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But so far as regards this question of mental perturbations, we have
answered these philosophers in the ninth book of this work, showing
that it is rather a verbal than a real dispute, and that they seek
contention rather than truth. Among ourselves, according to the
sacred Scriptures and sound doctrine, the citizens of the holy city of
God, who live according to God in the pilgrimage Of this life, both
fear and desire, and grieve and rejoice. And because their love is
rightly placed, all these affections of theirs are right. They fear
eternal punishment, they desire eternal life; they grieve because they
themselves groan within themselves, waiting for the adoption, the
redemption of their body; they rejoice in hope, because there "shall
be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up
in victory." In like manner they fear to sin, they desire to
persevere; they grieve in sin, they rejoice in good works. They fear
to sin, because they hear that "because iniquity shall abound, the
love of many shall wax cold." They desire to persevere, because they
hear that it is written, "He that endureth to the end shall be
saved." They grieve for sin, hearing that "If we say that we have
no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." They
rejoice in good works, because they hear that "the Lord loveth a
cheerful giver." In like manner, according as they are strong or
weak, they fear or desire to be tempted, grieve or rejoice in
temptation. They fear to be tempted, because they hear the
injunction, "If a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are
spiritual restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering
thyself, lest thou also be tempted." They desire to be tempted,
because they hear one of the heroes of the city of God saying,
"Examine me, O Lord, and tempt me: try my reins and my heart."
They grieve in temptations, because they see Peter weeping; they
rejoice in temptations, because they hear James saying, "My
brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations."
And not only on their own account do they experience these emotions,
but also on account of those whose deliverance they desire and whose
perdition they fear, and whose loss or salvation affects them with
grief or with joy. For if we who have come into the Church from among
the Gentiles may suitably instance that noble and mighty hero who
glories in his infirmities, the teacher (doctor) of the nations in
faith and truth, who also labored more than all his fellow-apostles,
and instructed the tribes of God's people by his epistles, which
edified not only those of his own time, but all those who were to be
gathered in, that hero, I say, and athlete of Christ, instructed
by Him, anointed of His Spirit, crucified with Him, glorious in
Him, lawfully maintaining a great conflict on the theatre of this
world, and being made a spectacle to angels and men, and pressing
onwards for the prize of his high calling,, very joyfully do we with
the eyes of faith behold him rejoicing with them that rejoice, and
weeping with them that weep; though hampered by fightings without and
fears within; desiring to depart and to be with Christ; longing to
see the Romans, that he might have some fruit among them as among
other Gentiles; being jealous over the Corinthians, and fearing in
that jealousy lest their minds should be corrupted from the chastity
that is in Christ; having great heaviness and continual sorrow of
heart for the Israelites, because they, being ignorant of God's
righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness,
have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God; and
expressing not only his sorrow, but bitter lamentation over some who
had formally sinned and had not repented of their uncleanness and
fornications. (If these emotions and affections, arising as they do
from the love of what is good and from a holy charity, are to be called
vices, then let us allow these emotions which are truly vices to pass
under the name of virtues. But since these affections, when they are
exercised in a becoming way, follow the guidance of right reason, who
will dare to say that they are diseases or vicious passions? Wherefore
even the Lord Himself, when He condescended to lead a human life in
the form of a slave, had no sin whatever, and yet exercised these
emotions where He judged they should be exercised. For as there was
in Him a true human body and a true human. soul, so was there also a
true human emotion. When, therefore, we read in the Gospel that the
hard-heartedness of the Jews moved Him to sorrowful indignation,
that He said, "I am glad for your sakes, to the intent ye may
believe," that when about to raise Lazarus He even shed tears, that
He earnestly desired to eat the passover with His disciples, that as
His passion drew near His soul was sorrowful, these emotions are
certainly not falsely ascribed to Him. But as He became man when it
pleased Him, so, in the grace of His definite purpose, when it
pleased Him He experienced those emotions in His human soul.
But we must further make the admission, that even when these
affections are well regulated, and according to God's will, they are
peculiar to this life, not to that future life we look for, and that
often we yield to them against our will. And thus sometimes we weep in
spite of ourselves, being carried beyond ourselves, not indeed by
culpable desire; but by praiseworthy charity. In us, therefore,
these affections arise from human infirmity; but it was not so with the
Lord Jesus, for even His infirmity was the consequence of His
power. But so long as we wear the infirmity of this life, we are
rather worse men than better if we have none of these emotions at all.
For the apostle vituperated and abominated some who, as he said, were
"without natural affection." The sacred Psalmist also found fault
with those of whom he said, "I looked for some to lament with me,
and there was none." For to be quite free from pain while we are in
this place of misery is only purchased, as one of this world's
literati perceived and remarked, at the price of blunted sensibilities
both of mind and body. And therefore that which the Greeks call
apaqeia, and what the Latins would call, if their language would
allow them, "impassibilitas," if it be taken to mean an
impassibility of spirit and not of body, or, in other words, a
freedom from those emotions which are contrary to reason and disturb the
mind, then it is obviously a good and most desirable quality, but it
is not one which is attainable in this life. For the words of the
apostle are the confession, not of the common herd, but of the
eminently pious, just, and holy men: "If we say we have: no sin,
we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." When there shall
be no sin in a man, then there shall be this apaqeia. At present it
is enough if we live without crime; and he who thinks he lives without
sin puts aside not sin, but pardon. And if that is to be called
apathy, where the mind is the subject of no emotion, then who would
not consider this insensibility to be worse than all vices? It may,
indeed, reasonably be maintained that the perfect blessedness we hope
for shall be free from all sting of fear or sadness; but who thai is
not quite lost to truth would say that neither love nor joy shall be
experienced there?
But if by apathy a condition be meant in which no fear terrifies nor
any pain annoys, we must in this life renounce such a state if we would
live according to God's will, but may hope to enjoy it in that
blessedness which is promised as our eternal condition.
For that fear of which the Apostle John says, "There is no fear in
love; but perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath torment.
He that feareth is not made perfect in love,", that fear is not of
the same kind as the Apostle Paul felt lest the Corinthians should be
seduced by the subtlety of the serpent; for love is susceptible of this
fear, yea, love alone is capable of it. But the fear which is not in
love is of that kind of which Paul himself says, "For ye have not
received the spirit of bondage again to fear." But as for that
"clean fear which endureth for ever," if it is to exist in the world
to come (and how else can it be said to endure for ever?), it is not
a fear deterring us from evil which may happen, but preserving us in
the good which cannot be lost. For where the love of acquired good is
unchangeable, there certainly the fear that avoids evil is, if I may
say so, free from anxiety. For under the name of "clean fear"
David signifies that will by which we shall necessarily shrink from
sin, and guard against it, not with the anxiety of weakness, which
fears that we may strongly sin, but with the tranquillity of perfect
love. Or if no kind of fear at all shall exist in that most
imperturbable security of perpetual and blissful delights, then the
expression, "The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring for ever,"
must be taken in the same sense as that other, "The patience of the
poor shall not perish for ever" For patience, which is necessary only
where ills are to be borne, shall not be eternal, but that which
patience leads us to will be eternal. So perhaps this "clean fear"
is said to endure for ever, because that to which fear leads shall
endure.
And since this is so, since we must live a good life in order to
attain to a blessed life, a good life has all these affections right,
a bad life has them wrong. But in the blessed life eternal there will
be love and joy, not only right, but also assured; but fear and grief
there will be none. Whence it already appears in some sort what manner
of persons the citizens of the city of God must be in this their
pilgrimage, who live after the spirit, not after the flesh, that is
to say, according to God, not according to man, and what manner of
persons they shall be also in that immortality whither they are
journeying. And the city or society of the wicked, who live not
according to God, but according to man, and who accept the doctrines
of men or devils in the worship of a false and contempt of the true
divinity, is shaken with those wicked emotions as by diseases and
disturbances. And if there be some of its citizens who seem to
restrain and, as it were, temper those passions, they are so elated
with ungodly pride, that their disease is as much greater as their pain
is less. And if some, with a vanity monstrous in proportion to its
rarity, have become enamored of themselves because they can be
stimulated and excited by no emotion, moved or bent by no affection,
such persons rather lose all humanity than obtain true tranquility.
For a thing is not necessarily right because it is inflexible, nor
healthy because it is insensible.
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