Variae & Works 16 part 3/4

He walks without a way, he looks without light, he thinks without taste, he runs with swift pace and yet does not find that to which he purposes to attain. These can flourish for the present, but are not proven to bring forth fruit, because their grace did not thrive in the root, but only vaunted itself in the ostentation of leaves. For those also are in the same case who, even if they believe rightly, are nevertheless polluted by foul crimes; since, when they bind themselves to grievous sins, they loose themselves from their Creator. Then the immortal soul becomes dead in its own darkness; it begins to love what perishes, it begins to hate what lives, it hates the virtues, it ever strives after vices, darkened in lamentable obscurity; it has not the purest reason, because it has plunged itself into the whirlpool of perversity;

soon, taken captive by the ancient enemy, it is driven headlong to vices, and through the enticements of the body he takes victories from its liability. For it is sick and ever anxious with sin; condemning itself, which no one accuses, so that deservedly a living death and a mortal life are said to have befallen such persons. If that Pitier shall have regarded this soul, and shall have deigned to illumine the eye of the mind blinded by bodily excesses, He draws it to liberating penitence, and grants the effect of escaping to that which at first seemed to have had the desire of perishing. Then it is happier, when it has wept; then loftier, when it has prostrated itself;

by tears it repairs what it had lost by rejoicing, and that which came to the enemy invited by pleasures, now, sorrowing most prosperously, hastens to the saving Lord. But although it is not lawful for men to behold them, nevertheless by evident indications they disclose their qualities, so that we may also notice those of whom we are not proven to have heard anything. For the evil, the countenance is clouded amid any bodily comeliness; sad even when they rejoice, they do that of which a little after they will repent. Deserted by the impulse of their pleasure, they suddenly return into sadness; the eyes are at times moved more than is needful.

And again, deep in thought, they are fixed, uncertain, wandering, fluctuating, fearful at everything, hanging upon the will of all, anxious with cares, restless with suspicions; they solicitously scrutinize others' judgments of themselves, because they have madly lost their own; by seeking life they incur the calamity of infernal death, and while they eagerly desire the temporal light, they acquire the darkness of perpetual night. They often leave their affairs unexplained, are transferred by a kind of leap to something else; though they do nothing, you would always reckon them occupied. They live in dread even when they are vexed by no one's pursuit.

Their conscience is their punishment, and they bear all things from themselves, though they suffer no grievous things from others; even their own odor is bitter to them, unless, while still surviving, they are seasoned with most sweet inhalations. For it is necessary that he be delighted by a foreign smell who is offended by his own. Let us come to the souls faithful to the Holy Trinity, which retain the preached apostolic discipline and, constant in a most glorious will, are truly proven to preserve the likeness of the supernal image. Of holy souls, then, even in this common life, the virtue is already great. For they subdue through quiet the flesh, that besieger of the human race; they are victors over themselves, while, by studying for conscience, they delight to inflict death upon the living body.

But woe to the flesh which here shall not have been overcome! For that which is conquered in this manner of life is there without doubt crowned. The man, in fine, steadfast, pure, harmless, praises all, ever accuses himself, and though he pleases all, to himself alone he is displeasing. For it is too great a thing to understand one's own littleness, nor can one know this except when divine things have already begun to lie open. These fly the more readily to things supernal, the more burdensomely they chastise themselves in human conduct. They command the body because they serve the Author, and while they recognize themselves to be small, they escape to the summit of great perfection. They desire to harm no one; harmed, they ever forgive; they bestow charity even on those who pursue them with wicked hatred.

Such souls, the Lord granting it, command even the harmful spirits, and those whom the world endures as hostile are overcome by a lesser creature. Still placed in the body, they are stronger than the evil angels; still set in the flesh, they give orders to the powers of the air; they do not yield to their temptations, but by divine virtue lord it over them. For these are properly to be called immortal, whom no penitence tortures, no grief afflicts, who cannot reckon to themselves the things by which they are proven to exist. By poverty they grow rich, in prisons they are glad, and amid these things rightly do secondary things obey them, because they ever follow the good.

Against persecutors they are ever raised up with the stronger boldness, since the end of light is to them the beginning of good things, and in eternal blessedness they receive what they performed in temporal conduct. Thus the souls of the saints, still tarrying in this world, although they be hard-pressed by the long adversity of their dwelling, nevertheless are seen to be fellow-citizens with the good angels, even in great part their consorts. For Moses opened an earthly path through the seas, traversed the dwellings of the waters with dry feet, and so great waves, as if built up on either side, stiffened with a strange solidity into the likeness of a rock.

Elijah merited that it should not rain, and obtained also that the longed-for shower should pour itself forth; and one man by blessed supplications accomplished what the whole multitude, when it was kept in suspense, did not merit to obtain. For to those who cleanse themselves by heavenly conduct, supernal power is granted by mercy, which man, by reason of the original defect, cannot have when he is created. Passing through the world, they are ever fixed to the Majesty, to whom mighty works are so assiduously furnished that they almost rightly cease to be miracles. Elisha opened the eyes of his disciple, who did not see the heavenly host, and struck the army of the enemy with blindness. Some have taken away conflagrations from the flames, and restored vital heat to cold corpses.

We read that fierce lions came together to bury a body, that crocodiles in turn carried men across like a raft, that liquid was changed into the hardness of flint, that streams were bidden to flow from the dryness of rocks, that live coals were carried with the garments unharmed; that the lame walked, and that the swiftest sun was commanded to stand still. By a human word the diversity of nature was wrought, and they were received into such great grace that the very thing which the world marveled to see serving its Author was able to serve them as well. And what shall we now say of the dominion of the voice, when even their garment, once touched, conferred the effect of healing, and the shadow of an apostle's body shut out the peril of death? Thus by the abundance of their merits one seemed to bring healing even through that which is known to have no substance.

Such a soul is plainly perceived even when its existence is not seen. Its countenance is ever cheerful and calm, strong in its leanness, adorned by its pallor, glad amid ceaseless tears, venerable with its flowing beard, most clean though without any adornment; thus through the justice of the mind men are made more beautiful by means of things that seem contrary. The eyes are glad and honorably gentle, the speech truth-telling, penetrating to good hearts, longing to persuade all men to that love of God of which it is full. The voice itself is moderate, neither feeble with a silence close at hand nor strong with shouting spread abroad; it is not broken by harshness, nor stirred by approaching joys; in manner and in face it is ever one and the same.

A holy temple, a dwelling-place of virtues, whose features cannot change since they are ever shown to be zealous for constancy. His steps too are seen to be neither slow nor swift; he looks upon no man for his own sake, spares no one for another's; an exhorter to what is right, teaching without arrogance, free yet with humility, strict yet with charity, so that it is as grievous to forsake him as it is unwilling to depart from life itself. A lover of the saving solitude where he is wounded by no lust, kindled by no contention, puffed up by no pride; he bears no envy toward his brothers, says to no one anything he might repent of, hears nothing absurd. The great throng of vices is conquered without a struggle when the pleasant solitude lends its aid.

His very tunic at last, though it be one with him like a skin, he fills with most fragrant odors; it gives off a scent surpassing the spices of wealthy India. It is recognized that in such men the human body has its own aromas, namely because, never bloated by gluttony, it does not exude the most pungent stenches. It is easy to discern whom the heavenly Power deigns to visit. For our very spirit too presently rejoices toward such a one, and unprompted understands him whom it knows by heavenly inspiration. But these things are not so much to be marveled at in the stronger sex.

But who could worthily suffice to unfold the supreme virtues of virgins and widows, who are so caught up to the precepts of God by holy love that they torment themselves with the vigor of great endurance, and, conquering the weakness of the flesh, attain to the crown of martyrdom? We have spoken much concerning the soul; we have said also of our body what seemed good. Let us now direct the keen edge of our mind toward the recompenses to come. For it is fitting that, after the creature has known itself, it should hasten with a pure mind to its Creator. Perhaps you ask what our souls do after this present age, and in what state they remain. We answer as we have gathered from various reading. Death is the dissolution wrought of soul and body, the absence of this life, utterly ignorant of the desires or necessities of the flesh.

For when by the Creator's command we have been stripped of this light, at the same time we lay aside the appetites and infirmities of the body. For we are no longer broken by toil, nor restored by food, nor shaken by the long duration of fasting, but, abiding continually in the nature of our soul, we shall do nothing of good or evil, but until the time of judgment we either grieve over the wickedness of our past deeds or rejoice over the uprightness of our conduct. But then we shall receive the fullest fruit of all our deeds, when by the voice of the Lord we are either rejected or admitted to the kingdom of everlastingness.

This death, then, in this present life, a sleep almost free of care imitates, when it lays aside the desires and ambition of this world, and the tranquil spirit, in the slumber of the mind, knows nothing of whatever is done here. For when bodies, on the day of resurrection, with that swiftness with which all things were created, have received back their several sexes, what calamity will it be for the wretched to be tormented forever and never to fail? For they are handed over to perpetual punishment in such a way that they are proved ever to exist unhappily: grief without end, punishment without rest, affliction without hope, an evil unchangeable. For the vicious diversity is so punished that its damnation is in no way altered. Most wretched of all, both in losing what they love and in continually suffering what they would not:

an age without sweet life, a death without a remediable end, a city without gladness, a hateful fatherland, bitter dwellings, an assembly of the sorrowful, a throng of mourners; and what is worse than all confusions, they recognize that there they can be tormented together with those whom, being deceived, they believed to be gods. Yet in that very torment there is diversity according to the quality of merits; for a differing blessedness contains the good, and an unequal punishment constrains the wicked. Plainly the age for all will be one and complete. For how shall there be a younger where there is no growth, or why an old man where there is no decline? Those mutabilities tend toward destruction; whatever is everlasting is one.

From this, then, as from a vast river, a certain rivulet of dispute seems to flow forth: namely, whether eternity may be granted to perpetual punishment, since consumption scarcely allows that substance to exist which it permits itself in no time to repair. But it is altogether superfluous to ponder this in the reckoning of everlasting matters. For there can be such a punishment as torments yet does not diminish; and such a substance as may increase the sense of pain, yet not incur the failing of mortality. Our own soul, in fact, with how great torments is it afflicted here, while yet it is not dissolved! Some mountains too, with how excessive a fire are they scorched, and yet amid their flames they persevere stable! The salamander is restored by fire and renewed by the heat of flame.

Certain little worms are nourished by boiling waters. Thus that which threatens destruction to others gives sustenance to these. But if among these mortal materials such examples strengthen us, what must be believed concerning that eternity, where punishment finds no mortal thing to consume? There will be, then, for the wretched, an inextricable conflagration and an eternal burning. But who would doubt that the gifts of the good are perpetual, since they know themselves to receive gladness and no longer to fear sadness, to merit a joy which they know to be continuous? There the spirit will not tremble at its own prosperity, but ever retains its own exultation, prosperity contemplated unto eternity. For they perceive that their blessedness is in the highest security, since they understand that they can now no longer sin.

There our security is no longer shaken by any changeableness of ours; the mind, fixed, does not waver, does not fluctuate, is not moved, and is fastened in so great a stability of peace that it suffers itself to seek or to think of nothing else save that contemplation. Thus it comes to pass that what pleases is ever present, since there will be nothing to repent of. We shall there be at leisure, if indeed it be granted by the Creator's gift, not loosened in the torpor of idleness, but intent upon the grace of perfection. Our sense will be filled with a most gentle purity; tranquil will be all that we will, we shall be wise without thought, we shall perceive without error. Evil will now neither be taken from another nor be generated apart from the will.

We shall have this hunger that delights, we shall have this constancy which the mind cannot grow weary of, ever loving the Creator and ever sweetly beholding His glory. There no troublesome weariness will weigh us down, no feeble changeableness will confound us, since the things by which we are affected are such that we shall not be allowed to wish any end to them: a labor that is restful, a rest that is laborious, an unfailing unity of the spirit. For then we shall be filled with the knowledge of divine wisdom, nor will the most truthful understanding of things be steeped in burdensome disciplines, but it will be made clear by the unlabored light of the mind.

There how great number is becomes known, there the distinction of lines is plainly beheld, there the harmony of music lies open, there the motion of the stars is most certain by visual knowledge, there the heavenly truth is known by seeing; we shall behold the wisdom of God, by what majesty He orders each and every thing. There we shall see how vainly the Church was torn by heretics. There we shall behold her standing in gilded raiment at the right hand of her Bridegroom and King. There we shall know how great was the vanity of the vain under the sun. There in truth we shall discern how wholesomely we were admonished: 'Thou shalt adore the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve';

to whom all things compared are most worthless; who never was otherwise, never will be otherwise; with whom no one can be save happily, without whom no one can be save unhappily. Thus, while such knowledge is revolved by the rational and already purified soul, there can be found by it nothing that may be sought beyond. We may indeed conjecture by what delights of causes the spiritual man is fattened, but what that measure of sweetness is, as it is written, can neither be understood by the mind nor unfolded in words. Happy are they who have all that they will and are shaken by no adversity.

For there flesh and soul, composed in eternal peace, cannot feel things contrary to each other; there will be limbs that adorn by spiritual concord, not that degenerate by carnal concupiscence; there at last they will shine with heavenly soberness, nor will they be polluted, drunken with worldly thoughts. Their dwellings, plainly, as we suppose, will be in the heights, and they will not desire the earth, whose use they will not need. Wherefore there will not be, as in this world, a mingled habitation, but, set apart from the wicked, the elect will be divided off by a great quality of places and by region. A heavenly city, a secure abode, a fatherland containing all that delights;

a people without murmuring, quiet inhabitants, men having no want of human things, where no greedy hunger troubles any, no sickly disease consumes any. None is found blushing at his free nakedness, nor do grievous colds sadden anyone, nor does heat scorch the panting body, nor does anyone seek restorative sleep where no one is known to be wearied. All things are pleasant, all sweet, all tranquil, since the world itself, laying aside its harmful inclemency, will have a most healthful unity for everlasting ages. There too the day will be continuous and the serenity eternal. The sun there is darkened by no cloud, but all things will shine the more from the grace of their Author.

For there, for the blessed, there is such a splendor of mind and light of understanding that they may merit to behold the Creator Himself, as it has been said, even as He is in His majesty. Wherefore by the books of the ancients we are reasonably reminded that that part, cleansed and bettered by the divine gift, truly contemplates its Author, since it nonetheless bears His image. Thence at last we shall see whence we believe, and from that part we shall contemplate that highest, surpassing, singular One whence indeed we are made better. When this orb of the sun shines forth serene here, how it soothes the perceptions of our spirit! Earthly light too, with how great grace it fills us when it is seen! Flowers beheld restore us with most welcome delight;

the green earth, the blue sea, the purity of the air, the glittering stars—we now gaze upon with surpassing delights. But if created things afford so great a sweetness when they come before our gaze, what is that majesty believed to confer when at last it is seen, to which nothing like is found? Then we shall perfectly know what now we believingly hold for our salvation. For we shall not be allowed to perceive it otherwise, unless now we confess the things that are true; that is, the coeternal, immutable Trinity, distinct in persons and inseparable, filling all things at once by its substantial power, one threefold and triune yet simple, parity in omnipotence, equality in charity, unity in nature.

This Trinity, excellently and singularly, at once judges by its justice, at once spares by its mercy, at once cooperates by its power. An incomprehensible Power, a wondrous Beatitude, from which whatever things are blessed are made blessed, whatever things are living are quickened, whatever things subsist are sustained; weighing all things, at once discerning all things, who therefore does not err in judging because He is not deceived in knowing. Though He does not appear, He is present to the good; and though He is nowhere lacking, He is absent to the evil. Immovable, because everywhere He is whole; unceasing, because He ever works His own will.

He hears Himself with His whole being, He sees Himself with His whole being, not regarding from some part as it were from a member, but knowing all things on every side, just as they are, by a searching power. He is said also to smell, to taste, to walk; but these things He is reported to do after a human manner for the sake of our understanding, while by the unutterable power of His majesty He accomplishes all things far otherwise. The holy Power, creating and ordering all things, reigns by its own majesty and everlasting glory. Incomprehensible, inestimable, and eternal Power, it makes firm the heavens by a wondrous suspension, fixes the earth above the sea, gives course to the springs, sets a bound to the sea;

serene He flashes lightning, kindly He sends the thunderbolt; the lowest and the highest things He governs by the law of His wisdom, namely because in His governance all things consist, not abandoned to their own power. Placid, He grows angry; tranquil, He judges; and without any change in Him comes to pass what the guilt of offenders has incurred. A great pitier of human affairs, sparing at once those who turn back, correcting sinners afresh by waiting for them; and since He can suffer nothing contrary, He bears with adversity by great forbearance. How little is that which we here perceive of that ineffability?

There we shall fully know how subject in His sight are those glories which we admire, to whom angelic greatness offers ministry, the exalted principalities serve with most dear obedience, and innumerable powers faithfully and constantly obey Him whom every excellence of supremacy ever stands in need of. What now shall we conjecture of His singular power, when we are not even able to comprehend that which we in no way doubt is able to obey Him? Then, set free, we shall understand whom in our madness we tried to resist; to what magnificent things we were called, by what filth we seemed to be possessed! It would suffice to see in a moment that which the Truth promises us to gaze upon for eternity.

There all the perversity of questionings is refuted, there the things falsely believed are overcome by the very face of truth. A kingdom without end, a light without night, a body without vices, a life without deaths. And though all things are directed toward the eternal, there alone shall destruction die. It is a great thing to enjoy these things, but far better is it that thence one is not proved to depart. They conquer in their prayers who are called to the rewards. Then truly do they know how happily they were created, who shall have come to things so great. O incomprehensible majesty and tenderness! For among the works of things by which the compass of the world is filled with its Maker's praise, nothing is proved to exist more excellent than the spiritual substances which are known to contemplate their Creator with a pure mind.

For the rest were made for the delight of those who understand; but these for their own blessedness, who venerate their Author. It is time that, the variety of questions being dismissed, we gather the most copious density of our words into certain handfuls, so that, numbered by a faithful reckoning, they may be stored in the granaries of memory with compendious brevity. First, then, as you retain it, most prudent hearers, we taught that the soul of man is properly so called by the very consonance of its etymology, setting apart from it those terms which by their similarity of name could confound the hearers; second, we completed the definition of this substance with its expositions, as it stands given; third, its substantial quality was run through;

fourth, we showed how the soul cannot have a form; fifth, the moral virtues were related, which are strongly set against the vices of this world like a kind of armor; sixth, not a few things were declared concerning the natural virtues of the soul; seventh, we narrated the things that have been read concerning its origin; eighth, we described its seat and judgment; ninth, the position of our body was treated; tenth, the unbelieving soul with its signs was, so far as seems granted, displayed; eleventh, we touched, according to the measure of our capacity, upon the lucid mind full of divinity;

twelfth, concerning the hope of the age to come, some things, by the Lord's bounty, were recorded, so that we might no less perceive that what we believe to be immortal has everlasting distributions. We have therefore closed our little gift with the number twelve, which adorned the heavens with the diversity of the signs, which composed the year with monthly beauty, which by provident arrangement granted the principal winds to earthly need, which divided the spaces of day and night by a fitting quantity of hours, so that this reckoning, which is consecrated to the arrangements of so great natural things, might deservedly be applied also to the elucidation of the soul.

It remains now, most wise men who flourish in talent, that, the mass of this world being wholesomely leaped over, we swiftly offer ourselves to the divine mercy, through which the gaze of the one who thinks is most fully illumined. Let us understand Him, let us love Him, and then we truly know our souls, if we are wise concerning His bounty. For He Himself is a Master powerful and perfect, who both speaks true things to our soul and makes it behold with an illumined mind the things He has spoken. For in the school of Christ no unteachable heart can be found in him who has given himself over to Him with the whole integrity of mind; nor can he be ignorant of what he seeks, nor lose what he has received by His holy recompense.

The soul becomes, then, great, precious, rich, when it recognizes that of itself it is poor; powerful, if it does not decline most wholesome humility; most happy, finally, if it keeps in the flesh that which the proud angels are proved to have lost in the heavens. For to Thee, holy Lord, no one comes by exalting himself, but rather, humbled, he ascends. Since Thou art the Most High, Thou art rendered nearer to those bowed down in supplication. Our humility is acceptable to Thee; Thou lovest what for Thy sake one seeks not, Thou desirest what Thou needest not. For this very humility is the mother of our life, the sister of charity, the singular safeguard of the burning soul, the adversary and vanquisher of pride; and as that pride, through the devil, is the origin of crimes, so this, through Thee, is known to be the fount of virtues.

This humility, O Lord Christ, Thou didst so will to ennoble that Thou didst deign not only to enjoin it but even to take it up. For Thou didst undergo, in the assumed nature of man, the judgment, Thou who art to judge the world; Thou wast smitten with scourges, Thou who exaltest and humblest kings; Thou didst endure upon Thy face the hateful spittings, Thou whom the angels insatiably long to see; Thou wast given gall to drink, Thou who heldest the human race so sweet that, being Lord of all, Thou didst deign to assume the nature of a servant; patiently Thou didst receive the crown of thorns, Thou who fillest the circle of the lands with the varied flower of rewards; Thou didst undergo the condition of death, Thou who gavest life to all creatures; and so great was the humility in Thy holy incarnation as is the incomprehensible majesty in Thy divinity.

For through Thee, O admirable Lord, punishment was made into eternal rest, suffering into a remedy, the death of the faithful into the entrance of salvation. For that death now gives perpetual life which was wont to extinguish—and not unjustly, since that which received the Life of all deservedly lost its right of slaying. Given in disgrace, it abides in honor, since the thing which opened hell now leads through to the heavens. Truly omnipotent art Thou, who hast made even the very miseries powerful; no king is equal to Thy needy ones, no purples are matched with the nets of Thy fishermen, since those drive into worldly tempests, but these lead to the shore of eternal security. Poor from us, rich from Thine own. Thou wast made the companion of our mortality, that Thou mightest render us partakers of Thy eternity.