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But which has the more force, I pray you; love, to
make us look upon the well-beloved, or the sight to
make us love him?
Knowledge, Theotimus, is required for the
production of love, for we can never love what we do
not know; and according as the attentive knowledge of
good is augmented, love is also augmented, provided
there is nothing to hinder its activity. Yet it
happens often, that knowledge having produced holy
love, love does not stay within the limits of the
knowledge which is in the understanding, but goes
forward and passes very far beyond it; so that in
this life we are able to have more love than
knowledge of God: whence the great S. Thomas assures
us, that oftentimes the most simple women abound in
devotion, and are ordinarily more capable of heavenly
love than clever and learned men.
The famous Abbot of S. Andrew's at Vercelli,
master of S. Antony of Padua, in his commentaries
upon S. Denis, often repeats that love penetrates
where exterior knowledge cannot reach, and says that
many bishops of old, though not very learned, have
penetrated the mystery of the Trinity; admiring in
this point his scholar S. Antony of Padua, who,
without earthly knowledge, had so profound a grasp of
mystical theology, that, like another S. John
Baptist, one might have called him a burning and a
shining light.
The Blessed Brother Giles, one of the first
companions of S. Francis, said one day to S.
Bonaventure: "O how happy you learned men are, for
you understand many things whereby you praise God,
but what can we idiots do?" And S. Bonaventure
replied: "The grace to be able to love God is
sufficient." " Nay, but Father," replied Brother
Giles, "can an ignorant man love God as well as a
learned?" "Yes," said S. Bonaventure, "and further, a
poor simple woman may love God as much as a doctor of
divinity." Then Brother Giles cried out in fervour:
"O poor simple woman, love thy Saviour, and thou
shall be as great as Brother Bonaventure." And upon
this he remained for the space of three hours in a
rapture.
The will only perceives good by means of the
understanding, but having once perceived it she has
no more need of the understanding to practise love,
for the force of pleasure which she feels, or expects
to feel, from union with her object, draws her
powerfully to the love and to the desire of enjoying
it; so that the knowledge of good gives birth, but
not measure, to love; as we see the knowledge of an
injury starts anger, which, if not suppressed, almost
always becomes greater than the subject, deserves.
The passions do not follow the knowledge which moves
them, but very often, leaving this quite in the rear,
they make towards their object without any measure or
limit.
Now this happens still more strongly in holy love,
inasmuch as our will is not applied to it by a
natural knowledge, but by the light of faith, which
assuring us of the infinite goodness that is in God,
gives us sufficient cause to love him with all our
force. We dig the earth to find gold and silver,
employing a present labour for a good which as yet is
only hoped for; so that an uncertain knowledge sets
us upon a present and certain labour, and as we more
discover the vein of the mineral, we search and
search more earnestly.
Even a cold scent serves to move the hound to the
game, so, dear Theotimus, a knowledge obscure and
involved in clouds, like that of faith, most
powerfully stirs our affection to love the goodness
which it makes us perceive. O how true it is,
according to S. Augustine's exclamation, that the
unlearned bear away heaven, while many of the wise
are swallowed up in hell!
In your opinion, Theotimus, which of the two would
love the light more - the one born blind, who might
know all the discourses that philosophers make of it
and the praises they give it, or the ploughman, who
by a clear sight feels and realizes the agreeable
splendour of the fair rising sun?
The first has more knowledge of it, but the second
more fruition, and that fruition produces a love far
more lively and affective than a simple knowledge by
reasons; for the experience of good makes it
infinitely more agreeable than all the science which
can be had of it.
We begin our love by the knowledge which faith
gives us of God's goodness, which afterwards we
relish and taste by love; love whets our taste and
our taste heightens our love, so that, as we see the
waves, under the stress of winds, roll against one
another and swell up, as if contact forced each to
strive to outdo the rest, so the taste of good
strengthens our love of it, and increases our relish
for it, according to that oracle of the divine
Wisdom: They that eat me, shall yet hunger: and they
that drink me shall yet thirst.(1)
Which of the two I pray you loved God more, the
theologian Occam, held by some to be the most subtle
of mortals, or S. Catharine of Genoa, an unlearned
woman? He knew God better by science, she by
experience; and her experience conducted her deep
into seraphic love, while he with his knowledge
remained far remote from this excellent perfection.
We extremely love the sciences, even before we
fully know them, says S. Thomas, from such confused
and general knowledge as we may have of them: in the
same way, it is the knowledge of God's goodness which
makes our will begin to love, but as soon as it is
set going, love increases of itself, by the pleasure
which the will takes in being united to this
sovereign good. Before children have tasted honey and
sugar it is difficult to make them receive them into
their mouth; but after they have tasted their
sweetness, they love them much more than we wish, and
eagerly seek to get them always.
We must admit, however, that the will, attracted by
the delectation which it takes in its object, is much
more forcibly drawn to unite itself therewith, when
the understanding on its side excellently proposes
the goodness thereof; for it is then at once both
drawn and pushed; pushed by knowledge, drawn by
delight: so that knowledge is not of itself contrary,
but very useful to devotion, and meeting together
they marvellously assist one another; though it often
happens through our misery that knowledge hinders the
birth of devotion, because knowledge puffeth up and
makes us proud, and pride, which is contrary to all
virtue, is the total ruin of devotion.
Without doubt, the eminent science of a Cyprian,
an Augustine, a Hilary, a Chrysostom, a Basil, a
Gregory, a Bonaventure, a Thomas, - has not only much
recommended but greatly improved their devotion, as
again their devotion has not only raised but
eminently perfected their science.
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