Of Rash Judgments, Explaining in What Their Malice and Gravity Consists

AND thou, says St. Paul, how darest thou judge thy brother, and despise him and undervalue him in thy heart? (Rom. xiv. 10). Among other temptations wherewith the devil, the enemy of our good, is wont to make war upon us, one of the chief is by intruding upon us judgments and suspicions against our brethren to the end that we may give up the esteem and good opinion that we have of them and along with it our love and charity for them, or at least that that charity may become lukewarm and cool down. For the same reason we should do our best very diligently to resist this temptation, and reckon it a very grave one; for it strikes a chord coming so close home to us as does charity. So St. Augustine advises us: “If you wish to maintain yourself in love and charity with your brethren, before ail things it is necessary to be greatly on your guard against judgments and suspicions, which are the poison of charity.” St. Bonaventure says: “A pestilence hidden and secret, which drives away God and destroys charity among brethren.” The malice and gravity of this vice consists in its defaming your neighbor in your own thoughts, depreciating and making less of him, giving him an unjustly low place in your heart, and that on indications slight and insufficient. Herein you aggrieve and wrong your brother; and the fault will be the greater, the more serious the matter on which you pronounce judgment and the more frivolous the evidence. The gravity of this fault will be understood from another like it. If you were to ruin another in the good estimation of your brother, defaming him and depriving him of the esteem and good opinion which your brother had of him, that would be clearly a grave sin. But this same offence and injury you do him in abandoning without cause and without sufficient evidence the esteem and good opinion that you had of him, for your brother sets the same value in having a good name with you as with another man. Hereby one may well see the injury and offence done in this fashion to your neighbor. Would not you take it ill that another should conceive such a mean opinion of you without your having given any sufficient cause for it? Measure him by yourself, which is the measure of charity with our neighbor, and of justice also. It is to be observed here that it is one thing to have a temptation to form rash judgments and another thing to be overcome by that temptation. So we are wont to say in other temptations, that it is one thing to have temptations to impurity and another thing to be overcome and consent to them; and we say that the evil is not in the first, but in the second of these two things. In this case, likewise, it is not wicked to be troubled with thoughts of rash judgment—though it would be better if we were so full of love and charity for our brethren, and had such a high opinion of them and such a deep knowledge of our own faults that it never entered into our heads to look at or consider the faults of other people. But after all, as St. Bernard says, “the fault is not in the feeling, but in the consent” and in being overcome by the temptation. Non nocet sensus, ubi non est consensus. A man is then overcome by the temptation to rash judgment when he makes up his mind and consents thereto and thereby loses the high opinion and good repute that he had of his brother and thinks less of him. In such a case, when he goes to confession, he must not say that there occurred to him judgments against his brother, but that he consented to them and was overcome by that temptation.

Theologians here warn us that we must be very careful not to specify to anyone else the judgment and suspicion that has occurred to us against our neighbors, lest the person we tell it to comes also himself to have the same judgment and suspicion, or possibly be confirmed in the idea that had already occurred to him; for our inclination is so evil that we are readier to believe evil than good of another. Even in confession, they observe that we must not name the person against whom the judgment has occurred nor the person at whom offence is taken for such and such a thing that he has done, not thereby to engender in the mind of the confessor any evil suspicion or disesteem of him. So great is the caution and care which they require us to have concerning the honor and good repute of our neighbor. And are you ready on slight and ill-founded conclusions to surrender the esteem and reputation which your neighbor had with you, a reputation to which he has a natural right with all men, so long as his deeds do not bear direct witness to the contrary?

Besides the injury and offence hereby done to your neighbor, this vice contains in itself other malice and grave injury to God, by usurpation of the jurisdiction and judgment which properly belong to God. Against this our Savior says in the Gospel: Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned (Luke vi. 37). St. Augustine says that He here forbids rash judgments, which consist in judging the intention of the heart and other things uncertain and hidden, because God has reserved to Himself the cognizance of this case and so forbids us to meddle therein. The Apostle St. Paul declares this more in particular when writing to the Romans: Who art thou that darest judge another man’s servant? In view of his master he standeth on his feet or falleth (Rom xiv. 4). To judge is the act of asuperior. This man is not your subject: he has a Master; namely, our Lord; leave him to Him to judge and take not on yourself the jurisdiction of God. Judge not before the time until the Lord cometh, who will light up the hidden things of darkness and manifest the intentions of hearts; and then shall every man have his praise from God (I Cor. iv. 5). This is the reason which the Apostle gives why we should not judge, because there are uncertain and hidden things which belong to the judgment of God, and so he who meddles in judging these things usurps the jurisdiction and judgment of God. In the Lives of the Fathers there is a story told of one of those monks, who, upon sundry indications that he saw or heard spoken of, judged ill of another monk; and immediately he heard a voice from heaven that said to him: “Men have taken away My judgment, and meddled in the jurisdiction of another.”

And if we say this, and the saints say it, of things that wear some appearance of evil, what shall be said of those who put a bad construction even on things in themselves good, judging that they are done with an evil intention and for human motives? This is most properly to usurp the jurisdiction and judgment of God, these people seeking to enter even into the hearts of men and judge of intentions and hidden thoughts, a thing peculiarly proper to God. Ye have made yourselves judges, giving unjust sentences, says the Apostle St. James (ii. 4). And the Wise Man says that they seek to make themselves diviners, judging what they know not and cannot know. In the likeness of a diviner and conjecturer he judgeth of what he knoweth not (Prov. xxiii. 7).