Voluntary Poverty (To the Deaconess Magna) 51–64

What the Pharisees then were to the apostles, enrolled, supposedly, in the same pursuit with them, that is what those are to you who seem to share your profession but by the abundance of their life deny fellowship with you: they began with you the start of the road to the promise and have not reached its end. For the fertile land, full of cares, held them back, with the sons of [Reuben] and Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh, and made their journey vain, since their purpose did not advance as it should, because of what was lacking from the time before, nor did it turn out as it was intended from the beginning. And, as the true saying goes, every labor is truly useless that does not reach the end for which it began, but stops before the end and leaves off there, where one could reap the fruit of what was set before it. So you, beloved, running toward the goal for the prize of the upward call and near to the crowns, do not [slacken] your good eagerness, but hand it on to those after you as you received it, at its height, from those before you; and those who for the present delight in vanity, and spend on their industries the labors that belong to virtue, pity as people who toil uselessly and sow to the flesh, from which one reaps corruption.

Do not quarrel with them too contentiously, as people who fail in what befits the apostolic life. For with those who are not minded to listen you gain nothing; rather, they can be shameless against exhortations so as not to seem plainly caught and made manifest to all, by the reproofs, in their sorry state; [it is better] if you receive them kindly, so that they may not, in turn, think themselves defeated by your silence. For if they were disposed to be corrected, they would surely have respected the teaching words of the Lord before any human exhortations, the words he spoke to the man of many possessions: “If you want to be perfect, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and take up the cross, and come, follow me,” unloading him so that he might easily pass through the narrow [gate]. But these embrace possession, heavy and burdensome as it is, and make entry into the kingdom difficult or altogether impossible for themselves, an entry that the Truth likened to the eye of a needle, which scarcely admits a soul stripped of worldly cares and every encumbrance, and even that perhaps pushing and forcing its way in with [difficulty] because of the narrowness of the gate, which is hard to enter and squeezes even bodies that go in sideways, much less those loaded with very heavy burdens. How will those say, “See, we have left everything and followed you,” who cherish dung, and things more worthless than dung, as if they were real goods, who have left nothing and acquired what they did not have, making their life an occasion not for philosophy but for trade? Yet [having nothing] is truly an occasion for the greatest trade, in the good things to come, not in the splendid things of the present: by poverty and want and the other things now thought trifles it procures the enjoyment of all delights, and by obscurity and lack of distinction it gives boldness before God and eternal glory. Since you have the hope of these things secure, through the witness of your conscience to what you have done, you strive more and more to despise what you have already justly despised after reckoning well; for they are truly such, even to the sober, even if they seemed desirable to fools, who have attached themselves, by a deceived imagination, to very shameful things as if they were fine, and to matter, as if to a truly beautiful woman, though she is not so, but painted with a seeming bloom, enticing to delight those who are pleased with such things before useful ones and who choose, rather than what is profitable, what provokes their impulses by its allure.

Take care of the movements of the mind, paying attention to what the memories of affairs produce in it, and whether it receives their images with passion or without. For these movements, rushing in disorder, are accustomed to do much harm, and more easily in thoughts than in actions: they yield to the passions and agree with them unseen, and, giving no sign to those outside, they are defeated and often fall, and the fall, until it comes to action, escapes for the time being those who cannot see what is within. A person may seem venerable to those present because of his composure, while he alone knows his hidden shames and blushes that what is hidden in him is the opposite of what appears, for the truth contradicts the honored stage-mask and rightly makes his conscience sink, because the thoughts of his heart do not agree with the reputation that those who tell of him celebrate. Such a one is like a whitewashed tomb: the corruption of his mind is full, like a real tomb, of dead men's bones and all impurity. For how does the mind, when it thinks unfitting things, differ from a tomb? It is like it, and even more impure. For a tomb gives off its stench for a little while, as long as the body is still rotting; but when the fluid has drained from the bones, the stench [ceases], once the fleshly parts have dissolved into earth and dust … [the walls] … which, when they bloomed, had their structure of clay … plastered, whitened on one side and reddened on the other, and so shining they [hide] the stains lying on the surface. But a heart full of unseemly thoughts has a perpetual stench, smelling worse than a rotten body, and alone enjoys its own shamefulness.

Those who pay attention to the visible statue know nothing of what is planned in secret, but rather [admire] the venerableness that is seen and seems real. For a calm character, a stern eye and an unsmiling face are taken to proclaim nothing else than great stability in the depths, from the care for better things that has been mentioned; this gives those who do not know the reflections dwelling in the recesses the impression that the inner disposition agrees with the outward appearance. Let this, then, shame you greatly into disposing the inner things in harmony with the outer and regulating what is within likewise by the glory without, so that, such as we seem to people, we may appear to God in our thoughts, thinking the things that the many suppose we think. And it is, as you yourselves know from experience, not very hard for those who choose to do this with labor, if they search out the causes and, by stopping them, easily stop the troubles that grow from them. For since pleasure and grief follow desire, and desire follows perception, the one who has not given way to perception gives no opportunity to the others, as one who crushes a snake's head as it squeezes through an entrance keeps out with it the whole body that is dragged after it, which would surely come in easily if the leading head found any entry at all. The image has a close kinship with what it signifies, since the followers fall in together with the leaders. For perception stamps the mind with the forms it sees, and the mind moves desire toward what delights, fanning every day by memory the images of what it has seen before and carrying their idols about, distinct as statues, until either failure brings grief or success brings pleasure and teaches clearly by experience how great the harm is that comes from these things.

For both alike, whether one gains or misses what was wrongly desired, produce unprofitable joy and unfitting grief. For the grief is not according to God, so as to work, as Paul says, a repentance without regret leading to salvation; nor does the joy consist in the Lord, as the same Paul understands it, for to those who rejoice in a good conscience he gives the exhortation, “Rejoice in the Lord always.” Rather, it is a demonic attachment of the soul, depending on none of the eternal goods but on perishing matter, which also proves the desire useless. For some might say: “Have the cares that befit us run out, so that [we fill] the mind with vain thoughts, picturing wealth, power, glory and what most people think good fortune? Have our characters been set right? Have the passions been subdued? Does perception do nothing amiss? Has the road of progress been levelled and made easy? Has ascetic practice become a settled habit with us? Does the heart enjoy deep peace? Has our battle ceased? Has the wrestling against the principalities and powers been broken off? Has the flesh, hostile to the Spirit, made a truce with it? Does it no longer war against the Spirit, wholly conquered, admitting defeat and serving as a captive? Have you beaten your swords into ploughshares and your spears into sickles, turning the works of war into farming tools because of great peace? Do we rest, according to the divine promise, each under his own vine, rejoicing in the works of our hands and exulting on our beds, with nothing troubling us from any side, no passion, no spirit of the opposing power inflaming desire toward things in no way fitting for us?” And even if, as has been said, our affairs were so free of passion, and we had calm from the things that usually trouble the mind, and were above all worldly desire like the saints of old, where would care and distraction about vain things be useful to us, being aimless and achieving nothing of what is pursued? For none of the things not in our power comes about by our own skill, even if it is [good] in itself; they are gifts of the Providence that governs our affairs, not works of human effort.

For this reason the Lord says to those who know how to listen well, “Which of you by being anxious can add one cubit to his stature?” By the futility of this anxiety he shows that every anxiety that does not reach its end through our own effort is vain and truly useless: it simply unsettles the reasoning and draws it away from true care, and can procure for no one any of the things it dreams of; it dreams of bright things and, when awake, always proves empty the hope of its fancies; it revels in vain thoughts and never sees them come true, as in Isaiah's comparison, where he says, “As the thirsty man dreams that he is drinking, and when he wakes is still thirsty, and his soul has hoped in vain.” For such is the hope of vain things: a pleasure like a feast by night, gladdening by the deception of a dream, and never producing the gladness one imagines. Why, then, do we always pursue what is not ours as though it were ours, and what belongs to others as though it were our own, spending on empty thoughts the time meant for considering what is necessary? If, as we suppose, the passions have abated, and the spirits of wickedness that plot against us have withdrawn, we ought to give thanks, with remembrance in our prayers, to the Master, Christ, who has brought us to such a state. For all our time would scarcely suffice for this, short and narrow as it is, and for [thanks for] the benefits we enjoy every day from him who has set us above the things that afflict many. For if the lawgiver wants us to give both limits of the span of time, I mean day and night, to the study of the law, commanding this very thing when he says, “You shall meditate on it, sitting in your house and walking on the road, lying down and rising up,” leaving no time at all for idleness; and another commands us to bless the Lord at all times; and Paul to pray without ceasing: what time is left for the leisure to think about things that do not befit us, when each of these commands demands the whole of our time and yields nothing to the others?

For how will one pray without ceasing who does not meditate on the law of the Lord day and night? And how will one bless the Lord continually who does just one of the things mentioned, when the time scarcely suffices to serve any one of the deeds of virtue? For this reason Scripture has hemmed in the laziness of the many with commands greater than our strength, so as both to stretch our zeal toward what is possible and to cut away the excuses of weakness. Thus the one who works the good is humbled rather by the things he does not manage to do as commanded, than puffed up because he has done part of the commandments; he does not think he will be praised for what he seemed to accomplish, but expects to be blamed for what he neglected. For no unfinished work brings [praise] to the one who worked on it, but rather causes him to blush that he did not bring to completion what he undertook. Some works of craft have a limit toward which the aim of those beginning looks; each of these is completed in no long time, worked in material, and has its end standing still and awaiting the one who reaches it. But virtue is of great length, perhaps endless; it drains the strength of the one who pursues it, and still stands off from being grasped; it provokes longing by seeming to be near, and it slips away from those who approach so far as also to drain their eagerness, … stealing the toil of the one who advances by withdrawing little by little unnoticed. And this, it seems, is what was well said of the patriarch: that he came to the place of which God had told him, and Abraham, lifting up his eyes, saw the place [from afar]. He seemed to have reached it, so that the hardship of the labor might be consoled, and he learned, by still being some way off, that he had not yet attained it, so that his eagerness might not collapse as though the task set before him were accomplished, but might always be stretched toward greater earnestness by the hope of soon being where he was hastening.

These things describe the method of virtue, which cleverly leads its pupil on to the progress that is possible. It neither appears far off, lest it seem to make him despair by the great distance, nor waits until it is caught by its pursuer, lest it stop his eagerness before his death; rather it draws out his zeal through his whole life, always at its height, since its end cannot be reached; and by always appearing near it urges his strength toward what can be reached, to as much progress as nature yields when summoned, while after many labors it still stands well off from being grasped. For who has so achieved virtue that nothing is lacking to him for perfection? And who, though using all his zeal, has not been left far short of its limits? To show this plainly, it is fitting to speak of the properties of the truest love, since love is, and is rightly called by divine Scripture, the fulfilment of the law, embracing all the parts of the good things of the law: it teaches us to do good to our own kind, does not permit us to wrong them or do anything against them, and willingly forgives evil. Who, then, [loves] his neighbor so as to regard him in all things as another self? Who rejoices in his brother's [successes] in the good as in his own, and is not unreasonably galled by them, and moved to envy, thinking himself dishonored in whatever his neighbor surpasses him? Who does not judge another's honor, in whatever he obtains it, to be the undoing of his own? Who, when another [is preferred] in any honorable thing, is not despondent, counting second place as a kind of dishonor? Who is not [pained] at the praise of a fellow worker as at blame of himself? Who has [grieved] at someone's slip as though he thought it his own? Who has sympathized with another as with himself? Who has not laughed at someone's disgrace? Who has not rejoiced at another's fall and been lifted up by it, [boasting] in his mind that he himself stands? Who, [seeing another] blushing at the reproof of a fault … and not rather counted the other's discomfiture as, so to speak, his own gain, thinking his own glory raised higher in the very things in which that of others happens to be lessened? And who, according to Paul, readily rejoices with those who rejoice and [weeps] with those who weep, being disposed toward each as each is disposed, when tested by bright or gloomy circumstances?

For this is the advantage of love: it makes the disposition of all one, each rejoicing with the other and grieving likewise, bound together like the members of one body, sharing their experiences with one another in sympathetic harmony and receiving them from one another. If, then, not even all our time suffices for the care of virtue, and those who contend have great need of sobriety because of the demons who contend against them, how can those who gape about and let their minds wander either complete the road, hard to travel and long as it is, or guard against the plots of their adversaries, who are many and invisible, and use our passions and senses as weapons against us, turning against us the very things nature gave us as defenses against them? [The eye] often serves them for desire of what is seen, producing longing for every splendid thing; hearing produces grief at gloomy news and naturally moves pleasure at news that seems welcome; anger is kindled from any pretext, boiling up and shaking the whole body, troubling the reasoning and muddying its purity, like clear water, so that the impressions of the thoughts cannot be seen distinctly; vainglory forces one to make one's work public, wanting to please people rather than God, and makes the labors useless, for the reward does not follow what is done amiss, since it is done not to please him who can reward but for the praise of onlookers; pride lifts up the mind entirely, teaches it to despise everyone and to spit on the whole human race as worthless, persuades the reasoning to the madness of imagining itself equal to God, does not know the providence and care of the Stronger, reckons the graces it enjoys as wages owed for its works, does not want to recognize God's cooperation in what it does and achieves, thinks itself sufficient for every good, seems everything in its conceit while it can do nothing at all, swollen with vain [opinion], and is shown to be nothing. Evil spirits set stumbling blocks beside the path in things that seem reasonable, leading away from the truth; others spread nets as for birds, trying to catch with the nooses of arrogance those raised above others … a little above earthly things

…, having occupied the heavenly places, as Paul says, “the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places,” they try to catch within the nets of pride those who have their citizenship in heaven, there, contriving to overthrow from the highest lookout, by the passion by which they cast down to earth the devil who was first driven mad, those who ascend in their way of life. And all the things that wage war and box and fight … and wrestle, and run with the runners, not to reach the prize of the calling with them but to trip them up and hinder them in the race, are many, as Paul also says, and could lengthen this discourse; it is hard to number them, and not easy. Those who fight them have no time at all to occupy the mind with other things, since any distraction becomes the cause of defeat for them and of victory for the enemies. To these, then, one must attend, and not be distracted toward things that work with our adversaries against us. For whatever one thinks of that does not contribute to the exercise of our contest is a hold for our opponents, who seize us and throw us out of the ring; and this, even if it is not a fall, is still a defeat: to be shaken from our place and pushed away from what we ought to care for toward what ought in no way to concern us. For, by the judgment of truth, as action is in material things, so in our counsels an unfitting thought is defeat and a fall. For this reason, “the thoughts of the righteous are judgments, but the ungodly [devise] deceits”: the former stand firm in the good with discernment, the latter are easily steered toward evil by the one who pilots the deceit toward his goal by various methods, now this way and now that, continually turning their counsels, as one directs the course of a ship by shifting the sail toward the harbors he set out for. For this reason the one says, “Let a man's heart think just things, that his steps may be directed by God”; the other, “Whatever is virtue, and if there is any praise, think on these things.”

Teaching those who want to keep the course of their thoughts right to use such thoughts, David sometimes said, “The meditation of my heart is understanding”; sometimes, “I will meditate on your statutes”; and again, “I will meditate on all your works, and on your doings I will muse.” He gives himself this musing, so that the ever-moving mind may have no time [to turn] to unfitting things, but may attend to those things whose musing brings delight and great benefit, gladdening the senses with what is seen and the soul with contemplation. For what a thing it truly is to spend one's time wholly in meditation on the works of God: now to lift the eye to heaven, attending to the sun by day and to the stars by night; now to bring it down to the earth, seeing the sprouting of every kind of fruit and the countless differences of living creatures; and again, seeing in the air and in the sea the kinds of countless birds and fish that live there, even before knowing what benefit comes from each of these, to marvel meanwhile at the Creator's wisdom and to glorify God, taught by the variety of creation. And when one goes on also to the purpose for which the things seen exist, complete gladness holds the mind as it feasts on the natural knowledge of earthly things. For there is none of the creatures that does not surely teach us some ethical and theological contemplation. But since we have weakened in ourselves the power of reason by luxuries, and are no longer reminded by it of what is profitable to do, [we need] reminders from outside of how we ought to live and conduct ourselves, so that we may be well-pleasing to our Maker.

For this reason God's caring grace sets up as teachers now the ant, now the bee, exhorting us to imitation with a voiceless voice, by their deeds. It says, “Go to the ant, you sluggard, and emulate its ways”: it lays up at harvest its food for the winter and so usefully suggests that we gather provisions for the age to come. “Go to the bee, and learn how [industrious] it is”: it plucks the flowers of plants and makes honeycombs, and this too it does wisely, teaching … the advantages of good men, who store up sweetnesses for themselves for the sweet life of the life they hope for. At other times it bids the disobedient emulate [the stork] and the swallow, saying, “[The turtle-dove] and the swallow of the field keep the times of their coming, but my people have not known the judgments of the Lord.” And it adds, “How will you say, We are wise, and the law of God is with us?”, reproaching rational beings with the constancy of nature and the unchanging law of the animals' habits, since they are more insensible than irrational creatures in knowing the will of God. Again, to those who are not moderate in their [desires] but overrun their own kind without limit, he sets before them the sea, ringed by the sand …, in the words, “Will you not fear me, says the Lord, or will you not tremble before my face, who set the sand as a boundary for the sea, an eternal decree, and it will not pass beyond it? But this people has an unhearing and disobedient heart.” By the reverence of a soulless element for its decree he makes them reverent in keeping the commandments: just as the wave of the sea, driven from the open water by the wind and rising little by little to rival the mountains in size, is broken back as soon as it comes near the sand of the shore, respecting the limit set by him who fettered it, so rational beings, commanded by reason, should restrain every unjust impulse and punish every lawless thought, and especially humble the pride that swells without reason, doing at least what insensible things do. They ought to do this even without a law, reckoning to do it by their own free judgment, which is the mark of a free mind, moved by its own command to what the compulsion of the law was going to lead it.

It teaches, too, what each of the luminaries is useful for when seen. The sun suggests that we understand the Son by his radiance [from] the Father, and as witness of this I call Paul, who says, “who, being the radiance of his glory and the exact imprint of his substance.” For what he saw the nature of the visible thing taught him: he discerned with the soul's eye the meaning that lies in its make-up, which the Creator placed symbolically in the star, through natural contemplation, guiding the minds of those who see it to the Son's co-eternal relation to the Father. The moon, waxing and waning, shows the changeableness of our affairs, and by the quick turns of its shapes it exhorts us neither to rejoice in prosperity as though it were lasting, nor to think adversity grievous as though it would be long; for they exchange places with one another so quickly that they do not let us perceive their presence apart from their withdrawal, one lying in wait for the other, the one that follows immediately succeeding the one that leads, like the continuous phases of the moon. These do not give way to one another so far as to make the usual waning and waxing of its light a sudden turn, and their change is hard to observe, since the gradual addition or subtraction fittingly escapes perception. And many things that grow or diminish in this way have an imperceptible daily change in whatever respect it happens, and no one can easily know how much the stature of growing things adds each day as they advance continually, and the size of the progress … until time [shows] this … which continuous watching of what is happening cannot teach.

No one who watches continually has ever known the gradual growth of plants, grasses, animals and children; but one who for some time has not seen the growing things, and then sees them again, recognizes the little-by-little addition in the meantime, learning from what has come to be what was coming to be. So too someone who sees a rock hollowed to a depth over time by water dripping on it without ceasing is convinced that each drop accomplished some part of the hollow, but how much he does not know: for sight recognizes the coarser objects of sense to some extent, and often errs even in these, but cannot reach the finer ones at all, being somewhat slow and weak in grasping such bodies. And if one emulates the dimmer and brighter stars, he will neither, being obscure and undistinguished, envy those who surpass him in rank and wealth, nor, being distinguished in these, despise the humble as refuse, seeing the stars content with their own order and glad to remain in the place allotted them, as God, who appointed them the measures of their light, willed. And the Lord, wishing us to be wise like the [serpent] and innocent like the dove, makes us disciples of all the parts of creation, since we did not keep the nobility of our creation and are fittingly trained toward good order, away from folly, by those who were once our slaves, so that, receiving our schooling from those beneath us, we may be put to shame, we who are able, by the knowledge within us according to which we were made, to live blamelessly, choosing the good of ourselves and not from outside, like beggars asking for it. But you, most blessed ones, deserve to be admired, besides all your other good qualities, for your harmony and for your experience in what befits each one's state: like a well-tuned psaltery, in different notes you produce one song of godliness, each pursuing a different form of it, and none out of tune with your obedience to one another, which naturally binds together those divided in body, of one soul in their wills, toward the one goal of the work, as a musician blends the proper sharp or deep tone of each string into a harmonious melody. For the very fact that each string sounds differently, being tuned to a different tension, is what most produces the harmony, the various trills serving the rhythm of the song, and each part fitted for clear sound by the varied whispering of the notes.