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| Chapter VI. The answer to the question proposed.
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Chapter VI.
The answer to the question proposed.
Theodore: Sometimes holy
Scripture is wont by an improper use of terms to use
“evils” for “affliction;” not that these are
properly and in their nature evils, but because they are imagined to be
evils by those on whom they are brought for their good. For when divine
judgment is reasoning with men it must speak with the language and
feelings of men. For when a doctor for the sake of health with good
reason either cuts or cauterizes those who are suffering from the
inflammation of ulcers, it is considered an evil by those who have to
bear it. Nor are the spur and the whip pleasant to a restive horse.
Moreover all chastisement seems at the moment to be a bitter thing to
those who are chastised, as the Apostle says: “Now all
chastisement for the present indeed seemeth not to bring with it joy
but sorrow; but afterwards it will yield to them that are exercised by
it most peaceable fruits of righteousness,” and “whom the
Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth:
for what son is there whom the father doth not correct?”1381
And so evils are sometimes wont to
stand for afflictions, as where we read: “And God repented of the
evil which He had said that He would do to them and He did it
not.”1382
And again:
“For Thou, Lord, are gracious and merciful, patient and very
merciful and ready to repent of the evil,”1383
i.e., of the sufferings and losses
which Thou art forced to bring upon us as the reward of our sins. And
another prophet, knowing that these are profitable to some men, and
certainly not through any jealousy of their safety, but with an eye to
their good, prays thus: “Add evils to them, O Lord, add evils to
the haughty ones of the earth;”1384
and the Lord Himself says “Lo, I
will bring evils upon them,”1385
i.e.,
sorrows, and losses, with which they shall for the present be chastened
for their soul’s health, and so shall be at length driven to
return and hasten back to Me whom in their prosperity they scorned. And
so that these are originally evil we cannot possibly assert: for to
many they conduce to their good and offer the occasions of eternal
bliss, and therefore (to return to the question raised) all those
things, which are thought to be brought upon us as evils by our enemies
or by any other people, should not be counted as evils, but as things
indifferent. For in the end they will not be what he thinks, who
brought them upon us in his rage and fury, but what he makes
them who endures them. And so when death has been brought upon a saint,
we ought not to think that an evil has happened to him but a thing
indifferent; which is an evil to a wicked man, while to the good it is
rest and freedom from evils. “For death is rest to a man whose
way is hidden.”1386
And so a good
man does not suffer any loss from it, because he suffers nothing
strange, but by the crime of an enemy he only receives (and not without
the reward of eternal life) that which would have happened to him in
the course of nature, and pays the debt of man’s death, which
must be paid by an inevitable law, with the interest of a most fruitful
passion, and the recompense of a great reward.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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