De fuga saeculi et laqueis diaboli
The Call to Detachment
The reader is exhorted to prioritize eternal wisdom over worldly attachments and familial ties.
A wise person who listens will become wiser. Listen, good young person, to the word of eternal wisdom; it's more useful to you than all the wise people of the world. Don't love the world or the things in it, as blessed John says; instead, reject everything as dung and poison. Think about the end that has no end, and temptation will cease. Watch out for the danger to your soul; don't be a stumbling block to anyone, and don't speak an indecent word. If a carnal father pulls you away from God, answer that you have a Father in heaven. If a mother or sister gets in your way, say this to them: You are mortal and deceitful; the One who created me will guide me Himself.
The Vanity of Earthly Snares
The author warns against the distractions of friendship and the deceptive traps of worldly wealth and status.
Whoever serves God will not lack any good thing. Entrust all your friends to God, praying that they might improve themselves and guard against their sins, so they don't offend God and lose heavenly things for the sake of earthly ones. Frequent visits from friends are a great disturbance to the heart. The world is passing away, and its desires with it; you, too, will pass away, and all your friends along with you. The devil has many traps; anyone who wants to become rich and appear important will fall into his various temptations. Daily traps include food and drink, a wandering eye, idle talk, an inconsistent heart, and a weariness of doing good. Everything is vanity: honor, wealth, and power. Why do you seek or desire to see things in a world where nothing is clean?1
The Transience of All Things
A meditation on the fleeting nature of life, companions, and pleasures, emphasizing that only love for God remains.
Everything is vanity, slippery and deceitful, except for loving God and doing what is always good. You can't perfectly love God unless you despise yourself and the world for God's sake, who will repay you a hundredfold in this life and with eternal life in the next. O pilgrim brother, don't let it be a burden to be distanced from friends and acquaintances, who are often a hindrance to eternal salvation and a subtraction from divine consolation. Where are the companions you used to play and laugh with? I don't know. They've gone and left me behind. Where is what you saw yesterday? It's vanished. Where is what you ate and drank? It has all vanished. What harm did it do you to abstain? None at all. The wise person, therefore, is the one who serves God and completely rejects the world and its pleasures. It is truly so. Woe to all who are drunk on the world's allurements, for every pleasant company will soon desert, flee, and bury them. Look, they are all dead.
The Pilgrim's Final Departure
A reflection on the inevitability of death and the realization that we are merely passing guests on earth.
They won't return to me; instead, I will follow them when God calls. They were guests on earth, and so am I. They left everything behind, and so will I. They passed away suddenly like a shadow, and so will I.
Read the original Latin
Audiens sapiens sapientior erit. Audi adulescentule bone verbum aeternae sapientiae: super omnes sapientes mundi tibi magis utile. Noli secundum beati Iohannis dictum diligere mundum, et ea quae in mundo sunt: sed respue omnia tamquam stercora et venena. Cogita de fine sine fine: et cessabit temptatio. Cave animae tuae periculum; non sis alicui scandalum: nec loquaris indecens verbum. Si te retrahit a Deo pater carnalis: responde, quia patrem habes in caelis. Si mater aut soror impedit: dic eis. Mortales estis et fallaces: qui me creavit ipse me gubernabit.
Qui Deo servit: omni bono non deficiet. Commenda omnes amicos tuos Deo, orans ut se emendent; et caveant a peccatis ne Deum offendant: et pro terrenis caelestia perdant. Magna cordis inquietudo: amicorum visitatio frequens. Mundus transit et concupiscentia eius: et tu pariter transibis et amici tecum omnes. Multi laquei diaboli; et qui vult fieri dives et videri magnus: incidet in varias stemptationes eius. Laquei cotidiani sunt cibus et potus, oculus vagus, sermo otiosus: inconstantia cordis, et taedium boni operis. Omnia vanitas: honor divitiae et potestas. Quid quaeris quid cupis videre in mundo; ubi nihil est mundum?
Totum vanum lubricum et dolosum: praeter amare Deum et facere, semper bonum. Non potes perfecte amare Deum: nisi contemnas te ipsum et mundum propter Deum; qui reddet tibi centuplum in praesenti: et vitam aeternam in futuro. O frater peregrine non sit tibi grave elongari ab amicis et notis; qui saepe sunt impedimentum aeternae salutis: et subtractio divinae consolationis. Vbi sunt socii tui cum quibus lusisti et risisti? Nescio. Abierunt et me reliquerunt. Vbi est quod heri vidisti? Evanuit.
Vbi est quod comedisti et bibisti? Totum periit. Quid nocuit quod abstinuisti? Nihil omnino. Sapiens ergo qui Deo servit et saeculum cum suis delectationibus funditus spernit. Vere ita est. Vae omnibus mundi illecebris ebriis: quos cito omnis iucunda societas deseret fugiet atque sepeliet. Ecce mortui sunt omnes.
Non ultra revertentur ad me: ego magis sequar eos Deo vocante. Hospites fuerunt super terram: et ego. Omnia hic reliquerunt: et ego. Tamquam umbra subito transierunt: et ego.
Notes
- 1 ↩The Latin 'mundum' at the end of the sentence functions as a pun: 'in the world' (noun) vs. 'clean/pure' (adjective).
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