De arte praedicatoria

If you wish to instruct your hearers in patience, use these authorities: Patience has a perfect work.¹ Likewise: Blessed are they who suffer persecution for the sake of justice.² Likewise: The teaching of a man is known through his patience.³ And the philosopher says: The highest form of moral patience is that by which the martyr, in dying, overcomes the one who lives, triumphs by suffering, finds sweetness in tribulation, and rest in labor. From bitterness it draws honey, from vinegar something sweet; the shield of patience shatters the arrows of insult, the strength of endurance drives off the darts of injuries. There are four kinds of injury which victorious patience overcomes, and which it conquers by resisting. The first is the injury of words, which patience either absorbs through the calm of silence, or soothes with gentle words. The second is the injury of hatred, which patience forgives, returning charity in exchange for hatred. The third is the injury done to one's possessions, which patience overcomes, being content with modest provision. The fourth is injury to one's own body, which the discipline of the flesh drives off. We read that many have had only the shadow of patience, and we read that many have feigned steadfastness, so as to obtain worldly prosperity. We marvel at certain animals that pass through the midst of fires without harm to their bodies; but we ought to marvel much more at those who pass unharmed and unwounded in spirit through iron and ruin and fire. It is shameful to yield to passion, more shameful to be overcome by it: struggle against it, for if it is once conquered, it will not renew the contest. Increase your courage, enlarge your virtue; he is not a brave or vigorous man who flees labor; patience, I say, ought to have its place in those undertakings where the cause of a heavenly business presents itself; otherwise you will wear yourself out continually with sordid labor. Wherefore, if you see serious difficulties pressing upon you, do not turn your back, but withdraw step by step into safety; it is easy through patience to escape the stings of tribulations, it is easy through patience to despise temporal goods. What is more shameful than to be anxious right at the threshold of security itself? This is the cause that makes us impatient, that we are empty of the heavenly good. There are, moreover, seven kinds of patience, which are comprised in the seven petitions of the Lord's Prayer.

The first is against the assault of the world, against the desire for vainglory, against the longing for earthly labor, against the restraint of covetousness; this is sought when it is said: Deliver us from evil,⁴ as though the faithful man were saying: grant me patience against the evil of the world, against the assault of the world. Of this same patience there is discourse when it is said in the catalog of the beatitudes: Blessed are the poor in spirit.⁵ For the first kind of patience consists in spiritual poverty, which lies in the renunciation of external things, in the renunciation of natural gifts, when a man does not swell with pride over the natural endowments of his soul, in the renunciation of those things that pertain to the endowments of the body, such as strength, beauty, and so on.

The second patience is against the assaults of the devil. This kind of patience is sought when it is said: And lead us not into temptation.⁶ Man does not ask that he not be tempted, but that he not be led into temptation; for someone is tempted, and is not led into temptation, as the righteous man, who resists the devil; he is tempted, and is led into temptation, who by sinning submits himself to the evil one; of this patience it is said: Blessed are the meek, etc.⁷ For in this patience the highest gentleness is displayed, in that man does not give his assent to the raging demon.

The third patience is against the injuries of one's neighbor, when a man patiently endures insults; this is sought when it is said: Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.⁸ Of the same it is said: Blessed are the merciful, etc.⁹ For the effect of spiritual mercy lies in the forgiveness of injuries.

The fourth kind of patience is against the pressure of natural poverty, when someone endures with a steady mind the onset of want. This is sought when it is said: Give us this day our daily bread.¹⁰ What is this daily bread, but patience against poverty in the course of this life? For this is the patience that reckons a small provision as immense, that abundantly feeds the mind, although it does not fill the belly. This patience makes fasts fruitful; it finds fine flour in millet, salmon in the gudgeon, spice in water; of it is said: Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice.¹¹ For the patience that finds satisfaction in material fasting hungers and thirsts for justice; and the more it disdains material food, the more it desires spiritual food.

The fifth patience is against the assault of the flesh, when a man manfully restrains the assault of the flesh, and chastises his beast of burden, so that sensuality is made a servant to reason, the flesh to the spirit, when the spirit holds command over the flesh, when reason holds dominion against the flesh. This kingdom is sought in the Lord's Prayer, when it is said, Your kingdom come,¹² that is, grant that, just as all things obey you, so in us sensuality may obey reason. So that, just as all things in your kingdom are peaceful, so in the kingdom of our mind all things may be tranquil. Oh, how fearful is this duel between flesh and spirit, where the flesh is armed against the spirit with the enticements of the senses, with the delight of carnal pleasures. Behold the army of the flesh, which does battle in its camps, and comes to war along with the flesh: the beauty of a thing that deceives the sight, the flattery of sound that seduces the hearing, the fragrances of things that captivate the sense of smell, the taste of food that entices the palate, the softness of a thing that provokes the touch. Against this army patience arms the mind, which alone is able to defeat these enemies, alone able to end the quarrel, alone able to restore banished reason to its own kingdom. This war is more than a civil war, and therefore all the more to be guarded against. There is an external war between man and the devil, of which it is said: We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers of this air.¹³ There is a civil war between man and his neighbor, of which it is said: The sons of my mother have fought against me.¹⁴ There is a war more than civil, between flesh and spirit, of which it is said: The flesh fights against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh.¹⁵ This war can be calmed by spiritual mourning, if one mourns the absence of the bridegroom, if one weeps for the onset of sin, if one grieves by abstaining from carnal desire, if one weeps by ceasing from love of the world. Of this mourning it is said: Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted.¹⁶

The sixth patience is against the miseries of the body, which are found in labor, weakness, cold, heat, hunger, thirst. These wounds were inflicted by robbers on the man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho,¹⁷ that is, by demons upon Adam as he sinned, who went down from the Jerusalem of the heavenly vision into Jericho, that is, into the deficiency of our mortality. Patience is against these things, when the mind overcomes the strength of sickness by giving thanks to God amid weakness, and thus finds soundness of mind in weakness of flesh; when also the mind finds rest in labor, referring its pain to its proper end, so that what are illnesses of the body become medicines for the mind. Against these miseries of the body, patience is sought when it is said: Your will be done, as in heaven, so on earth,¹⁸ that is, grant that, just as in heaven, that is, in the human nature of Christ, at the nod of your will your patience was firm against these miseries of the flesh, so also on earth, that is, in us earthly men, there may be patience against the infirmities of the body. Of this it is said: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.¹⁹ Through this patience the eye of reason is purified, lest it fall into despair through weakness, or collapse into torpor through labor.

The seventh patience, indeed, is against the scourges of God, which tests the just man, proves the servant, shows the son. This is sought when it is said: Hallowed be your name.²⁰ For through the fact that someone is patient under the scourges of God, the name of sonship is sanctified in him; and the more patiently he endures the scourges of God, the more the name of Father is sanctified in him, for the Father scourges, through punishment, every son he receives through patience.²¹ Of this patience it is said: Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.²² For those who, through patience, keep peace in their hearts while being scourged by the Father, are rightly proven to be sons of God. If anyone, then, desires to be patient, let him diligently consider the patience of Job, the purpose of Christ, the constancy of the martyrs, and thus mock all worldly assaults by the strength of patience. As is read in the book of Macrobius: "The impulses of the mind must be bound by the chain of patience; his glory is great who is increased by no one's praise, and diminished by no one's blame." Plato says of patience: "We must engage with things of pleasure, so that we may be secure against them not by flight or absence, but may guard our self-restraint and moderation through vigor of mind and steady presence and measured use, and, having warmed and at the same time restored our mind, we should dissolve whatever cold sadness or sluggish folly may be in it." Aristotle also says: "Who, having any human sense of shame, would be glad to have his pleasures in common with a pig and a donkey?" Similarly Socrates used to say that many men wished to live for the sake of eating and drinking, rather than to eat and drink for the sake of living. Gregory also says: "Impose on no one what you yourself cannot endure." And again Socrates: "It is the part of the wise man to take care not to fall into the snare, and if he should happen to fall, to bear it bravely. For a man cannot be judged brave unless he has also been wise, for virtue without wisdom must be considered a dangerous rashness." Likewise Socrates: "It is the part of a good man to know how to suffer, and not to do injury." Likewise, the same: "Patience is the harbor of miseries."