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| Chapter XII. How a fortunate issue will be of no avail to evil doers, while bad deeds will not injure good men.
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Chapter XII.
How a fortunate issue will be of no avail to evil doers,
while bad deeds will not injure good men.
And that we may make
these statements clear by instances from Holy Scripture, what could be
brought about that was more salutary and more to the good of the whole
world, than the saving remedy of the Lord’s Passion? And yet it
was not only of no advantage, but was actually to the disadvantage of
the traitor by whose means it is shown to have been brought about, so
that it is absolutely said of him: “It were good for that man if
he had never been born.”2018
For the fruits
of his labour will not be repaid to him according to the actual result,
but according to what he wanted to do, and believed that he would
accomplish. And again, what could there be more culpable than craft and
deceit shown even to a stranger, not to mention one’s brother and
father? And yet the patriarch Jacob not only met with no condemnation
or blame for such things but was actually dowered with the everlasting
heritage of the blessing. And not without reason, for the last
mentioned desired the blessing destined for the first-born not out of a
greedy desire for present gain but because of his faith in everlasting
sanctification; while the former (Judas) delivered the Redeemer of all
to death, not for the sake of man’s salvation, but from the sin
of covetousness. And therefore in each case the fruits of their action
are reckoned according to the intention of the mind and purpose of the
will, according to which the object of the one was not to work fraud,
nor was that of the other to work salvation. For justly is there
repayment to each man as the recompense of reward, for what he
conceived in the first instance in his mind, and not for what resulted
from it either well or badly, against the wish of the worker. And so
the most just Judge regarded him who ventured on such a falsehood as
excusable and indeed worthy of praise, because without it he could not
secure the blessing of the first-born; and that should not be reckoned
as a sin, which arose from desire of the blessing. Otherwise the
aforesaid patriarch would have been not only unfair to his brother, but
also a cheat of his father and a blasphemer, if there had been any
other way by which he could secure the gift of that blessing, and he
had preferred to follow this which would damage and injure his brother.
You see then that with God the inquiry is not into the carrying out of
the act, but into the purpose of the mind. With this preparation then
for a return to the question proposed (for which all this has been
premised) I want you first to tell me for what reason you bound
yourselves in the fetters of that promise.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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