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Chapter 46OdoC.3.46

Caput XLV

The Rod That Restores

God corrects the proud and careless through affliction, using hardship to humble the soul and draw it to confession, as shown in Adam's exile and Joseph's brothers.

But as for the more careless among us, we need to be disciplined all the more severely — both because there is much in us that deserves eternal fire, and because we are more prone to fall into further sins. Indeed, even in the midst of our troubles we are accustomed to be proud in many ways. Now this twofold benefit of our affliction is shown in the first man: while he neglected to keep justice amid the delights of paradise, God cast him out and corrected him through hardship; and his wife, who had likewise boasted and grown worse in the honor she had received, He made better through beneficial servitude. So too does He hand us over to injuries — us who are proud in our freedom, fattened by pleasures, and scornful of reverence toward God — and He presses us down with troubles, so that the soul, driven by frequent sufferings, may abandon the height of pride, and leaning on labors and hardships, may be restored to the very thing it lost when it delighted in it. For this reason, according to Augustine, he was placed opposite Eden — that is, opposite the seat of delights — to signify that the flesh, corrupted by sin, was to be disciplined through labors, which are the opposite of pleasures.✦ When, therefore, God sees us forget the good things of heaven, chase after what fades, and fear the punishments to come either too little or not at all — those whom He deigns to look upon with undeserved goodness — He certainly corrects them with the rod intervening, and looking upon the earth He makes it tremble.✦ Then, as the rod increases, we are compelled to consider the bitterness and strictness of eternal judgment, and having been brought back to our senses, to think about making satisfaction. Then indeed the tongue speaks of guilt, and the night confesses what the mind had treated as trivial — just as those brothers of Joseph, whom he pressed not with mockery but with reasoned argument so forcefully that, worn down, they confessed: 'We deserve to suffer this, because we sinned against our brother.'✦

Confession Born of Tribulation

Tribulation prompts the spirit to speak before God, and confession born of compunction earns pardon, as witnessed in Job, the Psalms, and David's repentance.

From here, blessed Job: "I will speak," he says, "in the tribulation of my spirit" (Job 7:11).✦ Whatever the spirit speaks in the ears of God is speech that tribulation prompts, so that the voice breaks forth into confession. Indeed, pardon follows confession, according to that word: "I said, I will confess, and you forgave" (Ps.✦ 31:5). And when David, in his own guilt, said, "I have sinned" (Ps.✦ 50:6), Nathan answered at once: "The Lord has taken away your sin; you shall not die" (2 Sam.✦ 12:13), as is related in book thirty-two of the Moralia. Whoever understands himself to be a sinner already begins, in some measure, to be just, and what he had done unjustly, from the standpoint of what is just, he now accuses.

Embracing the Judge's Will

When the afflicted soul accepts God's just judgment and aligns with the divine will even in punishment, it is freed from unrighteousness and earns forgiveness.

For even though he may be struck down by the desert of his sin, yet if he believes the judgment brought against him to be just, and does not murmur but embraces it, he is joined to the divine will in the very blow he receives. And so he is already seized from his own unrighteousness by that very thing in which he either rejoices that he has been justly struck, or aligns himself with the will of the Judge in the punishment with which he had disagreed in his fault.1234 Great, then, is the usefulness of affliction, through which the confession of guilt is drawn out, and through which forgiveness is earned.56

Read the original Latin

Ut autem de negligentioribus dicamus, nos tanto magis flagellari indigemus, quanto et multa in nobis sunt aeternis ignibus digna, et quanto ad alia committenda procliviores sumus. Quippe inter ipsas angustias multipliciter superbire solemus. Haec autem gemina nostrae afflictionis utilitas in primo homine demonstratur, qui dum inter paradisi delicias justitiam servare negligeret, Deus hunc foras expulsum per molestias emendavit, et conjugem, quae pariter in percepto honore gloriata atque deteriorata fuerat, utili servitute meliorem effecit. Sic et nos libertate superbos, deliciis impinguatos, et erga divinam reverentiam fastidiosos, injuriis tradit, molestiis opprimit, ut anima crebris acta suppliciis, cacumen superbiae derelinquat, laboribusque ac molestiis innitens, ad hoc quod delectata perdidit reparetur. Ob hoc enim, juxta Augustinum, contra Eden positus est, videlicet contra sedem deliciarum, ut significaret quod caro peccati in laboribus, qui deliciis sunt contrarii, esset erudienda. Cum ergo Deus videt nos supernorum bonorum oblivisci, caducis inhiare, secutura supplicia aut parum aut nihil formidare, quos gratuita bonitate respicere dignatur, eos utique flagello interveniente corripit, et respiciens terram facit eam tremere. Dehinc vero crescente flagello amaritudinem et districtionem aeterni examinis cogimur considerare, et ad cor reducti de satisfactione cogitare. Tum vero lingua reatum loquitur, et nox quod animus parvipendebat, sponte confitetur, ut illi fratres Joseph, quos illi non ludendo, sed argumentando sic adeo constringebat, ut attriti confiterentur: Merito haec patimur quia peccavimus in fratrem nostrum.

Hinc beatus Job: Loquar, ait, in tribulatione spiritus mei (Job VII, 11). Quidquid spiritus loquitur in divinis auribus, locutio est: quam locutionem tribulatio commonet, ut vox ad confessionem erumpat. Confessionem vero indulgentia sequitur, juxta illud: Dixi, confitebor, et tu remisisti (Psal. XXXI, 5). Et cum in proprio reatu David diceret, peccavi (Psal. L, 6); et Nathan illico respondit: Dominus transtulit peccatum tuum, non morieris (II Reg. XII, 13), sicut in Moralium libro XXXII perhibetur. Qui se peccatorem intelligit, jam ex aliqua parte justus esse inchoat, atque id quod non justus fecerat ex eo quod est justus accusat.

Nam licet ex merito peccati percutiatur, tamen si hoc ipsum judicium quod contra se agitur justum credit, et non murmurat, sed amplectitur illud, divinae voluntati in sua percussione conjungitur: et idcirco ab injustitia sua jam eo correptus est, quo se vel juste percussum gaudet, vel voluntati judicis concordat in poena, cui discrepavit in culpa. Magna igitur afflictionis utilitas, per quam confessio reatus elicitur, quae indulgentiam promeretur.

Scripture echoes

  1. ↩Gen.3.24 — So he drove out the man, and he settled east of the Garden of Eden the cherubim, and the flaming sword that turns every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.
  2. ↩Ps.104.32 — He who looks at the earth and it trembles, who touches the mountains and they smoke.
  3. ↩Gen.42.21 — Then they said to one another, 'We are truly guilty concerning our brother, because we saw the distress of his soul when he pleaded with us, and we would not listen. That is why this trouble has come upon us.'
  4. ↩Job.7.11 — Therefore I will not restrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit, I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.
  5. ↩Ps.31.5 — Into your hand I commit my spirit; you have redeemed me, O LORD, faithful God.
  6. ↩Ps.50.6 — And the heavens declare his righteousness, for God is Judge. Selah
  7. ↩2Sam.12.13 — David said to Nathan, 'I have sinned against the LORD.' And Nathan said to David, 'The LORD has also put away your sin; you shall not die.'

Notes

  1. 1 ↩Nam opens the sentence as a causal/explanatory connective, grounding the claim in the preceding discussion of confession and mercy.
  2. 2 ↩Licet … tamen sets up a concessive-adversative pivot: even though the blow is deserved, the sinner's response transforms its meaning.
  3. 3 ↩Vel … vel at the end presents two alternative ways the sufferer may respond to divine correction: rejoicing in just punishment or submitting to the Judge's will.
  4. 4 ↩Correptus est (from corripio) carries a double sense of 'seized' and 'rebuked/chastised.' The translation 'seized' preserves the idea of being snatched away from unrighteousness, while the context implies divine correction.
  5. 5 ↩Igitur functions inferentially, drawing the conclusion from the preceding argument about the transformative power of accepting divine judgment.
  6. 6 ↩Promeretur (from promereor) can mean 'earns,' 'deserves,' or 'obtains by merit.' The translation 'earned' preserves the causal link between confession and forgiveness without implying strict merit in the later scholastic sense.

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