Chapter 7
PATIENCE Chapter 7 (1) The entire practice of patience is compressed within this fundamental precept whereby not even a lawful injury is permitted. But now, as we run through the causes of im patience, all the other precepts, too, will correspond in their own context. (2) Is the mind disturbed by the loss of pro perty? In practically every passage of the holy Scriptures one is admonished to despise the world, and no greater exhorta tion is there to an indifference toward money than that our
Lord Himself is without it. (3) He always justifies the poor and condemns the rich. Thus He has set disdain for wealth ahead of the endurance of losses, pointing out through His rejection of riches that one should make no account of the loss of them. (4) Hence, we need not seek wealth, since our Lord did not seek it; and we ought to bear the deprivation of even the theft of it without regret. (5) The Spirit of the Lord, through the Apostle, has called the desire of money the root of all evils.1 We may infer that this consists not only in the desire for that which belongs to another; even that which seems to be our own belongs to another; for nothing is our own, since all things belong to God to whom we, too, belong.
(6) Therefore, if we feel impatient when we suffer some loss, we will be found to possess a desire for money, since we grieve over the loss of that which is not our own. We are seeking what belongs to another when we are unwilling to bear the loss of that which belongs to another. (7) The man who is upset and unable to bear his loss sins, you might say, against God Himself by preferring the things of earth to those of heaven. For, the soul which he has received from the Lord is upset by the attractiveness of worldly goods.
1 I Tim. 6.10.
TERTULLIAN
(8) Let us, then, with glad hearts, relinquish earthly goods that we may preserve those of heaven! Let the whole world fall in ruins provided I gain the patience to endure it!
In all probability, a man who has not resolved to bear with fortitude a slight loss occasioned by theft or violence or even by his own stupidity will not readily or willingly touch what he owns for the sake of charity. (9) For, what man who refuses to undergo any operation at all at the hands of an other puts a knife to his own body? Patience to endure, shown on occasions of loss, is a training in giving and sharing. He who does not fear loss is not reluctant to give. (10) Other wise, how would one who has two tunics2 give one of them to him who is destitute, unless the same is one who can offer his cloak as well to the one going off with his tunic?3 How will we make friends for ourselves with mammon4 if we love him only to the extent that we do not share in his loss? We shall be damned together with the damned. (11) What do we find here where we have [only something] to lose? It is for pagans to be unable to sustain all loss; they would set worldly goods before their life perhaps. (12) And they do this when, in their eager desire for wealth, they engage in lucrative but dangerous commerce on the sea; when, for money's sake, they unhesitatingly engage in transactions also in the forum, even though there be reason to fear loss; they do it, in fine, when they hire themselves out for the games and military service or when, in desolate regions, they commit robbery regardless of the wild beasts. (13) On the other hand, in view of the difference between them and ourselves, it befits us to give up not our life for money but money for our life, either by voluntary charity or by the patient endurance of loss.
2 Luke 3.11.
3 Matt. 5.40.
4 Luke 16.9.
PATIENCE Chapter 8 (1) Our very life and our very body we have exposed in this world as a target for all manner of injury and we endure this injury with patience; shall we, then, be vexed by the deprivation of lesser things? Far be such shame from the servant of Christ, that his patience, trained by greater trials, should fail in trifling ones! (2) If one tries to provoke you to a fight, there is at hand the admonition of the Lord: 'If someone strike thee,' He says, ' on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.'1 Let wrong-doing grow weary from your patience; whoever be struck, the one who strikes, weighed down by pain and shame, will suffer more severely from the Lord; by your meekness you will strike a more severe blow to the wrong-doer; for he will suffer at the hands of Him by whose grace you practise meekness. (3) If a spiteful tongue bursts out in cursing or wrangling, recall the saying: 'When men reproach you, rejoice.'2 The Lord Himself was accursed before the Law,3 yet He alone is blessed. Let us, then, His servants, follow our Lord and patiently submit to maledictions that we may be blessed! (4) If, with slight forbearance, I hear some bitter or evil remark directed against me, I may return it, and then I shall inevitably be bitter myself. Either that, or I shall be tormented by unexpressed resentment. (5)
If, then, I retaliate when cursed, how shall I be found to have followed the teaching of our Lord? For it has been handed down that a man is not defiled by unclean dishes, but by the words which proceed from his mouth;4 and, what is more,
1 Matt. 5.39.
2 Matt. 5.11.
3 Cf. Deut. 21.23; Gal. 3.13.
4 Cf. Mark 7.15.