29.

'And bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.' The 'but deliver us from evil' is passed over in silence with Luke. If the Savior does not command us to pray impossibilities, it seems to me worth inquiring how we are commanded to pray not to enter 'into temptation' — when the whole life of men on earth is a trial. For as long as we are on earth, girt with the flesh that wars 'against the spirit' — whose 'mind' is 'enmity' 'toward God,' wholly unable to submit 'to God's law' — we are in temptation.

That all human life 'on earth' is a 'trial,' we learned from Job in these words: 'Is not man's life on earth a trial?' The same is declared by the seventeenth Psalm in the 'In thee I shall be delivered from trial.' And Paul, writing to the Corinthians, says God grants not freedom from being tempted but freedom from being tempted beyond power: 'No temptation has taken you but human; but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted beyond what you can, but will make with the temptation also the way out, that you may be able to bear it.' For whether our 'wrestling' is 'against' the lusting flesh, or the flesh warring 'against the spirit,' or against the soul 'of all flesh' — which is homonymous with the body it inhabits, the ruling faculty, called 'heart' — such is the 'wrestling' of those to be tempted with human temptations; or whether, as advanced and more perfect athletes — no longer 'wrestling against blood and flesh,' nor examined in the human temptations they have already trodden down — our contests are 'against the principalities and the authorities and the world-rulers of this darkness, and the spiritual hosts of wickedness' — we have not been freed from being tempted.

How, then, does the Savior command us to pray not to enter 'into temptation' — when God in a way tempts all? 'Remember,' says Judith — if not to the elders of that time only but to all who meet with her writing — 'what he did with Abraham, and what he tempted Isaac with, and what befell Jacob in Mesopotamia of Syria, feeding Laban's sheep, his mother's brother's. For not as he fired those into a proving of their heart does the Lord who scourges unto admonition those who draw near him avenge us.' And as a general saying concerning all righteous men, David says: 'Many are the afflictions of the righteous'; and the Apostle in the Acts: 'Through many afflictions we must enter into God's kingdom.'

And unless we understand what escapes most concerning praying not to enter 'into temptation,' it is time to say that the apostles, praying, were not heard — suffering myriads through their whole lifetime: 'in labors more abundantly, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths often'; and Paul in particular 'received from the Jews five times forty save one,' 'was thrice beaten with rods,' 'once stoned,' 'thrice shipwrecked,' 'spent a night and day in the deep' — a man 'in all things' afflicted and perplexed and persecuted and cast down, confessing too that 'even unto this present hour we hunger and thirst and are naked and buffeted and homeless, and labor, working with our own hands; being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we endure; being blasphemed, we entreat.' But if the apostles, in praying, did not obtain — what hope has one inferior to them, praying, of obtaining a hearing God?

One who does not examine exactly what the Savior's commandment wills may reasonably suppose the 'Prove me, O Lord, and tempt me; fire my reins and my heart' in the twenty-fifth Psalm to be contrary to what our Lord taught concerning prayer. But when did anyone deem a man to be outside temptations — whose word he knew fulfilled? And what season is there in which, as not wrestling over not sinning, he has despised caution? Is one poor? Let him beware, lest stealing he swear 'by God's name.' Is one rich? Let him not despise caution: for, filled, he can become 'false,' and, lifted up, say 'Who sees me?' Not even Paul, rich 'in all speech and all knowledge,' was freed from the danger of sinning in self-exaltation over these — he needs 'a thorn of Satan buffeting' him, 'lest' he 'be exalted.' And if one is conscious of better things and is winged away from evils, let him read what is said in Second Chronicles concerning Hezekiah — who is said to have fallen 'from the height of his heart.'

And if one despises caution because we said no more of the poor man — as though there were no temptation concerning poverty — let him know that the plotter plots 'to cast down the poor and needy' — especially since, according to Solomon, 'the poor abides not threat.' And why speak of how many, through bodily wealth, ill-stewarded, received in punishment the place with the rich man in the Gospel? And how many, basely bearing poverty — conducting themselves more slavishly and lowly than befits 'the saints' — fell from the heavenly hope? Nor are those between the two — on either side, wealth and poverty, in measured possession — altogether freed from sinning.

But one healthy and vigorous in body supposes, in the very being healthy and vigorous, that he is outside all temptation. And whose sin is it, but the healthy and vigorous, 'to destroy the temple of God' — which no one will dare speak plainly of in detail, since what concerns that place lies openly before all? And what sick man escapes the provocations to 'destroy God's temple' — leisured at that season, readily receiving thoughts of impure matters? And what disturbs him beyond these — unless 'with all guard' he keep his 'heart' — why even speak? For many, overcome by pains and unable to bear diseases manfully, were then proved sick in soul rather than in bodies. And many, fleeing disgrace — ashamed to bear Christ's noble name nobly — fell into eternal shame.

But one supposes he rests, as not tempted, when glorified among men. And how is the 'they have received their reward,' announced 'from men' to those elated by glory among the many for good, not grievous? And how is the 'How can you believe, receiving glory from one another, and seeking not the glory that comes from the only God?' not rebuking? And why must I recount the falls in pride of the deemed well-born, and of the deemed low-born the untaught fawning suspicion toward those deemed to excel — which draws men from God: who have no genuine friendship, but play the hypocrite toward the fairest of things among men — love?

All 'life,' then, as aforesaid, of 'man upon earth' 'is' a trial. That is why we pray to be delivered from trial — not in not being tempted (for that is impossible, especially for those 'on earth'), but in not being defeated when tempted. I take the defeated in temptation to enter 'into' temptation, held in its nets. Into these nets, for the sake of those already caught in them, the Savior entered — 'stooping through the nets,' as said in the Song of Songs — and 'answers' those already caught by them, who entered 'into' temptation, and says, as 'bride' to his 'bride': 'Rise, come, my neighbor, my fair one, my dove.' And I shall add, to persuade that every season is a season of temptation for men: not even 'he who meditates God's law day and night,' who strives to accomplish the 'mouth of the righteous shall meditate wisdom,' is freed from being tempted.

At any rate, those who, declining in devoting themselves to the examination of divine Scriptures, devoted themselves to godless and impious doctrines — or to silly and laughable ones — why speak of them? When myriads who seem not liable to the charge of neglecting the readings trip over such things? The same befalls many with the apostolic and evangelical readings too — who through their own folly fashion another Son or Father beside the one theologized and truly known to the saints. For he who thinks untrue things concerning God or his Christ has fallen from the true God and his Only-begotten; and the one his folly fashioned, supposing it Father and Son, he does not truly worship — suffering this because he did not perceive the temptation in reading holy things, nor armed himself and stood against the contest then present to him also.

We must pray, then, not that we be not tempted (for that is impossible), but that we be not encompassed by temptation — which those held in it and overcome suffer. Since, then, outside the prayer it is written 'not to enter into temptation' — which, from what is said, can somehow be plain — and in the prayer we must say to God the Father 'bring us not into temptation' — it is worth seeing how we must conceive God bringing into temptation the one who did not pray, or the one not heard. For it sounds ill to conceive God bringing anyone 'into temptation' — with the overcome entering 'into' temptation — as though, by his being overcome, God handed him over. And the same ill sound awaits one who in any way expounds the 'pray not to enter into temptation.' For if falling 'into temptation' is evil — against suffering which we pray — how is it not absurd to conceive the good God, who cannot 'bear evil fruits,' encompassing anyone with evils?

Useful for this, then, is to set beside it what Paul said in Romans, in this way: 'Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds and quadrupeds and creeping things. Therefore God handed them over, in the lusts of their hearts, unto uncleanness, to dishonor their bodies among themselves.' And after a little: 'For this God handed them over to passions of dishonor'; and 'handed them over to a reprobate mind, to do what is unfitting.' Were those not handed over to them by God not made 'in the lusts of their own hearts'? Would those not handed over by God to 'passions of dishonor' have fallen under them? Would they have collapsed 'into a reprobate mind' without being handed to it by God — those so condemned?

Those, then — I well know these things will greatly trouble them, and that is why they fashion another god beside the maker of heaven and earth, since, finding many such things in the Law and the Prophets, they stumbled at them, as at one not good who utters such voices. But for us — with the difficulties already raised concerning the 'bring us not into temptation,' for which we set out the apostolic words too — we must see whether we also find worthy loosenings of the ill sounds. I take God to dispense each rational soul with an eye to its eternal life — which ever keeps its self-determination — and, by its own cause, either among the better, ascending to the summit of goods, or descending variously, through inattention, into such-and-such a bilge of evil. Since, then, speedy healing, and more compendious, breeds in some a contempt of the diseases into which they fell — easily healed, so that after healing they would fall a second time into the same — reasonably, in such cases, he overlooks wickedness growing for a time, and, spreading longer in them, overlooks it as incurable: that, by spending time with evil and being glutted with the sin they desire, they may be sated, perceive the harm, hate what they formerly welcomed, and, healed, be able more firmly to profit from the health belonging to being healed in their souls. As the 'mixed multitude' 'among the sons of Israel 'lusted a lust, and, sitting down, the sons of Israel wept too, and said: Who shall feed us flesh? We remembered the fish we ate freely in Egypt, and the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic. But now our soul is dry; nothing but the manna are our eyes.' Then after a little it is said: 'And Moses heard them weeping by their families, each at his door.' And again after a little the Lord says to Moses: 'And to the people thou shalt say: Sanctify yourselves for tomorrow, and you shall eat flesh — for you wept before the Lord, saying: Who shall feed us flesh? For it was well with us in Egypt. And the Lord shall give you flesh to eat, and you shall eat flesh. Not one day shall you eat, nor two, nor five days, nor ten days, nor twenty days — unto a month of days shall you eat, until it come out of your nostrils, and be cholera to you — because you disobeyed the Lord, who is among you, and wept before him, saying: Why did we come out of Egypt?'

Let us see, then, whether we usefully compared this history toward loosing the ill sound in the 'bring us not into temptation' and in the apostolic words. Lusting 'a lust,' 'the mixed multitude' among the sons of Israel — Israel wept with them. And it is plain that, without what they lusted for, they could take no fill of them, nor cease from the passion. But the philanthropic and good God, giving them what they lusted for, did not so will to give as to leave lust remaining in them. That is why he says they shall eat the 'flesh' not 'one day' — for their passion would have remained in their soul, fired and kindled by it, if they had shared flesh for a little — nor 'two' days does he give them what they lusted for. Wishing to make it loathsome to them, he as it were promises not, but threatens the discerning through what he seemed to grant — saying: you shall not make 'five' days 'only' eating the 'flesh,' nor twice those, nor yet twice those — but 'you shall eat' so long, feasting on flesh a whole month, 'until it come out of your nostrils,' with choleric suffering, the deemed good and the blameworthy, shameful lust for it. That I may free you from life no longer lusting — and, so delivered, you may, as pure from lust, and remembering from how many pains you were freed of it, either never fall into it again, or — if ever this happens — after long circuits of years, forgetting what you suffered through lust — unless you attend to yourselves and take up the Word that wholly frees from all passion — fall into evils afterwards, and, lusting after procreation(?), beg to obtain twice what you lust for, hating the lusted, and then so run back to the good and the heavenly food, which, despising, they reached for the worse.

The like, then, shall those suffer who 'changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds and quadrupeds and creeping things' — by being forsaken, handed 'in the lusts of their hearts unto uncleanness, to dishonor the bodies' of those who degraded the name of him who grants to all sentient rationals not only sensing, but to some sensing rationally, and to some perfectly and virtuously sensing and understanding. And reasonably such are handed over by the God forsaken by them — forsaken in turn by him — to 'passions of dishonor,' receiving 'the recompense' 'of the error' they loved, 'wasting(?)' 'pleasure.' For the 'recompense of error' comes upon them, handed 'to passions of dishonor,' rather than upon those cleansed by wise fire. And in prison they are exacted to the last quadrans for each of their debts. For in being handed to 'dishonoring' passions — not only the natural but many unnatural — they are polluted and thickened by flesh, as though having then neither soul nor mind, but becoming wholly fleshes. But in fire and prison, receiving not 'recompense of error' but benefaction unto cleansing of the evils in error, with saving pains following the pleasure-loving, they are freed from all pitch and blood — in which, befouled and bemired, they could not even conceive of being saved, by their own destruction. 'God shall wash,' then, 'the filth of the sons and daughters of Zion, and cleanse the blood from their midst, by a spirit of judgment and a spirit of burning.' For 'he comes as a refiner's fire and as fullers' herb,' washing and cleansing those in need of such drugs, because they would not approvedly 'hold God in knowledge.' Handed to these, they shall willingly hate the 'reprobate mind.' For God wills the good to come to no one as by necessity, but willingly — though some, from longer commerce with evil, hardly perceive its shame, and turn from it as falsely supposed good.

But consider whether for this too God hardens Pharaoh's heart: that what he said unhardened he may be able to say — 'The Lord is righteous; I and my people are wicked.' Yet one needs to be hardened further and suffer further — lest, from ceasing to be hardened too quickly, despising hardening as evil, he become again more often worthy of being hardened. If, then, 'nets are not unrighteously spread for the winged,' according to Proverbs, but God reasonably 'brings into the snare' — according to him who said, 'Thou broughtest us into the snare' — and 'without' the Father's 'will' not even the cheapest of winged sparrows falls 'into the snare' (falling 'into the snare' for this reason: that he used ill the wings given for rising, by his authority) — let us pray to do nothing worthy of being brought 'into' 'temptation' by God's righteous judgment: with everyone handed by God 'in the lusts' of his own heart 'unto uncleanness' being brought in, and everyone handed 'to passions of dishonor,' and everyone, 'as he approved not holding God' in himself, handed 'to a reprobate mind, to do what is unfitting.'

The need of being tempted is something like this. What our soul received — hidden from all but God, and even from ourselves — becomes manifest through temptations: that we no longer be hidden from ourselves, whatever we are, but, knowing even ourselves, perceive, if we will, our own evils, and give thanks for the goods manifested to us through temptations. That temptations come to manifest us, whatever we are, or to discern what is hidden in our heart, is shown by what the Lord said to Job, and what stands written in Deuteronomy, running thus: 'Thinkest thou that I dealt with thee otherwise than that thou mightest appear righteous?' And in Deuteronomy thus: 'He afflicted thee and starved thee and fed thee manna' — and led thee 'in the wilderness,' 'where biting serpent and scorpion and thirst' — 'that' 'what is in thy heart be discerned.'

And if we wish to be reminded from history too, know that Eve's easy-deceivability and the rottenness of her reasoning did not begin when, disobeying God, she heard the serpent — it was convicted even before, with the serpent approaching her for this reason: that in his own prudence he laid hold of her weakness. Nor did wickedness begin to come to be in Cain when he 'killed' his 'brother' — for even before, 'upon Cain and his sacrifices he had no regard' — O heart-knowing God! — but his wickedness came to light when he ... Abel. Nor, unless Noah, drinking 'of the wine' he farmed, 'was drunken' and 'was uncovered,' would either Ham's precipitance and impiety toward his father have appeared, or his brothers' reverence and shame toward their begetter. And Esau's plot against Jacob seemed to take as pretext the 'blessing's' removal — but even before this his soul held roots of being 'profane' and 'unholy.' And Joseph's chastity-brightness — prepared not to be caught by any lust — we would not have known, had his mistress not loved him.

That is why, standing in the intervals between successions of temptations, toward what is present, we are prepared for all that can befall — that, whatever happens, we be not convicted as unready, but manifest as having most diligently knit ourselves together. For what falls short through human weakness — when we accomplish all things in ourselves — God shall fulfill: who 'works all things together for good' 'to those who love' him, 'to those foreseen' by his unlying foreknowledge, whatever they shall be with him.