論默觀生活 第 1 章

1. Long and much have I resisted your wish, my most studious lord among bishops, Julianus; not as if obstinately hard, but admonished of my own incapacity. For it seemed to me — and perhaps rightly seemed — that you yourselves too might accuse my presumption of improvident rashness, if I were to undertake so great a matter, which must surely be treated laboriously, easily and without any deliberation: since it behoved me first to weigh the weight of the matter itself, from which I should have to speak; and so, with the Lord's help, if my powers and ability gave promise that I had explored it, to seize upon this which you commanded me to approach.

Having perceived these and such things by anxious consideration, I judged it necessary to suspend myself for some time from the presumption of writing. But since, just as the difficulty of the enjoined work had to be considered, so too the authority of the one enjoining it ought to be considered, I neither wished nor ought to resist altogether, certain that the word of you who command would aid my powers far more than the magnitude of the matter itself would burden them. Then that consideration led my mind, distrustful of its own powers, into the boldness of undertaking your precept; namely, that it would now be a mark not of humility to maintain silence perseveringly, but of pride to refuse further the burden imposed, however infirm the neck upon which it was laid;

for the bearing of which burden, even if my rusticity made me weak, I believed I was made fit by your faith, you who commanded. 2. This also gives me some confidence to dare something: that of great matters the very attempt is itself great, even if no result should follow the disputant. Indeed the treating of necessary questions, even if it does not instruct the mind that does not find what it seeks, at least exercises the inquirer's wit: so that either he may know himself, by inquiring and finding nothing, not to know what he had perhaps presumed himself to know; and, consequently admonished of his own ignorance, may seek what he sees to be lacking to him; may hold what he has found; and what he has held, may perseveringly exercise:

or, if he has been able wholesomely to treat and sufficiently to explain what had been set before him from the divine Scriptures, let him not be puffed up by the discovery of truth, but glory in the Lord, who inwardly enlightened him so that he might know the things to be enlightened. Since knowledge, just as it puffs up without the gift of God, which is charity, so, if charity be mingled with it, it edifies (1 Cor. 8). And by this, whoever wishes to speak of God either says nothing, and no inflation casts him down; or, if he says anything and believes that he has received from God what he said, he has whereby to give thanks to God, and has nothing that, exalted by the powers of his own wit, he may ascribe to himself. 3. But now let me weave together the very chapters which somehow you proposed to be solved.

And so you bid me set forth in a few words what is the property of the contemplative life; and to distinguish, with as much brevity as I can, what difference there is between it and the active life. Whether one to whom the care of governing the Church has been committed can become a partaker of contemplative virtue. Whether those who trample upon the divine precepts are to be borne with equanimity, or whether they ought, according to the measure of their sin, to be rebuked with ecclesiastical severity. Whether, for the gathering or nourishing of the brethren, it is expedient that the Church possess goods, or whether they should be despised for love of perfection. What is to be believed to be the perfection of abstinence; and whether it ought to be judged necessary only for the body, or also for the soul. How far the likenesses of virtues stand apart from true virtues.

By what preceding causes and subsequent increments vices are wont to be born or augmented; and by what remedies, the Lord helping, as by certain medicines, they can be diminished or healed. By how many modes or degrees each single virtue can be fulfilled. And whether that opinion of the philosophers is true, which defined four virtues as, so to speak, certain fountains of all virtues; and four vices likewise, as, so to speak, certain origins of all evils.

These then are without doubt ten, the chapters which you wished to be unravelled by me — not so that the solution of them might bring you any knowledge, but rather that, from your care, if I fulfil the commanded task according to rule, it might confer somewhat of edification, by the explanation of these and the like chapters, upon those studious of such things. For otherwise, if you did not know these things, you would never propose them to be elucidated in so orderly a fashion. But you wished things known to you to be illustrated by disputations for this reason: that either you might cause me to be amended or corrected, if I should set forth anything otherwise than reason holds; or at least, through your solicitude and my discourse, what is disputed in a catholic manner might be carried to the knowledge of others.

Now therefore, the Lord aiding us through your prayers, let us treat of what is the property of the contemplative life. CHAPTER I. That this is the property of the contemplative life, where God shall be seen by the pure in heart. CHAP. II. On the quality of the future life. CHAP. III. That the saints are to be separated from the wicked by that judgment of God by which the blessed angels were before separated from the unclean spirits. CHAP. IV. On the resurrection and life of the saints. CHAP. V. That the blessedness of the contemplative life delights even here the despisers of present things. CHAP. VI. That the perfection of the contemplative life which can be had here cannot be compared to the future perfection. CHAP. VII.

That the saints cannot perfectly see the Lord, except when they have come to the blessedness of the future life. CHAP. VIII. What and how great is the perfection of the contemplative life in this flesh, or in what manner the despisers of the world cleave to it that they may enjoy it. CHAP. IX. That there is as great a difference between the perfection of this life and of the future, as there is between the perfect who do not wish to sin, and those who can no longer sin. CHAP. X. That here the saints saw God in an assumed creature. CHAP. XI. On the quality of glorified bodies, which shall be in the future resurrection. CHAP. XII. How great is the difference between the contemplative and the active life. CHAP. XIII. That holy priests can become partakers of the contemplative life. CHAP. XIV.

Where the speaker excuses himself, that he does not dare to teach the masters of the Church. CHAP. XV. On the negligence of the priest who, by acting contrary to his own teaching, cannot fulfil the person of a teacher. CHAP. XVI. What peril awaits those who either abandon the Church committed to them, or disdain to govern it strenuously. CHAP. XVII. Where, anxious that he can neither abandon nor govern the Church, he provokes by suggesting that one may govern it better by example. CHAP. XVIII. That it would avail little to show by example the things to be done, unless the priest should also show, by teaching, what things are to be believed. CHAP. XIX. On the virtue of faith: that to it pertains not only to believe or to understand, but also to work well. CHAP. XX.

That it profits a priest nothing, even if he lives well, if by keeping silent he does not correct one living evilly. CHAP. XXI. A mournful description of a priest living carnally. CHAP. XXII. That, according to the word of the prophet, those perish by their own fault who with perverse will despise the rebukes or admonitions of priests. CHAP. XXIII. That priests, even those who are able otherwise, ought to teach so simply that all who hear them teaching may understand them. CHAP. XXIV. What difference there is between teachers who edify by teaching the Church simply, and those who boast their eloquence in showy declamations. CHAP. XXV. What kind of men those priests ought to be who do not wish to become partakers of the contemplative life.