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| Chapter XI. The Sin of Men Due Not to Fate, But to Free-Will.
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Chapter XI.—The Sin of Men Due Not to Fate, But to Free-Will.
How, then, shall I admit this nativity according to
Fate, when I see such managers of Fate? I do not wish to be a king;
I am not anxious to be rich; I decline military command; I detest
fornication; I am not impelled by an insatiable love of gain to go
to sea; I do not contend for chaplets; I am free from a mad thirst
for fame; I despise death; I am superior to every kind of disease;
grief does not consume my soul. Am I a slave, I endure servitude. Am
I free, I do not make a vaunt of my good birth. I see that the same
sun is for all, and one death for all, whether they live in pleasure
or destitution. The rich man sows, and the poor man partakes of the
same sowing. The wealthiest die, and beggars have the same limits
to their life. The rich lack many things, and are glorious only
through the estimation they are held in;453
| 453 Or, reading with Maranus, κἃν … γεν., “even
though,” etc. | but the poor man and he who has very
moderate desires, seeking as he does only the things suited to his lot,
more easily obtains his purpose. How is it that you are fated to be
sleepless through avarice? Why are you fated to grasp at things often,
and often to die? Die to the world, repudiating the madness that is in
it. Live to God, and by apprehending Him lay aside your old nature.454
| 454 [Think of a Chaldean heathen, by
the power of grace, thus transformed. Sapiens solus liber, but
the Christian alone is wise. This chapter compares favourably
with the eloquence of Chrysostom in his letter to Cyriac, which,
if spurious, is made up of passages to be found elsewhere in his
works. Tom. iii. p. 683. Ed. Migne, Paris, 1859.] |
We were not created to die, but we die by our own
fault.455
| 455 [Comp. cap. xv., infra, and the note 6, p. 71.] | Our free-will has
destroyed us; we who were free have become slaves; we have been sold
through sin. Nothing evil has been created by God; we ourselves have
manifested wickedness; but we, who have manifested it, are able again
to reject it.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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