CAPÍTULO 10. En que trata cómo los apetitos entibian y enflaquecen al alma en la virtud.
The Weakening Power of Divided Appetites
Unrestrained appetites dissipate the soul's spiritual energy, leaving it unable to grow in virtue, much like water poured out on the ground.
1. The fifth way appetites harm the soul is that they cool and weaken it, so it doesn't have the strength to pursue virtue and persevere in it. The very fact that the force of appetite is divided leaves it weaker than if it were focused on one single thing; the more things it is spread among, the less there is for each—which is why philosophers say that virtue united is stronger than the same virtue when it is scattered. Therefore, it's clear that if the will's appetite spills out into anything other than virtue, it must end up weaker for virtue. So, the soul whose will is divided among trifles is like water that, having a place to spill downward, doesn't rise upward, and is therefore useless. Which is why the patriarch Jacob (Gen. 49:4) compared his son Reuben to water poured out, because in a certain sin he had given free rein to his appetites, saying: You are poured out like water; do not grow—as if to say: Because you are poured out according to the appetites like water, you will not grow in virtue. Just as hot water, left uncovered, easily loses its heat, and just as aromatic spices, once unwrapped, keep losing the fragrance and strength of their scent, so the soul not gathered into one single appetite for God loses its strength and vigor in virtue. Understanding this well, David (Ps. Fortitudinem meam ad te custodiam—I will keep my strength for you; that is, I will gather the force of my appetites toward you alone.1
The Parasitic Nature of Unmortified Desires
Appetites act as parasitic shoots on a tree or leeches on the body, constantly draining the soul of the life-giving grace needed for spiritual growth.
2. Appetites weaken the soul's virtue, because they act like shoots springing up around a tree, drawing off its strength so it doesn't bear as much fruit.2 The Lord says of such souls (Mt. 24:19): Vae praegnantibus et nutrientibus in illis diebus!✦3 That is: Woe to those who are pregnant in those days, and to those who are nursing!✦ By this pregnancy and nursing, He refers to the appetites; if they aren't cut short, they will keep draining more and more virtue from the soul and grow to its harm, just like the shoots on a tree. For this reason our Lord, saying (Lk. Keep your loins girded—which here refers to the appetites.✦4 For in fact they are also like leeches, which are always sucking the blood from the veins, because that is how Ecclesiasticus (Prv.✦ 30:15) names them, saying: Leeches are the daughters—that is, the appetites; they always say: Give, give.✦5
The Fatal Cost of Neglected Mortification
If left unmortified, appetites eventually consume the soul's spiritual life, resulting in dryness, lethargy, and a profound inability to pursue God.
3. It's clear from this that appetites offer the soul no good at all; instead, they strip away the good it already possesses. If the soul doesn't mortify them, they won't stop until they do to her what is said of a viper's offspring: as they grow in the womb, they consume their mother and kill her, surviving at her expense.6 In this way unmortified appetites go so far that they kill the soul in God, because she did not first kill them; that is why Ecclesiasticus says: "Take from me, Lord, the cravings of the belly, and do not let the lusts of desire seize me" (23:6)—and the only life left in her is theirs.7 4. But even if they don't go that far, it's a great pity to consider what the appetites living in her do to the poor soul—how wretched she is toward herself, how dry toward her neighbors, and how heavy and lazy toward the things of God. For there is no bad humor that makes a sick person so heavy and hard put to walk, or so sick of eating, as the appetite for creatures makes the soul heavy and sad about following virtue.8 Consequently, the reason many souls lack the diligence or desire to gain virtue is usually that they have appetites and attachments that are not pure in God.
Read the original Latin
1. Lo quinto en que dañan los apetitos al alma es que la entibian y enflaquecen para que no tenga fuerza para seguir la virtud y perseverar en ella. Porque, por el mismo caso que la fuerza del apetito se reparte, queda menos fuerte que si estuviera entero en una cosa sola; y cuanto en más cosas se reparte, menos es para cada una de ellas, que, por eso, dicen los filósofos que la virtud unida es más fuerte que ella misma si se derrama. Y, por tanto, está claro que, si el apetito de la voluntad se derrama en otra cosa fuera de la virtud, ha de quedar mas flaco para la virtud. Y así, el alma que tiene la voluntad repartida en menudencias es como el agua que, teniendo por donde se derramar hacia abajo, no crece para arriba, y así no es de provecho. Que por eso el patriarca Jacob (Gn. 49, 4) comparó a su hijo Ruben al agua derramada, porque en cierto pecado había dado rienda a sus apetitos, diciendo: Derramado estás como el agua; no crezcas; como si dijera: Porque estás derramado según los apetitos como el agua, no crecerás en virtud. Y así como el agua caliente, no estando cubierta, fácilmente pierde el calor, y como las especies aromáticas, desenvueltas, van perdiendo la fragancia y fuerza de su olor, así el alma no recogida en un solo apetito de Dios, pierde el valor y vigor en la virtud.
Lo cual entendiendo bien David (Sal. 58, 10), dijo hablando con Dios: Fortitudinem meam ad te custodiam: Yo guardare mi fortaleza para ti, esto es, recogiendo la fuerza de mis apetitos sólo a ti.
2. Y enflaquecen la virtud del alma los apetitos, porque son en ella como los renuevos que nacen en rededor del árbol y le llevan la virtud para que el no lleve tanto fruto. Y de estas tales almas dice el Señor (Mt. 24, 19): Vae praegnantibus et nutrientibus in illis diebus! , esto es: ¡Ay de los que en aquellos días estuvieren preñados y de los que criaren! La cual preñez y cría entiende por la de los apetitos, los cuales, si no se atajan, siempre irán quitando más virtud al alma y crecerán para mal del alma, como los renuevos en el árbol. Por lo cual nuestro Señor diciendo (Lc. 12, 35) nos aconseja: Tened ceñidos vuestros lomos, que significan aquí los apetitos.
Porque, en efecto, ellos son tambien como las sanguijuelas, que siempre están chupando la sangre de las venas, porque así las llama el Eclesiástico (Pv. 30, 15), diciendo: Sanguijuelas son las hijas, esto es, los apetitos; siempre dicen: Daca, daca.
3. De donde está claro que los apetitos no ponen al alma bien ninguno, sino quítanle el que tiene. Y, si no los mortificare, no pararán hasta hacer en ella lo que dicen que hacen a su madre los hijos de la víbora, que, cuando van creciendo en el vientre, comen a su madre y mátanla, quedando ellos vivos a costa de su madre. Así los apetitos no mortificados llegan a tanto, que matan al alma en Dios, porque ella primero no los mató; por eso dice el Eclesiástico: Aufer a me, Domine, ventris concupiscentias, et concubitus concupiscentiae ne apprehendant me (23, 6), y sólo lo que en ella vive son ellos.
4. Pero, aunque no lleguen a esto, es gran lástima considerar cuál tienen a la pobre alma los apetitos que viven en ella, cuán desgraciada para consigo misma, cuán seca para los prójimos y cuán pesada y perezosa para las cosas de Dios. Porque no hay mal humor que tan pesado y dificultoso ponga a un enfermo para caminar, o hastío para comer, cuanto el apetito de criatura hace al alma pesada y triste para seguir la virtud. Y así, ordinariamente, la causa por que muchas almas no tienen diligencia y gana de cobrar virtud es porque tienen apetitos y aficiones no puras en Dios.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Matt.24.19;Mark.13.17;Luke.21.23 — But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing in those days. Mark.13.17 — But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing in those days. Luke.21.23 — But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing infants in those days; for there will be great distress upon the land and wrath against this people.
- ↩Matt.24.19 — But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing in those days.
- ↩Luke.12.35 — Let your loins be girded and your lamps burning,
- ↩Prov.30.15 — The leech has two daughters: 'Give! Give!' Three things are never satisfied; four never say, 'Enough!'
- ↩Prov.30.15 — The leech has two daughters: 'Give! Give!' Three things are never satisfied; four never say, 'Enough!'
Notes
- 1 ↩Spanish recogiendo here names the interior gathering of appetitive force (allied to San Juan’s recogimiento), not mere mental concentration.
- 2 ↩Spanish virtud is used twice: of the soul (moral/spiritual virtue) and of the tree (life-force/strength). Rendered as 'virtue' then 'strength' to keep the metaphor clear in English.
- 3 ↩Latin Gospel quotation retained as given in the source; Spanish paraphrase follows in the next sentence.
- 4 ↩Biblical 'gird your loins' retained for scriptural recognition; San Juan glosses lomos as the appetites that must be restrained.
- 5 ↩Spanish Daca, daca is archaic colloquial for 'give (here), give (here)'; rendered as Give, give to match the proverb's cry of insatiable demand.
- 6 ↩Spanish mortificare is subjunctive with an implied subject (the soul from the previous sentence): if she does not put the appetites to death by mortification.
- 7 ↩"Matan al alma en Dios" is kept as "kill the soul in God": the appetites destroy the soul's life in God / of grace, not the soul's bare existence. The closing clause means that only the appetites remain alive in her.
- 8 ↩Spanish *mal humor* is used in the older medical sense (an ill bodily humor/temperament that weighs a patient down), not modern "bad mood."
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