'But if I do that which I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me,' or that which follows: 'For I delight in the law of God after the inward man, but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members'—on the contrary, these testimonies plainly show that such things can in no wise befit the persons of sinners, but pertain only to the perfect, and are fitting only for the chastity of those who follow after the merits of the apostles. For besides, in what way can this befit the person of sinners which is said: 'For the good that I would, I do not, but the evil which I hate, that I do'? Nor even this:
'But if I do that which I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.' For which of those who transgress defiles himself with adulteries and fornications unwillingly? Who lays snares for his neighbour against his will? Who is compelled by unavoidable necessity to crush a man by false witness, or to deceive him by theft, to covet another's spoils or to shed his blood? Nay rather, as it is written, the human race is diligently bent upon wickedness from its youth.
For to such a degree do all who burn with the love of vices desire to fulfil what they crave, that even with vigilant care they lie in wait for the opportunity of committing crime, and even fear lest they should more slowly attain the sating of their lusts; and glorying in their own disgrace and in the heaping-up of their crimes, according to the sentence of the Apostle who rebukes them, they seek for themselves a certain praise out of their confusion. Of whom too the prophet Jeremiah asserts that they not only do not unwillingly, nor with any rest of heart and body, perpetrate the crimes of their shameful deeds, but rather even labour with toilsome efforts to bring them to effect, sweating so that they are not recalled from the deadly appetite for their crimes even by the steep difficulties that resist them, saying: 'They have laboured to commit iniquity.'
That saying too—who would say it befits sinners: 'So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin'—those who, it is manifest, serve God neither with the mind nor with the flesh? Or how do those who sin with the body serve God with the mind, since the flesh conceives the tinder of vices from the heart, and the very Author of both natures declares that the fountain and origin of sins flows forth from thence, saying: 'Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness,' and the rest?
Wherefore it is plainly shown that this can in no way be understood of the persons of sinners, who not only do not hate but even love evil things, and to such a degree serve God neither with the mind nor with the flesh, that they sin in the mind before they sin in the flesh, and before they fulfil the pleasure of the body, they are forestalled by the sin of their own mind and thoughts. It remains therefore that we measure the force of the meaning from the innermost feeling of the speaker, and discuss what the blessed Apostle called good, or what by comparison with it he pronounced evil—not by the bare signification of the words, but with the same insight with which he spoke; and let us search out his meaning also according to the dignity and merit of the one who pronounced it.
For then shall we be able to comprehend the sentences uttered under God's inspiration according to His purpose and will, when, weighing the state and merit of those by whom they were promulgated, we put on a like feeling—not in word, but by experience—according to the quality of which, without doubt, all thoughts are either conceived or sentences uttered. Wherefore let us more diligently investigate what that is which is principally good, which the Apostle could not bring to perfection though he willed it. For we know many good things which we cannot deny that the blessed Apostle and all men of his merit both had by nature and acquired by grace.
For chastity is good, continence praiseworthy, prudence admirable, generous humanity, circumspect sobriety, modest temperance, godly mercy, holy righteousness: all of which, there is no doubt, were so full and perfect in the Apostle Paul and his fellows, that religion was taught by them rather by the mastery of virtues than of words. What of the fact that they were always consumed with the continual care and unsleeping solicitude for all the churches? How great a good of mercy is this, how great a perfection—to be set on fire for those who are made to stumble, to be weak with those who are weak! Since therefore the Apostle abounded in such great good things, what that good may be of whose perfection he was deprived,
we shall not be able to recognize, unless we advance into that feeling with which he himself spoke. All those virtues therefore which we have said he had, although they be as it were most splendid and precious gems, yet if they be compared to that most excellent and choice pearl which that gospel merchant, seeking, desires to purchase by selling all that he possesses, their worth so grows cheap and is despised, that, these being sold without hesitation, the possession of that one good alone enriches the seller of innumerable good things. What then is the one thing that is set so incomparably above those so many and so numberless good things, that all being spurned and cast away, it alone ought to be possessed?
Doubtless that best part, whose magnificence and perpetuity Mary, having left the office of reception and hospitality, chose in preference, is thus proclaimed by the Lord: 'Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: but few things are needful, or even one. Mary hath chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.' There is therefore one theoria, that is, the contemplation of God, to whose merit all the merits of justifications, all the pursuits of virtues, are postponed. And indeed all those things which we have said shone forth in the Apostle Paul are not only good and useful, but even great and illustrious.
But just as, for example, the metal tin, which was thought to be of some usefulness and grace, becomes most worthless in comparison with silver, and again the worth of silver vanishes in comparison with gold, and gold itself is despised in comparison with gems, and nevertheless the multitude of gems, however notable, is surpassed by the brilliance of one pearl: so all those merits of holiness, although they be not only good and useful for the present, but even acquire the gift of eternity, yet if they be compared with the merits of divine contemplation, will be reckoned cheap and, so to speak, saleable.
And that the authority of the Scriptures too may confirm this same comparison, does not Scripture, concerning all things that were created by God, generally pronounce, saying: 'And behold, all things that God had made were very good,' and again: 'All the things that God hath made are good in their time'?
These things therefore which in the present are pronounced not only simply good, but even with the addition 'very good' (for they are indeed, while we dwell in this world, suited either to the use of life or to the medicine of the body or to some cause of usefulness unknown to us; or certainly they are even very good in this, that they make us behold the invisible things of God, understood by the creation of the world through the things that are made, and contemplate His everlasting power also and divinity from so great and so ordered a fabric of the world's structure and the subsistence of all things that are in it)—yet all these things will not hold even the name of good, if they be compared with that world to come, where there is no change of good things, no corruption of true blessedness to be feared.
The blessedness of which world is thus described: 'The light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun sevenfold, as the light of seven days.' These things therefore, great and illustrious and marvellous to behold, if they be compared with the future promises held by faith, will at once appear as vanity, David saying: 'All things shall wax old as a garment. And as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed: but thou art the selfsame, and thy years shall not fail.'
Therefore, since nothing is stable in itself, nothing immutable, nothing good save the Deity alone, but every creature, in order to obtain the blessedness of eternity or of immutability, attains this not by its own nature but by participation in its Creator and by grace, they cannot hold the merit of goodness as conferred upon their Creator. But if we wish to establish the reasoning of this sentence with still more manifest testimonies—when we read in the Gospel that many things are pronounced good, both a good tree and a good treasure and a good man and a good servant (for 'a good tree,' He says, 'cannot bring forth evil fruit,' and 'a good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth good things,' and:
'Well done, good and faithful servant'—and although there be no doubt that all these are good in themselves, yet if we look to the goodness of God, none of them shall be pronounced good, the Lord saying: 'None is good save God alone'? In whose regard even the apostles themselves, who by the merit of their election had surpassed the goodness of the human race in many ways, are called evil, the Lord speaking to them thus: 'If ye then, being evil, know how to give good things to your children, how much more shall your Father who is in heaven give good things to them that ask him.' In short, just as our goodness in regard to the supernal goodness is turned into malice, so also our righteousness compared with the divine righteousness is accounted like a menstruous cloth, the prophet Isaiah saying:
'All our righteousnesses are as the cloth of a menstruous woman.' And, to bring in something still more evident: the very life-giving precepts of the Law also—which is said to have been given by angels in the hand of a mediator, and concerning which the same Apostle says: 'So then the law indeed is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good'—if they be compared with the evangelical perfection, are by the divine oracle pronounced by no means good. For He says: 'And I gave them precepts that were not good, and judgments wherein they shall not live.' The Apostle too thus affirms that the glory of the Law is dimmed by the light of the New Testament, so that in comparison with the evangelical brightness he proclaims it is not even to be glorified, saying: 'For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth.'
Which comparison Scripture preserves also on the contrary side, that is, in weighing the merits of sinners, so that it justifies those who have sinned much less by comparison with the ungodly, saying: 'Sodom is justified above thee,' and again: 'For what hath thy sister Sodom sinned?' and: 'The apostate Israel hath justified her soul in comparison with the treacherous Judah.' So therefore also the merits of all the virtues which I comprised above, although they be good and precious in themselves, are nevertheless darkened by comparison with the brightness of contemplation. For much do earthly pursuits, although of good works, draw the saints back and retard them from the contemplation of that sublime good.
For who, delivering the helpless out of the hand of them that are stronger than he, and the needy and poor from them that spoil him—who, breaking the jaws of the wicked and plucking the prey out of the midst of their teeth—in the very work of intercession beholds with a quiet mind the glory of the divine majesty? Who, administering nourishment to the poor, or receiving with kindly humanity the crowds of those who come, in that point of time when he is stretched with anxious mind for the necessities of the brethren, gazes upon the immensity of the supernal blessedness; and, while he is shaken with the anguishes and cares of the present life, looks upon the state of the age to come with a heart lifted up from earthly contagions? Whence the blessed David, defining this alone to be good for man, desires continually to cleave to God, saying:
'But it is good for me to cleave to God, to put my hope in the Lord.' Which also Ecclesiastes, pronouncing that it can be perfected by none of the saints without fault, says: 'For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not.' For who ever, however pre-eminent above all the just and holy, bound with the chains of this body, is to be believed to have been able so to possess this highest good, that, never departing from divine contemplation, he was not thought—even for a little while—to be drawn off by earthly thoughts from Him who alone is good?
Who ever exercised no care for food, none for clothing or for other carnal things; who was never anxious about the reception of the brethren, about the changing of place, about the building of a cell; who neither desired any aid of human assistance, nor, harassed by the barrenness of want, incurred that sentence of the Lord's rebuke: 'Be not anxious for your life, what ye shall eat; nor for your body, what ye shall put on'? In short, that very Apostle Paul, who had surpassed the labour of all the saints by the multitude of his sufferings, we confidently assert was by no means able to fulfil this, since he himself testifies to the disciples in the Acts of the Apostles:
'Ye yourselves know that these hands have ministered unto the things that were needful for me, and to them that were with me,' or when, writing to the Thessalonians, he testifies that he had wrought with labour and toil night and day. Although great wages of merit were being prepared for him by these things, yet his mind, however holy and sublime, could not but be at times torn away from that heavenly contemplation by the intention upon earthly work.
In short, when he saw himself enriched with so great fruits of active life, and on the contrary weighed in his heart the good of contemplation, and as it were in one scale weighed the profit of so great labours, in the other the delight of divine contemplation—when at length the balance of his breast had been in a manner chastened by long examination, while on the one hand the immense wages of his labours delight him, on the other the desire of union and of inseparable fellowship with Christ invites him even to the dissolution of the flesh—anxious at last he cries out and says: 'What I shall choose I know not. For I am in a strait between two, having a desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better: nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you.'
Since therefore in many ways he had preferred the excellence of this good even to all the fruits of his preaching, yet he is subordinated to the contemplation of charity, without which none merits the Lord; and for the sake of those to whom he was still, as a nurse, pouring the milk of the evangelical breasts, he does not refuse a separation from Christ—harmful indeed to himself, but necessary for the rest. For to the choice of this thing above all he is compelled by that exceeding virtue of piety, whereby, for the salvation of his brethren, if it were possible, he desires even to incur the ultimate evil of the anathema. 'For I could wish,' he says, 'that I myself were anathema from Christ for my brethren, who are my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites'—that is:
I would wish to be condemned not only to temporal but even to perpetual punishments, provided that, if it were possible, all men might enjoy the fellowship of Christ; for I am certain that the salvation of all is more useful to Christ and to me than my own. Therefore, that the Apostle might perfectly attain this highest good—that is, to enjoy the sight of God and to cleave continually to Christ—he desires to be dissolved from this body, which, bound together and hindered by many necessities of its frailty, cannot but be torn from the fellowship of Christ. For it is impossible even for the mind
—which is distended with such frequent cares, hindered by anguishes so various, so troublesome—to be always fixed with a firm gaze upon the divine. For what pursuit of the saints is so persistent, what purpose can be so arduous, that that crafty ambusher does not at some time defile it? Who has so followed the secret places of solitude and shunned the company of all mortals, that he never slips into superfluous thoughts, or by the gaze upon things or the occupation of eternal—rather, of earthly—matters, falls away from that contemplation of God which alone is truly and solely good? Who was ever able to retain so great a fervour of spirit, that he was not sometimes carried off by slippery thoughts from the very intention of prayer, and suddenly rushed down from the heavenly to the earthly?
Which of us—to pass over the other times of wandering—even at that very moment when, supplicating God, he raises his mind to sublime things, does not, collapsed by a kind of stupor, offend even through that very thing (unwillingly though it be) by which he was hoping for the pardon of his offences? Who, I say, is so intent and vigilant, that while he sings a psalm to God his soul is never drawn away from the meaning of the Scripture? Who is so familiar with God and so joined to Him, that he rejoices to have carried out even for one day that apostolic command, whereby he bids us to pray without ceasing?
Which things, although to some who are wrapped up in grosser vices they seem light and almost alien to sin, yet to those who know the good of perfection even a multitude of the smallest matters is most grievous. As if we were to suppose two men entering into some great house cluttered with many bundles, instruments, and vessels—the one keen with unimpaired sharpness of sight, the other whose eyesight bleariness has dulled—when he to whom a blunted gaze resists the seeing of everything asserts that there is nothing there but cupboards, beds, benches, mangers, and whatever meets not so much the eyes of the beholder as the hands of the groper; on the contrary this other, who with the clearest star of his eyes has scrutinized even hidden things, proclaims that there are within many most minute things, which can scarcely be even comprehended in number, which, if they should sometime be gathered together into one heap, would by their number match, or perhaps even surpass, the magnitude of the few things which the former had groped.
So therefore even the saints—and, so to speak, the seeing ones—whose highest zeal is for perfection, sagaciously detect in themselves and most sharply condemn even those things which, as it were, the darkened gaze of our mind does not behold; to such a degree that those who, as it seems to our carelessness, have not darkened the whiteness as of a snowy body even by the slightest blemish of sin, seem to themselves to be sprinkled with many stains—if I may not say that the wickedness of a vain thought has crept into the courtyards of the mind, but that even the recollection of the psalm which is to be recited turns away, at the time of prayer, the intention of the supplicant.
For if, they say, when we supplicate some exalted man—I will not say for our life and salvation, but even for the advantage of some gain—we fix upon him the whole edge of flesh and mind, and hang in trembling expectation upon his nod, fearing not moderately lest perchance some inept or unfitting word should turn away the mercy of the one who hears; and then again if, when we are set in the forum and at the tribunals of secular judges, with an adversary too standing on the opposite side, in the midst of persecution and conflict, a cough, a hawking, a laugh, a yawn, sleep should steal upon us—with how great envy will our most vigilant enemy stir up the severity of the judge to our ruin!
How much more, when we supplicate Him, the Knower of all hidden things, for the imminent peril of perpetual death—especially when on the opposite side the cunning seducer and accuser alike stands by—must the mercy of the Judge be implored with intent and solicitous prayer! And not unjustly shall he be bound not only by a light sin, but even by the most grievous crime of impiety, who, pouring out prayer to God, suddenly withdraws from His sight—as if from the eyes of one who neither sees nor hears—following the vanity of a wicked thought.
But those who cover the eyes of their heart with the thick veil of vices, and according to the sentence of the Saviour seeing see not, and hearing hear not, neither understand—these scarcely contemplate, in the recesses of their breast, even those crimes which are great and capital; but they can behold with purged gaze neither any stealthy creepings of thoughts, nor those slippery and hidden itchings within themselves which prick the mind with a slight and subtle suggestion, nor the captivities of their own soul; but ever wandering with shameless thoughts, they know not how to grieve when they are drawn away from that contemplation which is singular, nor have they anything that they might grieve to have lost—inasmuch as they, spreading their mind open, as it pleases, to the thoughts that assail it, have nothing set before them which they might principally hold or which they might wholly desire.
This cause indeed hurls us into this error: that, being utterly ignorant of the virtue of the sinless one—that is, of impeccability itself—we suppose that we can contract no fault at all from these idle and slippery excursions of thoughts; but, stupefied with dullness and as it were struck with blindness of the eyes, we contemplate in ourselves nothing but capital crimes, and believe those alone to be avoided which are condemned also by the severity of secular laws; from which, if we perceive ourselves immune even a little, we straightway judge that there is no sin in us.
Accordingly, separated from that number of the seeing ones, because we do not see the minutiae of the many filths that are heaped up within us, we are by no means stung with a wholesome compunction if the sickness of sadness interrupts our sense; nor do we grieve that we are assailed by the suggestion of vainglory; nor do we weep over a prayer sent up too slowly or too tepidly; nor do we reckon it a fault why, when we are chanting psalms or praying, something other than the very prayer or psalm has occurred to us; nor do we shudder at this, that we do not blush even for an hour to conceive in our heart many things which it is shameful either to speak or to do before men—which we know lie open to the divine sight; nor do we purge the pollution of foul dreams with a copious washing of tears; nor do we mourn that in the very piety of almsgiving, when we succour the necessities of the brethren or minister nourishment to the poor, a covetous hesitation beclouds the serenity of our cheerfulness; nor do we believe ourselves struck by any loss, when, the memory of God being abandoned, we think upon the things that are temporal and corrupt—so that Solomon's saying is fittingly enough applied to us:
'They struck me, but I was not grieved: and they dragged me, but I knew it not.' On the contrary, those who place the sum of all their pleasure and joy and blessedness only in the contemplation of divine and spiritual things—when they are drawn away from it, even for a little, unwillingly, by violent thoughts,
they punish it with the vengeance of present penitence as a kind of sacrilege, and, mourning that they have preferred to their Creator the basest creature toward which the gaze of the mind has been twisted aside, they almost—I might say—ascribe to themselves the crime of impiety; and although they turn the eyes of their heart with the utmost alacrity to behold the brightness of the divine glory, yet, not enduring even the briefest darkness of carnal thoughts, they execrate whatever draws back the gaze of the mind from that true light. In short, the blessed Apostle John, wishing to instil this good feeling into all, says: 'Little children, love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of God is not in him:
for all that is in the world is the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, which is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.' The saints therefore disdain all the things by which this world subsists; but it is impossible that they should not be snatched away to them, even by a brief excess of thoughts; nor has any man as yet—except our Lord and Saviour—so held the natural wandering of the mind ever fixed upon the contemplation of God, that he never, snatched from it, sinned by the love of any worldly thing, Scripture saying: 'The very stars are not clean in his sight,' and again:
'If he put no trust in his saints, and in his angels he found wickedness,' or, as the more correct translation has it: 'Behold, among his saints none is unchangeable, and the heavens are not clean in his sight.' Rightly therefore the saints—who, steadfastly retaining the memory of God, are borne along as it were by lines stretched aloft with suspended tread—I would say are to be compared to the schoenobatae, whom the common folk call rope-walkers; who, placing the sum of their safety and life upon that most narrow path of the little rope, do not doubt that they will straightway rush upon a most cruel death, if their foot but stray by a slight faltering or exceed the measure of that saving line of direction.
For just as those who by wondrous skill contrive their airy steps through empty space bring upon themselves present and manifest destruction if they do not, with cautious and careful control, keep to that narrow path traced out for their tread, so that the earth, which is as it were the natural base for all and the most solid and safest foundation for everyone, becomes for them a ruin, not because its nature is changed, but because they slip down toward it by the headlong weight of the flesh: so too that tireless goodness of God and His unchangeable substance harms no one, but by turning away from the highest things and inclining toward the lowest we bring death upon ourselves; indeed that very turning-away becomes death to him who turns aside. For 'Woe unto them,' He says, 'for they have departed from me:'
'they shall be laid waste, because they have transgressed against me,' and again: 'Woe unto them when I depart from them. Thine own wickedness shall reprove thee, and thy turning away shall rebuke thee. Know therefore and see how evil and bitter a thing it is that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God. For every one is bound fast with the cords of his own sins.' To these that rebuke from the Lord is quite fittingly directed: 'Behold,' He says, 'all you that kindle a fire, girt about with flames, walk in the light of your fire, and in the flames which you have kindled;' and again, 'He that kindleth wickedness,' He says, 'shall perish by it.'