Faith, Knowledge, and Repentance

The knowledge of people who think themselves wise — whether in the barbarian sects or among the philosophers of the Greeks — “puffs up,” as the apostle says. But the knowledge that is a demonstration, resting on real understanding, of what has been handed down according to the true philosophy is founded on faith. We may put it this way: demonstration is the line of reasoning that starts from what both sides already grant and produces conviction about what is in dispute. [a]

Now faith is twofold — the faith that belongs to knowledge and the faith that belongs to opinion — so nothing stops us from calling demonstration twofold as well: one kind resting on knowledge, the other on opinion. Knowledge and foreknowledge are called twofold in the same way, the exact kind and the defective kind. And is the demonstration we hold not the only true one, supplied as it is out of the divine Scriptures, the sacred writings, and out of the “wisdom taught by God” that the apostle speaks of? Learning, then, is also obedience to the commands, and that is faith in God. And faith is a power of God, since it is the strength of the truth. For instance, it is said, “If you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will move the mountain.” And again, “Let it be to you according to your faith.” One person is cured, receiving healing by faith; a dead man is raised because someone believed he would be raised.

The demonstration that rests on opinion is a human thing, the product of the rhetorician’s arguments or the syllogisms of dialectic. But the highest demonstration, the one I have been pointing to, produces intelligent faith by bringing the Scriptures forward and opening them up to the souls of people who want to learn; and what comes of that is knowledge. For if what is brought forward to prove the point at issue is granted to be true, being divine and prophetic, then plainly the conclusion drawn from it will be inferred truly as well, and the proper result of the demonstration will be knowledge.

When the memorial of the heavenly and divine food was commanded to be set apart in the golden jar, it was said, “The omer was a tenth of the three measures.” For in ourselves the three measures point to three tests of what is real: sensation, for the objects of sense; speech, for the names and words we say; and mind, for the objects of thought. So the one who truly knows will keep clear of errors in speech, in thought, in sensation and in action. He has heard that “the man who looks in order to lust has already committed adultery”; he turns over in his mind that “blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God”; and he knows this, that “it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a man, but what comes out of the mouth defiles him, for out of the heart come thoughts.”

This, I think, is the true and just measure according to God, the measure by which measurable things are measured: the ten that sums a human being up, which the three measures just mentioned pointed to in brief. There is body and soul; the five senses; speech; the power of reproduction; and the faculty of thought — the spiritual one, or whatever you want to call it. In a word, we must climb up past all the rest and stop at the mind. And so too in the universe we must vault over the nine divisions — the first being the four elements, put in one place because they exchange places with one another on equal terms, and then the seven wandering stars, and the one that does not wander, which is the ninth — and go on to the perfect number that stands above the nine, the tenth division. There we must arrive at the knowledge of God, longing, to put it briefly, for the Maker after seeing the creation. That is why a tenth part both of the ephah and of the sacrifices was presented to God, and why the Passover began with the tenth day: it is the crossing out of all trouble and out of everything the senses can reach.

So the one who truly knows is held firm by faith, while the man who thinks himself wise never touches what belongs to the truth, driven as he is by impulses that are unsteady and always shifting. It is written, then, and reasonably: “Cain went out from the face of God and lived in the land of Naid, opposite Eden.” Naid means upheaval and Eden means delight; and faith and knowledge and peace are that delight, and the man who has disobeyed is thrown out of it. But the man who is wise in his own eyes will not so much as listen to the beginning of the divine commands. He sets up as his own teacher, throws off the reins, and plunges of his own accord into a heaving sea, sinking down from the uncreated knowledge to mortal, created things, holding one opinion at one time and another at another. “Those who have no one at the helm fall like leaves.”

Reason, the part that governs, stays unmoved and steers the soul, and is called its pilot; for it takes something genuinely unchanging to reach the Unchanging. That is how Abraham stood in place before the Lord, and came near, and spoke. And to Moses it is said, “But you, stand there with me.” The followers of Simon want their own manner of life made like the standing figure they worship. So faith and the knowledge of the truth make the soul that chooses them always uniform and always level. Shifting and change and turning away are what suit the man of falsehood, as calm and rest and peace suit the one who truly knows. And just as philosophy has been given a bad name by pride and self-conceit, so knowledge has been given a bad name by a false knowledge going under the same name. The apostle writes about it: “Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you. Turn away from the profane, empty chatter and the contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge. Some who profess it have gone astray from the faith.”

Caught out by these words, the men of the sects throw out the letters to Timothy. Well then: if the Lord is the truth and the wisdom and the power of God — and in truth he is — then it is plain that the one who truly knows is the one who knows him, and who knows his Father through him. His mind is the mind of the man who said, “The lips of the righteous know high things.”

Since faith, like time, is twofold, we will find the virtues in pairs, each pair living with the other. Memory has to do with time past, hope with time to come. We believe that what is past did happen, and that what is future will happen. And on the other side we love — persuaded by faith that the past was as it was, and by hope expecting what is to come. Love goes with the one who truly knows in everything, since he knows one God. “And look: everything he had made was very good.” He both knows it and admires it. [s]

Reverence for God adds length of life, and the fear of the Lord adds days. So, just as days are a portion of a life as it moves forward, fear is the beginning of love, and by growing it becomes faith, and then love. But I do not fear the father the way I fear and hate a wild animal — fear is twofold — since the father is one I fear and love at the same time. And again, when I am afraid of being punished, I love myself in taking that fear on; the man who is afraid of offending his father loves himself. Blessed, then, is the man who is found in possession of faith, since he is made up of love and fear. Faith is a power that works toward salvation and a strength that works toward eternal life. And prophecy is foreknowledge, while knowledge is the understanding of prophecy — the knowledge of the things known beforehand by the Lord, who reveals all things.

So the knowledge of the things that have been foretold shows a threefold result: either the thing happened long ago, or it exists now, or it is still to come. The two ends — what has been carried out and what is hoped for — fall under faith, and the action going on now supplies persuasive proof that confirms both ends. For if prophecy is one thing, and one part of it is being carried out while another has been fulfilled, then the truth of it is confirmed both for what is hoped for and for what is past. It was first present; then it became past to us. So belief about what is past is the grasp of a past event, and hope, which is future, is the grasp of a future event.

Not only the Platonists but the Stoics say that assent lies in our own power. Every opinion and judgment and supposition and piece of knowledge — the things we live by, and by which we keep up our constant dealings with the human race — is an assent, and an assent is nothing other than faith. And since unbelief is a falling away from faith, it shows that both assent and faith have power in them; you cannot call a thing a deprivation where there was nothing there to begin with. And if you look at the truth of it, you will find that a man is naturally led astray into giving his assent to what is false, though he has in him what he needs for believing the truth. As the Shepherd says: “The virtue that holds the church in her grasp is Faith, and by her God’s chosen ones are saved; and the one that plays the man is Self-control. Following these come Simplicity, Knowledge, Innocence, Dignity and Love.” And all of these are the daughters of Faith. And again: “Faith leads the way, fear builds up, and love brings to completion.” So he says the Lord is to be feared, and that for building up, but not the devil, which would be for destruction. And again, the works of the Lord — that is, his commands — are to be loved and done, while the works of the devil are to be dreaded and left undone. For the fear of God trains a man and restores him to love, whereas fear of the works of the devil has hatred living alongside it. The same writer says that repentance is great understanding: “For the man who repents of what he did no longer does or says as he did; and by putting himself to torment over his sins he does his soul good. Forgiveness of sins, then, is one thing and repentance another; but both show what lies in our own power.”

The man who has received the forgiveness of sins ought to sin no more. For besides the first and only repentance from sins — that is, from the sins of the earlier, Gentile life, the life I mean that was lived in ignorance — there is set at once before those who have been called a repentance that cleanses the soul’s seat of its offenses, so that faith may be set on a firm footing. And the Lord, who knows the heart and knows the future beforehand, saw from the first, from the very beginning, both how unsteady a man is and how crafty and subtle the devil is: how, envying man his forgiveness of sins, the devil would set certain occasions of sin in front of God’s servants, working mischief with great skill so that they would fall along with him. So, being very merciful, he has granted a second repentance to those who fall into some offense even while they are in the faith, so that if anyone is tempted after his calling and is overpowered by force and fraud, he may still receive a repentance he will never have to regret. [y]

“For if we sin deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there is no sacrifice for sins left any longer, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment and a fury of fire that is going to devour those who stand against him.”

But repenting again and again, one repentance after another, differs in nothing from the case of people who have never believed at all — except in this, that they are aware they are sinning. And I do not know which of the two is worse: the man who sins knowingly, or the man who has repented of his sins and then breaks the law again. When it is laid out, sin shows on both sides — the sin that is condemned in the very doing of it by the man doing the wrong, and the sin of the man who sees beforehand what he is about to do and yet puts his hand to it as a piece of wickedness. The man who indulges himself in anger or in pleasure indulges himself knowing what he is doing; and the man who repents of what he indulged in and then rushes back into the pleasure is next door to the man who sinned deliberately in the first place. Anyone who does again the thing he has repented of, while condemning what he is doing, does it willingly.

So the man who has come over to faith out of the Gentiles and out of that old life has obtained forgiveness of sins once. But the man who has sinned after that ought to be afraid, even when he obtains pardon on repenting, since he is no longer being washed for the forgiveness of sins. Not only the idols he once held to be gods but the works of his former life as well must be given up by the man who has been “born again — not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh,” but in the Spirit; and that consists in repenting by not giving in to the same fault again. Repenting often, and being ready to swing back and forth for want of training, is simply sinning again. Asking forgiveness over and over for the things we keep going wrong in is the look of repentance, not repentance itself.

“But the righteousness of the blameless cuts straight paths,” says the Scripture. And again, “The righteousness of the innocent will make his road straight.” And more: “As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him.” David writes, “Those who sow in tears will reap in joy” — meaning those who confess in repentance. “For blessed are all who fear the Lord.” You can see the blessing that answers to it in the Gospel. “Do not be afraid,” it says, “when a man grows rich and the glory of his house increases; because when he dies he will leave it all behind, and his glory will not go down after him.” “But I, in your mercy, will come into your house. I will worship toward your holy temple, in fear of you. Lord, lead me in your righteousness.”

An impulse, then, is a movement of the mind toward something or away from it. A passion is an impulse run to excess, overshooting the measures set by reason — an impulse with the bridle off, disobedient to reason. Passions, then, are a disturbance of the soul against nature, in disobedience to reason. But revolt and distraction and disobedience lie in our own power, just as obedience lies in our power, and that is why voluntary actions come under judgment. If a man examines the passions one by one, he will find them to be irrational impulses.

What is involuntary is not a matter for judgment. And the involuntary is twofold: what is done in ignorance, and what is done under compulsion. How, after all, will you pass judgment on people who are said to sin involuntarily? A man may not know himself — like Cleomenes and Athamas, who were out of their minds. Or he may not know the thing he is doing — like Aeschylus, who gave away the mysteries on stage and, when he was tried before the Areopagus, was acquitted by showing that he had never been initiated. Or he may not know what is being done — like the man who let his opponent go and killed a slave of his own household instead of his enemy. Or he may not know the thing it is done with — like the man who was practicing with spears that had buttons fitted on the tips, and killed someone because the spear threw its button off. Or he may not know the manner — like the man who killed his opponent in the stadium, since he was competing not for the man’s death but for the win. Or he may not know the reason a thing is done — like the doctor who gave a wholesome antidote and killed with it, since he gave it not for that but to save. [ae]

The law of that time punished the man who had killed involuntarily — as it punished the man who had an involuntary discharge of seed — but not on the same footing as the man who did it deliberately. And yet he too will be punished as for a deliberate act, if a man carries the condition over to the truth of the matter. For in fact the man who cannot hold in the seed-bearing word deserves punishment: this is an irrational passion of the soul, close kin to idle chatter. “The faithful man chooses to keep things hidden in his spirit.”

The things that depend on choice, then, are what come under judgment. “For the Lord searches hearts and kidneys.” And “the man who looks in order to lust” is judged. That is why it is said, “You shall not lust.” And, “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.” For God pays attention to the thought itself. Lot’s wife had done no more than turn willingly toward the wickedness of the world, and he left her a thing without sensation, making her a pillar of salt and fixing her there so that she went no further — not as a stupid and useless statue, but so that she might season and salt the man who has the power of spiritual perception.