Of the evils that may befall the soul when it sets its
rejoicing upon temporal blessings.
IF we had to describe the evils which encompass the soul when
it sets the affections of its will upon temporal blessings,
neither ink nor paper would suffice us and our time would be too
short. For from very small beginnings a man may attain to great
evils and destroy great blessings; even as from a spark of fire,
if it be not quenched, may be enkindled great fires which set the
world ablaze. All these evils have their root and origin in one
important evil of a privative kind that is contained in this joy
-- namely, withdrawal from God. For even as, in the soul that is
united with Him by the affection of its will, there are born all
blessings, even so, when it withdraws itself from Him because of
this creature affection, there beset it all evils and disasters
proportionately to the joy and affection wherewith it is united
with the creature; for this is inherent in[557] withdrawal from God.
Wherefore a soul may expect the evils which assail it to be
greater or less according to the greater or lesser degree of its
withdrawal from God. These evils may be extensive or intensive;
for the most part they are both together.
2. This privative evil, whence, we say, arise other privative
and positive evils, has four degrees, each one worse than the
other. And, when the soul compasses the fourth degree, it will
have compassed all the evils and depravities that arise in this
connection.[558] These four degrees are well indicated by Moses in
Deuteronomy in these words, where he says: 'The beloved grew fat
and kicked. He grew fat and became swollen and gross. He forsook
God his Maker and departed from God his Salvation.'[559]
3. This growing fat of the soul, which was loved before it
grew fat, indicates absorption in this joy of creatures. And hence
arises the first degree of this evil, namely the going backward;
which is a certain blunting of the mind with regard to God, an
obscuring of the blessings of God like the obscuring of the air by
mist, so that it cannot be clearly illumined by the light of the
sun. For, precisely when the spiritual person sets his rejoicing
upon anything, and gives rein to his desire for foolish things, he
becomes blind as to God, and the simple intelligence of his
judgment becomes clouded, even as the Divine Spirit teaches in the
Book of Wisdom, saying: 'the use and association of vanity and
scorn obscureth good things, and inconstancy of desire overturneth
and perverteth the sense and judgment that are without malice.'[560]
Here the Holy Spirit shows that, although there be no malice
conceived in the understanding of the soul, concupiscence and
rejoicing in creatures suffice of themselves to create in the soul
the first degree of this evil, which is the blunting of the mind
and the darkening of the judgment, by which the truth is
understood and each thing honestly judged as it is.
4. Holiness and good judgment suffice not to save a man from
falling into this evil, if he gives way to concupiscence or
rejoicing in temporal things. For this reason God warned us by
uttering these words through Moses: 'Thou shalt take no gifts,
which blind even the prudent.'[561] And this was addressed
particularly to those who were to be judges; for these have need
to keep their judgment clear and alert, which they will be unable
to do if they covet and rejoice in gifts. And for this cause
likewise God commanded Moses to appoint judges from those who
abhorred avarice, so that their judgment should not be blunted
with the lust of the passions.[562] And thus he says not only that
they should not desire it, but that they should abhor it. For, if
a man is to be perfectly defended from the affection of love, he
must preserve an abhorrence of it, defending himself by means of
the one thing against its contrary. The reason why the prophet
Samuel, for example, was always so upright and enlightened a judge
is that (as he said in the Book of the Kings) he had never
received a gift from any man.[563]
5. The second degree of this privative evil arises from the
first, which is indicated in the words following the passage
already quoted, namely: 'He grew fat and became swollen and
gross.'[564] And thus this second degree is dilation of the will
through the acquisition of greater liberty in temporal things;
which consists in no longer attaching so much importance to them,
nor troubling oneself about them, nor esteeming so highly the joy
and pleasure that come from created blessings. And this will have
arisen in the soul from its having in the first place given rein
to rejoicing; for, through giving way to it, the soul has become
swollen with it, as is said in that passage, and that fatness of
rejoicing and desire has mused it to dilate and extend its will
more freely toward the creatures. And this brings with it great
evils. For this second degree causes the soul to withdraw itself
from the things of God, and from holy practices, and to take no
pleasure in them, because it takes pleasure in other things and
devotes itself continually to many imperfections and follies and
to joys and vain pleasures.
6. And when this second degree is consummated, it withdraws a
man wholly from the practices which he followed continually and
makes his whole mind and covetousness to be given to secular
things. And those who are affected by this second degree not only
have their judgment and understanding darkened so that they cannot
recognize truth and justice, like those who are in the first
degree, but they are also very weak and lukewarm and careless in
acquiring knowledge of, and in practising, truth and justice, even
as Isaias says of them in these words: 'They all love gifts and
allow themselves to be carried away by rewards, and they judge not
the orphan, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them
that they may give heed to it.'[565] This comes not to pass in them
without sin, especially when to do these things is incumbent upon
them because of their office. For those who are affected by this
degree are not free from malice as are those of the first degree.
And thus they withdraw themselves more and more from justice and
virtues, since their will reaches out more and more in affection
for creatures. Wherefore, the characteristics of those who are in
this second degree are great lukewarmness in spiritual things and
failure to do their duty by them; they practise them from
formality or from compulsion or from the habit which they have
formed of practising them, rather than because they love them.
7. The third degree of this privative evil is a complete
falling away from God, neglect to fulfil His law in order not to
lose worldly things and blessings, and relapse into mortal sin
through covetousness. And this third degree is described in the
words following the passage quoted above, which says: 'He forsook
God his Maker.'[566] In this degree are included all who have the
faculties of the soul absorbed in things of the world and in
riches and commerce, in such a way that they care nothing for
fulfilling the obligations of the law of God. And they are very
forgetful and dull with respect to that which touches their
salvation, and have a correspondingly greater ardour and
shrewdness with respect to things of the world. So much so that in
the Gospel Christ calls them children of this world, and says of
them that they are more prudent and acute in their affairs than
are the children of light in their own.[567] And thus they are as
nothing in God's business, whereas in the world's business they
are everything. And these are the truly avaricious, who have
extended and dispersed their desire and joy on things created, and
this with such affection that they cannot be satisfied; on the
contrary, their desire and their thirst grow all the more because
they are farther withdrawn from the only source that could satisfy
them, which is God. For it is of these that God Himself speaks
through Jeremias, saying: 'They have forsaken Me, Who am the
fountain of living water, and they have digged to themselves
broken cisterns that can hold no water.'[568] And this is the reason
why the covetous man finds naught among the creatures wherewith he
can quench his thirst, but only that which increases it. These
persons are they that fall into countless kinds of sin through
love of temporal blessings and the evils which afflict them are
innumerable. And of these David says: Transierunt in affectum
cordis.[569]
8. The fourth degree of this privative evil is indicated in
the last words of our passage, which says: 'And he departed from
God his Salvation.'[570] To this degree come those of the third
degree whereof we have just spoken. For, through his not giving
heed to setting his heart upon the law of God because of temporal
blessings, the soul of the covetous man departs far from God
according to his memory, understanding and will, forgetting Him as
though He were not his God, which comes to pass because he has
made for himself a god of money and of temporal blessings, as
Saint Paul says when he describes avarice as slavery to idols.[571]
For this fourth degree leads a man as far as to forget God, and to
set his heart, which he should have set formally upon God,
formally upon money, as though he had no god beside.
9. To this fourth degree belong those who hesitate not to
subject Divine and supernatural things to temporal things, as to
their God, when they ought to do the contrary, and subject
temporal things to God, if they considered Him as their God, as
would be in accordance with reason. To these belonged the
iniquitous Balaam, who sold the grace that God had given to
him.[572] And also Simon Magus, who thought to value the grace of
God in terms of money, and desired to buy it.[573] In doing this he
showed a greater esteem for money; and he thought there were those
who similarly esteemed it, and would give grace for money. There
are many nowadays who in many other ways belong to this fourth
degree; their reason is darkened to spiritual things by
covetousness; they serve money and not God, and are influenced by
money and not by God, putting first the cost of a thing and not
its Divine worth and reward, and in many ways making money their
principal god and end, and setting it before the final end, which
is God.
10. To this last degree belong also those miserable souls who
are so greatly in love with their own goods that they take them
for their god, so much so that they scruple not to sacrifice their
lives for them, when they see that this god of theirs is suffering
some temporal harm. They abandon themselves to despair and take
their own lives for their miserable ends, showing by their own
acts how wretched is the reward which such a god as theirs
bestows. For when they can no longer hope for aught from him he
gives them despair and death; and those whom he pursues not to
this last evil of death he condemns to a dying life in the griefs
of anxiety and in many other miseries, allowing no mirth to enter
their heart, and naught that is of earth to bring them
satisfaction. They continually pay the tribute of their heart to
money by their yearning for it and hoarding of it for the final
calamity of their just perdition, as the Wise Man warns them,
saying: 'Riches are kept to the hurt of their owner.'[574]
11. And to this fourth degree belong those of whom Saint Paul
says: Tradidit illos in reprobum sensum.[575] For joy, when it
strives after possessions as its final goal, drags man down to
these evils. But those on whom it inflicts lesser evils are also
to be sorely pitied, since, as we have said, their souls are
driven far backward upon the way of God. Wherefore, as David says:
Be not thou afraid when a man shall be made rich: that is, envy
him not, thinking that he outstrips thee, for, when he dieth, he
shall carry nothing away, neither shall his glory nor his joy
descend with him.[576]