Catching What Is Thrown

“Lord, who has believed our report?” Isaiah says. And the apostle says, “Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of God.” “How then are they to call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him whom they have not heard? And how are they to hear without someone to preach? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written: How beautiful are the feet of those who bring the good news of good things.” You see how he traces faith, which comes by hearing, and the preaching of the apostles, up to the word of the Lord and to the Son of God. We have not yet come to see that the word of the Lord is itself the proof. [a]

Playing ball does not depend only on one man throwing the ball well. It also takes another to catch it skillfully, or the game cannot be played out by the rules of ball. In the same way, teaching is dependable when faith on the part of the hearers — a kind of natural knack, so to speak — does its share of the learning. The earth cooperates in the same way, by its power to bring things forth, being fit ground for the sowing of seed. There is no good in the very best instruction without the learner using his own power to receive, and no good even in prophecy where the hearers are unwilling to be taught. Dry twigs are ready to take the power of fire, and so they catch light very easily. The famous stone draws steel to itself by kinship, as the teardrop of amber drags twigs toward it and the lump sets chaff moving. And the things drawn obey, moved by a fine breath — not as the cause, but as a cause working alongside.

There are two kinds of vice: the kind that works by cunning and stealth, and the kind that leads and drives by force. The divine Word cries out, calling all men together, knowing perfectly well which of them will not obey. Still, since obeying or not obeying lies in our own power — so long as we cannot plead ignorance as our excuse — he makes a just call, and asks of each according to his strength. Some are able as well as willing, having come this far by practice and by being made clean. Others cannot do it yet, but the will is already there. Willing is the soul’s own act; doing does not happen without the body. And actions are not weighed by their outcome alone. They are judged also by the free choice in each man: whether he chose readily, whether he was sorry for his sins, whether he thought over his failures and changed his mind. To repent, in the make-up of the word itself, is to know afterward. Repentance is knowledge come late, and innocence at the start is knowledge. Repentance, then, is an effect of faith. Unless a man believes that the thing he was given over to is sin, he will not leave it; and unless he believes that punishment hangs over the man who breaks the law, and that salvation belongs to the man who lives by the commands, he will not change.

Hope, too, rests on faith. The followers of Basilides define faith as the soul’s assent to any of those things that do not act on the senses, because they are not present. And hope is the expectation of coming to possess something good. So expectation must have faith underneath it. Now the man who is faithful is the one who keeps unbroken what has been put in his hands to keep; and what has been put in our hands is the sayings about God and the divine words — the commands, together with the carrying out of what they order. This is the faithful servant the Lord praises. And when it is said, “God is faithful,” what is meant is that he deserves to be believed when he states anything. It is his Word that states it, and God himself is faithful. How then, if believing were nothing but supposing, can the philosophers think that what comes out of themselves is certain? Assent freely given to a proof already made is not a supposition; it is assent to something certain. And who is stronger than God? Unbelief is the feeble negative supposition of a man set against him, as incredulity is a state of mind that takes faith in only with difficulty. Faith is a supposition freely made, an anticipation of what the mind grasps before argument. Expectation is an opinion about the future; expectation about anything else is opinion about what is uncertain. Confidence is a firm judgment about a thing. That is why we believe the one in whom we have confidence, and so come to divine glory and salvation. And we trust him — God alone, whom we know — that what he has nobly promised us, and for that end kindly made and given us, will not fail. Kindness means wishing good things to another for that other’s sake. God needs nothing, and the good he does and the generosity that come from the Lord end in us. It is divine goodwill, and goodwill that shows itself in doing good.

If it was counted to Abraham as righteousness that he believed, and if we are Abraham’s seed, then we too must believe through hearing. For we are the Israelites who are convinced not by signs but by hearing. That is why it says, “Rejoice, barren woman who does not bear; break out and shout, you who do not go into labor: the children of the deserted woman are more than the children of the woman who has a husband.” And: “You have lived for the fence of the people; your children were blessed in the tents of their fathers.” If prophecy promises the same dwellings to us and to the patriarchs, then the God of the two covenants is shown to be one. It is added still more plainly: “You have inherited the covenant of Israel.” That is spoken to those called from among the nations — once barren, having no husband, who is the Word, and no bridegroom, and so deserted.

“Now the righteous will live by faith” — the faith that goes with the covenant and the commands. These two are two in name and in time, given as the plan required, but one in power; the old and the new alike are dispensed through the Son by one God. So the apostle says in his letter to the Romans, “For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith,” teaching one salvation, which from prophecy through to the good news is brought to completion by one and the same Lord. “This charge,” he says, “I entrust to you, my son Timothy, in keeping with the prophecies once made about you, so that by them you may fight the good fight, holding on to faith and a good conscience — which some have thrust away and made shipwreck of their faith.” They did it by fouling with unbelief the conscience that comes from God.

So there is no longer any reason to run faith down offhand, as something simple and common that anybody has. If it were only a human habit, as the Greeks supposed, it would have died out by now. But if it grows, and there is nowhere it is not found, then I say that faith is something divine — whether it is founded in love, or in fear, as those who disparage it claim. It is not torn apart by any other worldly friendship, and it is not dissolved by the presence of fear. For love, out of its friendly alliance with faith, makes men believers; and faith, which is the foundation of love, brings in the doing of good in its turn. Fear as well — fear, the attendant the law sends along — is believed to be fear by the very men who believe in it. If its existence is shown by its working, it is still believed in when it is only about to act and is threatening, and when it is not acting but is present; and being believed to exist, it does not itself produce faith. It is faith that tests it and proves it trustworthy. Such a change, then, from unbelief to faith, and to trust along with hope and fear, is divine. And we find that faith is in truth the first movement toward salvation. After it come fear, hope and repentance, which advance in company with self-control and endurance and lead us on to love and knowledge.

So the Apostle Barnabas is right to say: “Out of the portion I received I have taken pains to send you a little at a time, so that along with your faith you may have knowledge complete. Fear and endurance are the helpers of your faith; patience and self-control are our allies. While these remain in purity, in what concerns the Lord, wisdom, understanding, learning and knowledge rejoice along with them.” Since the virtues just named are the elements of knowledge, it follows that faith is more elementary still. It is as necessary to the knower as breathing is to a man living in this world. And as it is not possible to live without the four elements, so knowledge cannot be reached without faith. Faith is the prop that holds truth up.

Those who denounce fear are attacking the law; and if the law, then plainly God too, who gave the law. For three things necessarily come into the matter before us: the ruler, his rule, and the ruled. If, then, on their own supposition, they do away with the law, then it follows of necessity that every man who is led by lust and courts pleasure will neglect what is right and despise what is divine, and will indulge without fear in irreverence and injustice together, having broken clean away from the truth. “Yes,” they say, “fear is an irrational shrinking away, a disturbance of the mind.” What are you saying? How can that definition stand any longer, when the command is given me by the Word? The command forbids, and it holds fear over the head of those who accept correction in that way, for their training. [q]

Fear, then, is not irrational; it is rational. How could it be otherwise, when it urges: you shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony? But if they want to quarrel over names, let the philosophers call the fear the law teaches by their own term, caution — an avoidance in line with reason. Critolaus of Phaselis aptly called such men fighters about words. So the command has already shown itself fair and lovely in the highest degree, once it is thought of under a change of name. Caution, then, is shown to be reasonable, since it is the avoidance of what does harm; and out of it comes repentance for sins already committed. “For the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; good understanding belongs to all who practice it.” He calls wisdom a practice — the fear of the Lord paving the way for wisdom. But if the law produces fear, then the knowledge of the law is the beginning of wisdom, and a man is not wise without law. So those who reject the law are unwise, and as a result are counted godless. And instruction is the beginning of wisdom: “but the ungodly despise wisdom and instruction,” the Scripture says.

Let us see what terrors the law announces. If they are the things that stand midway between virtue and vice — poverty, disease, obscurity, low birth and the like — then these are what the civil laws hold out, and they are praised for doing so. That opinion suits the men of the Peripatetic school, who bring in three kinds of good things and think their opposites are evil. But the law given to us tells us to shun what is really bad: adultery, uncleanness, the sexual use of boys, ignorance, wickedness, disease of the soul, death — not the death that cuts the soul off from the body, but the death that cuts the soul off from the truth. These are the vices in reality, and the works that come out of them are dreadful and terrible. “Not for nothing,” the divine oracles say, “are the nets spread for birds; for men who take part in bloodshed are storing up evils for themselves.”

How, then, can the law still be called not good by certain sects who appeal so loudly to the apostle when he says, “Through the law comes the knowledge of sin”? To them we answer: the law did not cause sin; it showed it. By ordering what is to be done, it censured what ought not to be done. It belongs to a good man to teach what is healthy and to point out what is harmful, to advise doing the one and to command shunning the other. The apostle, whom these people do not understand, said that by the law the knowledge of sin was made plain — not that sin got its existence from the law. And how can the law not be good, when it trains us, when it is given as the attendant who walks us to Christ, so that a man corrected by fear, by way of discipline, may reach the perfection that is through Christ? It says: “I do not want the death of the sinner so much as his repentance.” And the command works repentance, since it warns a man off what ought not to be done and enjoins good deeds. By ignorance, I take it, he means death.

“And the man who is near the Lord is full of stripes.” Plainly, the man who draws near to knowledge gets the benefit of dangers, fears, troubles and afflictions, because of his longing for the truth. “For the son who is instructed will be wise, and an intelligent son is saved from the burning heat. And an intelligent son will receive the commands.”

And Barnabas the apostle, after saying, “Woe to those who are wise in their own conceit, clever in their own eyes,” added: “Let us become spiritual, a perfect temple to God. As far as it lies in us, let us practice the fear of God, and struggle to keep his commands, so that we may rejoice in his judgments.” And that is why “the fear of God” is divinely said to be the beginning of wisdom.