Volume III, Treatise I, Chapter XIII

What Zeal Is Pleasing, and What Ts Displeasing to God

THERE are false virtues as well as true ones; the wise man tells us that ‘“‘there are some who falsely humble themselves, and whose interior is full of deceit” (Ecclesiasticus 19:23) They appear humble, and are not so; they wear old clothes, they walk with their heads and eyes cast down upon the earth, they speak in a low voice, they sigh every moment, they call themselves sinners and miserable creatures at every word; but say anything to them that may give them the least pain,—they are presently troubled, fall into a passion, and discover what they took so much care to conceal—they show that the exterior they put on was a mere disguise and perfect hypocrisy. Now as there is a kind of humility that appears good, but is not, there is also a sort of zeal that appears laudable, yet is not so, because it is indiscreet and not well ordered. It is of this the apostle warns us when he says: “I bear witness that they have the zeal of God, but they have it not with discretion”’ (Romans 10:2) Such was the zeal which our Saviour condemned in St. James and St. John, who felt great indignation because the Samaritans would not receive him; for on being so irritated as to say to our Saviour, “Lord, shall we beg that fire may descend from Heaven to consume them?” He answers them, “You know not what spirit inspires you. The Son of God came not to destroy souls, but to save them” (Luke 9:54) Since there is, therefore, a good and a. bad zeal, and that it is dangerous lest the resemblance they have one to the other should cause us to confound them, it will not be

amiss here to point out the good zeal which is pleasing to God, and the bad zeal which is void of prudence and discretion, that when we know them both very well, we may embrace the one with fervour, and avoid the other with care. St. Denis, treating of this subject, says, we must deal with sinners as we do with those that are blind. Now we are not severe on a blind man for going where he should not, because he knows not whither he goes, and we are never angry with him, but, on the contrary, we feel for him, and even lead him by the hand. Sinners are truly blind, according to the words of Sophonias, “they shall walk like blind men, because they have sinned against our Lord” —,Sophon., i.17. We ought not, then, presently be angry with them, or desire their punishment or destruction, but we ought to have great compassion for them, after the example of the good pastor, who went to seek after his strayed sheep, called it to him, and when he found it, took it upon his shoulders and carried it back in this manner to the fold, and after the example of the father of a family, who received his prodigal’child with the bowels of a true father. This is a zeal which is good and according to God; but the zeal that moves us to anger against sinners is not a good

‘zeal, nor does it please God, because it is not conformable to his infinite goodness.

The same saint relates a thing to our purpose which happened to St. Carpus, whom God favoured with a great many revelations, and who never offered the sacrifice of the altar without being beforehand warned to do so by a particular revelation, and he states that it was St. Carpus himself who told him this story. A new convert permitting himself to be perverted by an infidel, St. Carpus was so afflicted that the day he heard of it he fell sick on account of it, His sickness, however, hindered him not from rising, as he was wont, at midnight to make his prayer. The indignation he felt against this infidel who had seduced the new convert, and against the new convert who had abandoned Jesus- Christ, transported him in such a manner that he made alivély complaint of it to God, saying: It is not just, O Lord, that the wicked should live; how long will you suffer them to do so? Why do you not send fire from Heaven to destroy them? And as soon as he had ended these words, it seemed to him upon a sudden that the house in which he was, trembled and opened asunder, and that out of the middle of the cleft that was made in it there arose a prodigious fire, which ascended even to Heaven. Just over the fire he saw Jesus Christ sitting upon his throne of glory, encompassed with an infinity of angels, and casting afterwards his eyes down upon the earth, he perceived a precipice which reached to the very bottom of Hell, at the bare sight whereof he was filled with horror. The two men against whom he had conceived an indignation were upon the brink of this precipice, who trembled for fear, and from time to time there arose from the bottom of this abyss serpents and snakes, which terrified them sometimes by their hissing, sometimes by winding themselves about their legs and biting them, endeavouring to make them fall in. There also came black men out, who endeavoured to do the same, either by dragging them to them or by pushing them. It seemed to the saint as if he found himself not only pleased to see these two men in this danger, but even displeased that they did not effectively fall in, and he was almost ready to go plunge them in himself. With this thought he lifted up his eyes to Heaven, as it were to beg of God that he would finally destroy them, and then he saw that Jesus Christ, taking compassion on them, descended from his throne into this abyss, and drew them out of the danger in which they were, placing them amongst the angels, and then turning himself towards him, he said, “Now stretch forth thy hand to strike me; I am ready to suffer again for sinners. Do you not think it. better to be in my company and in that of angels, than in the company of serpents and devils?” Afterwards the vision disappeared, and the man of God reaped this fruit from it, that he corrected the indignation to which his zeal had moved him, comprehending, as. we also ought to do, that this kind of zeal was not pleasing to God. God wills not the death of sinners, because they have cost him very dear. They are his “Benjamins, his sons of sorrow”, whom he has brought forth upon the cross, and who have cost him the last drop of his blood! He wills not their death, therefore; he only wills that they be converted, and live eternally.

The prophet Jonas had announced to the Ninivites, on God’s part, that their city should be destroyed in three days; and perceiving that his predictions had no effect, he took it very impatiently that God did not destroy it, as he had threatened to do. In this disposition, he leaves the city, and having made himself a booth, he sat under it in the shadow; and then on a sudden, God caused an ivy tree to grow up, which raising itself — above the head of the prophet, gave him a shade, and defended him from the scorching sun. But the next day the ivy by God’s order withered; and when the prophet, scorched by the sun which shone upon his head, lamented the loss of the ivy, “thinkest thou”, says the Lord, “that thou hast reason to be afflicted? Thou art angry that the ivy is withered, yet thou didst not plant it or dress it, or cause it to grow; and yet thou wouldst not have ° me pardon so great a city as Ninive, in which there are sixty thousand children who are not yet come to the use of reason” (Jonas 4:4,10) There is a thing very remarkable and very much to our purpose, which the emperor Constantine said in the council of Nice, to a bishop called Acacius, who would not admit to penance those who had erred, and who came to abjure their error in the council. O Acacius, says he, pray take a ladder and mount alone to Heaven, if you can! A holy person on a like occasion said to another, who testified too great severity, if that sheep you will not receive into your fold had cost you as much blood as it has cost Jesus Christ, you would bring it back on your shoulders, and not leave it abroad with hazard of its being devoured by wolves.

The holy Scripture in the person of Moses, gives us an admirable model of the zeal which the servants of God ought to have. St. Austin observes very justly in his questions upon Exodus, that Moses being ascended to the top of the mountain of Sinai to receive the law God wished to give his people, received it in two tables of stone which God had made, and which he had engraved on both sides with his own hand; and having found at his return that the Israelites adored a golden calf which they had made, he felt so great indignation that he cast down the tables he carried, and broke them in pieces. Consider, says St. Austin, how great the indignation of Moses must needs be against this sin of the people, because he broke the tables of the law which he had a little before received from God, and which were written by God’s own hand, and were given him with so much pomp and magnificence, after having been forty days and forty nights fasting, and conversing with God face to face. But how great soever his anger was, he returned presently to God, and prayed most fervently for the children of Israel, and begged of him to pardon them, or to blot himself out of the book of life. Behold here, says this father, what ought to be the zeal of the true ministers of God. They ought, on the one hand, be so zealous for God’s glory, that the offences committed against him should even pierce their hearts, and fill them with indignation against sin; and, on the other, they ought to have so great a compassion and tenderness for sinners, that they should presently go and intercede with their God for them, in order to appease his wrath and to obtain their pardon, as Moses did..

St. Paul gives us in himself a like example, when he says in his epistle to the Romans: “I assure you in Jesus Christ that what I say is true, and that I lie not, and my own conscience and the Holy Ghost are my witnesses, that I have an extreme sadness and continual affliction of heart; for I even wished to be myself anathema, or separated from Jesus Christ, for the sake of my brethren the Israelites, my kinsmen according to the flesh” (Romans 9:1,3) The apostle, on the one hand, was sensibly afflicted for the sins of those of his nation, because he had avery great horror of sin; and on the other, he had so great a love and compassion for them, that he wished to be destroyed himself in order to save them. Many different explanations are given of what I have now said, both of Moses and the apostle. St. Jerom says, that it ought to be understood of a corporal death; and that what he desired was, that he might die in time, to save his brethren for eternity; and for this effect he proves that the word anathema is often taken in Scripture only for the separation of the soul from the body. But omitting for the present many other explanations that are given of these two passages, I will speak only of that which St. Bernard gives, and which is both very just and moving. He says, that Moses, in the place I mentioned, speaks to God with the love of a father, or rather

6 B with the bowels of a mother; and that nothing was able to give him any comfort, if his children were excluded from having part with him. Suppose, says he, for example, that a rich man should invite a mother to a feast, and say to her: You shall © come to my house to make good cheer; but as for your child you carry in your arms, you shall leave him behind you, because he will do nothing but cry and trouble us.° Can you believe that this woman would purchase his feast at so dear a rate? Or would she not rather fast than forsake her infant in this manner? And would she not answer him who invited her,— Either I will have none of your feast, or else I will bring my child with me? Behold here, pursues the saint, the very spirit with which Moses spoke to God. He would not enter into the joy of his Lord, if the children of Israel, whom he loved with the tenderness of a mother, were excluded from it.

Now this tenderness of a mother, and these bowels full of charity and compassion for souls that are under the tyranny of the Devil, is what is very pleasing in God’s sight. It is this he requires of our zeal, and this which most particularly belongs to a workman of our Lord; and it is for this reason that St. Paul exhorts us “to put on the bowels of mercy, as the elect and favourites of God” (Colossians 3:12) The apostle would hereby render us conformable and like to God, who is all goodness and mercy, and to this high priest, of whom he says, “for our parts, we have not a priest that cannot have compassion on our infirmities” (Hebrews 4:15);—-and he would have us, in imitation of ‘our Master, compassionate the weakness of our neighbour. St. Ambrose, in his second book of penance, asked nothing else of God than this charitable and tender compassion for the sins of his neighbour; and he obtained it to so great a degree, that Paulinus says of him in his life, that he wept with those that. confessed to him, and even discovered to them the bad state of his own conscience, to encourage them to do the same. Penitents are sooner by this means drawn to God, than by an indiscreet and rigorous zeal: for as nothing moves us more to love than to see ourselves beloved, so the affection which a confessor shows his penitent by a charitable compassion of his weakness,’ gains his heart; and then whatsoever is said to him in this state, makes a deep impression upon him, and whatsoever correction is given him is received with submission and as coming from a father. Hence St. Basil would have all our actions be full of tenderness, “like those of a nurse that cherishes her infant in her bosom”; and that our manner be such, that those we reprehend may be persuaded, that all we say comes from a pure motive of charity, and from a desire of obtaining their everlasting happipiness. This is knowing how “to pour wine and oil into wounds” (Luke 10:34),—as the Samaritan in the gospel did, and as those do who mix sweetness and compassion with reprehension, which is of itself displeasing, and who, by this means, cure the wounds of the soul much better than by treating sinners rudely and harshly. For, ordinarily speaking, you will gain very little upon them by this means, but will rather render them the more obdurate and less capable of counsel, and you will not only cause them to fly from yourself, but make them shun all of your order likewise, because they will suppose all of them to have the same spirit of harshness and severity that you show towards them. St. Bernard, pointing out the mode of reprehending, alleges the example of Joseph, “who could not forbear weeping” (Genesis 45:1),—at the time that he reproached his brethren; and thus he showed that it was not with anger and indignation he did it, but that it was with a heart full of tenderness and affection.

Another reason which may help us very much to obtain this.

compassion for the sins of our neighbour, and hinder us from falling into anger against them, is what Father Avila proposes. The sins of our neighbour, says he, may be looked upon two different ways: either as an offence committed against God, and upon that account we ought to have indignation against them, and to wish they may be punished; or else as an evil against our neighbour, and then we ought to be so far from being angry with them, that we ought to have pity on them. For sin being the greatest of all evils that can happen to men, there is consequently nothing more proper to excite us to compassion than when we consider it in this manner; and even the more a man has sinned, the more he ought to move us to compassion, because his evil is so much the greater, and therefore he is to be pitied. And as the injuries and extravagancies of a madman excite rather com: passion than anger, because we look upon his words rather as an effect of his distemper than any offence that he gives us,‘so our sins do rather excite the compassion than the anger of God, since he is pleased to look upon them rather as an effect of the corruption of our nature than as an offence against himself. Now, what

— we ought to do in regard of the sins of our neighbour is, to look upon them as a distemper; to look upon them with compassion, and not with indignation; to look upon them, in fine, as we would desire that God should look upon ours; and this will be zeal according to God’s own heart, whose bowels are full of

mercy.

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