Tractates preface

Gaudentius to Benivolus, servant of Christ. It had been our common wish that you might hear in person what I expounded from the divine oracles during the Easter days just past. For your presence is always welcome to us, and with good reason, but above all on feast days in the assembly of the church of Brescia. For just as you are, by the Lord's favour, the most worthy head of the notables of our city, so you are also of the Lord's people, because you are no less diligent to keep God's commandments than to learn them, striving to match a robust profession of the catholic faith with the merits of an excellent life, so that a sincere faith may have works worthy of the brightness of its purity. In this lies the greatest fruit for the one who teaches and an undying benefit for the one who hears, as the Apostle says: "Not the hearers only, but the doers of the law will be justified before God." Nor is it surprising that you now live in this way in the fear of the Lord, you who, before you had yet received the grace of baptism, fought so hard for the truth of the heavenly faith that our father Philastrius, a man apostolic in every respect, who had instructed you in his admirable teachings, approved the witness of so great a constancy. For the Queen Jezebel of our time, patroness and partner of the Arian faithlessness, when she was persecuting the most blessed Ambrose, bishop of the church of Milan, thought that you too, then Master of the Memory, had forgotten the saving faith, and tried to compel you to draft orders against the catholic churches. Rather than do this, you of your own accord despised both the dignity of the promotion promised you and the ambition of the world and earthly glory, for the glory of God, choosing to live as a private man rather than to serve while dead. For he truly dies before God who departs from the truth of the apostolic faith, he from whom Christ God, who is life, is cut away, when he is withdrawn from him for denying the homoousion of the eternal Trinity.

But to return to the matter in hand: your body, at that time still weak after a grave illness, kept you from being present at the festival I mentioned, and you grieved over this deeply, counting it altogether a loss of spiritual goods inflicted on you because your sins pressed upon you. And for that reason you earnestly demanded a singular remedy for this loss: that I should write down what I remembered having expounded to the holy brotherhood on each day of that most sacred week. Conscious of my own mediocrity, I would plainly not have dared to commit this to writing had you not compelled me by your devout insistence; for it is enough for me if I am able to instruct the people entrusted to me at least by the living voice. Knowing, then, that a true lover of divine wisdom does not seek the pomp of empty eloquence in asserting useless things, but desires the saving teaching of fitting explanations drawn from the holy Scriptures, I shall set about writing to you in entirely the same sense, and perhaps even in the same words, in which I remember having spoken in the church, so that when you read it you may easily recognize my speech, such as it is. I shall also send back to you, revised, since you insist, four shorter tractates, which you have told me I once delivered in your presence on various chapters of the Gospel, and a fifth on the Maccabean martyrs, so that, if you judge them worth any useful remembrance, you may add them to be copied together at the end of this booklet. As for those tractates which certain people, with idle zeal, presumed to collect by secretaries secretly placed in the audience (as I have learned), no doubt broken off and half complete, they are nothing to do with me. Things which, it is clear, were taken down in the headlong haste of those recording them are no longer mine. I fear, however, that the errors of others may wrap up things hostile to sound faith under the title of my sermons, and that those who were the authors of this careless presumption may become guilty of an everlasting crime.

Since, then, I could not refuse your desire the labour asked of me, I shall first briefly show you that the blows of illness are not always inflicted on our bodies for the heap of our sins. The nature of the human body, from the time it received the sentence of mortality, "You are earth, and to earth you shall go," is subject to various infirmities without distinction of persons; and although we rightly confess that we are sinners, still the quality of our merits is not to be weighed either by the vigour or by the weakness of the flesh, since worshippers of idols often enjoy health of body and the goods of this world, while on the contrary those who cleave to the worship of God are shaken by the harassment of illnesses and tribulations. For we read that Abimelech, a Gentile, was a king, while holy Abraham endured the hardships of being a stranger; that holy Jacob was the hired servant of Laban the Syrian, an idolater; that just Moses, while the impious Pharaoh reigned, lay hidden in fear in the land of Midian; and that the wonderful Elijah fled into the wilderness from the face of Queen Jezebel, who was persecuting him. In the New Testament, John, the greatest of the prophets, after the long squalor of a deadly prison, after the unjust insults of chains, is beheaded in prison; while the sacrilegious Herod, who ordered him to be killed, feasts with his princes and tribunes and the chief men of Galilee at table, drunk not only with wine but with the very blood of the Baptist. And so it is written in the Apocalypse about Babylon, whether a city, or a nation, or any soul confused by the darkness of errors and the mixture of carnal vices (for Babylon is interpreted "confusion"): "And I saw," he says, "a woman drunk with the blood of the saints."

But where this patience of God leads, the Saviour himself teaches in the Gospel, saying: "There was a certain rich man, who was clothed in purple and fine linen and feasted splendidly every day. And a certain poor man named Lazarus lay at his gate, full of sores, and longed to be filled with what fell from the rich man's table; moreover, the dogs came and licked his sores. And it came to pass that the poor man died and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom," while the rich man died and was set in the punishments of the underworld, and begged that his tongue might be cooled by this poor man's finger dipped in water; yet he could not obtain this, placed as he was in the torments of the unquenchable flame. The prosperity of the impious is kept for this punishment; and on the contrary the tribulation of the just is led to that blessedness, so that those who have departed this world after bearing the straits of this life with faithful patience may be counted worthy to rest in eternal life with holy Abraham the patriarch. Hence the Lord said: "Enter by the narrow gate, for wide and spacious is the way that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter by it. How narrow is the gate and strait is the way that leads to life, and few are those who find it." For this reason the holy Apostle too proclaims that he boasts in his infirmities: "For when I am weak," he says, "then I am strong." The same most blessed apostle Paul also reveals that holy Timothy laboured under constant illnesses, writing to him: "No longer drink water, but use a little wine for your stomach and your frequent infirmities."

Perhaps one of the rich may ask: "Then God gave riches with malice, if he torments the rich man on account of them." For human error wishes to seem to sin not only with pardon but even with reason. Not with malice, but with providence, God made you rich, so that through works of mercy you might find a remedy for the wounds of your sins. For "almsgiving frees from death, and it cleanses from every sin." That man is not tormented because he was rich, but because poor Lazarus went hungry while he feasted. Holy Abraham himself, moreover, had been rich, but he was the servant of strangers and of the needy. Holy Job too held the kingdom of Arabia, but (as it is written) no widow, no poor man went out of his house empty. In the end, when he was set in sufferings, the works of mercy that he had done in vain, as it was said, were thrown in his face through his wife: "And see," she says, "what you suffer." Alas for the poisonous cunning of the dread serpent! Since it could not call God's servant back from good works, it set about making him lose the fruit of his piety by regret for his good deeds. Let unfruitful rich men, then, beware of the terrible example of that merciless rich man, their colleague, so that they are not led to similar torments; rather let them give alms generously, frequently, gladly. "For God loves a cheerful giver." Let them distribute their wealth to the needy and acquire for themselves treasures in heaven, "where neither rust nor moth corrupts, nor thieves dig through and steal," so that on leaving this world they may find refreshment in the bosom of that truly rich man Abraham.

Let it suffice to have answered briefly the question that had come up. I have mentioned what was set out above so that none of us may be scandalized in his thoughts, none of us may dare to murmur against God, if we see the unjust, idolaters and blasphemers enjoy continual health of body, flourish in the honours of the world, and overflow with perishable wealth, while we on the contrary are worn down by various tribulations, afflicted by pains of the flesh, and subject to the necessities of poverty. God, the judge of all, knows with what providence he strikes his own, and for what reason he spares the impious in this world. Nor are we at all ignorant, taught as we have been by the most blessed Apostle, that God's long kindness toward the wicked either summons to conversion those who perceive it, or reserves the ungrateful for a more just sentence of punishment: "Or do you despise," he says, "the riches of his goodness and patience and long-suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God invites you to repentance? But by your hardness and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath and of the revelation of the just judgment of God, who will render to each according to his works." For that general retribution is reserved for the day of judgment; yet in this world certain blasphemers or apostates are sometimes consumed by incurable torments so that the rest may be terrified by their punishments.

As for the worshippers of godliness, the fact that they are sometimes afflicted by pains of the body or by various tribulations is found to have a threefold reason: the first of correction, the second of purgation, the third of proving. If God sees a man who holds fast to the apostolic faith sinning often in certain things, he strikes his sinner so as to amend him, to bend him to repentance by a saving warning, lest, being negligent, he should become liable to the unquenchable Gehenna because a bearable punishment was put off. And one who lives chastely and justly, but whom certain stains of wicked thoughts have nevertheless spattered, the Lord now chastises with the scourge of tribulations and illnesses, so that the coming fire may find nothing of filth in him, but that through small blows of a very short time he may be purged from all stains and be counted worthy to pass more securely to eternal rest. This is the counsel and the loving severity of a God who loves his sinners. For it is written: "For whom God loves he strikes, and he scourges every son whom he receives." Hence each of us rightly proclaims God merciful, taught by the prophet's words: "The Lord has chastised me sorely, and has not given me over to death." But the just and blameless, like holy Job (of whom it is written that he was a man without complaint, a true worshipper of God), almighty God for this reason permits to be tried by losses of property, by the bereavement of loved ones, by the straits of persecutions, or by the goads of bodily pains: that he may prove them. He proves them not for himself, who knows all things before they happen, but for angels and men, so that they may know them to be upright from their deeds, since they cannot look into consciences, which God alone knows, who searches the hearts and the reins. For he knows the secrets of the heart, as the prophet's word testifies. And perhaps that is why the blessed Apostle, set amid the snares of manifold tribulations and persecutions, said: "For we have become a spectacle to this world, both to angels and to men." God wishes the just to be proved to the angels so that they may joyfully recognize the perfected righteousness of the saints; for the blessed angels in heaven rejoice, as the Lord Jesus says, even over one sinner who repents. He wishes the perfection of the just to be proved to men so that they may be provoked by their example to persevere in the love of God. God also wishes to thrust the proved righteousness of the saints upon the devil, so that he may grieve that they have been rightly advanced, by the merits of good works, to the friendship of God and to the kingdom of heaven from which he himself fell; that he may grieve, be indignant, envy, groan, and yet not dare to find any fault with the divine judgment.

It was for the sake of proving, then, that the wonderful Job suddenly became poor from being wealthy; from the father of ten children he is found without sons; from vigorous and healthy he is seen wounded, from flourishing he is seen ploughed by worms; from glorious he is found exposed to insults: insults both from friends who reproached him and (what was harder) from his own wife, who, we are taught, was kept not to comfort his sufferings but for the final temptation. For she tried to force him to speak words of blasphemy, throwing back at him the works of justice that he had done in vain, since he had come to so many kinds of misery. Therefore she says: "Say some word against the Lord, and die." The cunning serpent, again through a woman, suggests that he should obtain, as a remedy for his woes, the death owed to a blasphemer, so as to take the palm of patience from the bravest of warriors and to heap destruction on the vanquished; for the fury of the blasphemer does not bring healing to sufferings but piles up the torment of death, of that death which puts no end to miseries and is the beginning of the punishments that God the avenger has prepared for blasphemers. But that most blessed man, understanding that by the cunning device of his ancient art the devil was again pouring in the poison of death through a woman, answered thus: "You have spoken," he says, "like one of the foolish women," striking, that is, at the one woman from whom all came. And he added: "If we have received good things from the hand of the Lord, why shall we not bear evil things?" And in another place: "Naked I came out of my mother's womb, naked I shall return to the earth. The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away; as it pleased the Lord, so it has been done. Blessed be the name of the Lord." Amid the loss of all his property, amid the deaths of so many children, amid the most dreadful torments of his body and the inward pains of his wife's reproach, the true worshipper of God praises and magnifies the almighty Lord.

And so let us too, if we are worshippers of God, imitate that triumphant patience, which alone the true worshipper of God possesses with unshaken faith when he has been stripped not only of all his property and his children, but even of the very flesh of his body. For the true worshipper of God is he whose faith does not fail in adversity, whose tongue does not cease to bless the name of his Lord in every time of distress, in every blow of tribulation, saying: "I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise is always in my mouth." If you are a sinner, recognize that you are beaten for your correction, or at any rate for your purgation, as I explained above. If you are just, you will not dare to presume to the name of just, but you will understand that what you suffer happens for the proving of your glory. For it is written: "The furnace proves the potter's vessels, and the trial of tribulation proves just men." Therefore the holy Apostle also says: "Tribulation works patience, patience proving, proving hope, and hope does not put to shame." Since, then, various torments are inflicted in this world either for proving on the just, or for amendment on sinners, or for punishment on the sacrilegious, and these blows are deadly to some and saving to others, therefore it is written with the greatest distinction in the book of Psalms, of the obstinate wicked: "The death of sinners is very evil, and those who hate the just will do wrong." He testifies that the death of those sinners is very evil who, wishing to remain in the wickedness of their offences, hate the just man who strikes them. But of those who can be amended he says: "Many are the scourges of sinners"; and of the saints: "Many are the tribulations of the just." Nor is it at all difficult for any spiritual man to judge this difference from the fruits of each, as the Lord says: "By their fruits you will know them." For the philosophers of the Gentiles judge that everything among us is confused, whereas the spiritual man discerns and judges all things, as the Apostle says, but is himself judged by no one. For some of the wise of this world, ignorant of heavenly wisdom, wishing to make out that everything is by chance which God, the creator of all, exercises with just governance and providence, speak thus: "If this world were governed by the providence of God, the blows of tribulations, pains, woes and illnesses would never wear down good and bad indiscriminately, for it would not belong to divine equity to inflict like blows on unequal merits." But the ill will of this problem is easily emptied by a familiar example of the truth. For it is known to all that both the edge of the knife and the burning of fire are applied either to destroy, when the nature of a crime to be punished demands a penalty, or else they serve for cure, when they are applied medically for the sake of healing. So too almighty God tempers the same kinds of blows according to the qualities of merits: punishing some, and either amending others from their vices, or cleansing them, or advancing them to greater glory.

That this may be understood still more plainly, I shall add a few testimonies of the holy Scriptures. For we read: "The arrows of the mighty one are sharp, with desolating coals." And in another place: "Like arrows in the hand of the mighty, so are the sons of those shaken off." By "the sons of those shaken off" he proclaims the blessed apostles, whom, chosen for the faith (their fathers having been shaken far off from the grace of God because of their unbelief), the hand of the almighty Lord Jesus sent into the whole world like swiftly flying arrows, so that their preaching (according to the teaching of the most blessed Paul) might become to some the odour of death unto death, to others the odour of life unto life. For the teaching of truth gives life to the obedient and slays the rebellious; it lays low vices and raises up virtues; it casts down the unbelieving and exalts the faithful, since Christ Jesus, who is preached by the apostles, as holy Simeon says in the Gospel, "is set for the fall and the rising of many." And that you may know that the apostles (who took their name from their office, and in the Latin tongue are called "those sent") are the sons of the Jews shaken off from the grace of God, hear what Christ answered the Jews themselves when they blasphemed: "If I," he says, "cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons," that is, the apostles chosen from your offspring, "cast them out?" And to show more openly of whom he spoke, he added: "Therefore they themselves will be your judges." For in another place he says to the apostles: "Amen I say to you, that you who have followed me, in the resurrection, when the Son of Man comes on the throne of his majesty, you too will sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." "Like arrows, then," he says, "in the hand of the mighty, so are the sons of those shaken off." And immediately there is added: "Blessed is he who will fulfil his desire from them," so that you may clearly understand that God's arrows sometimes bring death and sometimes bestow blessedness, as they bestowed it on holy and most blessed Job, who says: "For the arrows of the Lord are in my body, whose wrath drinks my blood. For when I begin to speak they goad me." And shortly after: "But if the Lord would grant it, and my petition would come, and the Lord would give me my hope; he who began, may the Lord wound me, but not slay me for ever." There are also very many passages of this kind scattered through the whole body of the holy Scriptures, which for the sake of brevity I pass over without anxiety, since I speak to one who knows the Law, who, instructed by a few testimonies, can easily gather similar examples for yourself. By these proofs you may understand more fully that the goodness of God is demonstrated in his provident chastisement, whether correcting his servants from sin or advancing them to glory; and you may recognize the true justice of the same God in punishing the obstinate impious with torments, as the blessed Apostle also teaches: "Is God unjust, who inflicts wrath?" upon those, that is, who hold back the truth in unrighteousness. Of our own chastisement, which comes from God, he testifies thus: "When we are judged," he says, "we are corrected by the Lord, so that we may not be condemned with this world." Of the just he speaks thus: "In all things we suffer tribulation, but we are not distressed; we are perplexed, but not left destitute; we suffer persecution, but are not forsaken; we are cast down, but we do not perish; always carrying about in our body the dying of our Lord Jesus, so that the life of Jesus Christ also may be made manifest in our body." And elsewhere the same blessed apostle Paul, after he had said that he was caught up to the third heaven and into paradise, where he had heard unspeakable words, at once adds: "Lest the greatness of the revelations exalt me, there was given me a goad of the flesh, an angel of Satan, to buffet me, so that I may not be exalted. For this I asked the Lord three times that it might depart from me, and he said to me: My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness." And another Scripture, agreeing with this sense, speaks more plainly: "As gold and silver are proved in the fire," it says, "so just men in the furnace of humiliation": so that, having endured the heat of temptations and being bowed under the weight of tribulations, they may not be lifted into pride by the merits of their righteousness, muttering that they suffer something unjust against the worth of their deeds, men whom the reward of an immortal prize will follow not long after; but rather that, remaining in voluntary humility, endowed with holy virtues and humble of heart, they may be made more approved in Christ. So too were the venerable martyrs, who, confidently assuming with the blessed Apostle that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come which will be revealed in the saints, received all punishments for the name of the Lord Christ and all the torments inflicted on their bodies with a perfectly calm mind, since they were to have the Son of God himself as the rewarder of their victorious patience, who will bestow the kingdom of heaven on his servants who are faithful to the end. His everlasting power and divinity remain with the Father and with the Holy Spirit for all ages.