-   THE  CITY  OF  GOD   -   BY  SAINT  AUGUSTINE  OF  HIPPO  - 

                                                             -  Of  the  beatific  visions  -

And now let us consider with such ability as God may vouchsafe, how the Saints shall be employed when they are clothed in immortal and spiritual bodies and when the flesh shall live no longer in a fleshly but a spiritual fashion. And indeed, to tell the truth, I am at a loss to understand the nature of that employment or shall I rather say repose and ease for it has never come within the range of my bodily senses. If I should speak of my mind or understanding what is our understanding in comparison of its excellence? For then shall be that "peace of God which" as the apostle says: "passed all understanding" - Philippians iv. 7 - that is to say all human and perhaps, all angelic understanding but certainly not the divine. That is passed ours, there is no doubt; but if it passed that of the angels - and he who says "all understanding" seems to make no exception in their favour - then we must understand him to mean that neither we nor the angels can understand as God understands, the peace which God Himself enjoys. Doubtless, this passeth all understanding but His own. As we shall one day be made to participate, according to our slender capacity, in His peace, both in ourselves and with our neighbour and with God our chief, good in this respect the angels understand the peace of God in their own measure, and men too, though now far behind them, whatever spiritual advance they have made. For we must remember how great a man he was who said, "We know in part and we prophesy in part, until that which is perfect is come;" - 1 Corinthians xiii. 9-10 - and "Now we see through a glass, darkly but then face to face." - 1 Corinthians xiii 12 -

Such also is now the vision of the holy angels who are also called our angels because we being rescued out of the power, darkness and receiving the earnest of the Spirit are translated into the kingdom of Christ and already begin to belong to those angels with whom we shall enjoy that holy and most delightful city of God of which we have written so much. Thus, then, the angels of God are our angels as Christ is God's and also ours. They are God's because they have not abandoned Him; they are ours because we are their fellow citizens. The Lord Jesus also said: "See that ye despise not one of these little ones: for I say unto you. That in heaven their angels do always see the face of my Father which is in heaven." - Matthew xviii. 10 - Then, they see, so shall we also see; but not yet do we thus see, Wherefore the apostle uses the words cites a little ago." "Now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face." This vision is reserved as the reward of our faith and of it the Apostle John also says, "When He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." - 1 John iii. 2 - By "the face" of God we are to understand His manifestation and not a part of the body similar to that which in our bodies we call by that name.

And so, when I am asked how the saints shall be employed in that spiritual body, I do not say what I see but I say what I believe, according to that which I read in the psalm: "I believed, therefore have I spoken." - Psalms cxvi. 10 - I say, then they shall in the body see God; but whether they shall see Him by means of the body as now we see the sun, moon, stars, sea, earth and all that is in it, that is a difficult question. For it is hard to say that the saints shall then have such bodies that they shall not be able to shut and open their eyes as they please; while it is harder still to say that everyone who shuts his eyes shall lose the vision of God. For if the prophet Elisha, though at a distance, saw his servant Gehazi, who thought that his wickedness would escape his master's observation and accepted gifts from Naaman the Syrian, whom the prophet had cleansed from his foul leprosy, how much more shall the saints in the spiritual body see all things, not only though their eyes be shut but thought they themselves be at a great distance? For then shall be "that which is perfect" of which the apostle says: "We know in part and we prophesy in part; but when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away." Then, that he may illustrate as well as possible, by a smile, how superior the future life is to the life now lived, not only by ordinary men but even by the foremost of the saints, he says" When I was a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. Now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." - 1 Corinthians xiii. 11-12 - If, then, even in this life, in which the prophetic of remarkable men is no more worthy to be compared to the vision of the future life than childhood is to manhood, Elisha, though distant from his servant, saw him accepting gifts, shall we say that when that which is perfect is come and the corruptible body no longer oppresses the soul, but is incorruptible and offers no impediment to it, the saints shall need bodily eyes to see, though Elisha had no need of them to see his servant? For, following the Septuagint version, these are the prophet's words: "Did not my heart go with thee, when the man came out of his chariot to meet thee and thou tookedst his gifts?" - 2 Kings v.26 - Or, as the presbyter Jerome rendered it from the Hebrew, "Was not my heart  present when the man turned from his chariot to meet thee?" 

The prophet said that he saw this with his heart, miraculously aided by God, as no one can doubt. But how much more abundantly shall be the saints enjoy this gift when God shall be all in all? Nevertheless the bodily eyes also shall have their office and their place, and shall be used by the spirit through the spiritual body. For the prophet did not forego the use of his eyes for seeing what was before them, though he did not need them to see his absent servant and though he could have seen these present objects in spirit and with his eyes shut, as he saw things far distant in a place where he himself was not. Far be it, then, from us to say that in the life to come the saints shall not see God when their eyes are shut since they shall always see Him with the spirit.

But the question arises, whether when their eyes are open, they shall see Him with the bodily eye? If the eyes of the spiritual body have no more power than the eyes which we now possess, manifestly God cannot be seen with them. They must be of a very different power if they can look upon that incorporeal nature which is not contained in any place, but is all in every place. For though we say that God is in heaven and on earth, as Himself says by the prophet, "I fill heaven and earth," - Jeremiah xxiii 24 - we do not mean that there is one part of God in heaven and another part on earth; but He is all in heaven and all on earth, not at alternate intervals of time, but both at once, as no bodily nature can be. The eye, then, shall have a vastly superior power - the power not pf keen sight, such as is ascribed to serpents or eagles, for however keenly these animals see, they can discern nothing but bodily substances - but the power of seeing things incorporeal. Possibly it was this great power of vision which was temporarily communicated to the eyes of the holy Job while yet in this mortal body, when he says to God: "I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye seeth Thee: wherefore I abhor myself and melt away and count myself dust and ashes." - Job xlii. 5-6 - although there is no reason why we should not understand this of the eye of the heart, of which the apostle says: "Having the eyes of your heart illuminated." - Ephesians : i. 18 -  But that God shall be seen with these eyes no Christian doubts who believingly accepts what our God and Master says, "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God." - Matthew v. 8 - But whether in the future life God shall also be seen with the bodily eye, this is now our question. 

The expression of Sacred Scripture, "And all flesh shall see the salvation of God" - Luke iii. 6 - may without difficulty be understood as if it were said, "And every man shall see the Christ of God." And He certainly was seen in the body and shall be seen in the body when He judge quick and dead. And that Christ is the salvation of God, many other passages of Sacred Scripture witness, but especially the words of the venerable Simeon, who, when he had received into his hands the infant Christ Jesus, said: "Now lettest Thou Thy depart in peace, as according to Thy word: for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation." - Luke ii. 29-30 - As for the words of the above mentioned Job, as they are found in the Hebrew manuscripts" And in my flesh I shall see God" - Job xix. 26 - No doubt they were a prophecy of the resurrection of the flesh; yet he does not say "by the flesh." And indeed, if he had said this, it would still be possible that Christ Jesus was meant by "God" for Christ shall be seen by the flesh in the flesh. But even understanding it to God, it is only equivalent to saying, I shall be in the flesh when I see God. Then the apostle's expression, "face to face" - 1 Corinthians xiii. 12 - does not oblige us to believe that we shall see God by the bodily face in which are the eyes of the body, for we shall see Him without intermission in spirit. And if the apostle had not referred to the face of the inner man, he would not have said: "But we, with unveiled face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image, from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord." - 2 Corinthians iii. 18 - In the same sense we understand what the Psalmist sings. "Draw near unto Him and be enlightened; and your faces shall not be ashamed." - Psalms xxxiv. 5 - For it is by faith and work that we draw near to God, and faith is an act of the spirit, not of the body. But as we do not know what degree of perfection the spiritual body shall attain - for here we speak of a matter of which we have no experience and upon which the authority of sacred Scripture does not definitely pronounce - it is necessary - it is necessary that the words of the Book of Wisdom be illustrated in us: "The thoughts of mortal men are timid and our fore-castings uncertain." - Wisdom ix. 14 - 

For if that reasoning of the philosophers by which they attempt to make out that intelligible or mental objects are so seen by the mind and sensible or bodily objects so seen by the body that the former cannot be discerned by the mind through the body, nor the latter by the mind itself without the body - if this reasoning were trustworthy, then it would certainly follow that God could not be seen by the eye even of a spiritual body. But this reasoning is exploded both by true reason and by prophetic authority. For who is so little acquainted with the truth as to say that God has no cognisance of sensible objects? Has He therefore a body, the eyes of which give Him this knowledge? Moreover, what we have just been relating of the prophet Elisha, does this not sufficiently show that bodily things can be discerned by the spirit without the help of the body? For when that servant received the gifts, certainly this was a bodily or material transaction, yet the prophet saw it not by the body but by the spirit. As, therefore, it is agreed that bodies are seen by the spirit, what if the power of the spiritual body shall be so great that spirit also is seen by the body? For God is a spirit. Besides, each man recognises his own life - that life by which he now lives in the body and which vivifies these earthly members and causes them to grow - by an interior sense and not by his bodily eye; but the life of other men, though it is invisible, he sees with the bodily eye. For how do we distinguish between living and dead bodies, except by seeing at once both the body and the life which we cannot see save by the eye? But a life without a body we cannot see thus.

Wherefore it may very well be and it is thoroughly credible that we shall in the future world see the material forms of the new heavens and new earth in such a way that we shall most distinctly recognise God everywhere present and governing all things, material as well as spiritual, and shall see Him, not as now we understand the invisible things of God, by the things which are made - Romans i. 20 - and see Him darkly, as in a mirror and in part, and rather by faith than by bodily vision of material appearances but by means of the bodies we shall wear and which we shall see wherever we turn our eyes. As we do not believe, but see that the living men around us who are exercising vital functions are alive, though we cannot see their life without their bodies but see it most distinctly by means of their bodies, so, wherever we shall then, too, by means of bodily substances behold God, though a spirit, ruling all things. Either, therefore the eyes shall possess some quality similar to that of the mind, by which they may be able to discern spiritual things and among these God - a supposition for which it is difficult or even impossible to find any support in Scripture - or which is more easy to comprehend, God will be so known by us, and shall be so much before us that we shall see Him by the spirit in ourselves in one another, in Himself, in the new heavens and the new earth, in every created thing which shall then exist; and also by the body we shall see Him in everybody which the keen vision of the eye of the spiritual body shall reach. Our thoughts also shall be visible to all, for then shall be fulfilled the words of the apostle: "Judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness and will make manifest the thoughts of the heart and then shall everyone have praise of God." - 1 Corinthians iv. 5 -  

-     WELCOME TO SACRED SCRIPTURE / WORD OF GOD / HOLY BIBLE READER'S COMMUNITY     - 

Wishing you, 'Happy Reading', and may God, the Father, the Son of the living God, Jesus Christ, fills your heart, mind, thoughts, and grants you: The Holy Spirit, that is, Wisdom, Knowledge, Understanding, Counsel, Piety, Fortitude, Fear of the Lord, and also His fruits of the Holy Spirit, that is, Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Trustfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control. Amen! God blessing be upon you!

Why do you call Me, "Lord, Lord" and not do what I say?' "Everyone who comes to Me and listens to My words and acts on them - I will show you what he/she is like. He/She is like a man/woman who when he/she built his/her house dug, deep, and laid the foundations on rock; when the river was in flood it bore down on that house but could not shake it, it was so well built. But the one who listens and does nothing is like the man/woman who built his/her house on soil, with no foundations: as soon as the river bore down on it, it collapsed; and what a ruin that house became!" - Luke 6:46-49 - 

If we live by the truth and in love, we shall grow in all ways into Christ Jesus, who is the head by whom the whole body is fitted and joined together, every joint adding its own strength, for each separate part to work according to it function. So the body grows until it has built itself up, in love." - Ephesians 4:15-16 - 

I still have many things to say to you but they would be too much for you now. But when the spirit of truth comes, he will lead you to the complete truth, since he will not be speaking as from himself, but will say only what he has learnt; and he will tell you of the things to come. He/She will glorify me, since all he/she tells you will be taken from what is mine. Everything the Father has is mine; that is why I said: all he/she tells you will be taken from what is mine." - John 16:12-15 -         

- THE CITY OF GOD - THE  OMNIPOTENCE  OF  THE  CREATOR - BY SAINT AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO -

-  That Rome made its founder Romulus a god because it loved him; but the Church loved Christ because it believed Him to be God  - 

Let us here recite the passage in which Tully expresses his astonishment that the apotheosis of Romulus should have been credited. I shall insert his words as they stand: "it is most worthy of remark in Romulus that other men who are said to have become gods lived in educated ages, when there was a greater propensity to the fabulous and when the uninstructed were easily persuaded to believe anything. But the age of Romulus was barely six hundred years old and already literature and science had dispelled the errors that attach to an uncultured age." And a little after he says of the same Romulus words to this effect: "From this we may perceive that Homer had flourished long before Romulus and that there was now so much learning in individuals and so generally diffused an enlightenment, that scarcely any room was left for fable. For antiquity admitted fables and sometimes even very clumsy ones; but this age [of Romulus] was sufficiently enlightened to reject whatever had not the air of truth." Thus one of the most learned men and certainly the most eloquent, M. Tullius Cicero, says that it is surprising that the divinity of Romulus was believed in because the times were already so enlightened that they would not accept a fabulous fiction. But who believed that Romulus was a god except Rome which was itself small and in its infancy? 

Then afterwards it was necessary that succeeding generations should preserve the tradition of their ancestors; that drinking in this superstition with their mother's milk, the state might grow and come to such power that it might dictate this belief, as from a point of vantage to all the nations over whom its sway extended. These nations, though they might not believe that Romulus was a god, at least said so that they might not give offence to their sovereign state by refusing to give its founder that title which was given him by Rome which had adopted this belief not by a love of error, but an error of love. Though Christ Jesus is the founder of the heavenly and eternal city, yet it did not believe Him to be God because it was founded by Him but rather it is founded by Him in virtue of its belief. Rome, after it had been built and dedicated, worshipped its founder in a temple as a god; but this Jerusalem laid Christ Jesus, its God, as its foundation, that the building and dedication might proceed. The former city loved its founder and therefore believed him to be a god; the latter believed Christ to be God and therefore loved Him. There was an antecedent cause for the love of the former city and for its believing that even a false dignity attached to the object of its love; so there was an antecedent cause for the belief of the latter and for its loving the true dignity which a proper faith, not a rash surmise, ascribed to its object. For not to mention the multitude of very striking miracles which proved that Christ Jesus is God, there were also divine prophecies heralding Him, prophecies most worthy of belief which being already accomplished, we have not, like the fathers, to wait for their verification. As for or as of Romulus, on the other hand and of his building Rome and reigning in it, we read or hear the narrative of what did take place, not prediction which beforehand said that such things should be and so far as his reception among the gods is concerned. History only records that this was believed and does not state it as fact; for no miraculous signs testified to the truth of this. For as  to that wolf which is said to have nursed the twin brothers and which is considered a great marvel, how does this prove him to have been divine? 

For even supposing that this nurse was a real wolf and not a mere courtezan, yet she nursed both brothers and Remus is not reckoned a god. Besides, what was there to hinder anyone from asserting that Romulus or Hercules or any such man, was a god? Or who would rather choose to die than profess belief in his divinity? Did a single nation worship Romulus among its gods, unless it were forced through fear of the Roman name? Who can number the multitudes who have chosen death in the most cruel shapes rather than deny the divinity of Christ? Thus, the dread of some slight indignation which it was supposed, perhaps, groundlessly, might exists in the mind of the Romans, constrained some states who were subject to Rome to worship Romulus as a god; whereas the dread, not of a slight mental shock, but of severe and various punishments and of death itself, the most formidable of all, could not prevent an immense multitude of martyrs throughout the world from not merely worshipping but also confessing Jesus Christ as Son of the living God. City of Christ which although as yet a stranger upon earth had countless hosts of citizens, did not make war upon its godless persecutors for the sake of temporal security but preferred to win eternal salvation by abstaining from war. They were bound, imprisoned, beaten, tortured, burned, torn in pieces, massacred, and yet they multiplied. It was not given to them to fight for their eternal salvation except by despising their temporal salvation for their Savior's sake. 

I am aware that Cicero, in the third book of his De Republica, if I mistake not, argues that a first-rate power will not engage in war except either for honour or for safety. What he has to say about the question of safety and what he means by safety, he explains in another place, saying: "Private persons frequently evade, by a speedy death, destitution, exile, bonds, the scourge and the other pains which even the most insensible feel. But to states, death which seems to emancipate individuals from all punishments is itself a punishment; for a state should be so constituted as to be eternal. Thus, death is not natural to a republic as to man, to whom death is not necessary but often even desirable. When a state is destroyed, obliterated, annihilated, it is as if (to compare great things with small) this whole world perished and collapsed." Cicero said this because he, with the Platonists, believed that the world would not perish. It is therefore agreed that, according to Cicero, a state should engage in war for the safety which preserves the state permanently in existence, though its citizens change; as the foliage of an olive or laurel or any tree of this kind, is perennial, the old leaves being replaced by fresh ones. 

For death, as he says, is no punishment to individuals but rather delivers them from all other punishments but it is a punishment to the state. Therefore, it is reasonably asked whether the Saguntines did right when they chose that their whole state should perish rather that they should break faith with the Roman republic; for this deed of theirs is applauded by the citizens of the earthly republic. I do not see how they could follow the advise of Cicero who tells us that no war is to be undertaken save for safety or for honour; neither does he say which of these two is to be preferred, if a case should occur in which the one could not be preserved without the loss of the other. For manifestly, if the Saguntines chose safety, they must break faith; if they kept faith, they must reject safety; as also it fell out. But the safety of the city of God is such that it can be retained or rather acquired by and with faith and love; but if faith and love be abandoned, no one can attain it. It is this thought of a most steadfast and patient spirit that has made so many noble martyrs while Romulus has not had, and could not have, so much as one to die for his divinity.

  -  That the world's belief in Christ Jesus is the result of divine power, not of human persuasion  - 

It is thoroughly ridiculous to make mention of the false divinity of Romulus as any way comparable to that of Christ Jesus. Nevertheless, if Romulus lived about six hundred years before Cicero, in an age which already was so enlightened that it rejected all impossibilities, how much more, in an age which certainly was more enlightened, being six hundred years later, the age of Cicero himself and of the emperors Augustus and years later, the age of Cicero himself, and of the emperors Augustus and Tiberius would the human mind have refused to listen to or believe in the resurrection of Christ's body and its ascension into heaven and have scouted it as an impossibility, had not the divinity of truth itself or the truth of the divinity and corroborating miraculous signs, proved that it could had happened? Through of these testimonies and notwithstanding the opposition and terror of so many cruel persecutions, the resurrection and immortality of the flesh, first in Christ Jesus and subsequently in all the new world, was believed and was intrepidly proclaimed and was sown over the whole world, to be fertilized richly with the blood of the martyrs. For the predictions of the prophets that had preceded the events were read, they were corroborated by powerful signs and the truths was seen to be not contradictory to reason, but only different from customary ideas, so that at length the world embraced the faith it had furiously persecuted.

-  Of the miracles which were wrought that the world might believe in Christ Jesus and which have not ceased since the world believed   -  

Why, they say, are those miracles which you affirm were wrought formerly, wrought no longer? I might, indeed, reply that miracles were necessary before the world believed, in order that it might believe. And whoever now-a-days demands to see prodigies that he/she may believe, is himself/herself a great prodigy because he/she does not believe, though the whole world does. But they make these objections for the sole purpose of insinuating that even those former miracles were never wrought. How, then, is it that everywhere Christ Jesus is celebrated with such firm belief in His resurrection and ascension? How is it that in enlightened times, in His resurrection and ascension? How is it that in enlightened times, in which every impossibility is rejected, the world has, without any miracles, believed things marvellously incredible? Or will they say that these things were credible and therefore were credited? Why then do they themselves not believe? Our argument, therefore, is a summary one - either incredible things which were not witnessed have caused the world to believe other incredible things which both occurred and were witnessed or this matter was so credible that it needed no miracles in proof of it and therefore convicts these unbelievers of unpardonable scepticism. This I might say for the sake of refuting these most frivolous objections. But we cannot deny that many miracles were wrought to confirm that one grand and health giving miracle of Christ's ascension to heaven with the flesh in which He rose. For these most trustworthy books of ours contain in one narrative both the miracles that were wrought and the creed which they were wrought to confirm. The miracles were published that they might produce faith and the faith which they produced brought them into greater prominence. 

For they are read in congregations that they may be believed and yet they would not be so read unless they were believed. For even now miracles are wrought in the name of Christ Jesus, whether by His sacraments or by the prayers or relics of His saints; but they are not so brilliant and conspicuous as to cause them to be published with such glory as accompanied the former miracles. For the canon of the sacred writings which behoved to be closed - Another reading has diflamatum, "published." - causes those to be everywhere recited and to sink into the memory of all the congregations; but these modern miracles are scarcely known even to the whole population in the midst of which they are wrought and at the best are confined to one spot. For frequently they are known only to a very few persons, while all the rest are ignorant of them, especially if the state is a large one; and when they are reported to other persons in other localities, there is no sufficient authority to give them prompt and unwavering credence, although they are reported to the faithful by the faithful.

The miracle which was wrought at Milan when I was there and by which a blind man was restored to sight, could come to the knowledge of many; for not only is the city a large one, but also the emperor was there at the time and the occurrence was witnessed by an immense concourse of people that had gathered to the bodies of the martyrs Protasius and Gervasius which had long lain concealed and unknown but were now made known to the bishop Ambrose in a dream and discovered by him. By virtue of these remains the darkness of that blind man was scattered and he saw the light of day. - A somewhat fuller account of this miracle is given by Saint Augustine in the Confessions, ix. 16. See also Serm. 286 and Saint Ambrose , Ep. 22. A translation of this epistle in full is given in Isaac Taylor's Ancient Christianity, ii 242, where this miracle is taken as a specimen of the so-called miracles of that age and submitted to a detailed examination. The result arrived at will be gathered from the following sentence: "In the Nicene Church, so lax were the notions of common morality and in so feeble a manner did the fear of God influence the conduct of leading men, that, on occasions when the Church was to be served and her assailants to be confounded, they did not scruple to take upon themselves the contrivance and execution of the most degrading impostures." - Psalms 270 - It is to be observed, however, that Saint Augustine was, at least in this instance, one of the deceived. -

But who but a very small number are aware of the cure which was wrought upon Innocentius, ex-advocate of the deputy prefecture, a cure wrought at Carthage, in my presence and under my own eyes? For when I and my brother Alypius....... -  Page  One  -

   - WELCOME TO SACRED SCRIPTURE / WORD OF GOD / HOLY BIBLE READER'S COMMUNITY -

Wishing you, 'Happy Reading', and may God, the Father, the Son of the living God, Jesus Christ, fills your heart, mind, thoughts, and grants you: The Holy Spirit, that is, Wisdom, Knowledge, Understanding, Counsel, Piety, Fortitude, Fear of the Lord, and also His fruits of the Holy Spirit, that is, Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Trustfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control. Amen! God blessing be upon you!

If we live by the truth and in love, we shall grow in all ways into Christ Jesus, who is the head by whom the whole body is fitted and joined together, every joint adding its own strength, for each separate part to work according to it function, so the body grows until it has built itself up, in love. - Ephesians 4:15-16 -

I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.

HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -    

        - Open Mind, Faithful Heart - BY HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS - JORGE MARIO BERGOGLIO -

                        -  Sardis - Restoring Self-Respect  -  Reflection on Following Jesus  -  

And to the angel of the church in Sardis write: These are the words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars: "I know your works; you have a name of being alive but are dead. Wake up and strengthen what remains and is on the point of death, for I have not found your work perfect in the sight of my God. Remember then what you received and heard; obey it and repent. If you do not wake up, I will come like a thief and you will not know at what hour I will come to you. Yet you have still a few persons in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes; they will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy. If you conquer, you will be clothed like them in white robes and I will not blot your name out of the book of life; I will confess your name before my Father and before his angels. Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches." - Revelation 3:1-6 -

THE DISTRESS in the Church of Sardis is that of a community that has sinned grievously by negotiating the faith. She has kept "the name of being alive" but inwardly she is dead. - Symbols of the Lord's Majesty: The Seven Spirits and the Seven Stars - The Lord consoles Sardis by revealing himself as the one who holds the seven spirits and the seven stars. These spirits and stars are the churches themselves, whose luminous spiritual reality is in the hands of the Lord. Appealing to their sense of belonging, the Lord reminds them of the hour of dead, judgement and of the word that was preached to them. He asks them to follow in the footsteps of those who have remained faithful and he promises to remain faithful himself. The Lord discerns the embers beneath the ashes in the Christian heart and he does not quench the smoldering coals.

- Reviving the Sense of Belonging: Being Aware of Our Death - "Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is on the point of death...[for] I will come like a thief" - Revelation 3:2-3 - these words remind us of the eschatological parables of Jesus. "Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet... If the owner of the house had known the wedding banquet... If the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour" - Luke 12:35-40; Matthew 24:42-44 -

                                      -       Making Judgment  a Present Reality       -

The Lord urges us to examine our works in reality and not just be appearances - "You have a name of being alive but you are dead... I have not found your works perfect in the sight of my God" - Revelation 3:1-2 - The Lord is our advocate before the Father and will take our part, but he needs to be able to point to works of charity that weigh in our favor: "For I was hungry and you gave me food" - Matthew 25:35 - "Remember what you received and heard" - Revelation 3:3 - This command recalls Paul's letter to Timothy: "I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands... Hold to the standard of sound teaching that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. Guard the good treasure entrusted to you... Remember Jesus Christ - raised from the dead." - 2 Timothy 1:6,13-14; 2:8 - 

                                              -       Returning to the Faithful       -

When we are unfaithful, we usually betray not just ideas but concrete persons. We take leave of those who taught us the faith, those who trained us well, those who remain faithful to the Lord. Sometimes we not only take leave of them but fight fiercely against them, discharging onto them the guilt we have no heart to bear ourselves. The Lord declares that there are in Sardis a few who have kept the coal of faith alive and have not stained their baptismal garments; they continue to walk with him, dressed in white - Revelation 3:4 - This is the same immaculate raiment that is destined also for the "remnant of Israel" God's faithful people as a whole and their holy representatives. "One of the elders addressed me, saying, 'Who are these, robed in white and where have they come from?' I said to them, 'Sir, you are the one that knows.' Then he said to me, 'These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robed and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. For this reason and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. For this reason they are before the throne of God and worship him day and night within his temple, and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them. They will hunger no more and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes." - Revelation 7:13-17 - 

                                                     -        Restoring Respect     - 

Recovering a sense of belonging and for our own history means restoring respect. Sardis has lost its self-respect and is the most unworthy of the seven churches. Perhaps mediating awhile on the meaning of respect can help us understand how we as priests can mature wisely and become "presbyters" - that is, elders - without losing our youthfulness or not or our joy in ministering. The word "respect" comes from the Latin re-spicere, meaning to "look back" or "take a second look." It can describe the attitude that the faithful have toward the priests when they take  a second look at him, that is, when they take note of his presence, when they seek him out for counsel, when they imitate him. It can also describe the priest's attitude toward himself, toward others, toward things and toward God.

"Respectful" person take a second look before speaking and acting; they deliberate, they persevere, they are not carried away by emotion. Respect is the opposite of the attitude that would belittle older folk as "senile" or as caught up in their own little world, completely at the mercy of their changing moods. But respect is also contrary to some attitudes we see in older people that bring respect itself into disrepute. I am thinking of the attitudes of those who continue to get involved in power struggles, of those who speak ill of everybody and of those who take risks only for their own benefit. And there are many people who adopt a pose of respectability but interiorly have succumbed to the spiritual temptations. Of all such persons, the Lord declares: "You have a name of being alive but you are dead. - Revelation 3:1 - 

Let us focus now on respect for others, looking especially at our attitude toward the young since it is the parent - child or our attitude toward the young since it is the parent - child or grandparent - grandchild relation that best reveals whether the older person has mastered a crisis or has fled from it.

It is easy to fool others regarding the relation we have with God. A pious bearing, a liturgy celebrated with devout charm, a breviary open in our hands when someone enters our room - these are acquired postures, marks that we worn so convincingly that even we come to believe that we are pious and worthy pf respect.

We may have a dignified air about us as we manage our affairs. We moderate our appetites often not out of virtue but because of fear of illness or hypochondriacal adherence to medical advice. Meanwhile, we sublimate and exquisitely refine our sensuality so as to caress souls instead of bodies, giving the whole seductive process the name of spiritual direction. We may even learn to disguise the petulance of old age with elegance, modulating our manners and refraining from any show of emotion that might reveal our mood. A dispassionate spirit can also be a mask or even a shell: not only does it protect us from others, but it quells every torment within us before it can even arise.

With young people and our children, however, it is hard to fake "respectability" The young have a sort of sixth sense with regard to older folk. They respect some of them and feel close to them: they treat them with affection, seek them out and as their advice: they open their hearts to them in confession and enjoy sharing a meal with them. Some older folk, on the other hand ate ignored or scorned by the young. Youngster would never think of approaching them of their own accord; their respect for them is only formal. They may not say so in so many words, but the young draw close to their elders or shy away from them as if by instinct.

We are "caught out" when we refuse to let go of the rudder, when our main concern is our image, when even in personal conversation we take no risks and hide our inner selves, when we are selfish or untruthful, when we say "yes" to everyone in order not to get burned, though in reality we are singed to a crisp within. Those "caught out" are basically persons who have no desire to transmit any legacy because they really don't have one to transmit. Having administered a personal legacy to their own advantage, they have none to transmit to others. When they cease to be administrators, they are left with nothing. Such is the case of those in the Apocalypse who think themselves are alive but in reality are dead. God has not been interiorized in their hearts. They continue to have a small-minded view of God as someone out there who will forgive their "sins" or peccadilloes - which we all have - but they have not discovered the God who lays claim to their hearts.

In his relationship to the youthful Timothy, Paul is the prototype of the admirable older person, "already being poured out as an offering" - 2 Timothy 4:6 - He knows how to leave the younger man with a legacy. In writing to Timothy, Paul fondly remembers their parting in Ephesus: "Recalling your tears, I long to see you so that I may be filled with joy" - 2 Timothy 1:4 - Paul is now an old man in the autumn of his life, a life full of struggle and persecutions but he keeps two things before his eyes: his vocation, for his faith in the One who called him to announce the promise of life in Christ Jesus, is unshakeable and his paternity, for Timothy is his beloved son whom he remembers day and night in his prayers and whom he encourages to remain faithful.

Joy is the sign that our hearts have found what is good for them. But the ultimate good for our hearts does not consist in our domination of any situation; it does not consist in controlling what is done or said around us or even what happens within us. Our ultimate good lies in our love for concrete persons: for our neighbours, for our Lady, for our Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. Over and above these concrete persons, there exists no ideal realm of values that merits our zealous efforts. Therefore, when we question ourselves about our joy in ministering, we should not pose the question in terms of efficiency or asceticism or quantities; rather we should at the true sources of joy which are human hearts. And the questions we might ask ourselves are these: Are we ready to be "poured out as an offering"? Are we being converted into the pure and holy host worthy of entering into our God? Are we taking good care of our legacy, the children we have been given and preparing them to receive the torch? Amen! 

   - WELCOME TO SACRED SCRIPTURE / WORD OF GOD / HOLY BIBLE READER'S COMMUNITY -

Wishing you, 'Happy Reading', and may God, the Father, the Son of the living God, Jesus Christ, fills your heart, mind, thoughts, and grants you: The Holy Spirit, that is, Wisdom, Knowledge, Understanding, Counsel, Piety, Fortitude, Fear of the Lord, and also His fruits of the Holy Spirit, that is, Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Trustfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control. Amen! God blessing be upon you!

If we live by the truth and in love, we shall grow in all ways into Christ Jesus, who is the head by whom the whole body is fitted and joined together, every joint adding its own strength, for each separate part to work according to it function, so the body grows until it has built itself up, in love. - Ephesians 4:15-16 -

I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.

HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -    

                        -   THE  CITY  OF  GOD   -   BY  SAINT  AUGUSTINE  OF  HIPPO  - 

What it is to have Christ for a foundation and who they are to whom salvation as by fire is promised - 

But, say they, the Catholic Christians have Christ Jesus for a foundation and they have not fallen away from union with Him, no matter how depraved a life they have built on this foundation, as wool, hay, stubble; and accordingly the well-directed faith by which Christ Jesus is their foundation will suffice to deliver them some time from the continuance of that fire, though it be with loss, since those things they have built on it shall be burned. Let the Apostle James summarily reply to them: "If any man say he has faith and have not works, can faith save them?" - James ii. 14 - And who then is it, they ask, of whom the Apostle Paul says, "But he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire? - 1 Corinthians iii. 15 - let us join them in their inquiry; and one thing is very certain, that is not he of whom James speaks, else we should make the two apostles contradict one another, if the one says, "Though a man's works be evil, his faith will save him as by fire," while the other says, "If he have not good works, can his faith save them?"

We shall then ascertain who it is who can be saved by fire, if we first discover what it is to have Christ Jesus for a foundation. And this is we may very readily learn from the image itself. In a building the foundation is first. Whoever, then, has Christ Jesus in his heart, so that no earthly or temporal things - not even those that are legitimate and allowed - are preferred to Him, has Christ Jesus as a foundation. But if these things be preferred, then even though a man seem to have faith in Christ, yet Christ is not the foundation to that man; and much more if he, in contempt of wholesome precepts, seek forbidden gratifications, is he clearly convicted of putting Christ Jesus not first but last, since he despised Him as his ruler and has preferred to fulfil his own wicked lusts, in contempt of Christ's commands and allowances. Accordingly, if any Christian man loves harlot and attaching himself to her, becomes one body, he has not now Christ Jesus for a foundation. But if anyone loves his own wife, and loves her as Christ would have him love her, who can doubt that he has Christ Jesus for a foundation? But if he loves her in a world fashion, carnally, as the disease of lust prompts him and as the Gentiles love who know not God, even this the apostle or rather Christ by the apostle, allows as a venial fault. And therefore even such a man may have Christ for a foundation. For so long as he does not prefer such an affection or pleasure to Christ Jesus, the Lord Jesus Christ is his foundation, though on it he builds wood, hay, stubble; and therefore he shall be saved as by fire. For the fire of affliction shall burn such luxurious pleasures and earthly loves, though they be not damnable because enjoyed in lawful wedlock. 

And of this fire the fuel is bereavement and all those calamities which consume these joys. Consequently, the superstructure will be loss to him who has built it, for he shall not retain it but shall be agonized by the loss of those things in the enjoyment of which he found pleasure. But by this fire he shall be saved through virtue of the foundation because even if a persecutor demanded whether he would retain Christ Jesus or these things, he would prefer Christ Jesus. Would you hear, in the apostle's own words, who he is who builds on the foundation gold, silver, precious stones? "He that is unmarried," he says, "care for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord - 1 Corinthians vii. 32 - Would you hear who he is that build wood, hay, stubble? "But he that is married care for the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife." - 1 Corinthians vii. 33 - "Every man's work shall be mad manifest: for the day shall "it shall be revealed by fire." - 1 Corinthians iii. 13 - He calls tribulation fire, just as it is elsewhere said, "The furnace proves the vessels of the potter and the work of affliction righteous men."  - Ecclesiasticus / Sirach xxvii. 5-6 - And "The fire shall try every man work of what sort it is. If any man's work abide." - for a man's care for the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord, abides - "which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward" - that is, he shall reap the fruit of his care. "But if any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss" - for what he loved he shall not retain: - "but he himself shall be saved" - for no tribulation shall have moved him from that stable foundation - "yet so as by fire - 1 Corinthians iii. 14-15 - for that which he possessed with the sweetness of love he does not lose without the sharp sting of pain. here, then, as sees to me, we have a fire which destroys neither, but enriches the one, brings loss to the other, proves both.

But if this passage [of Corinthians] is to interpret that fire of which the Lord shall say to those on His left hand, "Depart from me, ye cursed into everlasting fire" - Matthew xxx. 41 - so that among these we are to believe there are those who build on the foundation wood, hay, stubble and that they, through virtue of the good foundation, shall after a time be liberated from the fire that is the award of their evil deserts, what then shall we think of those on the right hand, to whom it shall be said: "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you" - Matthew xxv. 34 - unless that they are those who have built on the foundation gold, silver, precious stones? But if the fire of which our Lord Jesus Christ speaks is the same as that of which the apostle says: "Yet so as by fire," then both - that is to say, both those on the right as well as those on the left - are to be cast into it. For that fire is to try both, since it is said: For the day of the Lord shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is" - 1 Corinthians iii. 13 - If, therefore, the fire shall try both, in order that if any man's work abide, that is, if the superstructure be not consumed by the fire - he may receive a reward and that if his work is burned he may suffer loss, certainly that fire is not the eternal fire itself. For into this latter fire only those on the left hand shall be cast and that with final and everlasting doom; but that former fire proves those on the right hand. But some of them it so proves that it does not burn and consume the structure which is found to have been built by them on Christ as the foundation; while others of them it proves in another fashion, so as to burn what they have built up and thus cause them to suffer loss, while they themselves are saved because they have retained Christ Jesus, who was laid as their sure foundation and have loved Him above all. But if they are saved, then certainly they shall stand at the right hand and shall with the rest hear the sentence, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you;" and not at the left hand where those shall be who shall not be saved and shall therefore hear the doom." "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire." For from that fire no man shall be saved, because they all shall go away into eternal punishment, where their worms shall not die, nor their fire be quenched, in which they shall be tormented day and night for ever.

But if it be said that in the interval of time between the death of this body and that last day of judgement and retribution which shall follow the resurrection, the bodies of the dead shall be exposed to a fire of such a nature that it shall not affect those who have not in this life indulged in such pleasures and pursuits as shall be consumed like wood, structures of that kind; if it be said that such worldliness, being venial, shall be consumed in the fire of tribulation either here only, or here and hereafter both or here that it may not be hereafter - this I do not contradict because possibly it is true. For perhaps even the death of the body is itself a part of this tribulation, for it results from the first transgression so that the time which follows death takes its color in each case from the nature of the man's building. The persecutions, too. which have crowned the martyrs and which Christians of all kinds suffer, try both buildings like a fire, consuming some, along with the builders themselves, if Christ Jesus is not found in them as their foundation, while others they consume without the builders because Christ is found in them and they are saved, though with loss; and other buildings till they do not consume because such materials as abide for ever are found in them.

In the end of the world there shall be in the time of Antichrist tribulation such as has never before been. How many edifices there shall then be, of gold or of hay, built on the best foundation, Christ Jesus, which that fire shall prove, bringing joy to some, loss to others, but without destroying either sort because of this stable foundation! Buy whosoever prefers, I do not say his wife, with whom he lives for carnal pleasure, but any of those relatives who afford no delight of such a kind, and whom it is right to love - whoever prefers these to Christ Jesus and loves them after a human and carnal fashion, has not Christ Jesus as a foundation and will therefore not be saved by fire, nor indeed at all; for he shall not possibly dwell with the Saviour/The Almighty God, who says very explicitly concerning the very matter: "He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me." - Matthew x. 37 - But he who loves his relations carnally and yet so that he does not prefer them to Christ Jesus, but would rather want them than Christ if he were to put to the test/proof, shall be saved by fire because it is necessary that by the loss of these relations he suffer pain in proportion to his love. And he who loves father, mother, sons, daughters, according to Christ Jesus, so that he aids them in obtaining His kingdom and cleaving to Him or loves them because they are members of the Lord Jesus Christ. God forbid that this love should be consumed as wood, hay, stubble and not rather be reckoned a structure of gold, silver, precious stones. For how can a man love those more than the Lord Jesus Christ whom he loves only for Christ's sake? 

-     WELCOME TO SACRED SCRIPTURE / WORD OF GOD / HOLY BIBLE READER'S COMMUNITY     - 

Wishing you, 'Happy Reading', and may God, the Father, the Son of the living God, Jesus Christ, fills your heart, mind, thoughts, and grants you: The Holy Spirit, that is, Wisdom, Knowledge, Understanding, Counsel, Piety, Fortitude, Fear of the Lord, and also His fruits of the Holy Spirit, that is, Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Trustfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control. Amen! God blessing be upon you!

Why do you call Me, "Lord, Lord" and not do what I say?' "Everyone who comes to Me and listens to My words and acts on them - I will show you what he/she is like. He/She is like a man/woman who when he/she built his/her house dug, deep, and laid the foundations on rock; when the river was in flood it bore down on that house but could not shake it, it was so well built. But the one who listens and does nothing is like the man/woman who built his/her house on soil, with no foundations: as soon as the river bore down on it, it collapsed; and what a ruin that house became!" - Luke 6:46-49 - 

If we live by the truth and in love, we shall grow in all ways into Christ Jesus, who is the head by whom the whole body is fitted and joined together, every joint adding its own strength, for each separate part to work according to it function. So the body grows until it has built itself up, in love." - Ephesians 4:15-16 - 

I still have many things to say to you but they would be too much for you now. But when the spirit of truth comes, he will lead you to the complete truth, since he will not be speaking as from himself, but will say only what he has learnt; and he will tell you of the things to come. He/She will glorify me, since all he/she tells you will be taken from what is mine. Everything the Father has is mine; that is why I said: all he/she tells you will be taken from what is mine." - John 16:12-15 -         

 - THE CITY OF GOD -  THE  OMNIPOTENCE  OF  THE  CREATOR -  BY SAINT AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO -

                                        -       Of the creation of angels and men       - 

As we promised in the immediately preceding book, this, the last of the whole work, shall contain a discussion of the eternal blessedness of the city of God. This blessedness is named eternal, not because it shall endure for many ages, though at last it shall come to an end but because according to the words of the gospel, "of His kingdom there shall be no end." - Luke i. 33 - Neither shall it enjoy the mere appearance of perpetuity which is maintained by the rise of fresh generation to occupy the place of those that have died out, as in an evergreen the same freshness seems to continue permanently and the same appearance of dense foliage is preserved by the growth of fresh leaves in the room of those that have withered and fallen; but in that city all the citizens shall be immortal, men/women now for the first time enjoying what the holy angels have never lost. And this shall be accomplished by God, the most almighty Founder of the city. For He has promised and cannot lie, and has already performed many of His promises and has done many un-promised kindness to those whom He now asks to believe that He will do this also.

For it is He who in the beginning created the world full of all visible and intelligible beings, among which He created nothing better than those spirits whom He endowed with intelligence and made capable of contemplating and enjoying Him, and united in our society which we call the holy and heavenly city in which the material of their sustenance and blessedness is God Himself, as if it were their common food and nourishment. It is He who gave to this intellectual nature free will of such kind, that if he wished to forsake God his blessedness, misery should forthwith result. It is He who, when He foreknew that certain angels would in their pride desire to suffice for their own blessedness and would forsake their great good, did not deprive them of this power, deeming it to be more befitting His power and goodness to bring good out of evil than to prevent the evil from coming into existence. Indeed, evil had never had not the mutable nature - mutable, though good and created by the most high God and immutable Good, who created all things good - brought evil upon itself by sin and this its sin is itself proof that its nature was originally good. For had it not been very good, though not equal to its Creator, the desertion of God as its light could not have been an evil to it. For as blindness is a vice of the eye and this very fact indicates that the eye was created to see the light and as consequently, vice itself proves that the eye is more excellent that the other members because it is capable of light ( for on no other supposition would it be a vice of the eye to want light), so the nature which once enjoyed God teaches, even by its very vice, that it was created the best of all, since it is now miserable because it does not enjoy God. It is He who with very just punishment doomed the angels who voluntarily fell to everlasting misery and rewarded those who continued in their attachment to the supreme good with the assurance of endless stability as the meed of their fidelity. It is He who made also man himself upright with the same freedom of will - an earthly animal, indeed, but fit for heaven if he/she remained faithful to his/her Creator, but destined to the misery appropriate to such a nature if he/she forsook Him. It is He who, when He foreknew that man would in his/her turn to sin by abandoning God and breaking His law, did not deprive him of the power of free-will because He at the same time foresaw what good He Himself would bring out of the evil and how from this mortal race, deservedly and justly condemned, He would by His grace collect, as of now, He does, a people so numerous that He thus fills up and repairs the blank made by the fallen angels and that thus, that beloved and heavenly city is not defrauded of the full number of its citizens, but perhaps, may even rejoice in a still more overflowing population.

                                   -       Of the eternal and unchangeable will of God       -

It is true that wicked men do many things contrary to God's will; but so great is His wisdom and power, that all things which seem adverse to His purpose do still tend towards those just and good ends and issues which He Himself has foreknown and consequently, when God is said to change His will, as when, for example, He becomes angry with those to whom He was gentle, it is rather they than He who are changed and they find Him changed in so far as their experience of suffering at His hand is new, as the sun is changed to injured eyes and becomes as it were fierce from being mild and hurtful from being delightful, though in itself it remains the same as it was. That also is called the will of God which He does in the hearts of those who obey His commandments; and of this the apostle says, "For it is God that worketh in you both to will." - Philippians ii. 13 - As God's "righteousness" is used not only of the righteousness wherewith He Himself is righteous but also of that which He produces in the man whom He justifies, so also that is called His law which though given by God, is rather the law of men. For certainly they were men to whom Jesus said, "It is written in your law" - John viii. 17 - though in another place we read "The law of his God is in his heart." - Psalms xxxvii. 31 - According to this will which God works in men. He is said also to will what He Himself does not will but causes His people to will; as He is said to know what He has caused those to know were ignorant of it. For when the apostle says: "But now, after that ye have known God or rather are known of God" - Galatians iv. 9 - we cannot suppose that God there for the first time knew those who were foreknown by Him before the foundation of the world; but He is said to have known them then because then He caused them to know. But I remember that I discussed these modes of expression in the preceding books. According to this will, then, by which we say that God wills what He causes to be willed by others, from whom the future is hidden, He wills many things which He does not perform.

Thus His saints, inspired by His holy will, desire many things which never happen. They pray, for example, for certain individuals - they pray in a pious and holy manner - but what they request He does not perform though He Himself by His own Holy Spirit has wrought in them this will to pray. And consequently, when the saints in conformity with God's mind, will and pray that all men be saved, we can use this mode of expression: God wills and does not perform - meaning that He who causes them to will these things Himself wills them. But if we speak of that will of His which is eternal as His foreknowledge, certainly He has already done all things in heaven and on earth that He has willed - not only past and present things but even things that is, still future. But before the arrival of that time in which He has willed the occurrence of what He foreknew and arranged before all time, we say, It will happen when God wills. But if we are ignorant not only of the time in which it is to be, but even whether it shall be at all, we say, It will happen if God wills - not because God will then have a new will which He had not before, but because that event which from eternity has been prepared in His unchangeable will, shall then come to pass.

  -      Of the promise of eternal blessedness to the saints and everlasting punishment to the wicked       - 

Wherefore not to mention many other instances besides, as we now see in Christ the fulfilment of that which God promised to Abraham when He said: "In thy seed shall all nations be blessed" - Genesis xxii. 18 - shall be fulfilled which He promised to the same race, when He said by the prophet, "They that are in their sepulchres shall rise again" - Isaiah xxvi 19 - and also "There shall be a new heaven and earth: and the former shall not be mentioned nor come into mind but they shall find joy and rejoicing in it: for I will make Jerusalem a rejoicing and my people a joy. I will rejoice in Jerusalem and joy in my people and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her." - Isaiah 1xv. 17-19 - And by another prophet He uttered the same prediction: "At that time thy people shall be delivered, everyone that shall be found written in the book. And many of them that sleep in the dust" (or as some interpret it, "in the mound") "of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt." - Daniel xii. 1, 2 - And in another place by the same prophet: "The saints of the Most High shall take the kingdom and shall possess the kingdom forever, even for ever and ever." - Daniel vii. 18 - And a little after he says, "His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom." - Daniel vii 27 - Other prophecies referring to the same subject I have advanced in the twentieth book and others still which I have not advanced are found written in the same Sacred Scripture; and these predictions shall be fulfilled, as those also have been which unbelieving men supposed would be frustrate. For it is the same God who promised both and predicted that both would come to pass - the God whom the pagan deities tremble before, as even Porphyry, the noblest of pagan philosophers, testifies.

- Against the wise men of the world, who fancy that the earthly bodies of men cannot be transferred to a heavenly habitation -

But men who use their learning and intellectual ability to resist the force of that great authority which in fulfilment of what was so long before predicted, has converted all races of men to faith and hope in its promises, seem to themselves to argue acutely against the resurrection of the body while they cite what Cicero mentions in the third book De Republica. For when he was asserting the apotheosis of Hercules and Romulus, he says: "Whose bodies were not taken up into heaven; for nature would not permit a body of earth to exist anywhere except upon earth." This, forsooth, is the profound reasoning of the wise men whose thoughts God knows that they are vain. For if we were only souls, that is, spirits without any body and if we dwelt in heaven and had no knowledge of earthly animals and were told that we should be bound to earthly bodies by some wonderful bond of union and should animate them, should we not much more vigorously refuse to believe this and maintain that nature would not permit an incorporeal substance to be held by a corporeal bond? And yet the earth is full of living spirits, to which terrestrial bodies are bound, and with which they are in a wonderful way implicated. If then, the same God who has created such beings wills this also, what is to hinder the earthly body from being raised to a heavenly body, since a spirit which is more excellent than all bodies and consequently than even a heavenly body has been tied to an earthly body? If so small an earthly particle has been able to hold in union with itself something better than a heavenly body, so as to receive sensation and life, will heaven disdain to receive or at least to retain, this sentient and living particle which derives its life and sensation from a substance more excellent than any heavenly body? If this does not happen now, it is because the time is not yet come which has been determined by Him who has already done a much more marvelous thing than that which these men refuse to believe. For why do we not more intensely wonder that incorporeal souls, which are of higher rank than heavenly bodies, are bound to earthly bodies, rather than that bodies, although earthly, are exalted to an abode which though heavenly, is yet corporeal, except because we have been accustomed to see this and indeed are this, while we are not as yet that other marvel, nor have as yet ever seen it? Certainly, if we consult sober reason, the more wonderful of the two divine works is found to be to attach somehow corporeal things to incorporeal and not to connect earthly things with heavenly, which though diverse, are yet both of them corporeal.

- Of the resurrection of the flesh which some refuse to believe, though the world at large believes it -

But granting that this was once incredible, behold now, the world has come to the belief that the earthly body of Christ was received up into heaven. Already both the learned and unlearned have believed in the resurrection of the flesh and its ascension to the heavenly places, while only a very few either of the educated or uneducated are still staggered by it. If this is a credible thing which is believed, then let those who do not believe see how stolid they are; and if it is incredible, then this also is an incredible thing, that what is incredible should have received such credit. Here then we have two incredible - to wit, the resurrection of our body to eternity and that the world should believe so incredible a thing; and both these incredible the same God predicted should come to pass before either had as yet occurred. We see that already one of the two has come to pass, for the world has believed what was incredible; why should we despair that the remaining one shall also come to pass and that this which the world believed, through it was incredible, shall itself occur? For already that which was equally incredible has come to pass, in the world's believing an incredible thing. Both were incredible: the one we see accomplished, the other we believe shall be; for both were predicted in those same Sacred Scriptures by means of which the world believed. And the very manner in which the world's faith was won is found to be even more incredible, if we consider it. 

Men uninstructed in any branch of a liberal education without any of the refinement of heathen, unskilled in grammar, not armed with dialectic, not adorned with rhetoric but plain fishermen and very few in number - these were the men whom Christ Jesus sent with the nets of faith to the sea of this world and thus took out of every race so many fishes and even the philosophers themselves, wonderful as they are rare. Let us add, if you please or because you ought to be pleased, this third incredible thing to the two former. And now we have three incredible, all of which  have yet come to pass. It is incredible that Jesus Christ should have risen in the flesh and ascended with flesh into heaven; it is incredible that the world should have believed so incredible a thing; it is incredible that very few men of mean birth and the lowest rank and with no education, should have been able to so effectually to persuade the world and even its learned men of so incredible a thing. Of these three incredible, the parties with whom we are debating refuse to believe the first; they cannot refuse to see the second which they are unable to account for if they do not believe the third. It is indubitable that the resurrection of Christ and His ascension into heaven with the flesh in which He rose, is already preached and believed in the whole world. 

If it is not credible, how is it that it has already received credence in the whole world? If a number of noble, exalted and learned men had said that they had witnessed it and had been at pains to publish what they had witnessed, it were not wonderful that the world should have believed it, but it were very stubborn to refuse credence; but if, as is true, the world has believed a few obscure, inconsiderable, uneducated persons, who state and write that they witnessed it, is it not unreasonable that a handful of wrong-headed men should oppose themselves to the creed of the whole world and refuse their belief? And if the world has put faith in a small number of men of mean birth and the lowest rank, and no education, it is because the divinity of the thing itself appeared all the more manifestly in such contemptible witnesses. The eloquence, indeed, which lent persuasion to their message, consisted of wonderful works, not words. For they who had not seen Christ Jesus risen in the flesh, nor ascending into heaven with His risen body, believed those who related how they had seen these things and who testified not only with words but wonderful signs. For men whom they knew to be acquainted with only one or at most two languages, they marveled to hear speaking in the tongues of all nations. They saw a man, lame from his mother's womb, after forty years stand up sound at their word in the name of Christ; that handkerchiefs taken from their bodies had virtue to heal the sick; that countless persons, sick of various diseases, were laid in a row in the road where they were pass, that their shadow might fall on them as they walked and that they forthwith received health; that many other stupendous miracles were wrought by them in the name of Jesus Christ; and finally, that they even raised the dead. If it be admitted that these things occurred as they are related, then we have a multitude of incredible things to add to those three incredible. That the one incredibility of the resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ may be believed, we accumulate the testimonies of countless incredible miracles, but even so we do not bend the frightful obstinacy of these sceptics. But if they do not believe that these miracles were wrought by Christ's apostles to gain credence to their preaching of His resurrection and ascension, this one guard miracle suffices for us, that the whole world has believed without any miracles. 

- That Rome made its founder Romulus a god because it loved him; but the Church loved Christ because it believed Him to be God - 

Let us here recite the passage in which Tully expresses his astonishment that the apotheosis of Romulus should have been credited. I shall insert his words as they stand: "it is most worthy of remark in Romulus that other men who are said to have become gods lived in educated ages, when there was a greater propensity to the fabulous and when the uninstructed were easily persuaded to believe anything. But the age of Romulus was barely six hundred years old and already literature and science had dispelled the errors that attach to an uncultured age." And a little after.......

   - WELCOME TO SACRED SCRIPTURE / WORD OF GOD / HOLY BIBLE READER'S COMMUNITY -

Wishing you, 'Happy Reading', and may God, the Father, the Son of the living God, Jesus Christ, fills your heart, mind, thoughts, and grants you: The Holy Spirit, that is, Wisdom, Knowledge, Understanding, Counsel, Piety, Fortitude, Fear of the Lord, and also His fruits of the Holy Spirit, that is, Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Trustfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control. Amen! God blessing be upon you!

If we live by the truth and in love, we shall grow in all ways into Christ Jesus, who is the head by whom the whole body is fitted and joined together, every joint adding its own strength, for each separate part to work according to it function, so the body grows until it has built itself up, in love. - Ephesians 4:15-16 -

I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.

HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -