Letters 120.11–121.2

What is meant by what the apostle writes in the second letter to the Corinthians: "To some a fragrance of death unto death, and to others a fragrance of life unto life. And who is so sufficient for these things?" — Let us set out the whole section of this passage, so that the middle, which is woven from both, may be understood from what precedes and what follows. "When I came," he says, "to Troas for the gospel of Christ, and a door was opened to me in the Lord, I had no rest in my spirit, because I did not find Titus my brother; but taking leave of them I went on to Macedonia. But thanks be to God, who always triumphs over us in Christ Jesus and manifests the fragrance of his knowledge through us in every place; for we are the good fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing: to some a fragrance of death unto death, to others a fragrance of life unto life. And who is so sufficient for these things? For we are not like so many, peddling the word of God, but as from sincerity, as from God, before God, we speak in Christ." He tells the Corinthians what he has done and suffered and how in all things he gives thanks to God, so that by his own example he may rouse them to the contest. "I came," he says, "to Troas" (which was formerly called Troy) to preach the gospel of Christ in Asia. "And when a door was opened to me in the Lord," that is, when very many had believed, or when, through the signs and powers that God worked in me, there was hope of a faith being born and growing in the Lord, "I had no rest in my spirit," that is, I could not find the consolation I had hoped for, "because I did not find Titus my brother," whether because I thought he would be found there, or had heard that he was living there, or because he had said that he would come there. But what was this great consolation, and what rest for his spirit in the presence of Titus, that because he did not find him he took leave of them and went on to Macedonia? We have said several times that the apostle Paul was a very learned man, trained at the feet of Gamaliel, who addresses the assembly in the Acts of the Apostles and says: "And now what have you to do with these men? For if it is from God, it will stand; if from men, it will be destroyed." And though Paul had knowledge of the holy Scriptures and possessed the gift of speech and of diverse languages (in which he himself glories in the Lord, saying, "I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of them"), he could not unfold the majesty of the divine meanings in a worthy Greek style. So he had Titus as his interpreter, as blessed Peter had Mark, whose gospel was composed with Peter narrating and Mark writing. Moreover, the two letters that are ascribed to Peter differ from each other in style and character and in the arrangement of words; from which we understand that he used different interpreters as circumstances required. So the apostle Paul too is saddened, because for the present he had not found the pipe and instrument of his preaching, through which he might sing to Christ, and he went on to Macedonia (for a man of Macedonia had appeared to him, saying, "Come over and help us"), to find Titus there and visit the brothers, or to be tested by persecutions. For this is what he says: "But thanks be to God, who always triumphs over us in Christ Jesus" (meaning, "triumphs over us," or "celebrates his triumph through us"), he who had said in another place: "We have become a spectacle to the world, to angels and to men." Thus he narrates in what follows: "For when we had come to Macedonia, our flesh had no rest, but we suffered every affliction: fightings without, fears within. But God, who comforts the humble, comforted us by the coming of Titus, and not only by his coming but also by his comfort." So he took leave of the people of Troas and went to Macedonia to find Titus there and have the help of his interpreting and of the gospel; and we understand that Titus was not found there, but arrived after the apostle's afflictions and persecutions. Before Titus came, then, having suffered much, he gives thanks to almighty God in Christ Jesus, whom he preached to the Gentiles, that he had chosen him as worthy to be the one in whom he would celebrate the triumph of his Son. God's triumph is the passion of the martyrs, the shedding of blood for the name of Christ, and joy amid torments. For when anyone sees martyrs stand with such perseverance, be tortured, and glory in their torments, the fragrance of the knowledge of God is spread among the nations, and the silent thought steals in that, unless the gospel were true, it would never be defended with blood. For this confession is not dainty, eager for riches, and untroubled, but is made in prisons, in blows, in persecutions, in hunger and nakedness and thirst. This is the triumph of God and the victory of the apostles. But a hearer could reply: "How is it, then, that not all believed?" So before he is asked he answers the objection in advance (ἀνθυποφορά), and, as is his custom, sets out whatever another could object before it is objected. And the sense is: "We are the good fragrance of the name of Christ to God in every place, and the fragrance of our preaching breathes far and wide. But because human beings have been left to their own choice (for they do not do good by necessity but by will, so that believers may receive a crown and unbelievers be handed over to punishment), therefore our fragrance, which is good in itself, passes into life or into death by the virtue or the vice of those who receive it or do not receive it, so that those who believe are saved and those who do not believe perish." Nor should this be wondered at in the apostle, since we have read even of the Lord: "Behold, this one is set for the fall and the rising of many, and for a sign that will be spoken against"; and the rays of the sun fall on clean places as well as unclean, and shine on flowers as on dung, and yet the sun's rays are not polluted. So too the good fragrance of Christ, which can never be changed nor lose its nature, is life to believers and death to unbelievers. Death, however, not this common death by which we die with beasts and cattle, but that of which it is written: "The soul that sins, it shall die." So too life is not to be thought this life by which we breathe and walk and run about here and there, but that of which David speaks: "I believe that I shall see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living." For he is the God of the living and not of the dead, and our life is hidden with Christ in God; but when Christ, our life, appears, then we too shall appear with him in glory. "And let it not seem a small thing to you, O Corinthians," he says, "if, when we preach the truth, some believe and others do not, some die a true death and others live that life which says, 'I am the life.' For unless we had spoken, neither would death follow unbelievers nor life believers; for a worthy herald of the powers of Christ can hardly be found, one who in proclaiming them seeks not his own glory but the glory of him whom he preaches." And in saying that he is not like many who peddle the word of God, he shows that there are very many who think that godliness is gain and do everything for the sake of shameful profit, who devour widows' houses; but that he himself speaks from sincerity, as one sent by God and in the presence of him who sent him, everything in Christ and for Christ, so that the purpose of preaching God may be the triumph of Christ and his glory. And it should be noted that the mystery of the Trinity is shown at the end of this section: "from God" (in the Holy Spirit), "before God" (the Father), "in Christ we speak." To prove that he went from Troas to Macedonia, I will cite a testimony from the Acts of the Apostles: "When they had passed through Mysia, they came down to Troas, and a vision appeared to Paul in the night. A certain man of Macedonia was standing and begging him and saying: 'Come over to Macedonia and help us.' And when he had seen it, we immediately sought to go on into Macedonia, being assured that God had called us to preach the gospel to them."

What is meant by what he writes in the first letter to the Thessalonians: "May the God of peace himself sanctify you through all things, and may your spirit and soul and body be kept whole, without blame, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ"? — A famous question, but to be treated briefly. Above he had said: "Do not quench the Spirit"; if this is understood, we shall at once know what this spirit is which is to be preserved with the soul and body on the day of the Lord's coming. For who could believe that the Holy Spirit, like a flame which when quenched ceases to be what it was, is extinguished and undergoes his own abolition, he who was once in Israel, when he could say through Isaiah and Jeremiah and each of the prophets, "Thus says the Lord," and who now speaks in the church through Agabus: "Thus says the Holy Spirit"? "There are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of ministries, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of workings, and the same God, who works all in all. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for what is profitable. To one is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith in the same Spirit, to another the gift of healings in the one Spirit, to another the working of powers, to another prophecy, to another discernment of spirits. But all these are worked by one and the same Spirit, dividing to each as he wills." Of this Spirit David prayed that he not be taken from him, saying: "Do not take your Holy Spirit from me." When he is taken away, he is quenched not in his own substance but for the one from whom he is taken. I think that "Do not quench the Spirit" means one and the same thing as what he writes in another place: "fervent in spirit." For in whom the fervor of the spirit does not grow lukewarm, when iniquity is multiplied and love grows cold, in him the spirit is by no means quenched. "May the God of peace, then, sanctify you through all things," or "in all things," or "full and perfect"; for this is rather what ὁλοτελεῖς means. He is called the God of peace because through Christ we have been reconciled to him, who is our peace, who made both one, and who in another place is called the peace of God that surpasses all understanding, which guards the hearts and thoughts of the saints. And in him who is sanctified, or perfect in all things, spirit and soul and body are preserved on the day of the Lord. As for the body: if a whole body means one that uses the services of each of its members (for example, if the hand works, the foot walks, the eye sees, the ear hears, the teeth grind food, the stomach digests, the belly processes it), or one that is not mutilated in any of its members, can anyone believe that the apostle prays for believers that on the day of judgment Christ may find the body of all whole, when the bodies of all will either have been dissolved by death, or, if, as some hold, they are found still breathing, will have their infirmities, especially those of the martyrs and of those who for the name of Christ have had their eyes gouged out, their noses cut off, or their hands chopped off? The whole body, then, is the one of which we spoke in another question, holding the head, from which the whole body, joined and knit together, receives growth in the service of Christ. This body is the church, and whoever holds the head of this body and keeps the other members will have a whole body, as far as human nature can receive it. In this way the wholeness of the soul too is to be preserved, the soul that can say, "Bless the Lord, O my soul, who heals all your infirmities," and of which it is written, "He sent his word and healed them." The spirit too is kept whole in us when we do not err in spiritual matters but live by the spirit, rest in the spirit, put to death the works of the flesh by the spirit, and bring forth all its fruits: love, joy, peace, and the rest. Another explanation: We are commanded, as Solomon says: "But you, write them down three times in counsel and knowledge, that you may answer words of truth to those who put questions to you." There is a threefold description and rule of the Scriptures in our heart: first, that we understand them according to the history; second, according to tropology; third, according to spiritual understanding. In the history, the order of what is written is kept. In tropology we rise from the letter to greater things, and whatever was done carnally among the former people we interpret in a moral sense and turn to the profit of our soul. In spiritual contemplation (θεωρία) we pass to loftier things, leave the earthly behind, and discuss the blessedness of the world to come and heavenly things, so that the meditation of the present life may be a shadow of future blessedness. Those whom Christ finds to be such that they are kept whole in body, soul, and spirit, and have within them the perfect truth of the threefold knowledge, he will sanctify with his peace and make perfect. Many understand this passage simply of the resurrection, that spirit, soul, and body will be kept whole at the Lord's coming. Others wish to affirm from this passage a threefold substance in man: the spirit, by which we perceive; the soul, by which we live; the body, by which we walk. There are those who argue that man consists only of soul and body, and wish the spirit, the third in him, to be understood not as a substance but as a power of acting, through which mind, sense, thought, and intellect are named in us; and certainly there are not as many substances as there are names. And when this is set against them, "Bless the Lord, you spirits and souls of the righteous," they do not accept that Scripture, saying that it is not found in the Hebrew. But in the present passage, as we said above, we take the spirit that is kept whole with soul and body to be not the substance of the Holy Spirit, which cannot perish, but his graces and gifts, which are kindled and quenched in us by our virtue or our vice.

Why does John send his disciples to the Lord to ask him, "Are you the one who is to come, or do we look for another?" when he himself had earlier said of the same one, "Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world"? — We have spoken of this question more fully in the commentaries on Matthew (from which it is clear, since you ask this, that you do not have those volumes); yet it must be touched on briefly, lest we seem to have kept silent altogether. John, placed in chains, sent his disciples so that, asking as if for himself, he might learn for them, and, when about to be beheaded, might teach them that he was to be followed whom by his question he confessed to be the teacher of all. For he could not be ignorant of him whom he had pointed out to those who did not know him, and of whom he had said, "He who has the bride is the bridegroom," and "whose sandals I am not worthy to carry," and "He must increase, but I must decrease"; and he had heard God the Father thundering, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." But the words "Are you the one who is to come, or do we look for another?" can also have this sense: "I know that you are he who came to take away the sins of the world; but because I am about to go down to the underworld, I ask this too: whether you yourself will go down there as well, or whether it is impious to believe this of the Son of God and you will send another. I want to know this so that I, who have announced you to men on earth, may announce you also in the underworld, if you are going to come there. For you are the one who came to set the captives free and to release those held in chains." The Lord, understanding his inquiry, answered by works rather than by words, and ordered that John be told that the blind see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead rise, and, what is greater than these, the poor have the gospel preached to them, poor either in humility or in riches, so that there is no difference in salvation between poor and rich, but all are called equally. And his added words, "Blessed is he who is not scandalized in me," strike not John but his disciples, who had earlier come to him saying, "Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?" and had said to John, "Teacher, he to whom you bore witness beyond the Jordan, behold, his disciples are baptizing, and more are coming to him." By this saying they show a jealousy arising from the greatness of his signs and from the bite of envy: why he who was baptized by John dares to baptize, and why a much larger crowd flocks to him than had formerly come to John. And lest the ignorant people might think that John was being disparaged by this saying, he speaks at length in his praise and began to say to the crowds standing around concerning John: "What did you go out into the desert to see? A reed shaken by the wind? And what did you go out into the wilderness to see? A man clothed in soft garments?" and the rest. The sense of this saying is: "Did you go out into the desert to see a man bent this way and that like a reed by the blast of the winds, so that he would now doubt the one he had earlier praised, and would now ask, of him of whom he had earlier said, 'Behold the Lamb of God,' whether it is he or another who has come or is to come?" And because all false preaching pursues gain and seeks human glory, so that profits may arise from glory, he asserts that John, clothed in camel's hair, cannot yield to any flattery; that he who eats locusts and wild honey does not seek wealth; and that his rigid and austere life avoids the halls of the palace, which are sought by those who are clothed in fine linen and silk and soft garments. And he says that John is not only a prophet, whose custom it is to foretell things to come, but more than a prophet, because the one whom they said would come, he showed had come, saying, "Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world"; especially since to the prophetic eminence was added the privilege of the Baptist, that he baptized the one to whom he had said, "I ought to be baptized by you," not with the presumption of a greater, but with the obedience of a disciple and the fear of a servant. And while he asserts that among those born of women none has arisen greater than John, he points out that he himself, who was born of a virgin, is greater; or that every angel, even the least in heaven, surpasses all men on earth. For we advance to become angels, not angels to become us, as some dream, snoring in the heaviest sleep. Nor does this suffice for John's praises, but it is also related that he, preaching the baptism of repentance, was the first to say, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has drawn near." Hence from the days of his preaching the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, so that one who was born a man desires to be an angel, and an earthly creature seeks a heavenly dwelling. For the law and the prophets prophesied until John; not that John is the end of the prophets and of the law, but he who was preached by John's testimony. And John, according to the mystery written in Malachi, is himself Elijah who is to come; not that the same soul was in Elijah and in John, as heretics suspect, but that he had the same grace of the Holy Spirit: girded with a belt like Elijah, living in the desert like Elijah, suffering persecution from Herodias as Elijah endured it from Jezebel; so that, as Elijah is the forerunner of the second coming, so John announced the Lord Savior who was to come in the flesh, not only in the desert but also in his mother's womb, by the leaping and exultation of his body.

What is meant by what is written in Matthew: "A bruised reed he will not break, and smoking flax he will not quench"? — To expound this passage we must set out the whole testimony that Matthew took from the prophet Isaiah, and the words of Isaiah himself according to the Seventy translators and according to the Hebrew itself, with which Theodotion, Aquila, and Symmachus agree. Of the four evangelists, then, Matthew alone set down: "But Jesus, knowing it, withdrew from there, and many followed him, and he healed them all, and ordered them not to make him known, so that what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled, who says: Behold my servant, whom I have chosen, my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased. I will put my Spirit upon him, and he will proclaim judgment to the Gentiles. He will not quarrel nor cry out, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break, and smoking flax he will not quench, until he brings forth judgment to victory; and in his name the Gentiles will hope." In place of this, Isaiah according to the Seventy has: "Jacob my servant, I will uphold him; Israel my chosen, my soul has accepted him. I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. He will not cry out nor let go, nor will his voice be heard outside. A broken reed he will not crush, and smoking flax he will not quench, but he will bring forth judgment in truth. He will shine and not be shaken, until he sets judgment upon the earth; and in his name the Gentiles will hope." But we have translated from the Hebrew thus: "Behold my servant, I will uphold him, my chosen, in whom my soul is well pleased. I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. He will not cry out nor show partiality, nor will his voice be heard outside. A bruised reed he will not crush, and smoking flax he will not quench; he will bring forth judgment in truth. He will not be sad nor turbulent, until he sets judgment in the earth; and the islands will wait for his law." From this it is clear that the evangelist Matthew, not bound by the authority of the old translation, did not abandon the Hebrew truth, but, as a Hebrew of the Hebrews and most learned in the law of the Lord, set forth to the Gentiles what he had read in the Hebrew. For if it is to be taken as the Seventy translators published it, "Jacob my servant, I will uphold him; Israel my chosen, my soul has accepted him," how shall we understand that what was written of Jacob and of Israel was fulfilled in Jesus? We read that blessed Matthew did this not only in this testimony but also in another: "Out of Egypt I called my son," in place of which the Seventy translated, "Out of Egypt he called his sons." Unless we follow the Hebrew truth, this plainly does not refer to the Lord Savior; for there follows: "But they sacrificed to the Baals." As for what is missing from the testimony as taken into the gospel, "He will shine and not be shaken, until he sets judgment upon the earth," this seems to me to have happened through the error of the first copyist, who, reading that the earlier clause ended with the word "judgment," took the last word of the later clause, also "judgment," for it, and passed over the few words that stood in the middle, between "judgment" and "judgment." Again, where the Hebrews read, "and the islands will hope in his law," Matthew, translating the sense rather than the words, put "name" for "law" and "Gentiles" for "islands." And this must be carefully observed not only in the present place but wherever the evangelists and apostles have brought forward testimonies from the Old Testament: they followed not the words but the sense, and where the Seventy differ from the Hebrew, they expressed the Hebrew sense in their own words. The Savior, then, is called the servant of almighty God according to the economy of the flesh he assumed, by which he is sent to us. To him the Father says in another place too: "It is a great thing for you to be called my servant, to gather the tribes of Jacob." This is the vine of Sorek, which means "chosen"; this is the most beloved Son, in whom the soul of God was well pleased; not that God has a soul, but that the whole affection of God is shown by "soul." And no wonder if a soul is named in God, since according to the laws of tropology and various understandings he is said to have all the members of the human body. He also put his Spirit upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and godliness and the fear of God, who came down upon him in the form of a dove, and of whom John the Baptist relates that he heard from God the Father: "He upon whom you see the Holy Spirit coming and remaining on him, he it is." "And he will proclaim judgment to the Gentiles": of this we read in the psalms too, "O God, give your judgment to the king, and your righteousness to the king's son"; and he himself says in the gospel, "For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son." He will not quarrel, like a lamb led to the sacrifice; he will not quarrel to the ruin of his hearers. Nor will he cry out, according to what the apostle Paul writes: "Let all clamor and anger and bitterness be put away from you." He will not cry out, because Israel did not do justice, but raised a cry. Nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets, or outside. For all the glory of the king's daughter is within, and narrow and strait is the way that leads to life. Hence his voice will not be heard in the streets, in which wisdom acts boldly, not entering the broad and spacious way but rebuking and condemning it. Hence also to those who were outside he spoke not in his own voice but in parables. "A bruised reed," he says, "he will not break," or, as the Seventy translated, "a broken reed he will not crush." The broken reed, which formerly was tuneful and sang in the praises of the Lord, is to be called Israel, which once struck against the cornerstone, fell upon it, and was broken on it; therefore it is said of it, "Rebuke, O Lord, the beasts of the reed"; and in the book of Joshua a torrent is called Kanah, that is, "of the reed," which has muddy waters, and Israel chose them. Despising the purest streams of the Jordan and turning back in mind to Egypt, longing for the muddy and marshy country, for melons and onions and garlic and cucumbers and the pots of Egyptian meat, Israel is most rightly called by Isaiah a broken reed, on which whoever tries to lean will have his hand pierced. For whoever, after the coming of the Lord Savior, abandons the spirit of the gospel's interpretation and rests in the death of the Jewish letter has all his works wounded. "And the smoking flax he will not quench": this is the people gathered from the Gentiles, which, when the ardor of the natural law had been extinguished, was wrapped in the errors of a most bitter smoke, harmful to the eyes, and of dark gloom. Not only did he not extinguish it and reduce it to ashes, but on the contrary, from a small and almost dying spark he kindled the greatest fires, so that the whole world burned with the fire of the Lord Savior, which he came to cast upon the earth and desires to burn in all. What we think of this passage according to tropology we noted briefly in our short commentaries on Matthew. But he who did not break the bruised reed and did not quench the smoking flax also brought judgment to victory, whose judgments are true, justified in themselves, so that he may be justified in his words and prevail when he is judged; and the light of his preaching will shine in the world, not crushed or overcome by anyone's plots, until he sets judgment in the earth and what is written is fulfilled: "Your will be done, as in heaven, so on earth." "And in his name the Gentiles will hope," or "the islands will hope in his law." For just as islands are indeed struck by whirlwinds and blasts of wind and frequent storms but are not overturned, after the example of the house in the gospel that is founded with solid mass upon the rock, so too the churches, which hope in the law and in the name of the Lord Savior, say through Isaiah: "I am a strong city, a city that is besieged."