Chapter 5
PATIENCE
remark that] obedience itself also stems from patience: never does one who is impatient obey nor does a patient man ever refuse obedience. (6) Who, then, could deal adequately with the value of that patience which the Lord our God, the model and patron of all that is good, has displayed in Himself? Who would doubt that those who belong to God have an obliga tion to strive with their whole soul for every good, since it has reference to God? By these considerations our recommend ation and exhortation on the subject of patience is briefly established in a summary, as it were, of the prescribed rule.
Chapter 5 (1) Now, to thrash out a question about essential points of faith is not wearisome, since it is not without profit.
Verboseness, though a fault at times, is no fault when it tends to edification. (2) Therefore, if some good is being discussed, the matter demands that we examine also the evil which is its opposite. You will throw a better light upon what one should strive for if you discuss in connection with it what should be avoided. (3) Let us, then, with regard to im patience, consider whether, as patience [exists] in God, its opposite was born and discovered in our adversary. From this it will appear how impatience, more than anything else, is opposed to faith. (4) For, that which is conceived by God's rival1 is certainly not a friend to the things of God. There is the same hostility in the things as there is in their authors.
Furthermore, since God is infinitely good, and the Devil, on 1 Aemulus Dei ('God's rival') as well as adversarius of the preceding sentence are frequently used by patristic writers with reference to Satan.
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the other hand, is superlatively evil, by their very difference they bear witness that neither one effects anything for the other; it can no more seem to us that some good is produced from evil than some evil from good.
(5) Now, I find the origin of impatience in the Devil him self. Even when the Lord God subjected to His own image, that is, to man, all the works He had made,2 the Devil bore it with impatience. (6) For, he would not have grieved, had he endured it, nor would he have envied man, had he not grieved; he deceived man because he envied him; he envied him because he grieved; he grieved because he certainly had not borne it with patience. (7) What the angel of perdition was first—I mean, whether he was first evil or impatient—I do not bother to inquire; it is clear that, whether impatience had its beginning in evil or evil in im patience, they entered into combination and grew as one in the bosom of one father. (8) For, as soon as he perceived that it was through his impatience that he had committed the first sin, having learned from his own experience what would assist in wrong-doing, he availed himself of this same im patience to lead men into sin. (9) Without delay, and I would say not without forethought, he cohtrived a meeting with the woman, and simply and solely through their con versation she was touched by his breath, already infected with impatience. But never would she have sinned at all had she preserved her patience according to the divine command!
(10) And what of the fact that she could not endure having met [the Devil] alone but, being unable to remain silent about it in the presence of Adam—he was not yet her hus band, nor as yet under any obligation to lend her his ear—she makes him the carrier of that which she had imbibed from 2 Gen. 1.26.
PATIENCE
the Evil One? (11) Thus, a second member, too, of the human race falls through the impatience of the first; and his fall, too, results from his own impatience committed in two ways: with regard to the forewarning of God, and with regard to the deceit of the Devil; for he was unable to observe the former or to oppose the latter. (12) Condemnation began with him in whom sin originated; God's anger began with him by whom man was induced to offend Him. God's patience began with him who had aroused His indignation; for at that time He was content with simply cursing him and He refrained from inflicting punishment upon the Devil.
(13) What sin previous to this sin of impatience can be imputed to man? He was innocent and a close friend of God and a tenant dwelling in paradise. But, when once he yielded to impatience, he ceased to relish God and could no longer endure the things of heaven. (14) From that time on, as a man delivered up to the earth and cast away from the eyes of God, he began to serve as an easy instrument for im patience to use for everything that would offend God. (15)
For, immediately, that impatience which was conceived by the seed of the Devil with the fecundity of evil gave birth to a child of wrath and instructed its offspring in its own arts.
Since it had plunged Adam and Eve into death, it taught their son, also, to commit the first murder. (16) Vain were it for me to ascribe this sin to impatience, had Cain, the first homicide and the first fratricide, accepted it with equanimity and without impatience when his offerings were refused by the Ford; if he had not been angry with his brother; if, in fine, he had killed no one. (17) Therefore, since he could not commit murder unless he were angry, and could not be angry unless he were impatient, it proves that what he did
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in anger is to be referred to that which prompted the anger.
(18) Such was the cradle of impatience which was then, so to speak, in its infancy. But to what proportions it soon grew! And no wonder: if it was the prime source of sin, it follows that, being the prime source, it was therefore also the sole fashioner of all sin, pouring forth from its own abundant resources the varied channels of crimes. (19) Homicide has already been mentioned. It sprang originally from anger, and whatever causes it finds for itself afterwards, it ascribes them to impatience at its origin. For, whether one commits this crime through enmity or for some gain, the original cause is that one is overwhelmed by hatred or greed. (20) Whatever is the motivating force, a crime could not be perpetrated unless one lacks patience. Who has ever attempted adultery save one who was unable to withstand his lustful desires? Even the fact that [disgrace] is forced upon [some] women for a price, that sale of one's honor is certainly set in order by an inability to set at naught despicable gain. (21) Impatience is, as it were, the original sin in the eyes of the Lord. For, to put it m a nutshell, every sin is to be traced back to impatience. Evil cannot endure good. No unchaste person but is intolerant of chastity; no scoundrel but is irked by righteousness; no negligent person but resents his obligations; no agitator but is impatient of peace. Although anyone may become evil, not everyone can persevere in good.
(22) Why, then, should not this hydra-like generator of sins offend the Lord, who condemns all wickedness? Is it not clear that Israel itself, through its impatience, was ever sinning against God? (23) Forgetting the heavenly arm whereby it had been rescued from the afflictions of the Egyp3 I.e., the hydra, which ever begets from itself new sins.