De Consideratione

4. Tell me, pray, what is the good of litigating from morning till evening, or of listening to litigants? And would that sufficient unto the day were the evil thereof! The nights are not free. There is hardly enough time left to give the poor body a little rest and satisfy the needs of nature ; once again up ! and to the strife. Day vomits forth lawsuits unto day, and night declares evil unto night, until it is not possible to take breath in goodness, nor snatch a little rest by way of change, nor find even a few scattered intervals of leisure. I have no doubt that you as well as I deplore these things ; but what is the good of that if you do not strive to amend them ? Still, until you do amend them, I exhort you to go on ever deploring them, and not allow yourself to grow hardened in them through any familiarity with them or unremitting application to them. ‘ I have smitten them,’ saith God, ‘ and they have not grieved.’¹ Have nothing in common with such persons. Rather make it your care to appropriate both the feeling and the words of the righteous man who says, ‘ What is my strength that I should endure ? or what is mine end, that I should be patient ? My strength is not the strength of stones, nor is my flesh of brass.’² Great is the virtue of patience ; but I could not wish for you patience in these things. It is sometimes more laudable to be impatient. You surely do not approve of the patience of those people to whom Paul was wont to say, ‘ Ye suffer fools gladly, seeing ye yourselves are wise.’³ Unless I am deceived, the Apostle spoke ironically, not by way of praise ; he is flouting the tameness of certain individuals, who, as it were, put out their hands to the false apostles by whom they had been seduced, and allowed themselves most patiently to be carried away by their teachers into all sorts of strange and corrupt doctrines. And so he adds, ‘ For ye endure if a man bring you into bondage.’⁴ Patience is not good, if, when you may be free, you allow yourself to become a slave. I would not have you disguise the slavery into which, though you know it not, you are daily brought. It is a sign of a heart waxed gross, that it does not feel its own continual vexation. ‘Vexation causes a report to be understood,’ saith one.⁵ True; but only if it be not excessive. For if it be, it clearly does not cause the mischief to be understood, but to be despised. In fact, when the wicked man reaches the depths of wickedness, he despiseth it.⁶ Rouse yourself, therefore, and not only guard against, but dread, the yoke of the worst of all slaverys at this very moment threatening you, nay rather already pressing with no light weight upon you. Are you therefore not a slave because you are the slave not of one but of all? There is no more disgraceful slavery, none worse, than that of the Jews; whithersoever they go they drag the chain, and everywhere displease their masters. Tell me, pray, when you are ever free, ever safe, ever your own. Everywhere is bustle, noise, and confusion; everywhere the yoke of your slavery galls you.