Chapter XI.—If, After Man’s Sin, God Exercised His Attribute of Justice and Judgment, This Was Compatible with His Goodness, and Enhances the True Idea of the Perfection of God’s Character.

Up to the fall of man, therefore, from the beginning God was simply good; after that He became a judge both severe and, as the Marcionites will have it, cruel. Woman is at once condemned to bring forth in sorrow, and to serve her husband,523    Gen. iii. 16. although before she had heard without pain the increase of her race proclaimed with the blessing, Increase and multiply, and although she had been destined to be a help and not a slave to her male partner. Immediately the earth is also cursed,524    Gen. iii. 18. which before was blessed. Immediately spring up briers and thorns, where once had grown grass, and herbs, and fruitful trees. Immediately arise sweat and labour for bread, where previously on every tree was yielded spontaneous food and untilled525    Secura. nourishment. Thenceforth it is “man to the ground,” and not as before, “from the ground”; to death thenceforth, but before, to life; thenceforth with coats of skins, but before, nakedness without a blush. Thus God’s prior goodness was from526    Secundum. nature, His subsequent severity from527    Secundum. a cause. The one was innate, the other accidental; the one His own, the other adapted;528    Accommodata. the one issuing from Him, the other admitted by Him. But then nature could not have rightly permitted His goodness to have gone on inoperative, nor the cause have allowed His severity to have escaped in disguise or concealment.  God provided the one for Himself, the other for the occasion.529    Rei. You should now set about showing also that the position of a judge is allied with evil, who have been dreaming of another god as a purely good one—solely because you cannot understand the Deity to be a judge; although we have proved God to be also a judge. Or if not a judge, at any rate a perverse and useless originator of a discipline which is not to be vindicated—in other words, not to be judged.  You do not, however, disprove God’s being a judge, who have no proof to show that He is a judge. You will undoubtedly have to accuse justice herself, which provides the judge, or else to reckon her among the species of evil, that is, to add injustice to the titles of goodness. But then justice is an evil, if injustice is a good. And yet you are forced to declare injustice to be one of the worst of things, and by the same rule are constrained to class justice amongst the most excellent. Since there is nothing hostile530    Æmulum. to evil which is not good, and no enemy of good which is not evil. It follows, then, that as injustice is an evil, so in the same degree is justice a good.  Nor should it be regarded as simply a species of goodness, but as the practical observance531    Tutela. of it, because goodness (unless justice be so controlled as to be just) will not be goodness, if it be unjust. For nothing is good which is unjust; while everything, on the other hand, which is just is good.

CAPUT XI.

Igitur usque ad delictum hominis, Deus a primordio tantum bonus, exinde judex, et severus, et quod Marcionitae volunt, saevus. Statim mulier in doloribus parere, et viro servire damnatur (Gen., III, 16): sed quae ante sine ulla contristatione per benedictionem in crementum generis audierat, Crescite tantum et multiplicamini: sed quae in adjutorium masculo, non in servitium fuerat destinata. Statim et terra maledicitur (Gen., III, 18); sed ante benedicta. Statim tribuli et spinae; sed ante foenum, et herbae, et arborum 0298B fructuosa. Statim sudor et labor panis; sed ante ex omni ligno victus immunis, et alimenta secura. Exinde homo ad terram, sed ante de terra. Exinde ad mortem, sed ante ad vitam. Exinde in scorteis vestibus, sed ante sine scrupulo nudus. Ita prior bonitas Dei, secundum naturam; severitas posterior, secundum caussam. Illa ingenita, haec accidens: illa propria, haec accommodata: illa edita, haec adhibita. Nec natura enim inoperatam debuit continuisse bonitatem, nec caussa dissimulatam evasisse severitatem. Alteram sibi, alteram rei Deus praestitit. Incipe nunc etiam judicis statum ut affinem mali arguere, qui idcirco alium Deum somniasti solummodo bonum, quia non potes judicem: quanquam et illum ut judicem ostendimus. Aut si non judicem, certe perversum 0298C ac vanum, disciplinae non vindicandae, id est, non judicandae constitutorem. Non reprobas autem Deum judicem, qui non judicem Deum probas? Ipsam sine dubio justitiam accusare debebis, quae judicem praestat, aut et eam in species malitiae deputare, id est, injustitiam in titulos bonitatis adscribere. Nunc enim justitia malum, si injustitia bonum. Porro, cum cogeris injustitiam de pessimis pronuntiare, eodem jugo urgeris justitiam de optimis censere. Nihil enim aemulum mali non bonum, sicut et boni aemulum nihil non malum. Igitur quanto malum injustitia, tanto bonum justitia. Nec species solummodo, sed tutela reputanda bonitatis; quia bonitas nisi justitia regatur. ut justa sit, non erit bonitas, si injusta sit. Nihil enim bonum, quod injustum; bonum autem 0298D omne, quod justum.