On the Contemplative Life 27

Having in the preceding book comprised the consideration of the contemplative life, I have resolved, according to the powers which the Lord shall deign to grant, to discourse, as I promised, concerning the active life. Wherefore, just as I did in the preface of the first volume, here too I disclose in a few words the necessity of my office: for if I had been able, without the harm of disobedience, to refuse what you commanded, I would never of my own will's prompting commit myself to be torn by the malevolent tooth of detractors; who, unwilling to notice how unwillingly I undertook these things to be written, will perhaps ascribe the whole of what belongs to your command to the vice of vanity:

especially if, when about to speak of such matters by which the conduct to be maintained by almost all churchmen is described, I should set down something of such a kind as offends the minds of those who live in a worldly way; and while in the description of the ecclesiastical life they see their own morals (which they wish rather to be unknown than to be amended) made public, they, carnally provoked, may rage against me as a betrayer of their own deeds, and—even if they judge that things which have been brought forth, by God's gift, were reasonably said—may nevertheless contend that they ought not to have been said by me; and thus may mock either the matter of the disputation or the person of the disputant. But since a sound mind ought incomparably more to seek the fruit of obedience than to avoid the reproach of unjust detraction;

I have considered it a lighter thing to be burdened by the judgment of those reproving my words than to lie under the peril of obstinate disobedience. Therefore, secure that you will obtain for me by your prayers from the Lord—who commanded that I should speak—the ability to complete it, and that you will excuse my presumption before those who are to judge me; I shall, aided by your prayers, dispatch the work undertaken. But before I resolve one by one the several things you proposed, I see that a few things must be said by me universally concerning the very matter to be treated in this little book: by which it may evidently appear for what reason I said above that I could be resented by those who attend more to who is speaking than to what is said;

With a perverse judgment they weigh not the substance of what is said but the rank of those who say it; and what they themselves are unwilling to do or to have done, they also disdain to have spoken to them. They are more ready to remain ignorant even of a teaching they desire to know than to learn it from a person of lower standing—whereas, when truth shines forth from whatever source, it must be ascribed not to human talent but to God, nor must it be credited to certain persons only, but to all; for of itself it is so great and of such a kind that it does not become great because great men have taught it, but rather it itself makes great those by whom it could be taught or learned. You wished, therefore, that the proper nature of the active life be expounded to you, so that you might prove that you, together with your own, have always lived according to it and still live so;

not that you might learn from my discussions how you ought to live. For the religious manner of life is the active life, which teaches how superiors should govern and love those living under them; and, no less solicitous for their salvation than for their own, should provide with fatherly care what they know to be profitable for them; and how those who are subject to their superior should serve him as members serve the head, and should keep his precepts, as though they were the command of God, with the highest love—judging that to be holy, that to be wholesome and necessary for themselves, which has pleased their ruler, and not what the arrogance of a vicious mind has dictated to their own ruin. And therefore, grounded in the virtue of obedience and patience, they do not scrutinize the decrees of their elders, but carry them out;

and when the rigor of discipline demands that they be sternly rebuked, they bear the correction they receive with magnanimity; and they ascribe their being chastised not to the moods of those by whom they were reproved, but to their own negligences. The course of this little book will also set forth how priests ought to treat and govern their fellow citizens—both common folk and noble, rich and powerful. These things I, as I have already often said, would not dare to write, had I been able to refuse you anything. But now let us set down the very chapters to be discussed. You have asked, then, whether those who trample upon the divine precepts are to be borne with equanimity, or whether, according to the measure of their sin, they ought to be rebuked with ecclesiastical severity. CHAPTER I. That according to the diversity of sinners, some are to be borne and others chastised. CHAP. II.

On the praise of holy priests. CHAP. III. On the apostolic testimonies, and on their exposition. CHAP. IV. An objection: why holy priests, whose duty it is to reprove those living wickedly, bear with equanimity those who feign religion. CHAP. V. The reply, in which it is shown for what compelling reasons the weakness of certain persons is treated gently. CHAP. VI. That those who impatiently accuse the sins of others are those who do not consider their own. CHAP. VII. How much remedy the confession of sins has, and what punishment deceitful concealment deserves. CHAP. VIII. That those who reprove unjustly and not sincerely are vain, and to be condemned by the divine judgment. CHAP. IX.

That priests ought to have nothing of their own, and should receive the resources of the Church as common goods, inasmuch as they will render an account to God for them. CHAP. X. With what loss to their own soul those who have enough of their own receive from the Church which feeds the poor. CHAP. XI. Who they are who, even with profit to their soul, are supported by the wealth of the Church. CHAP. XII. What clerics ought to do whose weakness cannot despise their own possessions. CHAP. XIII. What the true joys or the true riches are, and what hindrance present goods bring to lovers of things to come. CHAP. XIV. How that saying of the Apostle is to be understood: They who labor in the sanctuary eat the things which are of the sanctuary. CHAP. XV. On covetousness, how it lords it over those whom it has once invaded.

CHAP. XVI. That those possess God more perfectly who renounce earthly possessions from the heart. CHAP. XVII. That they make no progress who, while abstaining from food, are slaves to vices; nor does it profit them to cast away their property who do their own wills. CHAP. XVIII. How great goods the first man lost by neglecting the good of abstinence. CHAP. XIX. On the sin of the first man, and on the evils which followed him as he sinned, by the judgment of God. CHAP. XX. That all the goods which we lost in corrupted Adam we shall receive again, restored in Christ. CHAP. XXI. How they ought to live who desire to imitate Christ. CHAP. XXII.

With what temperance they ought to use moderation who desire to abstain from the pleasure of delights, or from the immoderate consumption of common foods, and from the immoderate use of wine. CHAP. XXIII. That it is the desire for flesh-meats, not their nature, which defiles those who eat them. CHAP. XXIV. How useful it is for the most part to prefer fasting or abstinence to the entertaining of guests.