A For if the one who distributes to each according to their worth is just, and by assigning to those who have become better or worse through their own cause what each deserves to obtain, how is He just if He becomes the cause of a worse sin for Pharaoh? And not simply a cause, but, insofar as they understood it, one who cooperated so that he became most unjust. For by not referring the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart to anything worthy of the choice of a just God, I do not know how they are able to demonstrate, even if they wish to explain it as they do, that the One who hardens Pharaoh’s heart is a just God. B Hence, we must press them regarding the matters at hand, so that they either demonstrate how the Just One hardens, or dare to say that since He hardens, the Creator is evil; or, if they are unable to provide proofs that the Just One is the cause of any hardening, and do not dare to utter such an impiety regarding the Creator—that He is evil—they must flee to another path, an interpretive one regarding the [words], "The Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh," departing from the [practice] of thinking they understand the literal sense, which [only] destroys their own conceptions regarding a just God. And the final [point].
Even if one were to wonder A what is the reason for the account 55, these things shall be examined regarding the problem before us. Since, however, we have come to the topic concerning nature 56, and certain people, borrowing from the construction [of this argument], believe that some things have come into being for destruction, and they bring these forward, saying that it is signified by what is taught: "I have hardened the heart of Pharaoh," come, let us ask these people: He who was created for destruction, would he not be able to do something better, of the nature inherent in him that is fighting against him toward good things? What need is there, then, for Pharaoh, being, as you say, a son of destruction, to be hardened by God, in order that he might let the people go? B For he did not harden him, but he sent him away. Let them answer concerning this, saying: What would Pharaoh have done if he had not been hardened? For if he were to have let them go without being hardened, his nature was not ruined; but if he did not let them go, there was no need for his being hardened—for he would not have let them go, even if not hardened. But by what action and by what force did He harden his sovereign power, and how does He accuse him, saying, "Because you do not obey me, behold, I will kill your firstborn, and all the Egyptians shall know, for," He says, "that I am the Lord"—as if on account of this those things thought to be grievous were being brought upon them, that they might know God?
But in the Maccabees, something of this sort is said: C "I exhort those who come across this book not to be discouraged by the calamities, but to consider that what is happening is not for destruction, but for the instruction of our race. For it is a sign of a great benefit that those who act impiously are not left alone for a long time, but immediately fall under chastisements. For the Master does not wait, being long-suffering, as in the case of other nations, as if they were abandoned for the end of their sins, so that He might later take vengeance on them; He has judged likewise for us, and being instructed with calamity, He does not abandon His own people." For if falling under chastisements on account of sins is a sign of a great benefit, [consider] Pharaoh also being chastised after his heart had been hardened, and being punished along with his people; see whether he has not been chastised to some purpose, D and not for his own 58 ill. Like one becoming an imitator of God [as is appropriate] to the times, David commands...
concerning Joab that Solomon should punish him for the sins committed against Abner, the son of Ner, and kill him for his failures; then he adds: “And you shall bring down his gray hairs in peace to Hades.” It is clear that, as the Hebrew has also declared to us, the fact that he was to be put to sleep in peace—through his being punished here—meant that there was no longer any punishment or torture owed to him, since he had already received it here, after his departure from this life. Thus do we also receive every threat, both from the Holy Scriptures and from the efficacy according to the magnitude and order of the works of God, who created the things that are seen and the things that are not seen, the temporal and the eternal; as He is one and the same in all things, [being] the Father of our Lord and Savior, good, just, and wise. We struggle to lead the Scriptures to that goal, in order to show that all things belong to the good, just, and wise God, and that we might not be thought to fall away from them, even in the slightest degree, so far as those who have understanding are concerned; but rather, that we may be in need of God the Savior to determine whether or not what is said B aligns with His goodness, justice, and wisdom. Such, then, is what we intuit regarding the phrase: “The Lord God hardened the heart of Pharaoh.” The Word of God is a physician of the soul, using ways of healing that are most varied and appropriate to those who are in a bad state, and most timely. Of these ways of healing, some produce more pain and torment in those being led toward health, while others produce less; again, the remedies vary, at times appearing strange, at others not so, and again, acting more quickly or more slowly, and [occurring] after one has indulged in sin, or after one has, so to speak, merely touched upon it. Every inspired Scripture is full of such testimonies for each case, in which harsher or more difficult remedies are recorded as having been applied to the people, and as having served for their conversion and reformation, whether in greater or lesser wars, or in more protracted or shorter famines. It appears strange, however, in the passage: C “I will not visit your daughters when they play the whore, and your daughters-in-law when they commit adultery.” For perhaps He leaves souls that crave too much the things that are thought to be bodily and pleasant, until, having been sated, they turn away from the things they desire, as if desiring to vomit them up, and would not quickly return to the same things, having been—being sated, of course, and exercised by the most grievous punishments—worn down. Those who had despised the chance to recover quickly from their evils are healed more slowly, for they succumb to the same things a second time. But the technician, God, knows the dispositions of each, and as it befits Him, He alone is able to apply the medicine skillfully and to administer what is appropriate for each, and when. And just as in certain diseases of the body, if the ailment has penetrated to the depths, so to speak, the physician applies medications to the outermost surface to draw out the matter, D causing more troublesome inflammations, swellings, and pains than those the patient was suffering before he was treated (as is customary in those who have been bitten by a mad dog, and in certain others who are afflicted with such evils), so I think God deals with the hidden malice that has penetrated to the inner soul. Just as the physician says of such a patient: “I will cause inflammation in the place of the wound, and I will make this or that part swell, so that I may create a more serious abscess,”
and since even the more skilled physician B (43) says this—not that he is accused, but rather that he is even praised for appearing to threaten such things—if someone says that it is foreign to the medical profession to do what is necessary [(44)], namely to cause inflammation and abscesses, so too I think God says, “I will harden Pharaoh’s heart.” And when these things are written, the one who hears them as the oracles of God accepts the dignity of the speaker, and seeking, he finds, and in these things he perceives the goodness of God [(45)]—being manifested more clearly for the salvation of the people, being confirmed through many miracles; and secondly, regarding the Egyptians, those who were about to be terrified and follow the Hebrews: “For,” it says, “a mixed multitude of Egyptians went up with them.” C But this is perhaps deeper: in order for Pharaoh to be benefited, and no longer hide the evil and keep the disposition, but to draw it out and bring it into the light, so that by doing it he might exhaust the evil that is present, and having accomplished the destruction of the evil-producing tree, he might later, perhaps, be without it, drying up at the end, when they are drowned—not, as one might think, that he is wholly destroyed, but that he is relieved by casting off his sins, and perhaps he might have peace after such a great war of the soul, before descending to Hades. But it is likely that my readers will find it difficult to accept as plausible the violent and foreign notion that it was useful for Pharaoh himself to be hardened, and for the sake of his own benefit, all the things that are recorded were done right up to his submersion. Now, see if from this, without any doubt, we can prove what I was saying. “Many,” says David [(46)], “are the scourges of the sinner;” and his son teaches that God, whom he loves and approves, he chastises with scourges. Furthermore, David himself, prophesying the promise concerning Christ and those who believe in Him, says [(47)]: “If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments; if they violate my statutes, and do not keep my commandments, I will visit their transgressions with a rod, and their iniquities with scourges; D but my mercy I will not take away from them.” Therefore, it is a grace of God that the lawless are visited by a rod, and the sinner by scourges. And in as much as the one who sins is not scourged, he is not yet subject to correction and amendment. For this reason, God also threatens, if the sins of those inhabiting Judea become great, “No longer to visit their daughters when they commit whoredom, and their daughters-in-law when they commit adultery.” And elsewhere He says [(48)]: “Because I have cleansed thee and thou wast not cleansed, I will not be angry with thee anymore, nor will I be jealous over thee anymore.” Therefore, to those who are sinning and toward whom He is not angry—so to speak, angry when provoked—He is not angry. But one must also note regarding the prophetic threats against the many, that it follows:
"If his sons forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments; if they profane my statutes, and do not keep my commandments, A I will visit their iniquities with a rod, and their sins with a whip. Yet my mercy will I not utterly take from him." Is it not therefore by the grace of God that the lawless one 48 is visited with a rod, and the sinner is whipped? And in so far as the sinner is whipped, he is directed and is not entirely given up; wherefore God even threatens, if things become too great: "The sins of those who inhabit Judea, no longer visiting upon their daughters when they commit fornication, and upon their daughters-in-law when they commit adultery." And elsewhere He says, "Since I cleansed you 49 and you were not cleansed, I will no longer be angry with you, nor will I be jealous towards you still." Therefore, those with whom He is angry are the ones sinning, so that, if I may say so, He is angry while feeling indignation. Note that in these prophetic threats against many, it is further added, "And you shall know that I am the Lord." And He threatens not only the Israelites, but also the Egyptians 50, and others, the enemies of the people. This is also what is written in Exodus at the end of many supposed threats. For does He harden the hard man? It is clear that He does not harden the hard, but changes from B hardness into hardness through softness; and a soft heart is praised according to Scripture, as we have observed in many places. Let them say, then, whether Pharaoh was made evil from good; and if God rebuked Pharaoh, does He rebuke unjustly? If so, how is He wise and just? But if not unjustly, he was the cause of his own sins through his disobedience; and he was caused by himself, not by his nature, which perishes. But this also must be believed, because the Apostle makes use of the aforementioned words to say 80: "Therefore, whom He wills He has mercy, and whom He wills He hardens." You will say to me then, "Why does He still find fault? For who can resist His will?" and who is it that He hardens? For it is not the case that another is hardened by Him and another is shown mercy, according to the apostolic voice, but that it is the same person. Therefore, those who receive mercy in God are those who have their heart hardened by Pharaoh; and another God, or a good one, is fashioned C for them in vain. According to them, God is not only merciful, but also hardening, and He could no longer be good, as they suppose. We have examined all these things more fully and on purpose for those who unexaminedly grant themselves the power to understand, and who trample upon the simplicity of our own, opposing us and showing that neither the things they assume about God, nor the things they dogmatize about nature, contribute to them—as they suppose—the argument now being examined. We, however, being persuaded from many sides, consider even the pain and punishment brought about by God to happen never against those who suffer, but always for their sake. And indeed, the harshest names thought to be applied to God, "wrath" and "anger," are said to rebuke and to discipline in the passage: "O Lord, do not rebuke me in your wrath, nor discipline me in your anger," the one praying these things being in need of not needing the rebuke of God through wrath, and the discipline through His anger, as if some are to be rebuked by the wrath of God and to be disciplined by His anger. D
A For in order that we may the rather be persuaded by what is said, and from similar passages in the New Testament, where the Savior says: "I have come to cast fire upon the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled," for it was not because the fire of the Savior was not salvific that He came to cast it upon the earth, and upon those who were to be saved, that the Son of God said these things. But Peter, by his word, punishing Ananias and Sapphira, who had sinned by lying not to men but to the Lord, B was not only concerned for the edification of those who were to become, by seeing this, more religious, but also for those who were dying; wishing to free them, through their sudden death and apart from the expectation of the body, from the punishment that awaited them, having—as they did—the needs of those in want as half of their possessions. And Paul, being with the proconsul Sergius Paulus, blinded the sorcerer, C through sufferings turning him to piety, saying to him: "O full of all deceit and all knavery, you son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, will you not cease to pervert the straight ways of the Lord?" And of what time [does he speak]? Of that time when, having been rebuked and tormented for his sins, he was about to become worthy, through repentance, to see the sun both in soul and in body, in order that the divine power might be proclaimed at the restoration of his sight; and [to see it] according to the soul, when he was about to believe and be benefited by piety. But also Demas and Hermogenes, whom he delivered to Satan, that they might be disciplined not to blaspheme, have suffered something similar to those mentioned before. D And he who in Corinth had his father’s wife, he too is delivered to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord. It is not surprising, therefore, if the things concerning Pharaoh, who was hardened and at the end surrounded by such punishments, are also managed by the goodness of God. Let these things, then, as they have occurred to me for the present, be said concerning the passage, "The Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh." But if anyone, while maintaining reverence toward God, finds better explanations, and such as in no way touch upon impiety, along with testimonies from the divine Scriptures, then one should rather make use of those. And in other places concerning the same subject.
A Just as physicians, drawing out the poison of those bitten by a mad dog onto the surface, lest it consume the man while festering within, cause more severe afflictions and inflammations; so too God draws out to the exterior through His own medicine the wickedness hidden and lurking in the depths of the soul, so that it might become manifest and clearer, in order that He may bring upon it the subsequent cure. I believe that those things written in Deuteronomy are of such a kind, having this manner: "And you shall remember all the way which the Lord your God led you these forty years in the desert, so that He might afflict you, and test you, and that it might be known (59) what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. And He afflicted you, and caused you to hunger (60), and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your ancestors know; so that He might declare to you that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word proceeding through the mouth of God shall man live." Observe in these things that God afflicts and tests, so that what is in the heart of each one might be known, as things that are indeed present, but stored away in the depths, and as those things coming into the open through hardships. Such is also that which in the book of Job is declared B by the Lord through a whirlwind and clouds (61) to Job, in this way: "Do you think that I have spoken to you for any other reason than that you might appear just?" For He did not say, "Become just," but "that you might appear," being such even before the trials, but appearing as such in the things that have happened. And again in another volume in the same notes on Exodus (62). Someone among our own, soothing what is sought after by means of common usage, used to say that often good masters, being patient with the offenses of their servants, are accustomed to say, "I have ruined you," and, "I have made you wicked," indicating by this demeanor that their kindness and patience seems to have become the pretext for further wickedness. C Just as, therefore, with these things being said, someone can cavil, saying that the master confessed to having made the servant wicked; so too the things that proceeded from the goodness of God, having become a pretext for the hardness of Pharaoh, are recorded to have hardened the heart of Pharaoh. But this one will be soothed (64) by the apostolic sayings, which he has understood to say: "Or do you despise the riches of His kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? But because of your hardness, and unrepentant heart, you are storing up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath, and revelation, and the justice of God, who will render to each according to his works." The same Apostle, then, in the Epistle to the Romans D says: "But if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known,
A he brought in much patience the vessels of wrath fitted for destruction," as if his patience had borne the vessels of wrath and, in a manner, had given them birth. For if, because he was gentle and patient, not punishing sinners but showing mercy, those vessels increased, he in a way bore the vessels of wrath by his patience, and, if I may say so, he himself made all things vessels of wrath, and in this respect, he himself hardened their heart. For when, after so many signs and wonders had been performed, Pharaoh does not obey, but, after such things, resists, how is he not proven harder and more unbelieving? since such hardness and unbelief would seem to have been able to arise from those portents.
Similar also is that which is in the Gospel: "For judgment I came into this world." For the Savior did not set out to come for judgment, but it followed from his having come, that he came for the judgment of those who, after the miracles, did not believe in him; but he also came for their fall.
B And after other things, in this manner: The signs performed were a mercy for those who accepted and believed, as in the case of those of mixed race among the Egyptians who had gone out with the people; but they brought hardness of heart upon those who did not believe. Moreover, from the Gospel, other things similar to these can be brought forward, which seem to some to speak of the Savior as the author of evils: "Woe to you, region of Zin, woe to you, Bethsaida, for if the signs had been done in Tyre and Sidon which have been done in you, they would have long ago sat in sackcloth and ashes and repented. But I say to you, it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon than for you," and the rest. For since the Savior was the foreknower of the unbelief of those in the region of Zin, and of those in Bethsaida, and of those in Capernaum, and that it becomes more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for them, why did he perform miracles in the region of Zin and in Bethsaida, seeing that because of this it becomes more tolerable in the day of judgment for the Tyrians and Sidonians than for these?
And after other things: "But you shall say to Pharaoh: Thus says the Lord: Israel is my firstborn son. And I said to you: Let my people go, that they may serve me. But if you do not wish to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son." C It must, therefore, be said to those who believe that these things are from a just God, and who suppose, according to the superficial sense of the words, that the heart of Pharaoh the king was hardened so that he would not let his people go: How is he just, who hardened the heart, and threatens, if he does not release them, to kill his firstborn son? For if they are pressed, they will confess him to be evil. Then again, other things will turn them away from this and lead them to the point where they do not cling to the literal phrasing, which in their opinion cannot defend the justice of the Creator. Finally, if they are now once compelled to weigh these things, D that