The Instructor, Book I

Book I

• The Instructor I.1 — The Office of the Instructor. As there are these three things in the case of man, habits, actions, and passions; habits are the department appropriated by hortatory discourse the guide to piety, which, like the…vatican.va
• The Instructor I.2 — Our Instructor’s Treatment of Our Sins. Now, O you, my children, our Instructor is like His Father God, whose son He is, sinless, blameless, and with a soul devoid of passion; God in the form of man, stainless, the…vatican.va
• The Instructor I.3 — The Philanthropy of the Instructor. The Lord ministers all good and all help, both as man and as God: as God, forgiving our sins; and as man, training us not to sin. Man is therefore justly dear to God, since he is…vatican.va
• The Instructor I.4 — Men and Women Alike Under the Instructor’s Charge. Let us, then, embracing more and more this good obedience, give ourselves to the Lord; clinging to what is surest, the cable of faith in Him, and understanding that…vatican.va
• The Instructor I.5 — All Who Walk According to Truth are Children of God. That, then, Pædagogy is the training of children (παίδων ἀγωγή), is clear from the word itself. It remains for us to consider the children whom Scripture points…vatican.va
• The Instructor I.6 — The Name Children Does Not Imply Instruction in Elementary Principles. We have ample means of encountering those who are given to carping. For we are not termed children and infants with reference to the childish and…vatican.va
• The Instructor I.7 — Who the Instructor Is, and Respecting His Instruction. Since, then, we have shown that all of us are by Scripture called children; and not only so, but that we who have followed Christ are figuratively called babes;…vatican.va
• The Instructor I.8 — Against Those Who Think that What is Just is Not Good. At this stage some rise up, saying that the Lord, by reason of the rod, and threatening, and fear, is not good; misapprehending, as appears, the Scripture which…vatican.va
• The Instructor I.9 — That It is the Prerogative of the Same Power to Be Beneficent and to Punish Justly. Also the Manner of the Instruction of the Logos. With all His power, therefore, the Instructor of humanity, the Divine Word, using…vatican.va
• The Instructor I.10 — That the Same God, by the Same Word, Restrains from Sin by Threatening, and Saves Humanity by Exhorting. If, then, we have shown that the plan of dealing stringently with humanity is good and salutary, and…vatican.va
• The Instructor I.11 — That the Word Instructed by the Law and the Prophets. The mode of His love and His instruction we have shown as we could. Wherefore He Himself, declaring Himself very beautifully, likened Himself to a grain of…vatican.va
• The Instructor I.12 — The Instructor Characterized by the Severity and Benignity of Paternal Affection. Having now accomplished those things, it were a fitting sequel that our instructor Jesus should draw for us the model of the true…vatican.va
• The Instructor I.13 — Virtue Rational, Sin Irrational. Everything that is contrary to right reason is sin. Accordingly, therefore, the philosophers think fit to define the most generic passions thus: lust, as desire disobedient to reason;…vatican.va