Section CXXIV

Concerning this relation between divine mercy and justice, the things which Hilary teaches are much more illustrious: when I. he discloses the origin of created man; when II. he investigates the causes on account of which God enacted laws for him; and when III. he teaches who, finally, those are against whom God is angry and whom he condemns eternally. For as regards the first, having established¹ the most complete beatitude of God, by which he needs no extrinsic good, nor can need it, he adds²:

Therefore, from this most excellent and benevolent beatitude, through our Lord Jesus Christ, proceeded all the creations of heavenly and invisible things, and the constitutions of spiritual and corporeal things; not that he might acquire for himself some advantage from those things to which he imparted origin. For no one needs that which he bestows from himself, nor does he advance through that of which he is the author in respect of what it is. But those things which bring advantage are exterior, because the things which remedy want are alien. God, therefore, from whom all things are, needs none of those things to which he granted that they be what they are; but he created all things for the advantage of those things which would be begotten.

There is, therefore, a twofold origin both of man and of all other things which were created: first, indeed, the most perfect goodness by which God is in himself the fountain of inexhaustible beatitude; and then the connatural benignity by which God is borne toward the communication of himself and by which he loves the felicity of creatures.

From this most noble origin there differs in no respect that which moved God to govern the man procreated by him with laws enacted for him and vigilantly to contain him. “For,” Hilary proceeds³,

he instituted man, not because he needed his service in anything, but, because he is good, he created him a participant in his beatitude—

—and perfected the rational animal with life and sense for the enjoyment of his eternity, which he would bestow; and this is understood absolutely from his own words. For he says⁴: “And now, Israel, what does the Lord thy God ask of thee, except that thou fear the Lord thy God, and walk in all his ways, and love him, and serve the Lord thy God with thy whole heart and with thy whole soul and with thy whole strength, and keep the commandments of the Lord thy God and his justifications, which I command thee, that it may be well with thee?” God asks from us nothing except the obedience of innocence, religion, and faith. He demands to be loved by us, certainly not himself receiving, for his own sake, some fruit from our love for him, but rather because love itself will profit us, because we shall love him. For he desires to be loved and that we obey him for this reason, that it may be well with us, so that we may be judged worthy of the gift of his beatitude and goodness through the merit of love for him and obedience. But the use of goodness, like the splendor of the sun, like the light of fire, like the fragrance of sap, profits not the one who furnishes it, but the one who uses it. Therefore, that we are is our advantage rather than his who instituted us in that which we are, because God, not begrudging⁵ those goods which are eternal in himself, receives us into the perception and enjoyment of his blessed goodness.

Although, moreover, both by creation and by the enactment of laws God looked to this, that men might be received into the perception and enjoyment of his blessed goodness, “nevertheless,” Hilary adds⁶,

he who is perfect and good employed his goodness and beatitude toward us not without reason and measure. For he permitted to each of us freedom of life and sense, affixing no necessity toward either side, so that a law would compel each one to be good or evil by nature; but he who through benevolence had created us to enjoy his beatitude established our advance toward it through the merit of an innocent and honorable life. But what honor and reward would the necessity of goodness merit, when some force implanted in us would not permit us to be evil?—

—Goodness, therefore, was permitted to the will, so that the will of goodness might acquire a reward for itself, and there might be for us the advancement and enjoyment of this eternal beatitude from merit, not an undiscriminating necessity through law. And although he enticed us toward the will of goodness, that is, toward living well and honorably, through the hope of meriting and enjoying his goodness, he nevertheless added a penalty for goodness avoided and contemned, so that, since he had left us freedom of will for meriting goodness, because a necessity of nature would not possess merit, the terror of the penalty set forth on the contrary might daily restrain freedom itself. And thus, both through the reason of equity and justice, freedom was permitted for the merit of reward, and through the goodness of God the force of freedom was restricted by fear⁷ of the constitution, so that the hope of merit might admonish one to will well, and the penalty of the vengeance set forth might persuade one not to will evil.

There is thus reason carefully to distinguish what God wills for men from himself, and in what manner he wills it for them. For God truly wills from himself for absolutely all men participation in his eternity: with this mind he created them; with this counsel he gave them laws; and with this purpose he both entices them by rewards and deters them by penalties. But he does not will this supreme and greatest good for them unless they too contribute their own labor and apply their own diligence. For this economy and order of providence seemed altogether to be demanded both a) by the very nature of man, which is free and from which it is supremely abhorrent that it be affixed by necessity toward either side; and b) by the wise goodness of God, with which nothing is more consonant than that man’s beatitude should be a heavenly gift in such a way that it at the same time bears the force and character of a reward merited.

These things being understood as is fitting, it is easy to gather whom God finally punishes or deprives of everlasting felicity. Namely, Hilary says⁸:

For those to whom, from freedom of will, malice was more pleasing, the vengeance established is believed to be the wrath of God; not because that immutable and tranquil nature of God—

—grows hot with the motion of a turbulent impulse, but because he who remains in penalty through the constitution of the penalty perceives the author of this constitution to be angry with him⁹. For the penalty of the one suffering is believed to be the wrath of the one decreeing. And thus God is angry when, through the pain of the penalty, the punished¹⁰ perceive the wrath of the decree to be against themselves; this wrath has not been moved into anger from placability through a change of nature, but is wrath for those to be punished from the constitution of the penalty.

Where, after he accurately shows both that¹¹ the constitution of the penalty is called wrath in the Scriptures¹², and that¹³ the nature of God, which is fixed and constant, is in no way transferred to one thing from another by anger, he adds¹⁴:

Therefore, the magnanimous one is not changed into wrath, but the powerful judge has decreed a penalty for the fault. For against those who do not turn he brandished the sword¹⁵, and bent the bow, and in it prepared vessels of death, and wrought his arrows for those who will burn. But he wrought them not from a movement of sudden wrath which, kindled suddenly through the desire of taking vengeance, but he wrought them for those who will burn, who through an impenitent will will themselves establish that they are to be burned. And against those who would not turn the sword was brandished, not to be brought forth against individuals from a change of wrath—for he who is magnanimous is not angry on each single day—but because he decreed judgment, his sword is already ready from the constitution of the penalty. But the spiritual ministries of penal judgment themselves are recalled under the sword, bow, and arrows, because they are held prepared for those who will burn. For they are not prepared from a movement of temporal wrath, but God has moderated them from the constitution of the decree by the most tempered equability of his goodness: namely, by not leaving the severity of this constitution itself concealed and unknown, and by forewarning error through its denunciations, and by delaying that very severity—

—although established, by a long postponement for repentance from sin¹⁶.