De Tribus Habitaculis Liber

The Book of Saint Patrick the Bishop on the Three Dwelling-Places. Chapter One. On the three dwelling-places: the kingdom of God, the world, hell. The goods of the kingdom of God and the evils of hell. There are three dwelling-places under the hand of almighty God: the highest, the lowest, and the middle. The highest of these is called the kingdom of God or the kingdom of the heavens; the lowest is called hell; the middle is called the present world or the orb of the lands. The extremes are utterly contrary to each other and joined by no fellowship. For what fellowship can there be of light to darkness, and of Christ to Belial (2 Cor. 6:14-15)? The middle, however, has some likeness to the extremes. Hence it has light and darkness, cold and heat, pain and health, joy and sorrow, hatred and love, good and evil, just and unjust, masters and servants, rule and subjection, hunger and satiety, death and life, and countless things of this kind. Of all these, one part bears the image of the kingdom of God, the other part of hell. For a mixture of both evils and goods exists in this world; but in the kingdom of God there are no evil ones, but all are good; and in hell there are no good ones, but all are evil; and each place is supplied from the middle. For among the men of this world, some are raised up to heaven, others are dragged down to hell.

For like are joined to like, that is, the good to the good, and the evil to the evil; righteous men to righteous angels, and transgressor men to transgressor angels; servants of God to God, servants of the devil to the devil: the blessed are called to the kingdom prepared for them from the beginning of the world, the accursed are cast out into the eternal fire, which is prepared for the devil and his angels (Matthew 25:34, 41). But the goods of the heavenly kingdom no one clothed in flesh can speak, or think, or understand as they are: for they are far greater and better than are thought or understood; whence it is written: What the eye has not seen, nor the ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man, which God has prepared for those who love Him (1 Corinthians 2:9). For the kingdom of God is greater than any report, better than any praise, more innumerable than any knowledge, more excellent than any glory which is imagined. Likewise, the evils of hell no one can speak or think as they are: for they are indeed far worse than are thought. Thus the kingdom of God is full of light, and peace, and charity, and wisdom, and glory, and honesty, and sweetness, and love, and melody, and joy, and everlasting blessedness, and of every ineffable good, which can neither be spoken nor thought.

The place of hell is full of darkness, discord, hatred, folly, misery, ugliness, bitterness, offense, grief, and burning, thirst, hunger, unquenchable fire, sadness, perpetual vengeance, and every unspeakable evil, which can neither be spoken nor thought. The citizens of heaven are righteous men and angels, whose king is almighty God; but on the contrary, the citizens of hell are impious men and demons, whose prince is the devil. The vision of holy men and angels, and above all of God himself, satisfies the righteous. The vision of condemned men and demons, and above all of the devil himself, torments the impious and sinners. Nothing is desired in the kingdom of God that is not found; but in hell nothing is found that is desired. In the kingdom of God nothing is found except what pleases, delights, and satisfies; but on the contrary, in the lake of perpetual misery nothing is seen and nothing is felt except what displeases, except what offends, except what torments. (* In the eternal kingdom there will be life without death, truth without error, happiness without disturbance.) Every good abounds in the kingdom of God, and no evil; every evil abounds in the prison of the devil, and no good. No unworthy person is received into the kingdom of God; but no worthy person, no righteous person, is dragged to hell.

CHAPTER II. On the punishments of hell. The principal torments in hell are two: unbearable cold and the heat of inextinguishable fire. Whence in the Gospel it is read: "There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Matt. 13:50; 22:13; 25:30). For weeping and the melting of the eyes arise from heat; but gnashing of the teeth arises from cold. Hence also blessed Job: "From the waters of snow," he says, "they will pass to excessive heat" (Job 24:19). From these two hang innumerable kinds of punishments: namely, intolerable thirst, the punishment of hunger, the punishment of stench, the punishment of horror, the punishment of fear, the punishment of anguish, the punishment of darkness, the severity of torturers, the presence of demons, the ferocity of beasts, the cruelty of those who minister, the tearing apart of immortal worms, the worm of conscience, fiery tears, sighs, miseries, pain without remedy, bonds without release, eternal death, punishment without end, the absence of Christ after the vision of him, which alone surpasses all the things mentioned above and is more intolerable than all punishments.

CHAPTER III. Concerning those whom the eternity of punishment does not deter from worldly pleasure. The twofold punishment of hell. No number of years is any portion of eternity. Woe, therefore, to those who perpetually deserve to undergo all these evils, even without end, for the delightful dream of a single hour: for so great and so remarkable is all the glory of this world, when compared to eternal glory. It would have been better for them, as was said of the unhappy Judas (Matt. 26:24), not to have been born, than to suffer the plagues of hell by their own evil merits. What is more foolish, what more insane, than to be deceived and overcome, like children, by the shadow and image and likeness of true glory and true delight, true beauty, true comeliness, true honor; and not to seek, not to desire true glory itself? Who would choose the image of gold in water, neglecting the gold itself; and would he not immediately be thought a fool and a madman by all? Who would love the disc of the sun reflected in a mirror, or formed in any material, more than the sun itself; and would he not be laughed at by all? Thus is he to be laughed at, indeed to be pitied, whoever loves, seeks, and strives for the fleeting fragility of this world and the useless pleasure of the flesh, having despised eternal glory and neglected the ineffable joys of the heavenly kingdom. This is a bargain of the foolish, and of the wretched, and of those not of sound mind, even if the plagues of hell did not follow, which can neither be spoken nor thought.

The punishment is twofold: to be absent from the kingdom of God, and to be always in hell, that is, with the devil and the damned; to lose the presence of angels, and to suffer always the terrible presence of demons. How much it ought to be shunned, avoided, and feared can in no way be expressed. Who with a sound mind would choose a hundred years of punishment for the pleasures of a single day? And yet wretched men, utterly without wisdom, following the lusts of the flesh, do not avoid, do not escape intolerable punishments—not of a hundred years, not of a thousand thousand, but of all ages without end—for the pleasures of forty or sixty years, or for any corruptible delight. For as great as is the difference between one day and a hundred years, so much greater, nay, far greater, is the difference between forty or sixty or a hundred years and eternity, whether future in good or in evil. For one day is some portion, however very small, within the span of a hundred years; but a span of a hundred years is no portion at all of that eternity. For if, for example, it were a hundredth or a thousandth part of eternity, then after a hundredfold or a thousandfold of that span, eternity would cease to be—which reason does not permit of eternity, for if it were bounded in any way, at any time, it would not be eternity at all.

CHAPTER IV. From the broad way to the narrow way one must migrate. The blessedness, knowledge, and love of their own lot among the blessed. On the ineffable sweetness of the vision of God. Therefore one must resist carnal pleasure with strength, fight with strength against the deceptive blandishments of this world, and keep watch with strength against the manifold suggestions of Satan. With all effort the broad way of the world, which leads to death (Matthew 7:13), is to be avoided; but with all the heart's desire the narrow way, which leads to life, is to be approached and sought after. This narrow way is the way of abstinence, and of chastity, and of humility, and of all religion; which way Christ walked before us, by which way he migrated to his kingdom. Let us also follow his footsteps, until after him we arrive at the royal city in which he himself reigns. Concerning which city, whatever a man may say is like a drop from the sea, or like a spark from a fire. In which city, evidently, the just will shine like the sun (Matthew 13:43), as the Lord says. Where there will be the highest peace, the highest rest, no labor, no sorrow, no poverty, nor old age, no death, nor any night, no desire for food, no burning of thirst; but the food and drink of all will be the vision of Christ and of the holy.

of the Trinity, and the contemplation of the Divinity itself with the pure eye of the heart, and the constant reading, so to speak, of the book of life, that is, the vision of eternal truth and supreme wisdom, and of the Word of God, which is Jesus Christ; where whatever now lies hidden from us will be more manifest; where the reason will be clear why this one was chosen and that one rejected; why this one was taken into the kingdom and that one reduced to old age; why one dies in the womb, another in infancy, another in youth, another in old age; why one is poor, another rich; why the son of an adulteress is baptized, and sometimes the son of a lawful wife dies before baptism; why one who begins to live well sometimes ends badly, and one who begins badly often ends well. All these things and many of this kind will be plain and open in the book of life. In the same city, the reward of each will be the reward of all, and the reward of all, through charity, will be the reward of each. There the good of all will be apparent to all. There all will know each other's thoughts in turn. There no superior will be proud, no inferior envious. For how could one who loves all as himself be envious of anyone, since no one is envious of himself? There no one will desire to be better or higher than he will be, because to be otherwise than he has merited would not be fitting; nor will he desire to be other than he will be, because to be as he will be will be beautiful, not only to himself, but also to the whole body of the heavenly Church.

For just as any limb of the body, if placed higher or lower than nature has established, makes the body monstrous and ugly, so too, if someone is ordained higher in the kingdom of God than the art and will of the almighty craftsman demands, he will produce ugliness not only for himself but for the whole congregation; in which the one who will be the least will undoubtedly have greater glory than the whole of the world’s kingdom, even if it were eternal. For it is exceedingly vile to enjoy the elements, in comparison with enjoying and rejoicing in God Himself, and to take delight in visible and corporeal things. For the beauty of justice is so great, the joy of eternal light—that is, of unchangeable truth and wisdom—so great, that even if it were not permitted to remain in it longer than the space of a single day, for this reason alone countless years full of delights in the abundance of corporeal goods would rightly and deservedly be despised. For it was not falsely or with slight feeling that it was said: “For a single day in your courts is better than a thousand” (Ps. 83:11).

Nothing is to be compared to the delight and joy that arises from invisible and incorporeal things, and from the company of angels and all the just, and from the certain knowledge and cognition of the divine nature itself, and from the face-to-face vision of God Himself. Whose beauty the angels marvel at, by whose command the dead are raised, whose wisdom is without number (Ps. 146:5), whose kingdom knows no end, whose glory cannot be told; whose light so obscures the sun that in comparison to it the sun has no light; whose sweetness so surpasses honey that compared to it honey is as the bitterest wormwood; whose face, if all those imprisoned in hell were to see it, they would feel no punishment, no pain, and no sadness; whose presence, if it appeared in hell with its holy inhabitants, would immediately turn hell into a pleasant paradise; without whose nod not even a leaf falls from a tree; whose flame-vomiting eyes penetrate the depths of hell; whose ear hears the silent voice of the heart, that is, thought; whose eye no less hears than sees; whose ear no less sees than hears, because they are not body, but supreme wisdom and certain knowledge. Whose delights satiate without disgust: which, when found by the blessed, are yet always desired, and produce hunger and thirst without pain, and delight with a burning desire always.

Its hidden wonders are always new and marvelous to those who behold them, and they produce no less astonishment in the beholders when they begin to be seen than after a thousand years and a thousand times a thousand. And although the angels have been accustomed to see them from the beginning of the world, yet they do not admire them less today than on the first day; otherwise, by the constant habit of seeing, they would long since have become cheap in the eyes of the angels. Of this knowledge, the past and the future are not past and future, but present. CHAPTER V. All things are present to God, without prejudice to human freedom. His speech and praise. Existence before time. True evil is worse than false. What the vision of God confers on the blessed. God's eternity; God's knowledge. Hence He will not see the day of judgment, nor did He see the first day of the world; but He sees both. His foreknowledge compels no one to sin, as many in error say. For if, they say, God foreknew that Adam would sin, he could not but sin. From this error arises the claim that God is the cause of sin, which it is impious to say. And yet they are refuted even by their own words. For if what God's foreknowledge holds must happen, then man sinned by his own will, and not by any necessity, because it was in God's foreknowledge that he would sin by will and free choice, and not by compelling necessity. Therefore, if God's foreknowledge cannot be avoided, man could not sin otherwise than by will, with no other force compelling him, because God foreknew that he would sin in that way. Therefore, he sinned voluntarily, not under compulsion.

For if he was not compelled to sin, he could undoubtedly have not sinned if he had wished; and therefore he deserved punishment, because he did not sin unwillingly; otherwise he would not receive the penalty of death from God. Whose speech is a hidden inspiration, by which he invisibly shows his will and his love to minds; which the Angels see and obey God in all things. Whose praise is that by which he will praise the elect, a manifestation by which he will show the good of his elect to all; but the constant praise by which the elect will praise him is their perpetual admiration of him. Who in a wondrous way did not precede the world and time in time (for he was not before the world by the space of any hour); and yet he always was without beginning. For there was no time before time, but time was created together with the world. Therefore if time began to run from the beginning of the world, before the world was made there was none. And so in no time, as we have said, did God precede times and the world coeternal with them, but rather a little before them; for by his motion they began to run. Whatever is moved precedes its own motion. For God preceded the world by an ineffable eternity, not by time. Whose time before the world was not. Whose light drives away the darkness of ignorance; by some particle of which we know that all these things we have said are true and certain.

By the same light we see that the true is better than the false; and yet a true evil or a true sin is worse than a false evil or a false sin: not because it is true, but because it is evil or sin [but it is evil or sin for this reason, because it is a true evil or a true sin]. For otherwise it could not be evil or sin, unless it were a true evil or a true sin; for a false evil is not evil, just as false silver is not silver. Someone may say, from truth, that evil or sin has arisen or been made, and that in some way the work of truth is evil, which is entirely false. For every truth is from truth, and every truth, insofar as it is true, is good: therefore from truth it is that it is true that evil or sin exists, not the evil or sin itself; for it is one thing for evil itself to exist, another for it to be true that it exists. Therefore, although evil itself is not good, yet it is good that it is true that it exists. For unless it were good that evil exists, God would in no way permit it to happen. For the Omnipotent makes many good things from evils, as from the adultery of men He forms and makes good men. But if, by a certain particle of that light, as if poured in through narrow windows, we have known these and all other things which we know to be true, by what and how great a light of knowledge and wisdom shall we be illuminated there, where we shall see the sun of truth itself face to face, that is, know certain and true wisdom? By whose presence it makes those present like itself.

Whoever adheres to true wisdom, true beauty, true eternity will certainly be wise, beautiful, and eternal. For the absence of it renders one unlike it in every way. Its eternity is without beginning and without end (for if there were a time when it was not, who would have made it?); because it is God alone, and before Him there was no other God, nor is there, nor will there be. He did not create Himself by chance, since nothing creates itself: for by what power could one who altogether was not make Himself? It remains, therefore, that God was not made at all. Since God was in no way made, He existed before all things without beginning. For whatever is made has a beginning; and whatever has a beginning is without doubt made, not by another than God, who is not made but makes all things. His knowledge, without any variation of cognition and without any running to and fro, comprehends and understands the innumerable truth of all creatures—angels, men, stars, sands, hairs, words, thoughts, all moments—simultaneously and at once. Therefore the fountain and origin of all knowledge is God: the more one drinks from it, the more one thirsts.

CHAPTER VI. The knowledge of the blessed. On the threefold vision: bodily, spiritual, intellectual. Incomparably, therefore, does the kingdom of the whole world, as we said above, even if it were eternal, surpass the company of angels and saints and the presence of the vision of God Himself. In that vision a threefold knowledge arises: that is, the one who sees, and God who is seen, and all others will see and understand everything. For just as through a glass mirror a threefold vision is afforded to us, because we see ourselves, and the mirror itself, and whatever is present before us; so through the mirror of divine clarity we shall see God Himself as He is, as far as will be possible for a creature, and we shall know ourselves and others with true and certain knowledge. Then the hidden things of creatures, and of hell itself, we shall see by seeing God. Then it will be manifest to the just how God is invisible, incomparable, without beginning and without end, before all things and after all things: whatever difference there is between being born, which pertains to the Son, and proceeding, which pertains to the Holy Spirit, except that one was born from one, the other proceeded from two; and how the Father did not precede.

the Son in time, but in origin, nor the Holy Spirit; and how all things of God are one in God, except what pertains to relation; for the wisdom of God and truth and eternity are not diverse among themselves, but are one, just as all other things: for the wisdom of God is no more wisdom than it is truth, and it is no more truth than it is wisdom, than it is eternity, than it is all other things of God; for they are one in God, and not only are these the same among themselves in God, but they are not other than God himself; and how the world was in God before it was in itself, not world, but God; and how he is everywhere whole without place, great without quantity, good without quality; and how he penetrates all things, clean and unclean, without defilement of himself. For if this visible light illuminates all places, and even penetrates dung-heaps without stench and without defilement of itself, how much more does God, who is invisible and immutable light, penetrate, rule, sustain, surround, and illuminate all things, without any change or defilement, not only celestial and terrestrial, but even infernal things?

Then there will be for the elect of God a threefold vision: that is, corporeal, by which bodies will be perceived—some shining like the sun, some like the moon, others like stars; and spiritual, by which they will behold likenesses of bodies in spirit and not in deceptive phantasy—by which vision even today the spirits of the just after the enclosures of the body enjoy; and intellectual vision, by which with the pure eye of the mind in spirit they will see God, and their own souls, and the inner powers, and angelic spirits. Then they will render twofold thanks to God, namely for their own liberation from perpetual damnation and for the ineffable reward of the good. Then the common defendant and enemy of all, the devil, will be condemned in the sight of the elect of God; whose condemnation and intolerable punishment will provide a delightful spectacle for the elect. Then with the most ardent love they will love their liberator and the giver of all good things, and without end and without weariness they will praise with the cry of the heart God omnipotent, kind, and merciful; to whom is honor and glory both now and for all ages of ages. Amen.