Cyprian & Lactantius · a new plain-English translation from the original language
In setting out to speak of patience, beloved brothers, and to proclaim its usefulness and its benefits, where could I better begin than by pointing out that even now, as you listen, patience is needed by you, so that you cannot so much as hear and learn what I am about to say without exercising it? For only then is wholesome speech and teaching truly absorbed, when what is spoken is heard with patience. And among all the other paths of heavenly discipline by which our profession of hope and faith is directed toward the rewards granted from above, I find nothing more useful for life or greater for glory than this: that we who lean upon the Lord's commands in reverent obedience and devotion should above all guard patience with our whole attention.
The philosophers too claim to pursue this virtue, but their patience is as false as their wisdom. For how could one who knows neither God's wisdom nor God's patience be either wise or patient? Concerning those who fancy themselves wise in this age, God himself gives warning: the cunning of the clever I will bring to ruin, and the insight of the shrewd I will cast aside. So too Paul, that blessed apostle, was sent — full of the Spirit of holiness — to summon and shape the nations, and he testifies and teaches thus: See that no one plunder you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elements of the world and not according to Christ, for in him dwells the whole fullness of divinity. And elsewhere he says: Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you supposes himself clever, let him turn fool by this world's standard so that cleverness may follow — since what passes for cleverness here counts as sheer folly before God. For it is written: He catches the wise in their own cunning. And again: futility is all the Lord finds when he examines what the wise are thinking. Therefore, if true wisdom is not found among them, neither can true patience be found there. For if the patient man is the one who is humble and gentle, and we observe that philosophers are neither humble nor gentle but very pleased with themselves, and by that very self-satisfaction displeasing to God, it is clear that patience has no place where there is the insolent boldness of an affected liberty and the shameless boasting of a bared and half-naked breast.
We, however, beloved brothers, who are philosophers not in word but in deed, who display wisdom not in dress but in truth, who prize the awareness of virtue rather than the display of it, who do not merely speak of great things but put them into practice — as God's servants and worshippers, then, let us offer through spiritual obedience the patience taught to us by heavenly instruction. For this virtue is one we share in common with God. From him patience takes its beginning; from him its brightness and its dignity take their source. The origin and the greatness of patience proceed with God as its author. What is dear to God ought to be loved by man; the good that the divine majesty loves is thereby commended to us. If God is our Lord and our Father, let us follow the patience of the Lord and of the Father alike, since servants ought to be obedient and sons ought not to prove unworthy of their birth.
How great and how remarkable is God's patience, in that though profane temples, earthly idols, and sacrilegious rites are set up by men in insult to his majesty and honor, he endures them with utmost patience, and yet makes the day dawn and the sunlight rise equally upon the good and the wicked; and when he waters the earth with rains, no one is excluded from his benefits, so that he pours down his impartial showers equally on the just and the unjust. We see, by this same unbroken equality of patience, that the seasons obey God's will, the elements serve, the winds blow, the springs flow, the abundance of the harvest grows, the fruit of the vineyards ripens, the orchards overflow with produce, the groves grow green, and the meadows bloom, for the guilty and the innocent, for the devout and the impious, for the grateful and the ungrateful alike. And though God is provoked by frequent, indeed continual, offenses, he tempers his indignation and patiently awaits the day of retribution already appointed, and though he has vengeance in his power, he prefers to hold his patience long, bearing with mercy and delay, so that, if it can be, the wickedness so long indulged might at last be changed, and man, wallowing in the contagion of error and crime, might turn to God even late, as God himself warns: It is not the death of one who is dying that I desire, but rather his turning back to live. And again: Come back to me, declares the Lord. And once more: Turn back, all of you, to your God the Lord — for compassion, mercy, patience, and overflowing kindness are his nature, and he relents from the sentence he had pronounced against wrongdoing. Recalling this, and summoning the sinner back to repentance, the blessed apostle Paul writes: Or do you hold in contempt the abundance of his kindness, tolerance, and forbearance, unaware that it is God's forbearing kindness drawing you toward repentance? Instead, through your stubborn and unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for that day of wrath, when God's just verdict will be disclosed and he repays each man according to what he has done. He calls the judgment of God just, because it is delayed, because it is put off long and often, so that by God's long patience man's life might still be provided for. Then, and only then, is punishment brought upon the wicked and the sinner, when repentance can no longer profit the sin.
And that we may understand more fully, beloved brothers, that patience is God's own possession, and that whoever is gentle, patient, and mild bears the likeness of God the Father — a truth the Lord established when, in his gospel, he set down precepts for salvation and, laying out divine teaching, shaped his disciples toward perfection: You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you: hold even your enemies in love, and pray on behalf of those who persecute you, so that you may become sons of that Father of yours who dwells in heaven, who causes his sun to shine on both the good and the wicked and sends down rain on both the just and the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward will you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing? Do not even the pagans do the same thing? Be, then, perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Thus he said that the children of God become perfect; thus he showed and taught that those reborn to a heavenly birth are brought to completion, if the patience of God the Father remains in us, if the divine likeness that Adam lost through sin is made visible and shines in our actions. What glory it is to become like God; what great and wonderful happiness it is to possess in one's virtues something that can be set beside the praises of the divine.
Nor did our Lord and God Jesus Christ, beloved brothers, teach this only in words; he fulfilled it also in deeds. He who had said he came down to do the will of the Father, among the other marvels of power by which he displayed the signs of divine majesty, also kept the Father's patience through the steadfastness of his own endurance. Indeed, every act of his, from the very moment of his coming, is marked by patience as its companion: first, in that he came down from that heavenly height into earthly life, and the Son of God thought it no shame to clothe himself in human flesh, bearing others' sins though he himself had committed none. Immortal though he was, he allowed himself to become subject to death, so that guilt might be paid for through the death of one who was innocent. A servant baptizes the Lord, and he who was to grant the remission of sins does not disdain to wash his body in the bath of regeneration. For forty days he fasts, he by whom others are fed; he hungers and felt hunger, so that those who had been famished for the word and for grace might be filled with heavenly bread. He engages the devil in that testing, and satisfied merely with having bested his foe, he attempts nothing beyond an exchange of words. He did not lord it over his disciples as a master by his own authority, but, kind and gentle, he cherished them with the affection of a brother, even stooping to wash the apostles' feet — showing by that example, toward his own servants, how one fellow-servant ought to treat another among his equals and companions. Nor is it surprising that he was so toward the obedient, he who could bear with Judas even to the very end with long patience, sharing food with his enemy, knowing the household foe and not exposing him openly, not refusing the betrayer's kiss. And toward the Jews, what great equanimity and what great patience, in seeking to win the unbelieving to faith by persuasion, in cherishing the ungrateful despite their obedience, in answering the contentious gently, in bearing the proud with mercy, in yielding humbly to those who persecuted him, willing even to gather in, up to the hour of his cross and passion, the killers of the prophets, ever rebellious against God.
But under the very passion and the cross, before he came to the cruelty of death and the shedding of his blood, what reproaches of insult were patiently heard, what mockeries of contempt were endured, so that he who a little before had formed the eyes of a blind man with his own spittle now received the spittle of those who mocked him; he in whose name the devil is now scourged along with his angels by his servants himself endured the scourges; he who crowns martyrs with unfading flowers was himself crowned with thorns; he who grants the true palm to those who conquer was struck in the face with the palm of a hand; he who clothes others with the garment of immortality was stripped of an earthly garment; he who gave the bread of heaven was fed with gall; he who offered a wholesome cup was given vinegar to drink. He, the innocent one, he, the just one — indeed innocence itself and justice itself — is numbered among criminals, and truth is crushed under false testimony; the one destined to judge is instead put on trial, and in silence God's own Word is brought to the cross. And though at the Lord's cross the stars are thrown into confusion, the elements are disturbed, the earth trembles, night shuts out day, the sun withdraws its rays and its gaze so as not to be forced to look upon the crime of the Jews, he himself does not speak, does not move, does not so much as declare his own majesty even in the midst of his passion: to the very end, all things are borne steadfastly and continuously, that in Christ patience might be brought to completion, full and perfect.
And even after all this, he still receives his own killers, if they turn and come to him, and, kind in his saving patience toward preserving them, he shuts his church to no one. Those adversaries, those blasphemers, those forever enemies of his name — if they do penance for their offense, if they acknowledge the crime they have committed — he grants them not merely release from the guilt of their crime but a share in heaven's own kingdom as reward. Could anything surpass this in patience, in kindness? Even he who shed the blood of Christ is given life by the blood of Christ. Such is the patience of Christ, so great is it; and had it not been so great and so complete, the church would not have the apostle Paul either.
But if we too, beloved brothers, are in Christ, if we have put him on, if he himself is the way of our salvation, let us who follow Christ along the path of salvation walk according to the example of Christ, just as the apostle John instructs, saying: Whoever says he abides in Christ ought himself to walk as he walked. Likewise Peter, upon whom the Lord's church was founded by his own appointment, sets down in his letter and says: Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his footsteps, who committed no sin, and in whose mouth no trace of deceit was ever discovered — reviled, he gave back no reviling; suffering, he made no threats, but delivered himself up to one who judged him unjustly.
We find, moreover, that the patriarchs and the prophets and all the just, who bore the image of Christ prefigured in themselves, guarded nothing more, in the praise of their virtues, than the patience they held with strong and unshaken steadfastness. Thus Abel, the first to begin and consecrate the origin of martyrdom and the suffering of the just, does not resist or struggle against his brother the murderer, but, humble and gentle, is patiently slain. Thus Abraham, believing in God and the first to lay the root and foundation of faith, when tested in the matter of his son does not doubt or hesitate, but obeys the commands of God with the whole devotion of patience. And Isaac, prefigured in the likeness of the Lord's sacrificial victim, when offered by his father to be immolated, is found patient. And Jacob, driven out by his brother, departs patiently from his own land, and later, with even greater patience, as a suppliant brings back to concord a brother still more hostile and persecuting, by peaceful gifts. Joseph, sold by his brothers and carried off into exile, not only patiently forgives, but generously and mercifully bestows grain upon those who come to him. Moses is frequently despised by an ungrateful and faithless people and nearly stoned, and yet, gentle and patient, he prays to the Lord on their behalf. And in David — the one from whose bodily line Christ's birth would come — what a great, remarkable, Christlike patience he displayed, having it often in his hand to kill Saul, who persecuted him and sought his death, and yet preferring to spare the one placed subject to him and delivered into his power, not repaying the enemy in kind, and even avenging him once he was slain by another. So many prophets, in the end, were killed; so many martyrs were honored by glorious deaths, all of them reaching their heavenly crowns because patience was what earned the praise. A crown for suffering and pain cannot be won unless patience has first accompanied that pain and suffering.
But that it may be more clearly and fully understood, beloved brothers, how useful and necessary patience is, let us consider the sentence God pronounced — the one Adam received at the very outset of the world, when the human race began, having forgotten the command and transgressed the law set before him. Then we shall know how patient we ought to be in this age, we who are born in such a way that we must labor here amid pressures and struggles. Because you have listened, God said, to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from that tree from which alone I had commanded you not to eat, the ground shall be cursed in all your works; in sorrow and groaning shall you eat from it all the days of your life. It shall bring forth for you thorns and thistles, and you shall eat the produce of the field. In the sweat of your face shall you eat your bread, until you return to the earth from which you were taken; for you are earth, and to earth you shall go. By the bond of this sentence we are all bound and constrained, until, death being blotted out, we depart from this age. We must of necessity live in sorrow and groaning all the days of our life; we must of necessity eat our bread with sweat and labor.
Hence, from the moment each of us is born and is received into the hospitality of this world, he takes his beginning from tears, and although as yet ignorant and unaware of all things, in that very first birth he knows nothing but to weep. By a natural foreknowledge, the infant soul, still raw, laments the anxieties and labors and storms of mortal life it is entering upon, bearing witness to them from the very outset in its own weeping and groaning. For as long as one lives here, one labors in sweat. And for those who sweat and labor, no comfort can come to their aid more than the comfort of patience — a virtue fitting and necessary for all in this world, but even more for us, who are shaken more by the devil's assaults, who, standing daily in the battle line, are worn down by the struggles of an experienced and seasoned foe, and for whom, besides the varied and constant battles of temptation, there also await, in the contest of persecution, the surrender of inheritance, imprisonment, the bearing of chains, the risking of life, the sword, wild beasts, fires, crosses — in short, every kind of torment and punishment, all to be endured by the faith and strength of patience, as the Lord himself instructs and says: I have spoken these things to you, that in me you may have peace; in the world you will have affliction, but take courage, for I have overcome the world. And if we ourselves — having already turned our backs on the devil and the world — nonetheless endure their assaults and hostility all the more often and fiercely, how much more must we hold fast to patience, so that with its help and companionship we may endure every hostile thing.
It is the saving precept of our Lord and Teacher: He who endures to the end shall be saved. And again: If you remain in my word, you are truly my disciples; you will come to know the truth, and that truth will make you free. Beloved brothers, since simply being Christians is itself bound up with faith and hope, endurance and perseverance are owed from us: admitted first to a mere hope of truth and freedom, only through that endurance do we arrive at truth and freedom as realities in themselves. Yet for that faith and hope to ripen into fruit, patience is required. For the glory we chase is not one already present but one still to come, as the apostle Paul likewise teaches: Hope has brought us salvation. Yet a hope already visible is no longer hope at all — why would a man go on hoping for something he can already see? But when we hope for what remains unseen, we hold out for it through patient endurance. Such waiting, such patience, is essential, so that we may bring to completion what we have begun to be, and so that, when God fulfills it, we may lay hold of what we hope for and believe. Elsewhere, that same apostle teaches the righteous — those laboring to lay up heavenly treasure from the growth of a divine investment — that they, too, must be patient, saying: So then, as long as we have opportunity, let us do good toward everyone, especially toward those who belong to the household of faith. Let us not tire of doing good, for in its own season we will gather the harvest. He warns against anyone losing heart from impatience in the labor, against anyone turning aside, distracted or worn down by temptation, midway on the road to praise and glory, thereby forfeiting gains already made when what was begun is left unfinished — just as it is written: On the day he strays, the righteous man's own righteousness will not rescue him, and again: Hold on to what you have, so no one takes your crown. This word urges us to persevere patiently and bravely, so that the one who strains toward a crown already close at hand may, by enduring patience, be crowned.
But patience, beloved brothers, does not only guard what is good; it also repels what is adverse. Favoring the Holy Spirit and holding fast to heavenly and divine things, it takes its stand opposed to whatever the flesh and the body do that assails and ensnares the soul, driving them back with the fortification of its virtues. Let us look, then, at a few examples out of many, so that the rest may be understood from these few. Adultery, deceit, murder are deadly crimes. Let patience be strong and steadfast in the heart, and the body, sanctified and made a temple of God, is not defiled by adultery, nor is innocence, consecrated to justice, infected by the contagion of deceit, nor is the hand, once it has borne the eucharist, stained afterward by sword and blood.