Chapter V.

You have therefore the will of my God. We have cured this prick. Let us give good heed to another thrust touching the character of His will.  It would be tedious to show that my God is good,—a truth with which the Marcionites have now been made acquainted by us. Meanwhile it is enough that He is called God for its being necessary that He should be believed to be good. For if any one make the supposition that God is evil, he will not be able to take his stand on both the constituents thereof: he will be bound either to affirm that he whom he has thought to be evil is not God, or that he whom he has proclaimed to be God is good. Good, therefore, will be the will also of him who, unless he is good, will not be God. The goodness of the thing itself also which God has willed—of martyrdom, I mean—will show this, because only one who is good has willed what is good. I stoutly maintain that martyrdom is good, as required by the God by whom likewise idolatry is forbidden and punished.  For martyrdom strives against and opposes idolatry. But to strive against and oppose evil cannot be ought but good. Not as if I denied that there is a rivalry in evil things with one another, as well as in good also; but this ground for it requires a different state of matters. For martyrdom contends with idolatry, not from some malice which they share, but from its own kindness; for it delivers from idolatry. Who will not proclaim that to be good which delivers from idolatry?  What else is the opposition between idolatry and martyrdom, than that between life and death? Life will be counted to be martyrdom as much as idolatry to be death. He who will call life an evil, has death to speak of as a good. This frowardness also appertains to men,—to discard what is wholesome, to accept what is baleful, to avoid all dangerous cures, or, in short, to be eager to die rather than to be healed. For they are many who flee from the aid of physic also, many in folly, many from fear and false modesty. And the healing art has manifestly an apparent cruelty, by reason of the lancet, and of the burning iron, and of the great heat of the mustard; yet to be cut and burned, and pulled and bitten, is not on that account an evil, for it occasions helpful pains; nor will it be refused merely because it afflicts, but because it afflicts inevitably will it be applied.  The good accruing is the apology for the frightfulness of the work. In short, that man who is howling and groaning and bellowing in the hands of a physician will presently load the same hands with a fee, and proclaim that they are the best operators, and no longer affirm that they are cruel. Thus martyrdoms also rage furiously, but for salvation. God also will be at liberty to heal for everlasting life by means of fires and swords, and all that is painful. But you will admire the physician at least even in that respect, that for the most part he employs like properties in the cures to counteract the properties of the diseases, when he aids, as it were, the wrong way, succouring by means of those things to which the affliction is owing. For he both checks heat by heat, by laying on a greater load; and subdues inflammation by leaving thirst unappeased, by tormenting rather; and contracts the superabundance of bile by every bitter little draught, and stops hemorrhage by opening a veinlet in addition. But you will think that God must be found fault with, and that for being jealous, if He has chosen to contend with a disease and to do good by imitating the malady, to destroy death by death, to dissipate killing by killing, to dispel tortures by tortures, to disperse36    Literally, “disperse in vapour.”—Tr. punishments by punishments, to bestow life by withdrawing it, to aid the flesh by injuring it, to preserve the soul by snatching it away. The wrongheadedness, as you deem it to be, is reasonableness; what you count cruelty is kindness. Thus, seeing God by brief (sufferings) effects cures for eternity, extol your God for your prosperity; you have fallen into His hands, but have happily fallen.  He also fell into your sicknesses.  Man always first provides employment for the physician; in short, he has brought upon himself the danger of death.  He had received from his own Lord, as from a physician, the salutary enough rule to live according to the law, that he should eat of all indeed (that the garden produced) and should refrain from only one little tree which in the meantime the Physician Himself knew as a perilous one. He gave ear to him whom he preferred, and broke through self-restraint. He ate what was forbidden, and, surfeited by the trespass, suffered indigestion tending to death; he certainly richly deserving to lose his life altogether who wished to do so. But the inflamed tumour due to the trespass having been endured until in due time the medicine might be mixed, the Lord gradually prepared the means of healing—all the rules of faith, they also bearing a resemblance to (the causes of) the ailment, seeing they annul the word of death by the word of life, and diminish the trespass-listening by a listening of allegiance. Thus, even when that Physician commands one to die, He drives out the lethargy of death. Why does man show reluctance to suffer now from a cure, what he was not reluctant then to suffer from a disorder? Does he dislike being killed for salvation, who did not dislike being killed for destruction?—Will he feel squeamish with reference to the counter poison, who gaped for the poison?

CAPUT V.

Habes igitur Dei mei voluntatem: occursum est 0131A huic plagae. In alium ictum consideremus, de voluntatis qualitate. Longum est ut Deum meum bonum ostendam, quod jam a nobis didicerunt Marcionitae. Deum interim sufficit dici, ut necesse sit bonum credi. Malum enim Deum qui praesumpserit, constare in utroque non poterit: aut Deum negare debebit, quem malum existimarit; aut bonum dicere, quem Deum pronuntiarit. Bona igitur erit et voluntas ejus, qui nisi bonus, non erit Deus. Probabit hoc etiam ipsius rei bonitas, quam Deus voluit; martyrii dico: quia bonum nonnisi bonus voluit . Bonum contendo martyrium apud eumdem Deum, a quo et prohibetur et punitur idololatria. Obnititur enim et adversatur idololatriae martyrium. Malo autem obniti et adversari nisi bonum non potest. 0131B Non quasi negemus esse aemulationem, tam malorum inter se, quam et bonorum. Sed alia conditio est hujus tituli. Martyrium enim non de communi aliqua malitia certat cum idololatria, sed de sua gratia; liberat enim ab idololatria. Quod a malo liberat, quis non bonum pronuntiabit? quid aliud est adversatio idololatriae atque martyrii, quam mortis et vitae? In tantum vita martyrio deputabitur, quantum mors idololatriae . Vitam qui malum dixerit, habet mortem quam bonum dicat. Est et haec perversitas hominum, salutaria excutere, exitiosa suscipere, periculosa quaerere , medica male vitare; mori denique citius, quam curari desiderare. Nam et medicinae praesidium plures refugiunt: plures enim stulti, plures timidi, et male verecundi. 0131C Et est plane quasi saevitia medicinae , de scalpello, deque cauterio, de sinapis incendio; non tamen secari, et inuri, et extendi , idcirco 0132A malum, quia dolores utiles affert: nec quia tantummodo contristat, recusabitur; sed quia necessario contristat, adhibebitur. Horrorem operis fructus excusat. Ululans denique ille, et gemens, et mugiens inter manus medici, postmodum easdem mercede cumulabit, artifices optimas praedicabit, et saevas jam negabit. Sic et martyria desaeviunt, sed in salutem; licebit et Deo in vitam aeternam per ignes et gladios et acerba quaeque curare. Sed medicum quidem miraberis etiam in illo, quod ferme pares adhibet qualitates medelarum adversus qualitates querelarum: cum quasi de perverso auxiliatur, per ea subveniens per quae laboratur. Nam et calores caloribus amplius onerando compescit, et ardores siti potius macerando restinguit , et 0132B fellis excessus amaris quibusque potiunculis colligit , et sanguinis fluxus defusa insuper venula revocat. Deum vero, et quidem zelotem, culpandum existimabis, si voluit certasse cum caussa, et injuriae aemulando prodesse, mortem morte dissolvere, occisionem occisione dispargere, tormentis tormenta discutere, supplicia suppliciis evaporare, vitam auferendo conferre, carnem laedendo juvare, animam eripiendo servare. Perversitas quam putas, ratio est; quod saevitiam existimas, gratia est: ita Deo de momentaneis aeterna medicante . Magnifica bono tuo Deum tetrum: incidisti in manus ejus, sed feliciter incidisti; incidit et ille in aegritudines tuas. Homo semper medico prior negotium facit: denique sibimetipse periculum mortis attraxit. 0132C Acceperat a Domino suo, ut a medico, satis utilem disciplinam secundum legem vivendi, ut omnia quidem ederet, ab una solummodo arbuscula temperaret, 0133A quam ipse medicus importunam interim noverat: audiit ille quem maluit, et abstinentiam rupit, edit illicitum, et transgressione saturatus, in mortem cruditavit , dignissimus bona fide in totum perire , qui voluit. Sed Dominus sustentata fervura delicti, donec tempore medicina temperaretur , paulatim remedia composuit, omnes fidei disciplinas, et ipsas aemulas vitio, verbum mortis verbo vitae rescindentes, auditum transgressionis auditu devotionis limantes, ita et cum mori praecipit medicus ille, veternum mortis excludit. Quid gravatur pati nunc homo ex remedio, quod non est tunc gravatus pati ex vitio? displicet occidi in salutem, cui non displicuit occidi in perditionem? nauseabit ad antidotum, qui hiavit ad venenum?