Chapter 12 — These three means of perfection belong peculiarly to the religious state

We find the three ways to perfection in religious life embodied in the three vows of perpetual poverty, chastity, and obedience. Religious follow the first road to perfection by the vow of poverty, whereby they renounce all property. By the vow of chastity, whereby they renounce marriage, they enter on the second road to perfection. They set forth on the third road to perfection by the vow of obedience, whereby they sacrifice their own will.

Now these three vows well befit the religious life. For as St. Augustine says: the word ‘religion’ means not any sort of worship, but the worship of God (City of God 10.1). (Augustine, De civitate Dei, bk. 10, ch. 1, para. 3 (CCSL 47; CPL 0313; CSEL 40.1:446; PL 41:278).) And Tully says in On Rhetoric that religion is a virtue, paying worship and reverence to a certain higher nature which men term the divine nature. (Marcus Tullius Cicero, De inventione, bk. 2, ch. 53 (LLA 268.RH).) Now the worship which is due to God alone consists in the offering of sacrifice. Such sacrifices may consist in external things when they are given for the love of God. Thus the Apostle says: do not forget to do good and to impart; for by such sacrifices God’s favor is obtained (Heb 13:3). We also offer to God the sacrifice of our own bodies when, as the Apostle says: we crucify the flesh with its vices and concupiscences (Gal 5:24); hence he also says: present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing unto God (Rom 12:1). There is also a third and most agreeable sacrifice to God, spoken of in the Psalm: a sacrifice to God is an afflicted spirit (Ps 50:19).

But it should be known that, as St. Gregory says in his commentary on Ezechiel, the difference between a sacrifice and a holocaust is that, whereas every holocaust is a sacrifice, every sacrifice is not a holocaust: in a sacrifice a part of the victim was immolated; but in a holocaust the entire offering was consumed. When, therefore, a man vows one thing to God, and does not vow another, he offers a sacrifice; however, when he dedicates to almighty God all that he has, all that he takes pleasure in, and his entire life, he is offering a holocaust. (Gregory the Great, Homiliae in Hiezechihelem prophetam, bk. 2, homily 8, para. 16 (CCSL 142; CPL 1710; PL 76:1037C).) This he does most perfectly by the three religious vows; hence it is clear that the name of ‘religious’ is strictly applied according to the very meaning of the word to those who pay their vows as a holocaust to God.

According to the levitical law the offering of sacrifice was ordained for the atonement of sin. Hence the Psalm, when it had said: the things you say in your hearts, be sorry for them upon your beds, immediately speaks of atonement adding: offer up the sacrifice of justice (Ps 4:5–6), that is to say, as the Gloss explains, perform works of justice after your lamentations of penitence. (Peter Lombard, Commentaries on the Psalms and St. Paul, at Ps 4:6 (PL 191:87C).) Since, then, a holocaust is a perfect sacrifice, a man who makes the religious vows, thereby offering of his own will a holocaust to God, makes perfect satisfaction for his sins.

Hence we see that the religious life is not only the perfection of charity, but likewise the perfection of penitence, since, however heinous may be the sins committed by a man, he cannot be enjoined as a penance for them to go into religion; for the religious state transcends all satisfaction. We see that Astulphus, who had killed his wife, was advised to go into a monastery as the easiest and best course to pursue; for if he remained in the world, a very severe penance would be imposed upon him (Decretals 8.33.2). (Gratian, Decretum, ed. Emil Friedberg, Corpus iuris canonici 1 (Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1879), P. 2, C. 33, q. 2, ch. 8, 1:1152.)

The vow which, of all the three religious vows, belongs most peculiarly to the religious life is that of obedience. This is clear for several reasons. First, because by obedience man sacrifices to God his own will; by chastity, on the other hand, he offers his body and by poverty his external possessions. Now since the body is worth more than material goods the vow of chastity is superior in merit to that of poverty, but the vow of obedience is of more value than either of the other two.

Second, because it is by his own will that a man makes use either of his body or his goods: therefore, he who sacrifices his own will sacrifices everything else that he has. Again, the vow of obedience is more universal than is that of either poverty or chastity and hence it includes them both. This is the reason why Samuel preferred obedience to all other offerings and sacrifices, saying: obedience is better than sacrifices (1 Sam 15:22).