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← Collationes (Conferences / Collations)/Book 3 · Collationes — Liber III
Chapter 45OdoC.3.45

Caput XLIV

Trusting God's Chastisement

Even when we cannot discern the cause of our suffering, we must trust that God's discipline is just and not excessive, following the example of blessed Tobias who bore blindness without grief.

Although, therefore, we do not know for which fault we are struck, and although we have been conscious of nothing evil that could have been done to us, it is right nevertheless to believe that our chastisement is neither unjust nor excessive, and there is no reason to grieve over it — because it is written of blessed Tobias that he was not made sad by the blow of blindness, even though he had feared God from infancy. Therefore, let someone be so just that for other faults he has no need at all to be scourged. But to this also that must be given thought: that by the very daily experience of human life we grow old, and under the impulse of the outer self we slip away from what is within through the treacherous drift of thought.✦ For just as we were created out of nothing, so through ourselves, unless we're held by the hand of our Maker, we always tend toward nothing. That creative hand holds us when it gives life to us through the piercing of compunction unto love, or restores us through scourging unto fear. Unless it does this, the whole mind grows old by a sudden fall — even that which seemed to have been renewed through long practice of virtue. Isn't it written: 'Your visitation has guarded my spirit'?✦ (Job 10:12.)✦

The Spirit Preserved Through Bitterness

The spirit is strengthened by the bitterness of discipline just as the flesh is nourished by softness, and without divine visitation through compunction or scourging, the mind grows old and careless in prosperity.

"Visitation," it says. "For the spirit is more quickly stripped of its strength, unless it is preserved either through scourges or through the visitation of compunction by the very Giver of that strength."1 And it's no wonder if the spirit is preserved by bitterness — which is contrary to the flesh — since the two are indeed opposed to each other. For just as the flesh is fed by soft delight, so the spirit is strengthened by bitterness: and just as hard things wound the flesh, so gentle things kill the spirit.2 And so the spirit perishes forever from the very source from which the flesh lives pleasantly for a time.3 The bond of obligation outweighs concern for the one who is abandoned here by the author of discipline.4 But now, intent on carnal things, we don't perceive our losses at all, even by our very abandonment.5 For the farther the Creator abandons us, the more our mind hardens in sensible things — and becomes, in a wretched way, all the more careless the worse it grows.6 For it is exceedingly difficult for anyone, in the midst of prosperity, to recognize either what they have already committed or the failing to which their mind continually inclines.7

The Father's Loving Correction

God disciplines his children out of fatherly tenderness to combat dangerous carelessness, and even the righteous must remember their affliction; the more perfect may be afflicted alongside the weaker because those in authority fail to rebuke them.

And so the one who has deigned to become a father to the faithful out of tenderness, seeing that among the children he calls to the inheritance of the kingdom of heaven a dangerous carelessness is creeping in, doesn't just refresh them with gifts — he also disciplines them with correction. If then anyone seems to be righteous, let that person remember the passage already quoted above: 'Even if I were righteous, I would not lift up my head, filled with affliction and misery' (Job 10:15).✦ But there is also another reason — discussed in the first book of the City of God — why the more perfect are justly afflicted for a time along with the weaker, or even with the wicked: namely, because those in authority don't rebuke them, fearing either to offend their standing or to suffer damage to their good reputation through the disparagement of such people.8 They find this life bitter alongside those whose sweetness they neglect by loving it — the sweetness that, if they cherished it, would make life bitter for those who break God's law.9 This fault especially involves those in authority or any respected men who are appointed by God to their position in the Church, and who are held to a grave accountability. Nor is someone entirely free from this fault just because they don't hold a position of authority — if, among those they're bound to by the necessities of daily life, they know of many things that need to be warned against or corrected, and they neglect them, avoiding the offense of others because of the things they enjoy in this life beyond what is proper, and more than they should. So they are afflicted at the same time — not because they're living evil lives, but because they love the temporal life that they ought to despise, so that if those others were willing to be corrected, they too might obtain eternal life along with them. To be sure, the person who doesn't rebuke on such occasions — either because they're waiting for a more suitable time, or because they fear that those rebuked may become worse and harm the weak even more — that isn't negligence or an opening for selfishness, but the counsel of love.

When Holy Men Fall Silent

Holy men groan and fall silent when they see their words despised by those abandoned by God, not from fear of being hated but from love, lest rebuke make the scoffer grow worse.

For as it says in the twentieth book of the Morals, when holy men see certain people dismiss their words and realize those people are being abandoned by God, they groan and fall silent. Hence that verse: How shall we sing the song of the Lord in a foreign land?✦ (Psalm 136:4.) It is written: Do not rebuke a scoffer, lest he hate you (Prov.✦ 9:8). Holy men fall silent, then — not because they fear being hated, but so that those who scorn them don't grow worse through their hatred.

Read the original Latin

Quamvis itaque nesciamus pro qua culpa feriamur, et quamvis nil mali si fieri posset nobis conscii fuerimus, tamen correptionem nostram nec injustam nec superfluam credere fas est, nec omnino tristandum quia de beato legitur Tobia, quod non sit contristatus pro caecitatis plaga, etiam cum ab infantia Deum timuerit. Ergo sit aliquis ita justus, ut pro caeteris culpis nequaquam indigeat flagellari. Sed huic quoque illud considerandum est, quod ipso humanae vitae usu quotidie veterascimus, et exterioris hominis impulsu ab interioribus per lubricam cogitationem eximus. Nam sicut ex nihilo conditi sumus, per nos ipsos, nisi manu artificis nostri teneamur, semper ad nihilum tendimus. Tenet autem nos illa creatrix manus, cum vel ad amorem compungendo vivificat, vel ad timorem flagellando restaurat. Quod nisi fecerit repentino lapsu, mens tota veterascit etiam quae longo virtutis usu innovata videbatur. Nonne scriptum est: Visitatio tua custodivit spiritum meum? (Job X, 12.)

Visitatio, inquit: citius enim spiritus virtute nudatur, nisi aut per flagella, aut per compunctionis visitationem ab ipsius virtutis largitore custodiatur. Nec mirum si spiritus amaritudine, quae carni contraria est custodiatur, quando quidem sibi invicem adversantur. Ut enim illa molli delectatione pascitur, sic iste amaritudine vegetatur: et sicut illam dura sauciant, sic istum mollia necant. Et inde in perpetuum spiritus interit, unde suaviter ad tempus caro vivit. Cujus curam nexus praeponderat, si hic ab auctore disciplinae destituitur. Jam vero carnalibus intenti, nec ipsa nostra destitutione ullatenus damna sentimus. Quo enim longe nos Conditor deserit, eo mens nostra in sensibilibus obdurescit, fitque miseraboli modo tanto securior, quanto pejor. Valde enim difficile est ut aliquis vel quae jam commisit, vel defectum, ad quem subinde mens ejus vergit, in prosperitate cognoscat.

Quapropter ille qui fidelibus ex pietate pater fieri dignatus est, videns quod apud filios, quos ad regni coelestis haereditatem vocat, periculosa negligentia subrepat, non solum donis reficit, sed etiam flagellis erudit. Si quis ergo justus videtur, memoretur illius sententiae jam supradictae: Justus si fuero, non levabo caput, saturatus afflictione et miseria (Job X, 15). Est autem et alia ratio, pro qua perfectiores, ut in primo libro de Civitate Dei disputatur, jure cum infirmioribus vel etiam pravis temporaliter flagellantur, quia videlicet non eos corripiunt, metuentes ne eorum gratiam offendat, aut ne bonae famae dispendium per illorum derogationes incurrant. Hanc ergo vitam cum eis amaram sentiunt, cujus amando dulcedinem transgressoribus amari esse negligunt. Quae culpa maxime praelatos vel reverendos quoslibet viros involvit, qui ad hoc in Ecclesia divinitus constituuntur, et gravi reatu tenentur. Nec ideo tamen ab hujusmodi culpa penitus alienus est, qui licet praepositus non sit, si in eis tamen, quibus vitae necessitate conjungitur, multa monenda vel arguenda novit, et negligit, devitans eorum offensiones, propter illa quibus in hac vita non indebitis utitur, sed plus quam debuit delectatur. Flagellantur ergo simul non quia agunt malam vitam, sed quia simul amant temporalem vitam quam contemnere deberent, ut illi, si corrigi vellent, consequerentur cum eis aeternam. Sane qui propterea non objurgat, quia vel aptius tempus exspectat, vel metuit ne increpati deteriores fiant, et invalidos pejus noceant, hoc non est negligentia vel cupiditatis occasio, sed consilium charitatis.

Nam ut in Moralium libro XX dicitur, sancti viri cum vident quosdam sua verba despicere, dum eos divinitus intelligunt deseri, gementes conticescunt. Unde est illud: Quomodo cantabimus canticum Domini in terra aliena? (Psal. CXXXVI, 4.) Scriptum est: Noli arguere derisorem, ne oderit te (Prov. IX, 8). Tacent ergo viri sancti, non ut eorum odium timeatur, sed ne illi odiendo pejores fiant.

Scripture echoes

  1. ↩2Cor.4.16 — Therefore we do not lose heart; even though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.
  2. ↩Job.10.12 — You granted me life and steadfast love, and your care has guarded my spirit.
  3. ↩Job.10.12 — You granted me life and steadfast love, and your care has guarded my spirit.
  4. ↩Job.10.15 — If I am wicked, woe to me; and if I am righteous, I will not lift up my head, being full of disgrace, and see my affliction.
  5. ↩Ps.136.4;Ps.138.4 — who alone does great wonders, for his steadfast love endures forever Ps.138.4 — All the kings of the earth will give you thanks, O LORD, for they have heard the words of your mouth.
  6. ↩Prov.9.8 — Do not rebuke a scorner, lest he hate you; rebuke a wise man, and he will love you.

Notes

  1. 1 ↩Visitatio rendered as 'visitation' in the sense of a spiritual encounter or divine inspection, not merely a physical visit. Virtute ('strength') refers to the spirit's God-given vigor.
  2. 2 ↩illa and iste are rendered as 'the flesh' and 'the spirit' respectively, following the contrast established in the previous sentence. Dura ('hard things') and mollia ('gentle/soft things') are deliberately left concrete.
  3. 3 ↩inde … unde: the correlative construction links the spirit's eternal ruin to the same temporal pleasure by which the flesh thrives. The paradox is that what sustains the flesh destroys the spirit.
  4. 4 ↩Cujus is ambiguous — it could refer to the spirit or the person. Nexus ('bond') likely means the binding obligation of duty or relationship. Auctor disciplinae is 'the author/founder of discipline,' i.e., God as the source of spiritual order. The sense: when God withdraws, the obligation to care for that person's soul weighs more heavily, yet is neglected.
  5. 5 ↩ipsa nostra destitutione: 'by our very abandonment' — i.e., even the experience of being forsaken (by God or by spiritual awareness) doesn't make us feel the damage.
  6. 6 ↩miseraboli modo: 'in a wretched/miserable manner' — the ablative of manner intensifies the irony of growing more secure precisely as one grows worse. securior carries the sense of false security or heedlessness, not mere confidence.
  7. 7 ↩defectum rendered as 'failing' — a habitual weakness or moral decline, not merely a single defect. subinde ('continually/repeatedly') emphasizes the persistent drift of the mind toward this failing.
  8. 8 ↩The passage references Augustine's City of God I; the logic is that the more perfect suffer temporally alongside the weak/wicked because superiors fail to correct the weak out of fear.
  9. 9 ↩The sentence is compressed: 'this life' (temporal life) is bitter to the righteous because they love it, whereas loving God's law (whose sweetness they neglect) would make temporal life bitter to transgressors.

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