Chapter 39

§ 1.

And man did receive the knowledge of good and evil, how it is good to obey God, and to believe Him and to keep His Commandment:¹ and this is the life of man: even as not to obey God, is bad; and this is man’s death. God therefore shewing Longsuffering, man knew both the good of obedience, and the evil of disobedience: that the mind’s eye receiving trial of both, might with judgment make its choice of the better, and might never become slothful, nor negligent of God’s command: and as to that which deprives it of life, i.e., disobedience to God,—learning by experiment how evil it is, one might never even so much as try it: while as to obeying God, which is the preservative of his life, knowing how good it is, he may diligently keep it with all earnestness. And to this end he had also double senses, having the cognizance of both kinds: that with discipline [i.e., regular training] he might make choice of the best. But how could he have had a training for good, knowing not what is contrary thereto? For our notion of things actually brought within reach is stronger and more undoubted, than the guess which comes of mere suspicion. For as the tongue by taste receives trial of sweet and bitter, and the eye by sight discerns what is black from the white, and the ear by hearing knows the differences of sounds: so also the mind, by experiment of both, receiving a lesson in good, is made stronger to keep the same by obeying God:—first by penitency rejecting disobedience, as a thing bitter and evil; then learning by reflection what sort of thing it must be which is contrary to goodness and sweetness:—so as never even to make trial of the taste of disobedience to God. But if a man shrink from the knowledge of both kinds, and from the two sorts of impressions arising from that knowledge, without knowing it he destroys his own human being.

§ 2.

How then shall he be God, who is not yet made man? how made perfect,² who is but just made at all? how immortal, who in mortal nature was not obedient to his Maker? Nay, thou must first guard well thy position as man, and then at length partake of the glory of God. For thou makest not God, but God maketh thee. If then thou art God’s handywork, stay for the hand of thine artificer, which doeth³ all things in season; and when I say, “in season,” I mean as to thee who art in making⁴. But do thou yield thine heart to Him soft and tractable, and keep well the shape in which the Workmaster hath shaped thee, having in thyself moisture, lest thou be hardened, and so lose the print of His fingers. But by guarding the assigned structure, thou will mount up to perfection: for by the workmanship of God, the clay which is in thee disappears⁵. The substance which is in thee His Hand hath wrought: He will overlay thee within and without with pure gold and silver, and will so greatly adorn thee,⁶ that even the King Himself shall desire thy beauty.

But if thou, speedily hardened, reject His skill, and prove ungrateful to Him, because thou art made [but] a man, by thus becoming unthankful to God, thou hast lost both His skill, and thine own life together. For to make, is proper to God’s benignity: and to be made, is proper to man’s nature.

If therefore thou present unto Him what is thine, i.e., faith towards Him, and allegiance; thou wilt receive His skill, and wilt be a perfect work of God.

§ 3.

If on the contrary thou believe Him not, and shrink from His Hands,⁷ the cause of imperfection will be in thyself, who didst not obey, not in Him Who did call. For He sent some to call men to the marriage: but those who obeyed Him not,⁸ deprived themselves of the King’s Supper. It is not therefore God’s skill which fails;⁹ for He is able of stones to raise up sons unto Abraham; but he who doth not follow it up, causes himself his own imperfection.

Thus, neither doth Light fail, because of them who of themselves are blind. But while it remains whatever it is, such as are blinded are in darkness through their own fault. The Light deals with no one as with a slave, in a way of compulsion: so neither doth God force any one, if unwilling, to retain [the effect of] His skill. Wherefore those beings which have fallen away from the Paternal Light, and have transgressed the Law of Liberty, have fallen away by their own fault, since they were made free, and with authority over themselves.

§ 4.

But God, foreknowing all, hath prepared for both meet habitations: to them who seek after the Light of incorruption, and hasten back unto it, bountifully giving the Light which they desire: but for others who despise it, and turn themselves away from it, and avoid it, and in a manner blind themselves, He hath prepared darkness, suitable to the opposers of the Light; and for such as shrink from being subject thereunto, He hath supplied a due penalty.¹⁰ Now submission to God is eternal rest: so that those who fly from the Light, may have a place worthy of such their flight: and those who fly from eternal rest, may have an abode suitable to their flight also. And since all good things are with God, those who of their own judgment fly from God, defraud themselves of all good things: and being defrauded of all that is good in God’s sight, they will fell of course into God’s just judgment. Because such as fly from rest, will justly have their conversation in punishment; and such as have fled from the light shall justly dwell in darkness. But as in this temporal light, such as shrink from it enslave themselves to darkness, so as to be themselves the cause why they are forsaken of the Light, and inhabit darkness, instead of the Light being the cause of such their condition, (as we said before:) so they who fly from the eternal Light of God, which contains in itself all good, are themselves the cause of their dwelling in eternal darkness, forsaken of all good: [I say] they are made unto themselves the cause of their so abiding.