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| Chapter VII. Testimonies from the Apostle concerning the spirit of accidie.
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Chapter VII.
Testimonies from the Apostle concerning the spirit of
accidie.
The blessed Apostle, like
a true and spiritual physician, either seeing this disease, which
springs from the spirit of accidie, already creeping in, or foreseeing,
through the revelation of the Holy Spirit, that it would arise among
monks, is quick to anticipate it by the healing medicines of his
directions. For in writing to the Thessalonians, and at first, like a
skilful and excellent physician, applying to the infirmity of his
patients the soothing and gentle remedy of his words, and beginning
with charity, and praising them in that point, that968
| 968 Quousque is
used as equivalent to donec, again in Conf. XXIII. xii. | this deadly wound, having been treated
with a milder remedy, might lose its angry festering and more easily
bear severer treatment, he says: “But concerning brotherly
charity ye have no need that I write to you: for you yourselves are
taught of God to love one another. For this ye do toward all the
brethren in the whole of Macedonia.”969
He
first began with the soothing application of praise, and made their
ears submissive and ready for the remedy of the healing words. Then he
proceeds: “But we ask you, brethren, to abound more.” Thus
far he soothes them with kind and gentle words; for fear lest he should
find them not yet prepared to receive their perfect cure. Why is
it that you ask, O Apostle, that they may abound more in charity, of
which you had said above, “But concerning brotherly charity we
have no need to write to you”? And why is it necessary that you
should say to them: “But we ask you to abound more,” when
they did not need to be written to at all on this matter? especially as
you add the reason why they do not need it, saying, “For you
yourselves have been taught of God to love one another.” And you
add a third thing still more important: that not only have they been
taught of God, but also that they fulfil in deed that which they are
taught. “For ye do this,” he says, not to one or two, but
“to all the brethren;” and not to your own citizens and
friends only, but “in the whole of Macedonia.” Tell us
then, I pray, why it is that you so particularly begin with this. Again
he proceeds, “But we ask you, brethren, to abound the
more.” And with difficulty at last he breaks out into that at
which he was driving before: “and that ye take pains to be
quiet.” He gave the first aim. Then he adds a second, “and
to do your own business;” and a third as well: “and work
with your own hands, as we commanded you;” a fourth: “and
to walk honestly towards those that are without;” a fifth:
“and to covet no man’s goods.” Lo, we can see through
that hesitation, which made him with these preludes put off uttering
what his mind was full of: “And that ye take pains to be
quiet;” i.e., that you stop in your cells, and be not disturbed
by rumours, which generally spring from the wishes and gossip of idle
persons, and so yourselves disturb others.
And, “to do your own
business,” you should not want to require curiously of the
world’s actions, or, examining the lives of others, want to spend
your strength, not on bettering yourselves and aiming at virtue, but on
depreciating your brethren. “And work with your own hands, as we
charged you;” to secure that which he had warned them above not
to do; i.e., that they should not be restless and anxious about other
people’s affairs, nor walk dishonestly towards those without, nor
covet another man’s goods, he now adds and says, “and work
with your own hands, as we charged you.” For he has clearly shown
that leisure the reason why those things were done which he blamed
above. For no one can be restless or anxious about other people’s
affairs, but one who is not satisfied to apply himself to the work of
his own hands. He adds also a fourth evil, which springs also from this
leisure, i.e., that they should not walk dishonestly: when he says:
“And that ye walk honestly towards those without.” He
cannot possibly walk honestly, even among those who are men of this
world, who is not content to cling to the seclusion of his cell and the
work of his own hands; but he is sure to be dishonest, while he seeks
his needful food; and to take pains to flatter, to follow up news and
gossip, to seek for opportunities for chattering and stories by means
of which he may gain a footing and obtain an entrance into the houses
of others. “And that you should not covet another man’s
goods.” He is sure to look with envious eyes on another’s
gifts and boons, who does not care to secure sufficient for his daily
food by the dutiful and peaceful labour of his hands. You see what
conditions, and how serious and shameful ones, spring solely from the
malady of leisure. Lastly, those very people, whom in his first Epistle
he had treated with the gentle application of his words, in his second
Epistle he endeavours to heal with severer and sterner remedies, as
those who had not profited by more gentle treatment; and he no longer
applies the treatment of gentle words, no mild and kindly expressions,
as these, “But we ask you, brethren,” but “We adjure
you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw
from every brother that walketh disorderly.”970
There he asks; here he adjures. There is
the kindness of one who is persuading; here the sternness of one
protesting and threatening. “We adjure you, brethren:”
because, when we first asked you, you scorned to listen; now at least
obey our threats. And this adjuration he renders terrible, not by his
bare word, but by the imprecation of the name of our Lord Jesus Christ:
for fear lest they might again scorn it, as merely man’s word,
and think that it was not of much importance. And forthwith, like a
well-skilled physician with festering limbs, to which he could not
apply the remedy of a mild treatment, he tries to cure by an incision
with a spiritual knife, saying, “that ye withdraw yourselves from
every brother that walketh disorderly, and not according to the
tradition which ye received of us.” And so he bids them withdraw
from those who will not make time for work, and to cut them off like
limbs tainted with the festering sores of leisure: lest the malady of
idleness, like some deadly contagion, might infect even the healthy
portion of their limbs, by the gradual advance of infection. And when
he is going to speak of those who will not work with their own hands
and eat their bread in quietness, from whom he urges them to withdraw,
hear with what reproaches he brands them at starting. First he calls
them “disorderly,” and “not walking according to the
tradition.” In other words, he stigmatizes them as obstinate,
since they will not walk according to his appointment; and
“dishonest,” i.e., not keeping to the right and proper
times for going out, and visiting, and talking. For a disorderly person
is sure to be subject to all those faults. “And not according to
the tradition which they received from us.” And in this he stamps
them as in some sort rebellious, and despisers, who scorned to keep the
tradition which they had received from him, and would not follow that
which they not only remembered that the master had taught in word, but
which they knew that he had performed in deed. “For you
yourselves know how ye ought to be followers of us.” He heaps up
an immense pile of censure when he asserts that they did not observe
that which was still in their memory, and which not only had they
learned by verbal instruction, but also had received by the incitement
of his example in working.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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