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| Chapter XXII. The answer; viz., that our free will always has need of the help of the Lord.
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Chapter XXII.
The answer; viz., that our free will always has need of
the help of the Lord.
Paphnutius: You have
shrewdly enough noticed how it is said “If they would have
hearkened to Me:” but have not sufficiently considered either who
it is who speaks to one who does or does not hearken; or what follows:
“I should soon have put down their enemies, and laid My hand on
those that trouble them.”1284
Let no
one then try by a false interpretation to twist that which we brought
forward to prove that nothing can be done without the Lord, nor take it
in support of free will, in such a way as to try to take away from man
the grace of God and His daily oversight, through this test: “But
My people did not hear My voice,” and again: “If My people
would have hearkened unto Me, and if Israel would have walked in My
ways, etc.:” but let him consider that just as the power of free
will is evidenced by the disobedience of the people, so the daily
oversight
of God who
declares and admonishes him is also shown. For where He says “If
My people would have hearkened unto Me” He clearly implies that
He had spoken to them before. And this the Lord was wont to do not only
by means of the written law, but also by daily exhortations, as this
which is given by Isaiah: “All day long have I stretched forth My
hands to a disobedient and gain-saying people.”1285
Both points then can be supported from
this passage, where it says: “If My people would have hearkened,
and if Israel had walked in My ways, I should soon have put down their
enemies, and laid My hand on those that trouble them.” For just
as free will is shown by the disobedience of the people, so the
government of God and His assistance is made clear by the beginning and
end of the verse, where He implies that He had spoken to them before,
and that afterwards He would put down their enemies, if they would have
hearkened unto Him. For we have no wish to do away with man’s
free will by what we have said, but only to establish the fact that the
assistance and grace of God are necessary to it every day and hour.
When he had instructed us with this discourse Abbot Paphnutius
dismissed us from his cell before midnight in a state of contrition
rather than of liveliness; insisting on this as the chief lesson in his
discourse; viz., that when we fancied that by making perfect the first
renunciation (which we were endeavouring to do with all our powers), we
could climb the heights of perfection, we should make the discovery
that we had not yet even begun to dream of the heights to which a monk
can rise, since after we had learnt some few things about the second
renunciation, we should find out that we had not before this even heard
a word of the third stage, in which all perfection is comprised, and
which in many ways far exceeds these lower ones.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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