Chapter XLIII.
Recapitulation of the explanation how a monk can mount up towards perfection.
And in order that all these things which have been set forth in a somewhat lengthy discourse may be more easily stamped on your heart and may stick in your thoughts with all tenacity, I will make a summary of them so that you may be able to learn all the changes by heart by reason of their brevity and conciseness. Hear then in few words how you can mount up to the heights of perfection without an effort or difficulty. "The beginning" of our salvation and "of wisdom" is, according to Scripture, "the fear of the Lord." [818] From the fear of the Lord arises salutary compunction. From compunction of heart springs renunciation, i.e. nakedness and contempt of all possessions. From nakedness is begotten humility; from humility the mortification of desires. Through mortification of desires all faults are extirpated and decay. By driving out faults virtues shoot up and increase. By the budding of virtues purity of heart is gained. By purity of heart the perfection of apostolic love is acquired.
[818] Ps. cxi. 10.
Book V.
Of the Spirit of Gluttony.
Chapter I.
The transition from the Institutes of the monks to the struggle against the eight principal faults.
This fifth book of ours is now by the help of God to be produced. For after the four books which have been composed on the customs of the monasteries, we now propose, being strengthened by God through your prayers, to approach the struggle against the eight principal faults, i.e. first, Gluttony or the pleasures of the palate; secondly, Fornication; thirdly, Covetousness, which means Avarice, or, as it may more properly be called, the love of money, fourthly, Anger; fifthly, Dejection; sixthly, "Accidie," [819] which is heaviness or weariness of heart; seventhly, kenodoxia which means foolish or vain glory; eighthly, pride. And on entering upon this difficult task we need your prayers, O most blessed Pope Castor, more than ever; that we may be enabled in the first place worthily to investigate the nature of these in all points however trifling or hidden or obscure: and next to explain with sufficient clearness the causes of them and thirdly to bring forward fitly the cures and remedies for them.
[819] Acedia. It is much to be regretted that the old English word "Accidie" has entirely dropped out of use. It is used by Chaucer and other early writers for the sin of spiritual sloth or sluggishness. See "The Persone's Tale," where it is thus described: "After the sinne of wrath, now wol I speke of the sinne of accidie or slouth: for envie blindeth the herte of a man, and ire troubleth a man, and accidie maketh him hevy, thoughtful, and wrawe. Envie and ire maken bitternesse in herte, which bitternesse is mother of accidie, and benimeth him the love of alle goodnesse; than is accidie the anguish of a troubled herte." The English word lingered on till the seventeenth century, as it is used by Bishop Hall (Serm.V. 140), in the form "Acedy," which is etymologically more correct as being nearer the Latin Acedia and the Greek 'Akedia, a word which occurs in the LXX. version of the Old Testament in Isaiah lxi. 3; Ps. cxviii. (cxix.) 28; Baruch iii. 1; Ecclus. xxix. 6 (cf. the use of the verb akediazo in Ps. lx. (lxi.) 2; ci. (cii.) 1; cxlii. (cxliii.) 4; Ecclus. xxii. 14). In ecclesiastical writers the term Acedia is a favourite one to denote primarily the mental prostration induced by fasting and other physical causes, and afterwards spiritual sloth and sluggishness in general. It forms the subject of the tenth book of the Institutes, and is treated of again by Cassian in the Conferences V. iii. sq., cf. also the "Summa" of S. Thomas, II. ii. q. xxxv., where there is a full discussion of its nature and character.--cf. Dr. Paget's essay "Concerning Accidie" in "The Spirit of Discipline."
Chapter II.
How the occasions of these faults, being found in everybody, are ignored by everybody; and how we need the Lord's help to make them plain.
And of these passions as the occasions are recognized by everybody as soon as they are laid open by the teaching of the elders, so before they are revealed, although we are all overcome by them, and they exist in every one, yet nobody knows of them. But we trust that we shall be able in some measure to explain them, if by your prayers that word of the Lord, which was announced by Isaiah, may apply to us also--"I will go before thee, and bring low the mighty ones of the land, I will break the gates of brass, and cut asunder the iron bars, and I will open to thee concealed treasures and hidden secrets" [820] --so that the word of the Lord may go before us also, and first may bring low the mighty ones of our land, i.e. these same evil passions which we are desirous to overcome, and which claim for themselves dominion and a most horrible tyranny in our mortal body; and may make them yield to our investigation and explanation, and thus breaking the gates of our ignorance, and cutting asunder the bars of vices which shut us out from true knowledge, may lead to the hidden things of our secrets, and reveal to us who have been illuminated, according to the Apostle's word, "the hidden things of darkness, and may make manifest the counsels of the hearts," [821] that thus penetrating with pure eyes of the mind to the foul darkness of vices, we may be able to disclose them and drag them forth to light; and may succeed in explaining their occasions and natures to those who are either free from them, or are still tied and bound by them, and so passing as the prophet says, [822] through the fire of vices which terribly inflame our minds, we may be able forthwith to pass also through the water of virtues which extinguish them unharmed, and being bedewed (as it were) with spiritual remedies may be found worthy to be brought in purity of heart to the consolations of perfection.
[820] Isa. xlv. 2, 3.
[821] 1 Cor. iv. 5.
[822] Ps. lxv. (lxvi.) 12.