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← Speculum caritatis (The Mirror of Charity)/Book 2 · Speculum caritatis — Liber II
Chapter 26SpCar.2.26

De dominandi libidine.

The Torments of Ambition

The lust for domination enslaves the mind, breeding flattery, suspicion, envy, slander, and a total inner collapse when ambition is thwarted.

But if the lust for power has corrupted the mind, only the one who has truly known how much labor it imposes can say so — the one who, having experienced the tyranny of this worst passion, has at last been set free from its dominion by the help of God. For as soon as a mind driven by madness has conceived this harmful poison, it prostrates itself in degenerate baseness before the one from whom it hunts the favor it craves for itself; and before that person is preferred to others, the seeker has become the most abject slave of everyone he has perceived to be capable of either harming or helping him. Hence, from fear of those people comes the suppression of truth, and from desire for their favor comes shameful flattery — and so all freedom of speech is taken away from the person, so that he is compelled to praise what his conscience knows deserves censure, and to censure what his conscience has shown deserves approval. Finally, if he perceives that anyone at all is drawing closer to the person on whom he leans for favor, immediately his captive mind is pierced through with the darts of suspicion — afraid that this other person will be promoted more quickly than himself to the honors he seeks, he is tormented by the anguish of fear. And so he is beaten with the iron rods of envy, so that neither does his food serve its proper use, nor does sleep come to him for rest. Then he turns to gossip and whisperings, and whatever fault he has spotted in the person he flatters, he betrays and makes public; whatever he cannot openly censure, he stains with twisted interpretation. But if all his hope has been frustrated and another person is promoted — what crosses, what torments does that soul endure then? He is confused, crushed, thrown into turmoil, torn apart — unable to bear the inner fires raging within him, he is either driven from the community, hemmed in by the blows of so many passions, or if bound by human shame he remains in the community, he is completely turned inward, and unable to contain the flame of ambition once conceived, he gasps, he burns, he is tormented — so that in his silence his bitterness shows, and in his words his indignation, and like an earthen vessel under the force of a hidden furnace, he unhappily cracks through the outward movements of his body — speaking bitterly, glaring fiercely, and responding to everything thrown at him with swollen outrage.✦

Rebellion Cloaked in False Zeal

When ambition is denied, the ambitious person turns to open defiance of superiors, malicious scrutiny, and a counterfeit prophetic zeal that masks personal grievance.

Then he openly resists those he once fawned over shamefully, contradicts them, speaks against them, secretly gnawing at them with malicious slander, and publicly rebuking them without any reverence or decency. Then, listening with wicked curiosity to every word of his superiors, he lies in wait for them syllable by syllable, probes their deeds; and surveying, as I might put it, every movement and path with shameless eyes, he recounts everything, judges everyone on every matter, and because of his own malice interprets it all in the worst light. But if perhaps — as human weakness goes — a superior has been overtaken by some lapse, then that man, having found an opening, as he sees it, for avenging his own grievance, raises his brow in pride, furrows his forehead, and opens his lips wide with relentless outcries. But to make it appear to onlookers that he is driven by zeal for God, he sometimes wrings a few drops of tears from himself, puts forth deceitful sighs, and with sufficiently complaining voices laments that love is being abandoned; he groans that purity is being violated and justice trampled underfoot. You might say, if you didn't know, that he is driven by the same spirit by which the prophet Jeremiah once burned with fire: 'The word of the Lord,' he says, 'has become like a fire burning in my bones, and I have grown weary and cannot bear it' (Jer.✦ 20). So that man, proclaiming that his inward parts are being devoured by the fire of God's zeal, pretends to be raised up on behalf of justice, to be striving for order, and to have endured hatreds even for the sake of clarity and good name. What more?

The Corruption of Promotion and the Call to True Rest

The disorder of promoting the rebellious instead of the humble is exposed, and the reader is invited to examine the soul's deformity in the mirror of truth, uproot the roots of passion, and find rest in Christ's gentle yoke.

And so the rebellious and stubborn person at last finds himself in a situation where either sheer necessity drives him out, or at least he is softened by some act of his own free will. From this a strange kind of abuse has grown up. When religious life was once lived purely and thoroughly, just as the rule of truth demands — those who were more humble, more ready to obey, more willing to endure reproach, more fervent in all good things, and least eager for honor — such people were not, I say, promoted to rule others or given administrative duties, but were compelled to take them on. Now, on the contrary, while some are feared for their insolence, rebellion is guarded against, and wickedness is dreaded — because they are complaining, irritable, fickle, and listless, unable to stand on their own two feet in the house, now outside, now inside — because, in short, they are feared, they are promoted; and what ought to have been for them a cause of humiliation and humility becomes fuel for swelling pride.123 But about this threefold desire, let these things be enough.4 In all these matters, if anyone has carefully examined the face of his own soul, as if in a mirror, he will find — unless I am mistaken — that he has not only some deformity, but will also recognize the hidden causes of that deformity under the light of truth, and so will blame not the harshness of the Lord's yoke (which has none) but his own perversity.56 With these roots of passion — so to speak, the causes of all our labor — completely torn out, and with the yoke of clarity laid upon the shoulders of our mind, we will learn from the Lord Jesus that he is gentle and humble in heart, and we will find rest for our souls, keeping sabbath not with the Jews a carnal sabbath, but in the sweetness of love — a sabbath eternal and spiritual.✦✦789

Read the original Latin

At si mentem libido dominandi corruperit, quantum ei laboris imponit, solus ille nosse potuerit, qui hujus pessimae passionis expertus tyrannidem, Dei tandem auxilio ab ejus est dominio liberatus. Statim enim ut noxium hoc virus mens insana conceperit, ei a quo desiderii sui aucupatur affectum, degeneri vilitate substernitur, et antequam ille aliis praeferatur, ipse omnium, quos sibi obesse vel prodesse posse perspexerit, abjectissimus servus efficitur. Inde ob eorum timorem veritatis suppressio, ob eorum favorem turpis adulatio, itaque ei tota vocis libertas adimitur, ut laudare cogatur quae conscientia viderit arguenda; arguere quae ipsa indicaverit approbanda. Denique si quemlibet ejus cui innititur familiaritati, propius accedere perspexerit, mox suspicionum jaculis mens captiva confoditur, ne is ad eos, quos ipse ambit, honores citius assumatur, aegritudine timoris afficitur. Itaque invidiae virgis ferreis caeditur, ut nec cibus ad utilitatem, nec ei somnus proveniat ad quietem. Tunc ad detractiones, susurrationesque convertitur, ac quidquid in eo perspexerit arguendum, prodit et publicat; quidquid publice arguere non potest, sinistra interpretatione commaculat. Verum si tota sua spe frustrata, alius provehatur; quae tunc illi animae cruces, quae tormenta? Confunditur, conteritur, conturbatur, dissipatur, internosque aestus ferre non sustinens, aut e congregatione, tot passionum ictibus arctatus, excutitur, vel si humano pudore devinctus in congregatione resederit, totus in contrarium vertitur, conceptamque semel ambitionis flammam ferre non valens, anhelat, aestuat, cruciatur, ita ut in silentio ejus amaritudo appareat, et in verbis indignatio, et vasis testei instar ad vim fornacis occultae per exterioris hominis motus infeliciter crepat, mordaciter loquens, truculenter aspiciens, et ad omnia quae objiciuntur, turgida inflatione respondens.

Tunc quibus prius turpiter adulabatur, aperta fronte resistit, contradicit, obloquitur, clam malitiosa detractione corrodens, palam sine omni reverentia et honestate objurgans. Tunc omnia seniorum suorum verba male curiosus attendens, singulis insidiatur syllabis, explorat facta; et omnes, ut ita dixerim, motus et itinera impudicis oculis perlustrans, enumerat omnia, de omnibus judicat, ac pro malitiae suae livore omnia interpretatur. Quod si forte, ut se habet humana infirmitas, excessu aliquo praeventus senior fuerit, jam tum ille nactus locum suae, ut sibi videtur, injuriae ulciscendae erigit supercilium, rugat frontem, labia importunis dilatat clamoribus. Verum ut se Dei zelo agi intuentibus mentiatur, quasdam sibi aliquando extorquet guttulas lacrymarum, dolosa producit suspiria, querulis satis vocibus charitatem deseri queritur; puritatem transgredi, conculcari justitiam ingemiscit. Dicas, si nescias, eo spiritu agi eum, quo quondam Jeremias propheta flammescens: Factus est, inquit, sermo Domini quasi ignis aestuans in ossibus meis: et defeci, ferre non sustinens (Jer. xx). Sic ille igne zeli Dei interiora sua depasci proclamans, se pro justitia erigi, certare pro ordine, pro claritate etiam odia subiisse mentitur. Quid plura?

Ita tandem rebellis ac contumax experitur, ut vel expelli eum extrema necessitas urgeat, aut certe aliqua propriae voluntatis libertate leniri. Hinc mira quaedam orta abusio est. Cum aliquando status religionis pure admodum tractaretur, sicut se habet regula veritatis; quicunque humiliores, quietiores ad obedientiam, ad opprobria promptiores, in omnibus bonis ferventiores, qui honores maxime non appeterent; hi tales vel ad alios regendos, vel ad aliquas administrationes, non dico promovebantur, sed compellebantur; nunc e contrario, dum quorumdam timetur insolentia, vel cavetur rebellio, vel improbitas formidatur, quia querulosi, quia iracundi, quia leves et acediosi, non valentes in domo consistere pedibus suis, nunc foris, nunc intus; quia denique timentur, promoventur; et quae illis debuit esse causa dejectionis et humilitatis, fit fomes tumoris. Sed de trimoda hac cupiditate haec satis sint. In quibus omnibus si quis animae suae vultum, quasi in quodam speculo diligenter attenderit, inveniet, ni fallor, non modo quid habeat deformitatis, sed et ipsius deformitatis causas occultas sub veritatis luce cognoscet, ac sic non Dominici jugi asperitatem, quae nulla est, sed propriam arguet perversitatem. His ergo passionum radicibus, quasi totius laboris nostri causis, evulsis penitus, ac mentis nostrae humeris claritatis jugo suppositis, discemus a Domino Jesu quia mitis est et humilis corde, et inveniemus requiem animabus nostris, sabbatizantes, non cum Judaeis Sabbatum carnale, sed in dulcedine charitatis aeternum et spirituale.

Scripture echoes

  1. ↩2Cor.4.7 — But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that the surpassing power belongs to God and not from us.
  2. ↩Jer.20.9 — And I said, 'I will not mention him, nor will I speak in his name anymore.' But it was in my heart like a burning fire, shut up in my bones, and I was weary of holding it in, and I could not.
  3. ↩Matt.11.29-Matt.11.30 — Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Matt.11.30 — For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
  4. ↩Matt.11.29 — Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

Notes

  1. 1 ↩status religionis tractaretur: 'the state of religious life was handled' preserves the monastic sense of religio as ordered life under a rule.
  2. 2 ↩non dico ... sed adversative: rendered 'not ... but' to preserve the corrective force of the author's distinction.
  3. 3 ↩fomes tumoris: rendered 'fuel for swelling pride' to capture the metaphor of tinder feeding a blaze.
  4. 4 ↩trimoda cupiditas: rare word; rendered 'threefold desire' pending further context on what the three modes are.
  5. 5 ↩vultum animae rendered 'face of his own soul' to preserve the speculum imagery of the title and tradition.
  6. 6 ↩asperitas ... quae nulla est: rendered parenthetical '(which has none)' to capture the concessive force.
  7. 7 ↩jugum claritatis: 'yoke of clarity' is unusual; possibly an allusion to the 'easy yoke' of Matthew 11:30 reframed through the lens of claritas. Rendered literally pending theological review.
  8. 8 ↩sabbatizantes: rare verb rendered 'keeping sabbath' to preserve the participial force.
  9. 9 ↩charitatis: rendered 'love' per default policy; theologically this is the theological virtue of charity.

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