Mark well his reference to my true child. Timothy is not the biological son of Paul. So what kind of son was he? Does it even make sense to call him a son? Someone might say that if he was not the son of Paul, then he must be someone else’s son. What then? Was he of some other substance? Not so, for after saying my own son, he adds: in the faith. This shows that he was really his own son, and truly from him, there being no essential difference between father and son in the faith. The likeness he bore to him was in respect to his faith, just as in human births there is a substantive likeness. The son is like the father in human beings, but the analogy is even closer in the relation of human beings to God in faith. Though the father and the son may be of the same genetic strain, they may differ in many particulars, as in color, figure, understanding, age, bent of mind, endowments of soul and body, and in many other things they may be like or unlike. But in the relation of the divine Father and Son there is no such dissimilarity.

Timothy is a true son in faith, for his generation is one that will not know death or sickness or pestilence or hunger or thirst, because it is based on God and the future is glorious immortality in the gift of God in the kingdom of God and Christ.

It is not nature but faith that has made Timothy a son. ^[1] NOT BY FLESH. Pelagius: Timothy is a son in faith, not in flesh. ^[1]

Paul’s fellow workers and fellow soldiers, as he himself called them, numbered many thousands, the majority of whom he considered worthy of an everlasting memorial, for he has made his testimony to them enduring in his own letters. Moreover, Luke also, as he lists those known to him, makes mention of them by name. So Timothy is recorded as the first one called to oversee the church of Ephesus, just as Titus was for the churches in Crete.

You must not be panic-stricken by those who have an air of credibility but who teach heresy.^[1] Stand your ground like an anvil under the hammer. A great athlete must suffer blows to conquer. And especially for God’s sake must we put up with everything, so that God will put up with us. Show more enthusiasm than you do. Mark the times. Be on the alert for him who is above time, the Timeless, the Unseen, the One who became visible for our sakes, who was beyond touch and passion, yet who for our sakes became subject to suffering and endured everything for us.

Certain men, rejecting the truth, are introducing among us false stories and vain genealogies, which serve rather to elicit controversies, as the apostle said, than to God’s work of building up in the faith. By their craftily constructed rhetoric they lead astray the minds of the inexperienced and take them captive, corrupting the oracles of the Lord. They are evil expounders of what was first well spoken. For they upset many, leading them away by the pretense of knowledge from him who constituted and ordered the universe, as if they had something higher and greater to show them than the God who made the heaven and the earth and all that is in them. By clever language they artfully attract the simple-minded into their kind of inquiry and then crudely destroy them by developing their blasphemous and impious view about the Demiurge. Nor can their simple hearers distinguish the lie from the truth.

Moreover, the commandment, Do not bear a burden on the sabbath day,^[1] seems to me impossible. For by these words the Jewish teachers have fallen into endless fables, as the apostle says, by saying that it is not reckoned a burden if someone has shoes without nails, but that it is a burden if someone has gallic^[2] shoes with nails. And if someone carries something on one shoulder, they judge it a burden, but if he carries it on both shoulders, they will deny it is a burden.

The same matter is turned and twisted by the heretics and the philosophers, and the same questions are involved: Whence comes evil? And what is its purpose? And whence human history? And how? And, what Valentinus has lately propounded—whence God? All of this ensues from an excessive exercise of mind and from an abortive birth. Wretched Aristotle! Who has taught them this dialectic art, cunning in building up and pulling down, using many shifts in sentence, making forced guesses at truth, stiff in arguments, busy in raising contentions, contrary even to itself, dealing backwards and forwards with every subject, so as really to deal with none! Hence, those fables and endless genealogies, and unprofitable questions and words that spread like a cancer, from which the apostle restraining us, testifies of philosophy by name, that it ought to be shunned. . . . When Paul spoke of endless genealogies, we can now recognize the hand of Valentinus, according to whom the aeon generates its own grace, sense and truth. Whoever this is, it is not of one divine name but of a new name, who supposedly then produces word and life, humanity and church in the first pair of aeons.

By fables he does not mean the law; far from it, but inventions and forgeries and counterfeit doctrines. For, it seems that some Jewish teachers wasted their whole discourse on these unprofitable points. They numbered up their fathers and grandfathers, that they might have the reputation of historical knowledge and research. . . . Why does he call them endless? It is because they had no end, or none of any use, or none easy for us to apprehend. Note how he disapproves of skeptical questioning. For where faith exists there is no need of suspicion. Where there is no room for curiosity, questions are superfluous.

Paul here discourses about the common theme of all of his letters written to those converted from the Gentiles. He does this to point out that often things said by converts from Judaism may undermine the genuine piety of Gentile converts. In the case of the Galatians, he found that they were observing things required by the law, including especially the rite of circumcision. He pointed out that the use of genealogies was a particularly bad practice, because it made it possible for Jews to argue that Christ was not the promised offspring of Abraham and David and thereby throw into confusion Gentiles who are not well grounded in the Scriptures. He calls these genealogies endless because they can be turned in a great variety of bewildering directions. They are called myths because they contain only narration and nothing really necessary to the understanding of salvation.

Believers of Jewish background, taking pride in their knowledge of the Old Testament, laid certain questions before Gentile believers. They did this in order to take advantage of their ignorance of these same divine words, and in the attempt to persuade them to embrace the law as a way of life. They rehearsed with them the human genealogy of the Lord as descended from Abraham and David. Therefore, Paul instructs Timothy to block these people and to prevent them from corrupting the teaching. The others he orders not to listen. He calls their ideas myth because they involve the Jewish, Mishna-like exposition of the Scripture, which focuses on superfluous and useless questions, rather than the essential divine economy of salvation.

In this passage we note the novelty as well as the viciousness of their devices, and how they go beyond all other heresies. They support their madness by seductive arguments calculated to deceive the simple. The Greeks, as the apostle has said, make their attack with excellency and persuasiveness of speech and with fallacies that have the aura of plausibility. The Jews, departing widely from the divine Scriptures, now, as the apostle again has said, contend about fables and endless genealogies. Meanwhile the Manichaeans and Valentinians with them, and others, corrupt the divine Scriptures, putting forth fables of their own invention. But the Arians are bolder than them all and have shown that the other heresies are but their younger sisters, whom, as I have said, they surpass in impiety, emulating them all, and especially the Jews, in their circumventions.

I will take the fool’s line and propound some examples drawn from the things of a lower world. I am become a fool; you have compelled me.^[1] What indeed is more foolish than to debate over the majesty of God, which rather occasions questionings, than receiving godly instruction which is by faith. But to arguments let arguments reply. Let words make answer to them. Rather we will answer with love, the love which is in God, issuing of a pure heart and good conscience and faith unfeigned.

What is enabled by faith? The reception of God’s mercies that we may become better persons, to doubt and dispute of nothing, but to repose in confidence.

Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold.^[1] It is this that has been the occasion of all heresies. For those who do not love their brothers and sisters easily come to envy those in high repute. From envying, they have become eager for power, and from a love of power have introduced heresies. On this account Paul having said, that you might charge some that they teach no other doctrine, now shows that the manner in which this may be effected is by charity.

The end of all divine Scriptures is the love for the Being in which we should rejoice and love for the being that can rejoice with us in that love.^[1] . . . Whoever . . . thinks that he understands the divine Scriptures or any part of them so that it does not build the double love of God and of our neighbor does not understand it at all. Whoever finds a lesson there useful to the building of charity, even though he has not said what the author may be shown to have intended in that place, has not been deceived. . . . But anyone who understands in the Scriptures something other than that intended by them is deceived, although they do not lie.

When all these things have been said and considered, I am unwilling to contend about words, for such contention is profitable for nothing but the subverting of the hearer.^[1] But the law is profitable for edification if one uses it lawfully. For the end of the law is love out of a pure heart, and a good conscience and faith unfeigned. And our Master knew it well, for it was on these two commandments^[2] that he hung all the law and the prophets.

Faith, hope and charity, those three virtues for whose building up is mounted all the scaffolding of the Bible, are only in the soul that believes what it does not yet see, and hopes and loves what it believes. Therefore there can be love even of One who is not known, if yet he is believed. Doubtless, we must beware lest the soul, believing what it does not see, fabricates for itself an image of that which is not and bases its hope and love upon a lie. Then there will not emerge that charity from a pure heart and a good conscience and a faith unfeigned, which is the end of the commandment.

When anyone knows the end of the commandments to be charity from a pure heart, and a good conscience and an unfeigned faith and has related all of his understanding of the divine Scriptures to these three, he may approach the treatment of these books with security. For when he says charity he adds from a pure heart, so that nothing else would be loved except that which should be loved. And he joins with this a good conscience for the sake of hope, for he in whom there is the smallest taint of bad conscience despairs of attaining that which he believes in and loves. Third, he says an unfeigned faith. If our faith involves no lie, then we do not love that which is not to be loved, and living justly, we hope for that which will in no way deceive our hope.

When the promised vision, face to face, has come, we shall behold the Trinity—that Trinity which is not only incorporeal but perfectly inseparable and truly changeless—far more clearly and surely than we now behold its image in ourselves. This present vision, through a mirror and in an enigma, as offered to us in this life, belongs not to any one who can perceive in their own mind all that we have here set out by our analysis but to those who see the mind as a reflective image. In this way they are able to relate what they see to the One whose image it is. They reach through their actual vision of the image to a presumptive vision of the original, which cannot yet be seen face to face. The apostle does not say, We see now a mirror but we see now through a mirror.^[1] Those who see the mind as it may be seen, and in it that Trinity of which I have attempted to give a variety of descriptions, yet without believing or understanding it to be the image of God: they are seeing as if in a mirror. But so far from seeing through the mirror him who is now to be seen only in that way, they are unaware that the mirror seen is a mirror—which is to say, an image. If they knew it, they might be conscious of the need to seek and in some measure even now to see, through this mirror, him whose mirror it is—their hearts being purified by faith unfeigned, so that he who is seen now through a mirror may at last be seen face to face. But if they despise the faith that purifies hearts, no understanding of the most subtle analysis of our mind’s nature can serve but to condemn them, on the testimony of their own understanding itself.

Now, you know, I think, not only the nature of your prayer but its object, and you have learned this, not from me but from him who has humbled himself to teach us all. Happiness is what we must seek and what we must ask of the Lord God. Many arguments have been fashioned by many men about the nature of happiness, but why should we turn to the many men or the many arguments? Brief and true is the word in the Scripture of God, Happy is the people whose God is the Lord.^[1] The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and sincere faith, that we may belong to that people and that we may be able to attain to contemplation of God and to eternal life with God.

Ascend the mountain and see the end. Christ is the mountain; come to him, and from there you will see the end of all perfection. What is the end? Ask Paul, Now the purpose of this charge is charity, from a pure heart and a pure conscience and faith unfeigned,^[1] and in another place, love is the fulfillment of the law.^[2] . . . Therefore, whatever you do, do it for the love of Christ, and let the intention or end of all your actions look to him. Do nothing for the sake of human praise, but everything for love of God and the desire for eternal life.

What is this vain juggling with words? Is he^[1] aware that it is God of whom he speaks, Who was in the beginning and is in the Father, nor was there any time when he was not? He knows not what he says nor what he affirms, but he endeavors, as though he were constructing the pedigree of a mere man, to apply to the Lord of all creation the language which properly belongs to our nature here below.

In the ark and in the house, one and the same church was prefigured. As for those who perished outside the ark in the flood and in those who died by the sword outside that house, a twofold mystery can be considered: In the flood the baptism of Christians is prefigured. So it seems to me to apply now for the current time, and not unfittingly. Heretics, if they remain outside the church, by their baptism, deserve punishment, not life. Those who, denying Christ, leave the church catholic, will perish in eternal punishment. For blessed Peter expounds the mystery of the ark in these words, . . . while God patiently waited in the days of Noah during the building of the ark in which a few persons, eight in all, were saved through water: this prefigured baptism, which saves you now; it is not a removal of dust from the body but an appeal to God for a clean conscience.^[1] With similar intent the apostle Paul teaches, The aim of this instruction is love from a pure heart, a good conscience and a sincere faith.

It is encouraging to the faithful but distressing to the heretical to see these^[1] heresies overthrown. Moreover, their further question, whether the Unoriginated be one or two,^[2] shows how false are their views, how treacherous and full of guile. It is not for the Father’s honor that they say this but for the dishonor of the Word. Accordingly, if any one should answer, unaware of their craft, that the Unoriginated is one, they immediately spurt out their own venom, saying, ‘Therefore the Son is among things originated,’ and well have we said, ‘He was not before his generation.’ This in turn elicits all sorts of disturbances and confusions, separating the Son from the Father and reckoning the Framer of all among his works. Now first they may be convicted on this score, that, while blaming the Nicene bishops for their use of phrases not in Scripture, though these are not injurious but subversive of their irreligion, they themselves went off upon the same fault, that is, using words not in Scripture, and those that show contempt for the Lord, being without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make assertions.

Two walls must adhere to the cornerstone in order to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace^[1]—one from the Jews and the other from the Gentiles. We mustn’t let our minds be put off by the great number of reprobate Jews, among whom were the builders; those, that is, who wished to be teachers of the law, but as the apostle says about them, do not understand either what they are saying or the things about which they are making their assertions. It was as a result of this mental blindness, after all, that they rejected the stone which was put at the head of the corner. But it wouldn’t be put at the head of the corner unless it offered to the two peoples coming from different points a peaceful joining, a coupling of grace.

Therefore, let us not love ourselves but him, and in feeding his sheep let us seek those things that are his, not those things that are ours. For in some inexplicable way whoever loves himself, not God, does not love himself; and whoever loves God, not himself, does himself love himself. For he who cannot live of himself dies, of course, by loving himself. Then he who loves himself so that he may not live does not love himself. But when he from whom comes life is loved, by not loving himself, he who does not love himself—precisely that he may love him from whom he has life—loves himself all the more. Therefore, let those who feed Christ’s sheep not be lovers of themselves, that they may not feed them as their own but as his. Let them not wish to acquire their own gains from them, as lovers of money, or to be their lords, as haughty, or to glory over honors which they take from them, as proud, or to go so far as even to create heresies, as blasphemous, or to not yield to the holy fathers, as disobedient to parents. Let them return evils for goods to those who wish them to perish because they do not wish them to perish, as ungrateful. Let them not kill their own souls and those of others, as wicked. Let them not sunder the motherly bowels of the church, as irreligious, not feel no compassion for the weak, as without affection, not attempt to taint the reputation of the saints, as detractors, or not fail to rein in their worst desires, as incontinent. Let them not engage in lawsuits, as unmerciful, or fail to know how to give help, as without kindness. Let them not point out to the enemies of the godly the things that they have learned ought to be kept secret, as traitors. Let them not disturb the human sense of shame by shameless pursuits, as licentious, or fail to understand what they say or assert, as if they were blinded. Let them not prefer carnal enjoyments to spiritual joys, as lovers of pleasures more than of God.

What, therefore, if the soul and spirit of a human being is given by God himself, whenever it is given; and given, too, by propagation from its own kind? Now this is a position which I neither maintain nor refute. Nevertheless, if it must be defended or confuted, I certainly recommend its being done by clear and certain proofs. Nor do I deserve to be compared with senseless cattle because I avow myself to be as yet incapable of determining the question, but rather with cautious persons, because I do not recklessly teach what I know nothing about. But I am not disposed on my own part to return railing for railing and compare this man with brutes. Rather, I warn him as a son to acknowledge that he is really ignorant of that which he knows nothing about. I warn him not to attempt to teach that which he has not yet learned, lest he should deserve to be compared with those persons whom the apostle mentions as desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertions.

This, therefore, is the upright and most exact faith of the holy Fathers, that is, the confession of faith. But as Paul says, the god of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers that they should not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.^[1] Accordingly some, after having ceased to go along the straight road of truth, dash themselves against the rocks, when they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertions.^[2] For after attributing the glory of the sonship only to the Word begotten of God the Father, they say that another son of the seed of David and Jesse has been conjoined to him and has a share in the filiation and of the glory proper to God and of the very indwelling of the Word and has had almost everything from him but has nothing at all of his own.

The law, he seems to say, is good, and again, not so good. What then? Suppose one uses it unlawfully, is it not good? No, even then the law itself as such remains good. What he means is this: if any one fulfills the law in his actions, it is good. For that is to use it lawfully, as here intended. But when one trumpets the law in words but neglects it in deeds, that is using it unlawfully. For such a person uses it, but not to his own profit. Further, the law, if you use it correctly, sends you to Christ. For since its aim is to justify, when the law itself fails to justify, it sends you on to the One who can justify. Some may keep the law but only superficially. It is kept as a bridle worn only for the purpose of going through the motions of constraint, but not, in fact, for constraint itself. The bridle here does not serve the true need of the prancing horse that should be guided by it, but only exists to look good. The faithful use the law lawfully when they govern themselves in its spirit but are not constrained by the letter of it. One uses the law lawfully who is conscious that it is not needed for salvation. The faithful fulfill the law not from fear of it, but from that principle of virtue that it makes possible. The faithful use the law not as being in fear of it, but having before their eyes rather the condemnation of their own conscience than the punishment hereafter.

The purpose of the law is to prohibit all iniquity and to set a minimum standard for those in need of it. For those who have been justified and freed from sin it is superfluous. These are the baptized, who need not to be instructed to refrain from sin, but rather to be taught to conform to the pattern in which they now stand.

To use the law appropriately is to keep its purpose, that is, to lead one to Christ the Lord. Those who refrain from the sins that Paul mentions are living in conformity with the law.

Accordingly the law is holy and the commandment holy, just and good.^[1] It commands what ought to be commanded, and prohibits what ought to be prohibited. Was that which is good, then, made death to me? God forbid.^[2] The fault lies in making a bad use of the commandment, which in itself is good. The law is good if one uses it lawfully. But he makes a bad use of the law who does not subject himself to God in humble piety, so that, with the aid of grace, he may become able to fulfill the law. He who does not use the law lawfully receives it to no other end than that his sin, which was latent before the prohibition, should be made apparent by his transgression. TO SIMPLICIAN:

Indeed, the precepts are good, as Pelagius says, if we use them lawfully. And in virtue of our strong conviction that the good and just God could not have prescribed impossibilities, we are admonished both what to do in easy things and what to ask for in difficult ones. Indeed, all things are easy for love, to which alone the burden of Christ is light,^[1] or which alone is itself the burden which is light.

Virtue can come only through voluntary choice. The law assumes this from the outset. Thus the commandments are not laid down for those who are already righteous.

I consider not wealth but virtue as liberty, for it does not bow to the wishes of the stronger, and it is laid hold of and possessed by one’s own greatness of soul. The wise man is always free. He is always held in honor; he is always master of the laws. The law is not made for the just but for the unjust. The just man is a law unto himself, and he does not need to summon the law from afar, for he carries it enclosed in his heart, and it is said to him, Drink water out of your own vessels and from the stream of your own well.^[1]

The law is not made for the righteous, and yet the law is good, if one uses it lawfully. Now by connecting together these two seemingly contrary statements, the apostle warns and urges his reader to sift the question and solve it. For how can it be that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, if what follows is also true: Knowing this, that the law is not made for the righteous? For who but a righteous man lawfully uses the law? Yet it is not for him that it is made, but for the unrighteous. . . . The unrighteous man therefore lawfully uses the law, that he may become righteous. But when he has become so, he must no longer use it as a vehicle, for he has arrived at his journey’s end—or rather (that I may employ the apostle’s own simile, which has been already mentioned) as a schoolmaster, seeing that he is now fully instructed.^[1]

Avoid pride, into which it is natural for anyone to fall. Pursue humility, in which everyone ought to grow. Let your beloved self not be ignorant of the laws of the church, in order that you may keep the rights of your authority within the rules and regulations of the Fathers. To be sure, it is said that the law is not aimed at the good man, because he fulfills the norm of the precept already by the free judgment of his will. True love holds within itself both the authority of the apostles and the moral requirements.

The righteous, upon whom no law need be imposed, spend no small part—as if a tithe—but the whole extent of their lives in spiritual works. They are free of the legal tax of tithing. If a good and holy need presents itself, they are free to relax their fasting without any scruple. For it is not a paltry tithe that is being subtracted by those who have offered their all to the Lord along with themselves. Certainly the person who offers nothing of his own will and is compelled by legal necessity, without recourse, to pay his tithes to God, cannot do this without being seriously guilty of fraud. Hence it is eminently clear that the one who is responding fully to grace cannot be a slave of the law, watching out for things that are forbidden and carrying out things that are commanded, and that the perfect are those who do not make use even of things permitted by the law.

If they who are weak and incapable of the deeper mystery are edified by the letter, let them understand that if anyone neglects the teachings of the Lord and lies to his neighbor over a deposit, or by a partnership, or by robbery,^[1] he is declared guilty of a great sin. But let this be absent from the church of God. . . . For I say boldly concerning you that you did not so learn Christ nor were you so taught.^[2] Besides, the law itself does not teach these things to the saints and the faithful. Do you want to know that these are not said about the saints and the faithful? Hear the apostle when he distinguishes between them, The law was not laid down for the just but for the unjust and for those not subject, for the wicked and the impure, for the father-killers and for the mother-killers, and for those similar to these. Because, therefore, for such men as this the apostle says, the law was imposed, the church of God, having left behind the letter, is built up to greater holiness by the spirit, since heaven forbid that it would ever be polluted with such misdeeds.

The Lord touched the leper^[1] in order to show that the law was not an obstacle to him who had constituted the law. . . . The leper was afraid to touch the Lord lest he defile him. But the Lord touched the leper to show him that he would not be defiled, he, at whose rebuke the defilement fled from the defiled one.^[2] . . . Samson ate honey from the dead body of an impure animal,^[3] and with the jawbone of a dead ass he was victorious and rescued Israel.^[4] God gave him water from the dead jawbone.

You see here that he distinguishes two covenants, the old and the new, and says that the new would not be like the old which was given to the fathers. For the old covenant was given as a law to the Jews, when they had fallen from the religion of their forefathers, and had embraced the manners and life of the Egyptians, and had declined to the errors of polytheism and the idolatrous superstitions of the Gentiles. It was intended to raise up the fallen, and to set on their feet those who were lying on their faces, by suitable teaching. For the law, it is said, is not for the righteous, but for the unjust and disorderly, for the unrighteous and sinners, and for those like them.

From the time when we were born again of water and the Spirit, we have become sons of God and members of his household. For this reason St. Paul calls the faithful saints.^[1] Therefore we do not grieve but rejoice over the death of the saints. We are not under the law but under grace,^[2] having been justified by faith^[3] and having seen the one true God. For the law is not laid down for the just, nor do we serve as children, held under the law,^[4] but we have reached the estate of mature manhood and are fed on solid food, not on that which leads to idolatry. The law was good, as a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns, and the morning star rose in our hearts.^[5] The living water of divine knowledge has driven away pagan seas, and now all may know God. The old creation has passed away, and all things are made new.

Consider how he abounds in the expressions of humility. For so to me last of all he appeared,^[1] he says. He views himself alone as one born out of due time. He himself is the least of all the apostles, and not even worthy of this appellation. And he was not content even with these, but that he might not seem in mere words to be humble-minded, he states both reasons and proofs: of his being one born out of due time, his seeing Jesus last; and of his being unworthy even of the name of an apostle, his persecuting the church. For one who is simply humble-minded sets down the reasons for his contrition. To Timothy he makes mention of these same things, saying, I thank him who has given me strength for this, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful by appointing me to his service, though I formerly blasphemed and persecuted and insulted him.

If you have sinned and God has pardoned your sin, receive your pardon and give thanks. But do not be forgetful of your sin. It is not that you should fret over the thought of it, but that you may school your soul not to grow lax or relapse again into the same snares. This is what Paul did, not hiding his actions as a blasphemer, persecutor and injurer. It is as if he were saying: Let the life of your servant be openly exposed, so that the loving kindness of the Lord might be all the more apparent. For although I have received the remission of sins, I do not reject the memory of those sins. And this not only made transparent the loving kindness of the Lord but made the man himself the more remarkable. For when you have learned who he was before, then you will be the more astonished at him. When you see what he came to be out of what he was, then you will commend him the more. So if you have greatly sinned, you yourself upon being changed will hope all the more by seeing him. Such an example comforts those who are in despair and causes them again to stand tall.

We heard the reading from the apostle, and perhaps some of you may be worried by what is written there, According to the justice which is from the law, I was without reproach. Whatever was a gain for me, that I have regarded as a dead loss on account of Christ.^[1] Then he went on to say, I have reckoned it to be not only a dead loss, but even muck, that I may gain Christ and may be found in him, not having my own justice which is from the law, but the justice which is from the faith of Jesus Christ.^[2] The question is, how could he consider conducting himself without reproach according to the justice which is from the law, to be so much muck and loss? After all, who gave the law? . . . But let us listen to what he says in another place, It was not as a result of works, he says, which we have done ourselves, but according to his own mercy that he saved us, by means of the bath of rebirth.^[3] And again, I, who was previously a blasphemer and persecutor, and an overbearing man; but I obtained mercy, and so on.^[4] On the one hand he affirmed that he conducted himself without reproach; on the other he confessed he had been a sinner of such proportions that no sinners need despair of themselves, precisely because even Paul had found remission.

From being a persecutor he was changed into a preacher and the teacher of the nations.^[1] Previously, he says, I was a blasphemer and persecutor and an insolent man. But the reason I obtained mercy was this, that Christ Jesus might demonstrate his forbearance first of all in me, and for the instruction of those who were going to trust him for eternal life.^[2] It is by the grace of God, you see, that we are saved from our sins, in which we are languishing. God alone is the medicine that cures the soul. The soul was well able to injure itself but quite unable to cure itself. In the body, too, after all, people have it in their power to get sick, but not equally in their power to get better. I mean, if they exceed the proper limits, and live self-indulgent lives and do all the things that undermine the constitution and are injurious to health, the day comes, if that’s what they want, when they fall sick. When they’ve so fallen, though, they don’t get better. In order to fall sick, you see, they apply themselves to self-indulgence. But in order to get better, they must apply the doctor’s services to their health. . . . And so it goes with the soul.

What then is this grace for grace?^[1] By faith we first win God’s favor; and for us who were not worthy to have our sins forgiven, from the very fact that, though unworthy, we received so great a gift, it is called grace. What is grace? That which is given gratuitously. That which is bestowed, not paid back. If it was owed, recompense was paid, not grace bestowed. . . . Having acquired this grace of faith, you will be just by faith. For the just man lives by faith.^[2] And you will first win God’s favor from living by faith. When you have won God’s favor from living by faith, you will receive as a reward immortality and everlasting life. And that is grace. . . . Paul acknowledges this grace when he says that he had before been a blasphemer and a persecutor, and insulting, but I obtained mercy.

Paul introduces a new kind of admonition by exhorting others by the mercy of God.^[1] Why does he not exhort through God’s might, or majesty, or glory? Why by his mercy? Because it was through that mercy alone that Paul escaped from the criminal state of a persecutor and obtained the dignity of his great apostolate. He himself tells us this, For I formerly was a blasphemer, a persecutor and a bitter adversary; but I obtained the mercy of God.^[2] . . . I exhort you by the mercy of God. Paul asks—rather, God himself is asking through Paul—for God has greater desire to be loved than feared. God is asking because he wants to be not so much a Lord as a Father.

Why then did other Jews not obtain mercy? Because what they did, they did not ignorantly but willfully, well knowing what they did. . . . Thus their love of power was everywhere an obstacle in their way. When they admitted that no one can forgive sins but God alone and Christ immediately did that very thing—forgive sin—which they had confessed to be a sign of divinity, this could not be a case of ignorance. But did Paul act out of such ignorance? . . . Paul did not act, as some other Jews did, from the love of power, but from zeal. For what was the motive of his journey to Damascus? He thought the doctrine pernicious and was afraid that the preaching of it would spread everywhere. . . . It is for this he condemns himself, saying, I am not fit to be called an apostle.^[1] It is for this he confesses his ignorance, which was a consequence of his disbelief.

At this point in my discourse I confess my amazement at the wise dispensation of the Holy Spirit, in limiting the epistles of the others to a small number but granting grace to Paul, the former persecutor, to write fourteen. For it was not as though Peter and John were less than Paul that he withheld the gift in their case—God forbid!—but that his doctrine might be beyond question, he gave the grace to the former enemy and persecutor to write more, that thus we might all be confirmed in our faith. Indeed, all were astonished at Paul and said, Is not this he who used to make havoc previously and who has come here for the purpose of taking us in bonds to Jerusalem?^[1] Do not be astonished, Paul says, I know that ‘it is hard for me to kick against the goad.’^[2] I know that ‘I am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God,’^[3] but ‘I acted ignorantly.’ For I considered the preaching of Christ to be the destruction of the law, for I did not know that he came ‘to fulfill the law, not to destroy it.’^[4] But ‘the grace of our Lord has abounded beyond measure in me.’

What the apostles received, they passed on without change, so that the doctrine of the mysteries (the sacraments) and Christ would remain correct. The divine Word—the Son of God—wants us to be their (the apostles’) disciples. It is appropriate for them to be our teachers, and it is necessary for us to submit to their teaching alone. Only from them and those who have faithfully taught their doctrine do we get, as Paul writes, faithful words, worthy of full acceptance.

We heard the blessed apostle Paul saying, The word is human^[1] and worthy of total acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. So it’s a human word, and worthy of total acceptance. Why human, and not divine? Without the slightest doubt, unless this word were also divine, it would not be worthy of total acceptance. But this word is both human and divine in the same sort of way that Christ himself is both man and God. So if we are right in understanding this word to be not only human but also divine, why did the apostle prefer to call it human rather than divine? . . . So the aspect he chose was the one by which Christ came into the world. He came, after all, insofar as he was man. Because insofar as he was God, he was always there.

They^[1] may choose to read, It is a man’s saying, and worthy of all acceptation. We are content to err with the Greeks, that is to say, with the apostle himself, who spoke Greek. Our version, therefore, is, it is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation.

There was no reason for Christ the Lord to come, except to save sinners. Eliminate diseases, eliminate wounds, and there is no call for medicine. If a great doctor has come down from heaven, a great invalid must have been lying very sick throughout the whole wide world. This invalid is the whole human race.

For all have sinned, either in Adam or by themselves, and are deprived of the glory of God.^[1] Consequently, the whole human mass ought to be punished, and if the deserved punishment of damnation were rendered to all, beyond all doubt it would be justly rendered. This is why those who are liberated from it by grace are not called vessels of their own merits but vessels of mercy.^[2] But whose mercy was it but him who sent Jesus Christ into this world to save sinners, whom he foreknew, predestined, called, justified and glorified?^[3] Hence, who could be so advanced in foolish insanity as not to render ineffable thanks to the mercy of this God who liberates those whom he has wished, considering that one could not in any way reproach the justice of God in condemning all entirely?

What was foreknown about the malice of Jews and what was properly decreed regarding the passion of Christ were very different and quite contrary. For the will to murder did not proceed from the same place as the will to die. Nor did their heinous crime and the Redeemer’s patience arise from a single spirit. Our Lord did not himself cause the wicked hands of his attackers to be laid on him, but he permitted this. He did not force what was going to happen actually to happen simply by foreknowing it. Yet it was for this purpose that he had taken on flesh, so that it might happen. Finally, so disparate were the motives of the Crucified and of those crucifying, that what was undertaken by Christ could not be abolished, what was committed by those others could indeed have been put to a halt. He who came to save sinners did not deny his mercy even to his own murderers,^[1] but turned the evil of godless people to the good of believers.^[2]

Moreover, Paul says in the epistle to Timothy, even though he himself had later become an apostle of Jesus, this is a faithful saying, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. For some unknown reason he [Celsus] forgot or did not think of saying anything about Paul, who after Jesus established the churches in Christ. . . . Why then is it outrageous if Jesus, wanting to show mankind the extent of his ability to heal souls, chose infamous and most wicked men and led them on so far that they were an example of the purest moral character to those who were converted by them to the gospel of Christ?

It is no humility to think that you are a sinner when you really are a sinner. But whenever one is conscious of having done many great deeds but does not imagine that he is something great in himself, that is true humility. When a man is like Paul and can say, I have nothing on my conscience, and then can add, But I am not justified by this,^[1] and can say again, Christ Jesus came to save sinners of whom I am the chief, that is true humility. That man is truly humble who does exalted deeds but, in his own mind, sees himself as lowly.

Pay attention to the apostle Paul, The word is faithful and worthy of total acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the first. He said, of whom I am the first. How was he the first? Weren’t there so many Jews who were sinners before him? Weren’t there any sinners before him in the whole human race? . . . So what’s the meaning of of whom I am the first? That I am worse than all of them. By first he meant us to understand worst. . . . Remember Saul, and you’ll discover why. Isn’t he the one who wasn’t satisfied with only one hand to stone Stephen, and who took care of the coats of the others? Isn’t he the one who persecuted the church everywhere? . . . So he it is who was the number one persecutor. There was none worse than he.

This is a short psalm,^[1] but it annihilates the boundless wickedness of pagans who believe that the glory of the heavenly majesty could not have descended to the humility of suffering. How foolish they are. For their thinking is confounded by the Source of the world’s realization that it has been freed! As Paul says, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the chief.

To all sins, then, committed whether by flesh or spirit, whether by deed or will, the same God who has destined penalty by means of judgment has nevertheless engaged to grant pardon by means of repentance. For he has said to the people, Repent, and I will save you;^[1] and again, I live, says the Lord, and I will have repentance rather than death.^[2] Repentance, then, is life, since it is preferred to death. That repentance, O sinner, like myself (nay, rather, less than myself, for preeminence in sins I acknowledge to be mine), do you so hasten to so embrace, as a shipwrecked man the protection of some plank.^[3] This will draw you forth when sunk in the waves of sins and will bear you forward into the port of the divine clemency.

God indeed says that he called Paul on account of his excellent capacity, as he said to Ananias, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings.^[1] That is to say, he was capable of service and the accomplishment of great deeds. God gives this as the reason for his call. But Paul himself everywhere ascribes it to grace and to God’s inexpressible mercy. He says this in the words, I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the fore-most, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience for an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.

Paul pointed out to all the deeds he had dared to commit before. He thought that it was better for his former life to be publicized to all in order to make evident the greatness of the gift of God than to cover up his ineffable and indescribable mercy by shrinking from proclaiming his own sins to all. He therefore recounted in detail his persecutions, his plots, his fights against the church. He says, I am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God;^[1] and again, that Jesus came to save sinners of whom I am the chief. And once more, You have heard of my former way of life in Judaism; how beyond all measure I persecuted the church of God and ravaged it.^[2] Indeed, to give, as it were, some kind of return to Christ for his long-suffering toward him, by telling plainly what sort he was and what an enemy and foe he had saved, he very frankly revealed the battle which in the beginning he had waged with consuming zeal against Christ. And because of this he held out good hope even to those who had despaired of themselves.

So note how this Saul, later Paul, ironically congratulates himself on having attained to the mercy of God, because he was found to be the first, that is the most outstanding, in sins! . . . This was so that others could all say to themselves, if Paul was cured, why should I despair? If such a desperately sick man was cured by such a great physician, who am I, not to fit those hands to my wounds, not to hasten to the care of those hands? That people might be able to say that sort of thing, that’s why Saul was made into an apostle out of a persecutor. When a doctor comes to a new place, he looks for someone there who’s been despaired of and cures him, even if he finds he’s very poor, provided he finds him a desperate case. He is not looking for a fee but displaying his skill.

We bring to mind how the holy apostle Paul recounts his transgressions and puts his soul in the last and nethermost place, saying: Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. . . . When and at what time did he say this? After great struggles, after mighty works, after the preaching of the Gospel of Christ which he proclaimed throughout the whole world, after continual deaths and manifold tribulations which he suffered from the Jews and from the heathen. He saw himself as still making a beginning, and not merely was he of the opinion that he had not yet attained to purity of soul but that he would not even number himself among the disciples of Christ, as was meet.

We must first turn our words to prayer. I say this because, sometimes, when prayer accompanies a teaching, it will serve to provide us with a demonstration of the things we are seeking to prove. . . . And Paul often does this at the beginning of his epistles. He first mentions God and then does not go on to his teaching until he pays to God the glory and praise due to him. Listen: To the King of ages, the immortal, the invisible, the only God of wisdom, be honor and glory for ever and ever! Amen.

We know that of all the names by which Deity is indicated some are expressive of the Divine majesty, employed and understood absolutely, and some are assigned with reference to the operations over us and all creation. When the apostle says, Now to the immortal, invisible, only wise God, and the like, by these titles he suggests conceptions which represent to us the transcendent power. In other cases, however, God is spoken of in the Scriptures as gracious, merciful, full of pity, true, good, Lord, Physician, Shepherd, Way, Bread, Fountain, King, Creator, Artificer, Protector, Who is over all and through all, Who is all in all; these and similar titles contain the declaration of the operations of the Divine loving kindness in the creation.

He is the only Son of God, our Lord. For he is born One of One, because there is one brightness of light, and there is one word of the understanding. Neither does an incorporeal generation degenerate into the plural number or suffer division. The One who is born is in no way separated from the One who gives life. He is the one and only, the unique. He is as thought is to the mind, as wisdom is to the wise, as a word is to the understanding, as valor is to the brave. As the Father is said by the apostle to be alone wise, so likewise the Son alone is called wisdom. He is then the only Son. In glory, everlastingness, virtue, dominion, power, he is what the Father is. Yet all these he has not unoriginately as the Father but from the Father, as the Son, without beginning and equal. Although he is the head of all things, yet the Father is the head of him. For so it is written, The head of Christ is God.^[1]

In order to attain that vision by which we see God as he is, he has warned us that our hearts must be cleansed. As objects are called visible in our fashion of speaking, so God is called invisible^[1] lest he be thought to be a material body. Yet he will not deprive pure hearts of the contemplation of his essence, since this great and sublime reward is promised, on the Lord’s own word, to those who worship and love God. At the time when he appeared visibly to bodily eyes, he promised that his invisible being also would be seen by the clean of heart, He that loves me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him and will manifest myself to him.^[2] It is certain that this nature of his, which he shares with the Father, is equally as invisible as it is equally incorruptible.

But if you think that God is seen by those who are pure in heart in this world, why did Moses, who had previously said, I have seen the Lord face to face, and my life is preserved, afterwards plead that he might see him distinctly? And because he said that he had seen God, the Lord told him, You cannot not see my face. For no one shall see my face and live.^[1] For this reason also the apostle calls him the only invisible God, who dwells in light unapproachable, whom no man has seen nor can see.

So this faith is also a rule for salvation, to believe in God the Father almighty, creator of all things, king of the ages, immortal and invisible. He is indeed the almighty God who at the origin of the world made all things out of nothing. He is before the ages and made and governs the ages. He doesn’t, after all, grow with time, or stretch out in space, nor is he shut in or bounded by any material. He abides with and in himself as full and perfect eternity, which neither human thought can comprehend nor tongue describe.

Let us hold firmly that Father and Son and Holy Spirit in their own proper nature, their proper substance, are together and equally invisible. We believe them to be together and equally immortal, together and equally imperishable. There is one place where the apostle states all these things simultaneously, Now to the king of ages, immortal, invisible, imperishable, to the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

Now let me speak about the Good, about that which truly is and which gives being to everything else, the God who transcends everything by virtue of his power. . . . So he is called king of the ages, for in him and around him all being is and subsists. He was not, nor will he be in a static sense. He did not come to be. He is not in the midst of becoming. He will not come to be. No. It is not that he can be defined by the word is, but rather he is the essence of being for the things which have being. Not only things that are but also the essence of what they are come from him who precedes the ages.

When again he speaks of a charge, which implies something burdensome, he adds, This charge I commit to you, my son Timothy. He charges him as his son, not so much with arbitrary or despotic authority. Rather as a father, he says, My son, Timothy.

With the name of son, Paul gives his blessing to Timothy.

The offices of teacher and priest are of great dignity, and to bring forward one that is worthy requires God’s own calling. So it was of old, and so it is now. This choice is to be made apart from human sentiments, not looking to any temporal consideration, swayed neither by friendship nor by enmity. . . . In those days the calling of a priest was in accordance with prophecy. But what does that imply? That nothing human is to interfere with the leading of the Holy Spirit. For prophecy is not only the telling of things future but also of the present.

It was according to divine revelation that I, Paul, laid hands on you and entrust to you the work of teaching.

By recalling prophecy, Paul makes it clear that Timothy received the laying on of hands in accordance with divine revelation, and after numerous signs that he, Timothy, had been so elected.

The truth of the Lord encompasses him, so that he is not afraid of the terror of the night or of the thing that walks about in darkness.^[1] Therefore, Zabulon shall dwell by the sea. Thus he may look upon the shipwrecks of others while himself free from danger. He may behold others driven here and there on the sea of this world, those who are borne about by every wind of doctrine, while himself persevering on the ground of an immovable faith.

But the sectarians, who have fallen away from the teaching of the church and made shipwreck concerning the faith, wrongly think that evil has some sort of eternal existence. They arbitrarily imagine another god besides the true One, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. They fantasize that he is the unmade producer of evil and the head of wickedness, who is also artificer of creation. These men one can easily refute, not only from the divine Scriptures but also from the human understanding itself, the very source of these insane imaginations.

What storm at sea was ever so fierce and wild as this tempest^[1] within the churches? In it every landmark of the Fathers has been moved. Every foundation, every bulwark of opinion has been shaken. Everything buoyed up on the unsound is dashed about and shaken down. We attack one another. We are overthrown by one another. If our enemy is not the first to strike us, we are wounded by the comrade at our side. If an enemy soldier is stricken and falls, his fellow soldier tramples him down. There is at least this bond of union between us that we hate our common foes, but no sooner has the enemy gone by than we find enemies in one another. And who could make a complete list of all the wrecks? Some have gone to the bottom on the attack of the enemy, some through the unsuspected treachery of their allies, some from the blundering of their own officers. We see, as it were, whole churches, crews and all, dashed and shattered upon the sunken reefs of deceitful teaching, while others of the enemies of the Spirit of salvation have seized the helm and made shipwreck of the faith.

In all circumstances, beloved, we need faith—faith, the mother of virtues, the medicine of salvation—without it we cannot grasp any teaching on sublime matters. But those who are without faith are like people trying to cross the sea without a ship. They are able to swim for a while by using hands and feet, but when they have gone farther out they are soon swamped by the waves. So, also, those who have recourse to their own reasoning before accepting any knowledge are inviting shipwreck, even as Paul speaks of those who have made shipwreck of the faith. ^[1] PROFANE NOVELTIES. VINCENT OF LÉRINS: Innumerable are the examples we must omit, since we wish to be brief. But all of them make it sufficiently clear that the customary method of most heresies consists in rejoicing in profane novelties, in loathing traditional knowledge, which some rejecting have made shipwreck concerning the faith.^[1] Conversely, it is proper for Catholics to guard the deposit, handed down by the holy fathers, to condemn profane novelties, and, as the apostle said, before and now I say again, let him be anathema if any one preach to you a gospel besides that which you have received.^{[2] [3]}

When one knows properly these timely points,^[1] his understanding of the faith is right and healthy. But if he mistakes any such points, he quickly falls into heresy. Thus Hymenaeus and Alexander and their fellows were untimely when they said that the resurrection had already been. The Galatians were untimely in the other direction in making much of circumcision now.

Plainly Paul states that he delivered to Satan Hymenaeus and Alexander, that they learn not to blaspheme, as he writes to Timothy. Nevertheless Paul himself says that a thorn was given him, an angel of Satan,^[1] by which he was to be buffeted, lest he should exalt himself. Weren’t these brothers delivered to Satan not for perdition but for giving them an opportunity to change? If so, what is the difference between blasphemy and incest and a soul entirely free from these? The free soul would be elated from no other source than the highest sanctity and all innocence. The elation of such a soul would be in the apostle’s case restrained by this buffeting, by means, some say, of pain in the ear or head. Incest, however, and blasphemy would have deserved a different punishment. The person would have been delivered over to Satan himself for a possession, not to an angel of his. . . . If you take the assumption that the crime of Hymenaeus and Alexander—blasphemy—is irremissible in this and in the future age,^[2] the apostle would not, in opposition to the clear directive of the Lord, have given to Satan, under a hope of pardon, men already irremediably sunken from the faith into blasphemy. Thus, he pronounced them shipwrecked with regard to faith, having no longer the solace of the ship, the church.

As executioners, though themselves laden with numberless crimes, are made the correctors of others; so it is here with the evil spirit. . . . He [the offender] was then immediately expelled from the common assembly, separated from the fold. They became deserted and destitute. They were delivered to the wolf.

The sinner is handed over to Satan, that is, is separated from the church, so that penitence may follow.

The sinner is separated from the body of the church, stripped of divine grace, and so will be cruelly beaten by the Adversary, will fall into illnesses and painful passions and into a host of scrapes and calamities. It is understood that the sentence will be revoked when the sinner has repented.

Those whom the usual penalties do not recall to their senses, and even exclusion from prayers does not lead to repentance, must be subjected to the canons given by the Lord. For it has been written, If your brother sins, go and show him his fault, between you and him. But if he does not listen to you, take one or two others along with you. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.^[1] Now, this truly has been done in the case of this man. Once he was accused; in the presence of one or two he was convicted; a third time, in the presence of the church. Since, therefore, we have solemnly protested to him and he has not acquiesced, let him for the future be excommunicated. And let it be announced to all the village that he is not to be admitted to any participation in the ordinary relations of life, so that, by our refusal to associate with him, he may become wholly the food for the devil.

Let us learn, brethren, when actions are alike, to distinguish the intentions of the actors; otherwise, if we shut our eyes to this, we might judge falsely, and we might accuse well-wishers of doing us harm. Likewise, when the same apostle says that he delivered up certain men to Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme, did he render evil for evil, or did he, rather, judge that it was a good work to correct evil men even by evil?

Out of love the apostle delivered a man up to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

Again they say, Who made the devil? He made himself; for the devil was made by sinning, not by nature. Or, they say, God should not have made him if he knew that he would sin. On the contrary, why should he not have made him? For through his own justice and providence God corrects many as a result of the malice of the devil. Or have you perhaps not heard the apostle Paul saying, And I handed them over to Satan so that they might learn not to blaspheme?