Author Topic: The Church Fathers: On Patience (Read 997 times)

Lorenzo · « **on:** June 06, 2012, 03:57:35 PM »

1. That virtue of the mind which is called Patience, is so great a gift of God, that even in Him who bestows the same upon us, that, whereby He waits for evil men that they may amend, is set forth by the name of Patience, [or long-suffering.] So, although in God there can be no suffering, and "patience" has its name a patiendo, from suffering, yet a patient God we not only faithfully believe, but also wholesomely confess. But the patience of God, of what kind and how great it is, His, Whom we say to be impassible, yet not impatient, nay even most patient, in words to unfold this who can be able? Ineffable is therefore that patience, as is His jealousy, as His wrath, and whatever there is like to these. For if we conceive of these as they be in us, in Him are there none. We, namely, can feel none of these without molestation: but be it far from us to surmise that the impassible nature of God is liable to any molestation. But like as He is jealous without any darkening of spirit, angry without any perturbation, pitiful without any pain, repents Him without any wrongness in Him to be set right; so is He patient without anything of passion. Now therefore as concerning human patience, which we are able to conceive and beholden to have, of what sort it is, I will, as God grants and the brevity of the present discourse allows, essay to set forth.

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Lorenzo · « **Reply #1 on:** June 06, 2012, 03:57:47 PM »

2. The patience of man, which is right and laudable and worthy of the name of virtue, is understood to be that by which we tolerate evil things with an even mind, that we may not with a mind uneven desert good things, through which we may arrive at better. Wherefore the impatient, while they will not suffer ills, effect not a deliverance from ills, but only the suffering of heavier ills. Whereas the patient who choose rather by not committing to bear, than by not bearing to commit, evil, both make lighter what through patience they suffer, and also escape worse ills in which through impatience they would be sunk. But those good things which are great and eternal they lose not, while to the evils which be temporal and brief they yield not: because "the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared," as the Apostle says, "with the future glory that shall be revealed in us." And again he says, "This our temporal and light tribulation does in inconceivable manner work for us an eternal weight of glory."

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Lorenzo · « **Reply #2 on:** June 06, 2012, 03:57:56 PM »

3. Look we then, beloved, what hardships in labors and sorrows men endure, for things which they viciously love, and by how much they think to be made by them more happy, by so much more unhappily covet. How much for false riches, how much for vain honors, how much for affections of games and shows, is of exceeding peril and trouble most patiently borne! We see men hankering after money, glory, lasciviousness, how, that they may arrive at their desires, and having gotten not lose them, they endure sun, rain, icy cold, waves, and most stormy tempests, the roughnesses and uncertainties of wars, the strokes of huge blows, and dreadful wounds, not of inevitable necessity but of culpable will. But these madnesses are thought, in a manner, permitted. Thus avarice, ambition, luxury, and the delights of all sorts of games and shows, unless for them some wicked deed be committed or outrage which is prohibited by human laws, are accounted to pertain to innocence: nay moreover, the man who without wrong to any shall, whether for getting or increasing of money, whether for obtaining or keeping of honors, whether in contending in the match, or in hunting, or in exhibiting with applause some theatrical spectacle, have borne great labors and pains, it is not enough that through popular vanity he is checked by no reproofs, but he is moreover extolled with praises: "Because," as it is written, "the sinner is praised in the desires of his soul." For the force of desires makes endurance of labors and pains: and no man save for that which he enjoys, freely takes on him to bear that which annoys. But these lusts, as I said, for the fulfilling of which they which are on fire with them most patiently endure much hardship and bitterness, are accounted to be permitted, and allowed by laws.

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Lorenzo · « **Reply #3 on:** June 06, 2012, 03:58:12 PM »

4. Nay more; for is it not so that even for open wickednesses, not to punish but to perpetrate them, men put up with many most grievous troubles? Do not authors of secular letters tell of a certain right noble parricide of his country, that hunger, thirst, cold, all these he was able to endure, and his body was patient of lack of food and warmth and sleep to a degree surpassing belief? Why speak of highway robbers, all of whom while they lie in wait for travellers endure whole nights without sleep, and that they may catch, as they pass by, men who have no thought of harm, will, no matter how foul the weather, plant in one spot their mind and body, which are full of thoughts of harm? Nay it is said that some of them are wont to torture one another by turns, to that degree that this practice and training against pains is not a whit short of pains. For, not so much perchance are they excruciated by the Judge, that through smart of pain the truth may be got at, as they are by their own comrades, that through patience of pain truth may not be betrayed. And yet in all these the patience is rather to be wondered at than praised: nay neither wondered at nor praised, seeing it is no patience; but we must wonder at the hardness, deny the patience: for there is nothing in this rightly to be praised, nothing usefully to be imitated; and you will rightly judge the mind to be all the more worthy of greater punishment, the more it yields up to vices the instruments of virtues. Patience is companion of wisdom, not handmaid of concupiscence: patience is the friend of a good conscience, not the foe of innocence.

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Lorenzo · « **Reply #4 on:** June 06, 2012, 03:58:24 PM »

5. When therefore you shall see any man suffer anything patiently, do not straightway praise it as patience; for this is only shown by the cause of suffering. When it is a good cause, then is it true patience: when that is not polluted by lust, then is this distinguished from falsity. But when that is placed in crime, then is this much misplaced in name. For not just as all who know are partakers of knowledge, just so are all who suffer partakers of patience: but they which rightly use the suffering, these in verity of patience are praised, these with the prize of patience are crowned.

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Lorenzo · « **Reply #5 on:** June 06, 2012, 03:58:34 PM »

6. But yet, seeing that for lusts' sake, or even wickednesses, seeing, in a word, that for this temporal life and good men do wonderfully bear the brunt of many horrible sufferings, they much admonish us how great things ought to be borne for the sake of a good life, that it may also hereafter be eternal life, and without any bound of time, without waste or loss of any advantage, in true felicity secure. The Lord says, "In your patience you shall possess your souls:" He says not, your farms, your praises, your luxuries; but, "your souls." If then the soul endures so great sufferings that it may possess that whereby it may be lost, how great ought it to bear that it may not be lost? And then, to mention a thing not culpable, if it bear so great sufferings for saving of the flesh under the hands of chirurgeons cutting or burning the same, how great ought it to bear for saving of itself under the fury of any soever enemies? Seeing that leeches, that the body may not die, do by pains consult for the body's good; but enemies by threatening the body with pains and death, would urge us on to the slaying of soul and body in hell.

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Lorenzo · « **Reply #6 on:** June 06, 2012, 03:58:42 PM »

7. Though indeed the welfare even of the body is then more providently consulted for if its temporal life and welfare be disregarded for righteousness' sake, and its pain or death most patiently for righteousness' sake endured. Since it is of the body's redemption which is to be in the end, that the Apostle speaks, where he says, "Even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting the adoption of sons, the redemption of our body." Then he subjoins, "For in hope are we saved. But hope which is seen is not hope: for what a man sees, why does he also hope for? But if what we see not we hope for, we do by patience wait for it." When therefore any ills do torture us indeed, yet not extort from us ill works, not only is the soul possessed through patience; but even when through patience the body itself for a time is afflicted or lost, it is unto eternal stability and salvation resumed, and has through grief and death an inviolable health and happy immortality laid up for itself. Whence the Lord Jesus exhorting his Martyrs to patience, has promised of the very body a future perfect entireness, without loss, I say not of any limb, but of a single hair. "Verily I say unto you," says He, "a hair of your head shall not perish." That so, because, as the Apostle says, "no man ever hated his own flesh," a faithful man may more by patience than by impatience take vigilant care for the state of his flesh, and find amends for its present losses, how great soever they may be, in the inestimable gain of future incorruption.

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Lorenzo · « **Reply #7 on:** June 06, 2012, 03:58:51 PM »

8. But although patience be a virtue of the mind, yet partly the mind exercises it in the mind itself, partly in the body. In itself it exercises patience, when, the body remaining unhurt and untouched, the mind is goaded by any adversities or filthinesses of things or words, to do or to say something that is not expedient or not becoming, and patiently bears all evils that it may not itself commit any evil in work or word. By this patience we bear, even while we be sound in body, that in the midst of the offenses of this world our blessedness is deferred: of which is said what I cited a little before, "If what we see not we hope for, we do by patience wait for it." By this patience, holy David bore the revilings of a railer, and, when he might easily have avenged himself, not only did it not, but even refrained another who was vexed and moved for him; and more put forth his kingly power by prohibiting than by exercising vengeance. Nor at that time was his body afflicted with any disease or wound, but there was an acknowledging of a time of humility, and a bearing of the will of God, for the sake of which there was a drinking of the bitterness of contumely with most patient mind. This patience the Lord taught, when, the servants being moved at the mixing in of the tares and wishing to gather them up, He said that the householder answered, "Leave both to grow until the harvest." That, namely, must be patience put up with, which must not be in haste put away. Of this patience Himself afforded and showed an example, when, before the passion of His Body, He so bore with His disciple Judas, that ere He pointed him out as the traitor, He endured him as a thief; and before experience of bonds and cross and death, did, to those lips so full of guile, not deny the kiss of peace. All these, and whatever else there be, which it were tedious to rehearse, belong to that manner of patience, by which the mind does, not its own sins but any evils so ever from without, patiently endure in itself, while the body remains altogether unhurt. But the other manner of patience is that by which the same mind bears any troubles and grievances whatsoever in the sufferings of the body; not as do foolish or wicked men for the sake of getting vain things or perpetrating crimes; but as is defined by the Lord, "for righteousness' sake." In both kinds, the holy Martyrs contended. For both with scornful reproofs of the ungodly were they filled, where, the body remaining intact, the mind has its own (as it were) blows and wounds, and bears these unbroken: and in their bodies they were bound, imprisoned, vexed with hunger and thirst, tortured, gashed, torn asunder, burned, butchered; and with piety immovable submitted unto God their mind, while they were suffering in the flesh all that exquisite cruelty could devise in its mind.

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Lorenzo · « **Reply #8 on:** June 06, 2012, 03:59:02 PM »

9. It is indeed a greater fight of patience, when it is not a visible enemy that by persecution and rage would urge us into crime which enemy may openly and in broad day be by not consenting overcome; but the devil himself, (he who does likewise by means of the children of infidelity, as by his vessels, persecute the children of light) does by himself hiddenly attack us, by his rage putting us on to do or say something against God. As such had holy Job experience of him, by both temptations vexed, but in both through steadfast strength of patience and arms of piety unconquered. For first, his body being left unhurt, he lost all that he had, in order that the mind, before excruciation of the flesh, might through withdrawal of the things which men are wont to prize highly, be broken, and he might say something against God upon loss of the things for the sake of which he was thought to worship Him. He was smitten also with sudden bereavement of all his sons so that whom he had begotten one by one he should lose all at once, as though their numerousness had been not for the adorning of his felicity, but for the increasing of his calamity. But where, having endured these things, he remained immovable in his God, he cleaved to His will, Whom it was not possible to lose but by his own will; and in place of the things he had lost he held Him who took them away, in Whom he should find what should never be lost. For He that took them away was not that enemy who had will of hurting, but He who had given to that enemy the power of hurting. The enemy next attacked also the body, and now not those things which were in the man from without, but the man himself, in whatever part he could, he smote. From the head to the feet were burning pains, were crawling worms, were running sores; still in the rotting body the mind remained entire, and horrid as were the tortures of the consuming flesh, with inviolate piety and uncorrupted patience it endured them all. There stood the wife, and instead of giving her husband any help, was suggesting blasphemy against God. For we are not to think that the devil, in leaving her when he took away the sons, went to work as one unskilled in mischief: rather, how necessary she was to the tempter, he had already learned in Eve. But now he had not found a second Adam whom he might take by means of a woman. More cautious was Job in his hours of sadness, than Adam in his bowers of gladness, the one was overcome in the midst of pleasant things, the other overcame in the midst of pains; the one consented to that which seemed delightsome, this other quailed not in torments most affrightsome. There stood his friends too, not to console him in his evils, but to suspect evil in him. For while he suffered so great sorrows, they believed him not innocent, nor did their tongue forbear to say that which his conscience had not to say; that so amid ruthless tortures of the body, his mind also might be beaten with truthless reproaches. But he, bearing in his flesh his own pains, in his heart others' errors, reproved his wife for her folly, taught his friends wisdom, preserved patience in each and all.

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Lorenzo · « **Reply #9 on:** June 06, 2012, 03:59:14 PM »

10. To this man let them look who put themselves to death when they are sought for to have life put upon them; and by bereaving themselves of the present, deny and refuse also that which is to come. Why, if people were driving them to deny Christ or to do any thing contrary to righteousness, like true Martyrs, they ought rather to bear all patiently than to dare death impatiently. If it could be right to do this for the sake of running away from evils, holy Job would have killed himself, that being in so great evils, in his estate, in his sons, in his limbs, through the devil's cruelty, he might escape them all. But he did it not. Far be it from him, a wise man, to commit upon himself what not even that unwise woman suggested. And if she had suggested it, she would with good reason here also have had that answer which she had when suggesting blasphemy; "You have spoken as one of the foolish women. If we have received good at the hand of the Lord, shall we not bear evil?" Seeing even he also would have lost patience, if either by blasphemy as she had suggested, or by killing himself which not even she had dared to speak of, he should die, and be among them of whom it is written, "Woe unto them that have lost patience!" and rather increase than escape pains, if after the death of his body he should be hurried off to punishment either of blasphemers, or of murderers, or of them which are worse even than parricides. For if a parricide be on that account more wicked than any homicide, because he kills not merely a man but a near relative; and among parricides too, the nearer the person killed, the greater criminal he is judged to be: without doubt worse still is he who kills himself, because there is none nearer to a man than himself. What then do these miserable persons mean, who, though both here they have inflicted pain upon themselves, and hereafter not only for their impiety towards God but for the very cruelty which they have exercised upon themselves will deservedly suffer pains of His inflicting, do yet seek moreover the glories of Martyrs? Since, even if for the true testimony of Christ they suffered persecution, and killed themselves, that they might not suffer any thing from their persecutors, it would be rightly said to them, "Woe unto them which have lost patience!" For how has patience her just reward, if even an impatient suffering receives the crown? Or how shall that man be judged innocent, to whom is said, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," if he commit murder upon himself which he is forbidden to commit upon his neighbor?

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Lorenzo · « **Reply #10 on:** June 06, 2012, 03:59:20 PM »

11. Let then the Saints hear from holy Scripture the precepts of patience: "My son, when you come to the service of God, stand in righteousness and fear, and prepare your soul for temptation: bring your heart low, and bear up; that in the last end your life may increase. All that shall come upon you receive you, and in pain bear up, and in your humility have patience. For in the fire gold and silver is proved, but acceptable men in the furnace of humiliation." And in another place we read: "My son, faint not in the discipline of the Lord, neither be wearied when you are chidden of Him. For whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives." What is here set down, "son whom He receives," the same in the above mentioned testimony is, "acceptable men." For this is just, that we who from our first felicity of Paradise for contumacious appetence of things to enjoy were dismissed, through humble patience of things that annoy may be received back: driven away for doing evil, brought back by suffering evil: there against righteousness doing ill, here for righteousness' sake patient of ills.

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Lorenzo · « **Reply #11 on:** June 06, 2012, 03:59:47 PM »

12. But concerning true patience, worthy of the name of this virtue, whence it is to be had, must now be inquired. For there are some who attribute it to the strength of the human will, not which it has by Divine assistance, but which it has of free-will. Now this error is a proud one: for it is the error of them which abound, of whom it is said in the Psalm, "A scornful reproof to them which abound, and a despising to the proud." It is not therefore that "patience of the poor" which "perishes not forever." For these poor receive it from that Rich One, to Whom is said, "My God are You, because my goods You need not:" of Whom is "every good gift, and every perfect gift;" to Whom cries the needy and the poor, and in asking, seeking, knocking, says, "My God, deliver me from the hand of the sinner, and from the hand of the lawless and unjust: because You are my patience, O Lord, my hope from my youth up." But these which abound, and disdain to be in want before God, lest they receive of Him true patience, they which glory in their own false patience, seek to "confound the counsel of the poor, because the Lord is his hope." Nor do they regard, seeing they are men, and attribute so much to their own, that is, to the human will, that they run into that which is written, "Cursed is every one who puts his hope in man." Whence even if it chance them that they do bear up under any hardships or difficulties, either that they may not displease men, or that they may not suffer worse, or in self-pleasing and love of their own presumption, do with most proud will bear up under these same, it is meet that concerning patience this be said unto them, which concerning wisdom the blessed Apostle James says, "This wisdom comes not from above, but is earthly, animal, devilish." For why may there not be a false patience of the proud, as there is a false wisdom of the proud? But from Whom comes true wisdom, from Him comes also true patience. For to Him sings that poor in spirit, "Unto God is my soul subjected, because from Him is my patience."

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Lorenzo · « **Reply #12 on:** June 06, 2012, 04:00:01 PM »

Reference:
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1315.htm

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Lorenzo · « **Reply #13 on:** June 06, 2012, 04:01:46 PM »

13. But they answer and speak, saying, "If the will of man without any aid of God by strength of free choice bears so many grievous and horrible distresses, whether in mind or body, that it may enjoy the delight of this mortal life and of sins, why may it not be that in the same manner the self-same will of man by the same strength of free-choice, not thereunto looking to be aided of God, but unto itself by natural possibility sufficing, does, in all of labor or sorrow that is put upon it, for righteousness and eternal life's sake most patiently sustain the same? Or is it so, say they, that the will of the unjust is sufficient, without aid of God, for them, yea even to exercise themselves in undergoing torture for iniquity, and before they be tortured by others; sufficient the will of them which love the respiting of this life that, without aid of God, they should in the midst of most atrocious and protracted torments persevere in a lie, lest confessing their misdeeds they be ordered to be put to death; and not sufficient the will of the just, unless strength be put into them from above, that whatever be their pains, they should, either for beauty's sake of very righteousness or for love of eternal life, bear the same?"

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Lorenzo · « **Reply #14 on:** June 06, 2012, 04:01:57 PM »

14. They which say these things, do not understand that as well each one of the wicked is in that measure for endurance of any ills more hard, in what measure the lust of the world is mightier in him; as also that each one of the just is in that measure for endurance of any ills more brave, in what measure in him the love of God is mightier. But lust of the world has its beginning from choice of the will, its progress from enjoyableness of pleasure, its confirmation from the chain of custom, whereas "the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts," not verily from ourselves, but "by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us." And therefore from Him comes the patience of the just, by Whom is shed abroad their love (of Him). Which love (of charity) the Apostle praising and setting off, among its other good qualities, says, that it "bears all things." "Charity," says he, "is magnanimous." And a little after he says, "endures all things." The greater then is in saints the charity (or love) of God, the more do they endure all things for Him whom they love, and the greater in sinners the lust of the world, the more do they endure all things for that which they lust after. And consequently from that same source comes true patience of the righteous, from which there is in them the love of God; and from that same source the false patience of the unrighteous, from which is in them the lust of the world. With regard to which the Apostle John says; "Love not the world, neither the things that be in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him: because all that is in the world, is lust of the flesh, and lust of the eyes, and pride of life; which is not of the Father, but is of the world." This concupiscence, then, which is not of the Father, but is of the world, in what measure it shall in any man be more vehement and ardent, in that measure becomes each more patient of all troubles and sorrows for that which he lusts after. Therefore, as we said above, this is not the patience which descends from above, but the patience of the godly is from above, coming down from the Father of lights. And so that is earthly, this heavenly; that animal, this spiritual; that devilish, this Godlike. Because concupiscence, whereof it comes that persons sinning suffer all things stubbornly, is of the world; but charity, whereof comes that persons living aright suffer all things bravely, is of God. And therefore to that false patience it is possible that, without aid of God, the human will may suffice; harder, in proportion as it is more eager of lust, and bearing ills with the more endurance the worse itself becomes: while to this, which is true patience, the human will, unless aided and inflamed from above, does not suffice, for the very reason that the Holy Spirit is the fire thereof; by Whom unless it be kindled to love that impassible Good, it is not able to bear the ill which it suffers.

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Lorenzo · « **Reply #15 on:** June 06, 2012, 04:02:09 PM »

15. For, as the Divine utterances testify, "God is love, and he that dwells in love dwells in God, and God dwells in him." Whoso therefore contends that love of God may be had without aid of God, what else does he contend, but that God may be had without God? Now what Christian would say this, which no madman would venture to say? Therefore in the Apostle, true, pious, faithful patience, says exultingly, and by the mouth of the Saints; "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For Your sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us:" not through ourselves, but, "through Him that loved us." And then he goes on and adds; "For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." This is that "love of God" which "is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us." But the concupiscence of the bad, by reason of which there is in them a false patience, "is not of the Father," as says the Apostle John, but is of the world.

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Author Topic: The Church Fathers: On Patience (Read 997 times)

Lorenzo

The Church Fathers: On Patience

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Re: The Church Fathers: On Patience

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Re: The Church Fathers: On Patience

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Re: The Church Fathers: On Patience

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Re: The Church Fathers: On Patience

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Re: The Church Fathers: On Patience

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Re: The Church Fathers: On Patience

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Re: The Church Fathers: On Patience

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Re: The Church Fathers: On Patience

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Re: The Church Fathers: On Patience

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Re: The Church Fathers: On Patience

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Re: The Church Fathers: On Patience

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Re: The Church Fathers: On Patience

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Re: The Church Fathers: On Patience

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Re: The Church Fathers: On Patience