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IT is impossible for us briefly to run through everything. For who
could count up almost all the patriarchs and numberless saints, some of
whom for the preservation of life, others out of desire for a blessing,
others out of pity, others to conceal some secret, others out of zeal for
God, others in searching for the truth, became, so to speak, patrons of
lying? And as all cannot be enumerated, so all ought not to be altogether
passed over. For piety forced the blessed Joseph to raise a false charge
against his brethren even with an oath by the life of the king, saying: "Ye
are spies: to see the nakedness of the land are ye come;" and below:
"send," says he, "one of you, and bring your brothers hither: but ye shall
be kept here until your words are made manifest whether ye speak the truth
or no: but if not, by the life of Pharaoh, ye are spies." For if he had
not out of pity alarmed them by this lie, he would not have been able to
see again his father and his brother, nor to preserve them in their great
danger of starvation, nor to free the conscience of his brethren from the
guilt of selling him. The act then of striking his brethren with fear by
means of a lie was not so reprehensible as was it a holy and laudable act
to urge his enemies and seekers to a salutary penitence by means of a
feigned danger. Finally when they were weighed down by the odium of the
very serious accusation, they were conscience-stricken not at the charge
falsely raised against them, but at the thought of their earlier crime, and
said to one another: "We suffer this rightly because we sinned against our
brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul when he asked us and we did
not hearken to him: wherefore all this trouble hath come upon us." And
this confession, we think, expiated by most salutary humility their
terrible sin not only against their brother, against whom they had sinned
with wicked cruelty, but also against God. What about Solomon, who in his
first judgment manifested the gift of wisdom, which he had received of God,
only by making use of falsehood? For in order to get at the truth which was
hidden by the woman's lie, even he used the help of a lie most cunningly
invented, saying: "Bring me a sword and divide the living child into two
parts, and give the one half to the one and the other half to the other."
And when this pretended cruelty stirred the heart of the true mother, but
was received with approval by her who was not the true mother, then at last
by this most sagacious discovery of the truth he pronounced the judgment
which every one has felt to have been inspired by God, saying: "Give her
the living child and slay it not: she is the mother of it." Further we
are more fully taught by other passages of Scripture as well that we
neither can nor should carry out everything which we determine either with
peace or disturbance of mind, as we often hear that holy men and angels and
even Almighty God Himself have changed what they had decided upon. For the
blessed David determined and confirmed it by an oath, saying: "May God do
so and add more to the foes of David if I leave of all that belong unto
Nabal until the morning a single male." And presently when Abigail his wife
interceded and intreated for him, he gave up his threats, lightened the
sentence, and preferred to be regarded as a breaker of his word rather than
to keep his pledged oath by cruelly executing it, saying: "As the Lord
liveth, if thou hadst not quickly come to meet me there had not been left
to Nabal by the morning light a single male." And as we do not hold that
his readiness to take a rash oath (which resulted from his anger and
disturbance of mind) ought to be copied by us, so we do think that the
pardon and revision of his determination is to be followed. The "chosen
vessel," in writing to the Corinthians, promises unconditionally to return,
saying: "But I will come to you when I pass through Macedonia: for I will
pass through Macedonia. But I will stay or even pass the winter with you
that you may conduct me whithersoever I shall go. For I do not want only to
see you in passing: for I hope to stay with you for some time." And this
fact he remembers in the Second Epistle, thus: "And in this confidence I
was minded first to come unto you, that ye might receive a second favour,
and by you to pass into Macedonia and again to come to you from Macedonia
and by you be conducted to Judaea." But a better plan suggested itself and
he plainly admits that he is not going to fulfil what he had promised.
"When then," says he, "I purposed this, did I use light-mindedness? or the
things that I think, do I think after the flesh, that there should be with
me yea, yea, and nay, nay?" Lastly, he declares even with the affirmation
of an oath, why it was that he preferred to put on one side his pledged
word rather than by his presence to bring a burden and grief to his
disciples: "But I call God to witness against my soul that it was to spare
you that I came not as far as Corinth. For I determined this with myself
that I would not come unto you in sorrow." Though when the angels had
refused to enter the house of Lot at Sodom, saying to him: "We will not
enter but will remain in the street," they were presently forced by his
prayers to change their determination, as Scripture subjoins: "And Lot
constrained them, and they turned in to him." And certainly if they knew
that they would turn in to him, they refused his request with a sham
excuse: but if their excuse was a real one, then they are clearly shown to
have changed their mind. And certainly we hold that the Holy Spirit
inserted this in the sacred volume for no other reason but to teach us by
their examples that we ought not to cling obstinately to our own
determinations, but to subject them to our will, and so to keep our
judgment free from all the chains of law that it may be ready to follow the
call of good counsel in any direction, and may not delay or refuse to pass
without any delay to whatever a sound discretion may find to be the better
choice. And to rise to still higher instances, when king Hezekiah was lying
on his bed and afflicted with grievous sickness the prophet Isaiah
addressed him in the person of God, and said: "Thus saith the Lord: set
thine house in order for thou shall die and not live. And Hezekiah," it
says, "turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord and said: I
beseech thee, O Lord, remember how I have walked before Thee in truth and
with a perfect heart, and how I have done what was right in Thy sight. And
Hezekiah wept sore." After which it was again said to him: "Go, return, and
speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying: Thus saith the Lord God of David
thy father: I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: and behold, I
will add to thy days fifteen years: and I will deliver thee out of the hand
of the king of the Assyrians, and I will defend this city for thy sake and
for my servant David's sake." What can be clearer than this proof that
out of consideration for mercy and goodness the Lord would rather break His
word and instead of the pre-arranged limit of death extend the life of him
who prayed, for fifteen years, rather than be found inexorable because of
His unchangeable decree? In the same way too the Divine sentence says to
the men of Nineveh: "Yet three days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown;"
and presently this stern and abrupt sentence is softened by their penitence
and fasting, and is turned to the side of mercy with goodness that is easy
to be intreated. But if any one maintains that the Lord had threatened the
destruction of their city (while He foreknew that they would be converted)
for this reason, that He might incite them to a salutary penitence, it
follows that those who are set over their brethren may, if need arises,
without any blame for telling lies, threaten those who need improvement
with severer treatment than they are really going to inflict. But if one
says that God revoked that severe sentence in consideration of their
penitence, according to what he says by Ezekiel: "If I say to the wicked,
Thou shalt surely die: and he becomes penitent for his sin, and doeth
judgment and justice, he shall surely live, he shall not die;" we are
similarly taught that we ought not obstinately to stick to our
determination, but that we should with gentle pity soften down the threats
which necessity called forth. And that we may not fancy that the Lord
granted this specially to the Ninevites, He continually affirms by Jeremiah
that He will do the same in general towards all, and promises that without
delay He will change His sentence in accordance with our deserts; saying:
"I will suddenly speak against a nation and against a kingdom to root out
and to pull down and to destroy it. If that nation repent of the evil,
which I have spoken against it, I also will repent of the evil which I
thought to do to them. And I will suddenly speak of a nation and a kingdom,
to build up and to plant it. If it shall do evil in My sight, that it obey
not My voice: I will repent of the good that I thought to do to it." To
Ezekiel also: "Leave out not a word, if so be they will hearken and be
converted every one from his evil way: that I may repent Me of the evil
that I thought to do to them for the wickedness of their doings." And
by these passages it is declared that we ought not obstinately to stick to
our decisions, but to modify them with reason and judgment, and that better
courses should always be adopted and preferred, and that we should turn
without any delay to that course which is considered the more profitable.
For this above all that invaluable sentence teaches us, because though each
man's end is known beforehand to Him before his birth, yet somehow He so
orders all things by a plan and method for all, and with regard to man's
disposition, that He decides on everything not by the mere exercise of His
power, nor according to the ineffable knowledge which His Prescience
possesses, but according to the present actions of men, and rejects or
draws to Himself each one, and daily either grants or withholds His grace.
And that this is so the election of Saul also shows us, of whose miserable
end the foreknowledge of God certainly could not be ignorant, and yet He
chose him out of so many thousands of Israel and anointed him king,
rewarding the then existing merits of his life, and not considering the sin
of his coming fall, so that after he became reprobate, God complains almost
in human terms and, with man's feelings, as if He repented of his choice,
saying: "It repenteth Me that I have appointed Saul king: for he hath
forsaken Me, and hath not performed My words;" and again: "But Samuel was
grieved for Saul because the Lord repented that He had made Saul king over
Israel." Finally this that He afterwards executed, that the Lord also
declares by the prophet Ezekiel that He will by His daily judgment do with
all men, saying: "Yea, if I shall say to the righteous that he shall surely
live, and he trusting in his righteousness commit iniquity: all his
righteousness shall be forgotten, and in his iniquity which he hath
committed, in the same he shall die. And if I shall say to the wicked: Thou
shalt surely die; and if he repent of his sin and do judgment and
righteousness, and if that wicked man restore the pledge and render what he
hath robbed, and walk in the commandments of life, and do no righteous
thing, he shall surely live, he shall not die. None of his sins which he
hath committed shall be imputed unto him." Finally, when the Lord would
for their speedy fall turn away His merciful countenance from the people,
whom He had chosen out of all nations, the giver of the law interposes on
their behalf and cries out: "I beseech Thee, O Lord, this people have
sinned a great sin; they have made for themselves gods of gold; and now if
Thou forgivest their sin, forgive it; but if not, blot me out of Thy book
which Thou hast written. To whom the Lord answered: If any man hath sinned
before Me, I will blot him out of My book." David also, when
complaining in prophetic spirit of Judas and the Lord's persecutors, says:
"Let them be blotted out of the book of the living;" and because they did
not deserve to come to saving penitence because of the guilt of their great
sin, he subjoins: "And let them not be written among the righteous."
Finally in the case of Judas himself the meaning of the prophetic curse was
clearly fulfilled, for when his deadly sin was completed, he killed himself
by hanging, that he might not after his name was blotted out be converted
and repent and deserve to be once more written among the righteous in
heaven. We must therefore not doubt that at the time when he was chosen by
Christ and obtained a place in the Apostolate, the name of Judas was
written in the book of the living, and that he heard as well as the rest
the words: "Rejoice not because the devils are subject unto you, but
rejoice because your names are written in heaven."
But because he was corrupted by the plague of covetousness and had his name
struck out from that heavenly list, it is suitably said of him and of men
like him by the prophet: "O Lord, let all those that forsake Thee be
confounded. Let them that depart from Thee be written in the earth, because
they have forsaken the Lord, the vein of living waters." And elsewhere:
"They shall not be in the counsel of My people, nor shall they be written
in the writing of the house of Israel, neither shall they enter into the
land of Israel."
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