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Chapter 13OdoC.2.13

Caput XII

The Savage Beast Within

Even after redemption, the lust described by Jacob as a savage beast still rages within us, yet Christ can command the swelling waves of carnal thought to cease.

It is clear, moreover, that even now, after the grace of redemption, that saying still holds by which it is declared that all flesh is prone to evil (Levit.✦ XVII, 14). For although the Son of the Virgin appeared to destroy the works of the devil, and to cut off from his beloved ones the lust that the patriarch Jacob, mourning his son, calls a most savage beast — nevertheless that same beast still rages and roars in the forests of our thoughts, so that you would scarcely find anyone who escapes safe from the shipwreck of shame.✦ But when the Son of the Virgin himself looks upon the ground of our heart and makes it tremble, and says to the wave of carnal thoughts as if to the sea: 'This far you will proceed, and here you will break your swelling waves' (Job 38:11) — then whoever has deserved to be enlightened repents, and trembles with anxious dread at the eternal hell that he compares to the torment of pleasure.✦

The Hypocrisy of Community Judgment

Those who flee the crowd of vices for spiritual safety are condemned as deserters, yet the same community honors those who depart for worldly advantage, revealing that bodily presence is valued over the soul's true absence from God through sin.

But if he has considered that the Apostle commands us to flee fornication, and that Jesus cannot be found in the crowd by the one he had healed, and that when about to heal another he took that person aside from the crowd — and that on this account he has wished to flee, as if with Lot from Sodom, from the crowd of vices and their worst accomplices, and to withdraw to some other place where the sinner's freedom might perhaps be somewhat restrained — at once all of them, like the devil's own henchmen, object; they call him a deserter of his post. Yet if he has wished to depart anywhere for the sake of obtaining some temporal honor, they all favor him, and they offer encouragement and even the support of gifts; and they consider him not a deserter but a provider for his own humility.✦✦ And surely the place of the faithful is paradise, or any other place where the road by which one returns to paradise can be held more safely. This is the place we desert as often as we sin. No one complains about that desertion; but this one is objected to, because while bodily presence in that place is loved, no one cares at all how much the soul is absent from the eyes of heaven by sinning.

Egyptians, Pharisees, and the Call to Charity

Just as the Egyptians once hindered Israel from serving God, so too do worldly figures block the path of those seeking the Lord; yet Scripture calls the faithful to run with bread to the thirsty and to flee obstruction wisely, preserving Christ as their head.

And it is no wonder if the Egyptians hinder the sons of Israel from serving God. Now surely, after the common Lord — who is served everywhere in every way — rebuked the Pharisees because they themselves neither enter in nor allow others to enter, those men, checked by this rebuke, ought at the very least to have restrained their own objections and either imitated the Egyptians, who, shaken by the terror of divine fear, not only let Israel go but even provided them with ornaments.✦✦1 And indeed these discouragers are accustomed to do the same thing — but only to those who depart for some temporal advantage, whom, as was said above, they consider not deserters but providers for their own salvation. For it is written: You who dwell in the south, run to meet the one who thirsts with bread (Isa.✦ 21, 14). And as if it were said: You who burn with the ardor of love, offer your help to the one who strives to seek the Lord, the living fountain.✦2 But if Jacob, desiring to return to his father, discovers the obstinacy of Laban, who is trying to block his return, it is necessary that — secretly fleeing this, or by human counsel being frustrated — he get away. For this is to be wise as the serpent, which especially subjects its head to the wound: if you withdraw yourself to that place where you can preserve the head, which is Christ.✦✦3

Guarding the Faith of One's Calling

One must guard against the claims of household and relatives, follow the Apostle's example of total detachment, seek the place where the Lord's precepts can be most fully kept, and never be discouraged from rising again after a fall.

Beware of your own household members, he says (Sir. 32:26). So if they say, 'You owe it to your brothers or your relatives,' you will answer, 'It is good to visit orphans' — but in such a way that you keep yourself unspotted by this world. And the Apostle, ordered to follow Jesus, was not even allowed to bury his father.✦ In the seventh book of the Conferences, the hermit Joseph explains clearly that a person more rightly keeps the faith of his calling who has betaken himself to that place where he can more fully carry out the precepts of the faith of the Lord. And really, what would it be like if someone were discouraged from shipwreck — told not to grab a plank, or if he is cut off from the branch that he happened to have grasped with his hand while emerging from a whirlpool, or at least if he persuaded the one who has fallen that, since he has already collapsed there, he should just lie there from then on — when the Psalmist says, 'Will not the one who falls add this: that he should rise again?'✦ (Psalm✦ 40:9.)✦

Rising from the Place of the Soul's Fall

We should abhor the place where the soul collapses and strive stubbornly to rise again, and let no one call deserters those who leave a place of freedom to sin in order to serve God in safety.

And would that we might at least come, with such dread, to abhor the place where the soul collapses, and that we might strive so stubbornly to rise again from its fall — clearly so that we would avoid that other place where we slip and fall in the body. Let this be said against those who call them deserters — those who abandon the place where there is freedom to sin, and then, now safe, desire to serve God.

Read the original Latin

Constat autem etiam nunc post redemptionis gratiam illa sententia, qua dicitur, quia omnis caro prona est ad malum (Levit. XVII, 14). Licet enim filius virginis ad hoc apparuerit, ut opera diaboli destrueret, et libidinem, quam patriarcha Jacob, filium plangens, feram pessimam vocat, a suis dilectoribus truncaverit: adeo tamen adhuc in silvis nostrarum cogitationum eadem bestia saevit et fremit, ut vix reperias qui naufragium pudoris tutus evadat. At vero cum ipse filius virginis respicit terram cordis nostri, et facit eam tremere, et dicit fluctui cogitationum carnalium tanquam mari: Huc usque procedes, et hic confringes tumentes fluctus tuos (Job XXXVIII, 11): resipiscit quisquis illuminari meruerit, et aeternam gehennam, quam in agonio voluptatis comparat, sollicite contremiscit. Sed si consideraverit quod Apostolus fornicationem jubet fugere, et quod Jesus ab eo, quem sanaverat, non possit in turba reperiri, et quod sanaturus alium de turba seorsum hunc apprehenderit, et ob hoc a turba vitiorum et pessimis complicibus, tanquam a Sodoma cum Loth profugere voluerit, et aliorsum, quo forte peccanti libertas aliquatenus refrenetur, secedere voluerit: mox omnes quasi diaboli satellites contradicunt, loci sui desertorem appellant, cum tamen si pro temporali honore quolibet adipiscendo quovis discedere voluerit, favent omnes, et adhortationem, vel etiam munerum adminicula praebent; et non desertorem, sed suae humilitati provisorem censent. Et certe locus fidelium paradisus est, vel quilibet alius, quo tutius via, qua ad paradisum reditur, teneri potest. Quem locum toties deserimus, quoties peccamus. De illa desertione nemo queritur; ista vero ob id opponitur, quia dum praesentia corporalis in illo tali diligitur, quantum ejus anima peccando supernis oculis absentetur, omnino non curatur.

Nec mirum si Aegyptii filios Israel ne Deo servire possint impediunt. Sane postquam communis Dominus, cui prorsus ubique servitur, Pharisaeos redarguit, eo quod nec ipsi intrent, nec alios intrare sinant: saltem hac increpatione coerciti suas contradictiones debuerant isti refrenare, et vel Aegyptios imitari, qui divinae formidinis pavore concussi, non solum dimiserunt Israel, sed etiam ornamenta praestiterunt. Quod quidem et isti dehortatores facere solent, illis duntaxat qui pro aliquo temporali commodo discedunt, quos, ut supra dictum est, non desertores putant, sed suae salutis provisores. Scriptum quippe est: Vos qui in Austro habitatis occurrite sitienti cum panibus (Isa. XXI, 14). Ac si diceretur, eos qui charitatis ardore fervetis, ei, qui Dominum fontem vivum quaerere nititur, adjutorium praebete. Verum si Jacob ad patrem redire cupiens obstinationem Laban reditum ejus impedire molientis deprehendit, oportet ut hanc clanculo fugiens, vel humano consilio frustretur. Hoc est enim prudentem esse sicut serpentem, qui vulneri caput maxime subjicit; si te eo subducas, ubi caput, quod Christus est, conservare possis.

A domesticis tuis, inquit, cave (Eccli. XXXII, 26). Si ergo dixerint: Necessarius es confratribus vel propinquis tuis: respondebis: Bonum est visitare pupillos, ita tamen ut immaculatum te custodias ab hoc saeculo. Et Apostolus Jesum sequi jussus, nec patrem sepeliri permittitur quidem. In libro septimo Collationum Joseph eremita sufficienter edisserit quod ille fidem suae professionis rectius servat, qui se ad eum locum contulerit, quo Dominicae fidei praecepta plenius adimplere potuerit. Et revera quale esset, si quis naufragium dehortaretur, ne vel tabulam arriperet, vel si ramum truncaverit, quem forte manu de gurgite emergens apprehenderit, vel certe si ei qui ceciderit suadeat, ut postquam semel corruit, ibi deinceps jaceat, cum Psalmista dicat: Nunquid qui cadit, non adjiciet, ut resurgat? (Psal. XL, 9.)

Et utinam saltem tali horrore locum ubi anima corruit exsecraremur, tamque pertinaciter ab ejus lapsu resurgere conaremur, ut videlicet illum vitaremus ubi corpore labimur. Hoc contra eos dictum sit, qui desertores appellant illos, qui locum, ubi peccandi libertas est, derelinquentes, tuti Deo famulari desiderant.

Scripture echoes

  1. ↩Lev.17.14 — For the life of all flesh — its blood is its life. Therefore I said to the people of Israel, 'You shall not eat the blood of any flesh, for the life of all flesh is its blood. Whoever eats it shall be cut off.'
  2. ↩Gen.37.33 — And he recognized it and said, "It is my son's tunic. A vicious animal has devoured him. Joseph has surely been torn to pieces."
  3. ↩Job.38.11 — And I said, 'Thus far you shall come, and no farther; here your proud waves will be stayed.'
  4. ↩1Cor.6.18 — Flee sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.
  5. ↩Mark.5.30-Mark.5.34;Mark.8.23-Mark.8.25 — And immediately Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him, turned around in the crowd and said, "Who touched my garments?" Mark.5.31 — And his disciples said to him, "You see the crowd pressing in on you, and you say, 'Who touched me?'" Mark.5.32 — And he looked around to see the one who had done this. Mark.5.33 — But the woman, having feared and trembling, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell before him and told him the whole truth. Mark.5.34 — And he said to her, "Daughter, your faith has saved you; go in peace and be healed of your affliction." Mark.8.23 — And taking hold of the hand of the blind man, he led him outside the village. And spitting on his eyes, laying his hands on him, he asked him, 'Do you see anything?' Mark.8.24 — And looking up, he said, 'I see people, but I see them walking around like trees.' Mark.8.25 — Then he laid his hands on his eyes again, and he looked intently and was restored, and he saw everything clearly.
  6. ↩Luke.11.52 — Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You yourselves did not enter, and you hindered those who were entering.
  7. ↩Exod.12.35-Exod.12.36 — And the people of Israel had done as Moses had asked, and they asked the Egyptians for silver vessels, and gold vessels, and clothing. Exod.12.36 — And the LORD gave the people favor in the eyes of the Egyptians, and they let them ask, and they plundered the Egyptians.
  8. ↩Isa.21.14 — They brought water to the thirsty; the inhabitants of the land of Tema met the fugitive with bread.
  9. ↩Jer.2.13 — For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn out for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold the water.
  10. ↩Matt.10.16 — Look, I am sending you out as sheep among wolves; therefore be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.
  11. ↩Gen.3.15 — I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.
  12. ↩Luke.9.60 — But he said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God."
  13. ↩Ps.40.9;Ps.42.8 — I delight to do your will, O God; your law is within my heart. Ps.42.8 — Deep calls to deep at the sound of your waterfalls; all your breakers and your waves have swept over me.
  14. ↩Ps.40.9 — I delight to do your will, O God; your law is within my heart.
  15. ↩Ps.40.9 — I delight to do your will, O God; your law is within my heart.

Notes

  1. 1 ↩Communis Dominus rendered 'common Lord' preserves the Latin's sense of the Lord shared by all; could also be read as 'the Lord common to all.'
  2. 2 ↩Charitatis rendered 'love' per lexeme policy default; 'charity' is also allowed in theological-virtue contexts. The sense here is fervent love of neighbor expressed in active help.
  3. 3 ↩Caput quod Christus est: 'the head, which is Christ' — the serpent metaphor (cf. Genesis 3:15 and Matthew 10:16) is applied to the spiritual person who protects what is most vital by withdrawing to Christ.

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