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| Chapter VII. How we can attain perfection in each of these sorts of renunciations.
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Chapter VII.
How we can attain perfection in each of these sorts of
renunciations.
Wherefore it will not be
of much advantage to us that we have made our first renunciation with
the utmost devotion and faith, if we do not complete the second with
the same zeal and ardour. And so when we have succeeded in this, we
shall be able to arrive at the third as well, in which we go forth from
the house of our former parent, (who, as we know well, was our father
from our very birth, after the old man, when we were “by nature
children of wrath, as others also,”1212
)
and fix our whole mental gaze on things celestial. And of this father
Scripture says to Jerusalem which had despised God the true Father,
“Thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother a
Hittite;”1213
and in the
gospel we read “Ye are of your father the devil and the lusts of
your father ye love to do.”1214
And when we
have left him, as we pass from things visible to things unseen we shall
be able to say with the Apostle: “But we know that if our earthly
house of this tabernacle is dissolved we have a habitation from God, a
house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens,”1215
and this also, which we quoted a little
while ago: “But our conversation is in heaven, whence also we
look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus, who will reform the body of our
low estate made like to the body of His glory,”1216
and this of the blessed David: “For
I am a sojourner upon the earth,” and “a stranger as all my
fathers were;”1217
so that we may
in accordance with the Lord’s word be made like those of whom the
Lord speaks to His Father in the gospel as follows: “They are not
of the world, as I am not of the world,”1218
and again to the Apostles themselves:
“If ye were of this world, the world would love its own: but
because ye are not of this world, therefore the world hateth
you.”1219
Of this third
renunciation then we shall succeed in reaching the perfection, whenever
our soul is sullied by no stain of carnal coarseness, but, all such
having been carefully eliminated, it has been freed from every earthly
quality and desire, and by constant meditation on things Divine, and
spiritual contemplation has so far passed on to things unseen, that in
its earnest seeking after things above and things spiritual it no
longer feels that it is prisoned in this fragile flesh, and bodily
form, but is caught up into such an ecstasy as not only to hear no
words with the outward ear, or to busy itself with gazing on the forms
of things present, but not even to see things close at hand, or large
objects straight before the very eyes. And of this no one can
understand the truth and force, except one who has made trial of what
has been said, under the teaching of experience; viz., one, the eyes of
whose soul the Lord has turned away from all things present, so that he
no longer considers them as things that will soon pass away, but as
things that are already done with, and sees them vanish into nothing,
like misty smoke; and like Enoch, “walking with God,” and
“translated” from human life and fashions, not “be
found” amid the vanities of this life. And that this actually
happened corporeally in the case of Enoch the book of Genesis thus
tells us. “And Enoch walked with God, and was not found, for God
translated him.” And the Apostle also says: “By faith Enoch
was translated that he should not see death,” the death namely of
which the Lord says in the gospel: “He that liveth and believeth
in me shall not die eternally.”1220
| 1220 Gen. v. 24 (LXX.); Heb. xi. 5; S. John xi.
26. |
Wherefore, if we are anxious to attain true perfection, we ought to
look to it that as we have outwardly with the body made light of
parents, home, the riches and pleasures of the world, we may
also inwardly with the heart
forsake all these things and never be drawn back by any desires to
those things which we have forsaken, as those who were led up by Moses,
though they did not literally go back, are yet said to have returned in
heart to Egypt; viz., by forsaking God who had led them forth with such
mighty signs, and by worshipping the idols of Egypt of which they had
thought scorn, as Scripture says: “And in their hearts they
turned back into Egypt, saying to Aaron: Make us gods to go before
us,”1221
for we should
fall into like condemnation with those who, while dwelling in the
wilderness, after they had tasted manna from heaven, lusted after the
filthy food of sins, and of mean baseness, and should seem together
with them to murmur in the same way: “It was well with us in
Egypt, when we sat over the flesh pots and ate the onions, and garlic,
and cucumbers, and melons:”1222
| 1222 Numb. xi. 18; Exod. xvi. 3; Numb. xi.
5. | A form of
speech, which, although it referred primarily to that people, we yet
see fulfilled today in our own case and mode of life: for everyone who
after renouncing this world turns back to his old desires, and reverts
to his former likings asserts in heart and act the very same thing that
they did, and says “It was well with me in Egypt,” and I am
afraid that the number of these will be as large as that of the
multitudes of backsliders of whom we read under Moses, for though they
were reckoned as six hundred and three thousand armed men who came out
of Egypt, of this number not more than two entered the land of promise.
Wherefore we should be careful to take examples of goodness from those
who are few and far between, because according to that figure of which
we have spoken in the gospel “Many are called but few” are
said to be “chosen.”1223
A
renunciation then in body alone, and a mere change of place from Egypt
will not do us any good, if we do not succeed in achieving that
renunciation in heart, which is far higher and more valuable. For of
that mere bodily renunciation of which we have spoken the apostle
declares as follows: “Though I bestow all my goods to feed the
poor, and give my body to be burned, but have not charity, it profiteth
me nothing.”1224
And the blessed
Apostle would never have said this had it not been that he foresaw by
the spirit that some who had given all their goods to feed the poor
would not be able to attain to evangelical perfection and the lofty
heights of charity, because while pride or impatience ruled over their
hearts they were not careful to purify themselves from their former
sins, and unrestrained habits, and on that account could never attain
to that love of God which never faileth, and these, as they fall short
in this second stage of renunciation, can still less reach that third
stage which is most certainly far higher. But consider too in your
minds with great care the fact that he did not simply say “If I
bestow my goods.” For it might perhaps be thought that he spoke
of one who had not fulfilled the command of the gospel, but had kept
back something for himself, as some half-hearted persons do. But he
says “Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor,” i.e.,
even if my renunciation of those earthly riches be perfect. And to this
renunciation he adds something still greater: “And though I give
my body to be burned, but have not charity, I am nothing:” As if
he had said in other words, though I bestow all my goods to feed the
poor in accordance with that command in the gospel, where we are told
“If thou wilt be perfect, go sell all that thou hast, and give to
the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven,”1225
renouncing them so as to keep back nothing
at all for myself, and though to this distribution (of my goods) I
should by the burning of my flesh add martyrdom so as to give up my
body for Christ, and yet be impatient, or passionate or envious or
proud, or excited by wrongs done by others, or seek what is mine, or
indulge in evil thoughts, or not be ready and patient in bearing all
that can be inflicted on me, this renunciation and the burning of the
outer man will profit me nothing, while the inner man is still involved
in the former sins, because, while in the fervour of the early days of
my conversion I made light of the mere worldly substance, which is said
to be not good or evil in itself but indifferent, I took no care to
cast out in like manner the injurious powers of a bad heart, or to
attain to that love of the Lord which is patient, which is “kind,
which envieth not, is not puffed up, is not soon angry, dealeth not
perversely, seeketh not her own, thinketh no evil,” which
“beareth all things, endureth all things,”1226
and which lastly never suffers him who
follows after it to fall by the deceitfulness of
sin.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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