That faith
itself must be given us by the Lord.
But so thoroughly did the
Apostles realize that everything which concerns salvation was given them by the
Lord, that they even asked that faith itself should be granted from the Lord,
saying: “Add to us faith” as they did not imagine that it could be gained by
free will, but believed that it would be bestowed by the free gift of God.
Lastly the Author of man’s salvation teaches us how feeble and weak and
insufficient our faith would be unless it were strengthened by the aid of the
Lord, when He says to Peter “Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath desired to have
you that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed to my Father that thy
faith fail not.” And another finding that this was happening in his own case,
and seeing that his faith was being driven by the waves of unbelief on the
rocks which would cause a fearful shipwreck, asks of the same Lord an aid to
his faith, saying “Lord, help mine unbelief.” So thoroughly then did those
Apostles and men in the gospel realize that everything which is good is brought
to perfection by the aid of the Lord, and not imagine that they could preserve
their faith unharmed by their own strength or free will that they prayed that
it might be helped or granted to them by the Lord. And if in Peter’s case there
was need of the Lord’s help that it might not fail, who will be so presumptuous
and blind as to fancy that he has no need of daily assistance from the Lord in
order to preserve it? Especially as the Lord Himself has made this clear in the
gospel, saying: “As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in
the vine, so no more can ye, except ye abide in me.” And again: “for without me
ye can do nothing.” How foolish and wicked then it is to attribute any good
action to our own diligence and not to God’s grace and assistance, is clearly
shown by the Lord’s saying, which lays down that no one can show forth the
fruits of the Spirit without His inspiration and co-operation. For “every good
gift and every perfect boon is from above, coming down from the Father of
lights.” And Zechariah too says, “For whatever is good is His, and what is
excellent is from Him.” And so the blessed Apostle consistently says: “What
hast thou which thou didst not receive? But if thou didst receive it, why
boastest thou as if thou hadst not received it?” (John Cassian, “III.
Conference of Abbot Paphnutius: On the Three Sorts of Renunciations,” chapter 16
[NPNF2 11:327-28])
Chapter
XXI.
An objection on the power of
free will.
Germanus: This passage very
clearly shows the freedom of the will, where it is said “If My people would
have hearkened unto Me,” and elsewhere “But My people would not hear My voice.”
For when He says “If they would have heard” He shows that the decision to yield
or not to yield lay in their own power. How then is it true that our salvation
does not depend upon ourselves, if God Himself has given us the power either to
hearken or not to hearken?
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.” 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.” 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. (John Cassian, “III. Conference of
Abbot Paphnutius: On the Three Sorts of Renunciations,” chapters 21-22, NPNF2
11:329-30)
Chapter
V.
An objection, how God Himself
can be said to create evil.
Germanus: We often read in holy
Scripture that God has created evil or brought it upon men, as is this passage:
“There is none beside Me. I am the Lord, and there is none else: I form the
light and create darkness, I make peace, and create evil.” And again: “Shall
there be evil in a city which the Lord hath not done?”
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?” 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.” And again: “For Thou, Lord, are
gracious and merciful, patient and very merciful and ready to repent of the
evil,” 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;” and the Lord Himself says “Lo, I will
bring evils upon them,” 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.” 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. (John
Cassian, “VI. Conference of Abbot Theodore: On the Death of the Saints,”
chapters 5-6 [NPNF2 11:354])
How spirit cannot be
penetrated by spirit, and how God alone is incorporeal.
For even if spirit is mingled
with this crass and solid matter; viz., flesh (as very easily happens), should
we therefore believe that it can be united to the soul, which is in like manner
spirit, in such a way as to make it also receptive in the same way of its own
nature: a thing which is possible to the Trinity alone, which is so capable of
pervading every intellectual nature, that it cannot only embrace and surround
it but even insert itself into it and, incorporeal though it is, be infused
into a body? For though we maintain that some spiritual natures exist, such as
angels, archangels and the other powers, and indeed our own souls and the thin
air, yet we ought certainly not to consider them incorporeal. For they have in
their own fashion a body in which they exist, though it is much finer than our
bodies are, in accordance with the Apostle’s words when he says: “And there are
bodies celestial, and bodies terrestrial:” and again: “It is sown a natural
body, it is raised a spiritual body;” from which it is clearly gathered that
there is nothing incorporeal but God alone, and therefore it is only by Him
that all spiritual and intellectual substances can be pervaded, because He
alone is whole and everywhere and in all things, in such a way as to behold and
see the thoughts of men and their inner movements and all the recesses of the
soul; since it was of Him alone that the blessed Apostle spoke when he said:
“For the word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged
sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit and of the joints
and marrow; and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart; and
there is no creature invisible in His sight, but all things are naked and open
to His eyes.” And the blessed David says: “Who fashioneth their hearts one by
one;” and again: “For He knoweth the secrets of the heart;” and Job too: “Thou
who alone knowest the hearts of men.” (John Cassian, “VII. First Conference of
Abbot Serenus: On Inconstancy of Mind, and Spiritual Wickedness,” chapter 13 [NPNF2
11:366-67])
Chapter
III.
Of the offering of tithes and
firstfruits.
For indeed by the Lord’s command
tithes were consecrated to the service of the Levites, but oblations and
firstfruits for the priests. But this was the law of the firstfruits; viz.,
that the fiftieth part of fruits or animals should be given for the service of
the temple and the priests: and this proportion some who were faithlessly
indifferent diminished, while those who were very religious increased it, so
that the one gave only the sixtieth part, and the other gave the fortieth part
of their fruits. For the righteous, for whom the law is not enacted, are thus
shown to be not under the law, as they try not only to fulfil but even to exceed
the righteousness of the law, and their devotion is greater than the legal
requirement, as it goes beyond the observance of precepts and adds to what is
due of its own free will.
Chapter
IV.
How Abraham, David, and other
saints went beyond the requirement of the law.
For so we read that Abraham went
beyond the requirement of the law which was afterwards to be given, when after
his victory over the four kings, he would not touch any of the spoils of Sodom,
which were fairly due to him as the conqueror, and which indeed the king
himself, whose spoils he had rescued, offered him; and with an oath by the
Divine name he exclaimed: “I lift up my hand to the Lord Most High, who made
heaven and earth, that I will not take from a thread to a shoe’s latchet of all
that is thine.” So we know that David went beyond the requirement of the law,
as, though Moses commanded that vengeance should be taken on enemies, he not
only did not do this, but actually embraced his persecutors with love, and
piously entreated the Lord for them, and wept bitterly and avenged them when
they were slain. So we are sure that Elijah and Jeremiah were not under the
law, as though they might without blame have taken advantage of lawful
matrimony, yet they preferred to remain virgins. So we read that Elisha and
others of the same mode of life went beyond the commands of Moses, as of them
the Apostle speaks as follows: “They went about in sheepskins and in goatskins,
they were oppressed, afflicted, in want, of whom the world was not worthy, they
wandered about in deserts and in mountains, and in caves and in dens of the
earth.” What shall I say of the sons of Jonadab the son of Rechab, of whom we
are told that, when at the Lord’s bidding the prophet Jeremiah offered them
wine, they replied: “We drink no wine: for Jonadab the son of Rechab, our
father, commanded us, saying: Ye shall drink no wine, ye and your sons forever:
and ye shall build no house, nor sow any seed, nor plant vineyards nor possess
them: but ye shall dwell in tents all your days”? Wherefore also they were
permitted to hear from the same prophet these words: “Thus saith the Lord God
of hosts, the God of Israel: there shall not fail a man from the stock of
Jonadab the son of Rechab to stand in My sight all the days;” as all of them
were not satisfied with merely offering tithes of their possessions, but
actually refused property, and offered the rather to God themselves and their
souls, for which no redemption can be made by man, as the Lord testifies in the
gospel: “For what shall a man give in exchange for his own soul?”
Chapter
V.
How those who live under the
grace of the Gospel ought to go beyond the requirement of the law.
Wherefore we ought to know that
we from whom the requirements of the law are no longer exacted, but in whose
ears the word of the gospel daily sounds: “If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell
all that thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in
heaven, and come follow Me,” when we offer to God tithes of our substance, are
still in a way ground down beneath the burden of the law, and not able to rise
to those heights of the gospel, those who conform to which are recompensed not
only by blessings in this present life, but also by future rewards. For the law
promises to those who obey it no rewards of the kingdom of heaven, but only
solaces in this life, saying: “The man that doeth these things shall live in
them.” But the Lord says to His disciples: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for
theirs is the kingdom of heaven;” and: “Everyone that leaveth house or brothers
or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or field for My name’s sake,
shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit eternal life.” And this with
good reason. For it is not so praiseworthy for us to abstain from forbidden as
from lawful things, and not to use these last out of reverence for Him, Who has
permitted us to use them because of our weakness. And so if even those who,
faithfully offering tithes of their fruits, are obedient to the more ancient
precepts of the Lord, cannot yet climb the heights of the gospel, you can see
very clearly how far short of it those fall who do not even do this. For how
can those men be partakers of the grace of the gospel who disregard the
fulfilment even of the lighter commands of the law, to the easy character of
which the weighty words of the giver of the law bear testimony, as a curse is
actually invoked on those who do not fulfil them; for it says: “Cursed is
everyone that does not continue in all things that are written in the book of
the law to do them.” But here on account of the superiority and excellence of
the commandments it is said: “He that can receive it, let him receive it.”
There the forcible compulsion of the lawgiver shows the easy character of the
precepts; for he says: “I call heaven and earth to record against you this day,
that if ye do not keep the commandments of the Lord your God ye shall perish
from off the face of the earth.” Here the grandeur of sublime commands is shown
by the very fact that He does not order, but exhorts, saying: “if thou wilt be
perfect go” and do this or that. There Moses lays a burden that cannot be
refused on those who are unwilling: here Paul meets with counsels those who are
willing and eager for perfection. For that was not to be enjoined as a general
charge, nor to be required, if I may so say, as a regular rule from all, which
could not be secured by all, owing to its wonderful and lofty nature; but by
counsels all are rather stimulated to grace, that those who are great may
deservedly be crowned by the perfection of their virtues, while those who are
small, and not able to come up to “the measure of the stature of the fulness of
Christ,” although they seem to be lost to sight and hidden as it were by the
brightness of larger stars, may yet be free from the darkness of the curses
which are in the law, and not adjudged to suffer present evils or visited with
eternal punishment. Christ therefore does not constrain anyone, by the
compulsion of a command, to those lofty heights of goodness, but stimulates
them by the power of free will, and urges them on by wise counsels and the
desire of perfection. For where there is a command, there is duty, and
consequently punishment. But those who keep those things to which they are
driven by the severity of the law established escape the punishment with which
they were threatened, instead of obtaining rewards and a recompense. (John Cassian,
“XXI. The First Conference of Abbot Theonas: On the Relaxation During the Fifty
Days,” chapters 3-5 [NPNF2 11:503-5])
He shows that those who
patronize this false teaching acknowledge two Christs.
But still, I had begun to say,
that as you certainly make out two Christs this very matter must be illustrated
and made clear. Tell me, I pray you, you who sever Christ from the Son of God,
how can you confess in the Creed that Christ was begotten of God? For you say:
“I believe in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ His Son.” Here then you have
Jesus Christ the Son of God: but you say that it was not the same Son of God
who was born of Mary. Therefore there is one Christ of God, and another of
Mary. In your view then there are two Christs. For, though in the Creed you do
not deny Christ, you say that the Christ of Mary is another than the one whom
you confess in the Creed. But perhaps you say that Christ was not begotten of
God: how then do you say in the Creed: “I believe in Jesus Christ the Son of
God?” You must then either deny the Creed or confess that Christ is the Son of
God. But if you confess in the Creed that Christ is the Son of God, you must
also confess that the same Christ, the Son of God, is of Mary. Or if you make
out another Christ of Mary, you certainly make the blasphemous assertion that
there are two Christs. (John Cassian, "The Seven Books of John Cassian On
the Incarnation of the Lord, Against Nestorius," Book 6, chapter 15 [NPNF2
11:599])
