Sermon LXXXI. On the Soul's Likeness to the Word in the Three Attributes of Simplicity, Immortality and Liberty

"In my bed by night I sought Him Whom my soul loveth: I sought Him and found Him not. I will rise and will go about the city: in the streets and the broad ways I will seek Him Whom my soul loveth: I sought Him and I found Him not."

"The Watchmen who kepi the city found me: Have you seen Him

Whom my soul loveth?

"When I had a little passed beyond them, I found Him Whom my soul loveth: I held Him and I will not let Him go, till

I bring Him into my mother's house and into the chamber of her that bore me."

In the preceding discourse, my brethren, I enquired into the nature of the affinity between the Word Divine and the soul. And indeed such an enquiry was very necessary. For what can there be in common between such Majesty and such poverty that the loftiness of the One and the lowliness of the other should be represented as mutually embracing, as if they were equals, after the manner and with the affection of a bridegroom and his bride? If we can say this with truth, it is for us a source of joy and confidence exceeding great. On the other hand, to affirm it without truth is to be guilty of presumption deserving of the severest chastisement. For this reason, then, I thought it incumbent on me to examine into the various points of relationship between the Word and the soul. Many of them have now been ascertained, but some others remain still to be investigated. For who is so dull as not to be able to perceive how close must be the relation of conformity between the Image and that which is made according to the Image? In yesterday's sermon, if you remember, I gave the former of these names to the Word and the latter to the soul. And in the same discourse I pointed out to you not only the relationship which comes from the soul's having been made according to the Image, but also that due to her being made to the likeness of the Image. I have not yet however explained in what this likeness essentially consists. Well, then, let us apply ourselves now to the task; so that the more perfectly the soul understands the nobility of her origin, the more ashamed she may be to lead a degenerate life, and that she may zealously study to reform whatever she may find in herself corrupted by sin. Thus, by the grace of God, regulating her life in a manner worthy of her parentage, she may at last approach with confidence to the embraces of the Word.

Let her take notice, therefore, that it is to this prerogative of her likeness to the Word she owes the essential simplicity of her substance in virtue of which it is the same thing for her to live as to exist, although for her it is not the same to live virtuously or to live happily as to exist. For between her and the Word there is only similitude, not equality. There is a degree of affinity yet it is only a degree. For it is not the same glory nor an equal excellence to possess an existence which is identical with Hfe, and to possess an existence which is not only identical with life, but even with a happy life. If, then, the latter perfection belongs to the Word, because of His sublimity, and the former to the soul because of her resemblance to Him, and without prejudice to His pre-eminence, the affinity of their natures becomes manifest; and manifest too the prerogative of the soul. To make my meaning plainer, I shall put it in this way: For God alone it is the same thing to be and to be happy; and this is the first and purest simplicity. "The second is like unto this" namely, when for anything it is the same to be and to live; and such is the case with the rational soul. From this, which is a lower degree of perfection, an ascent can be made not alone to a virtuous life, but even to a blissful life. Nevertheless, not even when the soul has attained thither, shall it then be the same thing for her to be and to be happy; so that she may exult in her resemblance to God, yet in such a manner as always to have in her inequality sufficient reason for all her bones to cry out with the Psalmist, "Lord, who is like to Thee?" Still that perfection, viz., identity of life and existence, is a good degree for the soul, from which and from which only she is able to ascend to a blissful life.

There are, my brethren, two classes of living beings, namely, those which are endowed with both life and feeling, and those which possess life alone. Sentient things are more perfect than insentient, but superior to both is that life itself in virtue of which things live and feel. For life and that which lives do not stand on the same grade of perfection, much less life and beings which are inanimate. The soul indeed is a living thing, but she does not receive her life from any form or principle distinct from herself. And thus, to speak properly, she is not so much a living being as life itself. Hence it is that when infused into the body she animates it, so that, from the presence of life, the body becomes, not indeed life, but living. From this it is evident that not even for a living body is it the same thing to be and to live, inasmuch as it can be without possessing life. For a greater reason still, those things which are devoid of life cannot attain to that perfection. No, nor can it be reached even by everything which is called and is life, and by reason of this fact alone. For there is the soul of the brute, and there is the soul of the plant, the former endowed with feeling, the latter insensate. But for neither of these souls is it the same thing to be as to live, since, as many philosophers maintain, both existed in the elements before they began to animate, the former the body of the brute, the latter the body of the plant. From this it follows that such souls cease to live as soon as they cease to vivify, yet they do not also cease to be. They are disengaged and dissolved, because not only are they compounded with the matter of their bodies, but they are also composite in their own natures. For each of these irrational souls is not one simple entity, but results from the union of different constituents. Consequently, they are not annihilated at the death of the plant or the animal, but are resolved into their elements, and each of the constituent parts returns to its principle, the elements of air, for example, going back to air, the elements of fire going back to fire, and the rest in like manner.¹ For such souls, therefore, it cannot be the same thing to be and to live, since they sometimes are even whilst they live not.

Furthermore, none of those things whose being is not identical with life can ever advance or attain to a virtuous or to a happy life, for the reason that they are even incapable of rising to this lower degree. The human soul only, which is known to stand upon this eminence, has been created thereon, as life from Life, as simple from the Simple, as immortal from the Immortal, so that she is not far below that supreme degree, that, namely, where being is identical with blessedness of life, in which He alone stands "Who is the Blessed and the only Mighty, the King of kings, and the Lord of lords." The rational soul, accordingly, has received at her creation, if not the actuality, at any rate the possibility of happiness; and she therefore approaches as near as is possible to the highest degree, which, however, she can never attain to. For, as I have already remarked, not even then, when she is actually happy, will it be the same thing for her to be and to be happy I acknowledge her likeness to the Divinity, but I deny her equality. For instance, God is Life, and the soul is life: here we have similarity, yet also disparity. Trhe soul resembles God in that, like Him, she is life, in that, like Him, she lives by her own essence, and in that, like Him, she not only has life in herself, but communicates it also externally. She differs from Him, on the other hand, by as much as the creature differs from the Creator. She differs from Him in that whereas He is self-sufficing, she would have no life at all unless vivified by Him, just as she would have no being at all unless created by Him. When I say she would have no life unless vivified by God, I am speaking, not of her natural, but of her supernatural life. For all human souls, even such as have no supernatural life, are in their natural life necessarily immortal. But what manner of life is that which it would be better to end by dying than to continue? It is rather death than life, and a death the more awful because it is.due not to nature but to sin. "The death of the wicked is very evil," says the Psalmist. Thus, therefore, the soul that "liveth according to the flesh is dead" even while she lives, because it were better for her not to live at aU than so to live. And from this kind of living death there shall be no resurrection for her except through the Word of life, or rather through the Word who is Life Itself, living and vivifying.

But otherwise the rational soul is truly immortal, and in this respect also has affinity, yet not equality, with the Word. For the Creator's immortality so far transcends the creature's that the Apostle says of God, *' Who only hath immortality." By these words, as I think, he meant to convey to us that God alone is immutable in His Nature, Who has Himself declared by His Prophet Malachy, "I am the Lord and I change not." For true and complete immortality excludes as well change as termination of life, since all change is an image of death. Indeed, everything which undergoes change, whilst it passes from one state of being to another, must necessarily die, in a certain sense, with regard to what it is, so that it may begin to be what it is not. But how can you have immortality there where you have as many deatiis as changes? And, in the words of the Apostle, "The creature was made subject to (this) vanity, not willingly, but by reason of Him That made it subject in hope." Nevertheless the soul possesses a true if imperfect immortality, because as she is the principle of life to herself, she can as little fall from life as she can fall from herself. At the same time, since it is evident that she changes in her thoughts and affections, let her glory in her resemblance to the divine immortality, in such a way as not to forget that she is wanting in an important part of perfect immortality: let her acknowledge that immortality absolute and adequate belongs to Him alone "with whom there is no change nor shadow of alteration." Yet what has been said in the present discourse has enabled us to understand how exalted is the dignity of the human soul, which appears to approximate to the Word of God by a twofold affinity of nature, namely, by simplicity of essence and immortality of life.

Yet another point of relationship now occurs to me which I must by no means pass over; because no less than those already mentioned, and perhaps even in a greater degree, it renders the soul glorious in herself and like to the Word. I refer to the faculty of free-will, which shines in the soul with a beauty all divine, as a gem set in gold. It is through this faculty that the mind possesses the power of judging² and the liberty of choosing between good and evil, between life and death, between light and darkness. And if there be any other objects which, in the same manner, appear to stand in mutual opposition as regards the state of the soul, between these also this vigilant arbiter (which may be called the soul's eye) judges and determines, as free in electing as it is peremptory in deciding. Hence it is called the faculty of free choice (liberum arbitrium) because, namely, it freely chooses between opposites according to the pleasure of the will. It is in virtue of the same faculty that man is capable of merit and demerit. For every act you perform, provided it was in your power to omit it, is justly reputed to you as merit or as demerit. And as praise is justly due not only to him "who could have transgressed and hath not transgressed, and could do evil things and hath not done them," but to him also who could have omitted to do good and yet hath done it: similarly, demerit is not wanting either to him who could have omitted to do evil and yet hath done it, or to him who could have done good, yet hath not done it. But where there is no liberty, there can be neither merit nor demerit. Wherefore the brute beasts, which lack the light of reason, are incapable of meriting or demeriting, because being without the power of deliberation, they are likewise without liberty. They are governed by their senses, driven on by their impulses, carried away by their appetites. For they possess neither judgment whereby to direct and rule themselves, nor even the faculty of reason, which is the instrument of judgment. Hence it is that judgment is not exercised upon them, because they do not exercise judgment themselves. With what reason indeed could they be required to give a reason for their action since from them the gift of reason has been withheld?

Man is the only mortal who can resist the coercive power of nature, and consequently he alone is free amongst all earthly creatures. Nevertheless, even he becomes subject to coercion when he becomes guilty of sin. But this coercion is not from nature but from his own will, so that not even thus is he deprived of his native liber ty: because whatever is voluntary the same is free.* And in truth it is owing to sin that "the corruptible body weigheth down the soul," not by the weight of its mass, but by the force of concupiscence. For the fact that the soul is incapable now of rising of herself from sin, although she was able to fall of herself, is due to the will, which, weakened and prostrated by the depraved and vicious love of a corrupted body, cannot at the same time admit the love of justice. And so, I know not in what wicked yet wonderful way, the will when deteriorated by sin, imposes a constraint on itself: so that on the one hand, such constraint, since it is voluntary, cannot avail to excuse the will; and, on the other hand, the will, "being drawn away and allured," is unable to resist the constraint. This constraint, I repeat, is in some sense voluntary. It is a pleasant kind of violence which blandishes whilst it coerces and coerces by blandishing. Therefore the human will, when once it has consented to evil, cannot now by its own power either emancipate itself, or in any way excuse itself by reason. Hence that querulous cry of one groaning, as it were, under the burden of this necessity, "Lord, I suffer violence, answer Thou for me." But immediately recognising that he was unjustly complaining

♦This, although true with regard to particular volitions of the present life, is not true universally. The love of the blessed for God and the desire of happiness are perfectly voluntary, yet not free. of the Lord, inasmuch as the responsibility lay exclusively with his own will, listen to what he adds, "What shall I say or what shall He answer for me, whereas I myself have done it?"³ He was oppressed by the yoke, but by no other yoke than that of a voluntary servitude. And while this servitude rendered him unhappy, its voluntariness rendered him inexcusable. For just as it was the will which, when it was free, made itself the slave of sin, by consenting to sin: so is it the will also which now by voluntarily serving keeps itself in bondage to sin.

But some of you may reply to this, "Consider what thou art saying. Dost thou call that voluntary which is now at any rate a manifest necessitj"? It is true, no doubt, that in the beginning the will enslaved itself voluntarily; but it is not by itself that it is now kept in bondage, it is rather held captive against its will." I am glad that thou dost grant me this much at least, that it is held captive. But bear clearly in mind that it is the will which thou acknowledgest to be thus held. Dost thou then speak of the will as acting unwillingly? No, the will cannot be held against its will,⁴ since the act of the will is always voluntary, never involuntary. But if it is held voluntarily, it is held by itself. What therefore shall it say or what shall it answer to the Lord, since it itself hath done it? And what has it done? It has made itself a slave. Hence it is said in the Gospel, "Whosoever committeth sin, is the servant of sin." Consequently, the will made itself a slave when it committed sin, and it committed sin when it resolved to obey sin. But it regains its freedom as soon as it ceases from sinning. However, it continues to sin so long as it continues to hold itself freely in the same servitude to sin. For the will cannot be held captive involuntarily for the simple reason that it is the will. Therefore, since it voluntarily continues in thraldom, not only has it once made itself a slave, but it is constantly doing this. Justly then may it cry out in the words of Ezechias, "What shall I say or what shall He answer for me whereas I myself have done it? "And it would be well, my brethren, if this were often recalled to mind.

"For all that," it may be answered to me, "thou shalt never make me give up my belief in a necessity which I suffer, which I experience in myself, against which I constantly struggle." But where, let me ask, dost thou feel this necessity? Is it not in thy will? Consequently, not only dost thou will, but thou dost will with great energy, what thou wiliest even from necessity. For surely thou must will that strongly which, however much thou strivest, thou art unable not to wiU. Now, where there is will, there also is liberty. Yet I am speaking only of natural liberty, not of that spiritual liberty "wherewith," as the Apostle says, "Christ hath made us free." For with regard to this latter liberty the same Apostle tells us that "where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." Thus, my brethren, in a certain evil yet marvellous way, the soul is held captive under this voluntary and sinfully free necessity, at one and the same time bond and free. She is a bond-slave by reason of her servitude; she is free on account of the voluntariness of this servitude. And what is stranger still and still more pitiful, she is guilty because of her freedom, and she is a bond-slave because of her guilt; consequently she is a bond-slave because of her freedom. "Unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me from the" dishonour of this shameful servitude? I am unhappy, yet I am free. I am free because I am a man; I am unhappy because I am a slave. I am free because of my resemblance to God; I am unhappy because of my opposition to God. "O Keeper of men," exclaims holy Job, "why dost Thou set me opposite to Thee?" For Thou hast set me opposite to Thee in so far as this, that Thou hast not prevented me from setting mj'self opposite to Thee. Otherwise it is I that have so set myself, and therefore "I am become burdensome to myself." And this indeed most justly, so that Thy enemy should become my enemy as well, and that he who opposes Thee should oppose me also. But it is I myself who am set opposite both to Thee and to me; and I find in my members that which is equally at variance \doth my mind and with Thy law. Oh, who will deliver me out of my own hands! For if ** I do not that good which I will,"it is by myself alone I am hindered; and if, on the other hand, *' the evil which I hate, that I do," it is by compulsion from none other than myself. And would to God this hindrance and this compulsion were either so violent as to be involuntary, because then perhaps I might have an excuse for yielding; or else were so voluntary as not to be violent, for thus I certainly should have it in my power to correct myself. Now however there is no escape for me, since the voluntariness of sinning renders me inexcusable, as I have before observed, and its necessity renders me incorrigible. Who will "deliver me out of the hand of the sinner, and out of the the hand of the transgressor of the law and of the unjust?"

But some of you may wish to ask me of whom do I speak. I am speaking of myself. / am that sinner, that outlaw, that impious one. I am a sinner because I have sinned. I am an outlaw because by my will I persist in acting against the law. For my own will is that "law in my members fighting against "the divine law. And since the law of the Lord is the "law of my mind," according to what is written, "The law of God is in his heart,*' by consequence, to myself also my own will is found in opposition, "which is the greatest iniquity." For to whom shall I not be evil if I am evil to myself? As is said in Ecclesiastes, "He that is evil to himself, to whom will he be good? "I confess that I am not good, because I have nothing good abiding in me. Nevertheless I will console myself, since St. Paul himself has made the same acknowledgment, saying, "I know that there dwelleth not in me that which is good." Yet he specifies what he means by the words "in me," adding, by way of explanation, "that is to say, in my flesh," to which he denies any good on account of the opposing law therein abiding. For he has another law in his mind, and a better one. Surely the law of God is a good law. But if he be evil because of the evil law, how can it be denied that he is good on account of the good law? Perhaps, however, it will be said that the evil law which exists in his flesh is his own, and therefore he is evil by reason of this evil law; but that the good law, being less his own, does not similarly make him good. This is not true. For the law of his God is in his mind, and it is in his mind in such a manner as to be also the law of his mind. I have the testimony of the Apostle for this, who says, "I see another law in my members, fighting agcdnst the law of my mind." Shall it be said that what belongs to his flesh is his own, but that what belongs to his mind is not his own? In my opinion, the latter is even more his own than the former. And why should I not think so, since the same inspired teacher declares so? For whereas with his mind he serves the law of God and with his flesh the law of sin, he clearly insinuates which of these, viz., the law of God or the law of sin, he acknowledges to be the more his own, when he reputes the evil law in his flesh so foreign to him that he can say, "Now then it is no more / that do it but sin that dwelleth in me." And perhaps it was for this reason the law which he found in his members was expressely called another law, because, namely, he regarded it as something alien and adventitious. Therefore I will venture to go even farther and to say, surely without rashness, that St. Paul is no longer evil on account of the evil law which he has in his flesh, but is rather good by reason of the good law which dwelleth in his mind. How can he be otherwise than good himself who "consents to the law of God because it is good "? He also indeed confesses that he serves the "law of sin," yet he does so not with his mind but only with his flesh. Now since he serves the law of God with his mind, and the "law of sin "with his flesh, I leave it for you to decide, my brethren, as to which should be the more particularly imputed to St. Paul. As for myself, I have been easily convinced that that which belonged to his mind was more truly his own than what appertained to his flesh. Nor is this conviction confined to me, since, as I have remarked, it was also entertained by the Apostle himself, who says, "If then I do that which I will not.... it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me."

So much must suffice on this subject of liberty. In the little book which I composed on Grace and Free Will you will perhaps find the questions concerning the Image and the likeness treated somewhat differently, yet without any real contradiction of what I have been saying now. You have read that work, and you have heard this sermon. I submit both to your judgment: choose that which you find the more pleasing. And it you have found anything else which gives you more satisfaction than either, I rejoice at it, and shall rejoice. But however this may be, remember what I have now said concerning the soul's three characteristics of simplicity, immortality, and liberty, which formed the three principal points of to-day's discourse. And I think that this much at the least is now clearly evident to you, namely, that the soul, by reason of her natural and ennobling likeness to the Word, which shines out so conspicuously in the characteristics referred to, has a very close affinity to Him who is the Bridegroom of the Church, Jesus Christ Our Lord, Who is over all things, God blessed for ever. Amen.

Footnotes

1. This is the doctrine of Empedocles, bom at Agrigentum about the year 500. B.C. He maintained that all things, human souls not excepted, are produced by the various intermingling of the primitive elements. Of course every materialistic philosophy must ultimately rest on such an assumption, and endeavour to explain all life in terms of matter and motion, as the resultant of special atomic combinations. The scholastics, whilst insisting on the essential difference between the lowest form of vital force and all non-vital energies, teach that the human soul alone is created, the inferior souls being "educed out of the potentiality of matter," where they may be said to exist before they begin to live as informing principles, and into which they are again absorbed at the death of the plant or the animal. Cf. Hugon, Phil. Natur., pp. 63-64.- — (Translator.) ↩

2. St. Bernard understands free will (liberum arbitrium) as including the faculty of reason with that of willing. This is clear from his book De Gratia et Libero Arbitrio, c. 11, where he writes, "Talis ergo consensus ob voluntatis inamissbilem libertatem, et rationis quod secum semper et ubique portat inclinabile judicium, non incongrue dicetur, ut arbitror, liberum arbitrarium." Similarly St. Laurence Justinian, "Liberum arbitrium est facultas rationis et voluntatis." And Gerson, "Libertas arbitrii est facultas rationis et voluntatis ad utrumque oppositorum." — (Translator.) ↩

3. "Cum ipse fecerim." The Vulgate has "fecerit" — "whereas He Himself hath done it" (Is. xxxviii. 15). — (Translator.) ↩

4. The same is the teaching of St. Thomas: "With regard to its own proper act of volition," he says, "the will cannot suffer violence, and the reason is, because the act of the will is nothing else than a certain inclination proceeding from the internal cognitive principle; just as the natural appetite is nothing other than a certain inclination proceeding from an internal non-cognitive power. But violence or coercion comes from without. Therefore it is contrary to the nature of volition that it be forced or constrained" {Sum. TheoL, I., T., q. vi. a, iv. — (Translator.) ↩