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| Chapter XXV. The evidence of Scripture on changes of determination.
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Chapter XXV.
The evidence of Scripture on changes of
determination.
It is impossible for us briefly
to run through everything. For who could count up almost all the
patriarchs and numberless saints, some of whom for the preservation of
life, others out of desire for a blessing, others out of pity, others
to conceal some secret, others out of zeal for God, others in searching
for the
truth, became, so to
speak, patrons of lying? And as all cannot be enumerated, so all ought
not to be altogether passed over. For piety forced the blessed Joseph
to raise a false charge against his brethren even with an oath by the
life of the king, saying: “Ye are spies: to see the nakedness of
the land are ye come;” and below: “send,” says he,
“one of you, and bring your brothers hither: but ye shall be kept
here until your words are made manifest whether ye speak the truth or
no: but if not, by the life of Pharaoh, ye are spies.”2049
For if he had not out of pity alarmed them
by this lie, he would not have been able to see again his father and
his brother, nor to preserve them in their great danger of starvation,
nor to free the conscience of his brethren from the guilt of selling
him. The act then of striking his brethren with fear by means of a lie
was not so reprehensible as was it a holy and laudable act to urge his
enemies and seekers to a salutary penitence by means of a feigned
danger. Finally when they were weighed down by the odium of the very
serious accusation, they were conscience-stricken not at the charge
falsely raised against them, but at the thought of their earlier crime,
and said to one another: “We suffer this rightly because we
sinned against our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul when
he asked us and we did not hearken to him: wherefore all this trouble
hath come upon us.”2050
And this confession,
we think, expiated by most salutary humility their terrible sin not
only against their brother, against whom they had sinned with wicked
cruelty, but also against God. What about Solomon, who in his first
judgment manifested the gift of wisdom, which he had received of God,
only by making use of falsehood? For in order to get at the truth which
was hidden by the woman’s lie, even he used the help of a lie
most cunningly invented, saying: “Bring me a sword and divide the
living child into two parts, and give the one half to the one and the
other half to the other.” And when this pretended cruelty stirred
the heart of the true mother, but was received with approval by her who
was not the true mother, then at last by this most sagacious discovery
of the truth he pronounced the judgment which every one has felt to
have been inspired by God, saying: “Give her the living child and
slay it not: she is the mother of it.”2051
Further we are more fully taught by other passages of Scripture as well
that we neither can nor should carry out everything which we determine
either with peace or disturbance of mind, as we often hear that holy
men and angels and even Almighty God Himself have changed what they had
decided upon. For the blessed David determined and confirmed it by an
oath, saying: “May God do so and add more to the foes of David if
I leave of all that belong unto Nabal until the morning a single
male.” And presently when Abigail his wife interceded and
intreated for him, he gave up his threats, lightened the sentence, and
preferred to be regarded as a breaker of his word rather than to keep
his pledged oath by cruelly executing it, saying: “As the Lord
liveth, if thou hadst not quickly come to meet me there had not been
left to Nabal by the morning light a single male.”2052
And as we do not hold that his readiness to
take a rash oath (which resulted from his anger and disturbance of
mind) ought to be copied by us, so we do think that the pardon and
revision of his determination is to be followed. The “chosen
vessel,” in writing to the Corinthians, promises unconditionally
to return, saying: “But I will come to you when I pass through
Macedonia: for I will pass through Macedonia. But I will stay or even
pass the winter with you that you may conduct me whithersoever I shall
go. For I do not want only to see you in passing: for I hope to stay
with you for some time.”2053
And this fact he
remembers in the Second Epistle, thus: “And in this confidence I
was minded first to come unto you, that ye might receive a second
favour, and by you to pass into Macedonia and again to come to you from
Macedonia and by you be conducted to Judæa.” But a better
plan suggested itself and he plainly admits that he is not going to
fulfil what he had promised. “When then,” says he, “I
purposed this, did I use light-mindedness? or the things that I think,
do I think after the flesh, that there should be with me yea, yea, and
nay, nay?” Lastly, he declares even with the affirmation of an
oath, why it was that he preferred to put on one side his pledged word
rather than by his presence to bring a burden and grief to his
disciples: “But I call God to witness against my soul that it was
to spare you that I came not as far as Corinth. For I determined this
with myself that I would not come unto you in sorrow.”2054
| 2054 2 Cor. i. 15–17, 23; ii.
1. | Though when the angels had refused to enter
the house of Lot at Sodom, saying to him: “We will not enter but
will remain in the street,” they were presently forced by his
prayers to change their determination, as Scripture subjoins:
“And Lot constrained them, and they turned in to
him.”2055
And
certainly if they knew that
they would turn in to him, they refused his request with a sham excuse:
but if their excuse was a real one, then they are clearly shown to have
changed their mind. And certainly we hold that the Holy Spirit inserted
this in the sacred volume for no other reason but to teach us by their
examples that we ought not to cling obstinately to our own
determinations, but to subject them to our will, and so to keep our
judgment free from all the chains of law that it may be ready to follow
the call of good counsel in any direction, and may not delay or refuse
to pass without any delay to whatever a sound discretion may find to be
the better choice. And to rise to still higher instances, when king
Hezekiah was lying on his bed and afflicted with grievous sickness the
prophet Isaiah addressed him in the person of God, and said:
“Thus saith the Lord: set thine house in order for thou shalt die
and not live. And Hezekiah,” it says, “turned his face to
the wall and prayed to the Lord and said: I beseech thee, O Lord,
remember how I have walked before Thee in truth and with a perfect
heart, and how I have done what was right in Thy sight. And Hezekiah
wept sore.” After which it was again said to him: “Go,
return, and speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying: Thus saith the
Lord God of David thy father: I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy
tears: and behold, I will add to thy days fifteen years: and I will
deliver thee out of the hand of the king of the Assyrians, and I will
defend this city for thy sake and for my servant David’s
sake.”2056
What can be
clearer than this proof that out of consideration for mercy and
goodness the Lord would rather break His word and instead of the
pre-arranged limit of death extend the life of him who prayed, for
fifteen years, rather than be found inexorable because of His
unchangeable decree? In the same way too the Divine sentence says to
the men of Nineveh: “Yet three days, and Nineveh shall be
overthrown;”2057
and presently
this stern and abrupt sentence is softened by their penitence and
fasting, and is turned to the side of mercy with goodness that is easy
to be intreated. But if any one maintains that the Lord had threatened
the destruction of their city (while He foreknew that they would be
converted) for this reason, that He might incite them to a salutary
penitence, it follows that those who are set over their brethren may,
if need arises, without any blame for telling lies, threaten those who
need improvement with severer treatment than they are really going to
inflict. But if one says that God revoked that severe sentence in
consideration of their penitence, according to what he says by Ezekiel:
“If I say to the wicked, Thou shalt surely die: and he becomes
penitent for his sin, and doeth judgment and justice, he shall surely
live, he shall not die;”2058
we are similarly
taught that we ought not obstinately to stick to our determination, but
that we should with gentle pity soften down the threats which necessity
called forth. And that we may not fancy that the Lord granted this
specially to the Ninevites, He continually affirms by Jeremiah that He
will do the same in general towards all, and promises that without
delay He will change His sentence in accordance with our deserts;
saying: “I will suddenly speak against a nation and against a
kingdom to root out and to pull down and to destroy it. If that nation
repent of the evil, which I have spoken against it, I also will repent
of the evil which I thought to do to them. And I will suddenly speak of
a nation and a kingdom, to build up and to plant it. If it shall do
evil in My sight, that it obey not My voice: I will repent of the good
that I thought to do to it.” To Ezekiel also: “Leave out
not a word, if so be they will hearken and be converted every one from
his evil way: that I may repent Me of the evil that I thought to do to
them for the wickedness of their doings.”2059
| 2059 Jer. xviii. 7, 10; xxvi. 2, 3. |
And by these passages it is declared that we ought not obstinately to
stick to our decisions, but to modify them with reason and judgment,
and that better courses should always be adopted and preferred, and
that we should turn without any delay to that course which is
considered the more profitable. For this above all that invaluable
sentence teaches us, because though each man’s end is known
beforehand to Him before his birth, yet somehow He so orders all things
by a plan and method for all, and with regard to man’s
disposition, that He decides on everything not by the mere exercise of
His power, nor according to the ineffable knowledge which His
Prescience possesses, but according to the present actions of men, and
rejects or draws to Himself each one, and daily either grants or
withholds His grace. And that this is so the election of Saul also
shows us, of whose miserable end the foreknowledge of God certainly
could not be ignorant, and yet He chose him out of so many thousands of
Israel and anointed him king, rewarding the then existing merits of his
life, and not considering the sin of his coming fall, so that after he
became
reprobate, God
complains almost in human terms and, with man’s feelings, as if
He repented of his choice, saying: “It repenteth Me that I have
appointed Saul king: for he hath forsaken Me, and hath not performed My
words;” and again: “But Samuel was grieved for Saul because
the Lord repented that He had made Saul king over
Israel.”2060
Finally this that
He afterwards executed, that the Lord also declares by the prophet
Ezekiel that He will by His daily judgment do with all men, saying:
“Yea, if I shall say to the righteous that he shall surely live,
and he trusting in his righteousness commit iniquity: all his
righteousness shall be forgotten, and in his iniquity which he hath
committed, in the same he shall die. And if I shall say to the wicked:
Thou shalt surely die; and if he repent of his sin and do judgment and
righteousness, and if that wicked man restore the pledge and render
what he hath robbed, and walk in the commandments of life, and do no
righteous thing, he shall surely live, he shall not die. None of his
sins which he hath committed shall be imputed unto him.”2061
Finally, when the Lord would for their
speedy fall turn away His merciful countenance from the people, whom He
had chosen out of all nations, the giver of the law interposes on their
behalf and cries out: “I beseech Thee, O Lord, this people have
sinned a great sin; they have made for themselves gods of gold; and now
if Thou forgivest their sin, forgive it; but if not, blot me out of Thy
book which Thou hast written. To whom the Lord answered: If any man
hath sinned before Me, I will blot him out of My book.”2062
David also, when complaining in prophetic
spirit of Judas and the Lord’s persecutors, says: “Let them
be blotted out of the book of the living;” and because they did
not deserve to come to saving penitence because of the guilt of their
great sin, he subjoins: “And let them not be written among the
righteous.”2063
Finally in the
case of Judas himself the meaning of the prophetic curse was clearly
fulfilled, for when his deadly sin was completed, he killed himself by
hanging, that he might not after his name was blotted out be converted
and repent and deserve to be once more written among the righteous in
heaven. We must therefore not doubt that at the time when he was chosen
by Christ and obtained a place in the Apostolate, the name of Judas was
written in the book of the living, and that he heard as well as the
rest the words: “Rejoice not because the devils are subject unto
you, but rejoice because your names are written in
heaven.”2064
But because he
was corrupted by the plague of covetousness and had his name struck out
from that heavenly list, it is suitably said of him and of men like him
by the prophet: “O Lord, let all those that forsake Thee be
confounded. Let them that depart from Thee be written in the earth,
because they have forsaken the Lord, the vein of living waters.”
And elsewhere: “They shall not be in the counsel of My people,
nor shall they be written in the writing of the house of Israel,
neither shall they enter into the land of Israel.”2065
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