Chapter XLVIII. How he Likened Perfect Obedience, in a Parable, to the Body of a Dead Man

But on a time before his fellows he uttered this sigh, "Hardly is there one Religious in the world who obeys his superior well." Immediately his fellows said to him, "Tell us, Father, what is the perfect and highest obedience?" But he answering, de scribed true and perfect obedience under the figure of a dead body, thus, "Take a lifeless body and put it where it shall please thee, you will see that it will not resist moving, nor change its place, nor claim dismissal. But if it be exalted on a throne, it looks not on high things but low. If it be lapped in purple, it grows doubly pale. He therefore is truly obedient who judges not why he is moved, takes no thought where he is placed, and asketh not that he should be moved; promoted to office he keeps his unwonted humility, while the more he is honoured, the more he reputes himself unworthy."

Things ordered purely and simply, not asked of him, he called holy obediences. But he believed that the highest obedience, that in which flesh and blood had no part, was when men should go by divine inspiration among the infidels, either for the good of their fellows, or for the desire of martyr dom, and he judged that to seek this was right acceptable.