Those Who Fear Scourges and Those Who Scorn Them

Admonition 14. Those who fear scourges, and for that reason live innocently, are to be admonished differently from those who have grown so hard in wickedness that not even scourges correct them. Those who fear scourges are to be told by no means to desire temporal goods as though they were of great account, since bad men also have them; and by no means to shun present evils as unbearable, since they know well that good men too are very often touched by them. They are to be admonished that, if they wish to be truly free from evils, they should dread eternal punishments. Yet they should not remain in this fear of punishments, but grow, nursed by love, into the grace of love. For it is written, “Perfect love casts out fear.” And again it is written, “You have not received the spirit of slavery again in fear, but the spirit of adoption as sons, by which we cry, Abba, Father.” That is why the same teacher says again, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” [b]

If, then, it is still the fear of punishment that holds a person back from doing evil, truly no freedom of spirit possesses the soul of the one who fears in this way. For if he were not afraid of the punishment, he would no doubt commit the sin. So the mind that is bound by the slavery of fear does not know the grace of freedom. For good should be loved for its own sake, not pursued under the compulsion of penalties. Whoever does good because he is afraid of the evil of torments wishes that what he fears did not exist, so that he could boldly commit what is unlawful. From this it is clearer than daylight that innocence is lost in this way before God, in whose eyes evil desire is sin.

But those, on the other hand, whom not even scourges hold back from iniquities are to be struck with sharper rebuke, in proportion as they have grown hard with greater insensibility. For in general they are to be disdained without disdain, and despaired of without despair: that is, so that the despair we show may strike them with dread, and the admonition that follows may bring them back to hope. The divine judgments, then, should be set before them sternly, so that by considering eternal retribution they may be called back to a knowledge of themselves. Let them hear that what is written is fulfilled in them: “If you should crush a fool in a mortar, as with a pestle pounding barley, his foolishness would not be taken away from him.” Against such people the prophet complains to the Lord, saying, “You have bruised them, and they have refused to receive discipline.” That is why the Lord says, “I have slain and destroyed this people, and yet they have not returned from their ways.” That is why he says again, “The people has not returned to him who strikes them.” [f]

That is why the prophet complains in the voice of those who do the scourging, saying, “We have tended Babylon, and she is not healed.” For Babylon is tended and yet not restored to health when the mind, confused in evil-doing, hears the words of rebuke, feels the scourges of rebuke, and still scorns to return to the straight paths of salvation. That is why the Lord reproaches the children of Israel, who were captives and yet not turned from their iniquity, saying, “The house of Israel has become dross to me: all of them are brass, and tin, and iron, and lead, in the midst of the furnace.” As if to say plainly: “I wanted to purify them by the fire of tribulation, and I sought that they should become silver or gold; but in the furnace they have turned before me into brass, tin, iron and lead, because even in tribulation they have broken out, not into virtue, but into vices.”

For brass, when it is struck, gives back a sound more than all the other metals. So whoever breaks out into the sound of grumbling when he is subjected to blows is turned into brass in the midst of the furnace. Tin, when it is worked with skill, gives a false look of silver. So whoever is not free from the vice of pretense in the midst of tribulation becomes tin in the furnace. Again, whoever plots against his neighbor’s life uses iron. So the one who in tribulation does not lose the malice that would do harm is iron in the furnace. Lead, too, is the heaviest of metals. So the one who, even when placed in the midst of tribulation, is not lifted above earthly desires is found as lead in the furnace. That is why it is written again, “She has wearied herself with much labor, and her great rust did not go out of her, not even by fire.” For he brings the fire of tribulation on us so that he may purge us of the rust of vices; but we do not lose our rust even by fire when even amid scourges we are not without vice. That is why the prophet says again, “The refiner has melted in vain; their wickednesses are not consumed.”

It must be known, however, that sometimes, when they remain uncorrected amid the hardness of scourges, they are to be soothed by gentle admonition. For those who are not corrected by torments are sometimes held back from unrighteous deeds by gentle coaxing. Sick people too, whom a strong dose of medicine has failed to cure, have often been restored to their former health by lukewarm water. Some sores that cannot be cured by cutting are healed by warm compresses of oil. And hard adamant does not yield at all to cutting with steel, yet it is softened by the mild blood of goats. [n]