On the Governance of God 0.1–1.36

Almost all men who have thought it part of the cultivation of human duty to hammer out some literary work by the zeal of their talents have labored with special care, whether they were treating with the pen things useful and honorable or useless and honorable, only to brighten the sequence of their matter with the polish of words, and by speaking to kindle light on the very subjects they wished to speak of. So most writers on worldly affairs in both kinds of literature have devoted themselves to this part, not considering enough how worthy the material was on which they spent themselves, provided that whatever they said they either sang in elegant and charming verse or told in brilliant prose.

For all of them in their writings pleaded only their own cause, and, consulting their own praise rather than others’ benefit, strove not to be thought wholesome and saving but learned and eloquent. So their writings are swollen with vanity, or notorious for falsehood, or filthy with foul words, or vicious with obscenity of matter; so that truly, since they spent their care on such unworthy things while hunting only for praise of their talents, they seem to me not so much to have brought their talents to light as to have condemned them.

But we, lovers of things rather than words, pursue what is useful rather than what is applauded, and do not seek that the empty ornaments of the age be praised in us but the wholesome profit of the matter; in our little writings we want not allurements but remedies, which may not so much please the ears of the idle as benefit the minds of the sick, and from either outcome we shall bring back a great fruit by heavenly gifts.

For if this our remedy heals some people’s bad opinion of our God, the fruit will not be small, that I have helped many. But if that does not come about, even this perhaps will not be fruitless, that I tried to help. For a mind of good zeal and pious desire, even if it does not achieve the effect of the work undertaken, still has the reward of its will. Here, then, I shall begin.

God is said by some to be unconcerned and, as it were, neglectful of human actions, inasmuch as he neither guards the good nor restrains the wicked; and that is why in this age the good are for the most part wretched and the wicked happy. Since we are dealing with Christians, the divine word alone ought indeed to be enough to refute this. But because many have something of pagan unbelief in them, perhaps they may also be pleased by the testimonies of chosen and wise pagans. We prove, therefore, that not even those held this view of unconcern and neglect who, lacking the true religion, could in no way know God, since they did not know the law by which God is known.

The philosopher Pythagoras, whom philosophy itself looked up to as its master, speaking of the nature and benefits of God, said this: “A mind passing through and spread throughout all parts of the world, from which all living things that are born take life.” How, then, can God be said to neglect the world, which he loves enough by this very fact, that he extends himself through the whole body of the world?

Plato and all the schools of the Platonists confess that God is the ruler of all things. The Stoics testify that he always remains, in the role of a helmsman, within what he governs. What could they have thought more rightly and religiously about the care and diligence of God than to say that he is like a helmsman? Understanding this, surely: that as the helmsman at sea never takes his hand from the helm, so God never wholly takes his care from the world; and as the helmsman, watching the winds, avoiding the rocks, and looking up at the stars, is wholly given to his work in body and heart at once, so our God never turns from the whole of things the gift of his most gracious regard, nor withdraws the guidance of his providence, nor takes away the indulgence of his most kind affection.

Hence also that example of mystic authority by which Maro wished to show himself no less a philosopher than a poet, saying: “For God goes through all lands, and the tracts of the sea, and the deep sky.” Tullius too: “Nor can God himself,” he says, “as he is understood by us, be understood in any other way than as a mind unbound and free, separated from all mortal compound, perceiving and moving all things.” Elsewhere also: “Nothing,” he says, “is more excellent than God; by him, therefore, the world must be ruled. God, then, is obedient or subject to no nature; therefore he himself rules all nature.” Unless perhaps we, most wise as we are, should think that he by whom we say all things are ruled both rules them and neglects them at the same time.

Since, then, all, even those without religion, compelled by necessity itself, have said that all things are perceived, moved, and ruled by God, how do some now think him unconcerned and neglectful, who perceives all things by his subtlety, moves them by his strength, rules them by his power, and guards them by his kindness? I have stated what the leaders of philosophy and of eloquence alike judged about the majesty and governance of the supreme God. I brought forward the noblest masters of both most excellent arts so that I might more easily show either that all others thought the same, or at least that they dissented without any authority. And indeed I can find none who differed from their judgment except the ravings of the Epicureans or of certain Epicureanizers, who, as they joined pleasure with virtue, so joined God with unconcern and torpor, so that it is plain that those who think so follow the vices of the Epicureans as well as their sense and opinion.

I do not think that to prove so obvious a matter we need now use divine testimonies at this point, especially since the sacred words contradict all the propositions of the impious so abundantly and plainly that, while we answer their subsequent slanders, we can also more fully refute what was said above. They say, then, that God passes over everything, since he neither restrains the wicked nor protects the good, and that therefore in this age the condition of the better is much the worse: the good in poverty, the wicked in abundance; the good in weakness, the wicked in strength; the good always mourning, the wicked always rejoicing; the good in misery and abasement, the wicked in prosperity and rank.

First, then, I ask of those who either grieve or complain that this is so whether they grieve over the holy, that is, true and faithful Christians, or over false ones and impostors. If over false ones, the grief is superfluous that grieves that the wicked are not happy, since whoever are wicked become worse through success, rejoicing that their pursuit of wickedness prospers; and so for this very reason they ought to be most wretched, so that they may cease to be wicked, since they claim the name of religion for most wicked gains and display the title of holiness for the filthiest trading. If their miseries were compared with their wickedness, they are less wretched than they deserve, because, placed in whatever miseries, they are still not as wretched as they are wicked.

In no way, then, should we grieve for these, that they are not rich and happy; and much less for the holy, since, however wretched they may seem to the ignorant, they cannot be anything but happy. It is superfluous for anyone to think them wretched through weakness or poverty or other such things, by which they trust they are happy; for no one is wretched by another’s feeling but by his own. So those cannot be wretched by anyone’s false judgment who are truly happy in their own conscience; for none, I think, are happier than those who live according to their own judgment and wish. The religious are humble: they want this; they are poor: they delight in poverty; they are without ambition: they reject ambition; they are without honor: they flee honor; they mourn: they long to mourn; they are weak: they rejoice in weakness. “For when I am weak,” says the apostle, “then I am strong.” And not without reason does he think so, to whom God himself speaks thus: “My grace is sufficient for you; for strength is made perfect in weakness.”

In no way, then, should we grieve over this affliction of weaknesses, which we understand to be the mother of virtues. So, whatever it may be, all who are truly religious must be called happy, because amid whatever hardships and harshness none are happier than those who are what they wish to be. There may indeed be some who, pursuing base and obscene things, are happy in their own opinion because they obtain what they want, yet are not happy in fact, because they ought not to have wanted what they want. But the religious are happier than all in this, that they both have what they want and cannot have anything at all better than what they have. So labor and fasting and poverty and humility and weakness are burdensome not to all who bear them, but to those unwilling to bear them. For whether these things are heavy or light, the mind of the one who bears them decides. For as nothing is so light that it is not heavy to him who does it unwillingly, so nothing is so heavy that it does not seem light to him who carries it out willingly.

Unless perhaps we think it was heavy for those ancient men of old-time virtue, the Fabii, the Fabricii, the Cincinnati, that they were poor, who did not wish to be rich, since they devoted all their zeal and all their efforts to the common profit and enriched the growing strength of the commonwealth by their private poverty. Did they bear that frugal and rustic life with groans and grief, when they took cheap and country food before the very hearths on which they had cooked it, and were not allowed to take even that until evening? Did they take it ill that they did not brood over talents of gold with a greedy and rich conscience, when they restrained even the use of silver by laws? Did they think it a penalty of allurement and desire that they did not have purses stretched with gold coins, when they judged a patrician unworthy of the senate because he had wished to be rich to the amount of ten pounds of silver?

They did not then despise poor dress, I think, when they wore a rough and short garment, when they were called from the plough to the fasces and, to be adorned with consular dress, wiped the dust wet with sweat perhaps on the very imperial togas they were about to put on. So then those poor magistrates had a rich commonwealth; but now rich power makes the commonwealth poor. And what madness, I ask, or what blindness is it to believe that private riches can stand when the commonwealth is needy and begging? Such, then, were the old Romans, and they despised riches then, not knowing God, as men now spurn them following the Lord.

And yet why do I speak of those who, in their care to extend the empire, turned their contempt of their own means into public wealth, and, though poor in private, abounded in common riches, when even certain Greek followers of wisdom, without any desire for the public good, stripped themselves of almost all use of household property out of eagerness to gain glory; and not only this, but raised the summit of their teaching even to contempt of pain and death, saying that the wise man is happy even in chains and tortures? They wanted the power of virtue to be so great that a good man could never be unhappy. If, then, those are not thought wretched even by some wise men now, who took no fruit of their labor except present praise, how much more must religious and holy men not be thought wretched, who both take the delights of present faith and will obtain the rewards of future blessedness!

One of those of whom we complain said to a certain holy man who held according to the rule of truth, that is, that God rules all things and tempers his governance and guidance as he knows to be necessary for the human race: “Why then are you yourself sick?” He meant, surely, this: “If God, as you think, rules all things in this present life, if God disposes everything, for what reason is a man healthy and strong whom I know to be a sinner, and you sick, whom I do not doubt to be holy?” Who would not admire a man of such deep heart, who thinks the merits and virtues of the religious worthy of such great rewards that in this present life he thinks flesh and bodily strength ought to be the rewards of the saints?

I answer, then, not in the name of one religious man only but of all. You ask, then, whoever you are, why holy men are sick? I answer briefly: holy men make themselves weaker because, if they were strong, they could hardly be holy. For I think all men are made strong by food and drink, and weak by abstinence, dryness, and fasts. It is no wonder, then, that those are weak who reject the use of the things by which others become strong. And there is reason for them to reject them, since the apostle Paul says of himself: “I chastise my body and bring it into subjection, lest perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should become reprobate.” If even the apostle thinks bodily weakness something to seek for himself, who wisely avoids it? If the apostle fears strength of flesh, who reasonably presumes to be strong? This, then, is the reason why men devoted to Christ both are weak and wish to be.

Far be it from us to think the religious neglected by God on the ground by which we trust they are loved more. We read that the apostle Timothy was very weak in body. Was he neglected by the Lord, or did he, who wished to be weak in order to please, not please Christ because of his weakness? Even the apostle Paul himself, though Timothy already labored under very many infirmities, permitted him to take and sip only a very little wine; that is, he wanted him to provide for his weakness, yet did not want him to arrive at strength. And why so? Why, without doubt, unless because, as he himself says, “the flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh; for these,” he says, “are opposed to one another, so that you do not do whatever you wish.”

Someone has said at this point, not unwisely, that if we cannot do what we wish because the strength of the body resists, we must weaken the flesh so that we may do what we wish. “For weakness of the flesh,” he says, “sharpens the vigor of the mind, and when the limbs are afflicted the strength of bodies is transferred into the virtues of souls. The marrow does not burn with base flames, hidden incitements do not inflame an unsound mind, the senses do not wander wantonly through various delights, but the soul alone exults, glad at the afflicted body as at a conquered adversary.” This, then, as I said, is the cause of weakness in religious men; and not even you, I think, now deny that it is.

“But perhaps,” you say, “there are other greater things, namely, that they suffer many harsh and bitter things in this life: that they are taken captive, tortured, slaughtered.” That is true: but what are we to do about the fact that the prophets too were led into captivity and the apostles also endured tortures? And certainly we cannot doubt that they were then most in God’s care when they suffered these things for God. But perhaps you say you prove by this very thing all the more that God neglects everything in this age and reserves everything for the future judgment, since the good have always suffered all evils and the wicked done them. The assertion does not seem unbelieving, especially since it confesses the future judgment of God.

But we say that the human race will be judged by Christ in such a way that we still believe that God even now rules and disposes all things as he thinks reasonable; and we affirm that he will judge in the future in such a way that we also teach that he has always judged in this age too. For as God always governs, he always also judges, because governance itself is judgment. In how many ways do you want us to prove this?

By reason, or by examples, or by testimonies? If by reason: who is so devoid of human understanding and so estranged from this very truth of which we speak as not to recognize and see that the most beautiful work of the world and the incalculable magnificence of things above and below is ruled by the same one by whom it was created, and that the maker of the elements will also be their governor; who, that is, governs by the same providence and reason all that he founded by power and majesty? Especially since even in those things administered by human agency nothing at all stands without reason, and all things draw their safety from providence as the body draws its life from the soul; and so in this world not only empires and provinces and civil and military affairs, but also lesser offices and private houses, and finally the cattle themselves and every smallest kind of domestic animal, are held together only by human ordering and counsel, as if by a hand and a helm. And all this without doubt by the will and judgment of the supreme God:

so that, after that example, the whole human race might rule the small parts and members of things as he himself governs the whole of the body of the world. “But at the beginning of creation,” you say, “these things were established and arranged by God; but once the universe was completed and perfected, he removed from himself and sent away all care of earthly things.” No doubt he sent it away from his place, perhaps fleeing labor; and avoiding the trouble of weariness, or busy with other affairs, he left part of things because he could not attend to the whole.

“God, then,” you say, “removes from himself the care of mortals.” What then is the reason for our divine religion? What cause have we for worshipping Christ, or hope of appeasing him? For if God neglects the human race in this age, why do we stretch our hands to heaven daily? Why do we seek God’s mercy with frequent prayers? Why do we run to the houses of the church? Why do we make supplication before the altars? For we have no reason to pray if the hope of obtaining is taken away. You see, then, how foolish and empty the assertion of this belief is: if it is accepted, nothing at all of religion is preserved.

But perhaps you take refuge in saying that we worship God from fear of the future judgment, and strive in all the worship of present duties to deserve acquittal on the day of the future judgment. What then does the apostle Paul mean when he instructs and commands that daily in the church we continually offer our God prayers, supplications, requests, thanksgivings? And for what reason all these? For what indeed, unless, as he himself says, that we may lead a quiet and peaceful life in all chastity? He commands, as we see, that the Lord be entreated and prayed to for present things, which he certainly would not command unless he were confident that he could be moved by prayer.

How, then, does anyone think that God’s ears are open for obtaining the goods of the future time, but closed and blocked for present ones? Or how do we in church, making supplication, ask God for present safety, if we think we will not be heard at all? Then no prayers should be made by us for our safety and prosperity. Rather, so that the modesty of the supplication may win favor for the petitioner’s voice, perhaps we should say: “Lord, we do not ask the prosperity of this life nor pray for present goods; for we know that your ears are closed to these petitions and that you have no hearing for prayers of this kind; but we ask only for the things that are to come after death.”

Granted that such a petition is not without usefulness, how does it stand by reason? For if God removes his care from regard of this age and closes his ears to the prayers of petitioners, without doubt he who does not hear us for present things does not hear us for future ones either; unless perhaps we believe that Christ grants or denies his ears according to the difference of prayers, that is, that he closes them when asked for present things and opens them when asked for future ones.

But no more need be said of these things; for they are so foolish and so frivolous that one must take care lest the very thing said for God’s honor seem to be an injury to God. For so great is the sacred majesty and so dreadful the reverence due it that we must not only shudder at what is said by them against religion, but must also say with great fear and discipline what we ourselves say for religion.

If, then, it is foolish and impious to believe that the divine kindness despises the care of human affairs, then it does not despise it; if it does not despise it, it rules; and if it rules, by the very fact that it rules it judges, because there can be no rule unless there is continual judgment in the ruler.

But perhaps someone may think it too little that reason declares this unless it is proved by examples. Let us see how God has ruled the world from the beginning, and so we shall show that he has always governed all things in such a way as to teach at the same time that he has also judged. For what does Scripture say? “God formed man from the clay of the earth and breathed into him the breath of life.” And what next? “He placed him,” it says, “in the paradise of delight.” What then? He gave him a law, instructed him with precepts, formed him by teaching. And what followed after this? Man transgressed the sacred command, underwent the sentence, lost paradise, received the penalty of condemnation.

Who does not see in all these things God both as governor and as judge? For he established Adam innocent in paradise and expelled him guilty. In the establishing is ordering; in the expulsion, judgment. When he placed him in the place of delight, he ordered; when he expelled him guilty from the kingdom, he judged. So much of the first man, that is, the father. What of the second, that is, the son? “It came to pass,” says sacred Scripture, “after many days, that Cain offered gifts to the Lord from the fruits of the earth. Abel also offered from the firstlings of his flock and from their fat. And the Lord looked upon Abel and upon his gifts, but upon Cain and upon his gifts he did not look.”

Before I speak of God’s more evident judgment, I think that even in what we have already said there is a certain censure of judgment; for in this, that God accepts the sacrifice of one and excludes that of the other, he most plainly judged both the righteousness of the one and the iniquity of the other. But this is little. Cain, then, paving the way for his coming crime, draws his brother into a solitary place and accomplishes the crime under the patronage of secrecy, as impious as he was foolish, who believed it enough for committing the greatest outrage if he avoided the sight of men, though he was about to commit fratricide with God as witness. Hence I think that already then there was in him the opinion that is now in many: that God does not look upon earthly things and does not see the acts of wicked men. Nor is it doubtful, since, when confronted by the word of God after the crime was committed, he answered that he knew nothing of his brother’s murder. So far did he think God unaware of his deed that he believed the most savage outrage could be covered by a lie. But he found it otherwise than he thought. For he felt that God, by whom he did not think crimes were seen when he killed, saw them when he was condemned.

Here now I want to ask of those who deny that human affairs are now regarded, ruled, or judged by God whether everything in what we have said is the opposite. For I think that he is present who attends the sacrifice; that he rules who chastises Cain after the sacrifices; that he is concerned who demands the slain from the slayer; and that he judges who condemns the impious murderer with just punishment. In this, indeed, there is also this, not unfittingly: that we should not wonder now that holy men suffer harsh things, when we see that already then God allowed the first of the saints to be killed even by the greatest outrage. For what reason he permits such things, it is neither for human weakness to know by full inquiry nor for this time to discuss. Meanwhile it is enough to prove that all things of this kind happen not by God’s neglect or unconcern but are permitted by his counsel and dispensation. In no way can we call unjust that in which we cannot deny there is divine judgment, because the will of God is the highest justice; nor is what the Godhead does any the less just because man cannot grasp the force of divine justice. But let us return to our subject.

We see, then, in what has been said that nothing was done through God’s unconcern, but that some of these things the divine disposition so ordered, some his patience bore, some his sentence punished. But perhaps some think we have not sufficiently proved what we say through a few: let us see whether we can show the same through all. When, then, the multitude of the human race had increased and multiplied, together with its iniquity, “God, seeing,” says sacred Scripture, “that the wickedness of men was great on the earth, and that every thought of the heart was bent on evil at all times, repented that he had made man on the earth, and touched inwardly with grief of heart, said: I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the earth.”

Let us consider how in all these things the Lord’s concern and severity alike are shown. First it says, “God, seeing”; second, “touched inwardly with grief of heart”; third, “I will blot out man whom I have created.” In this, that God is said to see all things, his care is shown; in this, that he grieves, the terror of one angered; in this, that he punishes, the severity of a judge. “God repented,” then, says sacred Scripture, “that he had made man on the earth,” not that God is subject to this emotion or liable to any passion; but the divine word, to convey to us more fully the true understanding of the Scriptures, speaking with us as if with human feeling, showed under the name of a repenting God the force of an angry one; and the anger of the Godhead is the punishment of the sinner.

What, then, followed after this? “When God had seen,” it says, “that the earth was corrupt, he said to Noah: The end of all flesh has come before me; the earth is filled with iniquity from their presence, and I will destroy them with the earth.” And what then? “All the fountains of the great deep,” it says, “were broken up, and the floodgates of heaven were opened, and rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights.” And a little after: “All flesh that moved upon the earth was consumed.” And then: “Noah alone remained, and those who were with him in the ark.” Here now I want to ask those who call God unconcerned with human affairs whether they believe that at that time he either cared for earthly things or judged them. For I think he not only judged but judged doubly; for both in saving the good he showed himself a kind rewarder, and in condemning the wicked a severe judge.

But perhaps among the foolish these things may seem to have less authority because they were done before the flood, that is, as if in some other age: as though either there was another God then, or afterwards he did not wish to have the same care of the world. By God’s gift I could prove what I say through each generation after the flood, but the excessive length forbids it; and yet certain greater instances are enough, because, since without doubt the same God is God of greater and lesser things alike, what is proved in the greater must surely be understood in the lesser.

So when, after the flood, God had blessed the generation of men, and the blessing itself had produced an immense multitude of men, the Lord speaks from heaven to Abraham, commands him to leave his own land and seek a foreign one. He is called, he follows, he is led, he is settled; from poor he becomes rich, from unknown powerful, lowest as a stranger, most excellent in dignity. But lest the things given him by God seem to have been only of gift and not of merit, he who rejoiced in prosperity is tested by adversity. Labor, danger, and fear follow: he is troubled by migration, wearied by exile, treated with insult, deprived of his wife. God commanded his son to be sacrificed to him; the father offered him and, as far as the resolve of his heart went, sacrificed him. Again exiles, again fears, the envy of the Philistines, the plundering of Abimelech: many evils indeed, but equal consolations; for though he is wronged by very many, he is avenged on all.

What then? In all these things we have recalled, is not God observer, inviter, guide, concerned guardian, guarantor, protector, rewarder, tester, exalter, avenger, and judge? Observer, indeed, when out of all he chooses the one he saw to be better; inviter, when he calls; guide, when he leads him to unknown places; concerned, when he visits him at the oak; guarantor, when he promises things to come; protector, because he shielded him among barbarian nations; rewarder, because he enriched him; tester, because he chose to try him with hardships; exalter, because he made him more powerful than all; avenger, because he avenged him on his adversaries; judge, because in avenging he judged.