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| Of the Perturbations of the Soul Which Appear as Right Affections in the Life of the Righteous.
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Chapter 9.—Of the Perturbations
of the Soul Which Appear as Right Affections in the Life of the
Righteous.
But so far as regards this question
of mental perturbations, we have answered these philosophers in the
ninth book687
of this
work, showing that it is rather a verbal than a real dispute, and
that they seek contention rather than truth. Among ourselves,
according to the sacred Scriptures and sound doctrine, the citizens
of the holy city of God, who live according to God in the
pilgrimage of this life, both fear and desire, and grieve and
rejoice. And because their love is rightly placed, all these
affections of theirs are right. They fear eternal punishment,
they desire eternal life; they grieve because they themselves groan
within themselves, waiting for the adoption, the redemption of
their body;688
they rejoice
in hope, because there “shall be brought to pass the saying that
is written, Death is
swallowed up in victory.”689
In like
manner they fear to sin, they desire to persevere; they grieve in
sin, they rejoice in good works. They fear to sin, because they
hear that “because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall
wax cold.”690
They
desire to persevere, because they hear that it is written, “He
that endureth to the end shall be saved.”691
They grieve for sin, hearing that
“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the
truth is not in us.”692
They rejoice in good works,
because they hear that “the Lord loveth a cheerful giver.”693
In like
manner, according as they are strong or weak, they fear or desire
to be tempted, grieve or rejoice in temptation. They fear to be
tempted, because they hear the injunction, “If a man be overtaken
in a fault, ye which are spiritual restore such an one in the
spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be
tempted.”694
They
desire to be tempted, because they hear one of the heroes of the
city of God saying, “Examine me, O Lord, and tempt me: try my
reins and my heart.”695
They grieve in temptations,
because they see Peter weeping;696
they rejoice in temptations,
because they hear James saying, “My brethren, count it all joy
when ye fall into divers temptations.”697
And not only on their own account
do they experience these emotions, but also on account of those
whose deliverance they desire and whose perdition they fear, and
whose loss or salvation affects them with grief or with joy. For
if we who have come into the Church from among the Gentiles may
suitably instance that noble and mighty hero who glories in his
infirmities, the teacher (doctor) of the nations in faith
and truth, who also labored more than all his fellow-apostles, and
instructed the tribes of God’s people by his epistles, which
edified not only those of his own time, but all those who were to
be gathered in,—that hero, I say, and athlete of Christ,
instructed by Him, anointed of His Spirit, crucified with Him,
glorious in Him, lawfully maintaining a great conflict on the
theatre of this world, and being made a spectacle to angels and
men,698
and pressing
onwards for the prize of his high calling,699
—very joyfully do we with the eyes
of faith behold him rejoicing with them that rejoice, and weeping
with them that weep;700
though hampered by fightings
without and fears within;701
desiring to depart and to be with
Christ;702
longing to
see the Romans, that he might have some fruit among them as among
other Gentiles;703
being
jealous over the Corinthians, and fearing in that jealousy lest
their minds should be corrupted from the chastity that is in
Christ;704
having great
heaviness and continual sorrow of heart for the Israelites,705
because
they, being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to
establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves
unto the righteousness of God;706
and expressing not only his sorrow,
but bitter lamentation over some who had formally sinned and had
not repented of their uncleanness and fornications.707
If these emotions and affections,
arising as they do from the love of what is good and from a holy
charity, are to be called vices, then let us allow these emotions
which are truly vices to pass under the name of virtues. But
since these affections, when they are exercised in a becoming way,
follow the guidance of right reason, who will dare to say that they
are diseases or vicious passions? Wherefore even the Lord
Himself, when He condescended to lead a human life in the form of a
slave, had no sin whatever, and yet exercised these emotions where
He judged they should be exercised. For as there was in Him a
true human body and a true human soul, so was there also a true
human emotion. When, therefore, we read in the Gospel that the
hard-heartedness of the Jews moved Him to sorrowful indignation,708
that He
said, “I am glad for your sakes, to the intent ye may
believe,”709
that when
about to raise Lazarus He even shed tears,710
that He earnestly desired to eat
the passover with His disciples,711
that as His passion drew near His
soul was sorrowful,712
these emotions are certainly not
falsely ascribed to Him. But as He became man when it pleased
Him, so, in the grace of His definite purpose, when it pleased Him
He experienced those emotions in His human soul.
But we must further make the
admission, that even when these affections are well regulated, and
according to God’s will, they are peculiar to this life, not to
that future life we look for, and that often we yield to them
against our will. And thus sometimes we weep in spite of
ourselves, being carried beyond ourselves, not indeed by culpable
desire; but by praiseworthy charity. In us, therefore, these
affections arise from human infirmity; but it was not so with the
Lord Jesus, for even His infirmity was the consequence of His
power. But so long as we wear the infirmity of this life, we are
rather worse men
than better if we have none of
these emotions at all. For the apostle vituperated and abominated
some who, as he said, were “without natural affection.”713
The sacred
Psalmist also found fault with those of whom he said, “I looked
for some to lament with me, and there was none.”714
For to be
quite free from pain while we are in this place of misery is only
purchased, as one of this world’s literati perceived and
remarked,715
| 715 Crantor, an Academic philosopher
quoted by Cicero, Tusc Quæst. iii. 6. | at the price
of blunted sensibilities both of mind and body. And therefore
that which the Greeks call
ἀπαθεια, and what the Latins would call,
if their language would allow them, “impassibilitas,” if
it be taken to mean an impassibility of spirit and not of body, or,
in other words, a freedom from those emotions which are contrary to
reason and disturb the mind, then it is obviously a good and most
desirable quality, but it is not one which is attainable in this
life. For the words of the apostle are the confession, not of the
common herd, but of the eminently pious, just, and holy men:
“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is
not in us.”716
When there
shall be no sin in a man, then there shall be this απάθεια. At present it is
enough if we live without crime; and he who thinks he lives without
sin puts aside not sin, but pardon. And if that is to be called
apathy, where the mind is the subject of no emotion, then who would
not consider this insensibility to be worse than all vices? It
may, indeed, reasonably be maintained that the perfect blessedness
we hope for shall be free from all sting of fear or sadness; but
who that is not quite lost to truth would say that neither love nor
joy shall be experienced there? But if by apathy a condition be
meant in which no fear terrifies nor any pain annoys, we must in
this life renounce such a state if we would live according to
God’s will, but may hope to enjoy it in that blessedness which is
promised as our eternal condition.
For that fear of which the Apostle
John says, “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth
out fear, because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made
perfect in love,”717
—that fear is not of the same kind
as the Apostle Paul felt lest the Corinthians should be seduced by
the subtlety of the serpent; for love is susceptible of this fear,
yea, love alone is capable of it. But the fear which is not in
love is of that kind of which Paul himself says, “For ye have not
received the spirit of bondage again to fear.”718
But as for that “clean fear
which endureth for ever,”719
if it is to exist in the world to
come (and how else can it be said to endure for ever?), it is not a
fear deterring us from evil which may happen, but preserving us in
the good which cannot be lost. For where the love of acquired
good is unchangeable, there certainly the fear that avoids evil is,
if I may say so, free from anxiety. For under the name of
“clean fear” David signifies that will by which we shall
necessarily shrink from sin, and guard against it, not with the
anxiety of weakness, which fears that we may strongly sin, but with
the tranquillity of perfect love. Or if no kind of fear at all
shall exist in that most imperturbable security of perpetual and
blissful delights, then the expression, “The fear of the Lord is
clean, enduring for ever,” must be taken in the same sense as
that other, “The patience of the poor shall not perish for
ever.”720
For
patience, which is necessary only where ills are to be borne, shall
not be eternal, but that which patience leads us to will be
eternal. So perhaps this “clean fear” is said to endure for
ever, because that to which fear leads shall endure.
And since this is so,—since we
must live a good life in order to attain to a blessed life, a good
life has all these affections right, a bad life has them wrong.
But in the blessed life eternal there will be love and joy, not
only right, but also assured; but fear and grief there will be
none. Whence it already appears in some sort what manner of
persons the citizens of the city of God must be in this their
pilgrimage, who live after the spirit, not after the flesh,—that
is to say, according to God, not according to man,—and what
manner of persons they shall be also in that immortality whither
they are journeying. And the city or society of the wicked, who
live not according to God, but according to man, and who accept the
doctrines of men or devils in the worship of a false and contempt
of the true divinity, is shaken with those wicked emotions as by
diseases and disturbances. And if there be some of its citizens
who seem to restrain and, as it were, temper those passions, they
are so elated with ungodly pride, that their disease is as much
greater as their pain is less. And if some, with a vanity
monstrous in proportion to its rarity, have become enamored of
themselves because they can be stimulated and excited by no
emotion, moved or bent by no affection, such persons rather lose
all humanity than obtain true tranquillity. For
a thing is
not necessarily right because it is inflexible, nor healthy because
it is insensible. E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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