Sententia Ad Timotheum Primae

To Timothy, First. I. The one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus. I 11. If anyone desires the episcopate, he desires a good work, etc. III. For when they have run riot in Christ, they wish to marry, etc. IV. We brought nothing into this world, etc. (From the books against the Arians.) In Christ, God and man are not two different beings, but the same one; not two from diverse natures, but one mediator from both. There is indeed a twofold substance, but one person. If anyone presumes to tear this solidity asunder by a duality, first of all he publicly professes against the Apostle’s statement, which says: “One mediator of God and men, Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5). Then he must necessarily choose from the two, that is, the divine and the human, which nature he wishes to have undertaken the mysteries of this mediation. If God alone is the mediator, there is no other before whom he might intercede; if man alone, there is no one who can prevail to reconcile. Join them together, moreover, so that God is in Christ, and he reconciles the world to himself. He himself, clearly, is the one with whom the action is to be undertaken, and he himself is the one who acts: thus the same one is sent, and the same one returns; just as the same one is judged, and the same one will judge.

II. (From a sermon on the ordination of a bishop.) It remains now that he always remember this reading, which has now been read specifically to him, with the Apostle shouting, the people acclaiming, and the judgment proclaiming together: "If anyone desires the episcopate, he desires a good work" (1 Tim. 3:1). But many are accustomed to temper the fire of their own ambition with this apostolic saying as if with a cooling remedy, because a work that is good is now desired with permission granted. But such a desire would immediately cease if the following words were considered. "It is necessary," he says, "that such a one be irreprehensible" (Ibid., 2). Here, I ask, let growing ambition and the spirited wishes of good men contend: let the merits, examined by themselves, consider the security of desire permitted to them; whether the unsullied integrity of the divine image is preserved from every stain of forbidden reproach; whether the impulse of the mind has never exceeded the limit of moderation; whether anyone has never withheld a superfluous hand from any needy person; whether the petulance of speech has never broken into the honesty of more wholesome silence; whether the burning anger of a hot day is dissolved by the boundary of the setting sun (Eph. 4:26); whether words that sound one thing while the thoughts plan another are ever set in motion with a double heart; whether, finally, the worthy care of observance, not to mention oaths, even fears perjuries.

Not that all of us can be free from all these things, but that it is dangerous for anyone not to reflect on his own merits and to aspire to what is owed only to the blameless. What, then, shall be said of those who, by the cheapness of the price, purchase the preciousness of grace, and are led, even to the loss of money, by the loss of shame? Of those whose hired falsehoods serve their acclamations, whose itching ears are inflamed by the mercenary clamor of scratching panegyrics, and who, not remembering Simon Magus (Acts 8:18), who wished to buy the dispensation of the divine gift with money, are themselves, with their money, appointed not to the priesthood but to destruction. Therefore, I freely denounce these things before this chosen and compelled candidate: he who has pleased himself up to the point of his election can in no way please God. Rather, let us speak of the labor of innocent bishops. For the cause of the bishop who is to administer is not light; he is bound in a twofold manner: by speech, as a teacher of the people; by action, as a disciple of Christ. He is to rule the people no less by piety than by severity. It is fitting that he fear for his own losses; it is not fitting that he share in the crimes of others. He who burdens another while he himself is a witness, he who suffers loss while another perishes. When he hears that he should not be greedy for base gain, he must be so disposed as to be greedy, and indeed for gain, yet not base gain: that is, he should strive to polish the talents committed to him by the words of constant preaching, and to double the acquired and multiplied salvation of his flock.

It is commanded that he be adorned; nor is this to be taken in a bodily sense. The bishop, to whom the ornaments that are rightly imposed supply their due, is accompanied not by pomp, but by grace. Thus the priestly office, holding to that narrow and trodden path of the Gospel, and through its straits drawing even the people after it, fleeing the left, not presuming the right, dreads the dangerous slipperiness on either side, and, weighing the balance of apostolic speech with the equality of consideration, if he wishes to be strict, let him read not a striker; if humane, not a drunkard; if sober, not avaricious; if submissive, not abject; if a servant, not haughty; if merciful, not lax; if terrible, not bloody; if one who rules his own house well, certainly ordering everything, neglecting nothing, acquiring much, dispensing very much. Therefore to him, from the proven and right judgment of a well-managed household, much money is entrusted upon the table of that Gospel money-changer, which is to be returned with multiplied profit—you will be that profit.

III. (From a letter against Faustus.) I confess that for those placed in necessity, etc., as in the letter (col. a), up to "had not overcome the married in the flesh." IV. (From a sermon for the Rogation Days.) Come now, as far as possible, let us see what is ours and what is another's. The Apostle Paul says: "We brought nothing into this world, nor can we take anything away" (1 Tim. 6:7). And what can be called ours, which we neither brought nor are we going to return? "Naked," says Job, "I came out of my mother's womb, naked I shall return to the earth" (Job 1:21). It is clear how faithless is the use of riches, which accompanies us neither at our beginning nor at our end. Why do you greedily multiply gold and silver? Why do you call yours that to which you came naked? The wealth is the world's, which you call yours; it is common, which you think your own. The path of any journey we tread can briefly be called ours while we walk it; but once we have passed, it belongs to those who follow. How can fleeting and earthly wealth be ours, if it does not feed the needy, when it can feed the violent? How is it ours, in which we are neither innocent in taking, nor just in holding, nor certain in possessing, nor secure in keeping? And as we hold for certain that we came naked into the earth, so surely let us know that we can take nothing earthly away. The Apostle recalls that he brought nothing, and will take nothing away. Job confesses that he was born naked and will die naked.

Solomon declares that all have the same end and a similar departure. However much anyone may wish to be distinguished by ambition, they are joined in their beginning and their end. For what he said, "One entrance for all into life, and an equal exit into death" (Wisdom 7:6), taught not an equality of merit, but an equal condition. Hence, if it appears, as I think, that the faithful are not faithless, nor the saved perishing, let us discern a little what is ours. Behold, as I said above, when we come into this world, we bring nothing of earthly resources, yet we present a soul capable of free will and receptive of reason, for choosing the good, if God inspires. And as time passes, the quality of our will is confirmed; it is God's will that we do good, but what we have done is ours. Or does someone perhaps say that even this very action of good a man can lose through the devil's plotting? It is true that a man can lose his own good when the adversary steals it. But from this it should be inferred all the more that it is ours, because it is not violently taken away. For we do not lose our reward in the same way as we lose property. For what is outside us, a carnal enemy can take away by snatching; but what is within us, a spiritual enemy can only steal by plotting. And therefore, if the head of a household knew at what hour the thief was coming, he would certainly keep watch and not allow his house to be broken into (Luke 12:39).

Therefore, that is our home, which, if we are watchful, cannot be destroyed; but that is entirely foreign, which can be seized even while we are watchful.