Tractatus I: PRIMUS DE VIRTUTIBUS THEOLOGICIS

Quaestio I: Whether the Division of life into Active, and Contemplative is sufficient

Whether the division of life into the Active and the Contemplative is sufficient.

Common is that division of the soul into Intellect and Affect, whence is born another division of the actions of the soul into Cognition and Praxis; for the latter regards the will, by which it is either commanded or elicited; the former the intellect, in which it either rests or orders the rest toward it.

The sufficiency of this division is drawn from the Seraphic Doctor, part 2 of the Breviloquium, chap. 9, at the end: for Cognition is nothing other than the discernment of truth; and affection nothing other than flight or appetite, the former of evil, the latter of good: hence the whole soul is intellectual and affective.

But further, the intellective part either discerns truth as truth, and so rests in pure cognition, or discerns it as good, and so passes into affect, and by participation in this the intellect becomes in a way practical; then the intellective power is concerned either with the understanding of eternal things, and so is called the superior part, or with the intention of temporal things, and so is called the inferior part; but in whatever station the intellect is considered, it has an affect, or will, proportioned to itself.

It must be supposed, second, from St. Thomas, q. 169 a. 1, that Life is here taken for that in which man is more occupied and delights; whence, since some delight more in internal operations, while others are more occupied with external actions, hence these are said to live in diverse ways: These things seen.

I assert that the said division of life into the Active and the Contemplative is good and sufficient.

It is proved by St. Bonaventure, serm. 1. de S. Nicol., on the authority of St. Augustine, tract. 124 on John, about the middle, where we read: The Church knows two lives preached to it by God, one of which is called active, the other contemplative: the first in labor, the second in rest, etc. Nor is it an objection that Augustine there says one is exercised on earth; the other possessed in heaven; for he speaks of the latter, that is, of the contemplative as it is perfect, excluding all labor and sin; which is accidental, and not essential to this state.

It is proved, second, by the Saintly Doctor on Luke 10, where he admirably describes the ministry of Martha and the repose of Mary; but by these two that twofold life, working and contemplating, is figured, as all the Commentators on that passage hold. See also Sts. Augustine, book 22 contra Faustum, chap. 52; Gregory, book 6 Moralia, last chap., and on the Books of Kings, chap. 4; Jerome on chap. 3 of Lamentations, around the words: Bonum est viro, etc.; and others in Suarez, lib. 1 de varietate Religionum, chap. 5.

This division the Saintly Doctor also proves in chap. 45 of the Meditations on the Life of Christ, where he says it is asserted by the Saints; and he draws it out thus: Every man applying himself to his salvation exercises himself principally toward his own utility, correcting himself from vices and forming himself in virtues, and secondarily devotes the offices of piety and justice, or works of Charity, to his neighbor; or he principally studies the utility and benefit of his neighbor, on account of his own merit accruing from it more abundantly, as in discharging the office of Prelate, Preacher, and Confessor; and in these consists the whole active life; for we do not reckon purely secular affairs, contributing little to salvation, among the functions of the active life; for although in these affairs there are truly actions, yet they are rather idleness than business, and more distracting than active.

The second member of the division is gathered thus: He who refrains from external operation conducing to his own or his neighbor's salvation must needs devote himself to internal consideration, namely, persevering in prayer and applying himself to the study of Sacred Letters: That he may perform this opportunely, let him seek solitude of mind, attend to God alone, that thus by degrees, first instructed, then illuminated, at last inflamed, imbued with true wisdom, he may ascend the summit of the contemplative life, as far as is allowed in this age.

In this twofold sphere of Operation and Contemplation is exercised the Gate of that Castle, through which Jesus, having entered, was received in hospitality by Martha and Mary, one hastening about, ministering, and anxiously running hither and thither; the other sitting placidly at the feet of Jesus, ardently suspending her heart upon his words; whence St. Bernard says with the Seraphic Doctor, chap. 46 of the cited Meditations: on Jesus entering into this castle, two sisters, Martha and Mary, that is, operation and intellect, received him: But Jesus bestows on each what is fitting: virtue and wisdom. Virtue to operation, wisdom to intellect: For the Christian life to be lived piously and justly, virtuous operation, or operative virtue in the hand, suffices and is required, that each provide for himself and his neighbor; and sapient understanding in the mind, that one wisely savoring things above pour them out abundantly also to his neighbor, whether by conversing or by preaching; whence in 2 Cor. 1 nothing else is preached by the Apostles than the power of God and the wisdom of God, as the Saintly Doctor notes in the place just cited; for in these is the whole man, nor is anything further required.

It is proved, third, by the example of Christ, who was wont to pass the night on the mountain and to teach in a level place, as is said in Luke 6. For the mountain is designated the place of contemplation, because it is elevated from the earth and segregated from the commerce of men; whence Moses, Aaron, and Hur ascended to the top of the hill, that the former might pray, Exod. 7. So Sara, Tob. 3, went up into the upper chamber of her house, as the Saintly Doctor expounds on chap. 6 of Luke. But the level place, in which agriculture is exercised, signifies laborious action; therefore, that he might give an example of both lives, Christ ascended the mountain by night to contemplate, and by day descended into the level place, that there in a level and common place he might work the salvation of all by teaching, consoling, and healing; and it follows: A great multitude of the people from all Judea, and Samaria, and Jerusalem, and those who had come to hear him and to be healed of their infirmities, by which words it is intimated that the functions of the active life are to be devoted not to trivial secular affairs, but to the spiritual benefit of one's neighbor and to the common salvation of all.

It is proved, fourth, by the Saintly Doctor from the practice of the Church, which from the beginning instituted the Clerical state for the active life and procuring the salvation of one's neighbor, and the Monastic state for the contemplative life and attaining one's own salvation principally: But whether there be some mixed state embracing both, I shall say below.

And although many scriptures may be adduced as supports of either life, as the Seraphic Doctor everywhere adduces in the places cited above; yet, as Suarez well notes, from them it is not clearly gathered that both lives are to be taken up separately, or in diverse states of men; but it only intimates that in us a twofold holy operation can be found, one external, placed in action; the other internal, consisting in consideration; and that these can be found in each one, as I shall explain more clearly below: But those operations are of life, or vital, insofar as each one is more principally and with greater excellence occupied in one; hence it is that the twofold life is commonly gathered from those scriptures under the name of Active and Contemplative.

But that there are diverse states of men: one wholly distended by actions and taking little of contemplation, or rather of internal attention; the other, on the contrary, wholly attentive and devoted to contemplation, caring for externals moderately and only as life's necessity requires: the aforesaid practice enduring in the Church alone proves, and it is most excellently drawn from that single example of Martha and Mary, of whom one was wholly in the ministry of her neighbor; the other was at leisure for divine contemplation; the studies of which sisters were long before prefigured in the sweet embraces of Lia and the laborious childbirths of Rachel, as the Fathers commonly expound with St. Bonaventure in the places cited above, and especially on chap. 10 of Luke.

Quaestio II: Which state is more excellent than the other: the state of the Active life, or conversely, the Contemplative

Which of the two states is the more excellent: the state of the Active life, or on the contrary, of the Contemplative life.

This question is not difficult to decide; for Christ himself passed a decisive judgment in favor of the contemplative life, when those two sisters, Martha and Mary, in the presence of him who had come, were pleading their cause; the one speaking to the heart with studious silence, the other soliciting the ears of Christ with talkative ministry, saying: Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me alone to serve? Speak to her therefore, that she help me. To this, however, Christ brought forth a judicial definition (as the holy Doctor says), repeating and reiterating: Martha, Martha, thou art solicitous, and art troubled about many things; but one thing is necessary: Mary hath chosen the best part, and he adds the reason of the judgment: which shall not be taken away from her; on which words the holy Doctor thus comments: One is preferred to many, because not one from many, but from one, many, as St. Augustine says, tract. 27 on John, near the end: Many are the things that were made; one is he who made them; good are the things he made, how much better is he who made them; nay, absolutely the best: and this is the part of the contemplative soul.

Hence in Lamentations 3. it is said: The Lord is my portion, saith my soul, therefore will I wait for him; and in Psalm 141. I cried to thee, O Lord, and I said: Thou art my hope, my portion in the land of the living. This is the portion of those who contemplate, says St. Bonaventure, in whose person it is said, Deuteronomy 3. I will pass over, and will see this excellent land beyond the Jordan, and this goodly mountain, and Libanus.

This excellence of the contemplative life over the active is CONFIRMED by the holy Doctor from the defects of the latter, which Christ intimates by that reduplicated name: Martha, Martha, thou art solicitous, etc. For God is accustomed to repeat the name of him whom he wishes to arouse to more attentive consideration of his defects; thus in Jeremias 32. he upbraids the sinful man with a triplicated name: Earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord; and in Exodus 3,¹ seeing that Moses boldly drew near to see the vision of the bush which the flame had kindled and he had not yet seen, he called out to him, saying: Moses, Moses. So now he reproaches Martha for her excessive solicitude, calling her, Martha, Martha, and for this reason upbraids her for a threefold defect, as the holy Doctor pursues: namely, for solicitude in thought, for tribulation in affect, and for division in act.

But these three things chiefly hinder a man from spiritual progress in God; wherefore Philip. 4 gives counsel: Be nothing solicitous, but in every prayer, etc. let your petitions be made known to God; and 1 Peter, last chapter: Casting all your anxiety upon him, because he hath care for you. For solicitude distracts the powers of the soul, weakens them when dispersed, and at last divides them from God, who is one and loves unity; whence St. Paul says, 1 Cor. 7: He who is with a wife is solicitous about the things of the world, and is divided; but the unmarried woman and the virgin thinketh on the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit. Wherefore the Eastern Church, although it permitted clerics or priests, whose portion and study is to labor for the salvation of their neighbor, to take wives; yet we read that it was never attempted or permitted to Monks (even were they laymen); for they, having all things at once in one, ought not to abandon that one thing, as is said in Tob. 10.

Then tribulation in affect, by which the active life is most of all molested, is dissuaded in John 14: Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in me; for the troubled eye is not sharp enough to see, as the holy Doctor remarks here, of which kind was what Isaias foretold of Christ, Isaias (24): He shall not be sad, nor troublesome.

Finally division in act, which is frequent amid the multitude of affairs, is turned aside in Ecclesiasticus 11: Son, let not thy acts be in many things; for operations, even of the animal faculties, that is, of the sensitive and vegetative part, require a gathering, and as it were an attention, of all the powers of the soul, that they may be carried out well and completely; the more intensely one power is occupied about its object, the more remissly do the other faculties operate about their proper objects; and the more a man is distracted about temporal things, the more easily and frequently does he slip from the consideration of eternal things; whence, since these inconveniences are often encountered in the active life, our Savior reproved it in Martha, that by pointing out the defect of her action he might correct its importunity, as the holy Doctor concludes in the place cited, letter D.

Not therefore, however (the Seraphic Doctor resumes), is the part of Martha evil; for the excess of action, the manner or excess, not the substance, is reprehended; whence Christ said: Thou art troubled about many things; for turbation extinguishes the spirit of devotion; nor, even though it be born of fervor in acting or ministering charitably, is it laudable; because Charity, in order that it may profit the neighbor, must be well ordered in itself; as the Spouse says in the Canticles, when, at the approach of the young maidens, who had often experienced the fervor of her correction, they trembled: He ordered charity in me; for having attained a placid quiet of mind, after long contemplating and marveling at the beauty of her spouse, she dismissed every troubled manner of acting, as St. Bernard expounds on the Canticles on those words.

It is PROVED further by the holy Doctor on the same chapter 10 of Luke, that the Contemplative life excels the active: What is more permanent, other things being equal, is more excellent. But contemplation is more permanent than action: Therefore. The major is evident; for the excellence of Charity shines forth above the other theological virtues in this, that it never falls away, but endures even in the beatific vision, at least in specific reason; but the contemplative operation begins here and remains in the future, as the Gloss has it on those words: Which shall not be taken away, etc. Therefore it is the better, the more it remains, as the Seraphic Doctor subjoins; for, as he reports there from the said Gloss: the labor of multitude passes away, and the Charity of unity remains; in figure of which, speaking of John, who bore the person of the Contemplative, the Lord says: So I will have him remain till I come, indicating that the part which Mary chose is not to be taken away but to be perfected; concerning which he says in book 3 on chapter 10 of Luke, tome 5: The fire of love, which here begins to burn, when it shall have seen him whom it loves, blazes forth more in love; and this same is prefigured in Isaias 31: Whose fire is in Sion, and his furnace in Jerusalem.

It is PROVED lastly by St. Bonaventure in the same place, where in three little words he concludes all the reasons which Suarez there (in the place cited, chapter 6) deduces at length, saying: The Contemplative life is simply more to be desired, as being the better, both because it is more secure, and because it is sweeter, and because it is more stable. The Seraphic Doctor nevertheless concludes that the active life is not on that account to be despised: both because it is prior; and because it is more penal; and because it is more fruitful; for it avails for itself and for others, in which nonetheless the contemplative life prevailest over it for itself and for others; for the latter does not impede, nay rather promotes, the salvation of others; for whether one be a Prelate or a preacher, in order to rule well and preach well to himself and others, it is necessary that he not neglect Contemplation; whence St. Gregory says of both lives, book VI Morals, chapter 18, quoted by the Seraphic Doctor in the place cited: Great are the merits of the active life, but greater those of the Contemplative.

YOU WILL OBJECT: to what purpose, then, is the life that is only active, if even in Prelates and preachers the Contemplative life takes its place: for prelature and preaching are external actions principally ordered to the neighbor.

The holy Doctor ANSWERS in the place cited, letter D, and with him Suarez in the said chapter 6, that spiritual exercises, such as those of Prelates and Preachers, since they have a connection with contemplation, as being as it were its acts and effects, suppose it as their origin; for preaching is nothing else than the internal contemplation of truth described outwardly in words and gestures; whence spiritual men must sometimes go out and sometimes go in, now ascend, presently descend, as in that vision of Jacob, Gen. 28, the angels ascended and descended, at once contemplating God and aiding men. But that life which is purely active obtains the greater, or more proper, part of itself in bodily exercises, as in assisting the sick, visiting widows, succoring the bodily necessities of the poor. Now these actions, although they require proceeding from an intention and some consideration, do not properly require contemplation, such as will be described below in question 5; otherwise no action would be good or meritorious which did not suppose contemplation.

We conclude, however, with the holy Doctor, 1 part of the Cen(tury), sect. 46, that both lives, in order to be perfect, must affect, occupy, or engage the three powers of the soul, so that with respect to these, each one has three properties, in which the one exceeds the other, not by an excess of excellence, but of exclusion; so that the one excludes the other as to act, which is true only in those who cultivate either the active or the contemplative life alone; but not in those leading the mixed life, as I shall say below in the following question.

¶ The FIRST property of the active life is sedulous diligence of public utility and necessity; and this occupies the Rational power, whose office it is to consider how and why it should issue forth into action.

The SECOND is charity toward the neighbor, by compassionating his misery; and this holds the place in the Concupiscible.

The THIRD is fruitfulness of good works in acting, by persevering patiently unto the end; and this continually kindles the Irascible toward arduous things.

But of the CONTEMPLATIVE life the first property is the intuition of supernal beauty with delight, and this affects the Rational.

The SECOND is repose with serenity and security, and this pacifies the Irascible.

The THIRD is cleanness of heart, with the gust of supernal goodness, whereby the Concupiscible is delighted.

Quaestio III: Whether there is a Mixed Life resulting from the Active, and Contemplative, and which of these is more excellent

Whether there is given a Mixed Life resulting from the Active and the Contemplative, and which of the two is the more excellent.

The Seraphic Doctor here mentions THREE orders of the Ecclesiastical state, instituted of old, to each of which its own distinct office fell. First, the Cenobites, continually profiting in the study of virtues, follow the footsteps of Christ, inasmuch as he led a social life with his disciples, and was for them the exemplar of perfection; for the Cenobitic life is a professed Society of many living together under one manner of life, that by mutual examples they may spur one another on to emulating the better charisms: wherefore this state is most convenient for progress in perfection, nor does it on that account lose the name of a Religious or Monastic institution, because the solitude of bodies is not there so exactly observed; for although Monas means one, yet that one rather signifies that solitude which is more adapted to the end of acquisition, for the sake of which the monastic state was first instituted; and to this solitude the unity, or solitude, of mind contributes more than that of body: whence St. Augustine on Psalm 132, on those words, Quam bonum, et quam iucundum habitare fratres in unum (How good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in one), thus speaks of monastic solitude: for they who so live in one as to make one man, so that it be true of them, as it is written, one heart and one soul; many bodies, but one heart and one soul, are rightly called Monas, that is, one alone; wherefore from the beginning of the Church, when many withdrew into desert places for the sake of the pursuit of perfection, they were accustomed to come together on fixed days, exhorting and exciting one another to the unity of spirit; as is read in the lives of the Fathers.

In the SECOND place are the Hermits, more frequently intent upon Contemplation, and keeping a more exact solitude, withdrawing from every congregation and commerce of men; and these sometimes dwelt in the monasteries which they built for themselves in the wildernesses, whence also they were called Eremitae, though less properly; such were the Religious of St. Basil, as Suarez has it, lib. 1. cit. cap. 2. But others dwelt solitarily in desert places, fleeing all society of men; and these are properly called Hermits, such as that Paul who is acclaimed in the Calendar as the first Hermit.

In the THIRD and last place are the secular Clerics, so called because they hold a place in the civil dealings and contracts of the age; and accordingly in the very age (saeculum) they can dwell with other seculars; while they are Pastors of souls, or Rectors of Churches, of whom the state is twofold, Episcopal and Parochial: the former destined for ruling dioceses, the latter for caring for parishes.

But since that threefold state did not at once attain the perfection of Christ, but one state imitated his contemplative life only by withdrawing into the desert, another emulated his conversation among the disciples and the examples of his virtues, and the last finally followed him in procuring the salvation of the neighbor; the Seraphic Doctor argues that it behooved some to be given who would follow Christ in all things, and would reconcile his nocturnal Contemplations and withdrawals with his diurnal occupations; and such would truly lead a mixed life.

I ASSERT therefore, with the Seraphic Doctor, that there is given a Mixed Life resulting from the Contemplative and the Active. This is the common opinion of the Fathers and Scholastics, as in Suarez, cit. cap. 6., where, among the many whom he produces, he passes over St. Bonaventure, while retaining the authority of so great a Doctor, and rendering his reasons useful to himself. This is held before others by St. Thomas 2. 2. quaest. 188. art. 6. et 3. dist. 35. quaest. 1. art. 4. quaestiunc. 1. See also there Durandus quaest. 2. Paludanus, 4. dist. 38. quaest. 2. art. 1. Cajetan 2. 2. quaest. 188. art. 6. Antoninus 3. parte, tit. 16. cap. 1. §. 2. Henriquez, quodlib. 12. quaest. 25. Sylvester, in summa, V. Religio 1. quaest. 4. and the Canonists in cap. nisi cum pridem, de renunciat. Archi. in cap. si quis, dist. 56.

It is PROVED especially by St. Bonaventure in the place cited above, by the example of Christ himself, made the exemplar of both lives, while he tarried by night on Mount Olivet, intent on Contemplation and holy prayer; but by day he taught in the Temple, healed the sick, etc., as is said in Luke 21. On which passage the holy Doctor shows that therein is given to Prelates an example of perfect vigilance in the life at once Active and Contemplative; for since the government of souls is a most arduous office, its true and laudable dispensation or ministration can be obtained only from above, from the Father of lights, from whom is every perfect gift; and therefore one must devote oneself to Contemplation, on which the supernal truth shines. But prelature of itself, since it is a ministry to another, also implies action, nor does it impede Contemplation, if action proceeds in an orderly way from it; for, as the holy Doctor says, in the place cited, the faithful exercise of a good work quiets the conscience, and by fattening it raises it to supernal things. The Seraphic brings the example of one who labored in preparing a banquet, at which he afterwards feasted pleasantly, and whose sweetnesses he tasted beforehand in the very preparation.

It is PROVED secondly by the holy Doctor, on chapter 10 of Luke, by the example of the Virgin Mother of God, to whom was infused whole and without division what was given in parts to Martha and Mary; of whom the figure was the Ark, in which at once the tablet of testimony and the rod of Aaron were kept; for by the tablet of testimony is signified the reception of divine truth through Contemplation; and by the rod of Aaron is indicated the rectitude of good action, both as regards oneself and as regards the neighbor, as St. Bonaventure explains, in the place cited.

It is PROVED thirdly by St. Bonaventure in the Meditation on Christ, chapter 57., by the authority of the Fathers, among whom St. Bernard is celebrated, while he treats of this matter in Sermon 3 on the Assumption, speaking of the Active and Contemplative life thus: He acquires a good degree who has ministered well; perhaps a better, who has devoted himself well to God; but the best, who is perfect in both; where he indicates that each state of life is separable from the other, as we proved above, yet that the more excellent is he who has joined both in one.

The same in Sermon 50 on the Canticles speaks thus: Who doubts that a praying man speaks to God? Yet how often, charity bidding, are we thence withdrawn and torn away for the sake of those who need our works or our company; how often does pious repose yield to the tumult of affairs; how often, for the sake of administering earthly things, do we most justly put off from ourselves the celebrating of the solemnities of Mass? The order is preposterous, but necessity has no law; in which words he shows not only that both lives can be conveniently completed in one, but that the necessity of perfection demands it; which pertains to the second part of the question, noted in the title.

The same, in the epistle to the Brethren of Mount Dei, long before the middle, quoted by St. Bonaventure in the place cited, chapter 56., writes thus: The good and prudent servant often compares labor with leisure, nor is he dissolved into it, but is by it rather gathered more into himself, who always had before his eyes not so much what he does as what he intends by doing: for since man consists of a twofold part, of which the one requires quiet, the other exercise; and has a twofold operation, internal by knowing, and external by laboring; likewise as he has two things in himself to be purged, as the holy Doctor notes in the place cited, chapter 51, from St. Bernard, sermon 3 on the ascension, namely, the Intellect and the Affect, the intellect that he may know, and the affect that he may will, and that he may will efficaciously; man ought to join the action of virtue with the contemplation of truth, that while the one ruddies within in the mind, the other may be exhibited without in work. See further St. Bernard to the brethren of Mount Dei, col. 3, and on those words of the Canticles: Surge, propera amica mea, etc. (Arise, make haste, my love, etc.), where he describes the spouse now hastening to the vineyard for labor, now also resting in the bed of Contemplation, and thus exercising the gifts of both lives, by acting and contemplating; as the holy Doctor also most excellently explains, LL. CC. in Meditat. vitae Christi.

BASIL in Rule 37 and chapter 2, on 5 Constitut. Monast., after teaching that the exercise of Charity toward the neighbor must be joined to Contemplation, in order that one may be a true imitator of Christ, who kept watch in both, by day and by night, subjoins: The helping works of the body rendered the virtue of the soul more illustrious, while, being resolvable into all their parts for their spiritual conversation, those operating in this manner added to the active life, as it were, its seal and closing clause. But lest anyone think this Saint spoke of bodily exercises which arise from external premeditation or contemplation, he subjoins the example of Christ, still in boyhood intent on domestic labors and services, before he undertook by preaching and other spiritual exercises the conversion of men; then he adds the examples of the Apostles, and especially of Paul, of whom he says: Mark Paul laboring incessantly, and contentedly making journeys, sailing, encountering perils, etc.

It is CONFIRMED from the most eminent professors of the contemplative life, who were zealous for the care of souls and the correction of sinners. Thus all whom the Seraphic Doctor approves as the founders or beginners of the Religious life, in the Diaeta salutis, tit. 3. cap. 1. at the end: thus Samuel, who first gathered the band of Prophets, as is had, 1 Kings 10; he was so devoted to contemplation that he did not neglect the Mixed life in the correction and instruction of the people: say the same of Elias and Eliseus, with whom the sons of the prophets dwelt, 4 Kings 4. The same is plain of St. John the Baptist, who gathered disciples, as is said, John 1. of whom the aforesaid Basil says, in the place cited: who, when he had at times held himself in that solitude by the hidden counsel of God, afterwards went forth into cultivated places, and there, by Preaching and Baptizing, which gifts touch the very action of things, at last found the end of his contest before Herod with intrepid liberty of soul. I omit the many examples of those Fathers whose mixed life under the law of grace confirms the same most clearly.

St. AUGUSTINE, book 19 de civitate Dei, chapter 19, thus speaks of this Mixture of action with Contemplation: Nor ought anyone be so idle as not to think in that very leisure of the utility of the neighbor; nor so full of action as not to require the contemplation of God.

ISIDORE, book of differences, 19, says thus: For some only Contemplation profits; for others only the active life is a consolation; for these the middle way, composed of both, is more useful; which opinion he proves by the example of Christ, and confirms from the twofold precept given indifferently to all, although by reason of office or justice one may press more upon one than upon another: this is the precept of the love of God and of the neighbor; which, insofar as it is from charity, binds all; although under another title the observances and ministries to be bestowed on God and the neighbor press rather upon him who has undertaken the care of souls; yet since necessity, or utility coming to it, at times requires that we show outwardly in effect the affection which we nourish within, it is necessary that at times we forsake God as it were for the sake of God, that we may succor the laboring neighbor.

Hence the Seraphic Bonaventure, cit. determin. qq. quaest. 1. at the end, teaches that on this account St. Francis our Father so instituted the Order of Friars Minor, that in perfect imitation of Christ they should strive to lead the mixed life, not by a debt of necessity but by an affect of charity, and should expect the merit of the salvation of others from their fruit, and avoid the danger of their perdition; while, sharing in the gain, unharmed in the loss, they studied to draw others out of shipwreck, while they themselves stood on solid ground, so as not to be endangered with those sinking in sin. So the holy Doctor.

I ASSERT Secondly, that the mixed life simply excels acting than the only active, or only contemplative; it is plain from the authorities brought forward.

It is PROVED further by Suarez, num. 19., by the reason which the holy Doctor indicates, in the place lately cited: The mixed life contains whatever of perfection the contemplative and the active life have separately: Therefore it is simply more excellent than either taken separately. The major is evident; for thus man, consisting of soul and body, is better than the soul alone or the body alone; because, being composed, he retains the perfection of both. The consequence is proved: where one thing is joined to another, it rather promotes than impedes it, where it is better that both be joined; and so it happens here: Therefore. The minor is proved, which needs no proof as to the contemplation which is exercised while action continues; for while it is actually intent upon God amid acting, the merit becomes more abundant, and the very action is rendered nobler; as is plain from each of the most illustrious Fathers, who with mind and hand at once tended to God, operating and contemplating, as is notably written of St. Basil by Greg. Nazianzen, orat. 20. For thus acted that great Contemplator: that neither was the Contemplation without share in communication, nor the action without Contemplation: but as earth and sea, so also these two advantages of life, communicating their goods among themselves, concurred to the one Glory of God. Similar things of the Philosopher and Martyr Nazianzen writes in orat. 23., praising him especially in this, that he was so ambidexterous in virtue that his contemplation never impeded his action.

But the minor is PROVED as to action, that it in turn does not obstruct contemplation. For action can impede the operation of the mind only by distracting it elsewhere, or by diminishing its intensity; neither happens in the mixed contemplative and active life: Therefore. The minor is proved as to the first part: Action undertaken for God carries with it an actual thought of God, therefore it does not divert from it. The antecedent is proved: because it proceeds from a previous thought, and requires by its nature frequent attention and ascent to God himself. But if the mind meanwhile wanders elsewhere, this is not by the force of such action precisely; but from another thought creeping in suddenly, which can equally happen in one contemplating as in one operating; as is only too plain to each one from his own experience, unless perhaps he be rarely so elevated in contemplating that he rather burns than shines.

The subminor as to the second part is PROVED: A depraved action, such as fornicating or stealing, does not diminish the intensity of it previously conceived in the mind; nay, it rather renders it more intense: Therefore much more must this be said of a good action. The consequence is evident, because as is the proportion between the knowledge of evil and the action undertaken on account of it, such can be the proportion between the contemplation of God and the action exercised on account of him.

Nor does it stand in the way that that action renders the internal operation the more intense because it is sensible, and therefore proportioned more than the virtuous action is to contemplation; for on the contrary, since that internal operation also flourishes more in the sentient part, and therefore has proportion with that pleasure which is perceived in sensitive flesh; whence, since the action of virtue is for the most part without that sensible pleasure, it will have a similar proportion with contemplation, which in the mind is purely spiritual, and will render it not remiss but more intense; only let the mind attend to itself while it operates outwardly: and this contemplative men not rarely experience, seeing in action a certain light irradiate itself to them with a sudden flash, and at the same time fervor increase; whereas sitting idle they would perhaps perceive neither so much splendor nor so much ardor. The same the holy Doctor wishes, in the place cited above, where he says that the faithful exercise of a good work raises the mind to supernal things; which he explains by the example there recorded; for he who prepares the table for a meal attentively considers the persons for whom he does it, and while he is occupied with hands and feet in bustling and running hither and thither, he ruminates in his mind the end and manner of his action, and thence tastes beforehand the pleasantness of the feast.

Further, even if amid acting the mind be diverted elsewhere, provided it does not voluntarily consent to fault, it loses no merit; and such action is a virtual love of God and of the neighbor; and the more laborious the operation is, on account of the great attention required, withdrawing from Contemplation, the more perfectly is merit heaped up; since the man very often, amid the delights of vacant Contemplation, seeks not God but himself, who at times pleases God the less the less he displeases himself.

Moreover, since it is the condition of everyone contemplating in the way that he cannot long sustain the mind elevated to God without some relaxation of his purpose, but is compelled either from the aridity of devotion or from the excessive irruption of another's thought to interrupt the study of contemplation, as the opinion of all contemplatives teaches, according to Suarez, in the place cited, with St. Bonaventure, chapter 58 in Meditat. cit., this defect cannot be better supplied than by devoting oneself to the ministries of piety, and promoting the salvation of one's neighbors; especially since works of this kind are celebrated with the highest praises in holy Scripture, as John 12: If anyone minister to me, him will my father honor, and Mark 10: Whosoever will be the greater among you, shall be your minister.

It is CONFIRMED by the holy Doctor, in the chapter next cited, from three causes which compel the interruption of contemplation; and in which action can attain greater merit than contemplation; since, these urgent causes prevailing, it could be imputed to vice. The first cause which the holy Doctor recalls is the profit of souls, on account of which Bishops, who shine at the summit of perfection, are bound at times to postpone contemplation to action. Nor let anyone say that the active life pertains to Bishops alone; for that is absurd; for since they ought to outshine the people in knowledge, wisdom, and other intellectual virtues, they ought to be most contemplative, as Suarez teaches in the chapter cited above. Furthermore, since that state of perfection in which Bishops are supposed cannot be acquired by bodily exercises, it would be ridiculous to depress them to so low a grade of acting.

The second cause of interrupting the leisure is akin to the former, namely the office of regular prelature; for since these are bound both spiritually and corporally to provide for the necessities of their subjects, it is right that they be snatched from the embraces of the unfruitful Rachel, and abound with Lia in the fruits of their ministry, as St. Bernard says, quoted by the Seraphic, where he thus continues: It will by no means repent me of the quiet interrupted for the care of preaching, when I see in you my seed germinating, and the increments of what I have sown in you increasing: for Charity, which seeketh not her own, has long since easily persuaded me, namely, to prefer nothing of my desires to your utilities. To pray, to read, to write, to meditate, and the other gains of spiritual study; these I hold as losses for your sakes, which losses are so true that the orders of stricter discipline, among whom there is freedom from all ministration, do not exempt their Prelates from this burden of ministry.

The third cause touched above is the withdrawal of the spouse from the soul, who comes and goes at his pleasure, as the holy Doctor says, in the said chapter 58, letter C. 2., from St. Bernard, sermon 32 on the Canticles; for while the soul awaits the return of the spouse and sees not herself to profit, then she recognizes, says the holy Doctor, that it is the will of the spouse that, by reducing herself to the active life, she bear fruit for him; nor does idleness befit a contemplator; whence St. Bernard in the same place, quoted by the Seraphic, has thus: For who, I do not say continually, but even for long, while he remains in this body, enjoys the light of contemplation: but as often as he falls from contemplation, so often he betakes himself into the active; for these two are mutual companions, and dwell together; for Martha is the sister of Mary. Hence it is that that state of life which is called even purely Contemplative has fixed hours in which it can be vacant for manual exercises, such as the Carthusians and others.

But if we take the contemplative life in that rigor that it excludes the active altogether, such a life is not given in the whole Church, nor would its institution be expedient; since it is granted to very few, by that grace, to be intent on perpetual contemplation, as is established by the authority of the already-cited St. Bernard and by the reasons brought forward above.

But, that equivocations may be avoided, it must be noted that the Contemplative life is called that which consists principally in prayer, reading, meditation, and similar exercises; and if it undertakes any actions, it orders them to contemplation, or to its own, not however the neighbor's, commodity: whence you have that the contemplative life is not altogether exclusive of action.

On the contrary, the Active life is principally intent upon the works of mercy, which are of a twofold kind; for some are purely corporal, as to visit, to feed the sick, to clothe the naked, etc. Others are rather spiritual, although they have a bodily action admixed, as preaching, hearing confessions, etc. If these are considered in order to the preacher, the one receiving confessions, etc., they pertain rather to the contemplative than the active life; for they proceed from the internal contemplation of truth, as was intimated above; moreover such things instruct the one exercising them; but if they are considered in order to the neighbor, they are to be reckoned among the offices and functions of the active life; because contemplation is for its own sake and rests in itself, nor is it desirable on account of another, although it is a most noble medium for accomplishing many things regarding the neighbor, as is plain in most contemplative men, who are more apt than others for converting sinners, for consoling the wretched, etc.

From these things it is gathered that that life is called Contemplative in which the frequency and means of contemplating exceed, but do not utterly exclude action; but that life is called active which more frequently and professedly watches over the utility and commodities of the neighbor; nor does it exclude every consideration, or meditation of truth: for that would be perverse; since every meritorious action ought to be from a free will, and consequently from an intellect considering. But the mixed life is called that which at one time orders contemplation to action, and this in turn to that, and provides, as far as it can, for itself and for the neighbor in spiritual and corporal things; and this we asserted above to be absolutely the better; although from the disproportions of means to end, and other contingent defects, it can be worse; for in treating of religion by acting, we taught that its perfection consists not so much in its end as in the means and manner of tending to it.

Nor does it stand against what was lately said, that it seems preposterous that contemplation, desirable for its own sake, should be referred to action; since on the contrary action is more referable to it.

For Suarez answers, citing the holy Doctor on chapter 10 of Luke, and the cited Meditation, chapter 45, that action is referable to contemplation by way of disposition, inasmuch as one still imperfect ought to devote himself more to action than to contemplation. But contemplation serves action by way of help and causality, inasmuch as action depends on the free will of the one contemplating; and thus to refer the nobler to action does not involve anything unseemly, since the Incarnation of the Word, which is the most excellent work of God, was ordered to the salvation of men: whence, although in physics the referral of a more noble entity to a less noble resounds as ignoble; in morals nevertheless it breathes merit and perfection; since the excellence of virtue is situated rather in benign condescensions, as is clear from the continual practice of God toward us, than in the strict preservation of the order of things; wherefore, since the perfection of Christian men depends on the access and imitation of divine Charity, I judge that life to be more perfect, other things being equal, which providently, piously, justly, and soberly provides for itself and for the neighbor.

But if we weigh the security of the state in common, it is necessary that we do not deny it to the contemplative life, both on account of the removal of impediments and occasions; and because to that Religion which is purely contemplative the entrance lies open from other religions, even mixed ones, not conversely. But it is one thing to speak of security, another of perfection; although both are not lacking in the mixed life, to which the perpetual providence of God assists; for each state of life sets before itself means sufficiently apt for forestalling lapses, for attaining perfection, and for duly fulfilling its office; these being posited, and preserved with moral diligence, the perfection of that life will without doubt prevail where more occasions of exercising virtue are at hand, and where consequently greater and more perfect merits are accumulated.

Quaestio IV: What are the chief exercises of the Active life

ABOVE we distinguished the works of the active life into merely bodily exercises, and those mixed with the spiritual. The former are reduced to seven by D. Bonaventure de 7. Donis, de Dono pietat. cap. 1., and they are common to all men insofar as the ability to exercise them is available. The first work of the active life in relation to one's neighbor (for in relation to oneself it is rather the active life as a way to contemplation, by chastising oneself from vices, and exercising oneself in other exercises, whether penitential or bodily) is the visiting of the sick. Second, the giving of drink to the thirsty. Third, the feeding of the hungry. Fourth, the redemption of captives. Fifth, the clothing of the naked. Sixth, the gathering in of pilgrims. Finally the seventh work is the burial of the dead; all of which the others commonly gather up with D. Bonaventure 3. part. Centil. sect. 46. in this verse:

Visito, poto, cibo, redimo, tego, colligo, condo.

THE sufficiency of these is next assigned by D. Bonaventure here: Since each one is bound to love his neighbor as himself; just as each one considers himself wholly in his bodily needs, he ought with like measure also to weigh his neighbor's needs: Now every man is first an animated substance, and consequently consists of a vegetative part, in need of restoration of the warm and the dry, which is done by food, and also of restoration of the cold and the moist, which is done by drink: Furthermore man is a sentient substance, on account of which he needs a twofold covering to repel the same number of exterior harms; the first remote covering is a Roof, through which shelter is given to repel the injury of the night; the second, proximate, is clothing, to cover nakedness simply. Again, man is a rational substance, and weak, and hence born liable to lose his liberty, by servitude in prison, or by infirmity in bed. Against the first there is redemption, against the second visitation. Finally, man is mortal, and consequently subject to death; after which he needs burial, and so seven helps are numbered, which laboring Charity can minister to him.

SEVEN also are the spiritual works which the Seraphic Doctor enumerates in the places cited above, and of which we have touched somewhat in the treatise on Almsgiving, disp. 10. where, in common with the Seraphic Doctor and others, we rendered them in this verse:

Instrue, Consule, Castiga, Solare, Fer, Ora.

The sufficiency of these also the Saintly Doctor gathers in the place cited: There are in man certain defects which can be removed by God alone; to aid which prayer is necessary; others are defects of the cognitive power, such as ignorance of things to be known, to lighten which instruction suffices; if it is ignorance of things to be done, counsel supplies it: Some defects also are in the affective power; and these are fault or punishment: if fault, it was committed in yourself or in others; if in yourself, forgive; if in others, correct, and this is correction: if finally it is punishment, it is to be relieved by the word of consolation, or the deed of support; which two are signified by those particles: Solare, Fer.

Of both sorts of work, spiritual and corporal, D. Bernard speaks briefly thus, serm. 12. super cantica, as cited by the Seraphic Doctor in the meditations on the life of Christ, cap. 42. You too, if you gladly impart to us your companions the gift you have received from above, if you show yourself everywhere among us dutiful, affectionate, grateful, approachable, humble, you will have the testimony from all that you breathe, and are yourself as the best of ointments: Every one among us who patiently bears with the fraternal infirmities both of bodies and of souls, and moreover, if he is permitted and able, helps them with his services, comforts them with his words, instructs them with his counsels; and if he cannot do this because of his discipline, at least does not cease to solace the sick one with anxious prayers; every one, I say, who does such things spreads a good odor among us.

ALTHOUGH the spiritual exercises of the active life are numbered as seven, common to all in various ways, yet they can be more briefly reduced to the three states of men upon whom it falls by office to exercise them toward those committed to them. These are Prelates, Preachers, and Confessors, as the Saintly Doctor indicates in the cited meditation quaest. 45. Concerning Prelates we have seen disp. praecedenti; concerning Confessors we shall see in the 3. part, where we treat of the Sacrament of Penance; here therefore something remains to be said of Preachers.

On the office and obligation of the Preacher.

THE office of preaching is deservedly regarded as the nobler and more arduous, the more that Nature and Grace as it were vie in contributing their gifts to its fulfillment; whence although many daily clamor in the pulpits under the guise of preachers, very few discharge that office as is fitting; because it is rarest of all that nature agrees with grace in all things.

ALTHOUGH many conditions on the part of body and soul, as has already been indicated, are required for this noble function, they can nevertheless be reduced to Authority and Sufficiency.

The reason of Authority is gathered from D. Bonaventure in the place cited, and was proved above disp. 1. quaest. 1. num. 27. and it is evident from Jerem. 23. they ran, but I did not send them, Tim. 3. How shall they preach, unless they be sent, Haebr. 5. Nor does any man take the honor to himself, but he who is called by God, as Aaron was: whence Christ, in whom is the supreme power, says of himself: For I did not come of myself, but he sent me, clearly. Hence Isaias was unwilling to go of himself, but said: Behold me, send me, and the Lord answered go, and you shall say to this people, etc. Behold the authority of one sent.

The SIGNS of a true mission from God are indicated by the Saintly Doctor on cap. 9. of Luke. The first is, if the preacher obtains authority from a Pontiff, and especially from the Supreme Pontiff, who holds the place of Christ on earth. The second is, if he has a true zeal for his own and others' salvation, not seeking his own things, according to that of 1. Cor. 4. For we do not preach ourselves. The third is, if the hearers of the sermon show fruit in their works, as is said of the Apostles, who were sent and interpreted, Ioan. 15. I have placed you, that you may go, and bring forth fruit.

HENCE the Seraphic Father St. Francis, in cap. 9. of the rule, which is wholly about Preachers, thus begins: Let the Brothers not preach in the diocese of any Bishop when it has been forbidden them by him. He speaks negatively, has been forbidden, as St. Bonaventure observes, because since the power of preaching does not derive its efficacy from the grant of Jurisdiction, as does the power of receiving confessions, an express declaration of that authority is not required by the rule, but a reasonable presumption suffices, especially if such be the preachers as rest upon the approbation of the institution of the Apostolic See, as the Saintly Doctor says in the same place. Besides this authority of the Pontiff, there is required for religious that they be authorized by their own Prelates; so it was enacted in the said cap. 9. of the rule, where it is thus written after the aforesaid words: And let no brother at all dare to preach to the people unless he has been examined and approved by the General minister of this fraternity, and the office of preaching has been granted to him by him.

This differs not much from the Decree of the Council of Trent, sess. 5. cap. 2. except that it demands an express license of the Bishop; for it thus runs: Religious of whatever order, unless they have been examined and approved by their superiors as to life, morals, and learning, cannot preach even in the churches of their own orders without their license; with which license they are bound to present themselves personally before the Bishops and ask their blessing before they begin to preach; In churches, however, which are not of their orders, they are bound to have, beyond the license of their superiors, also the license of the Bishop, without which they can by no means preach in those churches not of their orders; and the Bishop is to grant that license gratis: And since custom, which has prevailed for a long time now, is the best interpreter of a decree, one must abide by it in the individual dioceses; for in many places the Most Reverend Bishops are accustomed, out of the affection they bear toward Religious, to delegate their vicissitudes in this matter to those Religious' own Prelates; elsewhere for the principal seasons of the year a personal presentation according to the tenor of the council is required, as when one is to preach in the time of Advent or Lent; since indeed the Council so ordained in favor of the Bishops, they can, as they prudently judge, leave the whole matter committed to the zeal and discretion of the Religious Prelates, as is customary in many places; in other places, however, one must abide by the letter of the Council, as is observed by custom there.

But where the Bishop's license has once been had, if the Parish Priests object, St. Bonaventure warns on the said cap. 9. that malice should rather be borne than scandal caused; Yet if from ceasing a graver evil is feared, as that the Parish Priest oppose himself in order to sow heresy or cockle himself, then the Episcopal Authority is to be used, that the greater evil may be averted; and even the lesser, which can be a scandal to some, is to be prudently forestalled as far as possible.

But if any religious preaches without the requisite blessing of the Bishop, or while he himself objects, beyond sinning against his rule, if he be a Minorite he can further be punished by the Bishop himself according to the Constitution of Gregory XV. issued in the Bull Inscrutabili 9. Febr. 1622. the tenor of which is had thus: and finally let the Bishop have the authority of coercing and punishing any exempt persons, both secular and Religious, who in alien churches which are not of their orders without the Bishop's license, or in their own churches, or those of their orders, without asking his blessing, or while he himself objects, have presumed to preach, etc. so also reports Bonagratia V. praedicatores, num. 374.

As to the Authority of one's own Prelate, which the Friars Minors are bound to have by prior examination before they preach; although the Rule specifies that it is to be given by the general minister alone according to the letter; yet since that was provided so that dangers might be forestalled, the rule is not violated while the license of examining and approving is granted to others; for as Bishops take care that those to be ordained be examined by others, and the presidents of Universities are accustomed to depute others to examine those whom they are going to endow with the insignia of the Doctorate; so the General minister can by others examine and approve those whom he is going to elect to the office of preaching, although the rule has: Unless he has been examined by the general minister of this fraternity. He himself, however, is bound to bestow the authority. So D. Bonaventure loco cit. and if of the sufficiency of him who is to be promoted to the grade of preacher there is no doubt at all, a prior examination is not necessary; but it suffices that the account of his sufficiency be made known to the General, and he himself can send letters as preacher; so the Saintly Doctor cit.

These things said concerning the granting of Authority may suffice: Truly concerning its removal, or suspension, certain things are to be noted.

First, the Lateran Council under Leo X. suspends those who preach false and uncertain miracles; as also prophecies lightly founded in sacred scripture, or in no way approved by the Apostolic See; unless the Ordinaries of the places, with three or four more learned men deputed for their examination, have permitted it, while they have not had the opportunity of consulting the aforesaid See.

Second, the Council of Trent sess. 5. cap. 2. de reform. after D. Bonaventure's exposition on the Psalt. upon those words of Psalm. 49. But to the sinner God said: Why do you declare, etc. assigns three cases in which preaching is prohibited, and suspension even of Religious can be inflicted by the Bishop, as legate of the Apostolic See; yet it is not incurred ipso facto.

The first case is, if erroneous propositions are preached; but what Doctors understand by an erroneous proposition I said in this Tome above, where I treated of heresy.

The second case is, if scandalous propositions are preached, to which the Saintly Doctor reduces loco cit. the notorious crime of the preacher himself; for this is wont to give birth to no small scandal, for it is shameful if the voice bite the life, and there be indeed the voice of Jacob, but the hands of Esau, as the Saintly Doctor says here ex 27. Genes.

The third case is, if the propositions that are preached be heretical.

To these are added the prohibitions made by Alexander VII. 3. Decemb. 1661. in the Bull which begins: Sollicitudo omnium, where various statutes of Paul V. Sixtus IV. and Pius V. concerning the same are renewed, that no one in a sermon to the people or other public acts may defend the opinion of D. Thomas concerning the conception of the Most Blessed Virgin, by not asserting her to be immaculate; others also are prohibited who preach the opinion of D. Thomas to be sinful or heretical, see Bonagratia cit. num. 380.

As to the sufficiency required for the office of preacher, the Saintly Doctor places it on the part of the soul in solid learning and a clean conscience, thus he has in the exposition on Psalm. 158. upon those words: let my supplication draw near.

That he may acquire a clean conscience, he ought first to attend to his own salvation before the edification of others, in the example of Elias, who first went into the desert, and came to the mount of God in Horeb, where he was taught, as the Saintly Doctor says, ad 2. Lucae; afterward he was sent to anoint Kings and Prophets, 3. Reg. 19. so Christ himself first began to do, then to teach.

But concerning the acquisition of learning, St. Bonaventure notes ad cap. 8. sup. prope finem that eight things are very useful to a preacher; namely the knowledge of wisdom through investigation: the commemoration, through frequentation: the declaration, through love: the Operation, through fulfillment; the contestation, through disputation, the communication, through conference; the circumduction, through interrogation; finally the assumption, through incorporation. For by investigating we know: by frequenting we commit the ideas of things to memory: by loving, we delight in the things we learn; by operating, we fulfill them; by disputing, we solve difficulties for ourselves and others; by conferring, we communicate to others what we know; by interrogating, we return by discursive circuits to the same point, and convince others more of the truth; finally we assume knowledge as it were incorporated in gesture and voice, and so persuade others of it more easily.

The sufficiency of the Preacher on the part of the body the Saintly Doctor describes, Apologet. quaest. 4. First, he ought to be of competent age, lest being too much a boy he seem to handle boyish things; which condition is to be held not so much from the series of years as from an honest gravity of countenance and manly composition. Second, he ought to be free of every notable deformity of body and head, for those who are too short, fat, or hunchbacked, are not apt for persuading, but are easily held in contempt; Third, the strength of body is the more necessary for this office, because it is to be carried out strongly and manfully. Fourth, competent eloquence procures a singular grace for preaching, for which many things are necessary on the part of voice and gesture, which are treated of professedly among the Rhetoricians.

Whoever recognizes in himself these conditions, both of body and soul, and of learning and conscience, there remains that for the utility of the people he pour forth the Word of God in a threefold manner, that I may speak with D. Bonaventure on those words of Psalm 118. in labiis meis pronunciavi, etc. Namely wisely, eloquently, and confidently: Wisely, that he teach; eloquently, that he please; confidently, that he move: for preaching foolishly, confusedly, and timidly, he neither teaches, nor pleases, nor moves.

Then the Saintly Doctor admonishes, in cap. 6. Lucae, that the Preacher teach useful things, not subtle ones; that he be also free from ostentation in sign, from ambition in mind; from flattery in word, and from respect of persons in deed.

But on those words of the same cap. 6. And he taught the multitudes, the Seraphic Doctor exhibits the form of Apostolic preaching, while he teaches that a good Preacher ought now to stand, now to sit; now to see, presently to ascend; which are to be taken not only corporally, but with a worthier title spiritually; namely that he stand, intending rightly; at times sit, contemplating quietly; see, discerning well; and ascend, acting perfectly; all which the Saintly Doctor concludes with that of Jerem. 6. Stand upon the ways, behold the rectitude of intention, and see, and ask, which be the good way, behold the solicitude of discretion. And walk in it, that is, in the exercise of action¹, and you shall find refreshment for your souls, namely through the repose of contemplation.

¶ Of such a good Preacher the Saintly Doctor weaves much from the Holy Fathers, lib. 1. Phar. cap. 14.

¶ GREGORY, lib. 6. Moral. cap. 17. thus describes the true herald of Christ: He is the more in God's love with God who draws very many to the love of him: The Redeemer of the human race showed miracles by day in the cities; and gave himself to the pursuit of prayer by spending the night in vigil; that he might intimate to perfect preachers, namely, that they should not utterly desert the active life out of love of speculation, nor altogether despise the joys of contemplation through excess of operation, but contemplating in quiet should found what, speaking toward their neighbors, they plant.

¶ JEROME, lib. 1. in Lament. cap. 1. tom. 4. He is the Ecclesiastical Doctor who moves tears, not laughter, who rebukes sinners, who says that no one is blessed, no one is happy.

D. AUGUSTINE de doctrina Christiana, lib. 4. cap. 17. he who strives by speaking to persuade that a thing is good, despises none of these three, namely that he teach, that he delight, and that he bend, but prays and acts, that he be heard intelligently, gladly, obediently.

AMBROSE, lib. 2. de Virg. at the beginning tom. 4. He who teaches ought to excel above him who is taught.

ISIDORE de summo bono, lib. 3. cap. 36. sent. 5. The just preacher ought first to act well, that consequently he may be able to teach well.

¶ BERNARD super Cantica, serm. 16. The threefold cord, which is not easily broken, for drawing souls out of the prison of the devil and drawing them after you to the Celestial Kingdoms: if you judge rightly, if you utter worthily, and if you confirm by living.

SENECA epist. 52. most excellently draws forth the parts of a true preacher thus: Let us choose not those who pour forth great words with celerity, but those who teach by their life; who when they have said what is to be done, prove this very thing by doing what they teach; and after certain words: Choose as Doctor him whom you admire more when you see him than when you hear him.

¶ Nor is it a wonder that Men illustrious in doctrine and sanctity have so exalted this office of preaching as to celebrate it with every praise, and in it to demand most exquisitely whatever is required for the preeminence of human life, namely the sweet symphony of mouth and work: Hence Christ himself, the Apostles themselves, and those saints who are read of as more illustrious in both testaments, were appointed to preach; and truly he is a heavenly man who, announcing heaven to others, expresses it in himself as it were; whence the Seraphic Doctor, on those words of Psal. 17. he bowed the Heavens, and descended, compares Preachers to clouds, because doubtless clinging continually to the heavens, they ought to thunder with threatenings, flash with miracles, and rain down doctrines.

On the other hand, since it is most shameful that a Preacher of Christ signify one thing with his mouth and another with his work, D. Bonaventure in the said lib. Pharetra, cap. 15. darts the most acute sentences of the Fathers against such a one, as it were chosen arrows.

¶ GREGORY super Ezechiel, hom. 18. of such a Preacher writes thus: It is most shameful for us there to fall by neglect, whence by preaching we have tried to raise others up; and super, lib. 4. Reg. ind. 12. cap. 76. what we preach with the tongue we destroy by examples: while with works we teach iniquity, and mere votes we put forward as things that are just. We wear away our bones with fastings, and swell in mind: we cover the body with despised garments, and surpass purple in elation of heart; we lie in ashes, and receive lofty things, Doctors of humility, leaders of pride.

JEROME epistola 2. ad Nepot. Delicate is the master who with full belly disputes about fastings: A robber too can accuse avarice; the mouth of the Priest of Christ let it accord with his mind.

ISIDORE lib. 2. de summo bono, cap. 2. sent. 10. To the heaping up of a greater guilt it pertains that anyone know what he ought to follow, and be unwilling to follow what he knows; and lib. 3. cap. 37. sent. 1. he who does not live as he teaches makes the truth itself which he preaches contemptible.

CHRYSOSTOM de compunctione cordis, lib. 1. at the end: To teach and not to do confers not only no gain, but very great loss; For great is the condemnation of him who composes indeed his sermon; but negligently neglects his life and his work.

AUGUSTINE as cited by the Seraphic Doctor, there, more strongly inveighs against Preachers of this sort. Hear yourself, O hardest, most savage, most deaf Doctor; what good to me a tongue of gold and a heart of iron.

BERNARD serm. de convers. ad clericos, cap. 31. on those words: Blessed are the peacemakers, thus speaks: Consider diligently, not the peaceable, but the peacemakers are commended; for there are those who say and do not: surely as the hearers of the law are not just, but the doers; so not the announcers of peace, but the makers are called blessed.

SENECA finally in an epistle thus concludes, as cited by the Saintly Doctor: this is most shameful, what is wont to be objected to us, that we speak words, not handle works.

These things the Saintly Doctor, in the said cap. 16. described from the writings of the Fathers; in the following chapter, however, he brings forth excellent sentences from the same Fathers against those usurping Preaching; which fit almost within what has been said: see it itself.

¶ AS to the manner and matter of what is preachable, St. Francis briefly designates it, in the said cap. 9. of the Rule, admonishing in these words, that in the preaching they make, their words be chaste and examined for the utility and edification of the people, announcing to them vices and virtues, punishment and glory with brevity of speech.

¶ To which the Council of Trent sounds in accord, in the place cited above; exhorting the heralds of the divine word with like words: Faithful preachers according to their capacity shall feed with salutary words, saying what it is necessary for all to know for salvation, announcing to them with brevity and easiness of speech, the vices which they ought to shun, and the virtues which they ought to pursue, that they may be able to escape eternal punishment and attain heavenly glory. Finally as to the reprehension, whether special or general, which each one is bound to employ in preaching, that he may more efficaciously compel sinners to repentance; the Saintly Doctor explains it pre-eminently in Apologet. cap. 2. which chapter Bonagratia transcribed almost word for word, Verb. Praedicator, cited above, indicating that therein is exhibited an excellent doctrine for preachers.

SINCE therefore the Saintly Doctor shrewdly established the difference between the Judge and the Preacher, he pursues his office in reproving sinners thus: The Doctor or Preacher, who ought to instruct hearers of diverse kinds, that he may render virtues the more commendable, necessary to salvation, shows the vices opposed to them, how harmful and detestable they are. And in certain kinds of men certain vices are more customary, as among Merchants fraud and lies; among Soldiers rapine and burnings; and so of others; it is necessary that on account of the general instruction, although he accuse the genus of men specially, he admonish them to beware of the vices that lie in wait specially for themselves, as the Physician teaches Patients laboring under diverse infirmities to abstain from the foods more harmful to themselves and from others. For nothing profits the sick, if he were to say: Beware of all harmful foods generally, unless he specified in each affection what was specially harmful to them, or profitable to health. But what is said, that the Preacher ought to accuse all sinning in general, and not descend to species, this is to be understood of the notable specification of persons, not of vices, or states, or offices, which cannot properly be described without the expression of the office or state of those who have been accustomed to offend specially in this. For it can thus congruously be said in general: You Artificers frequently sin in this; and you Soldiers in this; and you Religious in that; you Clerics in that other; and so of the others, if there are many there of each of those kinds to whom he speaks, so that no one, that each one conscious to himself of such a sin may be compunct, and be confounded in himself, and no one be made specially notable of this, whom the evidence of falsehood otherwise does not make notable, or who does not betray himself to be guilty, attributing to himself specially with a murmur what was said generally, according to that of the Poet. Conscius ipse sibi, de se putat omnia dici. For the faithful Doctor ought to intend only correction and edification, not the confusion or defamation of anyone present or absent. Wherever therefore it is presumed that someone is made specially notable of a sin previously unknown to others by the preaching, whence a grievance or scandal can arise, it is better to be silent, and to speak rather other edifying things: But he who is accustomed to do the contrary shows himself contentious, or envious, or imprudent, or greedy of vain glory, who since he would not otherwise be accepted among men, seeks glory for himself from the infamy of others: whom by confounding you exasperate, him you more slowly edify, and wound with the sting of rancor.

Quaestio V: On the chief Act of the Contemplative life, and how this act differs from Cogitation, Meditation, Speculation, and Intuitive vision

On the principal Act of the Contemplative life, and how this act differs from Cogitation, Meditation, Speculation, and Intuitive vision.

The Contemplative life in its breadth designates the whole occupation of man, by reading, speaking, knowing, thinking, considering, meditating, and speculating; inasmuch as all these acts terminate in Contemplation. Contemplation therefore is the principal act of this life, to which meditation most closely approaches, and has been inserted, as Suarez notes here after D. Bonaventure, lib. 2. de orat. mentali, cap. 9. For when we undertake to investigate some divine truth, first we speak of it, read, or inquire: then we think it, consider it, and meditate upon it longer; finally the truth long meditated, when it suddenly presents itself to view, meditation passes into Contemplation, which we receive with great avidity of soul, we admire it with great delight; and we adhere to it with much admiration; so the Seraphic Doctor, here, after Richard, lib. 1. de Arca Myst. cap. 4.

Three therefore are the principal steps noted here, by which one ascends to Contemplation; namely the search for an unknown truth, the finding of the truth sought, and the intuition of the truth found; When this last is attained, the principal state of contemplation is apprehended, if we wish to speak theologically; for philosophically contemplation is taken for every act of the intellect, in which sense Aristotle says, 2. Metaph. textu 3. the end of contemplation is truth, and Cicero in libro 4. de finib. says, contemplation is the consideration and meditation of hidden things; so also he has it, lib. 1. academic. qq.

In the former sense Contemplation is defined by the Saintly Doctor here, dist. 1. It is the act of an unimpeded intellect, of a healed grace, directed to eternal spectacles, suspended with admiration, or according to Richard as cited by the Seraphic Doctor there: Contemplation is the free perspicacity of the mind, suspended in the spectacles of wisdom, with admiration.

In which definition the Seraphic Doctor commends four things supremely to the contemplative.

The first is the liberty of the Spirit, that it be not impeded by any earthly obstacle, but by a certain spontaneous motion and impulse be able to be carried more freely and more gladly through the eternal truths; and contemplate them to satiety, as far as is possible: Hence the mind ought to be unburdened of the care and solicitude of temporal things, and much more not to be embraced by the cords of sins.

The second is a perspicacious eye, capable of divine irradiation; whence the Saintly Doctor distinguishes from Richard a triple eye; The first is of the flesh, by which man sees the things that are outside himself; The second is of reason, by which he sees the things that are within himself: The third is the eye of contemplation, by which he sees above himself: This eye is as it were a certain spark of Divine cognition and image, residing in the apex of the soul; toward which the mind well purged, continually tending, thence as it were anticipates and foretastes eternal delights with wondrous delight, serenity, and security: of this eye the Bridegroom says in the Canticle cap. 4. you have wounded my heart with one of your eyes, as D. Bonaventure notes, here.

The third is, that the said eye be directed to the spectacles of wisdom: whence the Saintly Doctor infers that contemplation is not precisely an act of the intellect, but that an act of the will is also becoming. For Wisdom is the cognition of the true, exciting the will to a savory love, and the experimental taste of supernal sweetness: Hence those spectacles of wisdom, placed in the definition, are the cognition of the true, and the tasting of the good, whence Suarez notes, in the said cap. 9. that D. Bonaventure places the sum of contemplation in the will; which, if he understands it to consist in the will alone, is groundless; For the Saintly Doctor everywhere joins the intellectual inspection and the savory love: and here he concludes thus: The act therefore of contemplation includes two things, namely cognition, and savory love.

But if Suarez wishes the sum of contemplation to be in the will, from the mind of the Saintly Doctor, not precisely but principally, that is, to have its origin and increase from love, an act of the will; it is not against the Seraphic Doctor; who after the aforesaid words adds: and love adjoints cognition. But a little above he reports from the Lincolniensis, that wisdom arises from love, which bursts forth into the light of cognition and the savor of gustation, as light and flame burst forth from heat.

Fourth, what the Saintly Doctor requires for contemplation from the said definition, is the mental suspension with admiration; and this is so intrinsic to contemplation that D. Augustine lib. de spiritu, et anima, cap. 32. did not hesitate to define contemplation by that admiration, saying: Contemplation is the perspicuous and delightful admiration of truth. For as Richard well says, as cited by the Seraphic Doctor in the place cited. From the novelty of the thing, which is above our hope and our estimation, admiration arises; from admiration attention grows, from attention cognition, and from these the suspension of the mind. Whence as among the Philosophers there are two principles of science; admiration and experience; so in the theologian contemplating, admiration excites to a more attentive speculation, on the part of the intellect; but on the part of the will the experience of sweetness moves the intellect to a higher intuition of the truth; and then both powers are suspended, according to the saying of Job. My soul has chosen suspension.

This whole progress of contemplation is most excellently explained by way of the Aurora (Dawn) by the Seraphic Doctor from Richard, lib. 5. de Arca mystica, cap. 9. For the Aurora first glimmers with a certain dawning of light; being near the earth, as it were; as men still tender first perceive a certain dawning of grace. Then the aurora, raising itself a little higher, more shining, and suffused with a tawny color, flashes out, being not yet sufficiently segregated from the mire, or the slime of the earth; But the more it ascends, spreading itself the more broadly, and growing the more brilliantly splendid, it is elongated from the earth, until at length occupying the height of heaven it passes into the meridian splendor, and is suspended at the supreme apex of light, or Solstice; Richard therefore says there: Human intelligence, irradiated by the divine light, is suspended in the contemplation of intelligibles, while it is diffused in their admiration after the manner of the aurora, when it is always led to higher or more admirable things, the more and the more copiously it is dilated after the manner of the Aurora: Whence the more remote it becomes from the lowest things, the purer it is found in itself, and the subtler for the sublime things, etc.

As to the difference of this most excellent act from cogitation, meditation, and the other acts, whether preceding or subsequent; It must be noted that cogitation is the beginning of this exercise, and has its origin from the imagination, and most closely passes and terminates in meditation: For when we first transmit some thing from the external sense to the internal, or awaken it long stored in the phantasy itself, the agent intellect is wont to forge for itself a more spiritual idea of this thing; this idea, however, since it is still indeterminate, and wandering hither and thither through the intellect, can be called Cogitation, which therefore Richard defines in the place cited, cap. 3. et 4. The mind's regard prone to evagation, whence the less it is subjected to reason, the more it arises from the imagination, which communicates to it somewhat of its materiality; whence with a slow foot it wanders through every byway, without regard for arriving at its end; as Richard says in the said cap. 3. On the contrary, contemplation with a free foot, wherever its impetus bears it, is carried around with wondrous agility; and this is the principal difference of these acts, in which is included that the one act holds the place of principle; the other of the middle.

But when either a single or a multiple cogitation assails the mind; it is necessary that reason forthwith arrest it, and vigilantly apply it to the intended end, and thus make it pass into meditation; otherwise cogitations will tumultuate among themselves, and distract the mind, which D. Gregory most excellently explains, lib. 1. Moral. as cited by the Seraphic Doctor, here, dist. 3. where he thus has it: Cogitations are subjected to reason after the manner of handmaids, because if Reason for a moment depart from the house of the mind, the clamor of cogitations multiplies itself, as it were in the absence of the mistress, like a gabbling troop of handmaids; but as soon as reason has returned to the mind, forthwith the tumultuous confusion restrains itself, and as it were the handmaids quietly restrain themselves for the enjoined work.

But the cogitation, thus formed by reason, takes on the name and nature of meditation; whence this is born from reason, as that from the imagination; and it is the attentive and continued consideration of the thing thought; which at length migrates into contemplation; as was said above. Hence the Saintly Doctor notes from Richard, cit. cap. 3. that there are three things in the soul which variously conduce to contemplation: These are Imagination, Reason, and Intelligence: the first holds the lowest seat of the soul, the second the middle, and the third the supreme, immediately subjacent to God: whence as God beholds all things together in the most simple act, so that act by which one approaches him more, more clearly and more simply comprehends the objects of the other acts inferior to itself: hence contemplation, the act of intelligence, more clearly comprehends the objects of the imagination and reason than they can be comprehended by their own powers; expanding as it does the bosom of the mind immensely, and at the same time sharpening the keenness of the soul for penetrating; as the Saintly Doctor has, loco citato, from Richard, in the said cap. 3. For through the intelligence the bosom of the mind is expanded immensely, and the keenness of the contemplating soul is sharpened, that it may be capable of comprehending many things, and perspicacious for penetrating subtle things.

That you may understand this, be aware that the mental vision, as also the corporal, is (as far as it can be conceived) after the manner of a pyramid, dilating itself on the one part, while on the other it forms the point; so that in the proportion in which it penetrates the more hidden objects, with equal breadth it comprehends more in ascending; which Richard understands, loco citato, while he says as cited by the Seraphic Doctor dicta, dist. 3. Whence how widely the ray of contemplation expands itself, which illuminates all; and in a certain manner Contemplation extends itself under one ray of vision to innumerable things.

Speculation is not rarely confounded with Contemplation, because each is of intelligence; they differ, however, as the Saintly Doctor teaches, loco citato, and with him Suarez, cit. num. 5. For speculation, as D. Augustine says, lib. 15. de Trinit. cap. 3. is said when a thing is seen not in itself, but in its mirror, or enigma: but contemplation occurs when the truth is seen without any envelope, or veil of shadows, in its own purity, as Richard says, as cited by the Saintly Doctor, loco citato.

Speculation therefore is said, not from specula (watchtower), as Suarez notes; loco citato, because creatures in this world are mirrors, in which and through which we speculate the eternal truths, whence D. Paul, 1. Cor. 13. says: in this life we speculari the glory of the Lord.

Yet these mirrors of Creatures, although they are called enigmas, do not have such opacity that they do not flash out with much light, and pour and temper it upon the eyes of those speculating: Of these mirrors the Lincolniensis treats most excellently, as cited by the Saintly Doctor, loco citato, saying, that after they are received in the mind, the divine and as it were solar rays falling upon it from the fountain of light, they become so much more many, bright, and clear; that he contemplating may see lucidly the truth contemplated in it with the eyes; and according to this part it is true contemplation: But on that part by which the said mirrors pour back the light falling into them upon those who are capable of it, and the truth is thus seen with less clearness, it is rather speculation: He exemplifies this by a material mirror, which so tempers the light of the resplendent sun, that the weaker eye, which cannot look upon the sun itself, sees it proportioned to itself in the mirror.

Finally, as cogitation passes into meditation, and meditation sometimes into speculation, sometimes and more perfectly into contemplation, so contemplation passes into the open vision, reserved for the fatherland; whence between this and that there is the difference; that vision is not only simple, but the open and clear intuition of the thing, as it is in itself: But contemplation is the simple intelligence of the thing, as far as is possible according to the capacity of each in this life.

Whence the Seraphic Doctor concludes that all the said acts differ according to the clearer or less clear aspect of God; and as among those cogitation holds the lowest place, so for this life contemplation holds the supreme seat; yet vision in the fatherland surpasses it, as was said: The Saintly Doctor confirms this from Gregory, lib. 5. Moral. cap. ult. where he says: The active works of life pass away with the body; but the delights of the Contemplative life grow better toward the end.

Quaestio VI: Whether Contemplation has certain degrees of its perfection, how many, and which

Whether Contemplation has certain degrees of its perfection, how many, and which.

We suppose above certain acts of the contemplative life, by which one ascends gradually to the chiefest Gift of this life, which consists in the very act of contemplation, as it is distinguished from the others.

Now the degrees of Contemplation are certain steps of progress and advancement within the same act of intellectual thought and savorous love, by which God is apprehended under the aspect of the True and the Good. So the Holy Doctor, at the place cited.

The difficulty, however, is whether such increments of contemplation are given, by which the mind gradually arrives at another summit, or apex, of perfect contemplation; and it seems from what has already been said that they are not: because we considered contemplation above as a simple act of the intelligence viewing all things clearly at once, as far as can be done in the condition of this life.

Yet I assert here with the Seraphic Doctor that several degrees of contemplation distinct from one another are given, aiding the intellect and the affect toward perfectly contemplating God.

It is proved by the Holy Doctor from the authority of D. Gregory, book XXII. Morals, chap. XIV, where he says: Steps are called increments of virtues, distinctly handed down by the Saints; and a little below he proves the necessity of these, saying: No one, abandoning what is lowest, suddenly becomes highest, for to obtain the merit of perfection the mind must arrive at the height, as it were, by certain steps of ascent.

And although these may be understood of the comparison of virtues among themselves; yet since those are acquired better and more securely in contemplating; the higher we advance in contemplation, the more abundantly and intensely are we strengthened in the virtues; whence the degrees of the Virtues lean upon the progress of contemplation.

It is confirmed by the Seraphic Doctor in the same place, by that Psalm LXXXIII: they shall go from virtue to virtue, until the God of gods be seen in Sion, where, with respect to the vision which perfects and consummates contemplation, he describes the gradual acquisition of the virtues.

It is proved secondly by D. Bonavent. from Psalm XLVII: God is known in her degrees, when he shall receive her, namely contemplation, as D. S. explains according to the LXX.

It is proved thirdly by the Holy Doctor, from Hugh, cited here, who, speaking of the degrees of contemplation, has thus: the more the ascent grows, the more the knowledge grows, until the intellectual eye be illuminated and strengthened more and more, and the mental affection be purified and inflamed more, etc.

This the Linconiensis egregiously confirms and explains at the Seraphic Doctor's place, at the place cited, where he uses this example thus: just as the eyes of the flesh, weaker at first, receive the light of the sun as obscure, and more diffused upon colors; then, more strengthened, they receive it upon colors of middling hue, and afterward, vision fortified, they receive more of it super-fulgent upon white colors; then indeed, health further increased, they receive it poured upon shining colors, as in mirrors; finally, the eyes perfectly healed, they receive the solar ray, not diffused upon anything, but pure in itself, etc. Afterward he pursues this example, applying it thus: so also the eye of the mind, weaker, must first be accustomed to beholding the light of the sun of the intelligence in grosser things, then in subtler ones, until at last, from the very giving of the light multipliedly diffused upon it in many ways, it be extended and restored into the simple ray itself.

Where mark that the act of the intelligence is here treated of, when he says: the intelligence in grosser things, etc., so as to exclude the acts of reason or of imagination, such as thought, meditation, etc. For after meditating, the thing sought passes from reason into intelligence; first there flashes some twilight of light, which, growing in the proportion in which the keenness of the intellect is strengthened and refined, at length shines forth into the perfect day.

Nor does it stand against these that contemplation has a simple and total intuition at once and at one time of all those things which are subjected to its view: for that totality is not intensive but extensive, comprehending more or fewer objects together, though more clearly or more obscurely according to the degree of its perfection: for if such intuition had all its intension, it would follow that the Vision adds nothing to contemplation; which is false, as is evident of itself.

As to the quality and number of the degrees, they are handed down in divers ways by the Seraphic Doctor according to the various opinions of the Fathers.

And first of all Dionysius, according to the expositions of the Linconiensis, of Hugh, and of the Vercellensis, teaches that in the well-ordered Human mind, as also in the Angelic, there are given middle, first, and supreme illuminations; and each of these is subdivided into three orders: so that as in the angelic Hierarchy there are nine orders, so too let there be as many degrees of Contemplation in the well-ordered mind; For since this must be ordered to three things, namely to exterior, inferior, and superior things; it is ordered to exterior things by a certain comparison to the Angels, Archangels, and Principalities: for those things are announced by simple apprehensions without any great hope of commodity or incommodity; as it is proper to messengers to announce. To inferior things the mind is well ordered according to the three orders of the middle Hierarchy, namely the Powers, Virtues, and Dominations; For this Hierarchy obtains the dominion of reconciling things as they are in themselves according to the free motions of the will, according to the exigency of the natural and gratuitous virtues, and finally according to the authoritative commands of free will, as this Seraphic Doctor says. Finally the human intelligence is ordered to superior things, and to these belong the Thrones, Cherubim, and Seraphim, who are the Angels of the supreme Hierarchy of the mind: For the Thrones are as it were the benches, or seats, of God, as this Holy Doctor says from Hugh, whence they receive God coming to them; as also the mind, carried up to this degree and order of contemplation, receives divine super-arrivals and inmissions from above: but Cherubim signifies the attraction and, as it were, the co-walking of the intellect and the affect toward the divine truth and goodness, while the intellect, attaining the apex of its whole faculty, at length surpasses the affect; and so it is consummated in this order; whence the Cherubim are named from knowledge on account of this intellectual super-excess. The Seraphim indeed, on the contrary, are borne into God by super-affectuous sighs and shining fervors, the affect holding the apex of this Order and far surpassing the intellect; while the Soul, exhausted amid the most chaste embraces of its divine spouse, is wholly hastened, kindled, and in a manner transmuted into Him.

When the contemplative mind shall have attained this degree, it will be able to exclaim well with the spouse: He set order in me Charity. For from this the inundation of the divine light is transmitted orderly into all the inferior powers and acts of the soul, and to each its portion of the supernatural light is distributed for purging, illuminating, and perfecting; just as from the supreme Order of the Angels copious light is received immediately from God; and is diffused into the others according to the capacity of each. See the Seraphic Doctor treating these things at greater length and illustrating them with beautiful opinions of the Fathers.

Otherwise indeed, and a little more lowly, the Holy Doctor gathers in art. 1. the degrees of Contemplation from Richard, book 1. chap. 6. so that it begin from the imagination, and in it constitute the first degree, and this according to the order of execution; For as the same Richard says, of Contempl. book 4. chap. 5. We must begin from the last things, and raise our knowledge's promotion little by little, and by the knowledge of exterior things ascend to the cognition of invisible things. For when you shall have apprehended the science of exterior things, and had your senses exercised in their doctrine, you must ascend to higher things, and acquire the science of spiritual creatures: This is Richard at the Seraphic Doctor, at the place cited.

Therefore the first degree according to this reckoning is the Imagination, not that bestial one by which we bear species confusedly and scamper hither and thither without any utility, ruminating and revolving those things which we have previously seen; but it is a certain rational imagination, obedient to the intellect and ordered to it, by which we inquire nothing with mental investigation, but we admire with delight, and with a certain suspension of the imagination itself, those things which we have previously seen, or now see, while we suspect them to be beautiful, lovely, and many; so the Holy Doctor, in the said art. 2.

The second degree is founded in the imagination, but formed by reason, which ransacks, ponders, and wonders at the thing conceived there according to its utility, order, and condition: this degree is distinguished from the prior one, which stands in pure imagination, though vilely, as has been said. For as the Author de spiritu et anima has it, chap. 12. the imagination does not ascend to reason, but remaining below it can somewhat draw it down, and as it were from afar shows certain things to which it cannot arrive. Hence that thought, borne up from the imagination to the intent of reason, makes the second degree of Contemplation.

The third degree is formed and founded in reason itself, though uprooted from the imagination, and it comes about when, by the similitude of visible things, we are lifted up to the speculation of invisible things, as Richard says, book 1. chap. 6. It differs from the prior one, in that here the intellect tends upward to the investigation of invisible things; there indeed it leans rather downward upon the imagination, digging out more deeply the idea conceived in it and building it up in itself; wherefore this degree is more perfect than the preceding, in which the tension toward superior things prevails over the propensity toward inferior things. See Richard at the Holy Doctor, here.

The fourth degree is segregated in every way from the imagination, and now as it were dwelling in the heights; when, temporal things removed, not to say corporeal ones, we are occupied in the contemplation of celestial spirits, and rise higher, purifying the mind by use and by the mental affectuation of eternal things; whence here for the first time the pure intelligence intervenes, which works by itself and contemplates as it were by a species, as Richard says, in the same place.

The fifth degree, proceeding more intimately into the interior desert and penetrating the solitude of the divine arcana, transcends Reason: here ratiocination and every investigation, which is an act of the mind, fails: of this degree Richard, cited, says: Our contemplation then truly ascends above reason when the mind by an elevation of mind believes that which human capacity transcends its metes, and it must be judged above reason, yet not beyond reason, when human reason cannot stand against what is discerned by the keenness of the intelligence. The perfection of this degree, and its excellence before the others, consists in this, that it leaps over the limits of reason; whence D. Doctor observes here, from Richard, that some things are below reason, such as those which are perceived by corporeal sense; some indeed are alongside reason, as those which we inquire into by discourse: but above Reason are those things which either become known to us by revelation alone, or shine forth by a supernatural irradiation in such wise that neither corporeal sense nor reason can in any way reach them.

The sixth, and last, degree of Contemplation assigned here by the Holy Doctor is the total alienation of the mind, so that it seems to stand not only beyond, but even against itself, so that if it attempts to investigate anything, it is straightway believed alien and contrary to itself; and this most lofty elevation of the mind arises chiefly from the magnitude of devotion, admiration, and exultation, as the Holy Doctor teaches at the end of that art. 2.

These six degrees of Contemplation the Holy Doctor numbers otherwise in art. 3. and 4. according to the Author de spiritu et anima, and according to Origen upon the Canticle, chap. 2.; see him adducing preeminent texts of the Fathers for the elucidation of the mystical theory.

But of his own force he contrives seven degrees of contemplation in an illustrious little work inscribed on this subject, wherein he puts first Fire, second Unction, third Ecstasy, fourth Speculation, fifth Taste, sixth Quiet, seventh Glory; For as the Seraphic Doctor says there, after the soul is dispatched from the cares and anxieties of this age, first it is kindled: kindled it is anointed: anointed it is rapt: rapt it speculates, or contemplates: contemplating it tastes: tasting it rests. The seventh degree is scarcely, or scarcely even, attained in the way except by Privilege, though it be somewhat approached by those who have walked more frequently in the prior degrees; But in the fatherland all are consummated in one, namely the last.

This mystical Fire is defined by the Seraphic Doctor as a vehement ardor, or fervor of divine love, fanned from the furnace of the super-shining Jerusalem. For as he explains there exquisitely, after the Contemplative mind girds itself to speculating the glory of the Lord, it is presently kindled with a supernal heat, and all its motions, like faggots, gathered into one, are kindled more ardently; to this all the affections and acts of the soul concur, to supply material to the fire; kindled with this ardor the Prophet says: my heart grew hot within me, and in my meditation a fire shall flame out: sometimes this conflagration grows to such a point that it does not stay in the soul alone, but flames in the very body with a placid inflammation, as Psalm 72 testifies: my heart is inflamed, and my reins are changed.

The Unction of this fire tempers the ardor, mollifying and strengthening the powers of the soul; and it is a rosy and celestial liquor, poured over the soul; For since the thirsty heart pants toward the things above, according to that word: my soul hath thirsted after thee; in what manner my flesh hath multiplied after thee, by the deficiency of the faculties the fire is the sooner extinguished unless the fatness of this unction be poured upon it; which the contemplative desires to have smeared upon him, crying: Let my soul be filled as with marrow and fatness, and my mouth shall praise with joyful lips.

Ecstasy is the total desertion of the outward man and the upward suspension of the inward man also. For this the Holy Doctor requires a twofold action: The first is the dereliction of oneself; the second is the upward action of all the faculties of the soul; these two actions lean chiefly upon humility, by which one deserts oneself, and purity, by which one is carried upward.

But for a clearer understanding of this Ecstasy it is pleasing to note that there is among the powers of the soul a symbolic concord, so that whether upward or downward one power is borne intensely, it draws the others with a certain weight along with it: Hence the mind, acted upward more vehemently by the affulgent clarity of the divine light, draws with it all the inferior faculties; But when these, according to the proportion of their strengths, shall have accomplished certain passions, they suffer a deliquium, not able to aspire further, and abstracted from their own objects they hang suspended: But the Will, running before the intellect and penetrating into the secrets of love, here enjoys a wondrous sweetness; yet the intellect is not far distant from her, being indeed the nobler power after her, and hence it shines round about with ineffable charity.

HENCE you have that this ecstasy can follow connaturally from the efficacy of the grace already spoken of, without a new grace being required; for since by the force of the prior grace the Contemplative exercises himself long in mental exercises, for which actual aids suffice, which are as it were appendices of habitual grace; the affect absorbed in divine things causes an excess of cognition; whence the whole soul is alienated from external things; wherefore D. Thomas, 2. 2. quaest. 175. art. 2. with D. Bonavent. here, Abulensis, Genes. 15. q. 400. Molina first part, quaest. 12. art. 11. and Suarez book 2. cit. cap. 15. num. 5. attribute this whole effect to the affect.

NOR however must it be denied that the intellect alone can sometimes suffer this suspension, and this naturally, as is evident in Trismegistus, Socrates, and other ancient Philosophers, who in the natural contemplation of divine things often suffered ecstasy, as is evident from Gerson in the little work on the mount of contempl. chap. 31. Alph. 74. and Suarez num. 6.; nay, the very phantasy, from a sudden admiration of some thing, can be so rapt that meanwhile the external senses feel nothing; whence it is gathered that, according to the excellence of the object and the quality of the powers, ecstasy can be more or less perfect, and last longer or more briefly.

SPECULATION is defined by the Holy Doctor as a humble, pious, and intellectual, at the same time also affectual, investigation of divine goods, or riches, knowable to God alone: for each power, the intellect and the affect, the one by speculating, the other by desiring, promote each other mutually, until at length: with face revealed speculating the glory of God, we are transformed into the same image from clarity to clarity, as from the spirit of the Lord, as is said 2. Cor. 3., where to speculate with face revealed the glory of God in the way the Holy Doctor understands as nothing else than, the impurity of conscience removed, which is wont to overcloud the science of eternity and to obscure the intelligence of our mind, to search out the Divina piously, devoutly, and purely. Hence, with the spirit of the Lord leading us by the hand into it, we are transformed into what we have speculated; namely from earthly into celestial, from carnal into spiritual, and in a manner from men into Angels, as the Seraphic Doctor glosses here, where by into the same image he wills to be understood imaginated into the same; for if the intellect, actually understanding, becomes all things, according to the common dictum of Aristotle, with how much the better will the soul, contemplating unceasingly the divine things, which are more transformative, at length be in a manner transmuted into them.

TASTE is described by the Holy Doctor as a certain sweet and unusual foretaste of the divine sweetness: for the end of nature is that, the more excellent it is, the more distantly it transfuse the foretaste of its goodness into those tending toward it; wherefore the very means assumed for attaining this end are perfused with a certain savorous sweetness; which is foretasted the more abundantly, the more frequently the mind is vacant, and sees how sweet the Lord is. These foretastes, however, as the Seraphic Doctor warns, are not for refection but for allurement; wherefore they do not beget satiety but hunger; whence he who seeks them for their own sake is convicted to love the gift rather than the giver.

QUIET is a great tranquillity of the will with a wondrous serenity of mind; for since the bosom and capacity of the soul is filled from above, it has nothing further about which to be disturbed; but enjoying most sweet peace, with the Irascible rejoicing, the Concupiscible growing sweet, and the Rational shining, the whole soul most placidly is poured forth into God, and with wings dilated, yet not agitated, is most pleasantly borne upward; as birds in the now serene sun, in the middle region of the air, expand their wings, yet do not move them. This is the best part of the contemplatives, which shall not be taken away from them.

AT LENGTH the Seraphic Bonaventura concludes in chap. 7. of the Itinerary of the mind into God that the six numbered steps, as also the six considerations, which he here luminously expounds, are as it were the six degrees of the throne of the true Solomon, by which one ascends to peace: They are also as it were the six Wings of the Cherub, by which the mind of the true contemplatives, illuminated by the coruscations of supernal wisdom, is acted upward: They are finally as the six first days, in which the mind ought to be exercised unceasingly, that it may at length arrive at the Sabbath-rest of Quiet; Of which Sabbath-rest, being as it were glory, which is the seventh degree, the Holy Doctor judges it safer to be silent than to speak, as he says at the end of that little work on the seven degrees of Contempl., doubtless because there are heard arcane words, which it is not lawful for a man to speak, which to hear even is granted to very few in this life. Let therefore this last degree be the term of this tome, as also the end and reward of all my other works (by the Father of mercies propitiating).

These, and all other things, whether hitherto written, or to be written hereafter by me, let them hang upon the Judgment of the Holy Roman Church, the Mistress of unspotted truth, and the Column of unshaken faith.

INDEX OF THE PLACES OF HOLY SCRIPTURE Which are aptly contained in this Tome on the virtues.

Letter P. indicates the Page: Letter N. the Marginal Number.

Genesis.

CAP. I. HAVE DOMINION over the fishes of the sea. pag. 260. n. 14

II. He placed him in the paradise of pleasure, to work. p. 490. n. 221

Therefore shall a man leave Father, and Mother, and shall cleave to his wife. page 125. num. 348

III. Cursed is the earth in thy work. pag. 317. num. 24

IV. Cain said to Abel: let us go forth abroad. p. 19. num. 92

Why art thou angry. p. 151. n. 166

If thou offer rightly, but dost not divide rightly, thou hast sinned. p. 656. n. 37

VI. Noe was a just and perfect man in his generations. p. 128. n. 371

IX. Whosoever shall shed man's blood, his blood shall be shed. p. 241. n. 43

Thou shalt be the servant of servants to thy brethren. pag. 332. num. 3

XII. He took Sarai his wife, and Lot the son of his brother, and all their substance. pag. 261. num. 22

XV. I am thy reward exceeding great: pag. 67. num. 22

XVIII. I will go down and see whether the cry that is come to me they have completed in deed. p. 285. num. 108

XIX. I have two daughters, who have not yet known man; I will bring them out to you, and abuse you not with them, etc. p. 165. n. 306

XXII. In thy seed shall all Nations be blessed. p. 51. num. 11

Wait here: I and the boy, after we have adored, will return. p. 11. n. 38

I have sworn by myself, saith the Lord. pag. 514. num. 24

XXIIU. Put thy hand under my thigh, that I may adjure thee by the Lord God of heaven, etc. p. 539. num. 2

XXVII. I shall be deprived of both my sons. p. 241. n. 44

He that curseth thee, let him be cursed. pag. 317. num. 16

XXVIII. Most certainly will they turn away your hearts. p. 570. num. 24

XXXIII. Thou knowest that I have little ones tender, and sheep and kine with young, etc. p. 656. n. 29

XXXVII. His brethren hated him. page 151. num. 166

XXXIU. With whomsoever that shall be found, which thou seekest, let him die. p. 272. n. 124

XLIX. He shall be the expectation of Nations. pag. 24. num. 137

Exodus.

Cap. VI. I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and my name Adonai I did not show them. p. 17. num. 72

XVIII. Be thou to the people in those things that pertain to God, etc. p. 178. n. 77. p. 649. n. 26

XX. I am a strong God, and jealous, visiting the sins of the Fathers upon the children unto the fourth generation, p. 11. n. 37

Honour thy father, and mother. p. 452. n. 267

Remember, that thou sanctify the day of the Sabbath. p. 542. num. 15

XXI. If one struck by another rise again whole, the striker shall be innocent, etc. p. 209. n. 64

If thou buy a Hebrew servant, six years shall he serve thee. p. 332. num. 3

XXII. Wizards thou shalt not suffer to live. pag. 251. num. 149

If thou lend money to my poor people that dwelleth with thee, thou shalt not hard press him as an extortioner, nor oppress him with usuries. p. 354. n. 14

He that sacrificeth to gods shall be put to death, save only to the Lord alone. p 409. n. 6

XXIII. If thou meet thy enemy's ox, or his ass going astra-

Tractatus I: PRIMUS DE VIRTUTIBUS THEOLOGICIS

Proemium I: Prooemium

Disputatio I: ON FAITH

Quaestio I: What FAITH signifies, and what it is

Quaestio II: What the object of FAITH is

Quaestio III: Whether the object of FAITH is something complex

Quaestio IV: Whether the object of FAITH can be false

Quaestio V: Whether the object of FAITH can be evident scientifically

Quaestio VI: Whether FAITH is concerned with those things which are seen by vision on the way

Quaestio VII: Whether the articles of FAITH are evidently credible

Quaestio VIII: Whether the things to be believed are rightly arranged according to the articles

Quaestio IX: Whether the articles of FAITH have grown over the course of time

Quaestio X: Whether FAITH has grown as regards light

Quaestio XI: Whether Faith has grown in certitude

Quaestio XII: Whether the articles of Faith are to be expounded by some authority which is an infallible teacher, and what it is

Quaestio XIII: What are the marks of the true Church, in which the authority of expounding FAITH resides

Quaestio XIV: What must be believed by the necessity of means

Quaestio XV: What things are to be believed by the necessity of precept

Quaestio XVI: Whether we are bound to confess FAITH, and when

Quaestio XVII: Whether it is lawful to dispute about FAITH, and when

Quaestio XVIII: Whether Faith resides in the Intellect

Quaestio XIX: Whether Faith is perfected by Charity, as by its form

Quaestio XX: Whether it is certain that FAITH remains without CHARITY

Quaestio XXI: Whether, and how, FAITH is a VIRTUE

Quaestio XXII: Whether FAITH is ONE VIRTUE

Quaestio XXIII: Whether FAITH is the first of the Virtues

Quaestio XXIV: Whether FAITH is more certain than any science, or than any intellectual habit

Quaestio XXV: Whether one can know with certainty that he has FAITH

Quaestio XXVI: In whom FAITH is found

Quaestio XXVII: Whether FAITH is a substantial Gift of GOD

Quaestio XXVIII: Whether the difference between FAITH and other acts, natural as opposed to supernatural moral acts, always arises from the object

Quaestio XXIX: On the effects of FAITH

Quaestio XXX: On the GIFT OF UNDERSTANDING

Dubitatio I: Whether UNDERSTANDING is a gift of the Holy Ghost

Dubitatio II: Whether the GIFT OF UNDERSTANDING can coexist with FAITH

Dubitatio III: Whether the GIFT OF UNDERSTANDING consists in the contemplation of the Creator and of Creation

Dubitatio IV: Whether the GIFT OF UNDERSTANDING is found in all who have grace, and whether in these alone

Dubitatio V: What is the necessity and utility of the GIFT OF UNDERSTANDING

Dubitatio VI: Whether* **the GIFT OF UNDERSTANDING** *corresponds to the sixth beatitude, namely, Blessed are the clean of heart, etc.

Dubitatio VII: Whether* **to the GIFT OF UNDERSTANDING** *there corresponds, among the fruits of the Holy Ghost, Faith

Quaestio XXXI: On the Gift of Knowledge

Dubitatio I: Whether* **KNOWLEDGE** *is a gift of the Holy Ghost

Dubitatio II: Whether knowledge is concerned with Divine things

Dubitatio III: Whether the gift of knowledge is speculative

Dubitatio IV: Whether the third Beatitude corresponds to the Gift of Knowledge: Blessed are they that mourn, etc.

Disputatio II: On Unbelief

Quaestio I: What UNBELIEF is, and what kind of sin it is

Quaestio II: Whether all the works of unbelievers are sins

Quaestio III: Whether unbelievers can be compelled to hear FAITH

Quaestio IV: Whether unbelievers can be compelled to embrace our FAITH, when it has been sufficiently set forth

Quaestio V: Whether unbaptized unbelievers can be compelled to abandon errors or rites contrary to natural reason

Quaestio VI: Whether the rites of unbelievers are to be permitted

Quaestio VII: Whether it is lawful to make agreements with unbelievers about the toleration of their rites

Quaestio VIII: Whether unbaptized unbelievers can retain power over the Faithful, and whether they can be deprived of it

Disputatio III: On Heresy

Quaestio I: What HERESY is

Quaestio II: Whether one who doubts about the articles of FAITH is a heretic

Quaestio III: Whether one who gives merely opinionative assent to an article of FAITH is a heretic

Quaestio IV: Whether, and what, Ignorance excuses from Heresy

Quaestio V: What pertinacity is required for HERESY

Quaestio VI: Whether, for one to be deemed a Heretic, it is necessary that he have been baptized and a believer

Quaestio VII: Whether the Church can compel heretics to receive the Catholic FAITH

Quaestio VIII: On the other means the Church uses against heretics, by forbidding their Books

Quaestio IX: Whether we are bound to avoid the conversation of heretics

Quaestio X: What excommunication is inflicted upon heretics

Quaestio XI: On the other spiritual punishments of heretics

Quaestio XII: On the temporal punishments of Heretics

Disputatio IV: On Hope

Quaestio I: What HOPE is

Quaestio II: What the material object of HOPE is

Question III

Quaestio IV: Whether a certain object is set forth for HOPE, and is hoped for

Quaestio V: Whether Hope is a Virtue

Quaestio VI: Whether HOPE is a Theological Virtue

Quaestio VII: Whether HOPE is at times formless

Quaestio VIII: Whether HOPE arises from merits

Quaestio IX: Whether Hope precedes Charity

Quaestio X: What the proximate subject of HOPE is

Quaestio XI: Whether HOPE remains in the Blessed

Quaestio XII: Whether there is a precept of hoping in GOD

Dubitatio VI: Whether* the GIFT OF UNDERSTANDING *corresponds to the sixth beatitude, namely, Blessed are the clean of heart, etc.

Dubitatio VII: Whether* to the GIFT OF UNDERSTANDING *there corresponds, among the fruits of the Holy Ghost, Faith

Dubitatio I: Whether* KNOWLEDGE *is a gift of the Holy Ghost