4. Nay more; for is it not so
that even for open wickednesses, not to punish but to perpetrate
them, men put up with many most grievous troubles? Do not authors
of secular letters tell of a certain right noble parricide of his
country, that hunger, thirst, cold, all these he was able to
endure, and his body was patient of lack of food and warmth and
sleep to a degree surpassing belief?2633
| 2633 Sallust
Catilin, c. v. |
Why speak of
highway robbers, all
of whom while they
lie in wait for travellers
endure whole nights
without
sleep, and that they may catch, as they pass by, men who
have no thought of harm, will, no matter how foul the
weather,
plant in one spot their
mind and body, which are full of thoughts
of harm? Nay it is said that some of them are wont to
torture one
another by turns, to that degree that this
practice and training
against pains is not a whit short of pains. For, not so much
perchance are they excruciated by the
Judge, that through smart of
pain the
truth may be got at, as they are by their own comrades,
that through
patience of
pain truth may not be
betrayed. And yet in
all these the
patience is rather to be wondered at than
praised:
nay neither wondered at nor
praised, seeing it is no
patience; but
we must wonder at the hardness, deny the
patience: for there is
nothing in this rightly to be
praised, nothing usefully to be
imitated; and thou wilt rightly
judge the
mind to be all the more
worthy of greater
punishment, the more it yields up to vices the
instruments of
virtues.
Patience is companion of
wisdom, not
handmaid of concupiscence: patience is the friend of a good
conscience, not the foe of innocence.
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