Quod affectum non solum origo, sed etiam processus et finis scrutetur, et quod affectus transeat in affectum, exemplis ostenditur
The Need to Trace Affection from Origin to End
Bernard teaches that discernment requires watching not only where an affection begins but how it develops and where it finally leads.
Furthermore, when it comes to these affections, it's not only their origin that needs careful examination — their entire trajectory and where they end up must be watched with real discernment. For sometimes one affection arises most subtly and passes into another, or is certainly transformed. Two or three examples should be enough to show this.
From Admiration to Familiarity: A First Drift
A person begins by venerating a holy virgin with rational admiration, but as familiarity grows the affection quietly shifts toward mutual generosity and then opens the door to carnal temptation.
Take someone stirred by the reputation of a certain virgin — a woman holy in body and spirit, of sincere faith, outstanding discernment, grounded in the virtue of humility all the way to perfect self-contempt, renowned for remarkable abstinence, and celebrated for the highest obedience. Out of admiration for such extraordinary virtues, a person venerates her with the deepest affection.1 This is the affection I called rational earlier. So if this affection begins to seek familiarity — to honor her with deference, to be refreshed through conversation, through gifts or letters, or at least through small tokens paid in frequent visits — then this rational affection passes, almost without noticing, into an official one. And the person who had begun to be loved on account of holiness is now visited for the sake of mutual generosity.23 Then, as this affection reaches out toward certain enticements, that other affection — the carnal one, which is more destructive than the rest — creeps in under the pull of temptation.
When the Most Chaste Are Most Vulnerable
Bernard recalls men of strict chastity who cherished holy women with tender devotion, yet found that intimacy with the innocent wore them down more subtly than overt temptation would.
I myself have known men of the strictest chastity and continence, who recoiled from every kind of filth with the deepest horror — and yet it happened that when they saw certain women, still young, had reached the highest virtues, and perceived that they had grown, if I may put it this way, into grey-haired spiritual figures of wonderful gravity in character and holiness of life, these men cherished and embraced them with a most devout and tender affection.4 There were men who, while they more readily indulged the closeness of intimacy with certain women and, so to speak, rested more sweetly in the embrace of their very presence, were greatly worn down by a certain vicious affection creeping in all the more subtly; and though they would not look upon others who were conscious of that same sin — nay rather, they would cast them from the bosom of their nauseating soul with the utmost horror — yet those most chaste, most serious men, perhaps even serene with virginal beauty, whom even an unchaste person would regard with nothing but chastity precisely because he despaired of anything else — these men could scarcely be in their company without some titillation of vice.
Why Familiarity Corrupts More Easily Than Open Sin
Bernard asks why this happens and answers that affection born of practical familiarity slides into carnal desire more readily than an unchaste person is reformed by a chaste one.
Why is this? Surely because an affection born of practical familiarity is more easily changed into a carnal affection than an unchaste person is embraced by a chaste heart, or than chastity itself is openly pursued in an unchaste one.
Holding Affection Within the Bosom of the Mind
Bernard concludes with counsel that even rational or spiritual affection toward a suspect age or sex must be restrained inwardly and allowed to flow outward only in mature, temperate ways that serve virtue.
Accordingly, even when our affection — though it be rational, or even spiritual — has extended itself all the way to a suspect age or sex, it is most advisable that it be held in check within the very bosom of the mind, and not be allowed to flow out toward certain empty allurements and soft, tender feelings, unless perhaps, for this purpose, it proceeds at some point in a mature and temperate way, so that virtue, having been loved and praised, may be exercised all the more fervently.
Read the original Latin
Porro horum affectuum non solum origo scrutanda est, sed et processus ipse ac finis sagaciter attendendus. Subtilissime enim aliquando unus oritur, et in alium terminatur, vel certe mutatur. Quod de duobus vel tribus ostendisse satis sit. Fama cujuslibet virginis excitus quis, quae et sancta corpore et spiritu, fide sincera, discretione praecipua, usque ad perfectum contemptum sui humilitatis virtute fundata, praeclarae abstinentiae, summae praedicatur obedientiae : ob tantarum admirationem virtutum summo eam veneratur affectu. Quem quidem affectum superius rationalem nominavimus. Hujus ergo si incipiat familiaritate potiri, venerari obsequio, recreari colloquio, eulogiis vel litteris, vel certe quibusdam munusculis frequentare, rationalis iste affectus pene insensibiliter transit in officialem : et qui coeperat amari ob meritum sanctitatis, frequentari incipit ob gratiam mutuae liberalitatis. Deinde affectus iste dum ad quaedam blandimenta se porrigit : etiam carnalis ille qui ceteris perniciosior est, vitio tentante, subrepit. Novi ego viris pudicissimis et continentissimis, omnemque spurcitiam summo horrore detestantibus, accidisse, ut dum quasdam in tenera adhuc aetate summis virtutibus cernerent accessisse, ac mirabili morum gravitate ac vitae sanctitate in quosdam canos, ut ita dixerim, spirituales incredibiliter profecisse ; devotissimo eas ac dulcissimo colerent simul et amplecterentur affectu.
Quibus dum sui copiam pronius indulgerent, ac in eorum aspectu, ut ita dicam, amplexu suavius requiescerent, vitioso quodam affectu subtilius irrepente plurimum fatigati sunt ; et qui alios ejus criminis conscios non dico non aspicerent, imo a nauseantis animi sinu summo horrore rejicerent ; istos pudicissimos, gravissimos, forte etiam virgineo decore serenos, quos et impudicus quis ob ipsam desperationem non nisi pudice conspiceret ; vix sine quadam vitii titillatione frequentari potuerint. Cur hoc? Profecto quia officialis affectus facilius in carnalem affectum mutatur, quam vel pectore pudico impudicus amplectatur, vel in impudico quis manifeste pudicitiae appetatur. Proinde cum affectus noster quanquam rationalis, vel etiam spiritualis, usque ad suspectam aetatem vel sexum sese protenderit; consultissimum est, ut infra ipsum mentis sinum cohibeatur; nec ad inania quaedam blandimenta mollesque teneritudines patiatur effluere, nisi forte ob id aliquando mature ac temperate progrediatur, ut virtus amata et laudata ferventius exerceatur.
Notes
- 1 ↩contemptum sui here is the ascetical 'contempt of self' — a settled lowliness before God, not self-hatred. Rendered as 'self-contempt' to preserve the technical sense.
- 2 ↩officialem affectum: the gloss marks this as uncertain. Here it denotes a formal, dutiful, or propriety-driven attachment — affection that has become a matter of social obligation rather than spiritual admiration. Rendered as 'an official one' to preserve the contrast with rationalis.
- 3 ↩eulogiis: sense uncertain in gloss; likely devotional gifts or tokens of esteem rather than the Eucharistic sense of the word.
- 4 ↩canos... spirituales: 'grey-haired spiritual figures' — the metaphor connotes maturity, gravity, and spiritual depth. Rendered to preserve the image rather than flatten it.
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