Chapter V.23    Cf. chaps. viii. and xii.—Sundry Objections or Excuses Dealt with.

We will certainly take more pains in answering the excuses of artificers of this kind, who ought never to be admitted into the house of God, if any have a knowledge of that Discipline.24    i.e., the Discipline of the house of God, the Church. Oehler reads, “eam disciplinam,” and takes the meaning to be that no artificer of this class should be admitted into the Church, if he applies for admittance, with a knowledge of the law of God referred to in the former chapters, yet persisting in his unlawful craft. Fr. Junius would read, “ejus disciplinam.” To begin with, that speech, wont to be cast in our teeth, “I have nothing else whereby to live,” may be more severely retorted, “You have, then, whereby to live?  If by your own laws, what have you to do with God?”25    i.e., If laws of your own, and not the will and law of God, are the source and means of your life, you owe no thanks and no obedience to God, and therefore need not seek admittance into His house (Oehler). Then, as to the argument they have the hardihood to bring even from the Scriptures, “that the apostle has said, ‘As each has been found, so let him persevere.’”26    1 Cor. vii. 20. In Eng. ver., “Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called.” We may all, therefore, persevere in sins, as the result of that interpretation! for there is not any one of us who has not been found as a sinner, since no other cause was the source of Christ’s descent than that of setting sinners free. Again, they say the same apostle has left a precept, according to his own example, “That each one work with his own hands for a living.”27    1 Thess. iv. 11; 2 Thess. iii. 6–12. If this precept is maintained in respect to all hands, I believe even the bath-thieves28    i.e., thieves who frequented the public baths, which were a favorite resort at Rome. live by their hands, and robbers themselves gain the means to live by their hands; forgers, again, execute their evil handwritings, not of course with their feet, but hands; actors, however, achieve a livelihood not with hands alone, but with their entire limbs. Let the Church, therefore, stand open to all who are supported by their hands and by their own work; if there is no exception of arts which the Discipline of God receives not. But some one says, in opposition to our proposition of “similitude being interdicted,” “Why, then, did Moses in the desert make a likeness of a serpent out of bronze?” The figures, which used to be laid as a groundwork for some secret future dispensation, not with a view to the repeal of the law, but as a type of their own final cause, stand in a class by themselves. Otherwise, if we should interpret these things as the adversaries of the law do, do we, too, as the Marcionites do, ascribe inconsistency to the Almighty, whom they29    The Marcionites. in this manner destroy as being mutable, while in one place He forbids, in another commands? But if any feigns ignorance of the fact that that effigy of the serpent of bronze, after the manner of one uphung, denoted the shape of the Lord’s cross,30    [The argument amounts to this, that symbols were not idols:  yet even so, God only could ordain symbols that were innocent. The Nehushtan of King Hezekiah teaches us the “peril of Idolatry” (2 Kings xviii. 4) and that even a divine symbol may be destroyed justly if it be turned to a violation of the Second Commandment.] which was to free us from serpents—that is, from the devil’s angels—while, through itself, it hanged up the devil slain; or whatever other exposition of that figure has been revealed to worthier men31    [On which see Dr. Smith, Dict. of the Bible, ad vocem “Serpent.”] no matter, provided we remember the apostle affirms that all things happened at that time to the People32    i.e., the Jewish people, who are generally meant by the expression “the People” in the singular number in Scripture. We shall endeavour to mark that distinction by writing the word, as here, with a capital.figuratively.33    See 1 Cor. x. 6, 11. It is enough that the same God, as by law He forbade the making of similitude, did, by the extraordinary precept in the case of the serpent, interdict similitude.34    On the principle that the exception proves the rule. As Oehler explains it: “By the fact of the extraordinary precept in that particular case, God gave an indication that likeness-making had before been forbidden and interdicted by Him.” If you reverence the same God, you have His law, “Thou shalt make no similitude.”35    Ex. xx. 4, etc. [The absurd “brazen serpent” which I have seen in the Church of St. Ambrose, in Milan, is with brazen hardihood affirmed to be the identical serpent which Moses lifted up in the wilderness. But it lacks all symbolic character, as it is not set upon a pole nor in any way fitted to a cross. It greatly resembles a vane set upon a pivot.] If you look back, too, to the precept enjoining the subsequently made similitude, do you, too, imitate Moses: make not any likeness in opposition to the law, unless to you, too, God have bidden it.36    [Elucidation I.]

CAPUT V.

0666C

Plane impensius respondebimus ad excusationes 0667A hujusmodi artificum, quos nunquam in domum Dei admitti oportet, si quis eam disciplinam norit. Jam illa objici solita vox: Non habeo aliud quo vivam . Districtius repercuti potest: vivere ergo habes. Quid tibi cum Deo est, si tuis legibus ? Tum quod et de Scripturis audent argumentari , dixisse apostolum, ut quisque fuerit inventus, ita et perseveret (I Cor. VII, 20). Possumus igitur omnes in peccatis perseverare ex ista interpretatione. Nec enim quisquam nostrum non peccator inventus est (I Cor., IV), cum Christus non alia ex caussa descenderit, quam peccatorum liberandorum. Item eumdem praecepisse (I Thess., IV, 11) dicunt secundum suum exemplum, ut manibus unusquisque operetur ad victum. Si hoc praeceptum ab omnibus manibus defendatur, 0667B credo et fures balnearios manibus suis vivere, et ipsos latrones manibus agere quo vivant. Item falsarios utique non pedibus, sed manibus operari malas litteras. Histriones vero non manibus solis, sed totis membris victum elaborare. Pateat igitur Ecclesia omnibus, qui manibus et suo opere tolerantur, si nulla exceptio est artium, quas Dei disciplina non recipit . Sed ait quidam adversus similitudinis interdictae propositionem (Num. XXI): Cur ergo Moses in eremo simulacrum serpentis ex aere fecit? Seorsum figurae, quae dispositioni alicui arcanae praestruebantur, non ad derogationem legis, sed ad exemplarium caussae suae . Alioquin si haec ut adversarii legis interpretemur, numquid et nos, quod et Marcionitae, inconstantiam adscribimus Omnipotenti? quem 0667C illi hoc modo destruunt ut mutabilem, dum alibi vetat, alibi mandat? Si quis autem dissimulat illam effigiem aerei serpentis, suspensi in modum, figuram designasse dominicae crucis , a serpentibus, id est 0668A ab angelis diaboli liberaturae nos, dum per semetipsum diabolum, id est, serpentem interfectum suspendit, sive quae alia figurae istius expositio dignioribus revelata est, dummodo (I Cor., X) apostolus affirmet omnia tunc figurate populo accidisse: bene quod idem Deus qui lege vetuit similitudinem fieri, extraordinario praecepto serpentis similitudinem indixit . Si eumdem Deum observas, habes legem ejus (Exod., XX, 4), Ne feceris similitudinem. Si et praeceptum factae postea similitudinis respicis, et tu imitare Moysen, ne facias adversus legem simulacrum aliquod, nisi et tibi Deus jusserit.