|
The first kind of blessing of which we have spoken is
temporal. And by temporal blessings we here
understand riches, rank, office and other things that
men desire; and children, relatives, marriages, etc.:
all of which are things wherein the will may rejoice.
But it is clear how vain a thing it is for men to
rejoice in riches, titles, rank, office and other
such things which they are wont to desire; for, if a
man were the better servant of God for being rich, he
ought to rejoice in riches; but in fact they are
rather a cause for his giving offence to God, even as
the Wise Man teaches, saying: 'Son, if thou be rich,
thou shalt not be free from sin.'[537]
Although it is true that temporal blessings do not
necessarily of themselves cause sin, yet, through the
frailty of its affections, the heart of man
habitually clings to them and fails God (which is a
sin, for to fail God is sin); it is for this cause
that the Wise Man says: 'Thou shalt not be free from
sin.'
For this reason the Lord described riches, in the
Gospel, as thorns,[538] in order to show that he who
touches them[539] with the will shall be wounded by
some sin. And that exclamation which He makes in the
Gospel, saying: 'How hardly shall they that have
riches enter the Kingdom of the heavens' -- that is
to say, they that have joy in riches -- clearly shows
that man must not rejoice in riches, since he exposes
himself thereby to such great peril.[540]
And David, in order to withdraw us from this
peril, said likewise: 'If riches abound, set not your
heart on them.'[541] And I will not here quote
further testimony on so clear a matter.
2. For in that case I should never cease quoting
Scripture, nor should I cease describing the evils
which Solomon imputes to riches in Ecclesiastes.
Solomon was a man who had possessed great riches,
and, knowing well what they were, said: 'All things
that are under the sun are vanity of vanities,
vexation of spirit and vain solicitude of the
mind.'[542]
And he that loves riches, he said, shall reap no
fruit from them.[543] And he adds that riches are
kept to the hurt of their owner,[544] as we see in
the Gospel, where it was said from Heaven to the man
that rejoiced because he had kept many fruits for
many years: 'Fool, this night shall thy soul be
required of thee to give account thereof, and whose
shall be that which thou has provided?'[545]
And finally, David teaches us the same, saying:
'Let us have no envy when our neighbour becomes rich,
for it will profit him nothing in the life to
come;'[546] meaning thereby that we might rather have
pity on him.
3. It follows, then, that a man must neither
rejoice in riches when he has them, nor when his
brother has them, unless they help them to serve God.
For if ever it is allowable to rejoice in them, it
will be when they are spent and employed in the
service of God, for otherwise no profit will be
derived from them.
And the same is to be understood of other
blessings (titles, offices, etc.), in all of which it
is vain to rejoice if a man feel not that God is the
better served because of them and the way to eternal
life is made more secure. And as it cannot be clearly
known if this is so (if God is better served, etc.),
it would be a vain thing to rejoice in these things
deliberately, since such a joy cannot be reasonable.
For, as the Lord says: 'If a man gain all the
world, he may yet lose his soul.'[547] There is
naught, then, wherein to rejoice save in the fact
that God is better served.
4. Neither is there cause for rejoicing in
children because they are many, or rich, or endowed
with natural graces and talents and the good things
of fortune, but only if they serve God.
For Absalom, the son of David, found neither his
beauty nor his riches nor his lineage of any service
to him because he served not God.[548] Hence it was a
vain thing to have rejoiced in such a son. For this
reason it is also a vain thing for men to desire to
have children, as do some who trouble and disturb
everyone with their desire for them, since they know
not if such children will be good and serve God.
Nor do they know if their satisfaction in them
will be turned into pain; nor if the comfort and
consolation which they should have from them will
change to disquiet and trial; and the honour which
they should bring them, into dishonour; nor if they
will cause them to give greater offence to God, as
happens to many.
Of these Christ says that they go round about the
sea and the land to enrich them and to make them
doubly the children of perdition which they are
themselves.[549]
5. Wherefore, though all things smile upon a man
and all that he does turns out prosperously, he ought
to have misgivings rather than to rejoice; for these
things increase the occasion and peril of his
forgetting God.
For this cause Solomon says, in Ecclesiastes, that
he was cautious: 'Laughter I counted error and to
rejoicing I said, "Why art thou vainly
deceived?"'[550] Which is as though he had said: When
things smiled upon me I counted it error and
deception to rejoice in them; for without doubt it is
a great error and folly on the part of a man if he
rejoice when things are bright and pleasant for him,
knowing not of a certainty that there will come to
him thence some eternal good.
The heart of the fool, says the Wise Man, is where
there is mirth, but that of the wise man is where
there is sorrow.[551] For mirth blinds the heart and
allows it not to consider things and ponder them; but
sadness makes a man open his eyes and look at the
profit and the harm of them. And hence it is that, as
he himself says, anger is better than laughter.[552]
Wherefore it is better to go to the house of mourning
than to the house of feasting; for in the former is
figured the end of all men,[553] as the Wise Man says
likewise.
6. It would therefore be vanity for a woman or her
husband to rejoice in their marriage when they know
not clearly that they are serving God better thereby.
They ought rather to feel confounded, since
matrimony is a cause, as Saint Paul says, whereby
each one sets his heart upon the other and keeps it
not wholly with God. Wherefore he says: 'If thou
shouldst find thyself free from a wife, desire not to
seek a wife; while he that has one already should
walk with such freedom of heart as though he had her
not.'[554]
This, together with what we have said concerning
temporal blessings, he teaches us himself, in these
words: 'This is certain; as I say to you, brethren,
the time is short; it remaineth that they also who
have wives be as if they had none; and they that
weep, as them that weep not; and they that rejoice,
as them that rejoice not; and they that buy, as them
that possess not; and they that use this world, as
them that use it not.'[555]
All this he says to show us that we must not set
our rejoicings upon any other thing than that which
tends to the service of God, since the rest is vanity
and a thing which profits not; for joy that is not
according to God can bring the soul no profit.[556] |