Recognitions 5.12–5.34

“This happened by the providence of God, so that the knowledge of this good might be handed on to the nations as well, and those who had never heard of him nor learned from the prophets might recognize him, while those who had known him by daily meditation would not. For see, through you who are now present and desire to hear the teaching of faith in him and to know who he is, and how, and of what kind his coming is, the prophetic truth is being fulfilled. For this is what the prophets foretold: that he would be sought by you who have never heard of him. And so, seeing the prophetic sayings fulfilled in yourselves, you rightly believe this one alone, rightly await him, rightly inquire about him, so that you may not only await him but, believing, may also obtain the inheritance of his kingdom—according to what he himself said, that each one is the servant of him to whom he has subjected himself.

“Therefore wake up, and enroll yourselves under our Lord and God—the Lord who is Lord of heaven and earth—and reshape yourselves to his image and likeness, as the true Prophet himself teaches, saying: ‘Be merciful, as your heavenly Father also is merciful, who makes his sun rise on the good and the evil, and sends rain on the just and the unjust.’ Imitate him, then, and fear him, as the commandment is given to men: ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.’ For it is profitable for you to serve this one Lord, so that, knowing the one God through him, you may be freed from the many whom you feared to no purpose. For one who does not fear God, the creator of all, but fears those whom he himself made with his own hands, what does he do but subject himself to a vain and useless fear? And he makes himself baser and more abject than the very things whose fear he has conceived in his mind. Rather, through the goodness of him who invites you, return to your former nobility, and show by good actions that you bear the image of your creator himself, so that from the sight of his likeness you may be believed to be his sons as well.

“Begin, then, to cast out of your minds the empty images of idols and useless and vain fears, so that at the same time you may also escape the condition of unjust slavery. For those have become your masters who could not even have been useful slaves to you. For how could lifeless images seem fit even for slavery to you, when they neither hear nor see nor perceive anything? Except that at least the material from which they are made—gold or silver, or bronze or wood—could serve you for necessary uses, and you, by forming gods out of it, have made it wholly idle and useless. We, then, proclaim to you the true worship of God, and at the same time we warn and exhort the worshipers to imitate by good actions him whom they worship, and to hasten to return to his image and likeness, as we said above.

“I wish those who worship idols would tell me whether they want to become like those they worship. Does any of you want to see as they see, and to hear as they hear, and to have perception as they have? Far be this from each of the hearers; for this should be thought rather a curse and an insult to a man, who bears in himself the image of God even if he has lost the likeness. What kind of gods, then, are these to be held, whom it would be execrable for their worshipers to imitate, and whose likeness it is an insult to have? What then? Melt down the useless images and make useful vessels; melt down the idle and sluggish material and make implements fit for human use. ‘But human laws,’ someone says, ‘do not allow it.’ Good—it is human laws, and not their own power. How then are they gods who are defended by human laws and not by their own strength? So too they are guarded from thieves by watchdogs and the protection of locks—and this if they are of silver or gold or even bronze; for those of stone and clay are protected by their very cheapness, since no one steals a god of stone or clay. Hence those seem more wretched for whom a more precious metal procures nearer dangers. Should those, then, who can be stolen, who are guarded by men, who can be melted and weighed and struck with hammers—should these seem to be gods to men who have perception?

“O into what misery the understanding of mortals has fallen! For if fearing the dead is counted the height of folly, what shall we judge of those who fear something worse than the dead? For these images are not even to be counted among the dead, since they never lived. Even the tombs of the dead are to be preferred to them, since, though they are now dead, they once had life; but these whom you worship never even lived that life which is the foulest of all, the life of frogs and owls. But what need is there to say more about them, when it is enough to say to one who adores them: ‘Do you not see that what you adore does not see? Hear that what you adore does not hear, and understand that it does not understand.’ For it is the work of a mortal hand, and necessarily lacks perception. You, then, adore what has no perception, when everyone who has perception does not believe that even the things made by God that have perception are to be adored—that is, the sun and moon or stars, and all that are in heaven and on earth. For they think it right to venerate not the things made for the service of the world, but the Creator of them and of the whole world. For these too rejoice when he is adored and worshiped, and they do not gladly accept that the honor of the Creator should be paid to a creature. For the worship of God alone is set apart, for he alone is uncreated, and all other things are his making. As, then, it is proper to him who alone was not made to be God, so whatever has been made is not truly God.

“Above all, then, you ought to understand the deception of the ancient serpent and his crafty suggestions; he deceives you as if by prudence, and creeps through your minds as if by some reasoning, and beginning from the very crown of the head glides down through the inner marrow, counting your deception a great gain. So he plants in your minds opinions of any gods whatever, so long as he may call you back from faith in the one God, knowing that your sin is his comfort. For because of his wickedness he was condemned from the beginning to eat earth, because of him who was taken from the earth and whom he caused to be dissolved again into earth, until the time when your souls, having been brought through fire, are restored, as we shall teach more fully about this elsewhere. From him, then, come all the errors and doubts by which you are disturbed from faith and belief in the one God.

“First of all he suggests to men's thoughts that they should not hear the words of truth by which they might put to flight the ignorance of evils. And he does this under the pretext, as it were, of another kind of knowledge, asserting to them the opinion that most people hold: that they think they will not be guilty if they have been in ignorance, nor will they have to give an account for things they have not heard; and so he persuades them to turn their hearing away from the word. But hear against this: ignorance by itself is a most powerful poison, sufficient to destroy the soul without any addition sought from outside. And so there is no one who, being ignorant, escapes because he is ignorant; rather it is certain that he perishes. For the force of sins naturally destroys the sinner. But since the judgment will be rational, the cause and origin both of ignorance and of each sin will be inquired into. He, then, who did not wish to know how he could come to life, but preferred to be ignorant so as not to seem guilty on that account, is by that very fact judged as one who knew and had knowledge. For he recognized what it was that he did not wish to hear, and the craftiness sought from the serpent's artifice will contribute nothing to his excuse; for he will have to give account to him from whom the heart is not hidden. And so that you may know that ignorance by itself produces destruction: when the soul departs from the body, if it goes out such that it does not know him by whom it was created, from whom it received in this world everything necessary for its use, it is cast out from the light of his kingdom as ungrateful and unfaithful.

“Again the most wicked serpent suggests to men another opinion, which many of you are accustomed to put forward: ‘We too say that there is one God, who is Lord of all; but these also,’ they say, ‘are gods. For as there is one Caesar, and he has under him many judges—for example, prefects, consuls, tribunes, and the other authorities—in a similar way we think that, while there is one God greater than all, these also have been appointed gods in this world after the likeness of the authorities we mentioned, subject indeed to that greater one, yet administering us and the things in this world.’ Hear, then, in reply, how you are refuted by the reasons of truth in the very things you put forward to deceive. You say that God holds the place of Caesar, and that those called gods keep the appearance of his judges and authorities. Keep, then, the example of Caesar as you proposed it, and know that, just as it is lawful for none of Caesar's judges or administrators—that is, prefects or proconsuls or generals or tribunes—to have the name of Caesar given to him (otherwise both he who accepted it and those who conferred it will perish alike), so you ought to observe concerning this too: if anyone gives the name of God to any other than him, and the other accepts it, they will share one and the same destruction, with a far worse lot than the ministers of Caesar. For one who offends against Caesar will receive a temporal destruction; but one who offends against the one who alone is true God will pay the penalty forever—and rightly, as one who has violated by an injurious condition the name that is unique.

“Yet this very word, God, is not the name of God; rather, this word has meanwhile been granted to men as if in place of his name. Nevertheless, as I said, when it is treated insultingly, it reflects an injury to his true name. Indeed the ancient Egyptians, who thought they had found out the account of the heavenly course and the nature of the stars, with a demon besieging their minds, nonetheless subjected the incommunicable name to every insult. For some of them handed down that the ox called Apis should be worshiped, others the goat, others cats, some the ibis, some a serpent; and they taught that a fish too, and onions, and sewers, and the breaking of wind are to be held as divinities, and countless other things which it is shameful even to name.

When Peter said this, all of us who were listening laughed. Peter said: “You laugh at the disgraces of others, because through long habit you do not see your own. You rightly laugh at the folly of the Egyptians, who, though rational themselves, worship dumb animals. But hear how they in turn laugh at you; for they say: ‘We worship living animals, even if they are going to die; but you worship and adore things that never lived at all.’ They add besides that these are figures and allegories of certain powers by whose help the human race is ruled. But by stringing together these and similar things as a refuge for their shame, they try to veil their error. But this is not the time to answer the Egyptians and, leaving aside the care of those present, to treat the illnesses of those absent. For it is a sure sign that you are free of this kind of sickness, that you have not grieved over it as your own but laughed at it as someone else's.”

“But let us return to you who like to hold God as Caesar and the gods as Caesar's ministers and agents. Follow me more attentively, and I will show you the lurking places of the serpent, set in the winding turns of this argument. It must be certain and undoubted for all that nothing among his works can be made equal to God, since he was made by no one but himself made all things; for no one can be found so irrational as to think that a work can be compared with its maker. If, then, the human mind, not only by reason but by a kind of natural impulse, rightly holds this opinion—that God is the name for that to which nothing can be compared or equaled, but which stands above all and surpasses all—how is that name, which is believed to be above all things, rightly believed to be given to those whom you think have been appointed for the service and administration of human life? And we will add this as well: this world was without doubt made and is corruptible, as we shall show more fully later; meanwhile it is agreed that it is both made and corruptible. If, then, the world cannot be called God—and rightly it cannot, because it is corruptible—how shall parts of the world receive the name of God? For what the whole world cannot be, much less will a part of it be. So if we return to the example of Caesar, see how far you err. It is not lawful to compare anyone with Caesar, even though he is a man of the same nature as Caesar; and do you believe that anyone ought to be compared with God, who surpasses all things by the very fact that he was made by no one but himself made all things? You do not dare to give Caesar's name to anyone else, because he punishes the offender at once; but do you dare to give God's, because he puts off punishing the offender for the sake of repentance?

“Through others, again, that serpent is accustomed to put forth words like these: ‘We worship visible images in honor of the invisible God.’ This is most certainly false. For if you truly wished to worship the image of God, you would worship the true image of God in man by doing good to man. For in every man there is the image of God, but the likeness is not in all, only where there is a kindly soul and a pure mind. If, then, you truly wish to honor the image of God, we disclose to you what is true: that you should do good to man, who was made in the image of God, and pay him honor and reverence; give food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, clothing to the naked, care to the sick, hospitality to the stranger, and minister what is necessary to one in prison; and this is what will be reckoned as truly given to God. These things count so much toward the honor of God's image that one who has not done them is believed to have insulted the divine image. What kind of honor of God is it, then, to run about among forms of stone and wood and venerate empty and lifeless figures as divinities, and to despise man, in whom the image of God truly is? Rather, be sure that whoever commits murder or adultery, or whatever is done to the punishment or injury of men, in all these the image of God is violated. For it is great impiety toward God to harm a man. So whatever you would not wish to suffer yourself, when you do it to another, you defile the image of God with unjust griefs. Understand, then, that this is the suggestion of the serpent lurking within, which persuades you that you can seem pious when you worship senseless things, and not seem impious when you injure beings who have sense and reason.

“But to this the serpent answers us through another mouth and says: ‘If God did not wish these things to exist, they certainly would not exist.’ I do not yet tell you how many contrary things are permitted to exist in this world for the testing of each mind; but this is what it is fitting to say meanwhile: if, according to you, everything that was going to be adored ought not to have existed, almost nothing would have existed in this world. For what have you left that you have not adored? Sun, moon, stars, water, earth, mountains, trees, stones, men—there is none of these that you have not adored. According to your saying, then, none of these ought to have been made by God, so that you would have nothing to adore; indeed, not even men themselves ought to have existed to do the adoring. Truly this is what that serpent lurking within you desires; he spares none of you and wants none to escape destruction. But it will not be so. For hear: it is not what is adored that sins, but he who adores. For the judgment with God is just, and he judges the one who suffers injury differently from the one who inflicts it.

“But you say: ‘Then those who adore what may not be adored ought to have been destroyed by God at once, so that no one else would do it.’ But are you wiser than God, that you should suggest plans to him? He knows what he is doing. For he shows patience to all who are in ignorance, because he is merciful and kind, and he foresees that many of the impious become pious, and that some even of those who venerate impure figments and polluted images turn to God, call themselves back from sins, do good works, and reach salvation. ‘But,’ he says, ‘we ought not even to have come to the thought of doing these things.’ You do not know what freedom of choice is, and it escapes you that he is truly good who is good by his own purpose; but one who is held in the good by necessity cannot be called good, because what he is is not his own. Since, then, there is freedom in each person in the choice of good or evil, he seeks for himself either rewards or destruction. ‘No,’ he says, ‘whatever we think, God brings to our mind.’ What are you doing, O men? You blaspheme. For if he brings to our mind everything we think, does he then suggest to us thoughts of adultery and avarice and blasphemy and every luxury? Stop, I beg you, from blasphemies of this kind, and understand what honor is worthy of God. And do not say, as some of you are accustomed to, that God does not need the honor of mortals. He truly needs nothing; but you ought to recognize that the honor you pay to God benefits you. For what is so execrable as a man who does not know how to give thanks to his own creator?

“‘But we do better,’ someone says, ‘who give thanks both to him and to all with him.’ In this you do not understand the overthrow of your salvation. For this is as if a sick man should invite to his cure a physician and poisoners alike, though they can harm but cannot heal, while the true physician refuses to mix his medicines with their poisons, so that neither ruin should be ascribed to the good one nor healing to the harmful ones. You say: ‘Is God then indignant or envious if, when he himself does good, thanks are given to others?’ Even if he is not indignant, he does not wish to be the author of error, so that credit for the benefit of his work should be given to an empty idol. What, surely, is so impious, so ungrateful, as to obtain a benefit from God and give thanks to wood and stones? Therefore wake up and understand your salvation. For God needs nothing, requires nothing, and is harmed in nothing; it is we who are either helped or harmed in being grateful or ungrateful. For what is conferred on God by our praises, or what is taken away by blasphemies? Only this: that God makes the soul that gives him thanks near and familiar to himself, while the evil demon possesses the ungrateful one.

“But I also want you to know this: against souls of this kind God does not himself bring vengeance by himself, but his whole creation rises up and exacts punishment from the impious. And although in the present age the goodness of God grants the light of the world and the services of the earth equally to the pious and the impious, yet the sun gives its light to the impious not without grief of its own, and the other elements render their service likewise. Indeed, sometimes even against the goodness of the Creator, the elements, wearied by the crimes of the impious, are overcome; and this is why either the fruit of the earth is spoiled, or the mildness of the air is violated, or the heat of the sun is kindled beyond measure, or an immense force of rains and cold is poured out. From this come plague and famine, and the various faces of death run through the world; for the creation hastens to take vengeance on the impious. Yet the goodness of God restrains it, reins it in from its indignation against the impious, and compels it to obey his mercy rather than be inflamed by the sins and crimes of men; for the patience of God awaits the conversion of men while they are in this body.

“But if any persist in impiety to the end of life, then the departing soul, which is immortal, will pay the penalty for its persistence in impiety. For the souls even of the impious are immortal—souls which they themselves would perhaps wish to be ended together with their bodies. But it is not so; for they endure the punishments of eternal fire without end, and to their own ruin they do not have a nature that can die. But perhaps you will say to me: ‘You frighten us, Peter.’ And how shall we tell you what is so in reality? Can we proclaim the truth while keeping silent? We do not know how to present things otherwise than as they are. If we keep silent, we shall give you the cause of a ruinous ignorance, and shall satisfy the serpent who lurks within you and besieges your minds, who cunningly suggests these things to you so as to make you always enemies of God. But we have been sent for this: to expose his lurking places to you, and, dissolving the enmity, to reconcile you to God, so that you may turn to him and please him in good works. For enmity toward God in a man is an irrational and impious mind and a perverse purpose, especially when it seems to itself to know something and is in ignorance. But when, these things cast away, the same things begin to please you that please God, and the same things to displease you, and you begin to will what God wills, then you will truly be called his friends.

“But perhaps some of you will say: ‘God has nothing to do with human affairs; and how shall we come to the friendship of one we cannot even come to know?’ That God cares for human affairs, the government of the world itself bears witness: the sun serves it daily, the rains minister to it, springs, rivers, winds, and all the elements serve it; and the better known these seem to men, the more they show God's care for men. For unless by the power of the Most High, the greater would never serve the lesser; and by this God is shown to have not only care for men but a great affection, since he has made such splendid elements subject to their service. And that men also come to the friendship of God, we have as examples those to whose prayers he granted so much that he shut the heaven against rain when they wished, and opened it again when they asked; and he granted many other things to those who did his will, which would be granted only to his closest friends. But you will say: ‘What harm is done to God if we worship these things too?’ If any of you gave the honor due to a father, from whom he had received very many benefits, to another, and honored a stranger and outsider as father, would he not seem to you impious toward his father and most deserving of disinheritance?

“Others say: ‘It is impious if we do not worship what has been handed down to us by our fathers, and if we transgress the religion given by our ancestors.’ By this reasoning, if someone's father was a robber, or someone's father a pimp, he ought not to change the custom handed down to him by his fathers, nor be called back from his fathers' errors to a better way; and it is counted impious if someone does not sin with his parents or does not persist in impiety with them. Others say: ‘We ought not to be troublesome to God and always burden him either with complaints of our miseries or with the needs of our petitions.’ What a foolish and utterly witless answer! Do you think it troublesome to God if you give him thanks for his benefits, and do you not think it troublesome to him if you give thanks to wood and stones for his gifts? And how is it that when rain is held back by a long drought we all lift our eyes to heaven and beg the gift of rains from the almighty God, and all, with our little ones, pour out prayers to God and implore his mercies? But truly, ungrateful souls quickly forget when they have obtained it; for when the harvests or vintages are gathered, they at once bring the first fruits of the crops to deaf and dumb images, and for what God has granted they pay vows in temples or groves, and offer sacrifices there to demons, and exchange the giver of the grace for the grace received.

“But some say: ‘These things were instituted for the sake of gladness and to refresh minds, and were invented so that the human mind might be relieved a little from cares and griefs.’ See how you yourselves are the accusers of what you do. If these things were invented to relieve grief and to gain gladness, how is it that invocations of demons take place in groves and woods? How is it that there are the mad whirlings of men, the gashing of limbs, and the cutting off of private parts? How is it that raging fury is conceived in them? How is madness invited? How are women tossed about in frenzy with disheveled hair? Where does the grinding and gnashing of teeth come from? Where the bellowing from the heart and bowels, and all those things which, whether feigned or put together by the agency of demons, are displayed to terrify foolish and ignorant men? Are these done to relieve the mind, or rather to crush it? Do you not yet perceive and understand that these are the counsels of the serpent lurking within you? He leads you away from the reason of truth by irrational suggestions of errors, so as to keep you slaves and servants of lust and desire and all disgrace.

“But I solemnly testify to you all with the clear voice of preaching that, on the contrary, the religion of God calls you back to sobriety and chastity, commands you to refrain from luxury and frenzy, and to cut off the slips of anger by patience and gentleness; to be content with your own, and by the virtue of frugality not to plunder what belongs to others even when compelled by poverty, but to keep justice in all things; and to remove yourselves entirely from sacrifice to idols. For by these you invite demons into yourselves and willingly give them a way in, and from this you receive the causes either of frenzy or of unlawful love.

“From this descends the origin of all impiety; from this are conceived murders, adulteries, thefts, and the seedbed of all evils and crimes, while you indulge in profane libations and odors and give evil spirits room to rule over you and, in a way, a right to possess you. For once they have entered your minds, what do they work but what belongs to lust, injustice, and cruelty, and compel you to obey in all things in which they themselves delight? God indeed permits you to suffer this from them by a just judgment, so that from the very disgrace of your acts and thoughts you may understand how unworthy it is to be subject to demons and not to God. From this, through friendship with demons, people come to unseemly and foul acts; from this they come even to the destruction of life itself, either through the flame of lust or through the rage of anger or excess of sadness, so that, as is often known, some have even laid hands on themselves. This, as we said, by a just sentence of God is not prevented from being done by them, so that they may understand to whom they have subjected themselves, and recognize whom they have deserted.

“But someone will say: ‘These sufferings sometimes befall even those who worship God.’ It is not true. For we say that he is a worshiper of God who does the will of God and keeps the precepts of the law. For with God, he who is called a Jew among men is not a Jew, nor is he a Gentile who is called a Gentile, but he who, believing God, has fulfilled the law and done his will, even if he is not circumcised. He is a true worshiper of God who not only is free from sufferings himself but also makes others free from them, even if they are so heavy as to equal mountains; through the faith by which he believes God he removes them—and indeed, if it is necessary, he truly removes mountains with their trees by faith. But one who seems to worship God, yet is fortified neither by full faith nor by works of the commandments, but is a sinner, has because of his sins given room in himself to sufferings, which have been appointed by God for the punishment of sinners, so that by the penalties they inflict they may exact the debts of sins and lead them, more purified, to that general judgment of all—if only faith does not abandon their chastisement. For the chastisement of unbelievers in the present life is a judgment, by which they begin to be strangers to the good things to come; but the chastisement of those who worship God, when it is inflicted on them for sins that have occurred, exacts the debt of what they have committed, so that, anticipating the judgment, they may pay the debt of sin in the present age and be freed, at least by half, from the eternal punishments that are prepared there.