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← The Imitation of Christ/Book 3 · On Inward Consolation
Chapter 13Imit.3.13

De obedientia humili subditi, ad exemplum Jesu Christi.

The Cost of Withdrawing from Obedience

Whoever flees obedience flees grace, for the undisciplined flesh rebels until the soul learns true self-contempt and yields wholly to another's will.

Son, whoever strives to withdraw himself from obedience withdraws himself from grace, and whoever seeks to have what is his own loses what is shared.1 Whoever does not submit willingly and freely to his superior is a sign that his flesh does not yet perfectly obey him, but often kicks back and murmurs.2 So learn to submit quickly to your superior if you want to bring your own flesh under control. The outer enemy is conquered more quickly, if the inner self has not been laid waste.34 There is no more troublesome and worse enemy of the soul than you yourself are to yourself, not being well aligned with the spirit.56 For you must take up a true contempt of yourself, if you wish to prevail against flesh and blood, because you still love yourself too inordinately and hesitantly: that is why you shrink from yielding yourself fully to the will of others.✦789

Christ's Humility as Our Pattern

If the Almighty Creator humbled Himself to a human being for our sake, how much more should dust and ashes submit, break their own will, and embrace every subjection.

But what great thing is it for you — you who are dust and nothing — to submit to a human being for God's sake, when the Almighty and Most High, who created all things out of nothing, humbly subjected himself to a human being for your sake?10 I have become the most humble and the lowest of all, so that by my humility you might overcome even your pride.✦11 Learn to obey, dust — learn to humble yourself, earth and mud — and bow down under the feet of all. Learn to break your own will and to give yourself over to every kind of subjection.

Blazing Against the Self

The reader is urged to crush all pride, accept reproach without complaint, and recognize that God's sparing mercy calls for perpetual gratitude, subjection, and patient endurance of contempt.

Blaze up against yourself, and don't let any pride live in you. Instead, show yourself so submissive and lowly in dust that everyone can walk over you and trample you down like the mud in the streets. What do you have to complain about, empty man? What can you, filthy sinner, say against those who reproach you—you who have offended God so often and deserved hell so many times over? But my eye has spared you, because your soul was precious in my sight, so that you would come to know my love and always remain grateful for my gifts, and continually give yourself over to true subjection and humility, and patiently bear the contempt that is your due.12

Read the original Latin

Fili, qui se subtrahere nititur ab obedientia, ipse se subtrahit a gratia et qui quærit habere privata, amittit communia. Qui non libenter, et sponte suo superiori se subdit: signum est quod caro sua nondum perfecte sibi obedit, sed sæpe recalcitrat et murmurat. Disce ergo celeriter superiori tuo te submittere, si carnem propriam optas subjugare. Citius namque exterior vincitur inimicus, si interior homo non fuerit devastatus. Non est molestior et pejor animæ hostis, quam tu ipse tibi, non bene concordans spiritui. Oportet enim te verum assumere tui ipsius contemtum, si vis prævalere adversus carnem, et sanguinem, quia adhuc nimis inordinate te diligis: ideo plene te resignare aliorum voluntati trepidas.

Sed quid magnum tu, qui pulvis es, et nihil, si propter Deum te subdis homini, quando eo Omnipotens et Altissimus, qui cuncta creavi ex nihilo, me homini propter te subjeci humiliter. Factus sum omnium humillimus, et infimus, ut etiam superbiam mea humilitate vinceres. Disce obtemperare, pulvis, disce te humiliare, terra et limus, et sub omnium pedibus incurvare. Disce voluntates tuas frangere, et ad omnem subjectionem te dare.

Exardesce contra te, nec patiaris tumorem in te vivere, sed ita subjectum et pulverem te exhibe, ut omnes super te ambulare possint, et sicut lutum platearum conculcare. Quid habes, homo inanis, conqueri? Quid, sordide peccator, potes contradicere exprobrantibus tibi, qui toties Deum offendisti et toties infernum meruisti? Sed pepercit tibi oculus meus, quia prætiosa fuit anima tua in conspectu meo, ut cognosceres dilectionem meam, et gratus semper beneficiis meis existeres et ad veram subjectionem et humilitatem te jugiter dares, patienterque proprium contemtum ferres.

Scripture echoes

  1. ↩Eph.6.12 — For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
  2. ↩Phil.2.8-Phil.2.9 — And he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Phil.2.9 — Therefore God also exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name above every name,

Notes

  1. 1 ↩privata/communia rendered as 'what is his own' / 'what is shared' to capture the substantive neuter plural contrast between private interest and common good.
  2. 2 ↩recalcitrat rendered as 'kicks back' to capture the vivid, bodily resistance of the Latin.
  3. 3 ↩interior homo rendered as 'inner self' rather than 'interior man' for natural modern English; 'self' captures the interior person without archaism.
  4. 4 ↩devastatus rendered as 'laid waste' to convey the force of spiritual ruin.
  5. 5 ↩anima rendered as 'soul' per approved lexeme policy.
  6. 6 ↩non bene concordans spiritui rendered as 'not being well aligned with the spirit' to capture the sense of inner discord.
  7. 7 ↩verum contemtum rendered as 'true contempt' — not self-hatred but honest lowliness before God.
  8. 8 ↩carnem et sanguinem rendered as 'flesh and blood' preserving the biblical pairing.
  9. 9 ↩resignare rendered as 'yielding' — surrendering or handing over oneself.
  10. 10 ↩eo (token 16) rendered as 'when' to capture the temporal/causal grounding of the argument; the ablative of degree ('to that extent') is also possible but less natural here.
  11. 11 ↩ut (token 6) rendered as 'so that' (purpose); a result reading ('with the result that') is also possible.
  12. 12 ↩dilectio rendered as love per lexeme policy; the sense here is God's own love for the soul, not merely human affection.