The Instructor 1.11.96–1.13.103

The manner of his love for humankind and of his instruction has now been shown as far as we could. That is why, explaining himself most beautifully, he likened himself to “a grain of mustard seed,” hinting at the spiritual nature of the Word that is sown, its abundant nature, the magnificence and easy growth of its rational power, and also that the sting and cleansing power of his censure is beneficial through its sharpness. By the small grain spoken of figuratively he gives a great gift, salvation, to all humanity. Honey, which is very sweet, generates bile, as goodness generates contempt, which is the cause of sinning; but mustard lessens bile, that is, anger, and cuts through phlegm, that is, arrogance. From this Word come the true health of the soul and its eternal good temper. Of old, then, the Word instructed through Moses, and afterward through the prophets too; and Moses is also a prophet. For the law is the instruction of unruly children. “Having eaten their fill,” it says, “they rose up to play,” calling it a fill of fodder (chortasma), the irrational filling with food, not a meal.

But since, glutted irrationally, they played irrationally, the law and fear followed them, to check their sins and urge them to good deeds, preparing them to listen to the true Instructor, that is, to obedience; the Word being one and the same, adapting himself to what was pressing. For Paul says that “the law was given as an instructor to Christ,” so that it is plain from this that the one only true, good, and just Instructor is Jesus, the Son in the image and likeness of the Father, the Word of God, to whom God has handed us over, as a loving father entrusts his children to a genuine tutor, expressly commanding us: “This is my beloved Son; listen to him.” The divine Instructor is trustworthy, adorned with the three finest things: knowledge, goodwill, and freedom of speech. Knowledge, because he is the Father's wisdom: “All wisdom is from the Lord and is with him forever.” Freedom of speech, because he is God and Creator: “For all things came to be through him, and without him not one thing came to be.” Goodwill, because he alone has given himself as a sacrifice for us: “For the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep,” and indeed he laid it down. And goodwill is nothing other than wishing good to one's neighbor for his own sake.

Now that this has been set out, it would follow that our Instructor Jesus should sketch for us the true life and instruct the human being who is in Christ. His character is neither very fearsome nor quite relaxed by kindness. He gives commandments, and at the same time shapes them so that we can carry them out. And it seems to me that he himself formed the human being from dust, regenerated him by water, made him grow by the Spirit, and instructs him by the word, directing him by holy commandments to adoption and salvation, so that, transforming the earthborn by stages into a holy and heavenly human being, he may above all fulfill that divine saying: “Let us make man in our image and likeness.” Christ has become the fullness of what God said, while the rest of humankind is understood to be in the image only. But let us, children of a good Father, nurslings of a good Instructor, fulfill the Father's will, listen to the Word, and truly take the impress of the saving life of our Savior. Practicing even now the heavenly way of life, by which we are deified, let us anoint ourselves with the ever-fresh ointment of gladness and the pure ointment of fragrance, having the Lord's way of life as a clear example of incorruption, and following in the footsteps of God. To him alone it belongs to consider, and indeed he cares, how and in what way human life may become healthier. He prepares us for self-sufficiency and simplicity of life, and for an unencumbered, ready readiness for the journey to the eternity of a good life, teaching each of us to be his own storehouse. “Do not be anxious,” he says, “about tomorrow,” meaning that the one enrolled with Christ must take up a life that is self-sufficient, serving itself, and lived from day to day.

For we are instructed not in war but in peace. War needs much preparation, and luxury requires abundance; but peace and love, simple and quiet sisters, need no weapons and no extravagant preparation. The Word is their food, the Word to whom the guidance that shows and instructs has been allotted, from whom we learn frugality and freedom from arrogance, and the whole love of freedom, of humanity, and of the beautiful, in a word, being made like God through kinship with virtue. Labor, then, and do not grow weary; for you will be such as you do not hope for, nor could even imagine. As there is one training of philosophers, another of orators, and another of wrestlers, so there is a noble disposition, suited to a will that loves the beautiful, which comes from the instruction of Christ; and trained in its activity, our walk, our reclining, our food, our sleep, our bed, our way of life, and the rest of our conduct appear dignified. For such training is not overstrained

but well tuned. So the Word is also called Savior, since he has found for human beings these rational medicines for good sense and salvation: watching for the right moment, reproving the harm, explaining the causes of the passions, cutting out the roots of irrational desires, commanding what we must abstain from, and bringing all the antidotes of salvation to the sick. For this is the greatest and most royal work of God: to save humanity. The sick are annoyed with a physician who gives them no advice for their health; how then should we not acknowledge the greatest gratitude to the divine Instructor, who does not keep silent nor overlook the disobediences that lead to destruction, but reproves them, checks the impulses that tend toward them, and teaches the precepts proper for right conduct? We must acknowledge the greatest gratitude to him. For what else do we say the rational animal, I mean the human being, must do, but contemplate the divine? And I say that he must also contemplate human nature, and live as the truth directs, greatly admiring both the Instructor himself and his commandments, since they befit and suit each other. After this pattern we too must fit ourselves to the Instructor, making our speech agree with our deeds, and truly live.

Everything contrary to right reason is sin. The philosophers, for instance, think fit to define the most general passions in this way: desire as an appetite disobedient to reason; fear as an aversion disobedient to reason; pleasure as an elation of the soul disobedient to reason; grief as a contraction of the soul disobedient to reason. If, then, disobedience to reason begets sin, how can obedience to the Word, which we call faith, not necessarily produce what is called duty? For virtue itself is a disposition of the soul in harmony with reason throughout the whole of life. Indeed, most important of all, they define philosophy itself as the cultivation of right reason; so that everything done amiss necessarily arises through a failure of reason, and is rightly called sin (hamartēma, “missing the mark”).

When the first man sinned and disobeyed God, it says, “man became like the beasts”; having sinned against reason, he is rightly thought irrational and likened to beasts. Hence Wisdom too says: “A lustful man and an adulterer is a horse for breeding,” likened to an irrational beast; and so it adds: “He neighs under everyone who sits on him.” The man no longer speaks, it says; for one who sins against reason is no longer rational, but an irrational beast given up to desires, on whom all pleasures sit. What is rightly done in obedience to the Word the followers of the Stoics call the fitting and the duty (kathēkon). The duty is what is fitting; obedience is founded on commandments; and these, being the same as precepts and having truth as their aim, lead us to the last object of desire, which is understood as the end. The end of godliness is eternal rest in God, and our end is the beginning of eternity. The right action of godliness accomplishes duty by works; so duties rightly consist in actions, not in words. And the action of the Christian is the activity of the rational soul according to sound judgment and desire for truth, carried out through the body, its natural partner and fellow combatant. Duty is a consistent will in life, one with God and Christ, rightly carried out for eternal life. For the life of Christians, in which we are now being instructed, is a system of rational actions, that is, the unfailing practice of what the Word teaches, which

we have called faith. The system is the Lord's commandments, which, being divine doctrines, have been written down for us as spiritual precepts, suited both to ourselves and to our neighbors; and they rebound on us, as a ball bounces back to the thrower from the wall. So duties are necessary for divine instruction, as commanded by God and provided for salvation. And since of necessary things some concern only life here, while others lift us from here to living well there, so too, correspondingly, some duties are ordered to living, others to living well. What is commanded for ordinary life has been made common among the many; but what fits living well, from which that eternal life comes, may be considered in outline, gathered from the Scriptures themselves.