SR
← Speculum caritatis (The Mirror of Charity)/Book 2 · Speculum caritatis — Liber II
Chapter 24SpCar.2.24

De concupiscentia oculorum in curiositate sita, quae ad viam perfectiorem conversos affligit.

The Lust of the Eyes in Outward Vanities

The author exposes how curiosity feeds on superfluous beauty and worldly ornament, and how the humble soul, schooled in interior glory, finds no delight in outward splendor.

But now a few things must be said about the lust of the eyes, which the holy Fathers saw should be called curiosity; for they judged it to belong not only to the outward person but also to the inward one. So then, to the outward person belongs all that superfluous beauty which the eyes love in various forms — in bright and pleasing colors, in different kinds of craftsmanship, in clothing, shoes, vessels, paintings, sculptures, and all sorts of fanciful creations — all exceeding what is necessary and moderate. All these things lovers of the world chase after as bait for the eyes, following outward what they do, while leaving behind within them the One by whom they were made, and destroying what they were made to be.1 For this reason even in monks' cloisters you find cranes and hares, does and stags, magpies and crows — not the instruments of Antony and Macarius, but women's playthings. None of these serve the poverty of monks; they only feed the eyes of the curious.2 If then someone, preferring the poverty of Jesus to these enticements of the eyes, has shut himself within the bounds of necessity, and in place of that superfluous grandeur and excessive height of buildings has sought out the humble sleeping quarters of certain poor brothers — if on entering a chapel he finds it built of rough-cut stone, with nothing painted, nothing carved, nothing costly about it: no marble floors covered with tapestries, no walls draped in purple, no depictions of pagan nations or battles of kings, or even sacred histories displayed; no dazzling gleam of candles, no glitter of shining metal in various furnishings — if, when none of these things meet his gaze, everything he sees begins to seem squalid to him, and he complains that he has been thrown out of some paradise and plunged into a kind of prison filth — whence this anguish of mind, whence all this trouble?3 I ask you — if he had learned from the Lord Jesus to be meek and humble of heart, and to contemplate according to the Apostle: 'Not the things that are seen, but the things that are not seen; for the things that are seen are temporal, but the things that are not seen are eternal' (2 Cor.✦ 4): if he had even tasted a little of that interior glory, of which it is written: 'All the glory of the king's daughter is within' (Ps. 44); and that word of the Apostle: 'Let each one test his own work, and then he will have reason for boasting in himself alone, and not in another' (Gal.✦ 6): if he finds no glory in another person, how much less in a mute, lifeless piece of metal?

Interior Curiosity and Its Three Forms

The author turns inward to diagnose three forms of interior curiosity—harmful knowledge, envy of others' paths, and restless worldly preoccupation—and warns of the worst form: testing God through desire for miracles.

If, I say, you had placed your neck under the yoke of divine love and had tasted within yourself how sweetly that gentle Jesus dwells inside, would you, I ask, have set your heart on these outward trifles? Now a few things must be said about that interior curiosity, which consists chiefly in three things: in the desire for harmful or empty knowledge; in prying into another's path — not to imitate it, but to envy it if it seems good, or to look down on it if it seems bad, or at the very least out of mere curiosity simply to know whether it is bad or good; and finally, in a restless eagerness to know about the affairs and doings of worldly people. From all these, no small labor is born in minds that have been taken captive — whether they throw themselves into these things without restraint, or whether those who would gladly engage in them are held back. This is why many who have given their minds to empty philosophy — and who make it a habit to meditate on pastoral poetry alongside the Gospels, to read Horace alongside the prophets, and Cicero alongside Paul — who also then play at writing meter, weave love poems from tattered verses, or provoke each other with mutual insults — when they have gone to the place where all these things are condemned by proper discipline as seeds of vanity, or beginnings of quarrels, or provocations to lust — begin to grow sad and angry; and since they have no outlet through which to pour out the seeds of vanity they have conceived, they seem to burst out in those words of Job: My belly is like new wine with no vent, which bursts the new wine skins (Job 32:19).✦ 32). So it's easy to judge where this labor comes from. This is also why, when we have spent the whole day absorbed in empty spectacles or intent on hearing rumors, we have, in a sense, gone out from ourselves; and when we return back to ourselves, we bring in images of vanities, carrying a heart full of phantoms even into the place of our rest — and for the sake of the most foolish vanity we spend sleepless nights. We paint before our eyes, as if we could see them, the wars of kings and the victories of generals, and we arrange all the business of a kingdom in idle digressions during our very psalmody and prayers. There is yet another worst kind of curiosity, which only those who are conscious of their own great virtues fall into: the probing of their own holiness through the display of miracles — and that is putting God to the test.✦

The Forbidden Testing of God

The author concludes by citing the Mosaic law and the Apostle against testing God, warning that those who fall into this vice risk despair or blasphemy.

This kind of curiosity is forbidden by the Mosaic law in these words: You shall not test the Lord your God (Deut.✦ 6). Hence the Apostle also says: Let us not test Christ, as some of them tested him, and they perished by serpents (1 Cor.✦ 10). If anyone has given in to this worst vice, and through excessive narrowness of mind has not kept control of his vow, he will fall into the snares of despair or into the sacrilege of blasphemy.4

Read the original Latin

Sed jam de concupiscentia oculorum pauca dicenda sunt, quam curiositatem sancti Patres viderunt appellandam; nam eam non solum ad exteriorem, sed etiam ad interiorem hominem aestimant pertinere. Ergo ad exteriorem pertinet curiositatem omnis superflua pulchritudo, quam amant oculi in variis formis, in nitidis et amoenis coloribus, in diversis opificiis, in vestibus, calceamentis, vasis, picturis, sculpturis, diversisque figmentis, usum necessarium et moderatum transgredientibus: quae omnia amatores mundi ad illecebras expetunt oculorum: foras sequentes quod faciunt, intus relinquentes a quo facti sunt, et exterminantes quod facti sunt. Inde etiam in claustris monachorum grues et lepores, damulae et cervi, picae et corvi: non quidem Antoniana et Macariana instrumenta, sed muliebria oblectamenta: quae omnia nequaquam monachorum paupertati consulunt, sed curiosorum oculos pascunt. Si quis ergo paupertatem Jesu, his oculorum illecebris praeferens, infra metas necessitatis sese recluserit, et pro superflua illa aedificiorum amplitudine, ac supervacua altitudine, pauperum quorumdam fratrum cubilia expetierit, cum forte ingrediens oratorium impolito constructum lapide, nihil pictum, nihil sculptum, nihil occurrerit pretiosum, non marmora strata tapetibus, non vestiti parietes ostro, historias gentium, pugnas regum, vel certe scripturarum seriem praeferentes, non ille cereorum attonitus fulgor, non in diversis utensilibus radiantis metalli splendor, cum ergo nihil horum occurrerit intuenti, si incipiant ei cuncta sordere quae cernit, ac se quodam paradiso excussum, ac carcerali quadam squalore queratur immersum, unde haec mentis angustia, unde totus hic labor? Rogo, si didicisset a Domino Jesu esse mitis et humilis corde, ac contemplari secundum Apostolum: Non ea quae videntur, sed quae non videntur; quae enim videntur, temporalia sunt, quae autem non videntur, aeterna (II Cor. iv): si interioris illius gloriam vel modicum degustasset, de qua scriptum est: Omnis gloria ejus filiae regis ab intus (Psal. xliv); illudque Apostoli: Opus suum probet unusquisque, et sic in semetipso gloriam habebit, et non in altero (Gal. vi): quod si non in homine altero, quanto minus in muto insensibilique metallo?

Si, inquam, interiori cervice jugo divinae dilectionis supposito, ibi intus Jesus ille dulcis dulciter sapuisset, multumne, quaeso, gloriolas has exteriores affectasset? Nunc de interiori illa curiositate pauca dicenda sunt, quae maxime in tribus constat; in appetitu videlicet noxiae vel inanis scientiae; in pervestigatione alienae viae, non ad imitandum, sed ad invidendum, si bona est, vel insultandum si mala, vel certe sola curiositate tantum, ut sciatur, sive mala sit, sive bona; postremo in curiosa quadam pro saecularium rerum vel actuum agnitione, inquietudine. Ex quibus omnibus mentibus captivatis non modicus labor innascitur, cum vel intemperate exercentur, vel libenter exercentibus prohibentur. Hinc est quod plerique, qui inani philosophiae dedere animum, quibus etiam moris est cum Evangeliis Bucolica meditari, Horatium cum prophetis, cum Paulo Tullium lectitare, tunc etiam metro ludere, laciniosisque carminibus amatoria texere, vel invectionibus invicem provocare, cum eo sese contulerint, ubi haec omnia quasi seminaria vanitatis, vel initia jurgiorum, vel libidinis incentiva, regulari districtione damnantur: incipiunt contristari, irasci; et cum non habeant, quibus semina concepta vanitatis effundant, in illa Eliu verba videntur prorumpere: En venter meus quasi mustum absque spiraculo, quod lagunculas novas dirumpit (Job. xxxii). Unde ergo labor iste nascatur, in promptu est judicare. Inde est etiam quod cum tota die inanibus spectaculis dediti, vel rumoribus audiendis intenti a nobis quodam modo exierimus, revertentes iterum ad nos, vanitatum imagines introducimus, et cor plenum simulacris ad locum quoque quietis nostrae ferentes, pro ineptissima vanitate noctes ducimus insomnes; regum bella, victorias ducum, quasi sub oculis stultissima praesumptione depingimus, omniaque regni negotia in ipsa psalmodia vel orationibus nostris otiosis discursibus ordinamus. Est adhuc aliud curiositatis pessimum genus, quo tamen hi soli, qui magnarum sibi virtutum conscii sunt, attentantur: exploratio scilicet suae sanctitatis per miraculorum exhibitionem: quod est Deum tentare.

Quod curiositatis genus lege Mosaica ita prohibetur: Non tentabis Dominum Deum tuum (Deut. vi). Unde etiam Apostolus: Neque tentemus Christum, sicut quidam illorum tentaverunt, et a serpentibus perierunt (I Cor. x). Cui pessimo vitio si quis consenserit; ex nimia mentis angustia cum compos non fuerit voti, vel laqueos desperationis, vel sacrilegium incurret blasphemi.

Scripture echoes

  1. ↩2Cor.4.18 — So we do not focus on the things that are seen, but on the things that are unseen; for the things that are seen are temporary, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
  2. ↩Gal.6.4 — But let each one test his own work, and then he will have reason for boasting in himself alone, and not in another.
  3. ↩Job.32.19 — Look, my belly is like wine that has not been opened — like new wineskins, it is ready to burst.
  4. ↩Deut.6.16 — You shall not put the LORD your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah.
  5. ↩Deut.6.16 — You shall not put the LORD your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah.
  6. ↩1Cor.10.9 — Nor must we put the Lord to the test, as some of them did, and were destroyed by serpents.

Notes

  1. 1 ↩The phrase 'a quo facti sunt' (by whom they were made) and 'quod facti sunt' (what they were made to be) carry a dense theological compression: the Creator and the creature's purpose are contrasted with worldly distraction.
  2. 2 ↩'Antoniana et Macariana instrumenta' refers to the ascetic tools associated with St. Anthony and St. Macarius, contrasted here with decorative luxuries.
  3. 3 ↩The rhetorical question 'unde haec mentis angustia, unde totus hic labor?' frames the monk's discontent as a spiritual diagnostic: the real disorder is interior, not in the humble surroundings.
  4. 4 ↩The phrase 'ex nimia mentis angustia cum compos non fuerit voti' is syntactically dense. The reading taken is: from excessive narrowness of mind, since he has not been master of his vow. An alternative reading could connect 'ex nimia mentis angustia' more directly to the vice itself rather than to the consequence.

Speculum caritatis (The Mirror of Charity) companion

Reorder one love at a time, daily

Use the study map with the free Chosen Portion app's daily readings to work through Aelred at a sustainable pace.

Aelred wrote the Mirror as a rule for daily interior discipline in community, and Chosen Portion carries that discipline forward as a short ordered reading each day.

  • All 3 books and 102 chapters mapped into 4 weekly themes with page-level pointers
  • Aelred's choice-motion-fruit test, turned into a one-page self-examination worksheet
  • 16 discussion questions ready for personal journaling or a 4-session small group
Chosen Portion — Daily Prayer (free iOS app) →