is catechised in the first instance from what
Cuap. III.] ON THE CATECHISING OF THE UNINSTRUCTED. 285 dependent of the rolling sky,* and without the invasion of the night, '' which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man,''? there is no greater reason why our discourse should become valueless in our own estimate, when we are engaged in teaching the uninstructed, than this,—namely, that it is a delight to us to discern in an extraordinary fashion, and a weariness to speak in an ordinary. And in reality we are listened to with much greater satisfaction, indeed, when we ourselves also have pleasure in the same work; for the thread of our address is affected by the very joy of which we ourselves are sensible, and it proceeds from us with greater ease and with more acceptance. Consequently, as regards those matters which are recommended as articles of belief, the task is not a difficult one to lay down injunctions, with respect to the points at which the narration should be commenced and ended, or with respect to the method in which the narration is to be varied, so that at one time it may be briefer, at another more lengthened, and yet at all times full and perfect ; and, again, with respect to the particular occasions on which it may be right to use the shorter form, and those on which it will be proper to employ the longer. But as to the means by which all is to be done, so that every one may have pleasure in his work when he catechises (for the better he succeeds in this the more attractive will he be),—that is what requires the greatest consideration. And yet we have not far to seek for the precept which will rule in this sphere. For if, in the matter of carnal means, God loves a cheerful giver, 3 how much more so in that of the spiritual? But our security that this cheerfulness may be with us at the seasonable hour, is something dependent upon the mercy of Him who has given us such precepts. Therefore, in accordance with my understanding of what your own wish is, we shall discuss in the first place the subject of the method of narration, then that of the duty of delivering injunction and exhortation, and afterwards that of the attainment of the said cheerfulness, so far as God may furnish us with the ideas.
present times of the Church. This does not imply, however, either that we ought to repeat by memory the entire Pentateuch, and the entire Books of Judges, and Kings, and Esdras, 5 and the entire Gospel and Acts of the Apostles, if we have learned all these | word for word ; or that we should put all the matters which are contained in these volumes into our own words, and in that manner unfold and expound them as a whole. For neither does the time admit of that, nor does any necessity demand it. But what we ought to do is, to give a comprehensive statement of all things, summarily and generally, so that certain of the more wonderful facts may be selected which are listened to with superior gratification, and which have been ranked so remarkably among the exact turning-points (of the history);° that, instead of exhibiting them to view only in their wrappings, if we may so speak, and then instantly snatching them from our sight, we ought to dwell on them for a certain space, and thus, as it were, unfold them and open them out to vision, and present them to the minds of the hearers as things to be examined and admired. But as for all other details, these should be passed over rapidly, and thus far introduced and woven into the narrative. The effect of pursuing this plan is, that the particular facts which we wish to see specially commended to attention obtain greater prominence in consequence of the others being made to yield to them; while, at the same time, neither does the learner, whose interest we are anxious to stimulate by our statement, come to these subjects with a mind already exhausted, nor is confusion induced upon the memory of the person whom we ought to be instructing by our teaching.
6. In all things, indeed, not only ought our own eye to be kept fixed upon the end of the commandment, which is '' charity, out of a pure heart, and a good conscience, and faith unfeigned,''?7 to which we should make all that we utter refer; but in like manner ought the gaze of the person whom we are instructing by our utterance to be moved ® toward the same, and guided in that direction. And, in truth, for no other reason were all those things which we read in the Holy Scriptures written, previous to the Lord's advent, but for this,—namely, that His advent might be pressed upon the attention, and that the
CHAP, 3.—-OF THE FULL NARRATION TO BE EM-
PLOYED IN CATECHISING,
5. The narration is full when each person is catechised in the first instance from what is written in the text, 'In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth," * on to the
5 In the mss. we also find the reading Ezre = Ezra. 6 In tpsts articul's = '' among the very articles,'"' or '' connecting links."" Reference is made to certain great epochs or articles of time in sections 6 and 39.
ire AR hit eor. 8 Reading movendus, for which monendus =to be admonished, also occurs in the editions.
2x Cor. ii. 9. en. i. 1. I Sine volumine ced. 32 Cor. ix. 7.
286 THE WORKS OF ST. AUGUSTIN. [Cuap. IV.
not sundered (from that body) in consequence of fulfilling their course before Him, but rather were they made one with the same by reason of their obedience. For although the hand may be put forward away before the head, still it has its connection beneath the head, Wherefore all things which were written aforetime were written in order that we might be taught thereby, ° and were our figures, and happened in a figure in the case of these men. Moreover they were written for our sakes, upon whom the end of the ages has come."
Church which was to be, should be intimated beforehand, that is to say, the people of God throughout all nations ; which Church is His body, wherewith also are united and numbered all the saints who lived in this world, even before His advent, and who believed then in His future coming, just as we believe in His past coming. For (to use an illustration) Jacob, at the time when he was being born, first put forth from the womb a hand, with which also he held the foot of the brother who was taking priority of him in the act of birth ; and next indeed the head followed, and thereafter, at last, and as matter of course, the rest of the members:' while, nevertheless the head in point of dignity and power has
CHAP, 4.—THAT THE GREAT REASON FOR THE ADVENT OF CHRIST WAS THE COMMENDATION OF LOVE, precedence, not only of those members which followed it then, but also of the very hand which anticipated it in the process of the birth, and is really the first, although not in the matter of the time of appearing, at least in the order of nature. And in an analogous manner, the Lord Jesus Christ, previous to
7. Moreover, what greater reason is apparent for the advent of the Lord than that God might show His love in us, commending it powerfully, inasmuch as '' while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us"? And furthermore, this is with the intent that, inasmuch as charity is ''the end of the commandment,'' * and '' the fulfilling of the law,'' 3 we also may love one another and lay down our life for the brethren, even as He laid down His life for us. And with regard to God Himself, its object is that, even if it were an irksome task to love Him, it may now at least cease to be irksome for us to return His love, seeing that '* He first loved us,'' % and ''spared not His own only Son, but delivered Him up for us all.'""* For their is no mightier invitation to love than to anticipate in loving ; and that soul is over hard which, supposing it unwilling indeed to give love, is unwilling also to give the return of love. But if, even in the case of criminal and sordid loves, we see how those who desire to be loved in return make it their special and absorbing business, by such proofs as are within their power, to render the strength of the love which they themselves bear plain and patent ; if we also perceive how they affect to put forward an appearance of justice in what they thus offer, such as may qualify them in some sort to demand that a response be made in all fairness to them on the part of those souls which they are laboring to beguile ; if, further, their own passion burns more vehemently when they observe that the minds which they are eager to possess are also moved now by the same fire: if thus, I say, it happens at once that the soul which before was torpid is excited 'so soon as it feels itself to be loved, and that
His appearing in the flesh, and coming forth in a certain manner out of the womb of His secrecy, before the eyes of men as Man, the Mediator between God and men, ? *' who is over all, God blessed for ever,'' 3 sent before Him, in the person of the holy patriarchs and prophets, a certain portion of His body, wherewith, as by a hand, He gave token beforetime of His own approaching birth, and also supplanted' the people who were prior to
Him in their pride, using for that purpose the bonds of the law, as if they were His five fingers. For through five epochs of times 5 there was no cessation in the foretelling and prophesying of His own destined coming; and ina manner consonant with this, he through whom the law was given wrote five books ; and proud men, who were carnally minded, and sought to ** establish their own righteousness,'' ° were not filled with blessing by the open hand of Christ, but were debarred from such good by the hand compressed and closed; and therefore their feet were tied, and '' they fell, while we are risen, and stand upright,''7 But although, as I have said, the Lord Christ did thus send before Him a certain portion of His body, in the person of those holy men who came before Him as regards the time of birth, nevertheless He is Himself the Head of the body, the Church, * and all these have been attached to that same body of which He is the head, in virtue of their believing in Him whom they announced prophetically. For they were
I Gen. xxv. 26. 2 x Tim. ii. 3 Rom. ix. 5. 4 Reading supplantavit. Some MSS. give supplantaret = wherewith also He might supplant, etc.
to x Cor. x. I. 12 ; Tim. i. 5. 14 1 John iii. 16. 16 Rom. vili. 32.
9 Rom. xv. 4. 1r Rom. v. 8, 10. 13 Rom. xiii. 10. 15 1 John iv. to, 19.
5S Temporum articulos. Rom, x. 3. 8 Col. i. 18. 7 Psiixxcss
Cuap. IV.] ON THE CATECHISING OF THE UNINSTRUCTED. 287 the soul which was enkindled already becomes the more inflamed so soon as it is made cognizant of the return of its own love, it is evident that no greater reason is to be found why love should be either originated or enlarged, than what appears in the occasion when one who as yet loves not at all comes to know himself to be the object of love, or when one who is already a lover either hopes that he may yet be loved in turn, or has by this time the evidence of a response to his affection. And if this holds good even in the case of base loves, how much more' in (true) friendship? For what else have we carefully to attend to in this question touching the injuring of friendship than to this, namely, not to give our friend cause to suppose either that we do not love him at all, or that we love him less than he loves us? If, indeed, he is led to entertain this belief, he will be cooler in that love in which men enjoy the interchange of intimacies one with another; and if he is not of that weak type of character to which such an offense to affection will serve as a cause of freezing off from love altogether, he yet confines himself to that kind of affection in which he loves, not with the view of enjoyment to himself, but with the idea of studying the good of others. But again it is worth our while to notice how,—although superiors also:have the wish to be loved by their inferiors, and are gratified with the zealous attention? paid to them by such, and themselves cherish greater affection towards these inferiors the more they become cognizant of that,—with what might of love, nevertheless, the inferior kindles so soon as he learnris that he is beloved by his superior. For there have we love in its more grateful aspect, where it does not consume to the wardship and domination of proud powers which are unable to make him blessed, as he had come more absolutely to despair of the possibility of his being an object of interest to that power which wills not to be exalted in wickedness, but is exalted in good. ness.
8. If, therefore, it was mainly for this purpose that Christ came, to wit, that man might learn how much God loves him; and that he might learn this, to the intent that he might be kindled to the love of Him by whom he was first loved, and might also love his neighbor at the command and showing of Him who became our neighbor, in that He loved man when, instead of being a neighbor to Him, he was sojourning far apart: if, again, all divine Scripture, which was written aforetime, was written with the view of presignifying the Lord's advent; and if whatever has been committed to writing in times subsequent to these, and established by divine authority, is a record of Christ, and admonishes us of love, it is manifest that on those two commandments of love to God and love to our neighbor' hang not only all the law and the prophets, which at the time when the Lord spoke to that effect were as yet the only Holy Scripture, but also all those books of the divine literature which have been written ® at alater period for our health, and consigned to remembrance. Wherefore, in the Old Testament there is a veiling of the New, and in the New Testament there is a revealing of the Old. According to that veiling, carnal men, understanding things in acarnal fashion, have been under the dominion, both then and now, of a penal fear. According to this revealing, on the other hand, spiritual men,— among whom we reckon at once those then who knocked in piety and found even hidden things opened to them, and others now who seek in no spirit of pride, lest even things uncovered should be closed to them,—understanding in a spiritual fashion, have been made free through the love wherewith they have been gifted. Consequently, inasmuch as there is nothing more adverse to love than envy, and as pride is the mother of envy, the same Lord Jesus Christ, God-man, is both a maniféstation of divine' love towards us, and an example of human humility with us, to the end that our great swelling might be cured by a greater counteracting remedy. For here is great misery, proud man! _ But there is greater mercy, a humble God! 'Take this love, therefore, as the end that is set before itself 3 in the drought of want, but flows forth in the pienteousness of beneficence. For the former type of love is of misery, the latter of mercy.* And furthermore, if the inferior was despairing even of the possibility of his being loved by his superior, he will now be inexpressibly moved to love if the superior has of his own will condescended to show how much he loves this person who could by no means be bold enough to promise himself so great a good. But what is there superior to God in the character of Judge? and what more desperate than man in the character of sinner?—than man, I ask, who had given himself all the more unreservedly up t Reading guanto plus, for which some mss. give plurzus, while in a large number we find Jurzus = with how much greater purity should it hold good, etc.
2 Reading studioso. . . obseguio, for which studiose, etc., also occurs in the editions = are earnestly gratified with the attention, etc.
5 Matt. xxii. 4o. 6 Reading conscripta, for which some mss. have consecuta = have followed, and many give consecrata, dedicated.
3 Atstuat = burn, heave. 4Ex miseria...ex misericordta,