On the Beatitudes 1 part 2/6

for this reason the Lord pronounces blessed—not those who live by themselves outside of passion (for it is not possible in a material life to accomplish a life wholly immaterial and passionless), but He calls meekness the attainable measure of virtue in the life lived through the flesh, and He says that meekness is sufficient for blessedness.

For He does not legislate impassibility altogether for human nature;

for it does not belong to a just lawgiver to command such things as nature does not admit;

for such a thing is like as if one should transplant water-creatures to a life in the air, or, conversely, to the water those creatures that live in the air;

but it is fitting that the law be suited to the proper and natural capacity.

For the one is outside of nature, but the other is set right through virtue.

If, then, the Beatitude had supposed immovability toward desire, the blessing would have been profitless and useless to life;

for who, being yoked together with flesh and blood, could attain to such a thing? But now He says that the one condemned is not he who has desired through some chance occurrence, but he who has drawn the passion upon himself by forethought.

For the weakness that is mingled with our nature often, and against our judgment, prepares such an impulse to arise at some time;

but not to be swept away, like a torrent, by the impulse of the passion, but to stand manfully against such a disposition, and to thrust away the passion by reasonings—this is the work of virtue.

Blessed, therefore, are they who are not swiftly inclined toward the passionate motions of the soul, but are restrained by reason—in whom the reasoning faculty, like some bridle checking the impulses, does not allow the soul to be carried away into disorder.

But one might rather observe in the case of the passion of anger how meekness is a thing to be counted blessed.

For whenever a word, or some action, or a suspicion of the more disagreeable things stirs up this sickness, and the blood boils about the heart, and the soul rises up for vengeance;

just as the fables, by means of some drug-potion, alter nature into the forms of irrational beasts;

so it is possible suddenly to see the man become, out of his anger, a boar, or a dog, or a leopard, or some other such wild beast.

the hair standing on end and bristling;

the tongue benumbed by the passion, and not serving the inward impulses;

the lips stiffened, and not articulating the speech, nor keeping within the mouth the moisture engendered by the passion, but unseemly spitting out the foam together with the voice;

such is the whole disposition of the body, each of the members being co-affected with the passion.

If, then, the one man should be such;

while the other, looking to the Beatitude, should through reasonings calm the sickness with a settled countenance and a quiet voice, like some physician treating by his art one who behaves unseemly out of a frenzy;

will you not yourself also say, setting the one against the other, that the beast-like man is pitiable and abominable, but that the meek man—who has not, together with his neighbor's wickedness, distorted his own seemliness—is to be counted blessed? And that the Word looks chiefly to this passion is clear from His legislating meekness for us after humility of mind.

For the one seems to hold fast to the other, and the state of humility of mind is, as it were, a kind of mother of the habit of meekness.

For if you take arrogance away from the character, the passion of anger has no occasion to arise.

For insult and dishonor become the cause of such a sickness in those who are provoked to anger.

But dishonor does not touch the one who has schooled himself in humility.

For if a man should keep his reason cleansed from human deception, and behold the worthlessness of the nature to which he has been allotted—from what beginning it has its constitution, and to what end the brief and swiftly-perishing course of this present life is carried, and the filth that is yoked to the flesh, and the poverty of our nature, that it is not self-sufficient of itself for its own maintenance unless it should fill up its lack from the abundance of the irrational creatures—

and, besides these, the sorrows and griefs and calamities, and the manifold forms of diseases to which human life is subject, from which there is no one who by nature is exempt and free;

he who beholds these things with the eye of his soul thoroughly cleansed to accuracy would not easily be vexed at any lack of honors.

On the contrary, he will consider the honor offered him by his neighbor for some cause to be a delusion, since there is nothing of such a kind in our nature that can have fellowship with what is truly honorable, except only in respect of the soul, whose honor does not consist in the things sought after in this world.

For to boast of wealth, or to pride oneself on lineage, or to look toward reputation, or to seem to be above one's neighbor—the things by which human honors are filled up—

all these become a demolition of the soul's honor and a reproach, so that the man of sound reasoning would not choose to defile the purity of his soul with any such thing.

And to be so disposed is nothing other than to be established in a deep habit of humility; and when this has been rightly achieved, anger will have no entrance against the soul.

And when this anger is not present, the calm and quiet life is set aright;

which is nothing other than meekness, whose end is blessedness and the inheritance of the heavenly land, in Christ Jesus, to whom be glory and dominion unto the ages of ages.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

We have not yet set foot upon the summit of the mountain, but we are still at the foothills of these contemplations;

even if we have already traversed two hills, having been led up through the Beatitudes to blessed poverty and to the meekness above it—after which the Word brings us on to yet higher things and points out to us in succession a third height through the Beatitudes.

What then is the meaning of the saying, 'Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted'? The man who looks to the world will surely laugh, and will say these things in mockery of the Word:

'If those who are consumed in every calamity are called blessed in this life, then by consequence those whose life is free from grief and misfortune must be wholly wretched.'

And thus, enumerating the kinds of calamities, he will multiply his laughter, bringing before our eyes the evils of widowhood and the misery of orphanhood, losses, shipwrecks, captivities from wars, unjust judgments in the law-court, banishments and confiscations and dishonors, and the calamities that come from diseases—such as maimings and amputations and every kind of bodily disfigurement—and whatever affliction, whether touching body or soul, befalls men in this life, he will go through all of it in his argument, whereby he supposes he will show the discourse that calls the mourners blessed to be laughable.

But we, taking little heed of those who examine the divine meanings in a petty and lowly manner, let us endeavor, so far as it is possible to discern it, to reach the wealth that lies deep within what has been said, so that thereby it may become manifest how great is the difference between the fleshly and earthy understanding and the lofty and heavenly one.

Now it is possible, at first sight, to suppose that the blessed mourning is that which arises over transgressions and sins, according to Paul's teaching concerning grief, who declared that there is not one kind of grief, but that one is worldly, while the other works according to God;

and that of the worldly grief the outcome is death;

but the other works for those who grieve salvation through repentance.

For in truth such an affection of the soul is not outside of being called blessed, when, having come to a perception of the worse, it laments its life spent in evil.

For just as in bodily sicknesses, when some part of the body has become paralyzed from some injury, insensibility becomes a sign that the paralyzed part has been deadened;

but if by some medical art the vital sensation should be restored to the body, then, when the part is now in pain, both the sufferer himself and those who administer the treatment rejoice, using as evidence that the affliction has turned toward health the fact that the limb has now come to feel what is sharp and stinging;

so, when, as the Apostle says, certain men, having become past feeling, give themselves over to a life of sin, having become truly dead and paralyzed to the life of virtue, they have no perception of the things they do.

But if the healing word should lay hold of them, as it were through certain hot and burning remedies (I mean the gloomy threats of the coming judgment), and should sting the heart deep down with the fear of the things to be expected—the fear of Gehenna, and fire that is not quenched, and the unending worm, and the gnashing of teeth, and the ceaseless weeping, and the outer darkness, and all such things—applying and warming these, like certain hot and pungent medicines, to the man who has grown numb through the passions of pleasure, and should bring him to a perception of the life he was in, then it makes him blessed, having wrought the painful sensation in his soul.

Just as Paul also scourges with his word the man who raged madly after his father's bed, up to that point as long as he was insensible to his sin;

but when the healing of the rebuke reached the man, then, since he had already become blessed through his mourning, Paul begins to comfort him, that such a one, as he says, may not be swallowed up by excessive grief.

Let this meaning also not be useless for us with regard to the present contemplation of the beatitude concerning the life of virtue, because sin somehow abounds in the nature of men;

and the remedy for this has been shown to be the mourning that comes from repentance.

But it seems to me that the Word intimates something deeper than what has been said, in the continuous operation of mourning, suggesting that we understand something other than this.

namely, that those are called blessed, not who mourn forever;

just as, in the comparison drawn from the illustration of one's course in sickness, we call blessed those who have been healed, not those who are forever under treatment.

For the prolongation of the treatment also indicates the continuance of the sickness.

And in another way too it seems to me to be well not to rest only in such a meaning, as though the Word were assigning the beatitude to those who mourn over sins.

For we shall find many who have kept their life free from accusation, and who have been attested by the divine voice itself in respect of every excellence.

For what covetousness was there in John? what idolatry in Elijah? What transgression, small or great, in their lives does history know of? What then? Will the discourse suppose that these men are outside of blessedness—men who neither were sick at the beginning, nor came to have need of this remedy, I mean the mourning that comes from repentance? Or would it be absurd to think such men cast out from the divine blessedness, because they neither sinned, nor healed sin by mourning? Or in that case would sinning be more to be preferred than living blamelessly, if the grace of the Comforter has been allotted only to those who repent? For 'Blessed,' He says, 'are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.'

Therefore, following as far as we are able, as Habakkuk says, Him who mounts us upon the high places, let us again search out the meaning that lies within what has been said, so that we may learn for what kind of mourning the comfort of the Holy Spirit is set forth.

Let us then consider, in human life, what mourning itself first is, and over what things it is constituted.

It is then evident to all, that mourning is a gloomy disposition of the soul, which is constituted upon the deprivation of something dear to the heart;

which has no place to be constituted among those who pass their life in cheerfulness;

for example: a man prospers in life, all things flow along pleasantly for him through agreeable circumstances, he delights in his wife, he takes pride in his children, he is fortified by the alliance of brothers, he is honored in the marketplace, esteemed by those in power, feared by his adversaries, not to be despised by his subordinates, easy of access to friends, luxuriating in wealth, given to enjoyment, agreeable, free from grief, robust in body;

having everything that seems to be honorable in this world;

such a man is altogether delighting in gladness at each of the things present to him.

But if some change should lay hold of this prosperity, bringing on—through some evil turn of events—a separation from those most dear, or the loss of one's possessions, or some crippling of bodily well-being, then, by the removal of that which gladdened him, the contrary disposition arises, which we call mourning.

Therefore the account given concerning it is true, that mourning is a certain painful perception of the deprivation of the things that gladden us.

Now if human mourning has been understood by us, let there be some guidance from the things evident to those things unknown, so that it may become manifest what the blessed mourning is, upon which the comfort follows.

For if the deprivation of the good things present here produces mourning, and no one would lament the loss of that which is unknown;

it is fitting first to know the Good itself, whatever it truly is, and then thus to understand human nature.

For it is as with those who live in darkness: when one has been born in the gloom, but another, accustomed to the enjoyment of the outer light, has become shut in through some injury, the calamity of the present state does not lay hold of both alike (for the one who knows what he has been deprived of counts the loss of the light a heavy thing;

but the one who has never at all known such grace passes his life without grief, reckoning, because of his rearing in the gloom, that he has fallen away from none of the good things;

and out of this, the desire for the enjoyment of the light will lead the one man to every device and contrivance for seeing again that of which he was deprived by injury;

but the other, passing his life growing old in the gloom, because he has not known the better, judges the present state to be good for himself)—

so the one who has understood the [true good of our] nature will assuredly have his soul in calamity, making mourning over the fact that the present life is not in that good.

Therefore it seems to me that the Word does not call the grief blessed, but the knowledge of the Good, upon which the affection of grief supervenes, because that which is sought is not present in this life.

It is fitting therefore to inquire what that Light is, by which this gloomy cavern of human nature is not illumined in the present life.

Or perhaps our desire looks toward that which is unattainable and incomprehensible? For what reasoning is there in us of such a kind as to track out the nature of that which is sought? What such signification of nouns and verbs is there, as to work in us a conception worthy of the transcendent Light? How shall I name the unseen? How shall I set forth the immaterial? How shall I show the formless? How shall I comprehend that which is without magnitude, without quantity, without quality, without shape; that which is found neither in place nor in time; that which is outside of every limit and every defining representation; whose work is life, and the very subsistence of all things conceived as good; around which every lofty thought and name is contemplated—divinity, kingship, power, eternity, incorruptibility, joy and exultation, and everything whatever that is conceived and spoken of in loftiness? How then is it possible, and through what kind of reasonings, that such a Good of ours should come before the sight—that which is contemplated and yet not seen, that which supplies being to all that exists, yet is itself ever existing and having no need of coming into being? But that the reason may not labor in vain, stretching itself out toward things it cannot contain, let us cease from busily inquiring into the nature of the transcendent good things, since it is impossible that such a thing should come under comprehension, gaining from what has been sought only so much as this: that through the very inability to discern that which is sought, we may form for ourselves some conception of the magnitude of the things sought.

But by however much we believe the Good to be higher in nature than our knowledge, by so much the more let us intensify our mourning over these things, that the Good from which we have come to be separated is of such a kind and so great that we cannot even contain the knowledge of it.

Yet of this Good, which transcends every faculty of comprehension, we men were once partakers;

and so great was that Good, which is above all thought, in our nature, that the human seemed to be another such [good], having been formed by the most exact likeness according to the image of the Archetype.

For the things which now we behold conjecturally concerning that [Good], all these belonged also to man—both incorruptibility and blessedness;

and self-sovereignty and freedom from any master, and the freedom from grief and from toil in life, and a conversation among more divine things;

and the beholding of the Good with a mind naked and pure of every veil.

For all these things the account of the world's creation hints to us in a few words, saying that man was fashioned according to the image of God, and lived in Paradise, and delighted in the things planted there.

And the fruit of those plants is life and knowledge and such things.

But if these things were in us, how then is it possible, comparing by contrast the present wretchedness now with that former blessedness, not to lament over the calamity—

that which came to be according to the image of the Heavenly One has been made earthly;

that which was appointed to reign has been enslaved;

that which was created for immortality has been corrupted by death;

that which lived in the delight of Paradise has been removed into this diseased and toilsome region.

For what was bred together with dispassion, our nature has exchanged for a life subject to passion and to death;

and that which was without a master and self-determining is now lorded over by evils so great and so many that it is not even easy to enumerate our tyrants.

For each of the passions within us, whenever it prevails, becomes the master of the one it has enslaved;

and just as some tyrant, having seized the citadel of the soul, does harm to his subjects through the very servants under his hand, abusing our own reasonings as instruments toward whatever seems good to him,

so harshness, envy, flattery, resentment, and callousness, and all the passions conceived within us as contrary to the good, are an enumeration of certain tyrants and masters who enslave the soul, as though it were some captive taken by the spear, to their own dominion.

But if anyone should also reckon up the calamities that beset the body, which are interwoven and entangled with our nature—I mean the varied and manifold forms of diseases, of all which humanity was at the beginning untried—much more will his tears abound, as he beholds side by side the grievous things in place of the good, and sets the evils over against the better.

This, then, is what he who blesses mourning seems to teach in a hidden way: that the soul should look toward the true good, and not be submerged by the present deceit of this life.

For it is not possible either to live without tears for one who has examined matters with precision, nor to think oneself among grievous things while one is plunged deep in the pleasures of this life;

just as one may observe such a thing in the case of the irrational animals,

whose natural constitution is pitiable—

(for what is more pitiable than the deprivation of reason?)—yet they have no perception whatever of their misfortune, but in a kind of pleasure their life too is carried on.

The horse prances, the bull rolls in the dust,

the boar bristles the mane on its back,

the puppies play and the calves frisk about, and every one of the animals may be seen displaying its pleasure by certain signs; and if these had any comprehension of the grace of reason, they would not spend their dumb and wretched life in pleasure.

So it is also with those human beings who have no knowledge of the good things of which our nature has been deprived: for these the course of the present life is passed in pleasure.

But there follows upon taking pleasure in things present the not seeking after better things;

and he who does not seek would never find that which comes only to those who seek.

Therefore, on this account, the Word blesses mourning—not judging it to be blessed for its own sake, but on account of that which comes from it.

For 'Blessed,' He says, 'are those who mourn'; and He did not halt His discourse there, but added, 'For they shall be comforted.'

This, it seems to me, the great Moses had already perceived beforehand (or rather, the Word who ordained these things through him, in the mystical observances of the Passover);

namely, that He legislated for them unleavened bread on the festal days,

but appointed bitter herbs as a relish for the food, so that through such riddles we might learn that it is not otherwise possible to partake of that mystical feast, unless the bitter herbs of this life be willingly mingled with the simple and unleavened life.

He liberally casts the bitter herbs upon his own life, groaning in lamentation and bewailing the prolongation of his sojourning in the flesh, and fainting through desire for greater things, when he says, 'Woe is me, that my sojourning is prolonged.' And elsewhere, gazing intently upon the beauty of the divine tabernacles, he says that he faints through longing, judging it more desirable for himself to be stationed there in the last place than to hold the first place among things present.

But if anyone should wish to understand more precisely the power of this mourning that is called blessed, let him consider it for himself in the narrative concerning Lazarus and the rich man, in which such a doctrine is more plainly made clear to us.

For 'Remember,' says Abraham to the rich man, 'that you received your good things in your lifetime;

and likewise Lazarus his evil things;

for this reason he is comforted here, but you are in anguish.'

For it seems that, since our ill counsel—or rather our evil counsel—removed us from God's good dispensation concerning man (for God had legislated that the good in our enjoyment should be unmixed with evil, and had forbidden the mingling of the experience of evil with the good), since we of our own will, through gluttony, gorged ourselves on the contrary (I mean, having tasted of the disobedience to the divine Word),

human nature was to partake in part both of what grieves and of what gladdens—

the one in this life, the other in that which is set before us according to hope;

so that it would be a blessed thing to lay up the portion of gladness in the true good things for the everlasting life,

but to fulfill the ministry of sorrow in this brief and transient life, counting it a loss—not that one is deprived of some of the pleasant things of this life, but that through the enjoyment of these one comes to fall away from the better things.

Therefore, if it is a blessed thing to have gladness that is unending and forever extended throughout the boundless ages,

and human nature must by all means taste also of the contrary things,

then it is no longer difficult to perceive the meaning of the Word—why those who now mourn are blessed: for they themselves shall be comforted throughout the boundless ages;

and the comfort comes from participation in the Comforter.

For the grace of comfort is a proper operation of the Spirit;

of which may we too be counted worthy, by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory unto the ages of ages.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness.

Those who suffer from stomach ailments and have a poor appetite, the experts in medicine say, when certain corrupt humors and superfluities have flowed together into the upper part of the stomach, always seem to be full and sated, and on this account are ill-disposed toward beneficial food, their natural appetite having withered away in that spurious repletion.

But if medical care be applied to them—when, by means of some purgative draught, the matters lodged in the cavities of the stomach have been washed away—then it comes about, the foreign matter no longer troubling nature, that their appetite for beneficial and nourishing food returns to them;

and this is a sign of health, that one takes food no longer under compulsion, but with desire and eager impulse.

What, then, does this preamble mean for me? Since, advancing by due sequence, the discourse that leads us by the hand to the higher rungs of the ladder of the Beatitudes—that discourse which, according to the Prophet's voice, disposes fair ascents in our heart—sets before us, after the ascents already accomplished, this other fourth ascent, saying:

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled;

I think it is well, having as far as possible cleansed out the sated and gorged condition of the soul, to engender in ourselves this blessed appetite for such food and drink.

For neither is it possible for a man to be strong unless sufficient nourishment sustains his strength, nor to be filled with food apart from eating, nor to be nourished without appetite.

Since, therefore, strength is a good thing for life,

and this is preserved by sufficient satiety,

and satiety comes about through eating,

then appetite would be a blessed thing for the living, being the beginning and cause of the strength that arises in us.

But just as, in the case of this perceptible food, we do not all crave the same things, but the desire of those who partake is often divided among the kinds of edibles—one delights in sweet things, another has his impulse toward what is pungent and warming,

and another takes pleasure in salty things, and yet another in astringent things;

and it often happens that the impulse toward food arises in each not according to what is profitable (for someone, being by some peculiarity of his constitution inclined toward a certain ailment, feeds the disease by the quality of foods contrary to one another,

while preserving his good condition for himself)—

so also in the case of the soul's food, not all incline their desires toward the same thing.

For some crave glory, or wealth, or some worldly distinction; for others the appetite is busied about the table; others eagerly take up envy, as though it were some poisonous food;

but there are some for whom that which is by nature good becomes the object of appetite.

And that is by nature good, always and to all, which is not chosen for the sake of anything else, but is desirable in and of itself, remaining ever the same and never blunted by satiety.

What, then, is righteousness? For this, I think, must first be uncovered by the discourse, so that, when the beauty that pertains to it has been made manifest, in this way our appetite may be stirred within us toward the loveliness of what has appeared.

For it is not possible to have desire toward what does not appear, but our nature is somehow inactive and unmoved toward the unknown, unless through hearing or sight it should take some notion of the desirable object.

Now some of those who have investigated such matters say that righteousness is a disposition that apportions the equal, and to each according to his desert.

For instance, if someone should become the arbiter of a distribution of money, and, looking to equality and proportioning the gift to the need of those who share in it, he is called just;

and if someone, having received the authority to judge, should cast his vote not for the sake of some favor or hatred, but following the nature of the matters, punishing those who deserve it, and casting the acquitting vote for the guiltless, and making his judgment in the remaining disputes in accordance with truth—this one too is called just.