the love that belongs to the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace, by which the gathered catholic church is held together, being placed in some schism, suffers—so as not to deny Christ—tribulations, distresses, hunger, nakedness, persecution, perils, prisons, chains, tortures, the sword or flames or beasts or the cross itself, out of fear of Gehenna and eternal fire, these things are in no way to be blamed; rather, here too patience is to be praised. For we shall not be able to say that it would have been better for him to deny Christ and suffer none of the things he suffered by confessing him; but it must be thought that perhaps the judgement will be more bearable for him than if he had denied Christ and avoided all those things. So what the apostle says, “If I hand over my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing,” is to be understood as profiting nothing toward obtaining the kingdom of heaven, not toward undergoing a more bearable punishment at the last judgement.

But it may rightly be asked whether this patience too is a gift of God, or is to be attributed to the powers of the human will: the patience by which someone separated from the church suffers temporal punishments out of fear of eternal punishments—not for the error that separated him but for the truth of the sacrament or of the word that remained with him. For we must beware lest, if we say that this patience is a gift of God, those in whom it is present should be believed to belong to the kingdom of God as well; but if we deny that it is a gift of God, we may be forced to confess that there can be something good in man's will without God's help and gift. For it is not something without good, that a man should believe he will be punished with eternal punishment if he denies Christ, and for this faith should endure and despise any human punishment whatever.

Accordingly, just as it must not be denied that this too is a gift of God, so it must be understood that some gifts of God belong to the children of that Jerusalem above, which is free, our mother—these are in a way hereditary, gifts in which we are heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ—while others can be received even by the sons of concubines, to whom carnal Jews and schismatics or heretics are compared. For it is written, “Cast out the slave woman and her son; for the son of the slave woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac,” and God said to Abraham, “In Isaac shall your seed be called,” which the apostle interpreted by saying, “That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as seed,” so that we might understand that the seed of Abraham through Isaac, because of Christ, belongs to the children of God, who are the body and members of Christ, that is, the one, true, genuine, catholic church of God, holding the devout faith—not that which works through pride or fear but that which works through love. Yet although this is so, when Abraham sent away the sons of the concubines from his son Isaac, he bestowed some gifts on them, so that they should not be left altogether empty-handed, not so that they should be held as heirs. For thus we read: “And Abraham gave all his property to Isaac his son; and to the sons of his concubines Abraham gave gifts, and sent them away from Isaac his son.” If, then, we are children of the free Jerusalem, let us understand that the gifts of the disinherited are one thing, the gifts of the heirs another. For those are heirs to whom it is said, “For you did not receive the spirit of slavery again to fear, but you received the spirit of adoption as sons, in which we cry, Abba, Father.” Let us cry, then, by the spirit of love, and, until we come to the inheritance in which we shall always remain, let us be patient with a free love, not with a servile fear; let us cry as long as we are poor, until we are enriched with that inheritance. For we have received great pledges of it, in that Christ became poor to enrich us, and when he was exalted to the riches on high, the Holy Spirit was sent to breathe holy desires into our hearts. Of these poor—still believing, not yet contemplating; still hoping, not yet holding; still sighing with desire, not yet reigning in happiness; still hungering and thirsting, not yet satisfied—of these poor, then, the patience will not perish for ever: not because there will be patience there too, where there will be nothing to endure, but it is said “will not perish” because it will not be fruitless. It will have eternal fruit; therefore it will not perish for ever. For whoever labours in vain, when the hope for which he laboured has deceived him, rightly says, “I have lost so much labour”; but whoever reaches the promised reward of his labour says with joy, “I have not lost my labour.” Labour is said not to have perished, then, not because it lasts for ever, but because it was not spent in vain. So too the patience of Christ's poor, who are to be enriched as Christ's heirs, will not perish for ever: not because there too we shall be commanded to bear things patiently, but because for what we have borne patiently here we shall enjoy eternal blessedness. He who gives temporal patience to the will will not set an end to everlasting happiness, because both gifts are given to the love that has been given. Amen.