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Chapter 8ViaRegia.1.8

De patientia

The Scriptural Foundation of Patience

The author establishes the necessity of patience for the king by citing the wisdom of the Gospel, Solomon, Paul, and James.

Pass on again, king, from virtue to virtue, and from simplicity set your step gladly into patience.✦ Possess patience if you want to possess your soul gently.✦ This is how God, the author of our salvation and peace, speaks in the Gospel: "By your patience you will possess your souls."✦1 Solomon also says: "A person's understanding is known by their patience, and their glory is to overlook wrongs."✦ Paul also says: "As God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with a heart of mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving each other if anyone has a complaint against another; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive."✦2 Solomon testifies in Proverbs that this is also a virtue for princes, saying: "Through patience a prince is calmed, and a soft tongue breaks through hardness."✦ But the Apostle calls out to those same princes, saying: "Correct the restless, comfort the faint-hearted, support the weak, and be patient toward everyone."✦ The apostle James says: "Patience has its perfect work, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing."✦

The Fruits and Power of Patience

Patience is described as a transformative royal virtue that guards the soul, governs the mind, and strengthens faith.

The virtue that softens rulers, teaches them to correct the restless, and brings the work of kings to completion is, without a doubt, a royal virtue. Walk by it, most gentle king, and love it; if you follow this path you won't stumble, but instead you'll find full and everlasting joy in the life to come. For patience is a great virtue: it doesn't strike back at the one who hurts it, but loves that person; it forgives the wrongs of the one who wrongs it instead of paying them back; and when it could do harm, it doesn't—it spares instead.3 Patience is what commends us to God, and guards and keeps us from every evil. Patience calms anger, reins in the tongue, governs the mind, keeps the peace, and carries out discipline with measure. It breaks the rush of lust, checks the violence of rage, puts out the fire of rivalry, restrains the power of the rich, and relieves the need of the poor. It makes us humble in prosperity, strong in adversity, and gentle in the face of wrongs and insults. It conquers temptations and endures persecutions.4 Patience firmly fortifies the foundations of our faith, lifts the growth of our hope to a high place, guides us so we can hold to the way of Christ, and strengthens us so we can persevere as children of God.

Walking the Royal Road

The king is exhorted to embrace patience as the true royal road, distinguishing it from the impatience of the devil.

Love this virtue, King; cherish it; hurry to embrace it with joy and with all your strength. For it truly is the royal road, and it leads those who walk it well and gladly to the eternal kingdom. Take care not to turn aside to the right or to the left.✦ Know that just as patience is the Lord's good, so impatience is the devil's evil. And just as the one in whom Christ dwells and remains is found patient, so the one whose mind the devil's wickedness possesses is always impatient.✦ But you, king, hold to the royal road, and don't turn aside from it; instead, by this happy and blessed virtue, set the foot of your action well upon that which is called justice.5

Read the original Latin

Transi iterum, rex, de virtute in virtutem, et de simplicitate in patientiam feliciter pone gradum. Posside patientiam, si vis tuam dulciter possidere animam. Sic enim Deus anctos nostrae salutis et pacis in Evangelio ait: In patientia vestra possidebitis animas vestras. Salomon quoque dicit: Doctrina viri per patientiam noscitur, et gloria ejus est iniqua praetergredi. Paulus quoque ait: Induite vos ergo sicut electi Dei, sancti, et dilecti viscera misericordiae, benignitatem, humilitatem, modestiam, patientiam, supportantes invicem, et donantes vobismetipsis si quis adversus aliquem habet querelam: sicut Dominus donavit vobis, ita et vos. Nam quod et ista virtus principum virtus sit, Salomon in Proverbiis testatur, dicens: Patientia lenitur princeps, et lingua mollis frangit duritiem. Apostolus vero ad eosdem principes clamat, dicens: Corripite inquietos, consolamini pusillanimes, suscipite infirmos, patientes estote ad omnes. Jacobus apostolus ait: Patientia autem opus perfectum habet: ut sitis perfecti et integri, in nullo deficientes.

Virtus ergo quae lenit principes, et docet corripere inquietos, et opus regum ad perfectum perducit, sine dubio virtus est regia. Ambula ergo per eam, mitissime rex, et dilige eam, quia currens per eam non habebis offendiculum, sed plenum et aeternum in futuro invenies gaudium. Magna enim est virtus patientia, quae laedentem se non laedit, sed diligit; quae injurianti injurias remittit, non reddit; [quae] cui nocere potest non nocet, sed parcit. Patientia est quae nos Deo commendat, et a malis omnibus custodit et servat. Ipsa est quae iram temperat; ipsa est quae linguam refrenat; ipsa est quae mentem gubernat; ipsa est quae pacem custodit; ipsa est quae disciplinam moderate peragit; ipsa libidinis impetum frangit; ipsa furoris violentiam comprimit, incendium simultatis exstinguit, coercet potentiam divitum, refovet inopiam pauperum, facit humiles in prosperis, fortes in adversis, contra injurias et contumelias mites, tentationes expugnat, persecutiones tolerat. Ipsa est quae fidei nostrae fundamenta fortiter munit; ipsa est quae incrementa spei nostrae sublimiter provehit; ipsa nos ut tenere possimus viam Christi, gubernat; ipsa ut filii Dei perseveremus, confirmat.

Hanc ergo ama, rex, virtutem, hanc dilige, hanc cum gaudio et totis viribus amplecti festina. Vere enim regia via est, et per se gradientes feliciter ad regnum perducit aeternum. Cave ne declines ad dexteram aut ad sinistram. Scito quia sicut Domini est bonum patientia, ita diaboli malum est impatientia. Et sicut ille in quo inhabitat et manet Christus, patiens invenitur; ita impatiens semper ille existit cujus mentem diaboli nequitia possidet. Tu vero, rex, regiam viam tene, et non declines ab ea, sed ista felici beataque virtute, in eam quae vocatur justitia, actionis tuae feliciter pone pedem.

Scripture echoes

  1. ↩Ps.84.8 — They go from strength to strength; each one appears before God in Zion.
  2. ↩Luke.21.19 — By your endurance you will gain your lives.
  3. ↩Luke.21.19 — By your endurance you will gain your lives.
  4. ↩Prov.19.11 — A person's wisdom makes him slow to anger, and his glory is to overlook an offense.
  5. ↩Col.3.12-Col.3.13 — Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Col.3.13 — bearing with one another and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; just as the Lord forgave you, so also you must.
  6. ↩Prov.25.15 — Through patience a ruler is persuaded, and a soft tongue breaks the bone.
  7. ↩1Thess.5.14 — And we urge you, brothers: admonish the disorderly, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient toward all.
  8. ↩Jas.1.4 — And let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing.
  9. ↩Deut.5.32;Josh.1.7;Prov.4.27 — Therefore be careful to do just as the LORD your God has commanded you; you shall not turn aside to the right or to the left." This makes the discourse consequence explicit. Josh.1.7 — Only be strong and very courageous, to keep and do according to all the Torah that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right or to the left, so that you may prosper in all that you do. Prov.4.27 — Do not turn to the right or to the left; remove your foot from evil.
  10. ↩John.14.23;Eph.3.17 — Jesus answered him, 'If anyone loves me, he will keep my word. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.' Eph.3.17 — that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith

Notes

  1. 1 ↩Supplied Latin reads 'anctos,' which is not a plausible word here. Translated as 'auctor' (author), the standard and syntactically fitting reading with 'nostrae salutis et pacis.'
  2. 2 ↩Latin 'viscera misericordiae' kept as 'heart of mercy' (deep compassion); 'modestiam' rendered 'gentleness' in this Colossians list; final 'ita et vos' completed with 'must forgive' to carry the implied object from 'donantes'/'donavit.'
  3. 3 ↩Normalized Latin supplies a bracketed [quae] before the third relative clause; translated as a natural parallel relative continuation without inventing new sense.
  4. 4 ↩simultatis rendered as 'rivalry' (private grudge/feud); could also be 'enmity' or 'faction.'
  5. 5 ↩actionis tuae...pone pedem: rendered as 'set the foot of your action' to keep the Latin's metaphorical step; sense is to plant your conduct securely on justice.

Via Regia (The Royal Road) companion

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