Chapter IX

SANCTITY OF THE CHURCH (continued). THE TEUE CHUECH MUST PEACTISE THE PEEFECTION OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE.

Heee are the sublimer instructions of Our Lord and the Apostles. A rich young man was protesting that he had observed the commandments of God from his tender youth. Our Lord, who sees everything, looking upon him loved him, a sign that he vt^as such as he had said he was, and still he gave him this counsel (Matt. xix. Mark, x.): If thou woiddst he perfect, go sell all that thou hast, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come, follow me. S. Peter invites us by his example and that of his companions (Matt, xix.): Behold we have left all things and have followed thee. Our Lord returns this solemn promise: You who have followed me... shall sit upo7i twelve seats, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And every one that shall have left house, or hrethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children^ or lands for my name's sake, shall receive an hundred-fold, and shall possess life everlasting. You see the words, now behold the example: The Son of man hath not where to lay his head (Luke ix. 5 8): he was entirely poor to make us rich; he lived on alms, says S. Luke — certain women ministered to him of their suhstance (viii. 3). In two Psalms * which properly regard his person, as S. Peter and S. Paul interpret, he is called a beggar. When he sent his Apostles to preach he taught them that they should carry nothing on their journey save a staff only, that they should take neither scrip, nor bread, nor money in their purse, that they should be shod with sandals and not be furnished with two coats. I know that these instructions are not absolute commands, though the last was commanded for a time; nor do I mean to say that they were more than most wholesome counsels and advice.

• Namely, Psalms cviii. and xxxix.; the one referred to by S. Peter in Acts i., the other by S. Paul in Heb. x. [Tr.]

Here are others similar on another subject (Matt, xix.): There are eunuchs who roere horn so from their mother's womb: and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that can receive it, let him receive it.

It is precisely that which had been foretold by Isaias (Ivi.): Let not the eunuch say: hehold I am a dry tree. For thus saith the Lord to the eunuchs: They that shall keep my Sabbaths, and shall choose the things that please me, and shall hold fast my covenant y I will give them in my house and within my walls a 'place and a name better than sons and daughters: I will give them an everlasting name which shall never perish. Who sees not here that the Gospel exactly comes to fit in with prophecy? And in the Apocalypse xiv. those who sang a new canticle which no other than they could utter were those who are not defiled with women^ for they are virgins: these follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. To this refer the exhortations of S. Paul ( I Cor. vii.): It is good for a man not to touch a woman;... now, / say to the unmarried and to the loidows: it is good for them if they so continue^ even as I.... Concerning virgins I have no commandment ^ hit I give counsel, as having received mercy of the Lord to be faithful. And here is the reason: He that is without a wife is solicitous for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please God. But he that is with a wife is solicitous for the things of the world, how he may please his wife, and he is divided. And the unmarried wo7nan and the virgin thinketh on the things of the Lord that she may be holy both in body and in spirit; but she that is married thinketh on the things of the world^ how she may please her husband. And this I speak for your

ART. III. 0. IX.] The Rtile of Faith, 193 frojit: not to cast a snare upon you, hut for that which is decent, and which may give you power to attend upon the Lord without impediment... He that giveth his virgin in marriage doth well, and he that giveth her not doth better. Then speaking of the widow: Let her marry to whom she will, only in the Lord. But more blessed shall she be, if she so remain, according to my counsel; a,nd L think that L also have the Spirit of God. Behold the instructions of Our Lord and his Apostles, having the authority of the example of Oar Lord, of Our Lady, of S. John Baptist, of S. Paul, S. John, S. James, who have all lived in virginity; and in the Old Testament, Elias and Eliseus, as the Ancients have pointed out.

Lastly, the most humble obedience of Our Lord, which is so particularly signified in the Evangelists, not only to his Father, to which he was obliged, but to S. Joseph, to his Mother, to Csesar (to whom he paid tribute), and to all creatures in his Passion: — for the love of us. He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross (Phil. ii. 8): — the humility which he shows in having come to teach us, when he said (Matt, xx., Luke xxii.): The Son of man is not come to be ministered unto but to minister.... L am amongst you as he that serveth — are not these perpetual repetitions and expositions of that most sweet lesson (Matt, xi.): Learn of me, because L am meek and hiLmble of heart, and that other (Luke ix.): Lf any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow me? He who keeps the commandments denies himself sufficiently for salvation; to humble oneself in order to be exalted is quite enough: but still there remains another obedience, humility and

III. N self-abnegnation, to which the examples and instructions of Our Lord invite us. He would have us learn humility from him, and he humbles himself, not only to those whose inferior he was, in so far as he was wearing the form of a servant, but also to his actual inferiors. He desires then, that as he abased himself, never indeed against his duty but beyond duty, we also should voluntarily obey all creatures for love of him: he would have us renounce ourselves, after his example, but he has renounced his own will so decisively that he has submitted to the cross itself, and has served his disciples and servants — witness he who finding it extraordinary said (John xiii.): Thou shalt not wash my feet for ever. What remains then save that we should recognise in his words a sweet invitation to a voluntary submission and obedience towards those to whom otherwise we have no obligation, not resting, however lightly, on our own will and judgment, according to the advice of the Wise Man (Prov. iii.), but making ourselves subjects and enslaved to God, and to men for the love of the same God. So the Eechabites are magnificently praised in Jeremias xxxv., because they obeyed their father Jonadab in things very hard and extraordinary, in which he had no authority to oblige them, such as were not to drink wine, neither they nor any of theirs, not to sow, not to plant, not to have vineyards, not to build. Fathers certainly may not so tightly fasten the hands of their posterity, unless they voluntarily consent thereto. The Eechabites, however, are praised and blessed by God in approval of this voluntary obedience, by which they had renounced themselves with an extraordinary and more perfect renunciation.

ART. III. 0. IX.] The Rule of Faith. 195

Well now, let us return to our road. vSuch signal examples and instructions as these, in poverty, chastity, and abnegation of self, — to whom have they been left? To the Church. But why? Our Lord tells us: He ivho can receive, let him receive. And who can receive them? He who has the gift of God; and no one has the gift of God but he who asks for it; — but. Iwiv shall they call on him in whom they have not believed.... How shall they believe... without a preacher! And how can they yreach unless they be sent (Eoni. x.)? Now, there is no mission outside the Church, therefore the he who can receive let him receive, is addressed immediately only to the Church, or for those who are in the Church, since outside the Church it cannot be put in practice. S. Paul shows it more clearly: 1 speak this, he says, for your profit, not to make snares and nets for you, but to persuade you to that which is decent, and which may give you power and facility to attend itpon the Lord, and to honour him without impediment. And, in fact, the Scriptures and the examples that are therein are only for our utility and instruction; the Church then ought to use, and put into practice, these most holy counsels of her Spouse: otherwise they would have been vainly and uselessly left, and proposed to her: indeed she has well known how to take them for herself, and to profit by them: — and see how.

Our Lord had no sooner ascended into heaven than every one amongst the first Christians sold his goods and brought the price to the feet of the Apostles. And S. Peter, putting in practice the first rule, said: Gold and silver have I none (Acts iii.) S. Philip had four daughters, virgins, whom Eusebius testifies to have always remained such. S. Paul kept virginity or celibacy; so did S. John and S. James; and when S. Paul (i Tim. v.) reproves, as having damnation, certain young widows who, afUr they have grown luanton in Christ will marry, having damnation because they have left their first faith, — the fourth Council of Carthage (at which S. Augustine assisted) S. Epiphanius, S. Jerome, with all the rest of antiquity, understand it of widows who, being vowed to God and to the observance of chastity, broke their vows, entering into the ties of marriage against the faith which previously they had given to the heavenly Spouse. From that time, then, the counsel of [being] eunuchs, and the other which S. Paul gives, were practised in the Church.

Eusebius of Csesarea records that the Apostles instituted two lives; the one according to commandment, the other according to counsel. And that so it was, evidently appears; for, on the model of the perfection of life followed and counselled by the Apostles, a countless number of Christians have so closely formed theirs, that history is full of it. Who does not know how admirable are the accounts given by Philo the Jew of the life of the first Christians at Alexandria, in the book entitled Of the Life of the Beseechers,* wherein he treats of S. Mark and his disciples, as Eusebius, Nicephorus, S. Jerome, bear witness; and amongst the rest, Epiphanius,t who assures us that Philo, when writing of the Jessenes, was speaking of the Christians under this name, who for some time after the Ascension of Our Lord, whilst S. Mark was preaching in Egypt, were so called, either on account

• De vitd Contemplativa sive supplicium virtutibus. t Hser. xxix. cc. 4, 5.

of the name of Jesse, from whose race Our Lord sprang, or on account of the name of Jesus, their Master's name, which they ever had in their mouth. Now he who will look at the books of Philo, will see in these Jessenes or Therapeuts (healers or servers) a most perfect renunciation of oneself, of one's flesh, of one's goods.

S. Martial, a disciple of Our Lord, in an Epistle which he wrote to the Tolosians, relates that at his preaching the blessed Valeria, wife of an earthly king, had vowed the virginity of her body and of her spirit to the celestial King. S. Denis, in his Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, says that the Apostles, his masters, called the religious of his time Therapeuts, that is, servers or adorers, on account of the special service and worship they paid to God, or monks,* on account of the union with God, in which they made progress. Behold the perfection of the Evangelic life excellently practised in this first time of the Apostles and their disciples, who, having traced this path thus straight to heaven, and ascended by it, have been followed, one after another, by many excellent Christians. S. Cyprian observed continency, and gave all his goods to the poor, as Pontius the Deacon records. The same did S. Paul, the first Hermit, S. Anthony and S. Hilarion, witness S. Athanasius and S. Jerome. S. Paulinus, Bishop of Nola — S. Ambrose is our authority — of an ilhistrious family in Guienne, gave all his goods to the poor, and, as if discharged from a weighty burden, said farewell to his father and his family, to serve his God more devotedly. By his example it was that S. Martin quitted all, and excited others to the same perfection.

• Moj'cixoc from ix6vos, one or single. [Tr.]

George, Patriarch of Alexandria, relates that St. Chrysostom gave up all and became a monk. Politian, an African gentleman, returning from the Emperor's court, related to S. Augustin, that in Egypt there were a great number of monasteries and religious, who manifested a great sweetness and simplicity in their manners, and that there was a monastery at Milan, outside the town, furnished with a good number of religious, living in great union and brotherhood, to whom S. Ambrose, bishop of the place, was as Abbot. He told them also that near the town of Treves, there was a monastery of good religious, in which two courtiers of the Emperor had become monks; and that two young ladies who were betrothed to these two courtiers, having heard the resolution of their spouses, similarly vowed their virginity to God, and retired from the world to live in religion, poverty, and chastity. S. Augustin himself tells all this. Possidius relates the same, and says that he had instituted a monastery; which S. Augustine himself relates in one of his Epistles. These great Fathers have been followed by S. Gregory, Damascene, Bruno, Eomuald, Bernard, Dominic, Francis, Louis, Anthony, Vincent, Thomas, Bona venture, who having all renounced and said an eternal adieu to the world and its pomps, have presented themselves as a perfect holocaust to the living God.

Now let us conclude. These consequences seem to me inevitable. Our Lord has had these instructions and counsels of chastity, poverty, and obedience laid down in his Scriptures: he has practised them, and has had them practised in his early Church: all the Scripture and all the life of Our Lord were but an instruction for the Church which was to make profit

ART. III. c. X.] The Rule of Faith. 199 by them, and it was then to be one of the institutions of the Church, this chastity, poverty, obedience or self-renunciation. Moreover, the Church has always put in practice these things at all times and in every season; this then is one of her properties: and what would be the use of so many exhortations if they were not to be put in practice? The true Church therefore ought to shine in the perfection of the Christian life; not so that everybody in the Church is bound to follow it; it is enough that it be found in some notable members and parts, in order that nothing may be written or counselled in vain, and that the Church may make use of all the parts of Holy Scripture.