Volume II, Treatise III, Chapter VI

Of the Knowledge of One’s Self, Whick Is the Source of Humility, and

the only means of acquiring it.

Let us now begin by enquiring minutely into what we are, and as it were by digging deep into the knowledge of. our misery and weakness, that we may there find the treasure of humility. ‘ One has lost,” says St. Jerom, “a drachm, and it is in dirt and dung it. is found again.’”’—(Ad Rustio.) In the dung-hill and filth of your sins and miseries, you shall find the jewel of humility. Now to observe method in our inquiry, let us see, in the first place, what man is in his natural being. Let this be our first search. “Have these three things always present in your mind,” says St. Bernard, “what you were, what you are, and what you shall be. Now what were you, but impure seed? What are you, but a vessel, of uncleanness? And what shall you be, but rottenness and the food of worms?”—(In form. hon. vit.) Here is already matter. enough to meditate upon, and it is with good reason, that St. Innocent cries out: “O the vile and miserable condition of human nature! Behold the herbs and the plants, they bring forth leaves, flowers, and fruit; and man’s body breeds nothing but vermin, worms, and filth; they produce oil, wine, and balm, and send forth a delightful smell, and man’s body is a sink of stench and ordure. In a word, such as the tree is, such is the fruit.’>—(Innoc. de, contem. mun.)—“For a bad tree never bears good fruit.”—(Mat. vii. 17.) It is a very just comparison which the holy writers make of a man’s body, to a dung-hill covered over with snow, which appears fair and white on the outside, but within is nothing but dirt and filth. ‘If you do but observe, says St. Bernard, “all the filth that comes out of the nose, mouth, and other parts of man’s body, there is no dung-hill or common sewer so foul.”—(C. 3. Med.) It is this consideration which made Job cry out; “I have — said to corruption, thou art my father, and to the worms, thou art

my sister and my mother.”— (Job 17:14) For indeed what else is man but a source of corruption, and a sack of worms, and rottenness? What have we therefore to raise our vanity on? “What can dust and ashes be proud of?’ (Ecclesiastes 10:9) At least it cannot boast of what we have described; for we can find nothing therein but subjects for the humiliation and greater contempt of ourselves. ‘The remembrance of the infirmities and miseries of man is a good preservative of humility,” says St. Gregory; under that dung-hill this plant is kept perfectly well.

But let us examine a little farther. Consider what you were before God created you; you will find that you were nothing, and that you could not of yourself draw yourself out of the abyss of nothing; but that it was God who by his great bounty drew you thence, in giving” you the being which you have. So that on our side we are nothing, and therefore ought not to esteem ourselves more than things which are not; it is to God alone to whom we are to attribute whatever we are more than nothing. ‘If any one,” says St. Paul, “thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself.” (Galatians 6:3), This is a great discovery we have made—it is sufficient to enrich us with humility all our lifetime.

But there is yet more to be considered, which is, that even after we have received our being we do not subsist of ourselves. It is not with us as with a house, which the architect leaves after he has built, and which stands of itself without any need of hishelp. We have, after our creation and at every moment of our life, as much need of God, to preserve our being, as we had to obtain it; when we were nothing. He continually upholds us with his almighty hand, to hinder our falling again into the abyss of nothing, from whence he has drawn us; wherefore the royal prophet says, “thou, O Lord, hast formed me, and stretched thy hand over me.”—(Psal. cxxxviii.} It is that hand that holds me up, that preserves and hinders me from falling back into the nothing from which I came. We do so depend on the help of God, and our preservation is so much linked thereunto, that if he should withdraw his hand one moment, we should fall that very instant; we should cease to be, and should return into our first nothing. ‘ All nations,” says the prophet Isaias, “are before him as if they were not, and are counted as nothing.”’—(Isa. xl. 17.) We also say of ourselves every day, that we are nothing, but it is to be feared, we say it only with our lips, and understand not what we say. God grant that we may understand and be as sensible of it as the prophet was when he said, “all that I am is as nothing before thee.” ——(Psal. xxxviii. 6.) I am indeed nothing of myself; for I was nothing, and what I am, I hold it not of myself. Itis thou, O Lord, who hast given me my being, and it is of thee that I hold it; and what reason can I have to glory therein, since I contributed nothing thereunto, and it is thou alone who preservest it, and givest me the power to act? Our being, breath, and action, all comes from thy hand; as for us, we can do nothing, because we are nothing of ourselves. Of what then can we be proud? Perhaps of our nothing. We have said with the wise man; “what can dust and ashes be proud of?” But we may now say, what can nothing be proud of, which is less than dust and ashes? What reason, what occasion can it have to be puffed up with pride, and to believe itself something? There can certainly be none.

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