Volume III, Treatise V, Chapter I

Excellency of the Virtue of Obedience

“Do you think that God would have you offer him victims and holocausts? No, he would rather have you obey his commands; because obedience is far better than victims, and it is better for you to comply with his will than to offer him the fat of rams”— I, Kings, xv. 22. This is what Samuel told Saul, when that prince had reserved the best and fairest flocks of the Amalecites for sacrifice, contrary to the express command God had given him, which was, totally to destroy the Amalecites and all that belonged to them. The holy fathers take occasion from this and several other passages of holy Scripture, which declare the excellence and merit of obedience, to bestow the highest praise on this virtue. St. Austin, in several passages of his works, asks, why God forbade Adam to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; and one of the reasons he gives is, that it was, to teach man how great a good obedience is of itself, and how great an evil disobedience is”—~Lib. i. contr. ado. Leg. e Proph. For it was not the fruit of the tree that wrought all those evils which followed from Adam’s sin; because the tree had nothing that was bad in it, since God himself “saw all his works to be excellent and good” (Genesis 1:31),—nor is it to be presumed that he would permit any evil thing to grow in Paradise. Disobedience therefore, and a breach of God’s prohibition, was the cause of all the evil. And for this reason St. Austin says, that nothing shows the malice of disobedience more than the punishment inflicted upon Adam for eating the forbidden fruit, which was harmless and innocent in itself, independent of the prohibition. Let those who easily dispense with obedience in small matters learn from hence to see their error, and to correct it. For the sin does not arise from the nature of the thing, but from the disobedience, which always“vitiates the act, let the thing be of great: or small importance. St. Austin, giving another reason why God issued the prohibition to Adam, says, that since man was created to serve God, it was necessary to restrain him in some one particular, to make him sensible of his dependence upon & superior power, for otherwise he would not so easily have known it. And therefore God tried him by obedience, which was an act whereby he was not only to acknowledge his Creator, but also to merit, if he had pleased, an eternal union with him in the end. This holy father, after passing an high encomium on this virtue, concludes its commendation thus, that one of the reasons which moved the Son of God to take human-nature upon him was to teach us obedience by his own example. Man, says he, was disobedient even to death, that is, death was the deserved punishment of his disobedience; and the Son of God made himself man, that he might be obedient even to death. Adam’s disobedience shut Heaven’s gates against us, Christ’s obedience threw them open. ‘For, as by the disobedience of one man, many sinned; so, by the obedience of one, many were justified” —fRom., v. 19. Nor can there be a greater argument of the merit or excellence of this virtue than the glorious reward which God has given to the sacred humility of his Son Jesus Christ, ‘who was obedient to death, even the death of the cross: for which”, says St. Paul, “God has exalted him, and given him a name above all other names, the holy name of Jesus, at which all the powers of Heaven, Earth, and Hell do bend their knees” (Philippians 2:8), etc.

The holy fathers bestow the highest praises on this virtue; but I will here confine myself to one of the good qualities they assign it, and only treat of it as one of the chief virtues of a religious. St. Thomas, who usually adheres scrupulously to scholastic principles, asks, whether obedience be the chief and principal vow made in religion; and, having answered himself in the affirmative, he proves his assertion by these three following reasons, no less profitable than solid. The first is, that by the vow of obedience we offer more to God than by the other vows. By the vow of poverty we sacrifice our riches, by that of chastity our body, but by obedience we offer up our will and understanding, and entirely sacrifice the whole man to God, which, undoubtedly, is the noblest sacrifice of the three. St. Jerom, speaking of the difference “between sacrificing ourselves and sacrificing our riches” is of the same opinion, and says, “that a consummate virtue is not requisite to forsake our riches, since those who are only novices in perfection are capable of it: Antisthenes and other heathen philosophers have done it before us: but to sacrifice ourselves to God belongs peculiarly to Christians and apostolical men”. Hence, St. Thomas remarks on this subject, that Christ, speaking to his disciples concerning the reward he had prepared for them, did not say, “ye that have left all”, but “ye that have followed me”; for all perfection lies in following Christ. “Verily I say unto you, that you who have followed me shall sit upon twelve thrones”— Mat., xix. 28. Now, the counsel of obedience is included in these ‘ words; for, as the holy doctor adds, obedience is nothing else than to follow the sentiments and will of another.

The second reason why obedience has the preference is, because it really includes the other virtues, and is not included in any. For, though a religious bind himself by the two distinct vows of poverty and chastity, yet both these obligations are contained in the vow of obedience, by which he is obliged in general to observe all that shall be commanded him. This truth is so evident, that the Benedictine and Carthusian monks make no other vow than that of obedience. “I promise obedience according to the rule”, says the religious at his profession; and under these words the vows of chastity and poverty are comprised, according to the rules and practices of the order.

The third reason is this, the more a thing advances us to the. end for which it was instituted, and the more it unites us to that end, the more perfect it is. Now, it is obedience which most unites religious with the end of their institution. For as, to make us attain the end for which our society has been instituted, it commands us to labour for our own and our neighbour’s spiritual advancement, it commands us to give ourselves to prayer and mortification, to employ ourselves in hearing confessions, to preach the word of God, and exercise ourselves in all those functions which conduce to the helping onr neighbours and saving their souls; in like manner, it prescribes to all other religious what they are to do, in order to attain the particular end of their institution; and by consequence the vow of obedience is more excellent and perfect than the other vows.

St. Thomas draws a conclusion from hence of very great consequence, viz., that the very essence and soul of a religious life consists chiefly in the vow of obedience. For suppose one should

‘ live in voluntary poverty and chastity, or even engage himself to such a life by vow, this would not make him a religious, nor would he be in the perfect state of religion, if he should not add the vow of obedience. Unless a man makes a vow of obedience, he cannot be a religious; it is obedience which makes religious, and places them in a religious state. St. Bonaventure is of the same opinion, and says, that the perfection of ‘a religious man consists in denying his own will, and following the will of another; and that the vows of poverty and chastity, by which we renounce riches and sensual pleasures, are only helps to disengage us from temporals, and from the allurements of the flesh, that we may be in a better capacity to comply with our main obligation, which is that of obedience. And therefore he adds, that it will signify nothing to have renounced all the goods of fortune, unless-we deny our own will also, and entirely submit to all the injunctions of holy obedience.

Surius, in the life of St. Fulgentius, who was first an abbot, and afterwards bishop, amongst many other remarkable things, related, that whenever he spoke of obedience, he always used to say, “that these were true religious, who, having mortified and broken their own wills, lived in a holy indifference to all things, and gave themselves totally into the hands of their superiors, by neither willing or not willing anything of themselves, but by following their abbot’s counsel and commands in. all things”. Take notice that he does not fix-religious perfection in austerity and mortification of the body, nor in continual.labour, nor in pro-“found learning, nor in good talents for preaching, but only in a submission of our will to our superiors, and in self-denial.

You may infer from what has been said, that obedience is the virtue which essentially constitutes religion and properly makes areligious. It is this that pleases God more than all the sacrifices we can make him; it is this that comprises not only poverty and chastity, but all other virtues also. For, admit that you be truly obedient, you cannot fail of being poor, chaste, humble, modest, patient, mortified, and in a word, master of all virtues. This is no exaggeration, it is plain truth. Virtuous habits are got by a frequent exercise of their particular acts, and this is the only way that God is pleased to bestow them upon us.- Now, obedience gets us this frequent exercise: for all that our rule prescribes, or our superior commands, is an exercise of some virtue. Take obedience along with you for your guide, and embrace all the occasions which it shall present you, and you need do no more. Sometimes you will meet with an occasion to exercise your patience, sometimes humility, sometimes poverty, and at other times mortification, and now and then temperance and chastity; and thus, as you improve in obedience, so will you advance in all other virtues. This is the opinion of our holy founder, who, speaking to his children, says, according as obedieuce shall flourish amongst you, so all other virtues will equally flourish with it, and produce in your souls the fruits which I desire. All holy men agree in this one point; and for this reason call obedience the mother and source or origin of all other virtues. St. Austin calls it, “the greatest of virtues, and likewise the mother and source of all virtues”.: ‘This is the only virtue”, says St. Gregory, “that plants other virtues in our mind, and preserves them after they are once planted”. The same St. Gregory and St. Bernard, in their explanation of these words of the Proverbs, ‘“‘ the obedient man shall speak of victory” (Proverbs 21:28),—says, that an obedient man shall get not only one, but even many victories, and with them make himself master of all virtues.

If you therefore desire a short and easy way to make great progress in virtue in a little time, and thereby to attain great, perfection, be obedient. “That is the way; you need only follow it without turning either to the right or left, and you shall soon come to the place you wish for” (Isaias 30:21) St. Jerom speaking of obedience, says, “O great and abundant happiness! O extraordinary grace! For obedience is an epitome of all virtues, because it leads directly to Jesus Christ; and if we follow the way which it points out to us, we shall soon be perfect men”.

St. John Climacus came one day to a monastery, in which he saw many venerable religious men, who were always ready upon the least sign given them, to do whatsoever was commanded them; and he says, that some of them had been enlisted under the standard of obedience for above fifty years. He asked them what benefit they had derived from this their submission: some of them answered, that they were hereby come to a most profound humility, and by that means had defeated the Devil in several dangerous attempts he had made upon them; others said, that it had taken from them all resentment of any injury or affront offered them. Thus we see how much obedience helps to acquire all other virtues. And therefore the ancient fathers of the desert looked upon an hermit’s submissive obedience to his ghostly father as an infallible sign that he would one day become a perfect man.

St. Dorotheus tells us that his scholar Dositheus was of a good family and of a very delicate constitution, and that whilst he was in the world, he was struck with a lively apprehension of the judgment, and of the rigorous account he was one day to give of himself, God granting to him the request which the Royal Prophet made in these words, “pierce my flesh with a fear of thee; for I tremble at thy judgments” (Psalms 118:120) To be able to answer for himself on that great day he became a religious; but finding that his health would not permit him to rise at midnight to matins, nor eat the ordinary diet, nor comply with the ordinary observances of the community, he resolved to devote himself entirely to obedience, and to serve in the infirmary in the most low offices, and to do whatsoever was commanded him there, though ever so humiliating. Having done this for five years, he died of consumption, and God revealed to the abbot of the same monastery that Dositheus had merited as much as St. Paul and Anthony the hermits had done. When the other religious heard this, they began to murmur and complain, saying, Where is God’s justice, if a man that never fasted, and that always eat of the best, be equal to us who perform all duties of religion, “and bear the heat and burden of the day”?—Mat., xx. 12,-what are we the better for all our austerities? Our continual labour and pain signify nothing. Whilst they were thus complaining, God gave them to understand that they did not know the worth and excellence of obedience, and that it was of so high a value in his sight that Dositheus had merited more by it in a short time, than several of them had done by their long and rigid mortifications.

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