|
But the devil, seeing the temples of the demons deserted, and the
human race running to the name of the liberating Mediator, has moved
the heretics under the Christian name to resist the Christian
doctrine, as if they could be kept in the city of God indifferently
without any correction, just as the city of confusion indifferently
held the philosophers who were of diverse and adverse opinions.
Those, therefore, in the Church of Christ who savor anything morbid
and depraved, and, on being corrected that they may savor what is
wholesome and right, contumaciously resist, and will not amend their
pestiferous and deadly dogmas, but persist in defending them, become
heretics, and, going without, are to be reckoned as enemies who serve
for her discipline. For even thus they profit by their wickedness
those true catholic members of Christ, since God makes a good use
even of the wicked, and all things work together for good to them that
love Him. For all the enemies of the Church, whatever error blinds
or malice depraves them, exercise her patience if they receive the
power to afflict her corporally; and if they only oppose her by wicked
thought, they exercise her wisdom: but at the same time, if these
enemies are loved, they exercise her benevolence, or even her
beneficence, whether she deals with them by persuasive doctrine or by
terrible discipline. And thus the devil, the prince of the impious
city, when he stirs up his own vessels against the city of God that
sojourns in this world, is permitted to do her no harm. For without
doubt the divine providence procures for her both consolation through
prosperity, that she may not be broken by adversity, and trial through
adversity, that she may not be corrupted by prosperity; and thus each
is tempered by the other, as we recognize in the Psalms that voice
which arises from no other cause, "According to the multitude of my
griefs in my heart, Thy consolations have delighted my soul." Hence
also is that saying of the apostle, "Rejoicing in hope, patient in
tribulation."
For it is not to be thought that what the same teacher says can at any
time fail, "Whoever will live piously in Christ shall suffer
persecution." Because even when those who are without do not rage,
and thus there seems to be, and really is, tranquillity, which brings
very much consolation, especially to the weak, yet there are not
wanting, yea, there are many within who by their abandoned manners
torment the hearts of those who live piously, since by them the
Christian and catholic name is blasphemed; and the dearer that name is
to those who will live piously in Christ, the more do they grieve that
through the wicked, who have a place within, it comes to be less loved
than pious minds desire. The heretics themselves also, since they are
thought to have the Christian name and sacraments, Scriptures, and
profession, cause great grief in the hearts of the pious, both because
many who wish to be Christians are compelled by their dissensions to
hesitate, and many evil-speakers also find in them matter for
blaspheming the Christian name, because they too are at any rate
called Christians. By these and similar depraved manners and errors
of men, those who will live piously in Christ suffer persecution,
even when no one molests or vexes their body; for they suffer this
persecution, not in their bodies, but in their hearts. Whence is
that word, "According to the multitude of my griefs in my heart;"
for he does not say, in my body. Yet, on the other hand, none of
them can perish, because the immutable divine promises are thought of.
And because the apostle says, "The Lord knoweth them that are
His; for whom He did foreknow, He also predestinated [to be]
conformed to the image of His Son," none of them can perish;
therefore it follows in that psalm, "Thy consolations have delighted
my soul." But that grief which arises in the hearts of the pious,
who are persecuted by the manners of bad or false Christians, is
profitable to the sufferers, because it proceeds from the charity in
which they do not wish them either to perish or to hinder the salvation
of others. Finally, great consolations grow out of their
chastisement, which imbue the souls of the pious with a fecundity as
great as the pains with which they were troubled concerning their own
perdition. Thus in this world, in these evil days, not only from the
time of the bodily presence of Christ and His apostles, but even from
that of Abel, whom first his wicked brother slew because he was
righteous, and thenceforth even to the end of this world, the Church
has gone forward on pilgrimage amid the persecutions of the world and
the consolations of God.
|
|