XXXIX. Paulinus of Aquileia

From this opinion there is no disagreement at all in the things which Paulinus, Bishop of Aquileia and one of the most noble writers at the close of the eighth and beginning of the ninth century¹, teaches when, commending beneficence toward all by the example of God and Christ Jesus², he says:

The Lord is merciful and bestows mercy upon those who hope in him.

He who had no sin, who made the angels and placed the archangels over them, had no need of mercy; but that we might obtain mercy from him, he gave alms³. Alms were not necessary to him to whom belong all the kingdoms of heaven, who established Dominations, Principalities, Virtues, and Powers; but he did this that by our alms he might make us participants in the kingdom of heaven. The Lord is patient and peaceable, that by his patience and peace he might reconcile to God the whole world which had been placed in the evil one. And let us be patient and peaceable, without wrath and contention, if we wish to arrive at God. And let us do good to all men—to all, I say, not by parts, not to one or to two or to three, but to all men. For Christ suffered not only for the saints, but for sinners and the impious and the wicked he ascended the cross, and by his passion recalled us all to life. God gave the sun and moon and rain and all that springs from the earth and all the fruits which arise upon the lands not only to the saints, but⁴ gave them in common to all men, he who⁵ makes his sun rise upon the good and the evil and rains upon the just and the unjust. Therefore he gave those things in common to all men, that our good, and our alms, and our charity, and our patience, and our humility might be distributed in common to all men. As long as we are in this world, let us⁶ do good to all, but especially to those who are of the household of faith; and let us pray for our enemies and return good for evil.

Thus far Paulinus, in whose words this sum of doctrine is chiefly contained: I. the merciful will of God toward men is the exemplar of our charity, and is open no less widely than our charity toward those same men ought to extend. But our charity, lest it degenerate and put off its nature,

permits no limits and extends itself to all men—to all, I say, not by parts, to one or to two or three, but to all men. For whoever is a man is at once our neighbor, since, as Augustine⁷ admonishes, neighbors are to be reckoned not by nearness of blood but by the fellowship of reason, by which fellowship all men are comprehended. Hence also that comic poet⁸, when he composed these words as spoken by one old man to another, “Hast thou so much leisure from thine own affairs that thou shouldst attend to another’s—things which pertain nothing to thee?” gave this answer through the other: “I am a man; I think nothing human foreign to me.” They relate that entire theaters, filled even with the foolish and unlearned, applauded this opinion. For the fellowship of human friends so naturally touched the affection of all that no man was present who did not perceive himself to be neighbor to any man whatsoever. Therefore there is no man who either ought or can be judged alien to the merciful will of God. Wherefore it is universal.

Nor II. is it universal only, but also efficacious and fruitful in benefits. It is fruitful within the scope of the natural order, whose goods it imparts in common to all men. “Does not God,” Arnobius exclaims⁹, “supply equally to all the generative heat of the sun, the night and seasons, winds, rains, and crops—to the good, the evil, the just, the unjust, the freeborn, slaves, the poor, and the rich?” Prudentius¹⁰, Ambrose¹¹, Eucherius¹², and Seneca himself¹³ write things most similar to these, the latter saying: “If thou imitatest the gods, give benefits even to the ungrateful. For the sun rises even for the wicked, and the seas lie open to pirates.” It is fruitful within the bounds of the supernatural order, since the patient and peaceable Lord applied himself to this: that by his patience and peace he might reconcile to God the whole world which had been placed in the evil one; and Christ suffered not only for the saints,

but for sinners and the impious and the wicked he ascended the cross, and by his passion recalled us all to life.

To this fruitfulness III. divine patience must be referred. Hence blessed Benedict excellently writes¹⁴: “For the amendment of evils, the days of this life are extended to us as a respite, as the Apostle says¹⁵: ‘Knowest thou not that the patience of God leads thee to penance?’ For the loving Lord says¹⁶: ‘I will not the death of the sinner, but that he be converted and live.’”

But if IV. not all sinners are converted and live, but many die with everlasting death, this occurs because, as Caesarius of Arles observes¹⁷:

There are three things concerning which we both can and ought to think profitably and faithfully. And we frequently recognize with bodily eyes that these three things occur also in human life. For there are a physician, a sick man, and a disease. If the sick man joins himself to the physician, there are two, and the disease is conquered. For if he consented to the physician, the sick man would escape when the disease perished, because it could in no way conquer two fighting against it. Attend diligently to why I have set down this similitude. The physician is God; the sick man is man; sin is the disease. If the sinner joins himself to God, who is the true physician, the disease at once perishes. But if the unhappy sinner loves his disease, so that he wills to join himself to his sins as to deadly diseases rather than to adhere to the heavenly physician, he not only refuses to accuse his disease, that is, his sin, but even strives to defend it with a most shameless brow. While he wills to join himself to his sins, he seems as it were to conquer the heavenly physician. But by this unhappy victory, as though by the broad and spacious way, he descends into Gehenna; because, if he had willed to consent to the physician, when sin had perished as a most cruel disease, he would have merited to ascend to heaven by the narrow and strait way.