Not Beginning Good Things, and Not Finishing Them

Admonition 35. Those who do not even begin good things are to be admonished differently from those who never complete the good things they have begun. For those who do not even begin good things, the first need is not to build up what they may love to their good, but to tear down what they are wrongly busy with. For they will not follow the untried things they hear about unless they first come to feel how harmful the things they have tried are; since no one wants to be lifted up who does not even know that he has fallen, and no one who does not feel the pain of a wound looks for a healing remedy. First, then, they must be shown how empty the things they love are, and only then be carefully taught how profitable the things they neglect are. Let them first see that what they love is to be shunned, and afterward let them perceive without difficulty that what they shun is to be loved. For they accept the things they have not tried more readily if they recognize as true whatever they hear said about the things they have tried. So they learn to seek the true good with full desire when they have learned with certain judgment how vainly they held to what was false. Let them be told, then, both that present good things will soon pass away from their enjoyment, and that the account to be given of them will still endure without passing away, for vengeance; since what pleases them is taken from them now against their will, and what pains them is stored up for them, also against their will, for punishment. So may they be filled with wholesome alarm by the very things in which they take harmful delight; so that when the stricken soul, seeing the deep ruin of its fall, realizes it has come to a precipice, it may retrace its steps, and, fearing what it had loved, may learn to value highly what it once despised.

For that is why it is said to Jeremiah when he was sent to preach, “See, I have set you this day over the nations and over the kingdoms, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to scatter, and to build, and to plant.” For unless he first destroyed wrong things, he could not profitably build right ones; unless he plucked out of his hearers’ hearts the thorns of empty love, he would surely plant the words of holy preaching for nothing. That is why Peter first throws down so that he may build up afterward, when he did not at all admonish the Jews about what they were now to do, but rebuked them for what they had done, saying, “Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved by God among you by mighty works and wonders and signs, which God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know; him, delivered up by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God, you have crucified and killed by the hands of wicked men; whom God has raised up, having loosed the pains of hell.” He did this, that is, so that, thrown down by recognizing their cruelty, they might hear the building up of holy preaching all the more profitably as they anxiously sought it. That is why they at once replied, “What then shall we do, men and brothers?” And it is said to them at once, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you.” They would surely have despised these words of building up if they had not first, to their good, become aware of the ruin of their being thrown down. That is why Saul, when the light from heaven shone on him, did not hear at once what he was to do rightly, but what he had done wrong. For when, fallen to the ground, he asked, “Who are you, Lord?” the answer came at once, “I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting.” And when he replied at once, “Lord, what do you want me to do?” it was added immediately, “Get up, and go into the city, and there you will be told what you must do.” See, the Lord, speaking from heaven, rebuked the deeds of his persecutor, and yet did not at once show him what he had to do. See, the whole structure of his pride had already been thrown down, and then, humble after his fall, he sought to be built up; and when his pride was thrown down, the words of building up were still held back, so that the cruel persecutor might lie overthrown for a long time, and rise afterward all the more firmly built in good as he had fallen utterly from his former error. So those who have not yet begun to do any good are first to be overthrown from the stiffness of their wickedness by the hand of correction, so that afterward they may be lifted up to the state of doing well. For this reason too we cut down the tall timber of the forest, so that we may raise it up in the roof of a building; but it is not put into the structure at once, so that its faulty greenness may first be dried out; for the more its moisture is drawn out while it lies low, the more solidly it is raised to the highest places. [a]

But on the other hand, those who never complete the good things they have begun are to be admonished to consider with careful circumspection how, when they do not carry out their purposes, they tear up along with them even what had been begun. For if what is seen to need doing does not advance through steady effort, even what had been done well slips back. For the human soul in this world is like a ship going up against the current of a river: it is never allowed to stay in one place, since it will drift back to the lowest reaches unless it strives toward the highest. If, then, the strong hand of the worker does not carry the good things begun through to completion, the very slackness in working fights against what has been done. For that is why it is said through Solomon, “He who is feeble and slack in his work is brother to him who wastes his works.” For in truth whoever does not vigorously carry out the good things he has begun imitates, in the slackness of his negligence, the hand of the destroyer. That is why the angel says to the church of Sardis, “Be watchful, and strengthen the things that remain, which are ready to die; for I do not find your works complete before my God.” So, because the works had not been found complete before his God, he foretold that those that remained, even those already done, were about to die. For if what is dead in us is not kindled into life, what is kept as though still alive is put out too. They are to be admonished that it might have been more bearable for them not to have taken hold of the right way at all than, having taken hold of it, to turn their backs on it. For unless they looked back, they would not grow weak with any sluggishness toward the purpose they had taken up. Let them hear, then, what is written: “It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than, after knowing it, to turn back.” Let them hear what is written: “I wish you were cold or hot; but because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will begin to spit you out of my mouth.” For he is hot who both takes up good purposes and completes them; but he is cold who does not even begin any to complete. And as the passage from cold to heat is made through lukewarmness, so through lukewarmness there is a return from heat to cold. Whoever, then, has lost the cold of unbelief so as to live, but never goes beyond lukewarmness so as to go on to burn, surely, despairing of heat while he lingers in deadly lukewarmness, is on the way to becoming cold. But as before lukewarmness there is hope in cold, so after cold there is despair in lukewarmness. For he who is still in his sins does not lose his trust in conversion; but he who has become lukewarm after conversion has taken away the hope there might have been for the sinner. It is required, then, that everyone be either hot or cold, so that he is not spit out for being lukewarm: that is, that either, not yet converted, he still offer hope of his conversion, or, already converted, he be fervent in virtues; so that he is not spit out as lukewarm, because he slides back in sluggishness from the heat he had purposed to a deadly cold. [d]