Volume III, Treatise IV, Chapter V

Of the Nature of Love; How Violent and Dangerous @ Passion It I=— How Much We Ought to Dread It

Love is the most dangerous of all passions: for, as it is the most strong and violent of all, so we find that it is the most difficult to be conquered, and the most capable of bringing on our utter ruin. St. Austin, to show the power of love, and how much we ought to fear it, selects two examples from holy writ: the first is taken from the disobedience of Adam. What made Adam, says this saint, break God’s command and eat the forbidden fruit? Was he so credulous as to fancy that eating it ’ would make him like God, as the serpent told Eve? No; it is not at all probable that he, who was endowed with so much wisdom, should be so blinded as to believe such an improbability. This is what the apostle says, “Adam was not seduced, but it was the woman who being seduced was the cause of his fall”—I, Tin., ii. 14. It was Eve, therefore, and not Adam, that was deceived; he gave no credit to the serpent. Hence Almighty God asked Eve, “Why hast thou done this?” And she replied, “The serpent deceived me, and I did eat” (Genesis 3:138) But when he put the same question to Adam, he did not answer: The woman whom thou gavest me deceived me, and I did eat; he only said, ‘“The woman whom thou didst assign me for my companion, gave me some of the fruit of the tree, and I did eat”?— Gen., iti, 12. His affection and love for her were so great, that rather than afflict her, he complied with what she desired, so that it was love deceived him. Nor was it a sensual love which subdued him; no, but he was subdued by a love of benevolence, as those sometimes are who offend God rather than.

displease a friend. This was the gate by which sin, death, and all other miseries and misfortunes entered into the world.

The other example is Solomon’s idolatry. What was it, says St. Austin, that made Solomon an idolater? Certainly the wisest of men could never be so stupid as to attach divinity to an idol, or think it useful to worship it. There must be then some other cause why he offered incense to them. _ Would you know what it was? It was love, as the Scripture positively declares in these words—“He loved a great many women that were strangers and gentiles, concerning whom God had given this commandment to the children of Israel: none of you shall marry any of these women, nor shall any of their people espouse your daughters; for certainly they will pervert you, and make you worship their gods. Solomon notwithstanding loved them most passionately, and in his old age his heart was turned away by them to adore their strange gods”—III. Kings, xi. 1, etc. Solomon did not obey God’s orders, and therefore what God had foretold happened to him. For most of his concubines differing from each other in their way of worship, he ordered them to have particular idols set up that they might adore them, and he himself adored them and offered incense to them. ‘ Not”, says St. Austin, “that Solomon judged their idols worthy of adoration, but being besotted with love, he was afraid to offend those women, whom he was so passionately fond of as to idolize them in his heart”.

The saints and masters of a spiritual life, taught by these two sad examples, and by many more of the like nature, advise us to stand continually upon our guard against this dangerous passion, and against all the occasions which may give birth to it. And let no one imagine, say they, that even the love which is most pure, and which is founded only on virtue and merit, is free from danger. For however pious the conversation may be—however likely to promote spiritual advancement,—yet there is ever cause to fear, and one cannot be too much on his guard. The reason is, because all holy doctors state, particularly St. Bonaventure, that spiritual love easily degenerates into that which is carnal and sensual. It is at first the best and purest wine. But it afterwards happens, according to the words of Isaias, “your wine is mixed with water” (Isaias 1:22),—that they mix it with water, which destroys all its goodness. It is a great cordial of itself, yet it is often spoiled and adulterated by other mixtures, and thus it is that the Devil lays his baits to seduce us. In this he acts like the bridegroom of Cana in Galilee, who told his steward that waited at the marriage feast, “that it was the custom to serve in the best wine first, and after the guests were well warmed to bring in worse”—John, ii, 10. The Devil wishes to make those believe who are engaged in such friendship, that virtue is their only object, that piety is the sole cause of their correspondence, and that an advancement in good is their only motive for engaging in this particular familiarity. But when once the engagement is made, he discovers his malice and venom. All the fine things he showed them at first were but a bait to draw them into his snare. Nor does it weary him to keep a person long in this error; for he thinks not the time long which he devotes to this project, if he can at last but compass the end of his design, which is to change chaste and virtuous love into that of flesh aud blood. How many, says St. Bonaventure, have begun their friendship under the appearance of piety, imagining that their only objects were the service of God and their own salvation! And perhaps this was really the case at first; yet afterwards this virtuous and holy friendship degenerated by little and little, and entertainments not altogether spiritual crept in, “and so what was begun spiritually unfortunately ended carnally”—Gal., in. 3.

Gerson relates a story of a holy man, no less commendable for his learning than virtue, who, instructing for some time a young ‘woman of great sanctity, and having had many pious discourses with her, came at last to conceive such a violent affection for her, that he could not refrain from paying her very frequent and long visits, and had her, when absent, always in his thoughts. Though an affection of this nature could not be from God, yet as, according to himself, he had no bad intention (in which particular many are deluded and blinded), he was so far overseen, that he did not believe there was any harm at all or any illusion of the Devil in it. Nay, he persisted in this error, till being once obliged to take a long journey, he found by the great difficulty he felt in leaving her, that his kindness for her was not so spiritual as he imagined, and that had not God by this absence taken him from the occasion, he was on the point of falling into very great disorders. The same Gerson, speaking of the dangers and illusions of love, says, that everything which has the appearance of charity, is not charity; that all is not gold that glitters; and adds, that a holy man used to say that nothing caused so much diffidence and fear in him as love, even between persons of great sanctity and eminent virtue. And to this purpose he cites these words of the wise man, ‘‘ There is a way that seems right to a man, and yet it leads to death” (Proverbs 16:25),—and such, says he, is the way we are speaking of.

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