Letter to the Virgin Demetrias on Humility 13–24

There are also innumerable other testimonies from the pages of both the New and the Old Testament which confirm, as with one shout, that this is the most excellent dignity of true humility, that all the things that make a man a Christian are referred to the gift of divine grace. But to gather so great a multitude of sentences into one would have been immoderate, especially since my discourse was to your holiness, to whom, on the pattern of those we have mentioned, all of them will present themselves as you recall or read; although some, even very short ones, are of such fullness and such force that no talent of an adversary can twist them into another sense. For what contradiction can be admitted in what the Truth himself is related, through the Gospel of John, to have said to his disciples: "As the branch," he says, "cannot bear fruit unless it remains in the vine, so neither can you, unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who remains in me and I in him, he bears fruit; for without me you can do nothing"? Is not the proud branch convicted of being emptied of all fruitfulness if it is not nourished by the richness of the vine? For who can bear the fruit of righteousness without the help of grace, or who dares to say that he is not divided from Christ, who denies that Christ works in him? Or is it perhaps to be feared that we seem to take away free choice when we say that all the things by which God is made favourable are to be referred to him? That this by no means follows is shown by the light of truth: for when the Spirit of God works, choice is helped, not taken away; and grace brings it about that the will, corrupted by sin, drunk with vanities, hemmed in by seductions, hindered by difficulties, does not remain in its sicknesses, but, cured by the help of the merciful physician, grows strong again and rejoices that it was taught without asking and sought without seeking; because what the prophet Isaiah foretold is fulfilled daily: "Those to whom it was not announced concerning him will see, and those who have not heard will understand." And how this happens John shows, saying: "We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies in the evil one; and we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know the true God and may be in his true Son." This the Lord certainly works unceasingly now too by the same power, who says: "Behold, I am with you all days, until the consummation of the age."

That we seek God's mercy, then, is the mercy of God, who says: "I will have mercy on whom I have had mercy, and I will show mercy to whom I have shown mercy." Hence the same Lord wonderfully shows through Jeremiah that no one anticipates God's grace by his own merit, but that even those turned away are drawn to mercy because of the love with which God loves. "With an everlasting love," he says, "I have loved you; therefore I have drawn you to compassion, for I will build you, and you will be built, O virgin Israel." With this sentence the apostle John too agrees, saying: "Not as though we had loved God, but because he loved us"; and below: "Let us love, then, because God first loved us." The apostle Paul also is of the same mind, saying in the Second Letter to Timothy: "Share in labour for the gospel according to the power of God, who has freed us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given to us before eternal times." Writing to Titus too, he teaches that God's grace is not anticipated by any good merit of man. "For we too," he says, "were once foolish, unbelieving, going astray, serving various desires and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. But when the kindness and humanity of our Saviour appeared, not from works of righteousness which we did, but according to his mercy he saved us, through the washing of regeneration of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour, so that, justified by his grace, we may be heirs according to the hope of eternal life." Every devout movement of enlightened minds, then, cannot indeed be separated from man's own will, since he will do nothing rightly except what he does willingly; but that the intention of the mind should tend toward what is just and useful is conceived by the inspiration of that eternal and unchangeable goodness. And as, by the physician's art, in darkened eyes the film is wiped away so that they can see what they do not see, and yet the sight which medicine has conferred is not other than their own, so in slow and dull hearts the covering that has been drawn over their gaze is wiped away by the Holy Spirit, so that lamps now dark and failing receive light from the true light; and yet whatever brightness they have received will be nothing but their own. Hence the Lord says: "I came to cast fire on the earth; and what do I will but that it burn?" And he also commands that our lamps be always burning: that is, that the mind, kindled by fire from above, may not grow lukewarm but strive always to burn; and if any adversity has disturbed its vigour, it may ask to be set on fire from the source from which it began to be inflamed.

Accordingly, since the prophetic, evangelical, and apostolic teaching most clearly wills us to be neither proud nor slothful, we ought to be co-workers with the grace of God, following it watchfully and soberly as it rouses, helps, enriches, and daily advances us, never ceasing from giving thanks; because amid the prosperities and adversities of this life, by which we are always struck with a twofold temptation, if we advance, we are nourished from it; if we stand, we subsist from it; if we fall back, we are restored from it. For the Spirit says through the prophet David: "By the Lord a man's steps will be directed, and he will will his way. When he falls, he will not be dashed, for the Lord puts his hand under him." So it is not in vain that we are commanded to be good, when it is said: "Turn away from evil and do good." But neither is it in vain that the Lord says through Jeremiah: "I will put my fear in their heart, and I will visit them to make them good." Nor was the precept of the apostle Paul to the Romans superfluous, saying, "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good," although he says to the Corinthians, "We pray to God that you do no evil." For in all God's admonitions and commandments there is one and the same principle of divine grace and human obedience; nor is a precept ever given for any other reason than that the help of the one who commands may be sought. For the voices of those who teach and the letters of the pages, which serve God for the instruction of those who hear or read, are not without the power of him whom they serve; and when what is commanded is obediently accomplished, then the effect of the divine work is declared.

But the snares of the tempter keep watch, so that where devotion advances elation may creep in, and a man may glory over a good work in himself rather than in the Lord. But the apostle's concern warns us against this danger, saying: "With fear and trembling work out your salvation. For it is God who works in you both to will and to work, for his good will." The more excellently, then, each advances in God's commandments, the greater causes he has for dread and trembling: lest the mind, conscious to itself of the very increase of its uprightness and greedy for praise, be swept into the excess of pride and become filthy with vanity while it seems to itself bright with virtue. But against this danger let us hear what blessed Peter proclaims in his first letter: "If anyone speaks," he says, "let it be as the words of God; if anyone ministers, as from the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be honoured through Jesus Christ, to whom is glory and dominion for ever." The same in the second letter: "Grace," he says, "be fulfilled for you in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, who by his divine power has now given us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and power; through which he has given us very great and precious promises, so that through these you may become partakers of the divine nature, fleeing the corruption of that lust which is in the world." If, then, God by his divine power has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness, nothing is more to be fled than the appetite of this lust, which denies the power of the divine work out of love for its own dignity; and whereas the other desires diminish only those goods to which they are opposed, this one, while it draws everything to itself, corrupts all at once. So, although the general name of all pride is hateful, whether it swells over one's honour, or nobility, or immoderate wealth, this part of it is found more harmful than all temptations, which seems friendly to the virtues it wishes to destroy. But since all the loftiest things fall more heavily, the prince of pride rejoices that those whom he has been able to lay low by his push have grown to greater heights.

Against this evil the most firm good of humility stands. We have called it true because it is the unconquerable strength of all the virtues and a kind of life of its members. For we distinguish it from those duties which it can have in common even with the wise of the world, and we define its proper character in this, that it is subject to God in all things. Nor can it lose anything of its merits, whose causes and progress it places not in itself but in its author. For it is fitting that the image of God should shine for God, and be beautiful and adorned from him, saying, "The light of your countenance, O Lord, is sealed upon us"; otherwise it is an adulteress, and a stranger to the divine marriage, if it displays in the mirror of its heart the beauty of anyone else, or consents to be adorned with any other jewels than those it has received from the treasures of the bridegroom through the pledge of the Holy Spirit.

But if every Christian soul ought to be fortified with the solidity of this self-restraint, since all have received the sacrament of marriage in whatever order of their calling, how much more must the dignity of your person be armed with the protection of this virtue, to whom, from the most abundant gifts of God's grace, such manifold matter for glorying presents itself. For although you share virginity with the purity of many virgins, yet not easily is one found who can be compared with you in the magnificence of your house and the splendour of a most ancient family. That you may not be proud of these things, nor ascribe to yourself this very fact, that you have set Christ before them: this is true humility, true love, true virginity. For that mind is free from all contamination which, whether in itself or in its neighbour, loves nothing but what it does not doubt to be from God. For to love anything that is not from the work and Spirit of God is not chaste love; and it suffices the tempter to have violated lofty and illustrious souls by this illusion, so that those whom he did not drive to unlawful things he has cast down to elation by pleasing themselves.

Of this love without doubt the apostle was speaking, and he refined its proper character with the most subtle distinctions, saying: "If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels but do not have love, I have become like sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And if I have prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and have all faith so as to move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I distribute all my resources to feed the poor, and hand over my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing." In the form of these definitions we would labour in much obscurity, did not what follows show what kind of love this was, for which alone so many labours of works and so many merits of virtues would not perish. For grant that a manifold skill in speaking, which has reached not only every art of human eloquence but even the faculty of angelic speech, if it lacks love, will be compared to the useless sound of brass and the tinkling of cymbals; grant that one who has prophecy and knowledge, who has faith that commands demons, is nothing because he is empty of love: yet that even he can be a stranger to it who has distributed his resources for feeding the poor, or who has handed over his body to be burned by fire for the confession of Christ, would seem incredible, if blessed Paul did not say it. Yet when he described the members of this same love and taught what this virtue is without which no virtues can profit: "Love," he says, "is patient, is kind; love is not jealous, does not act wrongly, is not puffed up, is not ambitious, does not seek its own things," and the rest.

Being puffed up, then, and ambition, and the proud defence of one's own goods can destroy almsgiving and can empty martyrdoms of their worth: if someone pours out great wealth for love of human praise, and undergoes savage tortures not with the strength God gives but with that which he presumed of himself. For this is to be puffed up with self-confidence; this is to pursue vain glory at any cost; this, finally, is to refuse to have the things that are God's and to place one's merit where divine help has ceased. This pride is more harmful than every sin and more insane than every kind of elation. For from any falls into offences one rises easily when the fallen asks help from his restorer. But nothing comes to the aid of this ruin, because the proud man either hardly recognizes his sin, or, even if he has understood it, does not run to the physician but promises himself a remedy from himself; and a cure never makes progress where the disease is the medicine itself.

But the spirit of true humility and true love shuts out this most corrupt state of this plague; for these virtues are in nothing divided from each other, and the connection of both is so undivided that whoever is attacked in one of them is attacked in both at once. For as humility is part of love, so love is part of humility. And if we recall the things which the apostle defined as fruitless without the good of love, we shall find that they have a like quality if true humility is lacking to them. For what fruit will faith have either with the swelling of knowledge or with human glory, or generosity with boasting, or martyrdom with elation? Hence, since both humility and love tend toward the destruction of pride, let whatever has been discussed about one be taken as said of both.

It remains now, most holy virgin of God, that with sober and chaste judgment you examine the secrets of your holy heart, and, with the sting of all elation blunted, search out and count in yourself what gifts and of what kind your bridegroom has conferred on you; these it was not fitting for me to review, lest I should either weave in too many or run over too few. For even true praise would be burdensome to your modesty, and I would act against my own argument if I urged you, whom I had persuaded to restraint from human glory, toward that same glory by praising you. Enter, then, yourself the hall of your mind, and in the inner chamber of your most pure conscience look around at what ornaments have been stored up for you; and whatever you find there splendid, whatever beautiful and precious, do not doubt that it belongs to the divine work and gift, so that in all the goods of your wealth you may recognize both the grace of the giver and the right of ownership. For you have received what you have; and whatever has increased for you by the diligence of your labour has been increased for you by him through whom it had been begun. So you must use what God has given, and always ask of him that you may use his gifts faithfully and knowingly. For what good can we have without him, since even that we pray rightly is from him, as the apostle says: "For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought; but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with unutterable groanings. And he who searches hearts knows what the Spirit desires, because he intercedes for the saints according to God." And so that there might be no doubt of what spirit he was speaking, he had already said above: "For you did not receive a spirit of slavery again in fear, but you received the spirit of adoption of sons, in which we cry, Abba, Father. So the Spirit himself bears witness to our spirit that we are sons of God. And if sons, also heirs: heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him, so that we may also be glorified with him."

The Holy Spirit, then, fills his instrument, and the finger of God touches the hearts of the saints like the threads of strings. For this reason, when on the day of Pentecost he flowed into the apostles and the people of believers, as the Lord had promised, he appeared in the form of fiery tongues and made those on whom he rested speak in the languages of all nations; so that there might be no doubt that through his inspiration useful affection and reasonable speech are ministered to the minds of the faithful; as the Lord himself intimated to his disciples, saying: "But when they hand you over, do not think how or what you will speak; for it will be given you in that hour what you are to speak; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of the Father who speaks in you." Lest we believe that this happens only in the time of great tribulations and is not granted in peace, let us hear the apostle defining that our very thoughts cannot be right unless they have been implanted in us by God. "Such confidence," he says, "we have through Christ toward God; not that we are sufficient to think anything of ourselves as from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God."

Hence, since for the souls of the saints useful meditation, just petition, and effective action are from God, and from God are firmness in faith, patience in tribulation, and victory in persecution, great is the happiness in true humility, whose love is God, whose wisdom is God, whose counsel is God, whose strength is God. Nor is there doubt that this subjection is already in great part set in the fellowship of that future blessedness, where God will be all in all; which cannot be fully obtained in this life, because our mortal has not yet put on immortality, nor has corruption passed into incorruption; the flesh still lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh; nor is there found in any man such concord that the law implanted in the members does not fight against the law of the mind. For this reason what the apostle John says is taken as in the person of all the saints: "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." Yet the same apostle says: "He who is born of God does not commit sin, for his seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God." Both, then, are true: no one is without sin, in that no one is without the law of sin; and he who is born of God does not commit sin, because through the law of the mind, that is, through love, which is the seed of God, he does not commit sin. For "love covers a multitude of sins"; and without it no good profits, through which every sin is blotted out. While, then, the body which is corrupted weighs down the soul, and the earthly dwelling presses down the mind that ponders many things, it is not indeed yet obtained that God be all in all, because no one is without the goad of temptation and the uncertainty of changeableness; but since "every best gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights," without doubt the portion of all virtues is had from the place from which their fullness will be had; and each is the more blessed, and the more joined to God, the more there is in him of divine grace than of human action. So bless the Lord at all times, and let his praise be always in your mouth; and let your soul be content to be praised in nothing but the Lord. The proud indeed will oppose, but the meek will hear these things and rejoice.