Guigo I
(Meditations)
Chapter I. On truth and peace, and how peace is obtained through truth alone.
Truth must be set in the midst, as something beautiful. Do not judge if someone shrinks from it, but have compassion. Yet you, though you desire to come to the truth, why do you reject it when you are rebuked for your vices? See how much truth suffers. It is said to the drunkard: You are a drunkard; and likewise to the lustful, the proud, and the talkative. And this is true. Yet they immediately go mad, and persecute and kill the truth in its preacher. See how much falsehood is honored. It is said to the worst of men, slaves of every vice: Good masters. They are appeased, they rejoice, and they venerate the falsehood in the one who speaks thus.
Without appearance or beauty, and nailed to the cross, truth must be adored.
The nobler and more powerful any creature is, the more willingly it submits to truth; indeed, it is powerful and noble precisely because it submits to truth.
Temporal things sting you — why do you not flee to other things, that is, to the truth?
The reason truth is more bitter to us than all adversities is that individual adversities assail one or more pleasures; but truth accuses them all at once.
If you had experienced all colors and everything else that can be experienced through the eyes, or had experienced through the other bodily senses, if you were to recount or hear all reports — what would be the use? So too with all the many things you have experienced or heard.
You cannot hate anyone except through your own iniquity. For it belongs to the saints to wish good even to the wicked. One ought to love only truth and the peace that proceeds from it.
Let the minister of truth love what he ministers, and the one to whom it is ministered. And when the same is ministered to him by another, let him receive it with thanksgiving, as that which he loves.
Let charity be your reason for speaking the truth, as for healing. And if someone does not receive it, either you have compassion on him, or you do not love him, or you consider what he scorns to be of little worth — as if a sick man were to refuse a healing medicine.
Truth is followed by peace without end, shared with the angels; falsehood is followed by toil and sorrow, shared with the devil. Truth does not need to be defended — rather, you need it.
Truth is exceedingly bitter and unpleasant to your kind, not by its own fault but by theirs — just as bright light is to weak eyes. See therefore that you do not make it more bitter by not speaking it as you ought, that is, with charity. For just as a kind physician, who gives a wholesome but bitter potion to a sick man, smears the rim of the cup with honey, so that what is sweet may be willingly taken, and what is healing may easily be swallowed in the same draught. Your whole duty, moreover, is to benefit others.
If you speak the truth not from love of truth, but from the desire to wound another, you will not obtain the reward of one who speaks the truth, but the punishment of a reviler.
See how much torment you will suffer, when the true light has perfectly revealed you to yourself — if one is already so tormented to whom you show something of his evils by a single word. For then the counsels of hearts will be laid bare.
You sin equally whether you revile another or are reviled by another; for in both cases you either receive the truth badly or inflict it as an evil. Therefore let whoever wishes to scourge you seize upon your life, that is, the truth; let him strike and torment you through it.
Truth is life and eternal salvation. You ought therefore to have compassion on the one whom it displeases. For to that extent he is dead and lost. But you, being perverse, would not speak truth to him unless you thought it bitter and intolerable to him. For you measure others by yourself. But the worst thing is when, in order to please people, you speak the truth that they love and admire, just as you would speak lies or flatteries. Therefore truth should be spoken neither because it displeases nor because it pleases, but so that it may benefit. It should be kept silent only lest it harm, as light harms weak eyes.
Bread, that is truth, strengthens the heart of man lest it succumb to bodily forms.
Blessed is the one whose mind is moved or affected only by the knowledge and love of truth, and whose body is moved only by the mind itself. For thus the body too is moved by truth alone. For if there is no motion in the mind except that of truth, and none in the body except that of the mind, then there would be no motion in the body except that of truth, that is, of God.
You do all things for the sake of peace, to which the way lies through truth alone — which is your adversary in this life. Therefore either subject truth to yourself, or subject yourself to truth. For nothing else remains for you.
Adversity warns you to desire peace. But you, blinded, desire that which, while you love and desire it, makes it utterly impossible for you to have peace.
Why do you snatch into yourself that which so displeases you in another, namely anger? You are angry, then, because he is angry. Rather, be angry at yourself, because you are angry. If anger truly displeased you, you would not admit it but would flee from it. This is accomplished only by maintaining peace.
A pool does not boast that it abounds in water, for it comes from the spring. So with your peace. For there is always something else that is the cause of peace. Therefore your peace is as weak and deceptive as the thing from which it arises is changeable. How worthless it is, then, when it arises from the pleasantness of a human face!
Every person desires to be safe. But this safety is diminished the more one can be disturbed. And one can be disturbed all the more as the things one loves are readier to be otherwise than one wishes. Let someone therefore say to you: I will do you harm; I will take away your peace. I will indeed think or speak evil of you. See how ready you are to be mortified and disturbed.
Let not temporal things be the cause of your peace, for it will be as worthless and fragile as they are. Such a peace you will share with brute animals; let yours be with the angels, that is, the peace that proceeds from truth.
Whatever you had held and loved for the sake of peace and happiness, despise it — unless you wish to lose peace and happiness entirely.
Peace is a good of the soul in which it resides. It should therefore be desired for its own sake, as a pleasant taste. Let it be so great in you that you do not exclude even the wicked.
"Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid" (John 14:27). This is the true Sabbath. He celebrates it who is neither enticed nor compelled; this one has himself in his own power; this one can give alms of himself, so that as another may see fit, he may be angry or appeased.
Love of temporal peace necessarily begets restlessness of mind. Therefore whoever has this peace and loves it necessarily lacks peace.
If you do not envy those who do you evil, you will have peace with them.
Just as all things subsist through likeness and peace, so through unlikeness and discord all things perish.
Chapter II. On the useful displeasure with oneself, and on the humble confession of sin.
The beginning of returning to truth is to be displeased with oneself in falsehood. Correction is preceded by reproach. For one does not care to change what does not displease. Because therefore you always need to be changed, you always need to be displeased with yourself.
In all the care you take for your salvation, there is no duty or remedy more useful to you than to reproach and despise yourself. Therefore whoever does this is your helper. For he does what you were doing, or ought to have been doing, in order to be saved.
You please yourself because you do not understand that you have no good from yourself. From yourself you have nothing but evil. Therefore you owe yourself no thanks. All evil comes to you from yourself. Therefore you owe great punishments in retribution.
The road to God is easy, because one travels by unburdening; it would be hard if one traveled by burdening. Therefore unburden yourself to such an extent that, having set aside all things, you deny yourself.
He who knows himself to be worthless receives reproaches calmly and humbly, as though they were his own judgments. But he rejects praises, as not being his own judgments.
When someone speaks evil of you, if it is not true, it harms him, not you — just as if he called gold dung, what harm would it do to the gold? If what is said about you is true, you are taught what to avoid. But he who speaks what is good benefits not the one he praises, but himself. When something good is said to you about yourself, why are rumors recounted that you know better? Only reproach yourself.
Let each one flee his own vices; for the vices of others will not harm him. Your clothing and your crown are a continual lie, because they signify what is lacking.
When someone grieves that he committed a theft, on account of the disgrace that arose from it, he does not repent of the theft but grieves at having incurred disgrace. He does not dread or consider it evil to sin, but to be punished. But for the just, sinning and being punished are not different things. They consider sin itself to be the most atrocious punishment, and therefore they hold that no iniquity can go unpunished, because the iniquity of sin is itself a great punishment, and nothing worse can be inflicted on anyone. And for this reason they judge it must be avoided and fled above all evils, even if no other evil were to follow from it.
If you should hate anyone, hate no one as much as yourself. For no one has harmed you as much.
If nothing is improved unless first reproached, then whoever does not wish to be reproached does not wish to be improved. For it is written: "He who hates correction is foolish" (Prov. 12:1); "But he who heeds reproof possesses understanding" (Prov. 15:32).
On Confession.
There could have been no return to salvation for the publican, unless he had humbly confessed what the Pharisee proudly cast in his face.
In this alone are you just: if you acknowledge and declare that you deserve to be condemned for your sins. If you call yourself just, you are a liar, and you are condemned by the Lord who is truth, as being contrary to him. Call yourself a sinner, so that, being truthful, you may agree with the Lord who is truth, and be set free.
It belongs to the great to intercede for those who confess, that they may be forgiven; but to the greater, to supplicate kindly even for those who do not yet recognize their guilt, that they may recognize it, and for those who, either because they are ashamed or because they love their guilt, do not confess, that they may confess.
Every rational soul wishing to avenge itself inflicts on another what it fears for itself, and abhors, and considers evil. But nothing does it seize more eagerly for vengeance than the truth, and no evil does it inflict with more vehement spirit. Therefore nothing does it more abhor than to have the truth spoken about itself. For what the adversary says about another is such that, if the one to whom it is said humbly acknowledges it, he may merit eternal salvation. For he who calls an adulterer an adulterer tells him as an evil what the adulterer himself ought to confess freely for his own salvation. Therefore let him willingly receive this, and attend not to the intention with which it is said, but to what is said to him.
He who truly loves not to seem, but to be truthful, and truly fears not to seem, but to be a liar — as soon as he realizes he has lied, he contradicts himself, and no reproaches or losses deter him from this. For the truthful man would rather die than live as a liar — if indeed a liar lives, since it is written: "The mouth that lies kills the soul" (Wisdom 1:11).
That which you wish to hide, namely your sin, condemn it and there will no longer be anything you need to hide. For you can blot it out, but you cannot hide it. For nothing is covered that will not be revealed, nor hidden that will not be known. Why then do you prefer to conceal the disease rather than cure it? Just as you willingly show the diseases of your body to others so they may have compassion, and if they will not believe, you consider yourself wretched and the pain increases, and you even grow angry — so do likewise with the diseases of your soul.
Chapter III. On the pleasures and base delights of the five senses.
Consider two experiences: of taking in and of putting out. Which makes you more blessed — what you experience through the one, or through the other? The former burdens with useless things, the latter unburdens. Consider what each profits you. This is what it means to have devoured everything by experience. No further hope remains. So it is with all sensual things. See therefore what happiness all things of this kind, whether in hope or in reality, have produced in you, and think accordingly about the future. Reflect, I say, on past prosperities, and so judge the future. All that you hope for will perish. And you — what then? Love and hope for something that does not pass away.
You wish to paint with colors wood that will be consumed by fire, when you want what you consume to be beautiful, whether foods or garments. You need clothing against the cold, not this or that color; so too food against hunger, not this or that flavor.
Bestial pleasure comes from the senses of the flesh; diabolical pleasure from all pride, envy, and deceit; philosophical pleasure from knowing creation; angelic pleasure from knowing and loving God.
Those things among transitory pleasures that delight more are also more deadly.
It is the same or worse folly to pursue the kind of things you yourself have made, and to incline the soul toward things you destroy, that is, toward flavors and other sensible things.
"He gathered them from the regions" — that is, pulling holy souls away from flavors, odors, and carnal touches, he gathers them into himself.
So people try to create true pleasure or happiness, as if it either did not exist or could be created, when it alone truly exists, but can in no way be created. To attempt this is to make a god and happiness for oneself, and to suppose that happiness does not exist, and that God does not exist.
See if all people, abandoning everything else they attend to, were to devote themselves entirely to a single color or flavor, how wretched, ugly, and foolish they would be. They are just as much so now, when they attend to so many and diverse qualities of things. For many creatures, or all creatures together, are no more our God or our salvation than any single one of them.
When we rejoice in the same things as brute animals — that is, in lust like dogs, in gluttony like pigs, and so on — our soul becomes like their souls, and we do not shudder. Yet I would rather have the body of a dog than its soul. And yet if our body were to pass into as great a likeness to a dog's body as our soul passes into the likeness of a dog's soul through lust, who would endure us? Who would not be horrified? It would be better and more tolerable for our body to be changed into a beast while the soul remained in its dignity, that is, in the image of God, than for the soul to become bestial while the body remained human. And this transformation is all the more horrible and to be lamented, the more the soul surpasses the body. Hence David says: "Do not be like the horse and the mule, which have no understanding" (Psalm 31:9). For this should not be thought to refer to bodily likeness, lest it be ridiculous.
To prepare something, such as food or drink, solely so that it may give more pleasure, is to cooperate with the devil for our destruction, and to sharpen a sword so that it may more easily and deeply penetrate our vitals. For the more we delight in these things, the more gravely and deeply we are wounded.
Chapter IV. On the vain fears, sorrows, and torments of the children of this age, which they incur from the desire and love of perishable things.
Man willingly entangles himself in the love of bodies and vanity, but, whether he wills it or not, he is tormented by fear and sorrow over their destruction, whether when the bodies themselves are taken away, or when he himself is reproached. For the love of perishable things is like a fountain of useless fears, sorrows, and all anxieties. Therefore the Lord frees the poor from the powerful by loosing them from the bond of worldly love. For whoever loves nothing perishable has no place where he can be hurt by any powerful person, and is entirely inviolable, because he loves only inviolable things as they ought to be loved.
If someone were to cut off all the hairs of your head, he would not hurt you, except when he touched those still attached to the scalp. So nothing hurts you unless someone touches those things that have fixed their roots in you through desire. The more numerous and the more beloved these are, the more numerous and more intense the sorrows they will produce.
Either extinguish desire entirely, or prepare yourself to be disturbed — that is, to fear and grieve over things you should not.
The human soul is tormented in itself as long as it can be tormented, that is, as long as it loves anything besides God. For it cannot lose God against its will. It can abandon him, but not lose him. For no one is harmed except by himself.
From as many loves of things — things that would perish for you, or for which you would perish — as the Lord has freed you, from just as many fears, sorrows, and pains of grief has he absolved you.
While the appearances or forms of bodies, by whose adherence to you you are defiled, perish (like syllables in their appointed times, as God directs the melody), you are tormented. For the rust that had grown is scraped away.
Nothing is more laborious for you than not to labor, that is, to despise all things from which labors arise, namely all changeable things.
See how great a multitude of your kind has labored for the world, and not only did they fail to attain it, but they even lost themselves in the bargain. But if you apply yourself, you will gain beyond all comparison more than that for which all labor or have labored.
The foolish disturbance of the soul is itself the misery. This is almost always in you, when God corrupts the causes of your death — that is, the things to which you wrongly clung — so that by abandoning them you may live.
You love the handmaid shamefully, that is, the creature; therefore you are so greatly tormented when her master, that is your God, does with her as he rightly wills.
You have clung to one syllable of a great song; therefore you are disturbed when the most wise singer proceeds in his singing. For the syllable you alone loved is taken from you, and others follow in their order. For he does not sing for you alone, nor according to your will, but according to his own. And the syllables that follow are contrary to you only because they displace the one you wrongly loved.
What a syllable is in a song, each thing holds in place or time in the course of the world. Therefore you will be tormented because you have clung to inferior things, and they pass away in their order like syllables in a song.
All these things that are called adversities are not adversities except for the wicked, that is, for those who love the creature instead of the Creator.
If this or that person labored as much for God as he labors for the world, his birthday would be celebrated as that of a martyr.
Just as cold comes from ice, so from the love of temporal things useless fear invades the soul, along with all other miseries. Remove from yourself everything that is a cause of fear, just as you would remove the causes of cold. I say remove them not from place, but from the soul. For nothing should be feared except what can and should be avoided, namely sin. And whatever it is expedient to avoid can also be avoided, with God's help — that is, iniquity.
See how much you are in the power of people to be disturbed and tormented. As easily as they can reproach you with words, or with a thought or opinion, so easily can they disturb you. What then? If you displease them, you are disturbed. Therefore you are in their power. Whether or not someone does this, you are still exposed by the disposition of your mind. If you displease them in what is good, this harms them, not you. Work then to change their hearts, not your good. If you displease them in what is evil, the displeasure itself does not harm you — indeed it benefits you — but your evil does.
The martyrs say to God: "For your sake we are put to death all the day long" (Psalm 43:22); you say to any worthless things: For your sake I am disturbed all the day long.
Restrain and collect yourself from every side, lest the whirling of changeable things find you among them, and you be tormented.
Whatever manner of torment you suffer, whether from fear, anger, hatred, or any kind of sorrow, attribute it only to yourself — that is, to your own desire, ignorance, or sluggishness. But if someone wishes to harm you, attribute it to his desire. Your wound and pain are a sign of your sin — namely, that you loved something vulnerable, having abandoned God.
When the spectacles you love are damaged, you grieve. Blame this on yourself and your error, because you clung to things that can be damaged. For man is so accustomed to deflect all evil onto something else that if he stumbles on a stone or is burned by fire, he dares to blame and curse God's very creatures — which, if they did not do this, would rightly be blamed as feeble and lifeless, rather than that he should mourn the wretchedness of his own weakness.
Although the nurse knows the small child will rejoice upon receiving a sparrow, she nevertheless greatly fears that he will get one, and all the more so the more she thinks he will rejoice over it. Certainly all people wish that they and those they love may rejoice. Why then does the nurse not only not wish this for the child, but even guards against it as a great evil? Certainly she wants him to rejoice. Why then does she take away that from which she knows he will derive joy? Why, unless because she looks ahead to the coming sorrow, whose cause she knows to be this very joy? For she knows assuredly that the grief that will afterward strike the child's heart will be all the heavier the more intense the preceding joy was, measuring the magnitude of future sorrow by the greatness of present joy. In this act, what else does this woman suggest should be done but that all those joys which are followed by lamentations must be shunned as plague and poison? One should not consider what sweetness they possess in the present while they last, but what bitterness they generate in us when they depart. Such are all temporal joys. Why then should I not with the same provident caution avoid possessing a vineyard, a meadow, a spacious house, a field; why not gold and silver, why not the opinions and praises of men, and other such things? Oh, who will give to the decrepit yet foolish child — that is, to the whole human race spread across the earth — some great, some most wise nurse, who with such care and solicitude might take from him, or call him back from, those joys which are the seeds of future sorrows? But whence comes so great a groaning of tears throughout the whole world, unless because this most loving and most powerful nurse never ceases, whether by herself or otherwise, to take from the human race, or to withhold, the causes of sorrow — that is, temporal things — as one takes a sparrow from a child.
Chapter V. On the desire, love, and glorying in earthly and temporal things, and how through them true misery is not removed but increased.
In two ways, when two things are equal, one can become greater than the other: either by its own increase, or by the diminishment of its companion. By this latter method all the princes and powers of this age either rejoice or strive to be greater than everyone else — namely, by the abasement and diminishment of others, not by their own advancement or increase of body or mind. For neither their bodies nor their minds are in any way improved; rather, they seem to themselves to have progressed and grown because others have failed and diminished. But if everything were so diminished as to be reduced to nothing, in what way would your soul or body grow from this?
Just as one who wants to make bricks prepares a yard where he may place them in the meantime — not to remain there, but to be moved elsewhere once they have dried; and thus that yard is prepared not for any particular bricks, but equally for all that are to be made — so God made this place of human habitation for creating human beings and transferring them elsewhere when their time is completed. And just as a potter removes some so that newly made ones may take their place, so God by death, as by the removal of the former occupants, prepares a place for those who will succeed them. Therefore foolish and insane is he who clings to the yard with the love of his heart, and does not rather meditate anxiously on where he is to be transferred. Nor should it seem unjust or harsh to the bricks when they are moved, since they were placed there with this intention. Nor will it seem so except to those who do not consider that they must necessarily be moved, who by insane desire claim as their own what is common and belongs to no one, but is communally appointed for innumerable future occupants. See in this same matter another madness no less great: for though these bricks are almost all of the same size, scarcely any one of them is content with the space of just one; rather, having cast out or broken as many bricks as it can, each one claims the place of many for itself alone.
What do you think of someone who devotes all his attention and time to propping up a house that cannot possibly be propped up with the materials at hand — materials with which nothing at all can be propped up — or if it could, the props themselves need just as many other props as the house they are meant to support; and those props need as many again, and so on to infinity? This life is the house; you are the one propping it up; the props are temporal things, which never remain in the same state, and can neither prop up nor be propped up at all.
He who asks for a long life asks for a long temptation. For the life of man on earth is a trial (Job 7:1).
What God did not love in his friends or kindred — that is, power, nobility, riches, honors — do not love in yours.
You eat snares, you drink snares, you wear snares, you sleep on snares; everything is a snare.
You are an exile in love, in pleasure, in affection — not in place. You are an exile in the region of corruption, of passions, of darkness, of ignorance, of evil loves and hatreds.
However much you love yourself — that is, this temporal life — you must of necessity love transitory things to the same degree, since you cannot exist without them. And conversely, however much you despise this life and its sustenance.
It is painful for you to have lost this or that. Do not seek then to lose. For whoever loves and acquires things that cannot be retained is seeking to lose.
All misery lies in this. Everyone loves something principally, where they always have their attention fixed. But you — what? Behold, everyone, as if they had found a treasure, each seizes upon individual parts of the world and attends to them, or else they are torn between several, like a dog placed between two pieces of meat, not knowing which to approach first, fearing to lose the other.
If the things in which you trust or delight did to themselves what they do — you would mock them as foolish, or rather mourn them as lost. And if everyone is so mad, is it ever good for you to be mad? If you tolerate yourself so unclean, why not anyone else? As many misfortunes as the things you love are subject to, so many is your mind subject to as well.
He who loves what should not be loved is wretched and foolish, even if neither he nor the thing ever perishes. For is the idolater wretched only because what he worships will perish? Then he would not be wretched if it did not perish? Certainly, even while his idol endures, the worshiper is most wretched, though his body is unharmed and he is full of temporal goods.
Adversities do not make you wretched; they show and teach you that you were already so. But prosperities blind the soul, covering and increasing misery, not removing it.
See how the soul is captured by bodily things, and once captured is tormented — as for instance in a child. For it is captured at the sight of a sparrow, and once it has received it, it is subject to as many misfortunes as the sparrow itself. But how is it safe before it is captured by such things? For the things that please it hold it fast, so that it may be punished by adversities.
Given a ship, we were carried by the winds to rejoice or grieve by the alternation of forms that met us.
How could a man not boast or be proud of his strength or beauty, when he boasts even of his weakness and ugliness? For he boasts if he rides a horse, or if his ugliness is veiled by fine clothing — when he might rather seem able to boast if he himself carried the horse by his own strength, or at least had no need of one, and if he himself adorned his clothes with his own splendor, or at least had no need of their adornment. For these things and others like them proclaim his neediness and ugliness.
How gladly would a man display his own beauty if he had any, since he so gladly displays another's — namely in garments, whether of fur or of any other kind!
One should grieve no less for the one who rejoices at obtaining temporal things than for the one who grieves at losing them. For both are afflicted by a fever, that is, the love of the world.
Chapter VI. On the useless and base appetite for praise, glory, and favor.
If you well knew the nature and power of human opinion or favor, you would never labor for them even slightly, nor rejoice, nor be saddened. For they profit nothing to the one on whom they are bestowed — just as colors and other forms, bodies, or the things in which they reside, disfigure them, and neither help nor harm the things themselves. For what did it profit the sun or moon that pagans considered them gods? Or what harm does it do them that you recognize them as creatures? And if you thought them to be dung, what harm would it do them? Therefore examine the nature and power of these things just as you would that of this or that herb or piece of wood. With God's help you will easily be able to do this, and from this measure all other opinions and favors.
In this you recognize what is owed to God alone: that when offered to any thing, these profit nothing — such as knowledge, favorable love, fear, reverence, admiration, and so on. For the very fact that they profit nothing to the one to whom they are offered shows that they are owed to him alone who needs nothing. For if being praised, known, or admired were profitable, who would not daily hire workers to display these things to him constantly, so that he might make progress without ceasing? What mother would not bestow this on her children without stopping? Who would not call his clothes, his estates, his beasts, and himself good day and night, so as to make them better by praising them?
Therefore these things profit nothing to the one on whom they are bestowed. But whoever displays them becomes either worse or better by the displaying. If he loves, admires, or fears what he ought, he becomes better; if what he ought not, he surely becomes worse. And likewise in other cases. How merciful then is the Lord, who demands nothing from us for his own benefit, and considers himself greatly served by us if we always do what is useful to ourselves.
Just as you weigh the natures of roots, herbs, and other things, so weigh those of opinion, favor, praise, and blame.
The love of each individual person belongs to all. For each one ought to love everyone. Therefore whoever wishes this love to be shown especially to himself is a robber, and thereby becomes guilty against all.
Behold, mixed with this body, you were wretched enough, for you were subject to all its corruptions down to the bite of a flea or a boil. But this was not enough for you. You mixed yourself with other things as though they were bodies — with the opinion of men, with admiration, love, honor, fear, and other similar things — and just as you are afflicted by the injury of the body, so by the injury of these things you are afflicted with pain. You yourself applied the wood by which you are burned. For your honor is wounded when you are despised, and so with the rest. Think likewise also about the forms of bodies.
By the same vice with which this or that person despised you, by that same vice you grieved as a timid man at being despised — namely, pride. And by the same vice with which he took from you, by that same vice you grieved at what was taken — namely, the love of perishable things.
Unless you despise whatever people can do either by opposing or by helping, you will not be able to despise their affections, that is, their hatreds or loves; and consequently, not their good or bad opinions either.
See how you sell the love and other affections of your soul for small coins, as wine in a tavern. Again, observe how you buy the opinions, loves, and other affections or movements of human souls for small coins, as wine in a tavern.
This man gave all his possessions for praises; that one, for the pleasure of the belly and throat. Which of these has done worse? This I do not know, but I know that one was driven by swinish pleasure, the other by diabolical pleasure.
Do you wish to be loved by people? Of course, so that they may assist me — that is, assist this life of mine. Therefore because you feel yourself to be weak, and ready to succumb to their violence. It is as if you were to say: If people will it, I shall die; if they will it, I shall live. Which is false. For you will necessarily die, whether they will it or not. For what will you do to avoid dying? Therefore you wish people to think great or good things of you, so they may love or fear you. And love or fear you so they may help, or at least not harm you. Conversely, you fear or loathe that people should think base or evil things of you, lest they hate or despise you, or harm you, or at least not help you. But this is because of the weakness you contracted by receding from God, and clinging to and relying on unstable and weak things. For if you did not feel their worthlessness and weakness, you would not fear for them and grieve. But you do fear and grieve for them, namely when they perish or are taken away. Therefore you recognize their worthlessness and weakness. For this reason you can put forward absolutely no excuse for loving them or relying on them. Yet it is truly amazing to feel the weakness of something and still rely on it, to know its worthlessness and still love or admire it. Therefore, when you grieve or fear on this account, you demonstrate that two things exist in you which do not seem able to coexist — namely, that you both know and feel their weakness and worthlessness, and yet love and rely on them. For unless one of these two were in you — that is, if you either did not love them or did not know their worthlessness, you would in no way grieve for them as they perish.
Chapter VII. On the true praise of the just and the blame of the wicked, and who is worthy or unworthy of praise.
Be such a person as may be praised; for no one is rightly praised unless he is good, which he is not who is eager for praise; therefore he is not praised. So when you are pleasant to your praiser, you are not being pleasant to your own praiser; for it is no longer you who is being praised, since you are so vain.
When it is said "How good, how just" — the one who is so is praised, not you who are not. Indeed, you are not a little blamed, being so evil and so unjust. For the praise of the just is the blame of the unjust. Therefore it is your blame, as an unjust man. So when you applaud the praiser of the just, you are applauding your own truest blamer, because you are unjust. For he is not just who thinks himself just — not even an infant of one day.
He who rejoices in praises loses praises. If you love praises, do not seek to be praised — that is, if you wish to be praised, do not wish to be praised. For he who wishes to be praised cannot truly be praised. He is praised whose good deeds are proclaimed. But he who wishes to be praised is not only empty of all good, but moreover is full of a great and diabolical evil, namely great arrogance. Therefore he is not praised. The just man, on the contrary, is always praised; no blame of him is possible. For blame is the disapproval of evils; but what the just man does not have cannot be cast against him, and therefore he cannot be blamed. And universally, all praise of the just is blame of the unjust, and all blame of the unjust is true praise of the just. But when someone is praised for something good, it benefits not the one praised, but the one praising.
Someone praises you for your holiness — he is reaching upward. For what pleases him is beyond you, that is, holiness. But if you love him not as one who is pleased by holiness, then you are reaching downward.
He who grieves or is angry at losing something temporal shows by that very fact that he deserved to lose it. Similarly, he who is angry or grieves at receiving an insult shows that he deserved it. For he would wish to be praised as much as he did not wish to be insulted.
You grieved at being despised or held in low regard; by this very fact you show that you deserved to be despised and held in low regard, and that it was therefore justly done. For unless you deserved to be despised and held in low regard, you would never have feared or grieved at being despised or disregarded. For by this very thing alone, or chiefly, you deserve to be despised and held in low regard — that you fear or grieve at it. In short, no one fears being thought worthless or being despised unless he is worthless and worthy of contempt.
Chapter VIII. On those who wish to be loved and admired, and how through such desire a person becomes like the devil, and makes himself an idol for others.
Only he truly worships God who truly directs himself toward God with the affection of fear, love, honor, reverence, and admiration. For this alone is true and perfect worship. Therefore whoever offers this to anything other than God is a true idolater. And whoever wishes this to be offered to himself — whose place does he truly hold, if not the devil's, who strives by every means to extort these things from people? And so all the complaints of people come down to this: either their gods perish or are taken from them — that is, the creatures to whom they offered this true and divine worship — or such worship is not offered to them.
See therefore how much idolatry still reigns in you and in the whole world.
No thing should wish to be loved as a good, unless by the very fact of being loved, it makes its lover blessed. But nothing does this except that which has no need of a lover — that is, for which it is of no benefit either to be loved by another or to love another. Therefore the most cruel thing is that which wishes someone to fix upon it his attention, affection, and hope, when it itself cannot benefit him. This is what demons do, who want people to be occupied with their service instead of God's. Therefore cry out to your lovers: Stop now, wretches, admiring me, revering me, or honoring me in any way, since I, miserable as I am, can bring no help to myself or to you — indeed, I need yours.
As far as it was in your power, you have destroyed all people, for you interposed yourself between God and them, so that, having turned their gaze toward you and having abandoned God, they would admire, gaze upon, and praise you alone — and this was entirely useless to you and to them, not to say ruinous.
Nothing is more worthy among rational creatures, especially devout minds; nothing more base than the corruptions of bodies. And so, when you wish to be admired by people, blinded by this very pride, see to what pitiable depths you have fallen. See therefore the justice of God. For you set yourself up as God — that is, as worthy of admiration by the most excellent part of creation — and he subjected you to the lowest. For you wished and accomplished, as far as was in you, to be known, seen, praised, admired, venerated, loved, feared, and honored by all people — all of which are owed by the most excellent part of all creation, namely rational minds alone, to God alone. Therefore it was justly done that you, who set yourself before the worthiest parts of creation in place of God, should receive as your God what is most base in creation; and that you, who by perverse usurpation wished to extort from the most excellent whatever was owed to God alone, should spend upon the most base — that is, upon the corrupt cadavers of bodies — whatever you yourself owed to God alone. For all those things listed above that are owed to God alone — love, and so forth — you bestow upon these with all your heart. Therefore, while you usurp whatever belongs to God — to be praised, and so forth — you have lost whatever belongs to man: to praise God, for which you were created, and so forth. And since there is no place above the highest, nor below the lowest, while you reach above the highest, you are once more below the lowest. For whoever is bounded by something must be subject to it through love. But you enjoy the lowest things. Therefore you have been thrust below the lowest, where there is no place at all.
The friendship of this world, as blessed James says, is enmity toward God. For whoever wishes to be a friend of this world makes himself an enemy of God (James 4:4). But whoever loves even a single fly in this world must of necessity love the whole world. For the whole world is necessary for the thing he loves. Moreover, as long as there is love of this world, there is enmity between God and mankind. When therefore you wish to be loved by them, you wish them to become enemies of God. Yet you preach that whatever is created should be despised, so that they may be reconciled to God. Will you then make yourself the sole exception, and say to people: Despise everything for God's sake except me — so that the only thing preventing the reconciliation of mankind with God would be you, and on your account alone enmity between God and mankind would persist, and no one would be saved, since by loving you they would be forced to love the whole world as necessary to them? For it is one thing to love people in the world or for the world's sake, another in God or for God's sake; one thing to love with desire, another with mercy.
Chapter IX. On the soul that departs from God through the enjoyment and love of temporal things, and is violated by demons.
Let temporal goods speak: If God were to heal us of the disease of corruption, what would you do? Consider in the very use of us in what way you become better through us, or what you hope for from this in the future. You have tried us. What then? Do you wish to be changed into us, or us into you? What have you to do with us? Why do you grieve at our passing? We preferred to perish according to the Lord's will, rather than to remain according to your desire. We owe you no thanks for this love of yours; rather, we mock you as a fool. For whom should we chiefly obey — God or you? Say, if you dare: is not this practically your whole occupation — to devour us and turn us into rot?
This is your usefulness, your power: that through you our corruption may flow abundantly; for you cannot make this occupation of yours endure. This is your blessedness: not to lack our filth, to which you willingly succumb, while the devil corrupts and defiles you through it, not without his own great pleasure and joy at your deception and destruction.
Whatever form you enjoy, it is like a husband to your mind. For it yields and submits to it; and it is not the form that conforms to you, but you who are conformed and made like to it. And the image of that same form remains impressed like an idol in its temple, to which you sacrifice not an ox, not a goat, but a rational soul and a body — that is, your whole self — when you enjoy it.
See how, as in a tavern, you have prostituted your love as if for sale, and dispense it to people in proportion to their gifts. In this tavern, no one who gives nothing, or is not expected to give, receives anything. And yet you would not have anything to sell if it had not been freely given to you from above, when you gave nothing. You have therefore received your reward.
Emptying oneself of God and distancing oneself from him prepares one for desire.
He who wishes to enjoy you in yourself deserves from you the same thanks as flies and fleas that suck your blood.
If these things (by whose impression on your mind through the admiration and love that constitutes worship owed to God alone, you succumb) — if you venerated them carved or painted in some corner of your house, with admiration or love or bodily prostration, and the people found out, what would they do to you?
The woman who refrains from fornication and does not leave her own husband only because she does not find an adulterer who will stay long does not avoid adultery, but seeks a lasting one. But you, to heap up evil, have spread wide the legs of your mind to every passerby, so that you might enjoy even momentary adulteries, since you could not have lasting or eternal ones.
This is in sum the whole of human depravity: to abandon what is better than oneself, that is, God; and to attend to what is lesser than oneself, clinging to it in enjoyment, that is, temporal things.
The dung beetle, as it flies over everything, looking at all things, chooses nothing beautiful, wholesome, or lasting; but as soon as it finds stinking dung, it settles upon it immediately, spurning so many beautiful things. So your soul, flying over heaven and earth in its gaze, and the great and precious things in them, clings to nothing; and despising all things, it willingly embraces the many worthless and sordid things that come to mind. Blush at these things.
Chapter X. On the shamelessness and brazenness of the fornicating soul, which asks God to comfort it in its wickedness.
When you ask God not to take from you something to which you have clung greedily, it is as if a woman, caught by her husband in the very act of adultery, when she ought to beg forgiveness for her crime, instead asks him not to interrupt the pleasure of the adultery itself.
It is not enough for you to fornicate away from God, unless you also bend him to this: that he increase, preserve, and arrange the things by whose enjoyment you are corrupted — that is, the forms of bodies, flavors, and colors.
What woman is so shameless as to say to her husband: Find me this or that man to sleep with, because he pleases me more than you — otherwise I will not rest? Yet you do this to your husband, that is, to the Lord, when, loving something besides him, you ask him for that very thing.
When you say to God: Give me this or that — this is to say: Give me something with which to offend you and to fornicate away from you. For when you ask anything other than himself from him, by your very petition you reveal to him your guilt and your fornication from him, and you do not realize it.
It is a merciful vengeance if the bridegroom, catching his bride in adultery, merely takes from her those things with which she was fornicating. But how shameless and brazen she is if she takes this as an injury! Almost the only cause you have for grieving is this kind — namely, for your fornications that have been taken away. Therefore your very sorrows convict you of your fornications, so that no other witnesses are needed.
Even the most brazen and shameless woman usually hides from her bridegroom's eyes the tears she sheds for the losses that befall her lover, and for the injuries inflicted on her by her angry lover; and likewise the injuries themselves, and also her joys.
See now whether you do at least this much toward God — whether you do not openly mourn before him for the losses of your adultery, that is, of this world, and exult in its prosperities. "Therefore you have the forehead of a harlot" (Jer. 3:3).
Chapter XI. On the self-ignorance by which man, poured out beyond himself through the love of earthly things, cannot consider himself.
The poverty of the interior spectacle, that is, of God (not that he is not present within, but that he is not seen by you who are inwardly blind), causes you to willingly go out from your interior, or rather to be unable to dwell within yourself as though in darkness, and to occupy yourself with admiring the exterior forms of bodies or the opinions of men. Do not blame bodily forms for detaining or frightening you, or moving you in any way, but blame your own blindness and your emptiness of the supreme good.
See how much you do not know yourself. For there is no region so remote and unknown to you about which you would more easily believe someone telling falsehoods.
Sometimes evil displeases without the reward of good — for example, if two men in one house both wish to exercise their own will proudly, both want evil. If their wills displease each other, it happens not from hatred of pride, but from love of it. For this one who loves his own pride hates the other's, because it is impeded by him. This is a very hidden snare.
You conduct yourself in this world as if you had come here to gaze at and marvel at the forms of bodies.
If you did not lack interior spectacles, you would never go out to exterior ones, or occupy yourself with them.
Just as in the fable the girl wasted away gazing at the sun, so are you toward the forms of bodies and human opinions, which must necessarily perish.
This spectacle — namely, how much your soul rises above or lies subject to bodies, their forms, human opinions, and favors — lies open in this life to no one's eyes except God's above all, and to your own according to your capacity.
See how, turned away from God, you entered this world with your mouth gaping for everything except him.
Chapter XII. On the true usefulness of man, and how the usefulness of all people is one and the same.
Blessed is he who chooses to labor securely. This is the secure choice and the useful labor: to wish to benefit everyone, in such a way that you wish to be such for them that they would not need your help. For the more people seem to attend to their own advantages, the less they do what is expedient. For the proper advantage of each person is to wish to benefit all. But who understands this? Therefore whoever seeks to pursue his own advantage not only finds no advantage of his own, but also incurs great harm to his soul. For while he seeks his own, which cannot exist, he is repelled from the common good, that is, from God. For just as all people have one nature, so too one advantage.
Happy is everyone who wants nothing that benefits himself. Can a person then want what either does not benefit or harms him? Would that even once in your entire life you would want what is expedient in the way it should be wanted! O wretched lot — not to be able to refuse what is harmful!
If you ask people why they are miserable — whether they do not want what is useful to them, or because they do not have what they want — they will immediately answer that they cannot have what they want. But this is to say: We are enlightened, and we know well what is useful to us and we love it, but we are too weak. Which is false. For which of all worldly people loves anything that can make him better? People desire nothing that is not more worthless than themselves. And how can what is better, more precious, and more worthy be improved by what is worse, more worthless, and less worthy? Alas, how many there are who do what they want, and how few who want what is truly beneficial once obtained! And yet who will ever be able to persuade the children of Adam of this? When will they be believed not to love their own advantage, since they are ready to swear that they wish themselves no evil, and that everything they endure in so many labors they endure for their own advantage? It is as if you told an idolater that he does not worship God. He would immediately leap up, swearing that he worships God, counting up how much he spends on his worship, and even pointing with his finger to the very God he worships. And yet he does not worship God, but, deceived by error, treats something else as God. So people undoubtedly do not love or want their true advantage, but what in their error they suppose is their advantage. And therefore whatever they do or suffer for such a thing, they think they do or suffer for their advantage. But no one wants or loves his true advantage except the one who loves God. For he alone is the whole and only advantage of human nature. For it is written: "He who abides in love — that is, who loves God — abides in God, and God in him" (1 John 4:16). Such then is human advantage that no one can love it except the one who has it, and it cannot in any way be separated from the one who loves it. Therefore the very fact that people say they love their advantage (for who is not ready to swear to this?) but do not have it — this very thing, I say, is testimony that they love something else, not their true advantage. For a person need do nothing else to have his advantage except to love. But people constantly try to make it, as if it did not exist — just as pagans try to make God. For if God alone is the advantage of mankind, and no one can lack him except the one who does not love him at all, then this advantage need not be made, since it is eternal, but only loved. This alone is absolutely the cause of all our misery: that we either do not know and love our advantage, or do not know and love it as much or in the way it should be known and loved.
Chapter XIII. On the prudent caution that should be employed for one's own benefit in all kinds of prosperity or adversity.
Behold, you are saddened and disturbed, and you complain about this or that person, that he spoke insulting and hate-filled words to you. You grieve, then, either that such things were said to you, or that they were spoken with such a spirit. Well and good, if you grieve for his sake. For this does not benefit him. But if for your own sake, it is wrong. For nothing so holy and good could have been said to you so holily and well that would be more useful to you than these words will be, if you use them well. For whether good or evil, whatever anyone says or does to you, well or badly, it will be to you according to how you use it. But to the one who did or said it, it will be according to the will with which he did or said it. For just as iniquity lies only to itself, not to you (if you do not consent and if you rebuke it), so all evil it does and says is done to itself — that is, to its own destruction — if you do not consent but piously and compassionately rebuke it. Therefore you should grieve for the one who did or said evil to you, not for yourself, since even the evils of others will turn to your good, if you use them well — and to as great a good as you use them well. Therefore they will be to as great an evil as you use them badly, whether what was done or said to you was evil or good; for "all things work together for good for those who love God" (Rom. 8:28) — so much so that even the evils of others. But for those who hate God, on the contrary, all things work together for their evil — so much so that even good things. Therefore turn your whole complaint against yourself for using things badly.
For even if what was done or said to you was truly evil, it can in no way be evil to you unless you use it badly; likewise, good things will not be good to you unless you have used them well.
This must always be observed: what is happening in your soul; not what others do, whether good or evil, but what you do with their deeds — that is, how you use their good and evil, and how much you profit from them, whether by encouraging and helping, or by having compassion and correcting. For then you deal well with all the deeds of people, when you are enticed by none of their benefits to favoritism, and deterred by none of their evil deeds from love. For then you love freely. For there is no merit in having peace except with those who do not have peace with us.
Whatever happens to you, as long as your soul does not fall into the movement of anger, hatred, sadness, or fear, nor into their causes, it will harm you nothing in the age to come.
Place two balls in a ray of sunlight, one of clay, the other of wax; although the ray is one and the same, it cannot produce the same effect in both, but acts differently in each according to their properties — hardening the one, melting the other; for it cannot melt earth or harden wax. Likewise, a single kind of metal — namely gold — when seen by many people, arouses different movements in them according to the disposition of their minds. One is inflamed to seize it, another to steal it, another to give it to the poor. The fool calls its possessor blessed; the wise man mourns its lover. It cannot arouse a bad will in a good mind, nor a good will in a bad mind; rather, these and all other appearances or causes of bodies or other things move human minds according to the dispositions of those minds. And therefore the entire cause of our wickedness must be attributed to ourselves, not to the things in which we sin. They do nothing to us except test us. For they reveal what we were in secret; they do not make us so. For the gaze of other men tests how firmly and immovably the bride clings to her bridegroom in love. For if she is truly chaste, she is moved by the beauty of no other. So too, if you clung to God with the firmest affection, you would be enticed by the sight of no creature. For all these things test how great your chastity toward God may be.
Chapter XIV. On the adversities of this age, how they should be endured, because through them we are usefully compelled to return to God.
See how God pricks you wherever you reach out beyond him through desire for creatures — like a nurse pricking the arm of a child that has been extended outside the cradle, lest it perish from the cold.
May God be merciful to you, that the foot of your mind may find no place to rest; so that, at least compelled, O soul, you may return to the ark, like the dove of Noah.
Poverty itself, or hardship, compels us in place of a temporal torturer to desire good things, and things different from these. But because we are accustomed only to temporal things and know nothing else, we do not desire things very different from what we suffer, and we either wish to interrupt their anger — that is, their hardships — with some moderation, as by a kind of reconciliation, for a moment, or we choose to undergo things not very different from them.
O man who suffers pain, do you wish to soothe it? I do. Temporally or eternally? Eternally. Then desire the eternal salve, that is, God; for he struck you so that you might desire him — not herbs, not bandages.
A single fever takes away everything against which you struggle — that is, the delights of the five senses. What remains, then, but to give thanks to God for the victory granted? But you, on the contrary, seek someone to submit to, hating freedom.
What hope is there, if you willingly lean upon the snares and darts of the enemy, if you not only do not guard against them, but even gladly embrace them, and expose yourself to them, flee from one to another? You consider them a remedy, a consolation; you desire them and cannot bear to be without them.
Prosperity is a snare; the knife that cuts this snare is adversity. Prosperity is the prison of the love of God; the battering ram that breaks it down is adversity.
Adversity says to you: You strive for me to depart. This you certainly could not prevent; if you wish rightly, you can.
For I cannot remain while the Lord directs the melody, since I am but a syllable.
If you ought to be like a lamb toward the worst of men, how much more toward God, when you are corrected by him with some scourge?
See how you are as if in a war: thirst scorches, you set up drink against it; hunger torments, you set up food; against cold, clothing or fire; against illness, medicine. Against all these things patience and contempt for the world are needed, lest you be overcome by the other war that arises from this — namely, the battalions of vices.
Since you are captured by pleasure alone, only pleasurable things must be guarded against. Therefore the Christian soul is never safe except in adversity.
From the things you love, God has made rods for you. You are tormented by fleeing prosperity and rushing into adversity. All things are scourges except him who destroys the scourge — like a son who breaks the rod of the father who strikes him.
The body, overcome by stronger forces, is either pushed or pulled; so too is the will. But take care not for what moves the body by overcoming it, but for what moves the mind and the will.
Woe not to those who have lost temporal things, but to those who have lost patience. For no passion is overcome except through patience itself. For hunger is not checked by eating, but served, just as thirst is served by drinking. For these passions aim to incline the soul toward the enjoyment of exterior bodily forms. When this happens, they are not overcome but reign, having achieved their end — that is, the soul's inclination and its preparation for an easier and greater inclination.
The only medicine for all pains and torments is contempt for the things that have been damaged, and the turning of the mind to God.
As many carnal pleasures as you spurn, and however intense they are, you avoid that many and that powerful snares of the devil. As many tribulations as you flee, especially for the sake of truth, you spurn that many medicinal remedies.
Chapter XV. On true patience, by which sinners and the weak should be endured and loved, while piously hoping for their correction.
See how you can love grain while it is still in the stalk — wheat still bent over: so love those who are not yet good. Be toward all as Truth was toward you. As he endured and loved you to make you better, so endure and love others, to make them better.
You blaspheme the physician by despairing of the sick person. For his healing is as easy as the physician's power and kindness in healing.
See that you do not despise the work of God on account of the work of man. For the work of man is murder, adultery, and similar things; but the work of God is man himself. Whoever loves something, such as a house or anything of the sort, also loves the material from which it can be made — namely wood or stones. Therefore whoever loves the good must necessarily love the wicked, since the good are never made from anything else. For why do you not love that from which an angel can be made, if you love that from which a cup can be made? For it is written of men: "They will be equal to the angels of God" (Luke 20:36).
What a beautiful art it is to overcome evil with good; for contraries are overcome by contraries.
You are placed as a target to blunt the darts of the enemy — that is, to destroy evil by the opposition of good. You should never return evil for evil, except perhaps medicinally, which is no longer returning evil for evil, but good for evil.
Those who love the world laboriously learn the art by which they may attain or enjoy what they love; you wish to attain God, and you despise the art by which he is attained — that is, to return good for evil.
Either leave this place, or do what you were placed here for — that is, heal and endure.
This one is foolish — that is, the hostile man; that one is cunning — namely, the devil who attacks you through him. Toward this one be gentle, so as to set him free; against that one, be wary.
You are disturbed because I am disturbed; being disturbed, you rebuke the disturbed. O shame! Let the straight mock the bowlegged, the fair the dark-skinned. I for my part will be corrected, and will no longer do this evil. But what will you do about this vice of yours, by which you are unable not only to heal me, but even to bring salvation?
Why do you wish to dismiss that brother? Because he is full of anger and every vice? Then may God do likewise to you. From your own mouth you have proven that you should not dismiss him. "It is not the healthy who need a physician, but the sick" (Matt. 9:12). If you ask a mother why she abandons her son, and she answers that he is weak and sick, ask whether she would want her son to do the same to her. And when she says no, add: Then you hate for a bad reason. So it is with the physician.
Let not the one who asks for pardon be a demander of vengeance.
If you tolerate yourself so unclean, why not also anyone else?
Let others go to Jerusalem; you go as far as patience or humility. For this is for you to go outside the world; that is to go within it.
Whatever disposition you wish God and people to have toward you, however much or in whatever way you offend — show the same to others, however much or in whatever way they transgress.
Chapter XVI. On the compassionate care and healing of the weak, and how one should live among them with an uncorrupted mind.
A mother hurt by her son does not seek his injury as revenge, because she considers his hurt as her own. Therefore if someone, wishing to avenge her, hurts her son, he should not be thought to have avenged her, but to have repeated the injury. So should every Christian be toward all people: desiring to have mercy, knowing the surest causes of his sorrow — namely, perishable things.
It is as easy to distinguish between your brother and his vice as between good and evil. For upon seeing a man, who is angry, who is indignant? But upon seeing his vice, who is not offended — unless someone very wise and good, who knows that this harms the man himself more than anyone else, and that therefore compassion should be shown to him?
Your brother is filled with charity and wisdom, and you do not share in it; he is filled with anger, hatred, and fury, and you cannot avoid sharing in it. The insane man needs the sane, either to restrain him or to cure him.
That which alone you desire God to show you — namely, kindness — show this to all people, whether through the rod or through gentleness. Why do you insult the blind and the weak? You are the same; or if you are something different, it is not through yourself or from yourself.
Consider, if all people were always thus driven by madness, what you ought to do. Should you therefore be disturbed? Why then, when one person is sometimes disturbed, are you disturbed? You owe him medicine, not agitation. For how can madness be cured by acting mad?
Why do the torments of your own kind please you? Is it because it is just? Then let yours also please God, because it is just. But this reasoning consigns you to eternal fires.
A foolish physician, unwilling to diminish his own reputation, imputes to the sick themselves whatever goes wrong, even though it is his own fault. So you do with those under your care.
Whatever disposition you would have toward all people if you were removed from them and thinking of their sins and miseries — at least now have that same disposition, when you see with your own eyes that they are perishing either through blindness or through weakness; for they are either deceived by the devil through temporal things, or overcome.
Tremble at the inscrutable judgments of God upon you. For whatever you are above others, you do not know why they were not above you. Therefore be toward them as you see they ought to have been toward you, if they were above you.
Your reward will be measured not according to the progress of those under you, but according to your desire and effort, whether they progress or not.
When you have well established that a man is wicked, it will be necessary for you to mourn his sin, because the Lord also mourned yours. For why do you probe the disease of the sick man, if upon knowing the disease you not only do not grieve with him and heal him, but even mock him?
When you see or hear the evils of others, look into your own soul, to test how much true love for people there is in it.
You should not rejoice if you happen to be better than others, but rather grieve that they have less of goodness, and reckon this as a deficiency of your own.
First put on the person of the one you wish to judge or correct, so that, as you would perceive to be expedient if you were in his place, so do to him. For "with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you, and in the judgment you judge, you will be judged" (Matt. 7:2), for Christ too first put on humanity before he judged.
You should not strive to make your lords — in whose service you have been appointed by their Father, that is, the Lord your God — do what you want, but what benefits them. For you should bend yourself to their advantage, not them to your will, because they were entrusted to you not that you might rule over them, but that you might benefit them — just as a sick man is entrusted to a physician not that the physician might lord over him, but rather heal him. The physician is not against the sick man, but for him — that is, against his sickness — and he finds his whole and sufficient vindication for everything he suffers from the patient in the patient's health. For he imputes nothing to the man, but to the disease itself, and therefore his full vengeance is the extinction of the disease.
Four people were entrusted to two physicians: one healthy person and one sick person to each. A reward was promised for the care of preserving or restoring health. One of them did everything that should be done for preserving or restoring health for those entrusted to him, yet they both died. The other did nothing that should have been done, yet the healthy one remained healthy and the sick one recovered. Which of these deserves the reward — the one whose charges both died, or the one whose charges live and thrive? Without doubt, the one who with devout will did what ought to be done is no less worthy of praise and reward than if they had lived and thrived. And the one who refused to do what he ought is no less worthy of punishment than if they had died.
Two things then make a physician: a good will and perfect knowledge. For to heal all those for whom he provides care — this is not in his power. For no one can know who is sick beyond hope and who is sick with hope of recovery. And therefore care must be given to all, and with all kindness the whole art must be exercised upon each one. For thus before the Father of all, we will merit no less grace and reward for the dead than for the healthy.
Prepare yourself to dwell with the wicked while keeping your mind uncorrupted — which is angelic. But what glory is there in doing this with saints?
It is the virtue of angels to live with the vicious and not be corrupted by their vices. It is the mark of the greatest physicians to dwell with the sick and the insane, and not only not to be corrupted at all, but to restore health to them.
Chapter XVII. On the power and effect of the love of God and neighbor, and how charity should be desired and bestowed.
Whoever enjoys some bodily form, whatever seems good to him from it, he does not attribute to himself, but to the form itself, and on this account he praises and loves it in his mind. He does not consider himself good, but the form; and considers himself good only because of it. He does not remain in himself, but reaches toward it and passes into it — with all the more effort of mind and movement of will, the more he marvels at and loves it in enjoying it. And therefore if someone injures or takes away that form, he considers the injury done not to himself but to the form. And because it was his paradise and blessedness to cling to it, so it is his hell and misery to be separated from it. Be you likewise toward God.
When a good is desired that needs some other good, misery is not excluded but need is heaped up and increased. Therefore desire the good that needs no other good. But all things are good by goodness. Therefore all things need goodness in order to be good. But goodness needs nothing; for it is good of itself. Love this, therefore, and you will be blessed.
See what kind of good it must be whose last traces of traces — that is, temporal things — are pursued with so many and such great dangers of labors and errors by so many rational and irrational beings.
You should rejoice in nothing at all, whether in yourself or in another, except in God.
All vices and sins, because they are committed for the sake of the creature — that is, the lowest good — are opposed to the goodness of the Creator — that is, the highest good.
If the wind of our kind — that is, opinion or praise — is so eagerly sought, how much more should the salvation of our kind — that is, the Creator — be sought! If it is so sweet to be called good that even the wicked, who do not wish to be good, rejoice at this, how much sweeter it is to be good! And if it is so bitter and shameful to be called evil that even those who "rejoice when they have done evil and exult in the worst things" (Prov. 2:14) cannot tolerate it, how much worse it is to be evil!
Man desires something created, or clings to it with bodily sense and forgets himself — but when do you act thus toward the Creator?
The Lord commands you to have blessedness, that is, perfect love of himself, from which comes not to fear nor to be troubled — that is, peace and security.
Only truth knows how to turn away from evil, and only love of truth can do so. Therefore the turning from evil is not a matter of place.
Love that which by loving you cannot lack — that is, God.
If to cling to God is your whole and only good, then to be separated from him is your whole and only evil, and nothing else. This is your Gehenna, this is your hell.
Wean yourself now from these bodily forms; let it shame you not to be able to exist without them. And since, whether you will it or not, you will one day lose them, do now willingly, with great reward or grace, what you will one day do not without great torment. For even if no one takes them away, will you not despise this life and everything that belongs to it? Behold, have everything; will you not at some point be deprived of all of it? Therefore do now what you will do when you have lost everything — that is, learn to live without these things, learn to live and rejoice in the Lord.
On the Gratuitous Love of Neighbor.
Whoever loves all will without doubt be saved; but whoever is loved by people will not be saved on that account. Just as hatred of you is an impediment to life for all, so the hatred of all is an impediment for you. It is therefore expedient for you to love all; and it is also beneficial for them to love you.
Love should be desired freely — that is, for its own proper sweetness, as the sweetest nectar; even if everyone goes mad, it should not be sold for any price. For it is useful to us and makes us blessed, whatever others may do.
If you love because you are loved, or in order to be loved, you do not so much love as love in return, repaying love for love; you are an exchanger — you have received your reward.
Toward the one who did you an injury, show yourself more friendly and intimate; toward the one to whom you did wrong, show yourself humble and ashamed.
Just as you consider whatever good is done to you by people as gifts of God, and believe all thanks should be rendered to him; so whatever good you show to people, count as his benefits, not your own.
When you love someone as a friend, but wish him riches as a good, you love the riches more excellently than the person himself. For you love him as one in need, but the riches as sufficiency — being more ready to do without him than without them.
He who in his iniquity kills the wicked man because he hates iniquity and wishes to destroy it, is deceived. For when the wicked man dies in his iniquity, the iniquity is eternal. Therefore whoever hates iniquity should work to have the wicked man corrected, and thus his iniquity will perish.
"God is love" (1 John 4:8). Therefore whoever shows charity to anyone except for its own sake sells God, sells his own blessedness; for it is not well with him except when he loves.
If charity, and its signs — that is, cheerfulness, etc. — so please you in another, why is it not far sweeter in your own soul?
He who gives something to someone either because that person gave something or because he will give something does not have grace from God; so with you regarding peace and love.
If you love so much, if you are compelled by love itself, rebuke, strike; if you act otherwise, you condemn yourself. Do all things to others with the same spirit in which you wish them done to you by God.
"The love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us" (Rom. 5:5). But you love neither God nor neighbor except for the sake of temporal benefits. Therefore what is poured into you comes through temporal things, not through the Holy Spirit. What is thus poured out is not charity, but cupidity.
Behold, your duty is no different now than it was before you became prior. For by prayers, petitions, and affections you were doing what you have now begun to do by deeds — that is, to benefit people. But works should not diminish the affections themselves, but stimulate and increase them.
In whatever matter you maintain chastity toward God, in that same matter you will also be able to maintain justice toward your neighbor, which consists in not coveting.
People find it hard to believe that what is troublesome to them is done out of charity.
Chapter XVIII. On the perfect justice of the angels, and what is the difference between their justice and ours.
When anyone perfectly enjoys something, forgetting himself, he reaches toward it as though having abandoned and despised himself, attending not to what happens in himself but to what happens in it — not to what he is like, but to what it is like. Therefore the angels despise themselves more than we do. For reaching toward God with their whole effort, they leave behind themselves and all other creatures with their whole attention; they do not even deign to look back at themselves — so worthless do they consider themselves. Despising themselves with their whole mind, and forgetful of themselves, they go entirely to him, attending not to what or what kind they themselves are, but to what he is. And the more they despise themselves, turn away from themselves, and forget themselves, the more like him, and therefore the better, they become.
Christ leads the angels into the embrace of their bridegroom; us he tears away from the adulterer, that is, from the world. He makes them strong and steadfast for enjoying the bridegroom; us, for going without the adulterer, that is, the world. He holds them in sight and reality; us, in faith and hope. To them he gives perfect joy in true blessedness; to us, endurance in tribulation. To them, the blessed life; to us, at best, a precious death. To them, to live for themselves, that is, for God; to us, to die to the world. To them, to rejoice in their goods; to us, to grieve over our evils. To them, glad hearts; to us, contrite ones. To them, justice; to us, repentance. To them, the completion; to us, the beginning of good. I confidently swear that the angels have received from God no gift greater or worthier, more precious or useful, and therefore more desirable, nor more beautiful, than charity. Who can understand or believe this? For God is love. And therefore whoever has something greater or better than charity has something greater or better than God.
Chapter XIX. On the true and interior beauty of the soul, and in what the true perfection of every person consists.
You see nothing that does not have in its own kind a certain natural beauty and perfection. When this is in any way diminished and lacking, it rightly displeases you — as, for example, if you happen to see a man with his nose cut off, you immediately disapprove. For you sense what he lacks for the natural perfection of human nature. So it is with all things, down to the leaf of a tree or any herb. Indeed, who would deny that the human mind has a certain natural and proper beauty and perfection? This, insofar as it is present, is rightly approved; insofar as it is absent, it is justly blamed. Consider therefore, with God's help, how much of this beauty and perfection your mind lacks, and do not cease to condemn this lack. What then is the natural beauty of the soul? To be devoted to God. And to what degree? "With all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength" (Luke 10:27). It further belongs to the same beauty to be kind toward one's neighbor. To what degree? Even unto death. And if you are not this, whose will be the loss? God's — none at all. Your neighbor's — perhaps some. But yours — without doubt the greatest. For to be deprived of natural beauty and perfection cannot but be harmful to anything. For if the rose should cease to be red, or the lily to smell sweet, the loss would seem to me not insignificant for one who loves such pleasures; but to the rose or lily themselves, stripped of their natural and proper beauty, it would be far greater and far more grievous.
The true perfection of the rational creature is to esteem each thing as highly as it should be esteemed. For to esteem it more or less is to err. Moreover, every thing is naturally either above it, alongside it, or below it. Above: God. Alongside: neighbor. Below: all the rest. Therefore one ought to esteem God as much as he should be esteemed. And he should be esteemed as much as he is. But no one can esteem him as much as he is unless he knows how great he is. But how great he is can be perfectly known by no one except himself. For as much as his essence surpasses ours, so much does his self-knowledge surpass ours. Hence, just as our essence compared to his is nothing, so our knowledge compared to his self-knowledge is blindness and ignorance. Therefore his alone is the perfect knowledge of himself, and equal to himself. Hence the Lord says: "No one knows the Father except the Son" (Matt. 11:27). Therefore just as his alone is the perfect knowledge of himself, so his alone is the equal and complete love of himself. For he alone, because he perfectly knows how great he is, perfectly loves himself as great as he is.
Return now to that definition I set down at the beginning. For upon subtler inspection, it is found to apply not to the rational creature, but only to God. For — to pass over the rest — as has been shown, no one except he himself fully knows and loves himself as great as he is. What then is the perfection of the rational creature? It is this: to esteem all things — both what is above, that is, God; what is equal, that is, the neighbor; and what is below, that is, brute spirits, etc. — at the value at which they should be held by a rational creature. How they should be valued, gather thus: Nothing is preferred to God, nothing is equated, nothing compared even as a half, a third, or any fraction whatsoever to infinity. Therefore let nothing be held as more, nothing as much, nothing as a half or any fraction to infinity. Let nothing be loved more, or as much, or as any fraction in comparison with him. Hence the Lord himself: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind" (Luke 10:27) — that is, love nothing else for enjoyment, for reliance. This covers what is above.
Those who are naturally equal — that is, as far as nature is concerned — are all people. Therefore one ought to esteem all of them as much as oneself. So just as regarding what is above, that is, regarding God, one should neither prefer anything, nor equate, nor compare in any part; so regarding the salvation of any person, and whatever one ought to do or suffer for one's own eternal salvation, one ought to do or suffer entirely the same for the eternal salvation of any person. For hence the Lord says: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." This covers what is alongside.
The inferior things are whatever comes after the rational spirit — that is, sensual life shared with animals, the vegetative life of the body shared with herbs and trees, and bodily substance with its forms and qualities shared with metals and stones. Therefore just as one should love nothing more than what is above, nor as much in comparison with it; so one should esteem nothing less than what is below, nor hold anything so cheap, nor regard anything in comparison with what is below as worthless, even for the smallest fraction to infinity. And this is what is written: "Do not love the world, nor the things that are in the world" (1 John 2:15). This covers what is below.
Such a person will therefore have what is above for joy, what is equal for fellowship, what is below for service. He will be devout toward God, kind toward his neighbor, temperate toward the world; God's servant, man's companion, the world's master. Placed under God, not exalted over his neighbor, not subject to the world; directing lower things to the use of the middle, and middle things to the honor of what is above. Neither impious, nor blasphemous, nor sacrilegious toward what is above; neither proud, nor envious, nor wrathful toward what is equal; neither furious nor debauched toward what is below. Receiving nothing from lower things, nothing from equals, but everything from what is above. Impressed by what is above, impressing what is below. Moved by what is above, moving what is below. Affected by what is above, affecting what is below. Following what is above, drawing what is below. Possessed by those, possessing these. Reduced by those into their likeness, reducing these into his own likeness.
Toward this perfection we strive in this life, though we shall not perfectly attain it except in the next. We shall then attain it the more fully as we now desire it the more fervently. Then there will be no motion in the mind except from God; none in the body except from the soul; and thus neither in the soul nor in the body any motion except from God. There will be no sin — that is, perversity of the will — nor any punishment of sin — namely, corruption, pain, and death of the flesh. The naked mind will cling to naked truth, needing no words, no sacraments, no similitudes, no examples to reach it. For there "a man will not teach his brother, saying: Know the Lord. For all from the least to the greatest shall know me, says the Lord" (Jer. 31:34); for all shall be "taught by God" (John 6:45).
Chapter XX. On the Incarnation of the Word, and how he most fully demonstrated the aforesaid perfection to us in himself.
These virtues, or lines of justice, even now in this mortal life, if the soul were very pure, it would see through itself in the very truth and wisdom of God. It would also see not only that it — that is, the human soul — will be immortal and eternal, but also that its flesh will be such in the resurrection. For it would also clearly behold the resurrection itself there — that is, in God's Word and Wisdom. But because the soul could not do this on account of its uncleanness, a human mind was joined to the Word, which, receiving God's Word most fully and being entirely conformed and made like to it, and impressed wholly and entirely by it alone — as it is written: "Set me as a seal upon your heart" (Song of Songs 8:6) — was wholly reduced into his likeness, as wax is pressed into the likeness of a seal, and thus presented him to us in itself to be seen and known.
But we were so blind that we could see not only God's Word, but not even the human soul; and therefore a human body was also added. For consider these three: God's Word, the human mind, the human body. If we could see the first well, we would not need the second. If we could at least see the second, we would not need the third. But since we could see neither the first nor the second — that is, neither God's Word nor the human mind — the third was added, that is, the human body. And thus "the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:14), in our exterior realm, so that through this he might at some point lead us to his interior. Therefore a rational soul having flesh was joined to the Word, so that through that flesh it might teach, do, and suffer whatever was necessary for our instruction and correction. In it alone were most perfectly found the things we discussed above — that is, devotion to God, kindness to neighbor, temperance toward the world. For it preferred nothing to God, equated nothing, compared nothing as any part, not even the smallest fraction. Hence he says: "I always do his will — that is, the Father's" (John 8:29). And he loved his neighbor most perfectly as himself. For he spared nothing of what was beneath him — that is, beneath the rational mind — but turned everything to the benefit of his neighbor: both the sensual life, the vegetative life that sustains the flesh, and the flesh itself. For he endured the sharpest pains for us, and death against vegetative life, and wounds against the flesh itself.
Toward the world he had such temperance and such contempt that the Son of Man had nowhere even to lay his head. He received nothing from lower things, nothing from middle things, but everything from what is above — that is, from God's Word, to which he was joined in unity of person. He was taught not by sacraments, not by words, not by examples, but solely by the presence of God's Word, to understand, and was kindled to love. Through this soul, God's Word and Wisdom showed us in a threefold way — that is, by sacraments, words, and examples — what must be done, what must be endured, and through what means. For man ought to follow no one but God, yet could follow no one but a man. Therefore man was assumed so that, while following one whom he can, he might also follow the one whom he ought. Likewise, he could be conformed to none but God, in whose image he was made; yet he could not be conformed except to a man. And so God became man, so that while man is conformed to the man whom he can follow, he might also be conformed to the God whom it benefits him to follow.