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| Chapter XX. About discerning the thoughts, with an illustration from a good money-changer.
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Chapter XX.
About discerning the thoughts, with an illustration from
a good money-changer.
We ought then carefully
to notice this threefold order, and with a wise discretion to analyse
the thoughts which arise in our hearts, tracking out their origin and
cause and author in the first instance, that we may be able to consider
how we ought to yield ourselves to them in accordance with the desert
of those who suggest them so that we may, as the Lord’s command
bids us, become good money-changers,1148
| 1148 Ut efficiamur
secundum prœceptum Domini probabiles trapezitœ. The
saying to which Cassian here alludes, γίνεσθε
τραπεξῖται
δόκιμοι, is not found
anywhere in the Gospels, but “is the most commonly quoted of all
Apocryphal sayings, and seems to be genuine.” Westcott, Introd.
to the Gospels, p. 454. It is quoted among others by Origen in Joann.
xix., and Jerome Ep. 152. See these and other reff. in Anger’s
Synopsis, p. 274; and cf. the note of Gazæus here. | whose
highest skill and whose training is to test what is perfectly pure gold
and what is commonly termed tested,1149
| 1149 Obrizum. The
word occurs in the Vulgate five times for “pure gold.” See
Dan. x. 5" id="iv.iv.ii.xx-p4.1" parsed="|2Chr|3|5|0|0;|Job|28|15|0|0;|Job|31|24|0|0;|Isa|13|12|0|0;|Dan|10|5|0|0" osisRef="Bible:2Chr.3.5 Bible:Job.28.15 Bible:Job.31.24 Bible:Isa.13.12 Bible:Dan.10.5">2 Chr. iii. 5; Job xxviii. 15;
xxxi. 24; Isa. xiii. 12; Dan. x. 5; and is akin to the Greek ὄβρυζον. Cf. Pliny Nat. Hist.
xxxiii. c. 3, and Jerome De Nom. Hebr. s. v. Ophaz. |
or what is not sufficiently purified in the fire; and also with
unerring skill not to be taken in by a common brass denarius, if by
being coloured with bright gold it is made like some coin of great
value; and not only shrewdly to recognize coins stamped with the heads
of usurpers, but with a still shrewder skill to detect those which have
the image of the right king, but are not properly made, and lastly to
be careful by the test of the balance to see that they are not under
proper weight. All of which
things the gospel saying, which uses this
figure, shows us that we ought also to observe spiritually; first that
whatever has found an entrance into our hearts, and whatever doctrine
has been received by us, should be most carefully examined to see
whether it has been purified by the divine and heavenly fire of the
Holy Ghost, or whether it belongs to Jewish superstition, or whether it
comes from the pride of a worldly philosophy and only externally makes
a show of religion. And this we can do, if we carry out the
Apostle’s advice, “Believe not every spirit, but prove the
spirits whether they are of God.”1150
But
by this kind those men also are deceived, who after having been
professed as monks are enticed by the grace of style, and certain
doctrines of philosophers, which at the first blush, owing to some
pious meanings not out of harmony with religion, deceive as with the
glitter of gold their hearers, whom they have superficially attracted,
but render them poor and miserable for ever, like men deceived by false
money made of copper: either bringing them back to the bustle of this
world, or enticing them into the errors of heretics, and bombastic
conceits: a thing which we read of as happening to Achan in the book of
Joshua the son of Nun,1151
when he coveted a
golden weight from the camp of the Philistines, and stole it, and was
smitten with a curse and condemned to eternal death. In the second
place we should be careful to see that no wrong interpretation fixed on
to the pure gold of Scripture deceives us as to the value of the metal:
by which means the devil in his craft tried to impose upon our Lord and
Saviour as if He was a mere man, when by his malevolent interpretation
he perverted what ought to be understood generally of all good men, and
tried to fasten it specially on to Him, who had no need of the care of
the angels: saying, “For He shall give His angels charge
concerning Thee, to keep Thee in all Thy ways: and in their hands they
shall bear Thee up, lest at any time Thou dash Thy foot against a
stone,”1152
| 1152 S. Matt. iv. 6; Ps. xc. 11, 12. | by a skilful
assumption on his part giving a turn to the precious sayings of
Scripture and twisting them into a dangerous sense, the very opposite
of their true meaning, so as to offer to us the image and face of an
usurper under cover of the gold colour which may deceive us. Or whether
he tries to cheat us with counterfeits, for instance by urging that
some work of piety should be taken up which as it does come from the
true minds of the fathers, leads under the form of virtue to vice; and,
deceiving us either by immoderate or impossible fasts, or by too long
vigils, or inordinate prayers, or unsuitable reading, brings us to a
bad end. Or, when he persuades us to give ourselves up to mixing in the
affairs of others, and to pious visits, by which he may drive us away
from the spiritual cloisters of the monastery, and the secrecy of its
friendly peacefulness, and suggests that we take on our shoulders the
anxieties and cares of religious women who are in want, that when a
monk is inextricably entangled in snares of this sort he may distract
him with most injurious occupations and cares. Or else when he incites
a man to desire the holy office of the clergy under the pretext of
edifying many people, and the love of spiritual gain, by which to draw
us away from the humility and strictness of our life. All of which
things, although they are opposed to our salvation and to our
profession, yet when covered with a sort of veil of compassion and
religion, easily deceive those who are lacking in skill and care. For
they imitate the coins of the true king, because they seem at first
full of piety, but are not stamped by those who have the right to coin,
i.e., the approved Catholic fathers, nor do they proceed from the head
public office for receiving them, but are made by stealth and by the
fraud of the devil, and palmed off upon the unskilful and ignorant not
without serious harm. And even although they seem to be useful and
needful at first, yet if afterwards they begin to interfere with the
soundness of our profession, and as it were to weaken in some sense the
whole body of our purpose, it is well that they should be cut off and
cast away from us like a member which may be necessary, but yet offends
us and which seems to perform the office of the right hand or foot. For
it is better, without one member of a command, i.e., its working or
result, to continue safe and sound in other parts, and to enter as weak
into the kingdom of heaven rather than with the whole mass of commands
to fall into some error which by an evil custom separates us from our
strict rule and the system purposed and entered upon, and leads to such
loss, that it will never outweigh the harm that will follow, but will
cause all our past fruits and the whole body of our work to be burnt in
hell fire.1153
Of which kind of
illusions it is well said in the Proverbs: “There are ways which
seem to be right to a man, but their latter end will come into the
depths of hell,”1154
and again
“An evil man is harmful when he attaches himself to a good
man,”1155
i.e., the devil deceives when he is
covered with an appearance of sanctity: “but he hates the sound
of the watchman,”1156
i.e., the power of
discretion which comes from the words and warnings of the
fathers.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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