Verba Filii ad sponsam, qualiter ex modico bono homo ascendit ad perfectum bonum et ex modico malo descendit ad summum supplicium.
The Growth of Virtue
The soul grows in grace like a date tree, beginning with small acts of devotion and maturing into a life of love and service.
The Son said: "From a small good, a great reward sometimes arises." A date has a wonderful fragrance, and inside its fruit is a pit. If it's planted in rich soil, it thrives, bears fruit, and grows into a great tree. But if it's placed in dry ground, it withers. That ground is far too dry of goodness, because it delights in sin. If the seed of virtues is sown there, it doesn't thrive. The soul is rich soil when it recognizes its sin and groans because it has sinned. If the stone of the date—that is, the severity of my judgment and my power—is planted there, it takes root in the soul through three roots. First, they realize they can do nothing without my help. Because of this, they open their mouths to ask me for it. Second, they begin to give even a small alms in my name. Third, they withdraw from their own business to serve me. Next, they begin to practice fasting and giving up their own will, and this is the trunk of the tree. Afterward, the branches of love grow when you draw everyone you can toward what is good. Then the fruit grows when you also teach others, as far as you know, and with your whole devotion you intend how you might increase my honor. Such fruit pleases me deeply. So, then, from a small beginning, one ascends to perfection. Once it’s rooted through a little devotion, the body grows through abstinence, the branches multiply through love, and the fruit ripens through preaching.1
The Descent into Sin
Just as virtue grows, sin also develops from small beginnings into a destructive force that leads the soul to despair and eternal ruin.
In the same way, through a small evil, a person descends to the greatest curse and the ultimate punishment. Do you know what the heaviest burden is among those things that grow? It is surely that of an infant who reaches the time of birth but cannot be born, dying instead within the mother’s womb; because of this, the mother is also torn apart and dies, and the father carries both mother and child to the grave to bury them in their decay. This is how the devil acts upon the soul. A soul given over to vice is like the devil’s wife, following his will in everything; it conceives from the devil the moment sin pleases it and it takes delight in that sin. Just as a mother conceives and bears fruit from a tiny seed—which is nothing but decay—so too, when the soul finds pleasure in sin, it produces a great harvest for the devil.2 From this, the limbs and strength of the body are formed, as sin is added to sin and grows daily. As sins increase, the mother swells, wanting to give birth but unable to, because her nature is consumed by sin; life becomes a burden, and though she would gladly sin more, she cannot, nor is she permitted to by God. Then fear is present, because it cannot carry out its own will. Strength and joy are missing. There is pain and anxiety on every side. The belly is broken when a person despairs of being able to do good. Furthermore, a person dies when they blaspheme the judgment of God and find fault with it; they are then led by the devil, their father, to the grave of hell, where they are buried forever in the rot of sin and the offspring of perverse delight. See how sin grows from something small and increases until it leads to damnation!
Read the original Latin
Filius loquebatur: "Ex modico bono oritur quandoque magna merces. Dactilus mirifici odoris est et in fructu eius lapis. Si ponitur in pingui terra, pinguescit et fructificat et crescit in magnam arborem.
Si autem ponitur in arida terra, arescit. Arida est nimis terra illa a bono, que delectatur in peccato. In qua si semen virtutum seritur, non pinguescit.
Pinguis autem est terra mentis illius, que cognoscit peccatum et gemit se peccasse. In qua si ponitur lapis dactili, idest seritur seueritas iudicii mei et potencie mee, radicatur tribus in mente radicibus.
Primo cogitat se nichil posse facere sine auxilio meo. Ideo aperit os suum ad rogandum me. Secundo incipit eciam modicam dare elemosinam pro nomine meo. Tercio exoccupat se a negociis suis ad seruiendum michi.
Deinde incipit abstinere in ieiunio et in abdicacione voluntatis proprie, et hoc est corpus arboris.
Postea crescunt caritatis rami, quando trahit omnes, quos potest, ad bonum.
Deinde crescit fructus, quando eciam alios docet, in quantum scit, et tota deuocione intendit, quomodo honorem meum possit ampliare. Talis fructus michi summe placet.
Sic igitur ex modico ascendit ad perfectum. Quando primo radicatur per modicam deuocionem, crescit corpus per abstinenciam, multiplicantur rami per caritatem, pinguescit fructus per predicacionem.
Simili modo per modicum malum descendit homo ad summam malediccionem et summum supplicium.
Numquid scis, quid est onus grauissimum de hiis, que crescunt? Certe hoc est infantis, qui venit ad partum et non potest nasci sed intra viscera matris moritur, et ex hoc eciam mater rumpitur et moritur, quam pater cum filio defert ad sepulchrum et cum putredine sepelit.
Sic diabolus facit anime. Anima quippe viciosa est quasi uxor diaboli, cuius in omnibus sequitur voluntatem; que tunc concipit ex diabolo, quando peccatum placet ei et gaudet in eo.
Sicut enim mater ex modico semine, quod non est nisi putredo, concipit et fructificat, sic et anima, cum delectatur in peccato, facit magnum fructum diabolo.
Inde formantur membra et robur corporis, quando peccatum super peccatum additur et cotidie augmentatur. Augmentatis itaque peccatis mater intumescit, volens parere, sed non valet, quia, consumpta natura in peccato, tedio habetur vita et libenter vellet plus peccare, sed non potest nec permittitur a Deo.
Tunc adest timor, quod non potest perficere voluntatem suam. Abest fortitudo et leticia. Undique est dolor et sollicitudo.
Tunc rumpitur venter, quando desperat se posse facere bona. Tunc quoque moritur, quando blasphemat iudicium Dei et reprehendit, et sic ducitur a diabolo patre ad sepulchrum inferni, ubi cum putredine peccati et filio delectacionis praue sepelitur sine fine.
Ecce quomodo ex modico augetur peccatum et crescit ad dampnacionem!"
Notes
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