Sermons on the Song of Songs

OF THE TEMPTATIONS OF MORE MATURE MONKS) BY WHAT FOXES THEY ARE INFESTED, THAT IS, BY WHAT TEMPTATIONS THEY ARE MOST TRIED. ALSO OF THE TAKING OF HERETICS, WHO ARE THE FOXES OF THE CHURCH.

* Take us the foxes, the little foxes \ that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes' — Cant. ii. 15.

I AM now prepared to fulfil the promise I made. The foxes signify temptations. It is unavoidable that temptations should come. For who shall be crowned except he strive lawfully? (2 Tim. ii. 5). And what occasion is there for striving if there be no enemy to oppose? When, then, you enter into the service of God, endure constantly in fear, and prepare thy heart for temptation (Ecclus. ii. 1, 2), being assured that all who will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution (2 Tim. iii. 12). Now, temptations are diverse according to the diversity of times. At the beginning of our spiritual course, when we are as tender and newly-planted flowers, it is evident that we are attacked, as it were, by the violence of cold. Of this I have spoken in a former sermon (No. LXIII., n. 6), and shown how we are to guard against this danger. As to those who are more advanced in holy things, the powerful enemies of good do not venture openly to oppose them, but are wont to lay wait for them in secret, like foxes full of cunning, and, though vices in reality, to put on the appearance of virtues. How many, for example, have I myself known who, when they had entered upon the ways of life, when they had even attained a high degree of perfectness, when they were going on well and safely, and making progress in the ways of righteousness, were, by the devices of these foxes, overthrown with shame and disgrace, and have lamented too late over the fruits of virtues which were blighted in them!

2. I have seen a man running well on his course, and lo, a sudden hesitation and scruple arises in him. Was not that due to one of these 'little foxes'? 'To how many/ he says, 'of my brethren and relations, of my friends and acquaintances, should I be able, if I were living in my own country and neighbourhood, to communicate of that good which I enjoy here alone? They love me, and would easily follow my advice. Why is this waste made? I will go thither, and in saving many of them I shall equally save myself. There is nothing to be feared in a mere change of place. What matters it where I am as long as I am doing a good work? And, in fact, I am without doubt the better placed where I am living a more useful and fruitful life.1 Why repeat more of his reasoning? He goes whither he desires, and, unhappy man, he perishes: rather as a dog returned to his vomit than as an exile who returns to his own land He both comes to a miserable end himself and he fails to save any of his own people. Surely this was a * little fox I mean the deceptive hope which he nourished of gaining over his friends. You are able to find out for yourself other and similar ideas to this in your own mind if you examine it closely.

3. Do you wish, nevertheless, that I should point out to you one more? I will do so; and even a third and a fourth, if I shall find that it renders you watchful to take those that you may perhaps discover in your own vineyard. It happens sometimes that a man who is making good progress in virtue, and who feels that God has poured upon him an abundance of heavenly grace, conceives a desire to preach, not indeed to his relatives and connections, according to that saying, * Immediately 1 conferred not with flesh and blood1 (Gal. L 16), but as if with a purer impulse, and with a design to be more powerful and more fruitful, to preach to strangers, and indeed to all. But still with great prudence. He fears to incur that malediction of the prophet upon him who shall withhold corn from the people (Prov. xi. 26), and to act against the precept of the Gospel if he should not preach to all, and, as it were, upon the housetops, what he has heard in the ear (Matt. x. 27). Now this is the temptation, so to speak, of a fox, and of one who is so much the more dangerous than the former, as he knows how to present himself secretly. But I will take him for you. First, Moses says: Thou shalt do no work with the firstling of thy bullock (Deut. xv. 19). And this is St. Paul's interpretation: Not a novice, lest, being lifted up with pride, he fall into the condemnation of the devil (1 Tim. iii. 6); and again: No man taketh this honour unto himself but he thai is called of God, as was Aaron (Heb. v. 4); and still again: Houf shall they preach except they be sent? (Rom. x. 15). And we know that the function of a rnonk is not to teach, but to mourn for sin (St. Jerome, Contr. Vigil.). Out of these and similar reasons I weave my net; I take my fox, that he may not spoil the vine. From these considerations it is certain and clear that to preach in public is not expedient for a monk, is not becoming to a novice, nor, unless he be sent, even lawful What destruction, then, to the conscience to violate at once all three of these rules! Therefore, whatever of this nature is suggested to the mind, whether it be by your own thoughts or by the prompting of an evil angel, recognise it always as the temptation of a wily fox presenting evil under the guise of good.

4. Look at another case. How many are there who, being fervent in spirit, have left their monasteries and taken upon them a solitary life, and who in the event have fallen back into lukewarmness, and by a careless, if not by an abandoned, way of living, have violated the law of the solitary? It is plain that this was the work of a fox where so extensive a devastation of the vineyard was made; that is, so deplorable an injury to the life and conscience of the man. He supposed that in a solitary life he should gather spiritual fruits with

much greater abundance than if he were in a community in which he obtained only the ordinary gifts of grace. And that imagination of his seemed good to him; but the issue of it showed that it was due to a fox, who was as usual spoiling the vine.

5. What shall I say of that excessive and superstitious abstinence as practised by some among ourselves, who disturb us so often, and render themselves so troublesome to themselves and to all? All the divisions which those singularities produce, do they not break up and lay waste the conscience of those who practise them, and destroy, as far as is in their power, that great vine which the Hand of God has planted, in destroying the unanimity which ought to exist among you all? Woe to that man by whom the offence cometh! (Matt, xviii. 7). Whosoever •, says the Saviour, shall offend one of these little ones (Mark ix. 42) — severe are the words which follow, but how much more severe a sentence does the person deserve who gives scandal to a community so great and so holy! Assuredly, whosoever he is, a very severe judgment shall be passed upon him. But more of this another time.

6. Let us now consider what is said by the Bridegroom with regard to those small but cunning foxes which spoil the vines. ' Little/ not because they have little malice, but because of their subtlety. This kind of creature is by nature astute, and quick to inflict injury in secret. For this reason it seems to me well suited to be the type of certain very subtle vices, which are cloaked with an appearance of virtue, such as those of which 1 have already given some few examples. For they have, in fact, no other power to injure than that which they derive from passing themselves off as virtues, and thus deceiving by a kind of likeness which they have to the latter. They are either the vain imaginations of men, or the suggestions of evil angels, the angels of Satan, who transform themselves into the Angels of light (2 Cor. xi. 14), who prepare their arrows within the quiver (that is, in concealment) that they may privily shoot at the upright in heart (Ps. xi. 2). This is why, as I think, they are called 'little,' because, while other vices are, as it were, bulky, and show themselves openly, these are slender, subtle, and hard to be recognised, except by those who are perfect, experienced, and clear sighted, having their eyes enlightened to discern between good and evil, and especially by those advanced in the spiritual life, who are able to say with the Apostle, ' We are not ignorant of the devices [of Satan]' (2 Cor. ii. n). Perhaps, too, this is the reason why the command of the Bridegroom is, not that they should be exterminated, or driven away, or slain, but that they should be taken; namely, because such little spiritual beasts (bestiolas) as these are full of craftiness, and require to be watched with the utmost vigilance and care, so that they may be taken (that is, caught in the trap of) their own craftiness. Therefore when their device is discovered, their fraud laid bare, their falseness demonstrated, then with the utmost fitness is it said that there is taken the little fox which spoiled the vine. It is thus, in fact, that we speak of a man being taken in his discourse, as we read in the Gospel that the Pharisees took counsel that they might entangle Jesus in His talk (Matt. xxii. 15).

7. Thus, then, the Bridegroom orders the little foxes, which spoil the grapes, to be taken — that is, to be surprised, discovered, and convicted. This kind of pest alone has it for a distinct mark that if known and recognised it has no power to harm, so that for it to be discovered is to be vanquished. For who, except a person void of understanding, would step knowingly and wilfully into a trap that is discovered to him? It is sufficient, then, for temptations of that kind to be ' taken ' — that is, to be uncovered and brought into the light; to those who have become aware of them they are harmless. It is not thus with other vices. For their attack is openly made, and their powers of injury are manifest; they take captive even those who are aware of them, they overcome the reluctant, but by open force, and not by guile. Therefore against those (as it were) ferocious brutes what is needed is not to seek them out, but to overcome and render them powerless. Against these * little foxes ' (who, because they are unable to hurt if discovered, have extraordinary powers of concealing themselves) it suffices that they be brought out into the light, for they have hiding-places, and taken in their own craftiness. For such reasons those foxes are described as * little/ and ordered to be taken. Or again, they may be named thus to show that vices should be diligently observed in their earlier stages, that they may be taken while they are still young and small, and not allowed to grow greater, when they will both do more injury, and be with greater difficulty mastered.

8. If we understand these words in an allegorical sense, so as to take the vines as signifying Churches, and the foxes as heresies, or rather as the heretics themselves, the simple and natural sense is that heretics should be * taken ' rather than merely driven away. They should be taken, I say, not by force of arms, but by force of arguments, by which their errors are refuted, and they themselves, if possible, brought back to the true faith, and reconciled to the Catholic Church.1 For this is the will of Him who desires all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Tim. ii. 4). He shows here, in fact, that He desires this, since He says, not simply Take the foxes, but Take us the foxes. He desires, then, that they should be taken for Him. and for His Bride — that is, the Church Catholic, since He says: 1 Take them for us.' Therefore the Churchman, who is skilled and learned, if he undertakes to argue with a heretic, ought to direct his endeavours to convince him that he has erred, and to convert him, bearing in mind that saying of the Apostle James: He which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins (James v. 20). If he is unwilling to be brought back, and is not convinced after a first and a second admonition, because he is entirely perverted, then, according to St. Paul, he is to be rejected (Titus iii. 10). In this case it would be preferable, as I consider, that he should be driven away, or even a restraint put upon his liberty, than that he should be allowed to spoil the vines.

9. Let it not, therefore, be supposed that a man has done a small or unimportant thing who has vanquished and refuted a heretic, who has disproved his heresy, who has distinguished clearly and plainly his fair-seeming theories from the truth, who has shown by obvious and irrefragable reasoning the faultiness and erroneous nature of his dogmas; and, in short, has subjugated that haughty and perverted intellect which set itself up against the knowledge revealed by God. He who has brought about such results as these has * taken ' the fox nevertheless, though not to his conversion and saving; he has taken him equally for the Bridegroom and the Bride, though after another manner. For the Church is strengthened in the faith, though that heretic be not raised up out of the mire of his errors; while the Bridegroom, without doubt, rejoices in the spiritual progress of His Bride, and the joy of the Lord is our strength (Neh. viii. 10). He who is so condescending as to associate Himself with us, regards our advantage as a matter in which He has an interest, and, therefore, bids the foxes be taken, not for Himself, but for us with Himself. Note the phrase, 'Take for us' — what can be more companionable and friendly? Does it not seem to you that He says this, as it were, like some father of a family, who possesses nothing separately for himself and his own advantage, but shares all things with wife and children and domestics? And He who thus speaks is God; yet He does not say this at all as God, but as the Bridegroom.

10. Take us the foxes. Do you see in how social and equable a manner He says this, He who has no companion or equal? He might have said, 'Take for me/ but He delights to associate others with Himself, and, therefore, preferred to say, 'Take for us.' O sweetness, O grace, O power of love! Is it possible that the Sovereign of all has become one of the mass of beings? Who has done this? It is Love; which is regardless of dignity, rich in condescension, powerful in affection, efficacious in persuasion. AVhat more forceful than love? It prevails even with God. And yet, since it is Love, is there anything that is more gentle? What strength is that, I ask, which is so forceful for victory, so gentle in the face of violence? For the Lord emptied Himself (Phil. ii. 7), so that you might know it to be the effect of His great love, that His Fulness was poured forth and expended, that His loftiness was brought down to the level of others, and His unique position associated with them. With whom is it, O admirable Bridegroom, that you have so close and intimate an alliance? 'Take for us,' you say, 4 the foxes/ For whom ' with you?' Is it for the Church gathered out of the Gentiles? That is composed of mortal and sinful beings. What she is, we know; but Thou, what art Thou, to be the devoted and eager spouse of this Ethiopian woman? (Num. xii. 1) Not another Moses, assuredly, but a greater than Moses. For Thou art

He who is fairer than the children of men (Ps. xlv. 2). But in saying this I have said too little: Thou art the brightness of the Eternal Life, the Splendour and express Image of the Person of God (Heb. i. 3); and finally, Thou art above all, God blessed for ever.