De eorum sententia, qui exteriores labores charitati et interiori dulcedini dicunt esse contrarios.
The False Wisdom of Fleshly Comfort
The author introduces and dismantles the opinion that bodily asceticism harms spiritual delight, exposing it as a worldly wisdom that mistakes fleshly ease for the path to interior joy.
But you say that staying up night after night wears the body down, that daily labor punishes the flesh, that the plainest food saps the strength from your limbs — and that these things aren't just a small burden, but are plainly at odds with the very love you work so hard to commend, so much so that draining away all the sweetness of your mind, they leave it emptied of every spiritual delight. This is the laughable opinion of certain people who locate spiritual delight in a kind of bodily pleasantness, claiming that punishing the body harms the spirit, and that the sufferings of the outer person diminish the holiness of the inner. Since, they say, flesh and spirit are joined to each other by a natural bond of affection, they must share each other's sufferings; and so it's impossible that the cheerfulness of one is not disturbed by the oppression of the other — with the result that the spirit, cast down into a kind of anxious grief, can in no way breathe again into that spiritual joy. These things seem like they should either be examined closely or proved by careful argument. What a shameful thing! By the rules of Hippocrates, spiritual advantage is what's being sought. So, without doubt, they are far mistaken: those who lean on physical arguments rather than on apostolic teaching. Clearly this is a wisdom that does not come down from above — which may indeed be modest at first, and then peaceable, but is in every way earthly, unspiritual, and diabolical.✦
The Cross Against Delicate Teaching
The author contrasts the wisdom of the Word, which empties out the cross, with the cross itself, which overthrows every teaching that spares the flesh.
This is the wisdom of the Word: though it teaches the sweetness of the flesh, it strives to empty out the cross of Christ — and in that cross, as far as the flesh is concerned, there is nothing sweet, nothing soft, nothing tender, nothing at all pleasant. But that wisdom is not emptied out. Rather, it is the cross that overthrows this delicate teaching — the teaching that the nails, clothed in sacred limbs, conquer; the teaching that the spear, driven into his tender inward parts with its saving point, vanquishes.
Outward Tribulation, Inward Consolation
The author boldly affirms that bodily affliction, rightly ordered by sound intention and elder-tested discretion, does not diminish but stirs up divine consolation, so that outward tribulation and inward sweetness must be held in balance.
I feel entirely the opposite, and I state it boldly: affliction of the flesh — if a sound intention goes before it and discretion has been maintained (which discretion one ought to draw not from one's own guesswork but from the examples of the elders, lest perhaps laxity and dissolution disguise themselves under the guise of discretion) — so, I say, I do not consider affliction of the flesh to be contrary to the spirit, nor do I think it diminishes divine consolation; rather, I feel it stirs it up, to such a degree that I believe these two things must always be held in balance in this life alone: namely, outward tribulation and inward consolation.
Whose Experience Shall We Trust?
The author turns to his interlocutor, pressing the question of whose spiritual experience should be trusted when opinions about asceticism and consolation conflict.
What then? you say. Should I trust your opinion more than my own experience? And what if someone else testifies that his experience has been far different? Which of you, then, should I especially trust?
Grace Is Not Bound by Physical Laws
The author resolves the dilemma by insisting that divine grace cannot be subjected to bodily causality, since God shows mercy to whomever He wills.
You've taken up a stricter way of life, and you suppose that spiritual grace has been diminished for you; but the more that other person is afflicted, the greater the grace of divine sweetness they experience. Whose opinion, then, should we trust? Or shall we say that here, too, divine grace must submit to physical laws? Far from it, far from it!
The Sweetness of the Compassionate One
The author concludes by affirming that God's consolation is not withheld from the suffering out of harshness, and he appeals to Christ's own testimony as the final, heretical-to-doubt authority.
Clearly, he shows mercy to whomever he wills. Perhaps, then, to the one abounding in riches and pleasures he imparts the sweetness of his consolation, which he withholds from his own poor little one who daily dies for his sake, under a harsh judgment.1 Far be it to think this about that most sweet, most gentle, most devout, most compassionate one. But if I say it, you may doubt it; if Christ says it, not to believe it is heretical.
Read the original Latin
Sed assiduis, inquis, vigiliis corpus tabefacere; quotidianis laboribus carnem affligere; vilissimis cibis membrorum labefactare vigorem; non solum non modici laboris; sed et ei, quam tantopere niteris commendare, adeo charitati constat esse contrarium, ut totam mentis suavitatem evacuans, omni eam spirituali dulcedine reddat effetam. Haec est illa ridenda quorumdam opinio, qui spiritualem dulcedinem in carnis quodammodo suavitate constituunt, asserentes corporis afflictionem contrariam esse spiritui, exteriorisque hominis passiones interioris minuere sanctitatem. Cum enim, inquiunt, caro ac spiritus affectu sibi naturali cohaereant, necesse est suas invicem communicent passiones; ac sic impossibile, ut non hujus oppressione alterius hilaritas perturbetur, ita ut in illud gaudium spirituale maeroris quadam anxietate dejectus spiritus nullatenus valeat respirare. Acute haec vel investigari videntur, vel probari. O rem pudendam! secundum regulas Hippocratis gratia quaeritur spiritualis. Sic nimirum, sic errant: qui physicis argumentis, magis quam praeceptis apostolicis innituntur. Plane haec est sapientia, non desursum descendens, quae primum quidem pudica est, deinde pacifica: sed prorsus terrena, animalis, diabolica.
Haec est sapientia verbi, quae cum suavitatem doceat carnis, crucem Christi evacuare contendit: in qua profecto quantum ad carnem nihil est suave, nihil molle, nihil tenerum, nihil omnino delicatum. Sed non illa evacuatur. Illa potius hanc delicatam doctrinam evertit; quam clavi sacris induti membris expugnant; quam lancea illa dulcibus impressa visceribus acumine salutari debellat. Ego prorsus contra sentio, audacterque pronuntio, carnis afflictionem, si sana praecedat intentio, et fuerit servata discretio, quam tamen non propria conjectura, sed exemplis majorum capere oportet, ne forte remissio et dissolutio sub colore se discretionis obpallient; sic, inquam, carnis afflictionem non spiritui contrariam, sed nec divinam minuere consolationem, sed potius sentio provocare: adeo ut haec duo semper aequari in hac duntaxat vita existimem; exteriorem scilicet tribulationem, et interiorem consolationem. Quid ergo, inquis? Tuaene sententiae, magis quam propriae credam experientiae? Et quid, si alius longe aliud se testetur expertum? Cui vestrum potissimum credam?
Tu arrepta arctiori conversatione diminutam tibi autumas gratiam spiritualem: ille quo magis affligitur, eo majorem divinae dulcedinis gratiam experitur. Cujus ergo sententiae accommodanda est fides? An et hic physicis rationibus divinam gratiam substernendam putabimus? Absit, absit! Plane cui vult miseretur. Forte ergo huic divitiis et deliciis affluenti suae consolationis dulcedinem impertit: quam a pauperculo suo pro se quotidie morienti rigida censura suspendit. Absit hoc de illo dulcissimo, suavissimo, piissimo, compatientissimo sentire. Sed si ego dico, potes dubitare; si autem Christus dicit, haereticum est non credere.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Jas.3.15 — This is not the wisdom that comes down from above; it is earthly, unspiritual, demonic.
Notes
- 1 ↩'pauperculo suo' — diminutive of 'pauper,' literally 'his poor little one.' The term carries tender pathos: God's own servant, reduced to poverty and daily dying.
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
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