Love And Change

Attendat enim Caritas vestra, ut dicam vel quod Dominus suggerit. Accepit legem populus Iudaeorum. Ista in decalogo non observavit. Et quicumque obtemperabat, timore obtemperabat poenae, non amore iustitiae. Portabat psalterium, non cantabat. Cantanti enim voluptas, timenti onus est. Ideo vetus homo aut non facit, aut timore facit, non amore sanctitatis, non delectatione castitatis, non temperantia caritatis, sed timore. Vetus enim homo est, et vetus homo canticum vetus potest cantare, non novum. Ut autem cantet canticum novum, sit novus homo. Quomodo autem possit esse novus homo, audi, non me, sed Apostolum dicentem: Exuite vos veterem hominem, et induite novum. Et ne quis putaret, cum dixit: Exuite vos veterem hominem et induite novum: aliquid ponendum esse et aliquid accipiendum cum de mutando praeciperet homine, subiecit et ait: Quapropter deponentes mendacium, loquimini veritatem. Hoc est quod ait: Exuite veterem hominem et induite novum. Hoc dixit: Mutate mores. Sacculum diligebatis, Deum diligite. Nugatoria iniquitatis, temporales voluptates diligebatis, proximum diligite. Si dilectione facitis, canticum novum cantatis. Si timore facitis, facitis tamen, portatis quidem psalterium, sed nondum cantatis. Si autem nec facitis, proicitis ipsum psalterium. Melius est vel portare, quam proicere. Sed rursus, melius cum voluptate cantare, quam cum onere portare. Nec pervenit ad canticum novum, nisi iam cum voluptate cantans. Nam qui portat cum timore, adhuc in vetere est. Et quid est quod dico, Fratres, attendite. Non concordavit cum adversario suo, qui cum timore adhuc facit. Timet enim ne veniat Deus, et damnet illum. Nam nondum delectat castitas, nondum illum delectat iustitia, sed iudicium Dei formidans, a factis temperat. Non concupiscentiam ipsam damnat, quae saevit in eo. Nondum illum delectat quod bonum est. Nondum ibi habet suavitatem ut cantet canticum novum, sed de vetustate poenas timet. Nondum concordavit cum adversario. Tales enim homines plerumque supplantantur tali cogitatione, ut dicant sibi: 'Si fieri posset, non nobis minaretur Deus, non talia per Prophetas suos diceret quae homines deterrent, sed veniret dare omnibus indulgentiam ignoscere omnibus, postea veniret, neminem mitteret in gehennas'. Iam quia iniquus est, iniquum vult Deum. Vult te Deus facere similem sui, et conaris tu Deum facere similem tui. Placeat tibi ergo Deus qualis est, non qualem illum esse vis. Perversus enim es, et talem vis Deum qualis es, non qualis est. Si autem placeat tibi qualis est, corrigeris, et diriges in eam regulam cor tuum, a qua nunc alienus distortus es. Placeat tibi Deus qualis est, ama qualis est. Non te ipse amat qualis es, sed odit te qualis es. Ideo tui miseretur, quia odit te qualis es, ut faciat te qualis nondum es. Faciat te, dixi, qualis nondum es. Nam illud tibi non promittit quia faciet te qualis est. Nam eris qualis est, sed ad quemdam modum, id est, imitator Dei velut imago, sed non qualis imago est Filius. Nam etiam imagines in hominibus diversae sunt. Filius hominis habet imaginem patris sui, et hoc est quod pater eius, quia homo est sicut pater eius. In speculo autem imago tua non hoc est quod tu. Aliter est enim imago tua in filio, aliter in speculo. In filio est imago tua secundum aequalitatem substantiae, in speculo autem quantum longe est a substantia! Et tamen est quaedam imago tua, quamvis non talis qualis in filio tuo secundum substantiam. Sic in creatura, non hoc est imago Dei, quod est in Filio qui hoc est quod Pater, id est, Deus Verbum Dei per quod facta sunt omnia. Recipe ergo similitudinem Dei, quam per mala facta amisisti. Sicut enim in nummo imago imperatoris aliter est et aliter in filio, nam imago et imago est, sed aliter impressa est in nummo; aliter habetur in filio, aliter in solido aureo imago imperatoris, sic et tu nummus Dei es, ex hoc melior quia cum intellectu et cum quadam vita nummus Dei es ut scias etiam cuius imaginem geras et ad cuius imaginem factus sis, nam nummus nescit se habere imaginem regis. Ergo ut dicere coeperam odit te Deus qualis es, sed amat te talem qualem te esse vult, et ideo ille te ut muteris hortatur. Concorda cum illo, et incipe primo bene velle et odisse te qualis es. Hoc sit tibi initium concordiae cum sermone Dei, ut incipias primo tu odisse te qualis es. Cum coeperis et tu odisse te talem qualis es, sicut te talem odit Deus, incipis iam ipsum diligere Deum qualis est. Sanctus Augustinus Hippoensis, Sermones de Scripturis, Sermon IX, Cap VII-VIII Source: Migne PL 38.81-82

Let your charity attend that I might speak what the Lord suggests to me. The Jewish people received the law. They did not observe those things in the decalogue. And any who did comply did so out of fear of punishment, not out of love of righteousness. They were carrying the harp, they were not singing. In singing there is joy, fear is a burden. Thus the old man either does not do it, or does it out of fear, not out of love of holiness, not out of delight in chastity, not out of temperate charity, but out of fear. He is the old man and the old man can sing the old song but not the new one. That he might sing the new song, he must be the new man. How one can become the new man, listen not to me, but to the Apostle saying, 'Put off the old man and put on the new.' 1 And lest anyone should think when he says 'Put off the old man and put on the new' that something must be laid aside and something taken up when he gives instructions about changing the man,  he says after: 'Therefore putting aside the lie, speak the truth.' 2 This is what he says by: 'Put off the old man and put on the new.' He says: Change your ways. You loved the world, now love God. You loved the worthless things of wickedness and fleeting pleasures, now love your neighbour. If you act from love, you are singing a new song. If you act from fear, but do it, you are indeed carrying the harp, but you are not yet singing. But if you do not do it, you are throwing away the harp. It is better to carry it than throw it away, but it is better again to sing with joy than to bear something as a burden. And one does not achieve the new song unless one is singing it in joy. If you are carrying the harp in fear, you are still in the old song. And to what I say, attend, brothers. Anyone who is still doing it out of fear has not come to an agreement with his adversary. 3 He fears lest God come and condemn him. He does not yet delight in chastity, he does not yet delight in righteousness, but it is because he dreads God's judgement that he refrains from such deeds. He does not condemn the  lust that seethes within him. He does not yet take delight in what is good. He does not yet have the sweetness that sings the new song, but because of old habits he fears punishments. He has not yet made an agreement with the adversary. Such men are often tripped up by thoughts like this, so that they say to themselves, 'If it were possible to do this, God would not be threatening us, he would not say all those things through the Prophets to worry people, but he would have come to be indulgent to everybody and pardon everybody, and after he came he would not send anyone to hell.' Now because he is unjust he wants to make God unjust. God wants to make you like Him, and you are trying to make God like you. Be satisfied with God as He is, not as you would like Him to be. You are perverse, and you want God to be like you, not as He is. But if you are satisfied with Him as He is, then you will be set right and you will align your heart along that rule from which you are now twisted away. Be satisfied with God as He is, love Him as He is. He does not love you as you are, He hates you as you are. So He pities you, because He hates you as you are and wants to make you as you are not yet. Let Him make you, I have said, that which you are not yet. For He did not promise you to make you what He is. You shall be as He is in a certain way, that is, you shall be an imitator of God like an image, but not the kind of image that the Son is. There are different sorts of images even among men. A man’s son bears the image of his father, and is what his father is because he is a man like his father. But your image in a mirror is not what you are. Your image is in your son in one way, in a different way in a mirror. Your image is in your son by way of equality of nature, but in the mirror how far it is from your nature! And even so, it is a kind of image of you, though not as in your son which is according to nature. So the image of God in the creature is not what it is in the Son who is what the Father is, that is, God the Word of God, through whom all things were made. 4 Receive, then, the likeness of God, which you lost through evil deeds. It is as the emperor's image is in a coin in a different way from the way it is in his son; for there is an image and an image, one impressed in one way on a coin and one in another way in a son. The emperor's image is different in his son and on a gold solidus. So you are as God's coin, and a better one in that you are God's coin with intelligence and a certain life, so you can know whose image you bear and to whose image you were made; a coin does not know it carries the king's image. Therefore, as I was saying, God hates you as you are but He loves you as He wants you to be, and that is why He exhorts you to change. Come to an agreement with Him, and begin with a good will and hate yourself as you are. Let this be the beginning of your agreement with the word of God, that you begin by first of all hating yourself as you are. When even you have begun to hate yourself as you are, just as God hates such a thing, then you are already beginning to love God as He is. Saint Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 9, Chaps 7-8 1 Ephes 4.22-24 2 Ephes 4.25 3 Mt 5.25 4 Jn 1.3