Letter XLII. To a Religious of the Visitation

Answers to questions on the truths of Faith.

28th November, 162 1. The truths of the faith, my dearest child, are sometimes agreeable to the human spirit, not only because God has revealed them by his word, and proposed them by his Church, but also because they suit our taste, arid because we enter into them thoroughly, we understand them easily, and they are according to our inclinations. As, for example, that there is a Paradise after this mortal life, — this is a truth of faith which many hold much to their satisfaction, because it is sweet and desirable. That God is merciful the greatest part of the world finds to be a very good thing, and easily believes, because even philosophy teaches us this; it is conformable to our taste and to our desire.

Now, all the truths of faith are not of this kind; as, for example, that there is an eternal hell for the punishment of the wicked, — this is a truth of faith, but a bitter, terrifying, fearful truth, and one which we do not believe willingly, except by the force of God's word.

And now I say, firstly, that naked and simple faith is that by which we believe the truths of faith, without considering any pleasure, sweetness, or consolation, we may have in them, but solely by the acquiescence of our spirit in the authority of the word of God, and

3^4 5/. Francis de Sales.

the proposition of the Church: and thus we believe no less the terrifying truths than the sweet and agreeable truths: and then our faith is naked, because it is not clothed with any sweetness or any relish; it is simple, because it is not mingled with any satisfaction of our own feelings.

Secondly, there are truths of faith which we can apprehend by the imagination; as that our Lord was born in the manger of Bethlehem, that he was carried into Egypt, that he was crucified, that he went up to heaven. There are others, which we cannot at all grasp with the imagination, as the truth of the Most Holy Trinity, Eternity, the presence of our Lord's body in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist: for all these truths are true in a way which is inconceivable to our imagination, since we cannot imagine how these things can be. Still, our understanding believes them firmly and simply, on the sole assurance it has of the word of God: and this faith is truly naked, for it is divested of all imagination; and it is entirely simple, because it has no sort of action except the action of our understanding, which purely and simply embraces these truths on the sole security of God's word. This faith, thus naked and simple, is that which the saints have practised and do practise amid sterilities, drynesses, distrusts, and darknesses.

To live in truth, and not in untruth, is to lead a life entirely conformed to naked and simple faith, according to the operations of grace and not of nature; because our imagination, our senses, our feeling, our taste, our consolations, our arguments, maybe deceived and may err; and to live according to them is to live in untruth, or at least in a perpetual risk of untruth; but to live in naked and simple faith, — this is to live in truth.

So it is said of the wicked spirit, that he abode not in the truth* because having had faith in the beginning of his creation, he quitted it, wishing to argue, without the faith, about his own excellence, and wishing to make himself his end, not according to naked and simple faith, but according to natural conditions, which carried him on to an extravagpnt and irregular love of himself. This is the lie in which live all those who do not adhere with simplicity and nudity of faith to the word of God, but wish to live according to human prudence, which is no other than an ants' nest of lies and vain arguments.

This is what I think good to say to you on your two questions.