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Chapter 5GratL.1.5

An libertas a miseria, seu complaciti, detur in hoc saeculo.

No Freedom from Misery in This Age

Augustine questions whether any freedom from corrupting pleasure can exist in a world where all creation groans, life is trial, and even the righteous cry out for deliverance from the body of death.

What, then, should I say about freedom from this corrupting pleasure in the present age? Where the malice of a single day is barely enough; where every creature groans and is in labor, even now still subjected to vanity — and not willingly (Rom 8). Where human life is a trial upon the earth (Job 7:1); where even spiritual people, those who have already received the first fruits of the Spirit, groan within themselves as they wait for the redemption of their body (Rom 8:23).✦✦ (Rom 8:23). Surely there is no place among these things for any such freedom? What freedom, I ask, is left to us in our pleasure — when misery seems to occupy everything entirely? For neither innocence nor righteousness can be safe here from misery any more than from sin — where the righteous person cries out: 'Wretched man that I am! Who will free me from this body of death?' (Rom 7:24).✦ (Rom 7:24).

Scripture's Witness to Unceasing Sorrow

A chain of scriptural citations—Romans 7:24, Psalm 41, 2 Timothy 3:12, and 1 Peter 4:17—demonstrates that grief fills every day and that judgment begins with God's own household.

VII, 24.)✦ And likewise: My tears have become my bread day and night (Ps.✦ XLI, 4). Where nights and days are spent in grief, surely no space of time is left free for self-satisfaction.1 In fact, those who wish to live devoutly in Christ themselves suffer persecution all the more (II Tim.✦2 III, 12); because judgment begins with the household of God.✦ This too is his command: 'Begin with my own people,' he says (Ezech.✦3 IX, 6, and I Pet.✦ IV, 17).

The False Security of Vice

Augustine rejects the idea that vice offers any safe refuge, arguing that joy in evil is madness, false joy is the truest misery, and even bodily pleasures are never free from suffering.

But even if virtue isn't present, vice may be in a safe place, and for a time one can enjoy some measure of pleasure — yet beware the misery. Far be it. For those who rejoice over the evil they've done and exult in the worst affairs — what they do is no different from the way madmen laugh. But there's no truer misery than false joy. In short, misery is so great in this age that what seems like happiness leads the Wise One to say: 'Better to go to a house of mourning than to a house of feasting' (Ecclesiastes✦ 7:2). To be sure, there's some pleasantness in the goods of the body — namely in eating, drinking, warming oneself, and other such remedies or coverings for the flesh. But surely even these aren't entirely free from misery?

Pleasure Born Only of Necessity

Bodily pleasures like food, drink, and warmth are only pleasant to those in need; remove necessity and all comfort turns to weariness, so that even lighter burdens are merely mistaken for happiness.

Bread is a good thing — but only for the hungry. Drink delights — but only the thirsty. In fact, once you're full, food and drink are no longer welcome; they're burdensome. Take away your hunger, and you won't care about bread. Take away your thirst, and even the clearest spring — you'll look at it as if it were a swamp. In the same way, no one seeks shade unless they're sweltering; no one cares about the sun unless they're cold — or losing their sight. Otherwise, none of these things will be pleasing unless pressing necessity has come first. And if that necessity is completely removed from things, immediately even whatever pleasantness seems to be found in them will turn into weariness and trouble. It must be admitted, then, that in this respect too, everything that belongs to the present life is an occupation of misery — except that amid continuous tribulations of heavier labors, any consolation at all is certainly lighter. And since, as it happens, heavy and light burdens succeed one another in turn, depending on the season and how events unfold, the experience of lesser hardships seems like a kind of break in the misery — so that when at some point, after enduring many of the hardest trials, a person escapes into somewhat less trouble, it's mistaken for happiness.4

Freedom Through Heavenly Contemplation

Those who, like Mary, taste the sweetness of heavenly happiness in contemplation are free from misery during those moments, enjoying true freedom of delight, and all who live rightly share in freedom of choice.

Still, it must be admitted that those who are at times carried away in spirit through the rapture of contemplation, and who manage to taste ever so little of the sweetness of heavenly happiness, are free from misery whenever they thus transcend it. These, plainly — and this cannot not be denied — even in this flesh, though rarely and only fleetingly, enjoy the freedom of that delight which is reserved for those who, with Mary, have chosen the best portion, one that will not be taken away from them.✦ Luke 10:42. For those who already hold what cannot be taken away certainly experience what is yet to come. But what is yet to come is happiness; moreover, happiness and misery cannot exist at the same time. Therefore, as often as they share in that happiness through the spirit, just as often they do not feel this misery. And so in this life only those devoted to contemplation can to any degree enjoy the freedom of that delight — and even then only in part, in a very modest share, and on the rarest of occasions. Furthermore, the freedom of choice is also enjoyed by any who live rightly — in part, to be sure, but not in a small part.

The Permanence of Free Choice

Augustine concludes that freedom of choice belongs equally to all rational beings and remains complete and undiminished in this age as in the age to come.

Furthermore, free choice, as was made clear above, belongs equally to all who use reason; it is no less, in itself, in evils than in goods — as complete in this age as in the age to come.

Read the original Latin

Jam de libertate complaciti in hoc saeculo nequam quid dicemus? ubi vix sufficit diei malitia sua; ubi omnis creatura ingemiscit, et parturit usque adhuc, vanitati nimirum subjecta non volens (Rom. VIII, 22, 20) ; ubi vita hominis tentatio est super terram (Job VII, 1) : ubi viri quoque spirituales, qui primitias spiritus jam acceperunt, ingemiscunt et ipsi intra semetipsos, exspectantes redemptionem corporis sui (Rom. VIII, 23) . Numquidnam inter ista locus ullus est hujuscemodi libertati? Quid, inquam, liberum 609 nostro relinquitur complacito, ubi totum occupare videtur miseria? neque enim vel innocentia seu justitia; quemadmodum a peccato, ita etiam a miseria tutae esse hic poterunt, ubi justus exclamat: Infelix ego homo, quis me liberabit de corpore mortis hujus? (Rom.

VII, 24.) Et item: Factae sunt mihi lacrymae meae panes die ac nocte (Psal. XLI, 4) . Ubi noctes diesque in moerore continuantur, nullum profecto temporis spatium complacito vacuum relinquitur. Denique qui pie volunt vivere in Christo, ipsi magis persecutionem patiuntur (II Tim. III, 12) ; quoniam judicium a domo Dei incipit. Quod et praecipit: A meis, inquiens, incipite (Ezech. IX, 6, et I Petr.

IV, 17) .

Sed, etsi non virtus, vitium forte in tuto est, et aliqua interim ex parte frui potest complacito, cavere miseriam. Absit. Nam qui laetantur cum male fecerint, et exsultant in rebus pessimis, tale est quod faciunt, quale cum rident frenetici. Nulla autem verior miseria, quam falsa laetitia. Denique in tantum miseria est, quod videtur felicitas in hoc saeculo, ut Sapiens dicat: Melius est ire ad domum luctus, quam ad domum convivii (Eccle. VII, 3) . Est quidem in bonis corporis nonnulla jucunditas, videlicet in edendo, bibendo, calefaciendo, caeterisque talibus fomentis vel tegumentis carnis. Sed nunquid vel ista vacant aliquatenus a miseria?

Bonus est panis, sed esurienti; potus delectat, sed sitientem; denique saturato cibus potusque jam nequaquam sunt grata, sed gravia. Tolle famem, et panem non curabis; tolle sitim, et limpidissimum fontem, ac si paludem, respicies. Similiter umbram non quaerit nisi aestuans; solem non curat nisi algens, sive caligans. Alioquin nihil horum libebit, si non praecesserit urgens necessitas. Quae si perfecte tollatur e rebus, statim in taedium atque molestiam convertetur ipsa quoque, quae videtur in his esse, jucunditas. Fatendum igitur et in hac parte, omne quod praesentis vitae est, occupare miseriam: nisi quod in tribulationibus continuis graviorum laborum, leviores utique sint qualiscunque consolatio: et dum forte pro tempore ac rerum eventibus vicissim sibi gravia leviaque succedunt, minorum experientia, aliqua miseriae videtur interpolatio; ut cum aliquando, post experta plura gravissima, in minus forte molesta evaditur, felicitas putetur.

Attamen fatendum est eos, qui per excessum contemplationis rapti quandoque in spiritu, quantulumcunque de supernae felicitatis dulcedine degustare sufficiunt, toties esse liberos a miseria, quoties sic excedunt. Hi plane (quod negandum non est) etiam in hac carne, raro licet raptimque, complaciti libertate fruuntur, qui cum Maria optimam partem elegerunt, quae non auferetur ab eis (Luc. X, 42) . Qui enim jam tenent quod auferendum non est, experiuntur utique quod futurum est. Sed quod futurum est felicitas est: porro felicitas et miseria eodem tempore simul esse non possunt. Quoties igitur per spiritum illam participant, toties istam non sentiunt. Itaque in hac vita soli contemplativi possunt utcunque frui libertate complaciti: et hoc ex parte, et parte satis modica, viceque rarissima. Porro libertate consilii fruuntur etiam quilibet justi; ex parte quidem, sed non modica.

Caeterum libertas arbitrii, ut supra liquido apparuit, cunctis pariter ratione utentibus convenit; non minor, quantum in se est, in malis, quam in bonis; tam plena in hoc saeculo, quam et in futuro.

Scripture echoes

  1. ↩Job.7.1 — Does not a human have a hard service on earth, and are not his days like the days of a hired worker?
  2. ↩Rom.8.22-Rom.8.23 — For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together and suffering birth pangs until now. Rom.8.23 — Not only that, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.
  3. ↩Rom.7.24 — Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?
  4. ↩Rom.7.24 — Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?
  5. ↩Ps.41.3 — The LORD will keep him alive and preserve him; he will be called blessed in the land. Do not give him over to the will of his enemies.
  6. ↩2Tim.3.12 — Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.
  7. ↩1Pet.4.17 — For it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who disobey the gospel of God?
  8. ↩Ezek.9.6 — Slay utterly: old man, young man, virgin, little children, and women. But do not come near anyone who bears the mark. And begin at my sanctuary. So they began with the elders who were before the house.
  9. ↩1Pet.4.17 — For it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who disobey the gospel of God?
  10. ↩Eccl.7.2 — It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for that is the end of every person, and the living will take it to heart.
  11. ↩Luke.10.42 — Few things are needed, or only one. For Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.

Notes

  1. 1 ↩Complacito (from complacitum) rendered as 'self-satisfaction' to capture the sense of smug self-pleasure or complacency — the kind of comfortable self-approval that grief leaves no room for. The term carries a mildly pejorative force here, contrasting with genuine spiritual consolation.
  2. 2 ↩Pie rendered as 'devoutly' rather than 'piously' to avoid the faintly archaic ring of 'piously' in contemporary English, while preserving the sense of genuine godly devotion. Magis rendered as 'all the more' to capture the comparative force.
  3. 3 ↩Praecipit rendered as 'is his command' to clarify that God is the implied subject. The quotation 'Begin with my own people' (A meis incipite) echoes Ezekiel 9:6 — 'Begin at my sanctuary.' The author appears to be paraphrasing or citing from memory rather than quoting the Vulgate verbatim.
  4. 4 ↩interpolatio here carries the sense of a 'pause' or 'insertion' within misery rather than a textual interpolation; the experience of lesser suffering creates a perceived gap in affliction.

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