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Chapter 8SubidaCarmelo.1.8

CAPÍTULO 8. En que se trata cómo los apetitos oscurecen y ciegan al alma.

The Blinding Nature of Appetite

The soul's appetites act as a veil, obscuring the light of reason and divine wisdom, leaving the soul in a state of spiritual blindness.

1. The third thing that appetites do to the soul is to blind and darken it. Just as vapors darken the air and keep the sun from shining through it clearly; as a mirror covered with a cloth cannot calmly receive a face into itself; or as in water thick with mud, the face of whoever looks into it cannot be made out well — so the soul that is taken over by the appetites is darkened as to the understanding, and leaves no room for either the sun of natural reason or that of God's supernatural Wisdom to strike it and light it up clearly.12 And so David says (Ps. 39:13), speaking to this point: Comprehenderunt me iniquitates meae, et non potui, ut viderem—which means: My evils took hold of me, and I was unable to see.3 2. Along with this darkening of the understanding, the soul also becomes dulled in its will, while its memory grows coarse and disordered in its proper function. Since these faculties depend on the understanding for their operations, it’s clear that once the understanding is blocked, they too must become disordered and disturbed. As David says (Ps. 6:4): Anima mea turbata est valde—that is: My soul is greatly disturbed; which is to say that its powers are disordered.4 For, as we have said, the understanding lacks the capacity to receive the illumination of God's wisdom—just as dark air cannot receive the light of the sun—nor does the will have the ability to embrace God in pure love—any more than a mirror clouded with steam can clearly reflect the face before it—and the memory, clouded by the darkness of appetite, is even less able to receive the image of God with serenity—just as muddy water cannot clearly show the face of the one looking into it. 3. Appetite blinds and darkens the soul, because appetite, as appetite, is blind; because of itself it has no understanding in it, for reason is always its blind man's guide.5 It follows that whenever the soul is guided by its appetite, it becomes blinded, because the one who can see is being led by the one who cannot, which is the same as both being blind. This leads to what our Lord says in Matthew 15:14: 'If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.' Eyes do little good for the moth, since its appetite for the beauty of the light carries it, dazzled, into the fire. We can say that anyone who feeds on appetite is like a dazzled fish, for whom the light acts as darkness, preventing it from seeing the harm the fishermen are preparing.6 David makes this very clear in Psalm 58:8 (57:9), saying of such people: 'Fire has fallen upon them, and they have not seen the sun,' meaning the fire that warms with its heat and dazzles with its light.7 And that is what appetite does in the soul: it kindles concupiscence and dazzles the understanding so that it cannot see its light. For the cause of this dazzling is that, as it places another, different light before the sight, the power of vision is blinded by the light that stands in the way and does not see the other; and since appetite sets itself so close to the soul that it is in the soul itself, the soul stumbles into this first light and feeds on it, and so appetite will not let the soul see its light of clear understanding—nor will the soul see that light until the dazzling of appetite is taken out of the way.8

The Necessity of Mortification

External penances are insufficient for spiritual progress if the root appetites remain unmortified, as these appetites act like cataracts blocking the soul's vision.

4. So it's enough to make one weep over the ignorance of some who load themselves with extraordinary penances and many other voluntary exercises, and think that this and that will be enough to bring them to union with divine Wisdom, though they do not carefully set about denying their appetites. If these same people took care to put half that effort into denying their appetites, they would gain more in one month than they do from all their other exercises over many years.9 For just as the land needs working if it is to bear fruit, and without work it bears none—only weeds—so the mortification of the appetites is necessary if there is to be any profit in the soul; without which I dare say that, for going forward in perfection and in knowledge of God and of oneself, whatever one does never profits more than seed cast on unbroken ground.10 Consequently, the darkness and coarseness of the soul remain until the appetites are extinguished.11 For they are like cataracts or motes in the eye, which block your sight until they are removed. 5. And so, when David saw (Ps.✦ 57:10) how it stood with these, and how much they keep souls from the clarity of the truth, and how angry God is with them, he speaks to them, saying: Priusquam intelligerent spinae vestrae rhamnum: sicut viventes, sic in ira absorbet eos; and it is as if he said: Before your thorns—that is, your appetites—could understand, just as with the living, in this way God will swallow them up in his anger.1213 For as for the appetites still living in the soul, before they can understand God, God will swallow them up in this life or the next with punishment and correction, which will come through purgation.✦14 He says he will swallow them up in anger because what is suffered in the mortification of the appetites is punishment for the damage they have done in the soul.

The Warning of Solomon

The example of Solomon serves as a cautionary tale of how even great wisdom can be extinguished when one fails to deny the desires of the heart.

6. Oh, if only people knew how much good of divine light this blindness robs them of—the blindness their attachments and appetites cause them—and into how many evils and harms these make them keep falling every day as long as they don't mortify them! For you can't rely on a sound understanding, or on gifts received from God, and suppose that if attachment or appetite remains, it will stop blinding and darkening and making one fall little by little into worse. Who would have thought that a man as wise and gifted by God as Solomon would fall into such blindness and dullness of will that, even in his old age, he would build altars to so many idols and worship them himself?15 (1 Kings16 11:4). And for this alone, the attachment he had to women was enough, along with not taking care to deny the appetites and delights of his heart. He says himself in Ecclesiastes (2:10) that he did not deny his heart anything it asked of him. Giving himself over to his appetites had such power that, although he was restrained at first, because he didn't deny them, they gradually blinded and darkened his understanding until they finally extinguished the great light of wisdom God had given him—so that in his old age, he abandoned God.✦

Groping in the Midday Darkness

Without the discipline of mortification, the soul remains in a state of moral confusion, unable to distinguish good from evil even in the light of truth.

7. And if they could do so much in this man—who had so much knowledge of how far good is from evil—what won't unmortified appetites be able to do against our dullness? For, as God said to the prophet Jonah (4:11) about the Ninevites, we don't know what lies between the left hand and the right, because at every step we take the bad for good and the good for bad—and this we have from our own stock.17 So what will it be if appetite is added to natural darkness? As Isaiah says (59:10): We have groped along the wall like the blind, feeling our way as if we had no eyes; we have stumbled at midday as if we were in the dark. The prophet is speaking of those who love to follow their own appetites, as if to say: We felt along the wall like blind people, groping as if we had no eyes, and our blindness was so severe that even at midday we stumbled as if we were in the dark.✦ This is how it is for someone blinded by appetite: even when surrounded by the truth and what is good for them, they see no more of it than if they were in the dark.

Read the original Latin

1. Lo tercero que hacen en el alma los apetitos es que la ciegan y oscurecen. Así como los vapores oscurecen el aire y no le dejan lucir el sol claro; como el espejo tomado del paño no puede recibir serenamente en sí el rostro; o como (en) el agua envuelta en cieno, no se divisa bien la cara del que en ella se mira; así, el alma que de los apetitos está tomada, según el entendimiento está entenebrecida, y no da lugar para que ni el sol de la razón natural ni el de la Sabiduría de Dios sobrenatural la embistan e ilustren de claro. Y así dice David (Sal. 39,13), hablando a este propósito: Comprehenderunt me iniquitates meae, et non potui, ut viderem, que quiere decir: Mis maldades me comprehendieron, y no pude tener poder para ver.

2. Y en eso mismo que se oscurece según el entendimiento, se entorpece tambien según la voluntad, y según la memoria se enrudece y desordena en su debida operación. Porque, como estas potencias, según sus operaciones, dependen del entendimiento, estando el impedido, claro está lo han ellas de estar desordenadas y turbadas. Y así dice David (Sal. 6, 4): Anima mea turbata est valde, esto es: Mi ánima está muy turbada; que es tanto como decir: desordenada en sus potencias. Porque, como decimos, ni el entendimiento tiene capacidad para recibir la ilustración de la sabiduría de Dios, como tampoco la tiene el aire tenebroso para recibir la del sol, ni la voluntad tiene habilidad para abrazar en sí a Dios en puro amor, como tampoco la tiene el espejo que está tomado de vaho para representar claro en sí el rostro presente, y menos la tiene la memoria que está ofuscada con las tinieblas del apetito para informarse con serenidad de la imagen de Dios, como tampoco el agua turbia puede mostrar claro el rostro del que se mira.

3. Ciega y oscurece el apetito al alma, porque el apetito en cuanto apetito, ciego es; porque, de suyo, ningún entendimiento tiene en sí, porque la razón es siempre su mozo de ciego. Y de aquí es que todas las veces que el alma se guía por su apetito, se ciega, pues es guiarse el que ve por el que no ve, lo cual es como ser entrambos ciegos. Y lo que de ahí se sigue es lo que dice Nuestro Señor por san Mateo (15, 14): Si caecus caeco ducatum praestet, ambo in foveam cadunt; si el ciego guía al ciego, entrambos caerán en la hoya. Poco le sirven los ojos a la mariposilla, pues que el apetito de la hermosura de la luz la lleva encandilada a la hoguera. Y así podemos decir que el que se ceba de apetito es como el pez encandilado, al cual aquella luz antes le sirve de tinieblas para que no vea los daños que los pescadores le aparejan. Lo cual da muy bien a entender el mismo David (Sal. 57, 9), diciendo de los semejantes: Supercecidit ignis, et non viderunt solem; que quiere decir: Sobrevínoles el fuego que calienta con su calor y encandila con su luz.

Y eso hace el apetito en el alma, que enciende la concupiscencia y encandila al entendimiento de manera que no pueda ver su luz. Porque la causa del encandilamiento es que, como pone otra luz diferente delante de la vista, ciegase la potencia visiva en aquella que está entrepuesta y no ve la otra; y como el apetito se le pone al alma tan cerca, que está en la misma alma, tropieza en esta luz primera y cebase en ella, y así no la deja ver su luz de claro entendimiento, ni la verá hasta que se quite de en medio el encandilamiento del apetito.

4. Por lo cual es harto de llorar la ignorancia de algunos, que se cargan de extraordinarias penitencias y de otros muchos voluntarios ejercicios, y piensan que les bastará eso y esotro para venir a la unión de la Sabiduría divina, si con diligencia ellos no procuran negar sus apetitos. Los cuales, si tuviesen cuidado de poner la mitad de aquel trabajo en esto, aprovecharían más en un mes que por todos los demás ejercicios en muchos años. Porque, así como es necesaria a la tierra la labor para que lleve fruto, y sin labor no le lleva, sino malas hierbas, así es necesaria la mortificación de los apetitos para que haya provecho en el alma; (sin) la cual oso decir que, para ir adelante en perfección y noticia de Dios y de sí mismo, nunca le aprovecha más cuanto hiciere que aprovecha la simiente echada en la tierra no rompida. Y así, no quitan la tiniebla y rudeza del alma hasta que los apetitos se apaguen. Porque son como las cataratas o como las motas en el ojo, que impiden la vista hasta que se echan fuera.

5. Y así, echando de ver David (Sal. 57, 10) la de estos, y cuán impedidas tienen las almas de la claridad de la verdad, y cuánto Dios se enoja con ellos, habla con ellos diciendo: Priusquam intelligerent spinae vestrae rhamnum: sicut viventes, sic in ira absorbet eos, y es como si dijera: Antes que entendiesen vuestras espinas, esto es, vuestros apetitos, así como a los vivientes, de esta manera los absorberá en su ira Dios. Porque a los apetitos vivientes en el alma, antes que ellos puedan entender a Dios, los absorberá Dios en esta vida o en la otra con castigo y corrección, que será por la purgación. Y dice que los absorberá en ira, porque lo que se padece en la mortificación de los apetitos es castigo del estrago que en el alma han hecho.

6. ¡Oh si supiesen los hombres de cuánto bien de luz divina los priva esta ceguera que les causan sus aficiones y apetitos, y en cuántos males y daños les hacen ir cayendo cada día en tanto que no los mortifican! Porque no hay fiarse de buen entendimiento, ni dones que tengan recibidos de Dios, para pensar que, si hay afición o apetito, dejará de cegar y oscurecer y hacer caer poco a poco en peor. Porque ¿quien dijera que un varón tan acabado en sabiduría y dones de Dios como era Salomón, había de venir a tanta ceguera y torpeza de voluntad, que hiciese altares a tantos ídolos y los adorase el mismo, siendo ya viejo? (3 Re. 11, 4). Y sólo para esto bastó la afición que tenía a las mujeres y no tener el cuidado de negar los apetitos y deleites de su corazón. Porque el mismo dice de sí en el Eclesiastes (2, 10) que no negó a su corazón lo que le pidió.

Y pudo tanto este arrojarse a sus apetitos, que, aunque es verdad que al principio tenía recato, pero, porque no los negó, poco a poco le fueron cegando y oscureciendo el entendimiento, de manera que le vinieron a acabar de apagar aquella gran luz de sabiduría que Dios le había dado, de manera que a la vejez dejó a Dios.

7. Y si en este pudieron tanto, que tenía tanta noticia de la distancia que hay entre el bien y el mal, ¿que no podrán contra nuestra rudeza los apetitos no mortificados? Pues, como dijo Dios al profeta Jonás (4, 11) de los ninivitas, no sabemos lo que hay entre la siniestra y la diestra, porque a cada paso tenemos lo malo por bueno, y lo bueno por malo, y esto de nuestra cosecha lo tenemos. Pues, ¿que será si se añade apetito a natural tiniebla? sino que como dice Isaías (59, 10): Palpavimus sicut caeci parietem, et quasi absque oculis, attrectavimus: impegimus meridie, quasi in tenebris. Habla el profeta con los que aman seguir estos sus apetitos, y es como si dijera: Habemos palpado la pared, como si fueramos ciegos, y anduvimos atentando como sin ojos, y llegó a tanto nuestra ceguera, que en el mediodía atollamos, como si fuera en las tinieblas. Porque esto tiene el que está ciego del apetito, que, puesto en medio de la verdad y de lo que le conviene, no lo echa más de ver que si estuviera en tinieblas.

Scripture echoes

  1. ↩Ps.57.10 — I will give thanks to you among the peoples, O Lord; I will sing praise to you among the nations.
  2. ↩Ps.57.10 — I will give thanks to you among the peoples, O Lord; I will sing praise to you among the nations.
  3. ↩1Kgs.11.4;Eccl.2.10 — And it came about, in the time of Solomon's old age, that his wives turned his heart after other gods; and his heart was not wholly devoted to the LORD his God, as was the heart of David his father. Eccl.2.10 — And whatever my eyes desired, I did not withhold from them; I did not restrain my heart from any pleasure, for my heart rejoiced in all my toil, and this was my portion from all my toil.
  4. ↩Isa.59.10 — We grope along the wall like the blind; we grope as though we had no eyes. We stumble at midday as in twilight; among the strong, we are like the dead.

Notes

  1. 1 ↩"tomado del paño" rendered as "covered with a cloth" (clouded/obscured by a cloth), parallel to the later "tomado de vaho" image for a fogged mirror.
  2. 2 ↩"embistan e ilustren de claro": "embistan" (from embestir) kept as strike/assail upon the soul with light, not merely "reach"; "ilustren de claro" as illuminate clearly / light up clearly.
  3. 3 ↩Spanish gloss keeps "comprehendieron" / Latin "Comprehenderunt"; rendered as "took hold of" (seized/encompassed), not modern English "understood".
  4. 4 ↩John equates 'turbata' (disturbed/troubled) with 'desordenada en sus potencias' (disordered in its powers); the second clause is his interpretive expansion, not a separate biblical phrase.
  5. 5 ↩Spanish 'mozo de ciego' is the attendant who leads a blind person. Rendered as 'blind man's guide': appetite has no understanding of its own and always depends on reason as that guide.
  6. 6 ↩'se ceba de apetito' can mean feeds on / fattens itself on appetite; 'encandilado' is dazzled by glare (as in torch-fishing). 'antes le sirve de tinieblas' rendered as 'serves rather as darkness' (paradox: the alluring light darkens judgment).
  7. 7 ↩Juan's Spanish gloss expands 'Supercecidit ignis' with heat and dazzling light, and does not separately gloss 'et non viderunt solem' in this sentence; English follows his gloss as given.
  8. 8 ↩Spanish ciegase / cebase are older orthography for ciégase / cébase (is blinded / feeds on). Encandilamiento continues the chapter's image of a glare that blinds rather than mere dimness.
  9. 9 ↩esto points back to denying the appetites (s2), not to the penances and voluntary exercises themselves.
  10. 10 ↩Source has parenthetical “(sin) la cual”; translated as “without which,” taking sin as the intended reading modifying la cual (mortification of the appetites).
  11. 11 ↩Subject of quitan is contextually the penances and voluntary exercises (or those who practice them without mortifying appetites); rudeza rendered as coarseness (dull roughness of soul), not mere rudeness of manners.
  12. 12 ↩“la de estos” is elliptical in the Spanish; rendered as “how it stood with these,” pointing back to the appetites (compared to cataracts/motes) in the previous section.
  13. 13 ↩Latin psalm lemma kept as quoted; the author’s own Spanish gloss is rendered in modern English immediately after.
  14. 14 ↩“ellos” is grammatically open between the living appetites and those who bear them; the rendering keeps the psalm-gloss parallel (thorns/appetites as what must be absorbed before understanding of God).
  15. 15 ↩acabado en sabiduría: rendered "finished in wisdom" in the sense of complete/perfected, not merely ended.
  16. 16 ↩Spanish 3 Re. = 3 Kings (Vulgate numbering); modern Protestant Bibles usually list this as 1 Kings.
  17. 17 ↩"de nuestra cosecha" ("from our own harvest/stock") means this confusion is native to us, not merely accidental.

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