hold the same faith, justice, and truth, which they held, he cannot be saved. Men choose the easy way before the hard one which consists in self-sacrifice.[1] (ibid. p. 183 D, H.) God commanded men to bear the cross, not to adore it: they desire to adore that which they will not spiritually or bodily to carry with them. So to worship God is to depart from him. The only acceptable service is that, born of faith and supported by the divine grace, which issues in an all-embracing love. The following short passage contains the sum of his ethical principles. (Enarr. in Galat. iv. p. 161 C, D.) Charity, he says, or love, is comprehended in four modes. By the first we must love God, by the next ourselves, by the third our neighbours, by the fourth our enemies. Unless we have first loved God, we shall not be able to love ourselves; that is to say, to abstain from sin: and if we love not ourselves, what standard have we to love our neighbours? and if we love not our neighbours, much less shall we love our enemies. Whereof this is the proof, that for the sake of God we despise even our salvation, yea, and our very souls. Faith therefore alone sufficeth not for life, except a man love his neighbour even as himself, and not only not do unto him the evil which he would not unto himself, but also do unto him the good which he would have another do unto him; and so fulfil the universal law, namely, to abstain from evil and to do good.
With these thoughts in his heart, and longing to impress them upon his generation, Claudius passed to his diocese of Turin. His fiery and uncompromising temper met opposition and peril as inducements rather than obstacles to action. We are told that he often took up the sword with his lay comrades to drive back the Saracens when they pressed forward from their strong places on the coast of Spain or Gaul to overrun his country.[2] But the paganism, as he held it, which reigned everywhere around him, - the offerings and images that defiled all
- ↑ Quia videlicet nisi quis a semetipso deficiat, ad eum qui super ipsum est non appropinquat, nec valet apprehendere quod ultra ipsum est si nescierit mactare quod est: Apol. ap. Jon. p. 184 C. The sentence, according to Jonas, is adopted from saint Gregory.
- ↑ Compare his reference to such expeditions, Mai, Nov. Coll. 7. 275.
