Of the Causes and Roots Whence Rash Judgments Proceed, and Their Remedies

THE first root whence rash judgments proceed is that which is the root of all evils and sins, which is pride, but particularly so in this case. St. Bonaventure notes here a thing worthy of consideration. He says: “People who take themselves to be spiritual men are usually more tempted than others in this particular of judging and marking down others, as if they were so to fulfil what the Apostle says in another sense: The spiritual man judgeth all things (I Cor. ii. 15).” They fancy they see in themselves gifts of God, and whereas they ought to be more humble, they grow vain of them and take themselves for somebodies, and in comparison with themselves they make little of others, seeing them less recollected and more occupied and diverted with exterior things. Hence they turn reformers of other people’s lives, forgetting their own.

The saints say that simplicity is the daughter of humility, since he who is truly humble keeps his eyes open only upon his own faults and closed upon those of his neighbor, and ever finds in himself so much to consider and deplore as never to raise his eyes or his thoughts to the study of other people’s faults; and thus once a man is truly humble, he will be far removed from these judgments. To this end the saints assign this remedy as very important, as well for this as for other failings, that we should keep our eyes open solely to see our own faults, ut sciam quid desit mihi (Psalm xxxviii. 5), and closed against the sight of the faults of our neighbors. Thus we shall not be like hypocrites whom Christ censures in the holy Gospel, who see the mote in the eyes of their neighbor, and not the beam that they have right across their own eyes (Matt. vii. 3). The keeping of our eyes ever on our own failings carries with it great and high benefits. It carries humility and self-abasement; it carries fear of God and recollection of heart; it carries peace and tranquillity. But to go prying into your neighbor’s defects carries with it great evils and ill consequences, such as pride, rash judgments, indignation against my brother and ill opinion of him, troubles of conscience, fits of indiscreet zeal, and other things that disturb the heart. Thus, if ever you do see some defect in your neighbor, the saints bid you draw fruit from it. An excellent way of doing this is laid down for us by St. Bonaventure, who says: “When you see in your brother something that displeases you, before you judge him, turn your gaze within and see if there be in you anything worthy of reprehension; and if there be, turn your sentence against yourself and condemn yourself in that in which you were minded to condemn another, saying with the prophet: Jt is I who have sinned, I who have done evil (II Kings xxiv. 17). I am the evil and perverse creature, who do not deserve to kiss the ground on which the other treads, and do I dare to judge him? And what has that which I see in my brother to do with what I see in myself?” St. Bernard teaches another good rule, which we may adopt in this matter: “When you see anything in another that displeases you, turn your eyes at once upon yourself and see if you have the same fault; and if so, give it up. And when you see anything in your brother that pleases you, turn your eyes also upon yourself and see if you have that good point; and if you have it, take means to keep it; and if you have it not, take means to attain it.” In this way we shall profit by everything.

St. Thomas assigns other reasons of these judgments. They come sometimes of an evil heart, whereby a man judges of others from what he has done or would do himself, according to the saying of the Wise Man: The fool walking in the road, being himself void of sense, reckons all men to be fools (Eccles. x. 3); which in plain English is what the proverb says: “The robber fancies all the world to be thieves.” As when you look through a blue glass, all the world seems blue; and if you look through a pink glass, all seems pink; so to the evil and imperfect man everything seems evil; he sees all things in a bad light because he looks through a glass of the same hue. Because he does things for these ends and on these motives, he thinks that everybody else does the same. To him well applies that saying of St. Paul: You condemn yourself in these judgments, because you do that very thing which you judge (Rom. ii. 1). A good and virtuous man always takes things on the better side, even though there be some indications that make the thing doubtful; to take them on the worse side is not a good sign. St. Dorotheus says that as a man with a good constitution and a good stomach turns into good nourishment even inferior food, and, contrariwise, a man with a bad constitution and a bad stomach turns good food into peccant humor, so also herein—a man who has a good and upright heart and aims at virtue turns everything to good, takes everything on the better side; whereas he who does not aim at virtue turns all into peccant humor, taking things on the worse side.

The saints go further and say that even when what one sees is clearly bad, though it is not sin to judge that for evil which certainly is so, yet then virtue and perfection show themselves in efforts made to excuse one’s neighbor as far as possible. “If you cannot excuse the deed, excuse the intention,” says St. Bernard; “think that it was some piece of inadvertence or ignorance; think that it must have been natural forgetfulness; think that it was some sudden burst of impulse’—Eacusa intentionem, si opus non potes; puta ignorantiam, puta subreptionem, puta casum. If we loved our neighbor as we love ourselves, if we regarded him as a second self, since a friend is a second self, there would never be wanting to us modes and manners of excuse. Oh, how a man excuses himself! How he defends himself! How he diminishes and lightens his faults! So should we do to our neighbor if we loved him as we love ourselves. And when the fault is so evident and culpable as to leave no room for excuse, then, says St. Bernard, think that the occasion and temptation was very grave and vehement, and say within your heart: “What would have become of me if that temptation had assailed me with as much force as it assailed him, and the devil, the tempter, had as much power to tempt me as he had to tempt him?” We read of our blessed Father Ignatius that, when a deed was so evidently bad as to leave no room for excuse and there was no other way out of it, he suspended his judgment and laid hold of a text of Scripture and said: Judge not before the time (I Cor. iv. 5) ; and that saying of the Lord to Samuel: God alone it is that seeth hearts (I Kings xvi. 17); and that of St. Paul: In the eye of the Lord every man keepeth his footing or falleth (Rom. xiv. 4).

St. Thomas mentions another main root of this habit. He says that rash judgments often arise from some aversion or envy or rivalry on the part of him who judges; this strongly inclines him to think ill of all the doings of the person judged and view them in the worst light on very slight indications, for everyone readily believes what he desires. This is seen by the contrary, for when one has great love for another, he sees at once all his doings in a good light and is so far from putting a bad construction on them or taking them in ill part that he rather excuses and makes light of them, even when he sees them not such as he would wish. Charity thinketh no evil (I Cor. xiii. 5). One and the same fault and one and the same evidence, how different they appear in one whom you love and one for whom you have an aversion! Every day we experience this, that one man’s goings on shock us, while another perhaps goes further, and we are not offended nor take any heed of it. Both the one and the other fact is well stated by the Wise Man: Hatred raiseth up quarrels, but love on the contrary covereth all up and putteth faults out of sight (Prov. x. 12). Thus the passing of judgment on others is for want of loving them. Hence also it is that even what is no fault in our brother oftentimes offends us—his demeanor, his conversation, his way of going on, and sometimes even what in him is virtue. Hence it follows that, as simplicity is a great help to the preservation of charity, so also charity is a great help to simplicity; those two virtues go hand in hand like good sisters.

It will also help us much to consider attentively the cunning and malice of the devil, who seeks to rob us of the esteem and consequently of the love that we should bear to our brethren by little trifles that sometimes are not faults, or if they are, are so trivial that men cannot be free from faults of that sort, since in this life there is no man who does not commit faults and venial sins. The Apostle and Evangelist St. John says: If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and speak not the truth (I John i. 8). And the Wise Man says: Seven times shall the just man fall (Prov. xxiv. 16); he means to say, he shall fall many times and not cease to be just on that account. Now it is not fair that anyone should lose your good will for that for which he ceases not to be just, nor forfeits one point of the grace of God. True love of charity is not so strait pinned up, not such a house on sticks, as are the friendships of this world, which are dissolved by any trumpery accident, even by failure to pay a salute to your friend. The love of charity is founded in God, Who cannot fail. Let us, then, copy the tender ways of God, Who ceases not to cherish and love us, full of faults and imperfections and venial sins as we are; not for that does He diminish one point of His love. God suffers in me so many faults and imperfections, and I cannot suffer one small fault in my brother without at once throwing it in his teeth and showing annoyance and remaining embittered and in ill humor against him! You show therein that your love is not pure love of charity for God’s sake; for if it were, what does not make God angry would not make you angry nor raise your displeasure. What does not make God angry ought not in all reason to make His servants and creatures angry. This man you are angry with is a child of God, His much cherished and well-beloved child; now if God loves and esteems him, it is reasonable that you also should love and esteem him. Dearly beloved, if God hath loved us so much, we ought also to love another (I John iv. 11).

Add to this a doctrine of St. Gregory, and it is a common opinion of the saints; they say that sometimes God our Lord denies His lesser gifts to those to whom He gives great gifts and by a secret dispensation of His providence leaves them with sundry faults and imperfections. This to the end that, seeing how for all their desires and efforts to rid themselves of an evil way and an unhappy propensity that they have about them they never succeed, but with so many good purposes they still fail in this point, they may walk ever in humility and self-abasement and understand that, as they cannot compass these lesser things, still less can they achieve those greater things of themselves. Thus a person may in one way be very perfect, very virtuous, a saint; and yet on the other hand along with that have sundry faults and imperfections which God has left to try him and to keep him in humility in the midst of the gifts that he enjoys. Hence we should draw this conclusion, apt to our purpose, that we ought not to pass an unfavorable judgment on anyone for his having some of these faults, nor esteem or prefer ourselves before him because we think we have not such faults. Remember what St. Gregory says, that this man with this fault may be perfect, and you without it may be imperfect. In this manner you will guard humility in yourself on the one hand, and on the other hand esteem and love of your brother and will not judge him nor hold him in less regard on that account.