Caput VIII
The Three Sources of Suffering
Adversity comes from God as scourge, from human persecutors, and from the devil as temptation, yet all is measured by God according to our merit.
So that we may also set forth something about these troubles that come from outside, it must be understood that there are other things we suffer from God — namely, scourges — like that Lazarus. Others come from those around us — persecutions, or losses, or insults — like the apostle Paul. Still others come from the ancient enemy — namely, various temptations — like Job. But whether adversity comes through a human being or through the ancient enemy, it is certainly measured out by God, in keeping with our merit. For the state of the world is thrown into disorder by our very merit, and through the hidden insolence of our hearts open scourges of punishment break forth.
Our Abuse of God's Gifts
Scripture foretells punishments upon a world that turns every divine gift—peace, health, abundance, even the air itself—into an occasion of sin.
It is these punishments that the Judge himself and the Lord recounts, saying: 'Nation will rise against nation' (Luke 21:10), and so on. For we — as it says in the homilies — turn everything we have received for the use of life to the use of guilt: human peace, namely, into empty security; bodily health, we deploy for the practice of vices; abundance, not toward necessity, but toward excess. We even compel the very calm, alluring qualities of the air to serve us toward love of earthly pleasure.
Creation Turns Against the Sinner
Because we sinned through every created thing, every created thing now torments us—drought, storm, barren earth—as Wisdom declares the circle of the earth fights for God against the senseless.
So it's only right that everything should turn against us at once — things that had once wickedly served our vices under their yoke — and that since we've sinned in every way, we should be struck in every way: that for every joy we'd kept safe in the world before, we'd afterward be forced to feel just as many torments from it. Hence in the book of blessed Job it's said: Out of the dust pain shall not come forth (Job 5:6). That is, our own evils demand that we be struck by things without feeling. Look: the rain the parched earth awaits is being held back, and the murky air is dried up by the burning sun. The sea rages with swelling storms, intercepts some who've been taken up to cross over, and blocks the longed-for journey for others. The earth too consumes the seeds it received. In all these things it's clearly shown what was written about the Lord: The circle of the earth will fight for him against the senseless (Wis.
God Creates the Evil of Punishment
The elements were made for vengeance upon sinners, yet pain does not arise from the creature itself but from human sin; God creates evil not by nature but by turning his good gifts into scourges.
V, 21). This certainly happens when, in the punishment of sinners, the hostility of the elements rises against us, just as it is also said: fire, hail, famine, and death — all these were created for vengeance. The teeth of beasts and the torments of scorpions, contrition and scourges.✦ But still, pain will not come forth from the ground, because the punishment stirred up against our affliction by an insensible thing is by no means born from the creature that strikes, but from the one who, by sinning, has extorted the force of the blow. Hence it is also written: I am the Lord, creating evil (Isaiah 45, 7). For no evils subsist by nature. They are not therefore created by the Lord, but he claims to create evils for this reason: because the things which he founded well, but we desire badly, he turns into scourges, which seem harsh and evil to us.
Good Things That Become Our Poison
Food, drink, and even our own eyes—meant for good—become death to us when misused, because God strikes us through the very gifts we prefer over the Giver to awaken us to his love.
That's why a person dies from the very poison the serpent thrives on. That's why food and drink, when taken without restraint, take the body apart and bring on premature old age — and even death, as Scripture also says: But whoever abstains adds to his life (Ecclus. XXXVII, 34). But God, seeing that we love the gifts he gives us rather than the Giver himself, strikes us for our own good through the very things we put before him — so that the more fully we feel how full of pain our desires truly are, the more quickly we may come back to our senses and return to his love. And it's not only outward things that delight us in the wrong way. For in order to come back to ourselves, we frequently misuse the very members of our own bodies — which were well and rightly given to us by God, the good Creator — using, for instance, our eyes to gaze at what is shameless. Through those very eyes, death enters our souls. And whenever a desirable sight appears before those same eyes, Adam finds the forbidden tree set right before his, as it were.
The Body as Instrument of Sin and Correction
Tongue, feet, and senses are swiftly turned to evil, proving us ungrateful even for permitted things; therefore God rightly lets proud spirit and pampered flesh feel grief and discipline.
The tongue is quick to speak lies, to craft deceit, or to stir up quarrels; the feet are quick to rush into evil; and the senses, dazzled by the glitter of gold, twist right judgment. And rather than go through each one individually, we show ourselves ungrateful — not only through the things God forbade, but through the things he permitted. And yet a person ought to keep a watchful guard over themselves, so that the downfall they rush into fearlessly in their heart — because they desire what is evil — does not overtake them in the body as well. So it's only right that we should be made to feel, in our proud spirit, the many things that grieve us — while God permits it — or that we should feel, as suppliants, the discipline of the pampered flesh that we so often place above the Master.
Read the original Latin
Ut autem et de his quae a foris veniunt aliqua ponamus, sciendum est quia alia sunt quae a Deo patimur, videlicet flagella: sicut ille Lazarus. Alia quae a proximis, persecutiones, aut damna, aut contumelias: sicut apostolus Paulus. Alia quae ab antiquo hoste, tentamenta scilicet diversa: sicut Job. Sive autem per hominem, seu per antiquum hostem adversa veniant, a Deo utique juxta nostrum meritum modificantur. Nam status mundi ex merito nostro pertubatur, et per occultas cordium insolentias aperta prodeunt flagella poenarum. Quas videlicet poenas ipse judex et Dominus enumerat dicens: Surget gens contra gentem (Luc. XXI, 10), et caetera. Nos enim, ut in homeliis dicitur, omnia quae ad usum accepimus vitae, ad usum convertimus culpae: humanam scilicet pacem ad inanem securitatem, salutem corporum ad usum exercemus vitiorum, ubertatem non ad necessitatem, sed ad superfluitatem.
Ipsa serena blandimenta aeris ad amorem nobis servire cogimus terrenae delectationis. Jure igitur restat ut simul nos omnia feriant, quae simul vitiis male subacta serviebant, et qui in cunctis deliquimus, in cunctis feriamur: ut quot prius in mundo incolumes habuimus gaudia, tot de ipso post nodum sentire cogamur tormenta. Hinc in libro beati Job dicitur: De humo non egredietur dolor (Job V, 6). Quod scilicet mala nostra exigant, ut a rebus insensibilibus feriamur. Ecce enim exspectandus imber arente terra suspenditur, et caliginosus aer sole inardescente siccatur. Mare procellis tumentibus saevit, et alios ad transmeandum susceptos intercipit, aliis desideratum iter contradicit. Terra etiam suscepta semina consumit. In quibus cunctis patenter ostenditur hoc quod scriptum est de Domino: Pugnabit pro eo orbis terrarum contra insensatos (Sap.
V, 21). Quod tunc utique fit, quando in poena delinquentium adversitas elementorum militat, sicut item dicitur: ignis, grando, fames, et mors, omnia haec ad vindictam creata sunt. Bestiarum dentes et scorpii oppressiones, contritio et flagella. Sed tamen de humo non egredietur dolor; quia nequaquam poena, quae ex re insensibili ad nostram afflictionem excitatur, de ea nascitur creatura quae percutit, sed ea quae peccando vim percussionis extorsit. Hinc item scriptum est: Ego Dominus creans malum (Isai. XLV, 7). Mala quippe nulla natura subsistunt. Non ergo creantur a Domino, sed idcirco mala creare se asserit, quia res quas ille bene condidit, sed nos male concupiscimus, in flagella, quae aspera videntur, et mala nobis, convertit.
Inde est quod homo de veneno moritur, de quo serpens vivit. Inde quod ipse cibus et potus intemperanter sumptus resoluta corpora facit, et immaturam senectutem adducit, quin etiam et mortem, ut item Scriptura dicit: Qui autem abstinens est, adjicit vitam (Eccli. XXXVII, 34). Deus autem videns quod ea quae nobis donat, et non ipsum qui dator est, perverso ordine diligimus, ex his quae ei praeponimus salubriter nos ferit, ut tanto citius ad ejus amorem resipiscamus, quanto plenius senserimus plena esse doloribus ea quae affectamus. Neque enim solis exterioribus male oblectamur. Nam ut ad nos ipsos veniamus, in ipsis nostris membris, quae nobis a bono artifice Deo bene attributa sunt, male frequenter utimur, ut oculis ad petulantiam conspiciendam. Per ipsos namque mors intrat ad animas nostras. Et quandocunque eisdem oculis species concupiscibilis apparet, quasi vetitum lignum Adam prae oculis habet.
Lingua prompta est ad proferendum mendacium, vel ad construendam fraudem, vel ad jurgia exercenda; pedes ad currendum in malum; sensus propter colorem auri, rectum judicium pervertit. Et ne per singula currere longum sit, non solum per ea quae vetuit, sed per ea quae concessit Deus injuriosi existimus. Et tamen homo custodiam divinam debet habere in se, ne casum incurrat in corpore, quem cupiendo malum non timet incurrere in corde. Quapropter dignum est, ut vel in superbo animo nostro multa quae nos contristant, Deo permittente, sentire cogamur, vel in delicata carne quam actori frequenter praeponimus, censuram supplices sentiamus.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Job.5.6 — For evil does not come out of the dust, nor does trouble sprout from the ground.
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