Chapter XII.—Further Answers to the Plea, How Am I to Live?

In vain do we flatter ourselves as to the necessities of human maintenance, if—after faith sealed76    i.e., in baptism.—we say, “I have no means to live?”77    See above, chaps. v. and viii. [One is reminded here of the famous pleasantry of Dr. Johnson; see Boswell.] For here I will now answer more fully that abrupt proposition. It is advanced too late. For after the similitude of that most prudent builder,78    See Luke xiv. 28–30. who first computes the costs of the work, together with his own means, lest, when he has begun, he afterwards blush to find himself spent, deliberation should have been made before. But even now you have the Lord’s sayings, as examples taking away from you all excuse.  For what is it you say? “I shall be in need.” But the Lord calls the needy “happy.”79    Luke vi. 20. “I shall have no food.” But “think not,” says He, “about food;”80    Matt. vi. 25, 31, etc.; Luke xii. 22–24. and as an example of clothing we have the lilies.81    Matt. vi. 28; Luke xii. 28. “My work was my subsistence.” Nay, but “all things are to be sold, and divided to the needy.”82    Matt. xix. 21; Luke xviii. 22. “But provision must be made for children and posterity.” “None, putting his hand on the plough, and looking back, is fit” for work.83    Luke ix. 62, where the words are, “is fit for the kingdom of God.” “But I was under contract.” “None can serve two lords.”84    Matt. vi. 24; Luke xvi. 13. If you wish to be the Lord’s disciple, it is necessary you “take your cross, and follow the Lord:”85    Matt. xvi. 24; Mark viii. 34; Luke ix. 23; xiv. 27.your cross; that is, your own straits and tortures, or your body only, which is after the manner of a cross. Parents, wives, children, will have to be left behind, for God’s sake.86    Luke xiv. 26; Mark x. 29, 30; Matt. xix. 27–30. Compare these texts with Tertullian’s words, and see the testimony he thus gives to the deity of Christ. Do you hesitate about arts, and trades, and about professions likewise, for the sake of children and parents? Even there was it demonstrated to us, that both “dear pledges,”87    i.e., any dear relations. and handicrafts, and trades, are to be quite left behind for the Lord’s sake; while James and John, called by the Lord, do leave quite behind both father and ship;88    Matt. iv. 21, 22; Mark i. 19, 20; Luke v. 10, 11. while Matthew is roused up from the toll-booth;89    Matt. ix. 9; Mark ii. 14; Luke v. 29. while even burying a father was too tardy a business for faith.90    Luke ix. 59, 60. None of them whom the Lord chose to Him said, “I have no means to live.” Faith fears not famine. It knows, likewise, that hunger is no less to be contemned by it for God’s sake, than every kind of death. It has learnt not to respect life; how much more food? [You ask] “How many have fulfilled these conditions?” But what with men is difficult, with God is easy.91    Matt. xix. 26; Luke i. 37; xviii. 27. Let us, however, comfort ourselves about the gentleness and clemency of God in such wise, as not to indulge our “necessities” up to the point of affinities with idolatry, but to avoid even from afar every breath of it, as of a pestilence. [And this] not merely in the cases forementioned, but in the universal series of human superstition; whether appropriated to its gods, or to the defunct, or to kings, as pertaining to the selfsame unclean spirits, sometimes through sacrifices and priesthoods, sometimes through spectacles and the like, sometimes through holy-days.

CAPUT XII.

Male nobis de necessitatibus humanae exhibitionis supplaudimus, si post fidem obsignatam dicimus: 0678A non habeo quo vivam. Jam hic enim plenius illi abruptae propositioni respondebo: Sero dicitur. Ante enim fuit deliberandum, ex similitudine providentisssimi aedificis illius qui prius sumptus operis cum viribus suis supputat, ne, ubi coeperit, defectus postea erubescat. Sed et nunc habes dicta Domini, et exempla adimentia tibi omnem caussationem. Quid enim dicis? «Egebo». Sed felices egenos Dominus appellat. «Victum non habebo.» Sed nolite, inquit, cogitare de victu. Et vestitus habemus exemplum lilia. «Substantia mihi opus erat:» Atquin omnia vendenda sunt, et egentibus dividenda. «Sed filiis et posteritati providendum.» Nemo aratro manum imponens et retro spectans aptus est operi. «Sed conditionalis eram .» Nemo duobus dominis 0678B servire potest. Si vis Domini discipulus esse, crucem tuam tollas, et Dominum sequaris necesse est, id est, angustias et cruciatus tuos, vel corpus solum, qnod in modum crucis est . Parentes, conjuges, liberi propter Deum relinquendi erunt. De artibus et negotiationibus, et de professionibus etiam liberorum et parentum caussa dubitas? Jam tunc demonstratum est nobis et pignora, et artificia, et negotia propter Dominum derelinquenda, cum Jacobus et Joannes vocati a Domino et patrem navemque derelinquunt; cum Matthaeus de teloneo suscitatur; cum etiam sepelire patrem tardum fuit fidei. Nemo eorum quos Dominus allegit, non habeo, dixit, quo vivam. Fides famem non timet . Scit etiam famem non 0679A minus sibi contemnendam propter Deum, quam omne mortis genus. Didicit non respicere vitam, quanto magis victum? Quotusquisque haec adimplevit? Sed quae penes homines difficilia, penes Deum facilia.