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THEODORE: Sometimes holy Scripture is wont by an improper use of terms
to use "evils "for "affliction;" not that these are properly and in their
nature evils, but because they are imagined to be evils by those on whom
they are brought for their good. For when divine judgment is reasoning with
men it must speak with the language and feelings of men. For when a doctor
for the sake of health with good reason either cuts or cauterizes those who
are suffering from the inflammation of ulcers, it is considered an evil by
those who have to bear it. Nor are the spur and the whip pleasant to a
restive horse. Moreover all chastisement seems at the moment to be a bitter
thing to those who are chastised, as the Apostle says: "Now all
chastisement for the present indeed seemeth not to bring with it joy but
sorrow; but afterwards it will yield to them that are exercised by it most
peaceable fruits of righteousness," and "whom the Lord loveth He
chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth: for what son is
there whom the father doth not correct?" And so evils are sometimes
wont to stand for afflictions, as where we read: "And God repented of the
evil which He had said that He would do to them and He did it not." And
again: "For Thou, Lord, are gracious and merciful, patient and very
merciful and ready to repent of the evil," i.e., of the sufferings and
losses which Thou art forced to bring upon us as the reward of our sins.
And another prophet, knowing that these are profitable to some men, and
certainly not through any jealousy of their safety, but with an eye to
their good, prays thus: "Add evils to them, O Lord, add evils to the
haughty ones of the earth;" and the Lord Himself says "Lo, I will bring
evils upon them," i.e., sorrows, and losses, with which they shall for
the present be chastened for their soul's health, and so shall be at length
driven to return and hasten back to Me whom in their prosperity they
scorned. And so that these are originally evil we cannot possibly assert:
for to many they conduce to their good and offer the occasions of eternal
bliss, and therefore (to return to the question raised) all those things,
which are thought to be brought upon us as evils by our enemies or by any
other people, should not be counted as evils, but as things indifferent.
For in the end they will not be what he thinks, who brought them upon us in
his rage and fury, but what he makes them who endures them. And so when
death has been brought upon a saint, we ought not to think that an evil has
happened to him but a thing indifferent; which is an evil to a wicked man,
while to the good it is rest and freedom from evils. "For death is rest to
a man whose way is hidden." And so a good man does not suffer any loss
from it, because he suffers nothing strange, but by the crime of an enemy
he only receives (and not without the reward of eternal life) that which
would have happened to him in the course of nature, and pays the debt of
man's death, which must be paid by an inevitable law, with the interest of
a most fruitful passion, and the recompense of a great reward.
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