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| On Justice and Goodness.
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Chapter
V.—On Justice and Goodness.
1. Now, since this consideration has weight with
some, that the leaders of that heresy (of which we have been speaking)
think they have established a kind of division, according to which they
have declared that justice is one thing and goodness another, and have
applied this division even to divine things, maintaining that the
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is indeed a good God, but not a just
one, whereas the God of the law and the prophets is just, but not good;
I think it necessary to return, with as much brevity as possible, an
answer to these statements. These persons, then, consider
goodness to be some such affection as would have benefits conferred on
all, although the recipient of them be unworthy and undeserving of any
kindness; but here, in my opinion, they have not rightly applied their
definition, inasmuch as they think that no benefit is conferred on him
who is visited with any suffering or calamity. Justice, on the
other hand, they view as that quality which rewards every one according
to his deserts. But here, again, they do not rightly interpret
the meaning of their own definition. For they think that it is
just to send evils upon the wicked and benefits upon the good; i.e., so
that, according to their view, the just God does not appear to wish
well to the bad, but to be animated by a kind of hatred against
them. And they gather together instances of this, wherever they
find a history in the Scriptures of the Old Testament, relating, e.g.,
the punishment of the deluge, or the fate of those who are described as
perishing in it, or the, destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah by a shower
of fire and brimstone, or the falling of all the people in the
wilderness on account of their sins, so that none of those who had left
Egypt were found to have entered the promised land, with the exception
of Joshua and Caleb. Whereas from the New Testament they gather
together words of compassion and piety, through which the disciples are
trained by the Saviour, and by which it seems to be declared that no
one is good save God the Father only; and by this means they have
ventured to style the Father of the Saviour Jesus Christ a good God,
but to say that the God of the world is a different one, whom they are
pleased to term just, but not also good.
2. Now I think they must, in the first
place, be required to show, if they can, agreeably to their own
definition, that the Creator is just in punishing according to their
deserts, either those who perished at the time of the deluge, or the
inhabitants of Sodom, or those who had quitted Egypt, seeing we
sometimes behold committed crimes more wicked and detestable than those
for which the above-mentioned persons were destroyed, while we do not
yet see every sinner paying the penalty of his misdeeds. Will
they say that He who at one time was just has been made good? Or
will they rather be of opinion that He is even now just, but is
patiently enduring human offences, while that then He was not even
just, inasmuch as He exterminated innocent and sucking children along
with cruel and ungodly giants? Now, such are their opinions,
because they know not how to understand anything beyond the letter;
otherwise they would show how it is literal justice for sins to be
visited upon the heads of children to the third and fourth generation,
and on children’s children after them. By us, however, such
things are not understood literally; but, as Ezekiel taught2122
when relating the parable, we inquire what
is the inner meaning contained in the parable itself. Moreover,
they ought to explain this also, how He is just, and rewards every one
according to his merits, who punishes earthly-minded persons and the
devil, seeing they have done nothing worthy of punishment.2123
| 2123 [Cum nihil dignum
pœna commiserint. S.] | For they could not do any good if,
according to them, they were of a wicked and ruined nature. For
as they style Him a judge, He appears to be a judge not so much of
actions as of natures; and if a bad nature cannot do good, neither can
a good nature do evil. Then, in the next place, if He whom they
call good is good to all, He is undoubtedly good also to those who are
destined to perish. And why does He not save them? If He
does not desire to do so, He will be no longer good; if He does desire it, and
cannot effect it, He will not be omnipotent. Why do they not
rather hear the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Gospels,
preparing fire for the devil and his angels? And how shall that
proceeding, as penal as it is sad, appear to be, according to their
view, the work of the good God? Even the Saviour Himself, the Son
of the good God, protests in the Gospels, and declares that “if
signs and wonders had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have
repented2124
| 2124 Pœnitentiam
egissent. | long ago, sitting
in sackcloth and ashes.” And when He had come near to those
very cities, and had entered their territory, why, pray, does He avoid
entering those cities, and exhibiting to them abundance of signs and
wonders, if it were certain that they would have repented, after they
had been performed, in sackcloth and ashes? But as He does not do
this, He undoubtedly abandons to destruction those whom the language of
the Gospel shows not to have been of a wicked or ruined nature,
inasmuch as it declares they were capable of repentance. Again,
in a certain parable of the Gospel, where the king enters in to see the
guests reclining at the banquet, he beheld a certain individual not
clothed with wedding raiment, and said to him, “Friend, how
camest thou in hither, not having a wedding garment?” and then
ordered his servants, “Bind him hand and foot, and cast him into
outer darkness; there will be weeping and gnashing of
teeth.”2125
Let them tell
us who is that king who entered in to see the guests, and finding one
amongst them with unclean garments, commanded him to be bound by his
servants, and thrust out into outer darkness. Is he the same whom
they call just? How then had he commanded good and bad alike to
be invited, without directing their merits to be inquired into by his
servants? By such procedure would be indicated, not the character
of a just God who rewards according to men’s deserts, as they
assert, but of one who displays undiscriminating goodness towards
all. Now, if this must necessarily be understood of the good God,
i.e., either of Christ or of the Father of Christ, what other objection
can they bring against the justice of God’s judgment? Nay,
what else is there so unjust charged by them against the God of the law
as to order him who had been invited by His servants, whom He had sent
to call good and bad alike, to be bound hand and foot, and to be thrown
into outer darkness, because he had on unclean garments?
3. And now, what we have drawn from the
authority of Scripture ought to be sufficient to refute the arguments
of the heretics. It will not, however, appear improper if we
discuss the matter with them shortly, on the grounds of reason
itself. We ask them, then, if they know what is regarded among
men as the ground of virtue and wickedness, and if it appears to follow
that we can speak of virtues in God, or, as they think, in these two
Gods. Let them give an answer also to the question, whether they
consider goodness to be a virtue; and as they will undoubtedly admit it
to be so, what will they say of injustice? They will never
certainly, in my opinion, be so foolish as to deny that justice is a
virtue. Accordingly, if virtue is a blessing, and justice is a
virtue, then without doubt justice is goodness. But if they say
that justice is not a blessing, it must either be an evil or an
indifferent thing. Now I think it folly to return any answer to
those who say that justice is an evil, for I shall have the appearance
of replying either to senseless words, or to men out of their
minds. How can that appear an evil which is able to reward the
good with blessings, as they themselves also admit? But if they
say that it is a thing of indifference, it follows that since justice
is so, sobriety also, and prudence, and all the other virtues, are
things of indifference. And what answer shall we make to Paul,
when he says, “If there be any virtue, and, if there be any
praise, think on these things, which ye have learned, and received, and
heard, and seen in me?”2126
Let them
learn, therefore, by searching the holy Scriptures, what are the
individual virtues, and not deceive themselves by saying that that God
who rewards every one according to his merits, does, through hatred of
evil, recompense the wicked with evil, and not because those who have
sinned need to be treated with severer remedies, and because He applies
to them those measures which, with the prospect of improvement, seem
nevertheless, for the present, to produce a feeling of pain. They
do not read what is written respecting the hope of those who were
destroyed in the deluge; of which hope Peter himself thus speaks in his
first Epistle: “That Christ, indeed, was put to death in
the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit, by which He went and preached
to the spirits who were kept in prison, who once were unbelievers, when
they awaited the long-suffering of God in the days of Noah, when the
ark was preparing, in which a few, i.e., eight souls, were saved by
water. Whereunto also baptism by a like figure now saves
you.”2127
And with
regard to Sodom and Gomorrah, let them tell us whether they believe the
prophetic words to be those of the Creator God—of Him, viz., who
is related to have rained upon them a shower of fire and
brimstone. What does Ezekiel the prophet say of them? “Sodom,” he
says, “shall be restored to her former condition.”2128
But why, in afflicting those who are
deserving of punishment, does He not afflict them for their
good?—who also says to Chaldea, “Thou hast coals of fire,
sit upon them; they will be a help to thee.”2129
| 2129 Isa. xlvii. 14, 15. The Septuagint here differs from
the Hebrew: ἔχεις
ἄνθρακας
πυρός,
κάθισαι ἐπ᾽
αὐτούς, οὗτοι
ἔσονταί σοι
βοήθεια. | And of those also who fell in the
desert, let them hear what is related in the seventy-eighth
Psalm, which bears the
superscription of Asaph; for he says, “When He slew them, then
they sought Him.”2130
He does not
say that some sought Him after others had been slain, but he says that
the destruction of those who were killed was of such a nature that,
when put to death, they sought God. By all which it is
established, that the God of the law and the Gospels is one and the
same, a just and good God, and that He confers benefits justly, and
punishes with kindness; since neither goodness without justice, nor
justice without goodness, can display the (real) dignity of the divine
nature.
We shall add the following remarks, to which we are
driven by their subtleties. If justice is a different thing from
goodness, then, since evil is the opposite of good, and injustice of
justice, injustice will doubtless be something else than an evil; and
as, in your opinion, the just man is not good, so neither will the
unjust man be wicked; and again, as the good man is not just, so the
wicked man also will not be unjust. But who does not see the
absurdity, that to a good God one should be opposed that is evil; while
to a just God, whom they allege to be inferior to the good, no one
should be opposed! For there is none who can be called unjust, as
there is a Satan who is called wicked. What, then, are we to
do? Let us give up the position which we defend, for they will
not be able to maintain that a bad man is not also unjust, and an
unjust man wicked. And if these qualities be indissolubly
inherent in these opposites, viz., injustice in wickedness, or
wickedness in injustice, then unquestionably the good man will be
inseparable from the just man, and the just from the good; so that, as
we speak of one and the same wickedness in malice and injustice, we may
also hold the virtue of goodness and justice to be one and the
same.
4. They again recall us, however, to the
words of Scripture, by bringing forward that celebrated question of
theirs, affirming that it is written, “A bad tree cannot produce
good fruits; for a tree is known by its fruit.”2131
What, then, is their position?
What sort of tree the law is, is shown by its fruits, i.e., by the
language of its precepts. For if the law be found to be good,
then undoubtedly He who gave it is believed to be a good God. But
if it be just rather than good, then God also will be considered a just
legislator. The Apostle Paul makes use of no circumlocution, when
he says, “The law is good; and the commandment is holy, and just,
and good.”2132
From which it
is clear that Paul had not learned the language of those who separate
justice from goodness, but had been instructed by that God, and
illuminated by His Spirit, who is at the same time both holy, and good,
and just; and speaking by whose Spirit he declared that the commandment
of the law was holy, and just, and good. And that he might show
more clearly that goodness was in the commandment to a greater degree
than justice and holiness, repeating his words, he used, instead of
these three epithets, that of goodness alone, saying, “Was then
that which is good made death unto me? God
forbid.”2133
As he knew
that goodness was the genus of the virtues, and that justice and
holiness were species belonging to the genus, and having
in the former verses named genus and species together, he
fell back, when repeating his words, on the genus alone.
But in those which follow he says, “Sin wrought death in me by
that which is good,”2134
where he sums up
generically what he had beforehand explained specifically. And in
this way also is to be understood the declaration, “A good man,
out of the good treasure of his heart, bringeth forth good things; and
an evil man, out of the evil treasure, bringeth forth evil
things.”2135
For here also
he assumed that there was a genus in good or evil, pointing out
unquestionably that in a good man there were both justice, and
temperance, and prudence, and piety, and everything that can be either
called or understood to be good. In like manner also he said that
a man was wicked who should without any doubt be unjust, and impure,
and unholy, and everything which singly makes a bad man. For as
no one considers a man to be wicked without these marks of wickedness
(nor indeed can he be so), so also it is certain that without these
virtues no one will be deemed to be good. There still remains to
them, however, that saying of the Lord in the Gospel, which they think
is given them in a special manner as a shield, viz., “There is
none good but one, God the Father.”2136
This word they declare is peculiar to
the Father of Christ, who, however, is different from the God who is
Creator of all things, to which Creator he gave no appellation of
goodness. Let us see now if, in the Old Testament, the God of the
prophets and the Creator and Legislator of the word is not called
good. What are the expressions which occur in the Psalms?
“How good is God to Israel, to the upright in
heart!”2137
and, “Let
Israel now say that He is good, that His mercy endureth for
ever;”2138
the language in the
Lamentations of Jeremiah, “The Lord is good to them that wait for
Him, to the soul that seeketh Him.”2139
As therefore God is frequently called
good in the Old Testament, so also the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ
is styled just in the Gospels. Finally, in the Gospel according
to John, our Lord Himself, when praying to the Father, says, “O
just Father, the world hath not known Thee.”2140
And lest perhaps they should say that
it was owing to His having assumed human flesh that He called the
Creator of the world “Father,” and styled Him
“Just,” they are excluded from such a refuge by the words
that immediately follow, “The world hath not known
Thee.” But, according to them, the world is ignorant of the
good God alone. For the world unquestionably recognises its
Creator, the Lord Himself saying that the world loveth what is its
own. Clearly, then, He whom they consider to be the good God, is
called just in the Gospels. Any one may at leisure gather
together a greater number of proofs, consisting of those passages,
where in the New Testament the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is
called just, and in the Old also, where the Creator of heaven and earth
is called good; so that the heretics, being convicted by numerous
testimonies, may perhaps some time be put to the
blush.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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