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← The Imitation of Christ/Book 3 · On Inward Consolation
Chapter 45Imit.3.45

Quod omnibus non est credendum, et de facili lapsu verborum.

The Emptiness of Human Help

The soul cries out to God in distress, confessing the vanity of human hope and the instability of all people.

"Give me your help, Lord, in my trouble, because the salvation of man is empty."✦1 How often I have failed to find faithfulness where I thought I possessed it, and how often I have found it where I least expected. Empty, then, is the hope placed in men; but the salvation of the righteous is in you, O God.2 Blessed are you, Lord God, in all that happens to us. We are weak and unstable; quickly we are deceived and quickly we change.

Trust in God Alone

Only the one who trusts in God with a simple heart is kept from falling, for God alone is perfectly faithful.

What person is there who can guard himself so cautiously and so carefully in all things that he never falls into some deception or confusion? But the one who trusts in you, Lord, and seeks you with a simple heart doesn't slip and fall so easily. And if such a person falls into some trial, however entangled he may be, he'll be rescued more quickly through you, or he'll be comforted by you, because you don't abandon the one who hopes in you, not to the very end.✦ Rare is the faithful friend who stands by a friend through every trial. You, Lord, you alone are most faithful in all things, and besides you there is no one else like this.

The Mind Founded in Christ

The soul longs for the steadfastness of a mind founded in Christ, confesses its own failures in trusting others, and affirms that God alone is truth while every person is unreliable in speech.

Oh, how well that holy soul understood when she said: My mind is made firm, and founded in Christ. If it were so with me, human fear would not so easily trouble me, nor would the darts of words move me. Who can foresee all things? Who is sufficient to guard against future evils? If even foreseen things often hurt, how heavily must unexpected things strike, if not severely?3 But why have I, wretched as I am, not taken better care? Why did I also trust others so easily? But we are only men, and nothing other than fragile men at that, even if by many we are regarded and called angels.4 Whom should I trust, Lord? Whom should I trust except You? You are the truth, who do not deceive and cannot be deceived.✦ And again: Every man is a liar, unstable, and slippery, especially in words, so that one scarcely ought to believe straightaway what seems right on the surface.56

Warnings Against Deceitful People

Drawing on Christ's warnings, the soul confesses hard lessons learned from betrayal, prays for protection from reckless people, and resolves to guard against causing the same harm.

How wisely you warned us to beware of people, that a person's enemies are those of his own household, and that we should not believe anyone who says, "Look, here!" or "Look, there!"✦ I've been taught by my losses — and I wish it had made me more cautious, not more foolish. "Be careful," someone says. "Be careful — keep what I tell you to yourself." And while I stay silent and trust him with the secret, he can't keep quiet about what he asked me to hide. Instead he immediately betrays both me and himself, and walks away. Protect me, Lord, from troublemakers and reckless people — lest I fall into their hands, and lest I ever do such things myself. Give a true and steadfast word to my mouth, and keep a hasty tongue far from me. What I don't want to suffer, I must take every precaution to avoid.

The Peace of Silence and Hiddenness

The soul extols the peace of silence, the safety of hiddenness for preserving grace, and the danger that comes when virtue is publicly praised.

Oh, how good and peaceful it is to keep silent about others, not to believe everything indiscriminately, not to speak out too readily, to reveal yourself to few, always to seek you as the inspector of the heart, not to be carried about by every wind of words, but to desire that all things — inner and outer — be accomplished according to the good pleasure of your will.7 How safe it is for the preservation of heavenly grace to flee human display and not to chase after what outwardly seems to offer admiration, but with all diligence to pursue those things that bring amendment of life and fervor.89 How many people have been harmed by virtue that was known and properly praised. How truly has grace preserved in silence profited in this frail life, which is wholly temptation and warfare.1011

Read the original Latin

Da mihi auxilium, Domine, de tribulatione, quia vana salus hominis. Quam sæpe ibi non inveni fidem, ubi me habere putavi: quoties etiam ibi reperi, ubi minus præsumsi. Vana ergo spes in hominibus, salus autem justorum in te, Deus. Benedictus sis, Domine Deus, in omnibus quæ nobis accidunt. Infirmi sumus et instabiles; cito fallimur et permutamur.

Quis est homo qui ita caute et circumspecte in omnibus se custodire valeat: ut aliquando in aliquam deceptionem, vel perplexitatem non veniat. Sed qui in te, Domine, confidit, ac simplici ex corde quærit, non tam facile labitur. Et si inciderit in aliquam tribulationem, quomodocumque etiam fuerit implicatus, citius per te eruetur, aut a te consolabitur, quia tu non deseris in te sperantem usque in finem. Rarus fidus amicus, in cunctis amici perseverans pressuris. Tu Domine, tu solus es fidelissimus in omnibus, et præter te non est alter talis.

O, quam bene sapuit illa anima sancta, quæ dixit: Mens mea solidata est, et in Christo fundata. Si ita mecum foret, non tam facile timor humanus me sollicitaret, nec verborum jacula moverent. Quis omnia prævidere, quis præcavere futura mala sufficit? Si prævisa etiam lædunt sæpe, quid improvisa nisi graviter feriunt? Sed quare mihi misero non melius providi? Cur etiam tam facile aliis credidi? Sed homines sumus, nec aliud quam fragiles homines sumus, etsi Angeli a multis æstimamur, et dicimur. Cui credam, Domine? Cui credam nisi tibi? Es veritas quæ non fallis, nec falli potes. Et rursum: Omnis homo mendax, instabilis, et labilis maxime in verbis, ita ut statim vix credit debeat, quod rectum in facie sonare videtur.

Quam prudenter præmonuisti, cavendum ab hominibus esse, et quia inimici hominis domestici ejus, nec credendum, si quis dixerit: Ecce hic, aut ecce illic. Doctus sum damno et utinam ad cautelam majorem, non ad insipientiam mihi. Cautus esto, quidam ait; cautus esto, serva apud te quod dico: et dum ego sileo et absconditum credo, nec ille silere potest, quod silendum petiit; sed statim prodit me, et se, et abit. Ab hujusmodi rabulis et incautis hominibus protege me, Domine, ne in manus eorum incideam, nec unquam talia committam. Verbum verum, et stabile da in os meum et linguam calidam longe fac a me. Quod pati nolo, omnimode cavere debeo.

O, quam bonum et pacificum de aliis silere, nec indifferenter omnia credere, nec de facili ulterius effari, paucis seipsum revelare, te semper inspectorem cordis quærere, nec omni verborum vento circumferri, sed omnia intima et externa secundum tuæ beneplacitum voluntatis optare perfici. Quam tutum pro conservatione cælestis gratiæ, humanam fugere apparentiam nec appetere quæ foris admirationem videntur præbere: sed ea tota sedulitate sectari, quæ vitæ emendationem dant, et fervorem. Quam multis nocuit virtus scita, ac proprie laudata. Quam sane profuit gratia servata silentio in hac fragili vita, quæ tota tentatio fertur et militia.

Scripture echoes

  1. ↩Ps.60.11 — Who will bring me to the fortified city? Who will lead me to Edom?
  2. ↩Ps.22.2;Ps.24.1;Ps.9.19;Isa.41.17 — My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Far from my salvation are the words of my groaning. Ps.24.1 — A Psalm of David. The earth is the LORD's, and all that fills it; the world and all who dwell in it, Ps.9.19 — For the needy will not be forgotten forever; the hope of the humble will never perish. Isa.41.17 — When the poor and needy seek water and find none, when their tongues are parched with thirst, I, the LORD, will answer them; I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.
  3. ↩John.14.6 — Jesus said to him, 'I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.'
  4. ↩Matt.24.23 — Then if anyone says to you, 'Look, here is the Christ!' or 'There he is!'—do not believe it.

Notes

  1. 1 ↩The quoted span echoes Psalm 60:11 (Vulg. 59:13) — 'Give us help from trouble, for vain is the help of man.' Final resolution deferred to Moses stage.
  2. 2 ↩ergo rendered as 'then' to mark the inferential force; autem rendered as 'but' for the contrastive turn from human frailty to divine trust.
  3. 3 ↩The Latin 'quid improvisa nisi graviter feriunt' is a rhetorical question: 'what do unexpected things do if not strike heavily?' Rendered to preserve the force of the rhetorical question in natural English.
  4. 4 ↩nec aliud quam fragiles homines sumus: 'nor are we anything other than fragile men' — rendered as 'nothing other than fragile men at that' to capture the self-effacing force.
  5. 5 ↩Omnis homo mendax — echoes Psalm 115:2 (Vulgate) / Psalm 116:11 (Hebrew): 'Omnis homo mendax.' Candidate biblical quotation; final resolution pending tx-08 Moses check.
  6. 6 ↩ita ut: result clause ('so that') preferred over purpose; the context describes the actual consequence of human unreliability.
  7. 7 ↩beneplacitum voluntatis rendered as 'good pleasure of your will' to capture the devotional sense of God's willing purpose.
  8. 8 ↩gratiæ rendered as 'grace' per approved lexeme policy.
  9. 9 ↩apparentiam rendered as 'display' to capture the sense of outward show or human reputation.
  10. 10 ↩gratia rendered as 'grace' per approved lexeme policy.
  11. 11 ↩militia rendered as 'warfare' to capture the sense of spiritual combat.