# The Art of Dying Well

## About this edition

St. Robert Bellarmine’s *De arte bene moriendi*, first published in 1620, considers how to live in preparation for death and how to meet the final hour. The work has two books, with sixteen and seventeen chapters respectively.

This reading translation follows the Latin text in *Opera omnia*, volume VIII, edited by Justin Fèvre (Paris: Louis Vivès, 1875). The introductory note is editorial; Bellarmine’s preface follows.

The [source volume is available at Internet Archive](https://archive.org/details/operaomniarobert0008just). Selected source comparisons have corrected broken joins, short omissions, and transcription errors. This is a reading translation; a complete scholarly review has not been established.

These English drafts were prepared with AI assistance using SWE-2 Max and then edited for Remember Eternity. Website review has checked structure, source provenance, and selected passages and corrections; it has not checked every sentence against the original. This is not a certified translation or an ecclesiastically approved edition.

This edition is available to read and download free of charge. No open reuse licence is stated for this modern English edition. Free access does not establish republication permission; the source transcriptions and editorial material may have separate terms.

## PREFACE

As I pondered the art of dying well in my accustomed retreat, where, free from public business, I have leisure to attend to myself, and asked myself what the reason might be that so very few endeavor to learn the art of dying well, though it ought to be most familiar to all, nothing occurred to me except what the Wise Man says: the number of fools is infinite (Eccl. 1). For what greater folly can be imagined or conceived than to neglect that art on which the highest and everlasting goods depend, and yet to learn with great labor, and to practice with no less zeal, very many and almost innumerable arts, by which perishable goods are either preserved or increased? Moreover, that the art of dying well is the greatest of all arts, no one will deny who is willing to reflect attentively that at death an account must be rendered to God of all that we have done, said, or thought during the whole course of our life (Matt. 12), down to a single idle word, with the Devil accusing and conscience bearing witness, while the punishment of eternal death or an everlasting reward awaits us. Even in matters of the slightest importance, litigants take no rest, but go now to advocates, now to attorneys, now to judges, now to the friends or relatives of these same men; and yet at death, when a cause touching eternal life or eternal death is pending before the Judge, the defendant, often unprepared and weighed down by sickness, scarcely in possession of himself, is compelled to render an account of things of which, while he was in good health, he perhaps never once thought. Hence it is that wretched mortals rush in throngs into hell; and as St. Peter says: If the just man shall scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? (1 Pet. 4). I therefore thought it worthwhile first to admonish myself, and then my brethren, that we should highly esteem the art of dying well; and if there be any who have not yet learned this art from other, more learned teachers, that they should at least not despise what we have taken care to gather concerning this art from the sacred books and the writings of the ancient masters. But before we come to the precepts of this art, I thought it worthwhile to inquire into the nature of death: whether death is to be ranked among good or among evil things. And indeed, if death be considered in itself, it must without any doubt be reckoned an evil, since it is opposed to life, which we cannot deny to be a good. Moreover, as the Wise Man teaches, God made not death, but by the envy of the devil death entered into the world (Wis. 1–2); and the Apostle Paul agrees with this when he says: By one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death, in which all have sinned (Rom. 5). Certainly, if God did not make death, it cannot be good, since everything that God made is good, as Moses says: And God saw all the things that He had made, and they were very good (Gen. 1).

But although death is not good in itself, yet the wisdom of God knew how to season it, so to speak, so that many good things can arise from death. Hence David sings: Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints (Ps. 115); and the Church, speaking of Christ, says: Who by dying destroyed our death, and by rising again restored life. Surely the death that destroyed death and restored life must needs have been exceedingly good; accordingly, if not every death, at least some death must be called good. And so St. Ambrose did not hesitate to give a book the title On the Good of Death, in which book he shows plainly enough that death, though born of sin, has no small advantages of its own.

There is, finally, a further reason which shows that death, though evil in itself, can by the grace of God produce many good things. For first, we gather a great good from death in that it puts an end to the very many and greatest miseries of this life. Holy Job laments in express words the miseries of the present life: Man, he says, born of a woman, living for a short time, is filled with many miseries (Job 14). Ecclesiastes says: I have praised the dead rather than the living, and I judged happier than either him who has not yet been born nor seen the evils that are done under the sun (Eccl. 4). Ecclesiasticus adds and says: A great travail is created for all men, and a heavy yoke is upon the children of Adam, from the day of their coming out of their mother's womb until the day of their burial into the mother of all (Sir. 40). The Apostle also laments the miseries of this life and says: Unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? (Rom. 7).

By these testimonies of the divine oracles, then, it is sufficiently proved that death has this good in it, that it frees man from the very many miseries of this life. Then death brings a still more excellent good, since it becomes a gate leading from a prison to a kingdom. This was revealed by the Lord to St. John the Evangelist and Apostle when he was in exile for the faith on the island of Patmos: I heard, he says, a voice from heaven saying to me: Write: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord. From henceforth now, says the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; for their works follow them (Rev. 14). Truly blessed is the death of the saints, which at the bidding of the heavenly King leads the soul out of the prison-house of the flesh and brings it to the heavenly kingdom, where holy souls that have finished their labors sweetly rest and receive the crown of the kingdom as the reward of their works. But death also brings no slight benefit to the souls that are led to purgatory, since it frees them from the fear of hell and makes them certain of future and everlasting happiness. What is more, even to the wicked themselves the coming of death seems to bring some advantage, for by separating them from the body it brings it about that the measure of their punishment increases no further. On account of these excellent benefits, death does not show to pious men a horrifying face, but a gentle one; not terrible, but lovely. Hence the Apostle Paul confidently exclaims: For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain (Phil. 1), having a desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ. And in his first Epistle to the Thessalonians, he admonishes good Christians (1 Thess. 4) not to be saddened at the deaths of their dear ones, nor to mourn them as dead, but to look upon them as sleeping. There also lived, within the memory of our forefathers, a certain holy woman named Catherine Adorna, of Genoa, who so burned with the love of Christ that with incredible desire she longed to be dissolved and to depart to her Beloved; hence, as though captivated by a love of death, she often praised it as most beautiful and most lovely, finding fault with it only for this, that it fled from those who sought it and sought those who fled from it. Let the reader consult the life of Blessed Catherine of Genoa, ch. 7. From what has been said, then, we hold that death, as the offspring of sin, is an evil; but that by the grace of Christ, who deigned to undergo death for us, it has become in many ways useful and salutary, lovely and desirable.

## BOOK ONE

### CHAPTER I.

Of the first precept of the art of dying well, which is that he who desires to die well should live well.

I now approach the precepts of the art of dying well. We shall divide this art into two parts: in the first we shall set down the precepts that are to be used while we are in good health; in the second, those that will be needed when we labor under a dangerous illness, so that death may reasonably be believed to be at the door. And in the first part we shall set down first the precepts that pertain to the virtues, then those that pertain to the Sacraments; for by these two we are especially helped, both to live well and to die well. But before all these there seems to have to be placed the general precept that he who desires to die well should live well: for since death is nothing but the end of life, surely everyone who lives well up to the end dies well; nor can he die ill who has never lived ill, just as he who has always lived ill dies ill, and he who has never lived well cannot but die ill. We observe the same thing in all similar cases: for everyone who keeps to the right road arrives without error at the place to which he is bound, whereas he who strays from the right road will never reach his journey's end; and he who diligently applies himself to the study of the sciences soon turns out learned, or even a doctor, while he who frequents the schools but does not bend his mind to acquiring the disciplines loses his oil and his labor.

But perhaps someone will object with the example of the good thief, who always lived ill and ended his life well and blessedly. It is not so; rather, that devout thief lived devoutly and holily, and for that reason also died a devout and holy death. For although he spent the greater part of his life in crimes, yet he passed the other part of his life so holily that he easily purged away his past sins and gained extraordinary merits. For, burning with charity toward God, he openly defended Christ from the calumnies of the impious; and burning likewise with charity toward his neighbor, he admonished and rebuked his blaspheming companion and tried to call him back to a better life. For he was still living this mortal life when he said to his companion: Neither dost thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing evil (Luke 23); nor was he dead, but that same thief was still alive, when he uttered that noble cry, confessing Christ and calling upon Him: Lord, remember me when Thou shalt come into Thy kingdom. And so he seems to have been one of those who came last to the vineyard and received their reward before the first.

True, therefore, and universal is that saying: He who lives ill, dies ill. Yet it must not be denied that to defer to the very end of life one's conversion from sins to righteousness is a thing full of dangers; and that far happier are they who begin to bear the yoke of the law of God "from their youth" (Lam. 3), as Jeremiah says; and happiest in every way are they who "were purchased from among men, the first-fruits to God and to the Lamb," who not only "were not defiled with women," but in whose mouth no lie was found, and who "are without spot before the throne of God" (Rev. 14). Such was Jeremiah the prophet, and John, more than a prophet, and above all the Mother of the Lord, and the others, both men and women, whom the knowledge of God alone knows. Let this first statement, therefore, stand firm: the rule of dying well depends upon the rule of living well.

### CHAPTER II.

On the second precept of the art of dying well, which is, to die to the world.

Now, in order that a man may live well, it is necessary first of all that he die to the world before he dies to the life of the body. For all who live to the world are dead to God; nor can it in any way come about that a man begins to live to God unless he first dies to the world. Moreover, this truth is preached in Holy Scripture with such evidence that it cannot be called into doubt except by infidels and unbelievers. And that "in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may stand," I will bring forward the holy Apostles John, James, and Paul, witnesses beyond all exception, inasmuch as in them the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of truth, spoke most plainly. Thus, then, writes John the Apostle and Evangelist, presenting Christ Himself as speaking: "The prince of this world cometh, and in Me he hath not anything" (John 14), where by the prince of the world he understands the devil, who is the prince of all the wicked, and by the world he understands the company of all sinners who love the world and are loved by the world. The same says a little further on: "If the world hate you, know that it hath hated Me before you. If you had been of the world, the world would love what was its own; but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you" (John 15). And in another place: "I pray not for the world, but for those whom You have given Me" (John 17), where Christ plainly declares that under the name of the world are meant those who, together with their prince the devil, will hear at the judgment: "Depart, you cursed, into everlasting fire." The same Apostle adds in his Epistle: "Love not the world, nor the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him; for all that is in the world is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life, which is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the concupiscence thereof; but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever." James likewise speaks thus in his Epistle: "Adulterers, know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever, therefore, will be a friend of this world becometh an enemy of God." Finally, let us hear Paul, the fellow Apostle of them both, that vessel of election: writing in his First Epistle to the Corinthians to all the faithful, he says, "Otherwise you must needs go out of this world" (1 Cor. 5); and in another place in the same Epistle, "But while we are judged, we are chastised by the Lord, that we be not condemned with this world" (1 Cor. 11). Here the Apostle plainly teaches that the whole world will be condemned at the last day. Yet by the world are not meant heaven and earth, nor all who live in it, but only those who love the world. For the just and devout, in whom reigns the love of God and not the concupiscence of the flesh, are indeed in the world, but not of the world; the wicked, however, are not only in the world but also of the world, and therefore in their hearts there reigns not the love of God but the concupiscence of the flesh — that is, lust — and the concupiscence of the eyes, which is avarice, and the pride of life, which is the esteeming of oneself above others; and so they imitate the arrogance and pride of the devil, not the humility and meekness of Jesus Christ. Since, then, this is so, if we wish to learn the art of dying well, it is our bounden duty to go forth from the world in earnest — not in word and in tongue, but in deed and in truth — nay, to die to the world, and to cry out with the Apostle, "The world is crucified to me, and I to the world" (Gal. 6). And this is no light matter, but a business of the greatest difficulty and importance: for our Lord, when asked, "Are they few that are saved?" answered, "Strive to enter by the narrow gate" (Luke 13); and still more clearly He speaks in St. Matthew: "Enter ye in at the narrow gate; for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat. How narrow is the gate, and strait the way, that leadeth to life, and few there are that find it" (Matt. 7). Now, to live in the world and at the same time to despise the pleasures of the world is very difficult: to look upon beautiful things and not love them; to taste sweet things and take no delight in them; to despise honours and seek out labours; willingly to take the lowest place, and to yield the highest to all others; in fine, to live in the flesh as though one had no flesh — this seems to belong to angels rather than to men. And yet the Apostle, writing to the church of the Corinthians, in which nearly all were living with their wives, so that they were neither clerics, nor monks, nor hermits, but, in the phrase now current, seculars; yet he thus addresses them: "This therefore I say, brethren: the time is short. It remaineth that they also who have wives be as if they had none; and they that weep, as though they wept not; and they that rejoice, as if they rejoiced not; and they that buy, as though they bought not; and they that possess, as though they possessed not; and they that use this world, as if they used it not; for the fashion of this world passeth away" (1 Cor. 7). The meaning of these words is that the Apostle exhorts the faithful, who are lifted up by the hope of heavenly happiness, to be as little moved by earthly things as if those things did not concern them; that they should love their wives, but with a love so moderate as if they had them not; that if they must weep over the loss of children or of fortune, they should weep so moderately as if they were not sorrowful and did not weep; that if joy presents itself on account of some gain or honour obtained, they should rejoice so temperately as if they did not rejoice — that is, as if the joy did not belong to them; that if they buy a house or a field, they should be so little attached to such things as if they did not possess them. In a word, the Apostle bids us sojourn in the world as though we were strangers and pilgrims, not citizens — as the Apostle Peter teaches still more plainly when he says: "I beseech you, as strangers and pilgrims, to refrain yourselves from carnal desires, which war against the soul" (1 Pet. 2). For this most blessed Prince of the Apostles wills that even in our own city and our own house we should live as though we dwelt in the house and country of another, troubled very little whether things in that place are wanting or abound. And he gives this command precisely that we may so abstain "from carnal desires, which war against the soul" — for carnal desires do not easily arise when we look upon things that do not belong to us. This, then, is what it means to be in the world and yet not of the world; and it belongs to those who, being dead to the world, live to God alone, and who therefore do not fear the death of the body, which brings them not loss but gain, according to that word of the Apostle Paul: "For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain" (Phil. 1).

But how many, I ask, shall we find in our times so dead to the world that they have already learned even to die well to the flesh, and thereby to place their salvation in safety? For my part, I do not doubt that in the Catholic Church there are to be found not a few holy men, truly dead to the world, who have learned the art of dying well — not only in monasteries and among the clergy, but even in the world. Yet I see that this also cannot be denied: very many are to be found who are not only not dead to the world, but bound to it beyond measure, and the most ardent lovers of pleasures, honours, and riches; and unless these resolve to die to the world, and in very deed die to it (1 Cor. 11), they will without doubt perish by an evil death and, with the world itself, as the Apostle says,

But perhaps the lovers of the world will say that it is too difficult to die to the world while we are living in it, and to neglect those good things which God created for men to enjoy. To them, therefore, I answer that this is not what God wills or commands — that riches, honours, and the other goods of the world should be utterly neglected or despised: for Abraham was a friend of God above all, and he possessed immense riches. David also, and Hezekiah, and Josiah, are read of as kings who were exceedingly rich and at the same time most dear to God; and we could say the same of many Christian kings and emperors. Therefore the goods of this world — riches, honors, pleasures — are not utterly forbidden to Christian men; but the immoderate love of the things of this world is, which the Apostle John calls the concupiscence of the flesh, the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life. Abraham was certainly very rich, but not only did he use his riches with moderation; he was also most ready to pour out everything at once at God's nod (Gen. 22). For he who did not spare his only son, his best and most beloved, when God commanded that he be sacrificed by his own father — how much more easily would he have poured out all his wealth at the Lord's nod? Thus Abraham was rich in possessions, but richer still in faith and charity; and for that reason he was not of this world, but rather was dead to the world. The same can be said of the other holy men who, though endowed with riches, power, and glory, and even with kingdoms and empire, were poor in spirit and dead to the world, living to God alone, and learned the art of dying well most thoroughly. It is not, then, the abundance of riches, nor the height of honor, nor kingdom or empire that makes a man to be of the world or to live in the world, but the concupiscence of the flesh, the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life — which in one word is called cupidity, and is opposed to divine charity. Accordingly, if anyone begins, with God inspiring him, truly to love God Himself for His own sake, and his neighbor for God's sake, he will begin to go out of the world; and as charity grows, cupidity will diminish, and he himself will begin to die to the world. For charity cannot grow without cupidity being diminished. And so it will come about that what seemed impossible while cupidity reigned — namely, that a man living in the world should not be of the world — is rendered most easy as charity grows and cupidity is lessened; for what is to cupidity an unbearable and harsh burden is to charity a sweet yoke and a light burden.

What we said above, therefore — that to go out of the world and to die to the world is not children's play, but a very great and most difficult thing — was most truly said of those who have not known the power of God's grace and have not tasted the sweetness of charity, and who are sensual, having not the Spirit; for once the Spirit has been tasted, all flesh loses its savor. Let everyone, then, who earnestly desires to learn thoroughly the art of dying well — the art on which eternal salvation and all true happiness depend — not put off going out of the world and dying utterly to the world; since it can in no way happen that anyone should live both to the world and to God, or enjoy both earth and heaven.

### CHAPTER III.


On the third precept of the art of dying well, which concerns the three theological virtues.

We taught in the preceding chapter that the man who goes out of the world yet does not die to the world cannot die well; now we must add what he who is dead to the world must do in order to live to God. For dying well is given only to one who has lived well, as we showed in the first chapter. The sum of living well is set down by the Apostle in the first epistle to Timothy in these words: "The end of the commandment is charity from a pure heart and a faith unfeigned" (1 Tim. 1). The Apostle was not ignorant of the Lord's answer to the man who had asked, "What must I do to possess eternal life?" (Luke 10) — for He answered, "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments" (Matt. 19); but he wished to explain in very few words the end of that primary commandment, on which the whole law, and the understanding and fulfillment of the whole law, and the way to eternal life depend; and at the same time he wished to teach which virtues are necessary for perfect justice, of which he had said elsewhere, "Now there remain faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity" (1 Cor. 13). He says, then, "The end of the commandment is charity" — that is, the end of all the commandments whose observance is necessary for living well is placed in charity, so that whoever has the charity of God fulfills all the commandments that pertain to the second table. The same Apostle explains this latter part, which could seem more obscure, in the Epistle to the Romans, saying: "He that loveth his neighbor hath fulfilled the law. For: Thou shalt not commit adultery; Thou shalt not kill; Thou shalt not steal; Thou shalt not bear false witness; Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is summed up in this word: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. The love of our neighbor worketh no evil; love therefore is the fulfilling of the law" (Rom. 13). From this reasoning, everyone can understand for himself that all the commandments that refer to the worship of God are likewise fulfilled in this one charity. For just as charity toward our neighbor works no evil to our neighbor, so also charity toward God can work no evil to God; and therefore the fullness of the law, both toward God and toward our neighbor, is love.

What true and perfect charity is, both toward God and toward our neighbor, the same Apostle declares when he says, "Charity from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a faith unfeigned." In these words we understand by "a good conscience" — with St. Augustine, in his preface to the thirty-first Psalm — the virtue of hope, which is one of the three theological virtues. Now hope is called a good conscience because it is born of a good conscience, just as despair is born of an evil conscience; hence that saying of St. John: "Dearly beloved, if our heart do not reprehend us, we have confidence toward God" (1 John 3). There are, then, three virtues in which the perfection of the Christian law consists: charity from a pure heart, hope from a good conscience, and faith unfeigned. But just as charity is first in the order of perfection, so faith is first in the order of generation, according to that saying of the same Apostle: "Now there remain faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity" (1 Cor. 13).

Let us begin with faith, which first of all comes to exist in the heart of a man who is to be justified. Not without cause did the blessed Apostle add to faith the word "unfeigned." For faith begins justification provided it is true and sincere, not false or feigned. The faith of heretics does not begin justification, because it is not true but false; the faith of bad Catholics does not begin justification, because it is not sincere but feigned. Now faith is called feigned in two ways: when a man either does not believe the things that are true but feigns that he believes, or when he does indeed believe but does not live as he believes he must live. In both senses those words of Blessed Paul in the Epistle to Titus seem to be understood: "They profess that they know God, but in their works they deny Him" (Titus 1). For so the holy Fathers interpret them: St. Jerome in his commentary, and St. Augustine in his sermon 31 On the Words of the Apostle.

And from this first virtue of the just man it can easily be understood how great is the multitude of those who do not live well, and who therefore will also die badly. I pass over heretics and atheists, who are wholly ignorant of the art of living well. But among Catholics, how great is the number of those who in words profess that they know God, but in their deeds deny Him? Who confess that Christ is the judge of the living and the dead, and yet live as though they had no judge? Who do not fear to call the Mother of the Lord a harlot? Who praise prayers, fasts, almsgiving, and the other works of the virtues, yet always practice the contrary vices? I omit the rest, which are known to all. Let them not boast, therefore, that they have a faith unfeigned: either they do not believe what they falsely claim to believe, or they do not live as the Catholic faith commands that we must live; and so let them acknowledge that they have not yet begun to live well, nor let them hope to die happily, unless, with the grace of the Lord breathing upon them, they thoroughly learn the art of living well and of dying well.

The second virtue of the man who is truly just is hope, or a good conscience, as our master, the Apostle Paul, judged it should be called in this place. This virtue is born of faith; for a man cannot hope in God who either does not know the true God or does not believe Him to be powerful and merciful. But for arousing and strengthening hope, so that it may be called not only hope but also confidence, a good conscience avails most of all. For with what face will a man approach God and ask benefits of Him, who is conscious within himself of sin committed against God and not yet expiated by true repentance? For who asks favors of an enemy? Who trusts that he will be helped by one whom he does not doubt to be angry with him? Hear what the Wise Man thinks of the hope of the wicked: "The hope of the wicked," he says, "is as dust that is blown away with the wind, and as a thin froth that is scattered by the storm, and as smoke that is dispersed by the wind, and as the remembrance of a guest of one day that passeth by." So says the Wise Man, most wisely warning the wicked that their hope is a fragile thing, not solid; brief, not lasting. For while they live they can in some way hope that they will one day do penance and be reconciled to God; but when death comes, unless God first comes to them with a special mercy and inspires them with repentance, their hope will be changed into despair, and together with the other wicked they will say what is read in the same place: "Therefore we have erred from the way of truth, and the light of justice hath not shined unto us," etc. (Wis. 5): "What hath pride profited us? or what advantage hath the boasting of riches brought us? All those things are passed away like a shadow." This is what the Wise Man, who wisely admonished us, meant: that if we wish to live well and die happily, we must not dare to remain clinging to sin even for a moment of an hour, deceived by an empty confidence that much of life still remains to us and that in due time we will do earnest penance; for this empty confidence has deceived many, and will deceive still more, unless they prudently learn the art of dying well while there is still time.

There remains the third virtue, which is rightly called the queen of virtues, namely charity, with which no one perishes and without which no one lives, neither on the way nor in the fatherland. Now true charity is said to be that which is born from a pure heart — not that purity of heart properly begets charity. For charity is from God (1 John 4), as St. John says; and St. Paul says it more clearly when he writes: "The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, who is given to us" (Rom. 5). Charity is therefore said to be from a pure heart, because charity is not enkindled in an impure heart, but in one purified from errors by divine faith — according to that word of the Apostle Peter, "purifying their hearts by faith" (Acts 15) — and purified by divine hope from the ardor and desire of earthly things. For just as fire is not enkindled in green wood full of watery moisture, but in dry wood, so also the fire of charity requires hearts purified from earthly love and from an empty confidence in one's own strength. From this we can understand what is true charity and what is false and counterfeit. For if someone perhaps speaks gladly of God, and is moved to compunction even to tears in prayer, and performs certain good works, distributing alms and fasting often, but in such a way that he still retains in his heart impure love, vainglory, hatred toward his neighbor, and other things of that kind which render the heart impure and sordid — such a one bears not divine and true charity, but an empty semblance or image of charity. Most wisely, therefore, the holy Apostle, when speaking of true and perfect justice, did not simply name faith, hope, and charity, but said: "Now the end of the commandment is charity from a pure heart, and a good conscience, and an unfeigned faith" (1 Tim. 1).

And this is the true art of living well and dying happily: if one perseveres until death in this true and perfect charity.

### CHAPTER IV.

On the fourth precept of the art of dying well, which contains three evangelical lessons.

Although what has been said on faith, hope, and charity may seem sufficient for living well, nevertheless, in order to accomplish these same things more perfectly and more easily, Christ Himself deigned to give us three lessons in the Gospel. For thus He speaks in the Evangelist Luke: "Let your loins be girt, and lamps burning in your hands; and you yourselves like to men who wait for their lord, when he shall return from the wedding; that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open to him immediately. Blessed are those servants, whom the Lord, when he cometh, shall find watching" (Luke 12). This parable can be understood in two ways: of preparation for the coming of the Lord on the last day, and for His coming on the day of each one's death. And this latter explanation, which is that of St. Gregory in his thirteenth Homily on this Gospel, seems more pertinent to our purpose; for the expectation of the last day will pertain only to those who will then be found alive, whereas the Lord proposed it to the Apostles and to all of us. Certainly the successors of the Apostles were for many ages very far removed from the last day. Moreover, many signs will precede the last day, which will strike fear into men, as the Lord says: "There shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, men withering away for fear and expectation of what shall come upon the whole world" (Luke 21). But no certain signs will precede the coming of the Lord to the particular judgment on the day of each one's death; and this coming is signified by those words so very often repeated in Holy Scripture: "when he is least expected."

Let us therefore briefly explain this parable, and let us understand that preparation for death is, for all of us, the most necessary business of all. The Lord commands all of us to do three things: first, that our loins be girt; secondly, that we have burning lamps in our hands; thirdly, that we be like men waiting for their lord — for we are no less ignorant of when he will come than we are of the coming of a thief.

Let us explain those words: "Let your loins be girt." The literal meaning of these words is that we should be ready and unencumbered to run to meet Christ when death calls us to the particular judgment. The image is taken from the custom of the Orientals, who wore long garments, and when they were about to walk quickly they would gather up the garment and gird their loins, lest the length of the garment hinder their course. Hence it is also said of the angel Raphael, who had come to accompany the younger Tobias, in the book of Tobit: "Then Tobias going forth found a beautiful young man, standing girded, and as it were ready to walk" (Tob. 5). And from this same custom of the Orientals St. Peter wrote: "Wherefore, having the loins of your mind girt up, being sober, trust perfectly," etc. (1 Pet. 1); and St. Paul in his Epistle to the Ephesians: "Stand," he says, "having your loins girt about with truth" (Eph. 6).

Moreover, to have the loins girt signifies two things: first, the virtue of chastity; secondly, a readiness to meet Christ coming to judgment, whether the particular or the general judgment. The former explanation is given by the holy Fathers: Basil, in his exposition of the fifteenth chapter of the prophet Isaiah; Augustine, in his book On Continence; and Gregory, in his thirteenth Homily on the Gospel. For truly the concupiscence of the flesh, beyond all the other passions of the soul, hinders a swift and unencumbered course to meet Christ at his coming; just as, on the contrary, nothing renders a man more unencumbered for following Christ than virginal chastity. For in the Apocalypse we read that virgins follow Christ whithersoever he goeth (Rev. 14), and the Apostle exhorts us, saying: "He that is without a wife is solicitous for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please God; but he that is with a wife is solicitous for the things of the world, how he may please his wife, and he is divided" (1 Cor. 7).

But the other explanation, which does not restrict the girt loins to continence alone, but extends it to a ready obedience to Christ in all things, is that of St. Cyprian, in the eighth chapter of his book Exhortation to Martyrdom; and it is the one followed by those who have written commentaries on the Gospel of Luke. The sense, then, of these words is that the affairs of this life, even the most necessary and important, must not so occupy our minds as to hinder the thought that must come first: preparing ourselves to meet Christ when he calls us through death to render an account of all our works, yea, even of all our words and thoughts, down to every idle word and useless thought. What then will they do when death comes upon them unawares, who are wholly absorbed in temporal affairs, and have never at any time thought of the account to be rendered to God of all their works, all their words, all their thoughts, all their desires, and all their omissions? Will such men run to meet Christ with their loins girt? Or rather, entangled and ensnared, will they not lie in their filth, dumb and despairing? For what will they answer the Judge when he says: "Why did you not attend to my words, with which I admonished you, saying: Seek first the kingdom of God and his justice, and all these things shall be added unto you (Matt. 6)? And why did you not consider those words which were so often sung to you publicly in the Church: Martha, Martha, thou art careful, and art troubled about many things; but one thing is necessary. Mary hath chosen the best part, which shall not be taken away from her (Luke 10)? If I reprehended the solicitude of Martha, who desired most devotedly to serve me, can your solicitude please me — your eagerness to heap up superfluities, to attain perilous honors, to satisfy harmful desires, and meanwhile to forget the kingdom of God and his justice, which above all things is most necessary?" But let us come to the second duty of the diligent and faithful servant: "And lamps burning in your hands" (Luke 12). It is not enough for the faithful servant to have his loins girt, so that he may run freely and unencumbered to meet the Lord; a burning lamp is also required to show him the way, since the Lord is awaited in the night as he returns from the wedding feast. The lamp in this place signifies the law of the Lord, which points out the good way (Ps. 118). "A lamp to my feet," says David, "is thy word." And "the law is a light," says Solomon in the Proverbs (Prov. 6). But this lamp gives no light and shows no way if it is left in the bedchamber or in the house; it must therefore be held in the hands, that it may point out the right way. Many there are who know the divine and human laws, yet they commit many sins, or omit good and necessary works, because they do not carry the lamp in their hands — that is, they do not apply their knowledge of the law to their works. How many most learned men there are who perpetrate the gravest sins because, when they act, they consult not the law of the Lord, but their anger, or their lust, or some other of the passions of the soul!

If King David, when he saw Bathsheba naked, had consulted the law of the Lord — "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife" — he would never have fallen into so great a crime; but because he consulted the beauty of the woman, forgetting the divine law, this man, otherwise just and holy, committed adultery. We must therefore always keep the lamp of the law of the Lord not hidden away in a chamber, but in our hands, and obey the words of the Holy Spirit, who bids us meditate on the law of the Lord day and night (Ps. 1), and say with the Prophet himself: "Thou hast commanded Thy commandments to be kept most diligently. O that my ways may be directed to keep Thy justifications!" (Ps. 118) For he who always holds the lamp of the law of the Lord before the eyes of his mind will go to meet his Lord in security when He comes. There remains the third and last duty of the faithful servant: to keep watch always, uncertain when the Lord will come. "Blessed," He says, "are those servants whom, when the Lord shall come, He shall find watching." (Luke 12) Our Lord did not will that all men should depart this life at a fixed and certain time, lest throughout the whole time before it they should indulge in gluttony and drunkenness, in games and sports and other evil works, and then be converted to God a little before death. Divine Providence therefore willed that nothing should be more uncertain than the hour of death: some die in their mother's womb, some scarcely born, some in extreme old age, some in the flower of youth; and again, some languish for a long time, some die suddenly, some recover from a most grave and almost incurable illness; others fall only slightly ill, and when they seem safe from death, the force of the disease grows and carries them off. To mark this uncertainty our Lord says in the Gospel: "And if he shall come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants. But this know ye: that if the master of the house did know at what hour the thief would come, he would surely watch, and would not suffer his house to be broken open. Be you then also ready: for at what hour you think not, the Son of man will come." (Ibid.) Moreover, that we might understand how important it is to be convinced of the uncertainty of the time at which the Lord will come to judge — whether at the death of each one or at the end of the world — nothing does Holy Scripture repeat more often than that word "Watch" (Matt. 24 and 25; Mark 13; Luke 12 and 21), and the comparison of the thief, who usually comes when he is least expected. The word "Watch" is repeated again and again in the

Gospel of Matthew, of Mark, and of Luke, and the comparison of the thief is found not only in the Gospels, but also in the Epistles of the Apostles and in the Apocalypse.

From all this one can understand how great is the negligence and ignorance — not to say the madness and folly — of the greater part of mankind, who, though warned so often by the very Spirit of truth through the holy writers, who could not lie, that we should prepare ourselves for death as for the greatest and most difficult of affairs, on which depend our supreme and eternal happiness or our supreme and eternal ruin — yet few are roused by the words, or rather by the thunder, of the Holy Spirit.

But someone will say: "What counsel do you give us, that we may watch as we ought, and by watching prepare ourselves for a happy death?" Nothing more useful occurs to me than that we should frequently prepare for death by a serious examination of conscience. Indeed, Catholics who are about to make their yearly confession of sins do not omit the examination of conscience. And again, when they begin to fall ill, by a decree of Pope Pius V physicians are forbidden to visit the sick a second time until, after a previous examination of conscience, their sins have been expiated through confession. In fine, there are almost none in the Catholic Church who, when death is imminent, do not confess their sins after first examining their conscience. But what shall we say of those who are snatched away by sudden death? What of those who suffer from madness, or fall into delirium before confession? What of those who, crushed by the gravity of their illness, cannot even think how many and what sins they have committed? What of those who sin while dying, or die while sinning — as those do who are killed in an unjust war, or in single combat, or caught in adultery? To avoid these and similar misfortunes prudently and religiously, nothing more useful can be devised than that those who have their eternal salvation at heart should diligently examine their conscience twice each day — namely, in the morning and in the evening: what they did, said, desired, or thought during the night or the preceding day, and in what the stain of sin may have entered. And if they discover anything of the kind — especially what might appear mortal — let them not delay to seek the remedy of true contrition, with the resolution to approach the sacrament of Penance at the very first opportunity. Let them therefore ask God for the gift of contrition, let them reflect on the gravity of sin, let them detest their guilt from the heart, and let them seriously consider who has offended whom: namely, that a puny little man has offended almighty God, and a useless servant the Lord of heaven and earth. Let not the eye spare its tears, nor the hand the beating of the breast; and finally let them form a true and effective resolution never again to provoke God by sin, nor to offend the best of Fathers. If this examination is duly kept up morning and evening, or at least once a day, it will scarcely be possible for anyone to sin in dying, or to die in sinning, or to be overtaken by delirium, or madness, or other mischances. And thus it will come about that, being well prepared for death, neither will the uncertainty of death hinder us, nor will the happiness of everlasting life fail us.

### CHAPTER V.

On the fifth precept of the art of dying well, in which the error of the rich of this world is exposed.

To what has been said above there must be added the refutation of a certain error that spreads everywhere among the rich of this world and greatly hinders a good life and a happy death. The error consists in this: the rich suppose that the wealth they possess is absolutely and simply their own, when they possess it by a just title; and that therefore they may of right spend it, give it away, or squander it, and that no one can say to them: "Why do you act so? Why do you dress so splendidly? Why do you feast so sumptuously? Why do you waste money so freely on keeping dogs or hawks, or on games of chance, or on other amusements?" For they will answer: "What is it to you? Am I not free to do what I will with what is my own?" Now this error is without doubt most grave and most pernicious. For granted that the rich of this world are masters of their wealth in comparison with other men; yet in comparison with God they are not masters, but administrators, or stewards, or bailiffs. And this can be shown by many testimonies.

Hear the royal Prophet: "The earth," he says, "is the Lord's and the fulness thereof: the world, and all they that dwell therein" (Ps. 23); and again elsewhere: "Mine are all the beasts of the woods, the cattle on the hills, and the oxen. If I should be hungry, I would not tell thee: for the world is mine, and the fulness thereof" (Ps. 49); and in the first book of Chronicles, when David had offered for the building of the temple three thousand talents of gold, and seven thousand talents of the most refined silver, and Parian marble in the greatest abundance; and when, following the king's example, the princes of the tribes had offered five thousand talents of gold, ten thousand talents of silver, eighteen thousand talents of brass, and also a hundred thousand talents of iron, David said to God: "Thine, O Lord, is the magnificence, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and to Thee is praise: for all things that are in heaven and on earth are Thine. Thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and Thou art above all princes; Thine are riches, and Thine is glory; Thou hast dominion over all. And: Who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to promise Thee all these things? All things are Thine; and what we have received from Thy hand we have given to Thee." (1 Chr. 29) To this may be added the testimony of God Himself, who says through the prophet Haggai: "Mine is the silver, and Mine is the gold" (Hag. 2); which the Lord said so that the people might understand that nothing at all would be wanting for the new building of the temple, since He who ordered the temple to be rebuilt is the very one to whom belongs all the gold and silver that is found in the whole world.

I will add two more testimonies from the New Testament and from the very words of Christ. In Luke there is the parable of the unjust steward. "There was a certain rich man," says the Lord, "who had a steward; and the same was accused unto him, that he had wasted his goods. And he called him, and said to him: How is it that I hear this of thee? Give an account of thy stewardship; for now thou canst be steward no longer." (Luke 16) By the name of the rich man there can be no doubt that God is meant — God who, as we said a little before, cries out through Haggai: "Mine is the silver, and Mine is the gold" (Hag. 2). By the title "steward," or "manager" (oikonomos) as it reads in the Greek codices, must be understood the rich man, as the holy Fathers explain: St. John Chrysostom, quoted in St. Thomas's Catena Aurea; St. Augustine in his Evangelical Questions, book 2, question 34; St. Ambrose, Bede, Theophylact and Euthymius, and others on this passage of the holy Evangelist Luke.

Every rich man of this world, therefore, if he believes the Gospel, must confess that the riches he possesses, whether held by a just or an unjust title, are not his own; but that if he possesses them by a just title, he is a steward or manager for God, and if by an unjust title, a thief and a robber. Now that a rich man in this world is not the master of the riches he possesses can be understood from this: when he has been accused of injustice before God, God removes him from his stewardship, either by the death of the body or by want; for this is the meaning of those words: "Give an account of thy stewardship, for now thou canst be steward no longer." Nor does God lack many ways of reducing the rich to poverty and of thus removing them from the stewardship: shipwrecks, robberies, hailstorms, caterpillars, excessive rains, excessive droughts, excessive storms, and many other things of the kind are the voice of God, saying to the rich: "Thou shalt no longer be steward." But what the Lord says at the end of the parable — "Make unto you friends of the mammon of iniquity, that when you shall fail, they may receive you into everlasting dwellings" (Luke 16) — does not mean that alms are to be given out of unjust riches, but that alms are to be given out of riches which in truth are not riches, but only the shadows of riches. This is clearly gathered from the same passage of the Gospel according to Luke, where the Lord says: "If then you have not been faithful in the unjust mammon, who will trust you with that which is the true?" (Ibid.) The meaning of these words is this: "If in the unjust mammon" — that is, if in false riches — "you have not been faithful," so as to distribute them liberally to the poor, "who will trust you" with the riches that truly make a man rich? So St. Cyprian understood and explained this passage in his sermon On Works and Almsgiving; and St. Augustine expounded it in much the same way in book two, question thirty-four, of his Questions on the Gospel, where he says that the mammon of iniquity is riches which only the wicked and the foolish count as riches, while just and wise men esteem them as nothing, and hold spiritual gifts alone to be true riches. There is another passage of the Gospel in the same sixteenth chapter of St. Luke, which may be regarded as a commentary on the parable of the unjust steward. "There was a certain rich man," says the Lord, "who was clothed in purple and fine linen, and feasted sumptuously every day. And there was a certain beggar, named Lazarus, who lay at his gate, full of sores, desiring to be filled with the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table, and no one gave him any; but the dogs also came and licked his sores. And it came to pass that the beggar died, and was carried by the Angels into Abraham's bosom. And the rich man also died, and he was buried in hell" (Luke 16). This rich glutton was certainly one of those who suppose they are the masters of their own riches, and not stewards or managers for God; and therefore he did not think he sinned against God, when he was clothed in purple and fine linen, and feasted sumptuously every day, and kept his dogs and his buffoons, and the like. For he perhaps said within himself: "I am spending my own money; I do injury to no one; I do not violate the laws of God; I do not blaspheme, nor swear falsely; I keep the sabbath; I honor my parents; I do not kill, nor commit adultery, nor steal, nor bear false witness; nor do I covet my neighbor's wife or anything else that is his." But if that was so, why was he buried in hell? Why was he tormented in the fire? We must therefore acknowledge that all are deceived who suppose they are the absolute masters of their money; for if the rich man had committed other more grievous sins, Holy Scripture would certainly have mentioned them. But since nothing more is added, we are given to understand that the superfluous adornment of his body with costly garments, his daily splendid banquets, and the multitude of his servants and dogs, while he had no compassion on the poor, were cause enough for him to be condemned to eternal torments.

Let it therefore be a fixed rule for living well, and also for dying well, often to reflect upon, seriously to consider, and to turn over in the mind, that an account must be rendered to God for superfluous luxury in palaces, in gardens, in carriages, in the multitude of servants, in the costliness of garments, in banquets, in the heaping up of riches, and in other unnecessary expenses — by which a great injury is done to the multitude of the poor and the sick, who lack what others have in superfluity; and who without doubt cry out to God even now, and on the day of judgment will not cease to cry out, until they too, together with the rich glutton, are given over to inextinguishable flames.

### CHAPTER VI.

On the sixth precept of the art of dying well, in which three moral virtues are explained.

Although the three theological virtues, faith, hope, and charity, in a certain brief summary contain all the precepts of living well, and by that very fact also of dying well; yet the Holy Spirit, the primary author of all the divine books, for the better understanding of this most healthful art, willed to add three other virtues, which help men in a wonderful way to live well and also to die well. These are sobriety, justice, and piety; of which the Apostle Paul speaks thus in his Epistle to Titus: "The grace of God our Savior hath appeared to all men, instructing us that, denying ungodliness and worldly desires, we should live soberly, and justly, and godly in this world, looking for the blessed hope and coming of the glory of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ" (Titus 2). This therefore will be the sixth precept of living well and dying well: that, "denying ungodliness and worldly desires, we should live soberly, and justly, and piously in this world"; here is contained the sum of the whole divine law, contracted into one sentence of incredible brevity. "Decline from evil, and do good" (Ps. 36), says the holy prophet David. In evil there are two things: a turning away from God, and a turning toward creatures — according to that word of Jeremiah: "My people have done two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and have dug for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that cannot hold water" (Jer. 2:13). What then will he do, who wishes to decline from both evils? He will deny ungodliness and worldly desires. For ungodliness turns us away from God, and worldly desires turn us toward creatures. But as to doing good, we then fulfill the law when we live soberly, and justly, and piously — that is, when we are sober toward ourselves, just toward our neighbor, and pious toward God.

But it is good to explain these things a little more fully, so that this most healthful and most brief precept may be more easily reduced to practice. What then is ungodliness? A vice contrary to piety. What is piety? A virtue, or gift of the Holy Spirit, by which we regard God, worship Him, and venerate Him as our Father. We are therefore commanded so to deny ungodliness that we may "live piously in this world"; or, what amounts to the same thing, so to live piously in this world that we deny all ungodliness. But why are these two things stated, when either one would suffice? Doubtless it pleased the Holy Spirit to speak in this way, so that we might understand that, if we wish to please God, we must cultivate piety in such a manner that it has no impiety mixed with it. For there are not lacking among Christians those who cultivate piety while they pray to God, while they assist at the tremendous sacrifice, while they listen to the priest preaching; but meanwhile they either blaspheme God in jest, or swear by God without cause, or do not fulfill the vows they have made to God. And what else is this, but to worship God piously and yet to be impious toward God? Those therefore who desire to live well, so that it may be given them to die well, must so worship God in piety that they deny all impiety — nay, even every shadow, however faint, of impiety. For it is of little profit to hear Mass daily and to venerate Christ in the sacred mystery, if meanwhile you impiously blaspheme God, or swear by Him

This too must be diligently noted: that the Apostle did not say "denying ungodliness," but "all ungodliness" — that is, every kind of impiety; and not only the heinous sort, but even the slightest. This is said against those who make little of swearing without necessity, of looking at women in holy places with a wanton eye, though not a lascivious one, of conversing during the sacred solemnities, and of committing other sins of the kind — as though they did not believe that God is present, and beholds all things, and marks even the slightest sins. "Our God is a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Him, and showing mercy unto thousands, to those who love Him and keep His commandments" (Exod. 20). This very thing the Son of God taught by His own example: for although He was meek and humble, and "when He was reviled, did not revile; when He suffered, He threatened not" (1 Pet. 2), yet when He saw in the temple those who were selling doves, and the money-changers sitting there (John 2), inflamed with great zeal, He made a scourge of little cords and drove out the sellers and the buyers, and overturned the tables of the money-changers; and He said: "It is written: 'My house is a house of prayer'; but you have made it a den of thieves." And this very thing He did twice: once in the first year of His preaching, as St. John testifies, and once in the last year, as the other three Evangelists testify (Matt. 21; Mark 11; Luke 19; John 2). Let us proceed to the second virtue, which directs our actions toward our neighbor. The second virtue is justice, of which the Apostle says: Denying worldly desires, let us live justly. Here that general maxim also has its place: Turn away from evil and do good (Ps. 36); for there can be no true justice toward one's neighbor where worldly desires do not cease. For what do worldly desires signify, if not the concupiscence of the flesh, the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life, which are not of God but of the world, or of this present age? Therefore, just as justice cannot exist together with the pride of life, so worldly desires cannot in any way be joined with true justice. A son of this world may indeed feign justice in word and tongue, but in deed and in truth he will by no means be able to practice it. Most wisely, therefore, the holy Apostle did not say only, Let us live justly; but he premised, Denying worldly desires, to signify that the root infected with the poison of concupiscence must first be torn up, before the good tree of justice can be planted in a good and perfect heart.

What it is to live justly does not seem open to doubt; for it is known to all that justice commands this, that to each one be given his due. Render to all their dues, says the Apostle: tribute to whom tribute is due, custom to whom custom, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor (Rom. 13). Tribute is owed to the ruler, honor to parents, fear to masters; for thus the Lord speaks through Malachi: If I am a father, where is My honor? and if I am a master, where is My fear? (Mal. 1). To the seller is owed a just price, to the laborer a just wage, and in like manner for the rest. And with no less reason — indeed with far greater — those whose office it is to exercise distributive justice ought to confer these things on the more deserving, and not, through respect of persons, on those more closely connected or more beloved. If anyone, therefore, wishes to learn the art of living well and dying well, let him hear the Wise Man crying out at the beginning of his book: Love justice, you that judge the earth (Wis. 1). Let him also hear St. James lamenting in his Epistle: "Behold the hire of the laborers who have reaped your lands, which has been kept back by you through fraud, cries out; and their cry has entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth." (James 5).

There remains the third virtue, which is sobriety, to which worldly desires are no less opposed than they are to justice. For by sobriety in this place we do not understand only the virtue opposed to drunkenness, but in general the virtue of temperance or moderation, which makes a man measure according to reason, and not according to desire, the things that are necessary for sustaining or preserving the body. Now this virtue is most rarely found among men, and worldly desires seem to have filled the houses of nearly all the rich. But the wise ought not to look to what fools do, however many and almost innumerable they may be, but to what the wise do. Certainly Solomon was most wise, and yet he prayed to God, saying: Two things I have asked of You; deny them not to me before I die. Give me neither beggary nor riches; give me only the necessaries of life (Prov. 30). The Apostle Paul was wise and he said: Having food, and wherewith to be covered, with these we are content; for we brought nothing into this world, and without doubt we can carry nothing out (1 Tim. 6). And this reasoning is most wise. For why should we be anxious about superfluous riches, when we cannot carry them with us to the place to which we are going through death? Christ the Lord was not only wiser than Solomon and Paul, but was divine wisdom itself; and yet He said: Blessed are the poor, and woe to you that are rich (Luke 6). And of Himself He said: The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air nests; but the Son of man has not where to lay His head (Luke 9). If in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall stand (Deut. 19), how much more ought every word to stand in the mouth of these three wisest of men? And what if we add that the riches which are superfluous to us are not ours but the poor's, as the common opinion of the holy Fathers and scholastic Doctors holds? Are they not fools, who diligently guard that for which they will be condemned to hell by divine judgment?

If anyone, therefore, desires to learn thoroughly the art of living well and dying happily, let him not follow the crowd, which does not believe or esteem anything but what it sees; but let him follow Christ and His Apostles, who taught by word and deed that present things are to be disregarded, and that the blessed hope and the coming of the glory of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ are to be looked for (Tit. 2). For truly, so great is that which we hope for at the glorious coming of our Lord Jesus Christ from heaven to judgment, that all the glory, and all the riches, and all the past joys of this world are to be accounted as though they had never been; and they are to be judged most foolish and most unhappy, who in a matter of such moment have chosen to put their trust in fools rather than in the wise.

### CHAPTER VII.

On the seventh precept of the art of dying well, which concerns prayer.

Thus far we have drawn the precepts of dying well from the three theological virtues, faith, hope, and charity; and again from the three moral virtues, sobriety, justice, and piety, of all of which the blessed Apostle Paul admonished us. I will now add another precept drawn from the three works of virtue, prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, which we learned from the Angel Raphael; for thus we read in the book of Tobit that the angel Raphael spoke: Good is prayer with fasting and alms, more than to lay up treasures of gold (Tob. 12). Now this triad of good works is the fruit of three virtues — religion, mercy, and temperance — which bear a great likeness to piety, justice, and sobriety. For just as piety has regard to God, justice to one's neighbor, and sobriety to oneself, so also prayer, which is the act of religion, has regard to God; almsgiving, which is the act of mercy, has regard to one's neighbor; and fasting, which is the act of abstinence, has regard to oneself. About prayer many have written much; we, according to the design of our work, will explain only three heads: one on the necessity of prayer, another on the fruits of prayer, and a third on the manner of praying fruitfully.

The necessity of prayer is so evident in the divine Scriptures that nothing could be clearer or more expressly enjoined. Although God knows the things of which we stand in need, as the Lord Himself affirms in Matthew (Matt. 6), yet He wills that we ask for them, and that through prayer — as through spiritual hands, or some instrument fitted for this purpose — we should obtain them. Hear the Lord in Luke: We ought always to pray, and not to faint (Luke 18); likewise: Watch at all times, praying (Luke 21). Hear the Apostle: Pray without ceasing (1 Thess. 5). Hear Ecclesiasticus: Let nothing hinder you from praying always (Sir. 18). These precepts do not mean that we should do nothing else, but that we should never forget this so wholesome exercise, and should return to it again and again. This the Lord and His Apostle taught us by their example. For Christ and the Apostle did not so always pray as not also to teach the people, and to confirm their preaching by signs and wonders; and yet they could be said to pray always, because they prayed most frequently. In this sense are those words to be understood: My eyes are ever toward the Lord (Ps. 24); and: His praise shall be always in my mouth (Ps. 33); and that saying of the Apostles: They were always in the temple, praising and blessing God (Luke 24).

Now the fruits of prayer are chiefly three: merit, satisfaction, and impetration. Concerning merit, we have the testimony of Christ in the Gospel: "When you pray, you shall not be as the hypocrites, who love to pray standing in the synagogues and at the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Amen I say to you, they have received their reward. But thou, when thou shalt pray, enter into thy chamber, and having shut the door, pray to thy Father in secret; and thy Father who seeth in secret will repay thee" (Matt. 6). By these words the Lord does not forbid prayer to be made in a public place — for He Himself prayed publicly (John 11) before He raised Lazarus — but He forbids public prayer when it is made so that the one who prays may be seen by many, and that out of a desire for vainglory. Otherwise we can pray even in the temple, and there find the chamber of the heart, and in it pray to the Father in secret. Now those words, "will repay thee," signify merit: for just as He said of the Pharisee, "he has received his reward," that is, human praise, so of him who prays in the chamber of the heart, looking to God alone, a reward will be rendered to him by the Father who sees in secret. Concerning satisfaction for past sins, it is known from the practice of the Church, in which, whenever satisfaction is enjoined, almsgiving or fasting is indeed often omitted, but prayer is never omitted. Finally, that prayer obtains many benefits, St. John Chrysostom teaches most beautifully in his two books on prayer, where he uses the comparison of human hands. For just as man is born unarmed, naked, and in need of all things, yet cannot complain of his Creator, because He gave him hands, which are the instrument by which man can provide himself with food, clothing, a house, weapons, and all the rest; so too the spiritual man can do nothing without divine help, but he possesses the power of prayer, as it were the instrument of spiritual instruments, through which he can easily provide all things for himself.

Besides these three principal fruits, there are very many others. For in the first place, prayer enlightens the mind. For it cannot happen that a man should fix the eyes of his mind intently upon God, who is light, without being somewhat enlightened by Him. "Come ye to Him," says David, "and be enlightened" (Ps. 33). Secondly, prayer nourishes hope and confidence. For the more often anyone speaks with another, the more confidently he approaches him. Thirdly, prayer inflames charity and renders the mind more capable of receiving greater gifts, as St. Augustine affirms (Bk. II, On the Lord's Sermon on the Mount, ch. 17). Fourthly, it increases humility and the fear of the Lord. For he who comes to prayer understands that he is God's beggar, and for that reason is wont to appear humbly before Him; and he takes most diligent care not to offend Him whose help he needs in all things. Fifthly, frequent prayer begets in the soul of the one who prays a contempt for all temporal things. For it cannot happen that all earthly things do not grow cheap and sordid to him who contemplates heavenly and eternal things unceasingly. See St. Augustine in the ninth book of the Confessions (Bk. IX, ch. 4 and 10). Sixthly, prayer produces an incredible delight, since through it a man begins to taste how sweet the Lord is. How great this sweetness is can be understood even from this, that we have known some who could not only spend the whole night in prayer, but even join whole days to whole nights without fatigue. Finally, besides profit and pleasure, prayer also brings no small dignity and honor to the one who prays. For even the Angels themselves honor that soul which they see admitted so familiarly and so often to converse with the divine Majesty. See St. John Chrysostom, first book On Praying to God.

It remains that we say something about the manner of praying well, in which consists chiefly the art of living well, and therefore also the art of dying well. For what the Lord says — "Ask, and it shall be given you" (Luke 11), and "Everyone that asketh, receiveth" — St. James declared in his Epistle is to be understood with a condition: if we ask rightly. "You ask," he says, "and you receive not, because you ask amiss" (James 4). We may therefore reason thus: he who asks well for the gift of living well will assuredly receive it; and he who asks well for perseverance in living well until death, and thereby for a happy death itself, will without doubt receive it. Let us therefore briefly explain the conditions of good prayer, that we may learn to pray well, to live well, and to die well.

The first condition is faith, as the Apostle says: "How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed?" (Rom. 10). With this agrees St. James: "But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering" (James 1). Yet this necessity of faith is not to be understood as though we must believe with certainty that God will do what we ask; for then faith would not infrequently prove false, and so we would obtain nothing at all. We must therefore believe that God is most powerful, most wise, most good, and most faithful; and hence that He is able, and knows, and is ready to do what we ask, if it be fitting for Him to give and expedient for us to receive what we have asked. This faith Christ demanded of those two blind men who desired to be cured: "Do you believe that I can do this unto you?" (Matt. 9). With the same faith David prayed for his sick son; for that he did not believe with certainty that God would do it, but that He could do what was asked, those words demonstrate: "Who knoweth whether the Lord may not grant him to me?" (2 Sam. 12). That the Apostle Paul also prayed with like faith, that the thorn of the flesh might be taken away from him, cannot be doubted (2 Cor. 12); for he prayed out of faith, and his faith would have been false if he had believed with certainty that God would do what he asked at that time — for he did not then obtain what he asked. Nor does the Church pray with any other faith when she asks that all heretics, pagans, schismatics, and finally bad Christians be converted to penance, though it is certain that not all of them are converted. On this matter see St. Prosper in the books On the Vocation of the Gentiles (Bk. I, ch. 4).

The second condition of good prayer, and a most necessary one, is hope, or confidence. For although by faith, which is a work of the understanding, we need not determine with certainty that God will do what we ask, yet by hope and confidence, which is an act of the will, we must cling firmly to the divine goodness, and trust with certainty that God will do what we ask. This condition the Lord looked for in the paralytic, to whom He said: "Be of good heart, son; thy sins are forgiven thee" (Matt. 9). The same the Apostle requires of all when he says: "Let us go therefore with confidence to the throne of His grace" (Heb. 4); and long before, the Prophet introduced God saying: "Because he hoped in Me, I will deliver him" (Ps. 90). But because confidence is born of perfect faith, when Scripture requires faith for great things it adds something pertaining to confidence. Hence we read in Mark: "Whosoever shall say to this mountain, Be thou removed and cast into the sea, and shall not stagger in his heart, but shall believe that whatsoever he saith cometh to pass, it shall be done unto him" (Mark 11). Of that faith which begets confidence is to be understood that saying of the Apostle: "And if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains," etc. (1 Cor. 13). Hence John Cassian writes in the conference on prayer (Conf. IX, ch. 32) that a sure sign of obtaining one's request is when a person in prayer confidently trusts that he will receive what he asks, in no way wavers in that petition, and is flooded with spiritual joy as he prays.

The third condition is charity, or justice, by which we are justified from sins; for the benefits of God are not surely obtained except by those who are His friends. For so speaks David in the Psalms: "The eyes of the Lord are upon the just, and His ears are open to their prayers" (Ps. 33); and in another place: "If I have beheld iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me" (Ps. 65). And in the New Testament the Lord says: "If you abide in Me, and My words — that is, My precepts — abide in you, you shall ask whatever you will, and it shall be done unto you" (John 15); and the beloved disciple says: "If our heart reprehend us not, we have confidence toward God; and whatsoever we shall ask, we shall receive of Him, because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight" (1 John 3). Nor is it contrary to this doctrine that the publican, begging God's pardon for his sins, went away justified; for a penitent sinner does not obtain as a sinner, but as a penitent: as a sinner he is an enemy of God, but as a penitent he begins to be a friend of God. For he who sins does what displeases God; but he who repents of having sinned does what most pleases God.

The fourth condition is humility, because he who prays trusts not in his own justice but in the goodness of God. "Upon whom shall I look," says God, "but upon him that is poor and little, and of a contrite spirit, and that trembleth at My words?" (Isa. 66). Ecclesiasticus adds: "The prayer of him that humbleth himself shall pierce the clouds, and it shall not depart until the Most High beholdeth" (Sir. 35).

The fifth condition is devotion, which makes the one who prays not pray negligently, as most people are accustomed to do, but pray attentively, earnestly, diligently, and ardently. For the Lord severely rebukes those who pray with the lips alone: "This people," says the Lord through Isaiah, "honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me." (Isa. 29; Matt. 15) Now this virtue arises from a living faith, one existing not only in habit but in act. For he who attentively and with firm faith reflects how great is the majesty of God, how great our own lowliness, and how great the thing we ask, can hardly fail to approach prayer with the utmost humility, reverence, devotion, and ardor.

It is fitting to add here two excellent testimonies of the holy Fathers. St. Jerome, in his Dialogue against the Luciferians, says: "I attend to prayer. I would not pray if I did not believe; but if I truly believed, I would cleanse that heart in which God is seen; I would beat my breast with my hands; I would bathe my cheeks with tears; I would shudder in body and grow pale in countenance; I would lie at my Lord's feet, and embracing those feet fastened to the trunk of the cross, I would not let go before I had obtained mercy. But now, very often while I am praying, I either stroll through the porticoes, or reckon up my interest, or, carried away by a base thought, I even entertain things it is shameful to speak of. Where is faith? Do we suppose that Jonah prayed thus? Or the three youths? Or Daniel among the lions? Or most certainly the thief on the cross?" St. Bernard, in his Sermon on the Four Ways of Praying, says: "It is altogether necessary," he says, "that at the time of prayer we enter the heavenly court—that court in which the King of kings sits upon a starry throne, surrounded by an innumerable and ineffable host of blessed spirits. With how great reverence, then, and how great humility ought a vile little frog, crawling out of its own swamp, to approach that place? How trembling, how suppliant, how humble and anxious, and with his whole mind intent, can a poor little man appear before the Majesty of glory, in the presence of the Angels, in the council and assembly of the just? In all our actions, therefore, we have need of great vigilance of mind, but especially in prayer." The sixth condition is perseverance, which the Lord commended by two parables related in the Evangelist Luke. (Luke 11) The former is about the man who went at midnight to his friend to ask him to lend him three loaves; and though he was repeatedly refused because it was an inconvenient hour, nevertheless, persevering in his request, he obtained what he sought. (Luke 18) The latter is about the widow who kept pleading with the judge to vindicate her against her adversary; and though that judge was very wicked, neither fearing God nor respecting man, nevertheless, overcome by the woman's perseverance and importunity, he vindicated her against her adversary. From these the Lord concludes that we must persevere all the more in prayer to God, who is just and gracious. And as St. James adds: "He giveth to all abundantly, and upbraideth not" (Jas. 1); that is, He gives His gifts liberally to all who ask, and does not upbraid their importunity, namely that they are too often troublesome in asking; for God is merciful without measure. St. Augustine adds, in his exposition of the last verse of Psalm 66, on those words "Blessed be God, who hath not turned away my prayer, nor His mercy from me": "If you see that your prayer has not been turned away, be assured that His mercy has not been turned away from you."

### CHAPTER VIII.

On the eighth precept of the art of dying well, which is on fasting.

It follows that we should briefly treat of fasting, according to the order laid down by the Angel. And, passing over the many things that theologians dispute about fasting, we shall bring forward only those things which pertain to our purpose. Our aim is to set forth the art of living well, insofar as it paves the way to the art of dying well. For this art those three things seem to suffice which we discussed concerning prayer: necessity, fruit, and manner. The necessity of fasting depends on a twofold law, divine and human. Of the divine law the prophet Joel is witness, who says on God's part: "Be converted to me with all your heart, in fasting, and in weeping, and in mourning." (Joel 2) The same is gathered from the prophet Jonah, who testifies (Jonah 3) that the Ninevites, to appease God, proclaimed a fast and sackcloth; and yet there was then no positive law on fasting. The same can be understood from the words of the Lord in St. Matthew: "But when thou dost fast, anoint thy head and wash thy face, that thou appear not to men to fast, but to thy Father who is in secret; and thy Father, who seeth in secret, will repay thee." (Matt. 6)

Let us add one or two testimonies from the Fathers. St. Augustine speaks thus in his Letter to Casulanus: "In the Evangelical and Apostolic writings, and in the whole instrument which is called the New Testament, I find it nowhere defined by a precept of the Lord or of the Apostles on which days one ought not to fast and on which one ought." (Ep. 16) St. Leo, in his Sermon on the Fast of the Tenth Month, says: "Those things," he says, "which bore the figures of things to come came to an end once what they signified was fulfilled; but the grace of the New Testament has not removed the benefit of fasting, and by pious observance it has taken up continence as ever profitable to body and soul. For just as there remains for the Christian understanding 'Thou shalt adore the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve,' and other commandments of that kind, so what is prescribed in those same books concerning the sanctification of fasting is not made void by any interpretation." So far St. Leo, who did not mean to signify that Christians must fast at the very same times at which the Jews fasted, but that the precept of fasting handed down to the Hebrews is to be observed by Christians according to the determination of those who preside over the Church, as regards time and manner. What that determination is, is better known to all than that it should need to be declared by me. And so much for the necessity of fasting.

Now we shall readily show the fruits and benefits of fasting. First, fasting is most useful for preparing the soul for prayer and for the contemplation of heavenly things, as the Angel Raphael indicated when he said: "Prayer is good with fasting." (Tob. 12) Thus Moses prepared his soul by a fast of forty days (Exod. 34) before he dared to approach to converse with God; thus Elijah fasted forty days (1 Kgs. 19) that he might be able, in the manner he could, to converse with God on Mount Horeb; thus Daniel was prepared by a fast of three weeks to receive the revelations of God; and thus the Church instituted fasts, that Christians might be rendered more ready to attend to divine things. Moreover, the holy Fathers everywhere preach this same benefit of fasting. Let the reader consult St. Athanasius in his book On Virginity; St. Basil in his first and second discourses On Fasting; St. Ambrose in his book On Elijah and Fasting; St. Bernard in his sermon on the vigil of St. Andrew. But I shall not hesitate to quote the words of St. John Chrysostom from his first homily on Genesis, which are few but striking: "Fasting," says Chrysostom, "is the nourishment of our soul; it produces light wings for it, so that it may be borne aloft and be able to contemplate the highest things."

The second benefit of fasting is for taming the flesh; and on this account fasting greatly pleases God, who is pleased that we crucify the flesh with its vices and concupiscences, as the Apostle teaches in the Epistle to the Galatians—who also for this very reason said: "I chastise my body and bring it into subjection, lest perhaps, after preaching to others, I myself should become a reprobate." (Gal. 5) For Chrysostom and Theophylact in his commentary, and St. Ambrose in his Letter to the Church of Vercelli, expound these words as spoken of fasting. The holy Fathers preach this benefit of fasting: Cyprian in his sermon on fasting, Basil in his first discourse on fasting, Chrysostom in his first homily on Genesis, Jerome in his Letter to Eustochium on the custody of virginity, and Augustine in the thirty-first chapter of the first book of his Confessions; and the universal Church, in the office of the hour of Prime, sings from the hymn of St. Ambrose: "And may spareness in drink and food wear down the pride of the flesh."

The third benefit of fasting is for the worship of God; for God counts it an honor to Himself when we fast for His sake. For so the Apostle speaks in the Epistle to the Romans: "I beseech you to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing unto God, your reasonable service"—in Greek, λογικὴν λατρείαν, that is, reasonable worship. (Rom. 12) And St. Luke speaks of this worship when he says of the widow Anna: "She departed not from the temple, serving night and day with fastings and prayers." (Luke 2) And the great Council of Nicaea itself calls fasting a pure and solemn gift, which is offered by the Church to God, as Tertullian also says in his book on the resurrection of the flesh, where he calls late and dry meals solemn sacrifices to God. And St. Leo, in the second sermon on the fast of the tenth month: "For the complete ingathering of all the fruits," he says, "an offering of abstinence is most worthily presented to God, their most generous giver." Finally, St. Gregory in his sixteenth homily writes that through the Lenten fast the tithes and firstfruits of our life are offered to God. The fourth benefit of fasting is satisfaction for sins. The examples of Scripture show this first: the Ninevites appeased God by fasting, as Jonah testifies (Jonah 3). The children of Israel likewise appeased God and won the victory over their enemies (1 Sam. 7). The impious king Ahab in part appeased God by fasting and sackcloth (1 Kgs. 21). The Hebrews in the time of Judith and Esther found mercy with God by no other sacrifice (Jdt. 4; Esth. 4) than fasting, weeping, and mourning. The ancient Fathers constantly taught this same doctrine. Tertullian in his book on fasting: "Just as," he says, "the first use of food brought ruin, so let fasting make satisfaction to God." St. Cyprian in the sermon On the Lapsed: "Let us appease," he says, "the anger and offense of God by fastings and tears, as He Himself admonishes." St. Basil in his first homily on fasting: "Repentance without fasting," he says, "is fruitless and idle; through fasting satisfaction is made to God." St. John
Chrysostom in his first homily on Genesis: "God," he says, "like an indulgent father, devised for us this healing which comes through fasting." St. Ambrose in his book on Elijah and fasting: "Fasting," he says, "is the death of guilt, the destruction of sins, the remedy of salvation." St. Jerome in his commentary on the third chapter of Jonah: "Sackcloth and fasting," he says, "are the weapons of penance, the aids of sinners." St. Augustine in the sixtieth sermon De tempore: "Let no one," he says, "fast for human praise, but for the pardon of sins." St. Leo in the fourth sermon on the fast of the seventh month teaches that God is appeased by the sacrifice of fasting. St. Bernard in his sixty-sixth sermon on the Song of Songs: "I sometimes abstain," he says, "but my abstinence is a satisfaction for sin, not a superstition for impiety."

The fifth and last benefit of fasting is that it is meritorious and avails much for obtaining divine favors. Anna, the wife of Elkanah, though barren, merited through fasting to have a son (1 Sam. 1); for so St. Jerome interprets, in his second book against Jovinian, those words of Scripture, "Moreover she wept and would take no food": "Anna," he says, "merited to fill with a son the womb that was empty of food." Sara likewise was delivered from the demon by a three-day fast, as is written in the book of Tobit. But there is a notable passage in the Gospel for the merit of fasting (Matt. 6), for thus the Lord speaks: "But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thy head and wash thy face, that thou appear not to men to fast, but to thy Father who is in secret; and thy Father, who seeth in secret, will repay thee" (Matt. 6). Here those words "will repay thee" mean "will repay thee with a reward"; for they are set against those other words, "They disfigure their faces, that they may appear to men to fast. Amen I say to you, they have received their reward." And so hypocrites who fast receive their reward, a merely human one; the just who fast receive their reward, a divine prize. Nor are there lacking the most illustrious testimonies of the holy Fathers. St. John the Evangelist proclaimed a solemn fast that he might merit to receive the grace of writing rightly, as St. Jerome relates in the preface to his commentary on Matthew, and the Venerable Bede, following him, on the first chapter of John. Tertullian in the book on fasting: "Fasts," he says, "merit even the knowledge of the sacraments from God." St. Ambrose in the Epistle to the Church of Vercelli: "Who are these new teachers," he says, "who exclude the merit of fasting?" St. Athanasius in his book on virginity: "Whoever," he says, "is troubled by an unclean spirit must hold it certain that by fasting the evil spirits depart in torment, dreading the power of fasting." St. Basil in his first homily on fasting: "Fasting," he says, "is useful for escaping the evils of the world to come and for obtaining good things." St. Gregory Nazianzen in the oration in praise of St. Cyprian, explaining with what arms a certain holy virgin repelled the devil from herself: "With the arms," he says, "of fasting and of lying on the ground." St. Chrysostom in his first sermon on fasting: "Fast," he says, "because you have sinned; fast, that you may not sin; fast, that you may receive; fast, that what you have received may not perish." St. Jerome in his book against Jovinian expressly argues about the merit of fasting. St. Augustine in the sixty-second sermon: "Fasting," he says, "is a remedy or a reward; that is, it obtains either the forgiveness of sins or the prize of the heavenly kingdom." St. Leo in the first sermon on the fast of the seventh month: "Through the humility of fasting," he says, "we merit divine help against all our enemies." We have, then, the necessity and the fruit of fasting; it remains to explain the manner — that is, to set forth briefly how one must fast, so that fasting may be truly profitable to us for living well and, through this, also for dying well. For many fast on all the days appointed by the Church, namely on vigils, on the Ember Days, and in Lent; nor are there lacking those who fast of their own accord in Advent, to prepare themselves devoutly for the day of the Lord's Nativity, or on Friday in memory of the Lord's Passion, or on Saturday in honor of the Virgin Mother of God. But whether they so fast as truly to obtain the fruits of fasting may not without reason be asked. The primary end of fasting is the mortification of the flesh, that the spirit may come forth the stronger. For this end it would be necessary to be nourished on scant and humble fare. And indeed Mother Church indicates this when she commands that the body be refreshed not twice in the day but only once, and refreshed not with meat or dairy foods but with herbs, vegetables, and other lighter fare. Tertullian expressed this in two words in his book on the resurrection of the flesh, when he said that the food of those who fast is "late, dry meals." Certainly they do not observe this who on the very day they fast eat no less at a single dinner than on other days at dinner and supper together, and who at that dinner seem to prepare dishes so costly, from various kinds of fish and other foods, not as the meal of mourners and penitents but as a wedding feast that will last late into the night. Those who fast in this way without doubt do not obtain the fruits of fasting.

But neither do they obtain the fruit of fasting who, though they eat less sumptuously and more soberly, nevertheless on the days of fasting do not refrain any more than on other days not consecrated by fasting from games and jests, from brawls and quarrels, from wanton song and immoderate mirth and — what is graver — from shameful deeds and crimes. Hear what the prophet Isaiah says of this kind of men: "Behold, in the day of your fast your own will is found, and you exact of all your debtors. Behold, you fast for debates and strife, and strike with the fist wickedly. Do not fast as you have done until this day, to make your cry to be heard on high." He rebukes them because on the days of fasting, which are days of penance, they wished to fulfill their own wills and not the will of the Lord; and because they were not only unwilling to remit their debtors' debts, as they begged God to remit their own, but would not even grant their debtors any delay. Likewise because the time which in fasting they ought to have spent in prayer to God, they spent in profane lawsuits and quarrels. Finally, because not only did they not, as was fitting, devote themselves on the days of fasting to spiritual pursuits, but adding sins to sins they wickedly struck their neighbors. These and like things pious men must beware of, if they desire their fasts to be pleasing to God and profitable to themselves, so that they may then hope for a good life and a precious death. There remains almsgiving, of the three works
which the Angel Raphael praised in Tobit and proposed to us all for imitation.

### CHAPTER IX.

On the ninth precept of the art of dying well, which concerns almsgiving.

Three things must be briefly explained concerning almsgiving: its necessity, its fruit, and the manner of it. And indeed, that there is some precept commanding the giving of alms, no one has ever called into doubt. For even if we had nothing else, the sentence of the most just and supreme Judge would suffice abundantly — He who at the last judgment will say to the wicked: "Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire, which was prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry, and you gave me not to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me not to drink; I was a stranger, and you took me not in; naked, and you covered me not; sick and in prison, and you did not visit me." And a little after He added: "As long as you did it not to one of these least, neither did you do it to me" (Matt. 25). From this passage we can understand that only those are bound to give alms who are able to do so. For even the Lord Himself is not read to have done those works, but only to have ordered that some portion of the money given to Him be distributed to the poor; as can be understood from that passage of the Gospel where, when the Lord had said to Judas, "That which thou dost, do quickly" (John 13), the disciples supposed that the Lord had commanded Judas to give something to the needy out of the purse which he carried. Theologians, however, hold that this precept is contained in that precept of the Decalogue, "Honor thy parents"; others, in this one, "Thou shalt not kill." But it is not necessary that this precept be contained in the Decalogue, since almsgiving pertains to charity, whereas the precepts of the Decalogue are precepts of justice. But if all moral precepts are to be referred to the Decalogue, the opinion of Albert the Great is probable (in the Sentences, dist. 15, art. 16): he refers the precept of giving alms to this, "Thou shalt not steal," since not to give the poor what we owe them seems to be a kind of theft. But the opinion of St. Thomas seems more probable, who reduces this precept to the first of the second table, "Honor thy parents" (II-II, q. 32, art. 5). For the honor of parents is not understood in that place as reverence alone, but chiefly as the provision of things necessary for life, which is a kind of alms that we owe to our principal neighbor, as St. Jerome explains in his commentary on the fifteenth chapter of St. Matthew. From this it is understood that alms are owed also to our other neighbors who are in need. Add to this that the precept of almsgiving is not negative but affirmative; and among the precepts of the second table there is no affirmative one except the first, which is "Honor thy parents." But to dispute these matters more fully is not the purpose of this place. And so much for the necessity of almsgiving.

Now indeed the fruit of almsgiving is most abundant. For first, almsgiving delivers from everlasting death, whether this be by way of satisfaction, or by way of disposition to grace, or in some other way. For divine Scripture teaches this clearly. In the book of Tobit we read thus: "Alms deliver from all sin and from death, and will not suffer the soul to go into darkness" (Tob. 4); and in the same book the Angel Raphael says in express words: "Alms deliver from death; and the same is that which purgeth away sins, and maketh to find mercy and life everlasting" (Tob. 12). And Daniel says to King Nebuchadnezzar: "Wherefore, O king, let my counsel be acceptable to thee, and redeem thou thy sins with alms, and thy iniquities with works of mercy to the poor" (Dan. 4).

Secondly, almsgiving, if it be done by a just man and out of true charity, has the merit of eternal life; of which truth Christ, the judge of the living and the dead, will be witness, when in the judgment He shall say: "Come, ye blessed of my Father, possess you the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave me to eat," etc.; and below: "As long as you did it to one of these my least brethren, you did it to me" (Matt. 25).

Thirdly, almsgiving has the force of a kind of baptism — namely, of blotting out sins both as to guilt and as to punishment at once — as Ecclesiasticus says: "Water quencheth a flaming fire, and alms resisteth sins" (Sir. 3). For water extinguishes fire utterly, so that not even smoke remains; and the holy Fathers teach this very thing: Cyprian, Ambrose, Chrysostom, Leo. St. Cyprian in his sermon on almsgiving says thus: "As by the laver of saving water the fire of hell is extinguished, so by almsgiving and works of righteousness the flame of sins is quenched."

St. Ambrose in his thirty-first sermon: "Almsgiving," he says, "is in a certain way a second laver for souls, as the Lord says: 'Give alms, and all things are clean unto you'; except that — if we may say so without prejudice to the faith — almsgiving is more generous than the laver: for the laver is given once and promises pardon once, but as often as you give alms, so often do you obtain pardon." St. John Chrysostom in the twenty-fifth homily on the Acts of the Apostles: "There is no sin," he says, "which almsgiving cannot purge, or which it cannot extinguish." St. Leo in the fifth sermon On the Collections: "Alms," he says, "blot out sins, put an end to death, and extinguish the punishment of everlasting fire." This, truly, is a great prerogative of almsgiving, and it ought to inflame all men with a love of almsgiving. But this seems to be understood not of just any almsgiving, but only of that which proceeds from great contrition and a great ardor of charity; such as was that of St. Mary Magdalene, who bedewed the feet of the Lord with tears of contrition, and with the alms of most precious ointment anointed those same feet.

Fourthly, almsgiving increases confidence with God and produces spiritual joy. For although this is common to almsgiving with every good work, yet it belongs in a special way to almsgiving, since by it we render a service pleasing both to God and to our neighbor at once; and it is a work which is recognized as good not obscurely, but most plainly. Hence that word of Tobit: "Alms shall be a great confidence before the most high God, to all them that give it" (Tob. 4); and that of the Apostle: "You had compassion on them that were in bands; do not therefore lose your confidence" (Heb. 10). Finally, St. Cyprian in his sermon on almsgiving calls it the great comfort of believers.

Fifthly, almsgiving wins the good will of many, who pray to God for their benefactors and obtain for them either the grace of conversion, or the gift of perseverance, or an increase of grace and glory. For in all these ways the word of the Lord can be understood: "Make unto you friends of the mammon of iniquity; that, when you shall fail, they may receive you into everlasting dwellings" (Luke 16).

Sixthly, almsgiving is a disposition to justifying grace. Of this fruit Solomon speaks in Proverbs, where he says: "By alms and by faith sins are purged away" (Prov. 15). And the Lord, when He had heard the liberality of Zacchaeus — "Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have wronged any man of anything, I restore him fourfold" — said: "This day is salvation come to this house" (Luke 19). Lastly, in the Acts of the Apostles we read that it was said to Cornelius, who was not yet a Christian but was a generous giver of alms: "Thy alms are ascended for a memorial in the sight of God" (Acts 10). From which passage St. Augustine proves (On the Predestination of the Saints, bk. 1, ch. 7) that Cornelius by his alms obtained from God the grace of Christian faith and of perfect justification.

Seventhly and lastly, almsgiving is often a cause for the increase of temporal goods. This the Wise Man affirms when he says: "He that hath mercy on the poor, lendeth to the Lord"; and again: "He that giveth to the poor shall not want" (Prov. 19; Prov. 28; John 6). The same the Lord taught by His own example, when He bade His disciples distribute to the crowds the five loaves and the two fishes which alone they had, and brought it about that they received twelve baskets full of fragments of bread and of fish, which could have sufficed them for many days. Tobias also, who generously shared his goods with the poor, soon acquired great riches. The widow of Zarephath also (1 Kings 17), who gave the little flour and oil she had to the Prophet Elijah as alms, obtained by the blessing of God that for a long time neither flour nor oil failed her. There are besides a great many examples, most worthy of being read, in Gregory of Tours, in the fifth book of his History of the Franks; in Leontius, in his Life of St. John the Almsgiver; and in Sophronius, in the Spiritual Meadow, chapters 185 and 201. St. Cyprian confirms the same in his sermon on almsgiving, and St. Basil in his homily to the rich, where by an elegant comparison he likens riches to the water of wells, which, if they are drawn frequently, are wont to spring up ever better and more copious, but if they are left standing they stagnate. Avaricious rich men will not gladly hear these things, and will scarcely believe them; but after this life they will understand and believe them to be true, when to understand or to believe will profit them nothing. It remains for us to write something on the manner of giving alms, for this above all other things is necessary, that we may live piously and holily and die most happily. First, then, it is necessary that we give alms with a most upright intention of pleasing God, not to court popular favor. For our Lord teaches this in express words when He says: When you give alms, do not sound a trumpet; and let not your left hand know what your right hand does (Matt. 6). St. Augustine explains this passage (Tract. 6) in his exposition of the Epistle of St. John, where by the left hand he understands the intention of giving alms for temporal honor, or for any other temporal advantage; by the right hand, he says, is signified the intention of giving alms to gain eternal life, for the glory of God, and out of charity toward one's neighbor. Secondly, alms must be given promptly and readily, so that they may not seem extorted by entreaties, nor deferred from day to day, if they can be given at once: Say not, says the Wise Man, Go, and come again tomorrow, and I will give to you, when you can give at once (Prov. 3:28). Abraham (Gen. 18), the friend of God, asks his guests to turn aside to him; he does not wait to be asked by them. His nephew, the just Lot, did the same (Gen. 19). So also Tobias (Tob. 2) did not wait for the poor to come to him, but sought them out himself.

Thirdly, it is required that alms be given cheerfully, not with sadness; In every gift, says

Ecclesiasticus, show a cheerful countenance (Sir. 35). And the Apostle: not with sadness, or of necessity: for God loves a cheerful giver (2 Cor. 9).

Fourthly, it is necessary that alms be given humbly, so that the rich man understands that he receives more than he gives: on this matter St. Gregory speaks thus: "It avails much for taming the pride of a rich man if, when he bestows earthly goods, he carefully ponders the words of the heavenly Master, who says: 'Make friends for yourselves of the mammon of iniquity, so that when you fail, they may receive you into everlasting dwellings.' For if by their friendship we acquire everlasting dwellings, those who give must surely reflect that they offer gifts to patrons rather than bestow donations on the needy" (Morals, Book 21).

Fifthly, alms must be bestowed abundantly according to the measure of one's means, for so teaches Tobias, that illustrious almsgiver: According to your means, he says, be merciful; if you have much, give abundantly; if you have little, strive to bestow even that little willingly (Tob. 4). And the Apostle (2 Cor. 9) teaches that alms are to be given as a blessing, not as covetousness; and St. John Chrysostom adds: "Not to give, but to give copiously, is almsgiving." And in the same sermon he adds that those who wish to be heard when they say to Him, Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your great mercy, ought also to have mercy on the poor according to the greatness of their own alms (Sermon 31 to the people of Antioch).

Finally, it is necessary above all other things that he who wishes to be saved, and so to die well, diligently inquire — either by himself through reading and meditation, or through men truly learned and pious — whether superfluous riches can be kept without sin, or must necessarily be given to the poor; and again, which are necessary. For it can happen that to one man moderate wealth is superfluous, while to another a great abundance of riches seems plainly necessary. And since this little work of mine neither requires nor permits a lengthy treatment of scholastic questions, I will here briefly note the passages of Sacred Scripture and of the Doctors, both ancient and more recent, and so bring this part of the subject to a close. The passages of Scripture are these: Matthew 6, You cannot serve God and mammon; Luke 3, He who has two coats, let him give to him who has none; and he who has food, let him do likewise; in Luke 12 it is said to the rich man who had so many goods that he hardly knew where to store them: Fool, this night do they require your soul of you. These words St. Augustine so expounds in the fiftieth book of the Homilies, the seventh homily, that that rich man perished forever because he kept superfluous riches.

The chief passages of the holy Fathers are these. St. Basil in his homily to the rich: "But you, he says, are you not a robber, you who count as your own what you received to dispense?" and a little further on: "Therefore, he says, you injure as many poor men as you are able to give to." St. Ambrose in his eighty-first sermon: "What injustice is it, he says, if, while I do not seize the goods of others, I diligently keep what is my own? O shameless saying! Your own, you say? Which?" and below: "It is no less a crime to refuse the needy when you are able and have abundance, than to take from one who has." St. Jerome in his letter to Hedibia, question one: "If you have more, he says, than is necessary for your food and clothing, know that you are a debtor for the surplus." St. John Chrysostom in his thirty-fourth homily to the people of Antioch: "For is it your own that you possess? he says. The goods of the poor have been entrusted to you, whether you possess them from just labors or from a paternal inheritance." St. Augustine in his treatise on Psalm 147: "The superfluities of the rich, he says, are the necessities of the poor; other men's goods are possessed when superfluities are possessed." St. Leo in his fifth sermon On the Collections speaks thus: "Earthly and bodily means come from the bounty of God, who will deservedly demand an account of them, since He entrusted them to be dispensed no less than to be possessed." St. Gregory in the third part of the Pastoral Care, the twenty-second admonition: "They are to be admonished, he says, who neither covet the goods of others nor give away their own, that they may know well that the earth from which we are taken is common to all men, and therefore also brings forth nourishment for all in common; and they think themselves innocent in vain who claim the common gift of God for themselves privately." St. Bernard in his letter to Henry, Archbishop of Sens, speaks thus: "It is ours, the poor cry out, what you squander; that is cruelly taken from us which you spend so vainly." St. Thomas in the Secunda Secundae, question sixty-six, article seven: "The goods, he says, which some have in superabundance belong by natural right to the support of the poor"; and in question eighty-seven, article one: "The Lord, he says, commands that not only a tenth part but all that is superfluous be given to the poor." Finally, the same author, writing on the fourth book of the Sentences at the fifteenth distinction, testifies that this very doctrine is the common teaching of all theologians. I add at this point that even if someone should wish to contend that, by the strict rigor of the law, superfluous goods need not be given to the poor, yet he will not be able to deny that this must at least be done out of charity. It matters little, however, whether one descends into hell from a defect of justice or from a defect of charity.

### CHAPTER X.

On the tenth precept of the art of dying well, which is on the sacrament of Baptism.

Having explained the principal virtues which teach the art of living well, we shall now add a few things from the doctrine of the Sacraments, which help no less toward learning this same art of living well and happily. The Sacraments instituted by Christ the Lord are seven in number: Baptism, Confirmation, the Eucharist, Penance, Holy Orders, Matrimony, and Extreme Unction. These are, as it were, divine instruments which God uses through the ministry of His servants to confer divine grace, so that men, freed from the slavery of the Devil and raised to the dignity of sons of God, may one day attain everlasting happiness with the holy Angels. From these most holy Sacraments, therefore, it is our purpose briefly to show who makes progress in the art of living well and who fails in it, so that from this it may be understood who can aspire to a happy death, and who, on the contrary, must expect an unhappy death. Let us begin with the first Sacrament. Baptism is the first of the Sacraments, and is rightly called the gate of the Sacraments, because unless Baptism comes first, no man is fit to receive the other Sacraments. In the Sacrament of Baptism these rites are observed: First of all, he who is to be baptized must confess the Catholic faith, either by himself or through another. Secondly, he must renounce the Devil, and his pomps, and his works. Thirdly, he is baptized in Christ, in which baptism he is transferred from the slavery of the Devil to the grace of the sons of God; and with all his sins blotted out, he receives the gifts of heavenly grace, by which he is made an adopted son of God, an heir of God, and a co-heir of Christ. Fourthly, a white garment is given him, and he is commanded to keep it pure and spotless until death. Fifthly, a lighted candle is also given him, which signifies the good works he must add, as long as he lives, to the innocence of life signified by the white garment received a little before. For thus the Lord speaks in the Gospel: So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven. (Matt. 5)

These are the principal rites which the Church uses in conferring Baptism; for I omit the others, which do not pertain to our purpose. From these each one will be able to judge whether he has lived well from the time he received Baptism up to the year he is now living. But I strongly suspect that few are to be found who have fulfilled all that they either promised to do, or at least were bound to fulfill. For many are called, but few are chosen; and narrow is the way that leadeth to life, and few there are who find it. (Matt. 7 and 22) But let us begin with the creed of faith. How many men there are — peasants, or beggars, or workmen of the lowest trades — who either do not hold the creed in memory, or have never learned it, or know indeed how to sound the words but do not grasp the sense! And yet in Baptism, through their godparents, they answered that they believed each article. But if Christ must dwell by faith in our hearts, as the Apostle Paul teaches (Eph. 3), how will He dwell in the hearts of those who can scarcely sound out the words of the creed with their tongue, and have nothing at all in their heart? And if God purifies our hearts by faith, as the Apostle Peter says (Acts 15), how sordid will be the heart of those who have not received the faith of Christ in their heart, though they have received Baptism in the flesh! I speak, however, of adults, not of infants: for infants are justified through the habitual grace of faith, hope, and charity; but when they have grown up, they must learn the creed of the faith, or rather believe the Christian faith in the heart unto justice, and are bound to confess it with the mouth unto salvation, as the Apostle teaches most plainly in his Epistle to the Romans (Rom. 10).

Let us come to the second rite. All Christians, whether in their own person or through their godparent, when asked whether they renounce the Devil, and his pomps, and his works, answer: I renounce them. But how many are there who renounce in words, yet do not renounce in deed? Or rather, how few are there who do not love and follow the pomps and works of the Devil with their whole heart! And yet God sees all things, and cannot be mocked. Therefore let him who desires to live well and longs to die well enter into the chamber of his heart, and not deceive himself, but seriously and attentively think and think again whether he delights in the pomps of this world, and whether he has given place to the works of the Devil, which are sins, in his heart and in his deeds and words. For thus either a good conscience will console him, or an evil conscience will lead him to repentance.

In the third rite there is shown to us a benefit of God so sublime, so profound, so far and wide extending, that if we were to spend all our days and all our nights in wondering at it and in giving thanks to God for it, we should render nothing worthy of so great a benefit. Good God! Who can comprehend it? Who would not be astonished? Who would not be wholly dissolved into tears of devotion, if he considered that man, justly condemned to hell, passes suddenly through the Baptism of Christ from a most wretched captivity to a right to a most blessed kingdom? But the greater this benefit is, the more detestable is the ingratitude of very many men; since there are few who do not begin, as soon as they have reached the use of reason, as it were to renounce so wonderful a benefit of God, and to deliver themselves over as slaves to the Devil. For what is it, in one's earliest youth, to follow the concupiscence of the flesh, the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life, but to contract friendship and a covenant with the Devil, and to deny Christ the Lord in deed and in fact? Rare are they who, forestalled by the singular grace of God, diligently guard the grace of Baptism, and, as Jeremiah says, begin to bear the yoke of the Lord from their youth. (Lam. 3) But unless we either diligently preserve the grace of Baptism, or through true repentance once more renounce the Devil and return to the service of Christ and persevere in it even until death, we shall be able neither to live well nor to be delivered from an evil death.

The fourth rite consists in this, that the baptized person receives a white garment and is commanded to wear it until he comes into the sight of the Lord. By this rite, we have said, is signified the innocence of life acquired through the grace of Baptism and to be preserved until death. But who can tell how great are the snares of the Devil, the perpetual enemy of the human race, who strives for nothing more than to bespatter that garment with stains of every kind? And so very few are found who, if they live long, escape the filth of sins. Surely St. David (Ps. 118) pronounced blessed those who are undefiled in the way. But the greater the difficulty of walking without stain in a filthy way, the more glorious will be the palm and the crown of an innocent life. All, therefore, who desire to live well and to die blessedly must keep the garment of innocence white with all their might. But if by chance any stains have clung to it, they must wash it white again and again in the blood of the Lamb; which is done through true contrition and through the tears of repentance. Surely St. David, when he had long bewailed his sin, breathed again in hope of grace, and giving thanks to the Lord confidently said: Thou shalt sprinkle me with hyssop, and I shall be cleansed; Thou shalt wash me, and I shall be made whiter than snow. (Ps. 50)

The last rite is to receive a lighted candle and to carry it in the hands; which, as we said above, signifies nothing else than the good works that must be joined to innocence of life. And what these good works are, which must be done by men born again in Christ through Baptism, the Apostle teaches by his own example when he says: I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith; as to the rest, there is laid up for me a crown of justice, which the Lord, the just judge, will render to me in that day. (2 Tim. 4) In these few words are most briefly enumerated all the good works that must be done by those born again in Christ through Baptism. For they must fight bravely against the temptations of the Devil, who as a roaring lion goeth about, seeking whom he may devour. (1 Pet. 5) They must also complete the course of good works in keeping the commandments of the Lord, according to that word of the Psalm: I have run the way of Thy commandments, when Thou didst enlarge my heart. (Ps. 118) Finally, they must keep faith with the Lord in the talents entrusted to them: whether in cultivating the vineyard, or in the stewardship committed to them, or in the charge of the household laid upon them, or in any other affairs entrusted to them by the Lord. For the most wise Lord was indeed willing to admit us, as adopted sons, to the heavenly inheritance; but that this might be done to His greater glory and our own, it pleased His divine wisdom that by good works, wrought by His grace and our own free will, we should merit the heavenly inheritance — that is, everlasting beatitude. And so that most rich and glorious inheritance will not be given to those who sleep, or are idle, or fond of play, but to those who watch, who labor, and who persevere in good work even to the very end of life.

Let each one, therefore, examine his works, and diligently inquire into his life and conduct, if he wishes to live well and to die happily. And if his conscience bears him witness that he has fought the good fight with his vices and concupiscences, and with all the temptations of the ancient serpent; and that he has happily finished his course in all the commandments and justifications of the Lord without blame; and that he has kept faith with the Lord in all the offices or charges committed to him — let him exult in security, and say with the Apostle: "There is laid up for me a crown of justice, which the Lord, the just Judge, will render to me in that day" (2 Tim. 4). But if his conscience, carefully examined, testifies that in the contest with the enemy of the human race it has been not lightly wounded, and that the fiery darts have penetrated even to the soul — and this not once, but often; and that in the course of good works it has often failed, and not only has not run briskly, but from weariness has sat down in the way, or lain down; and finally, that it has not kept faith with the Lord in the business committed to it, but has carried off for itself part of the profit, whether by vainglory, or by respect of persons, or by anything else — then let him have recourse without delay to the remedy of penance, and to God Himself as his physician, and not defer this, the greatest of all affairs, to another time; for of death we know neither the day nor the hour.

### CHAPTER XI.

On the eleventh precept of the art of dying well, which concerns Confirmation.

After the Sacrament of Baptism follows the Sacrament of Confirmation, from which a lesson for living well may be drawn no less fitting than from Baptism; for although Baptism is a sacrament more necessary than Confirmation, yet the latter is nobler than the former — as may be understood from the minister, the matter, and the effect. The ordinary minister of Baptism is a priest or deacon; and in time of necessity, anyone at all. The ordinary minister of Confirmation is a bishop; and by dispensation of the Supreme Pontiff, only a priest. The matter of Baptism is natural water; the matter of Confirmation is precious oil mixed with balsam, and consecrated by a bishop. The effect of Baptism is grace and a character, such as is required to create a spiritual child, according to that saying of St. Peter: "As newborn babes, desire the milk" (1 Pet. 2). The effect of Confirmation is grace and a character, such as is required to create a Christian soldier, to fight against invisible enemies, according to that saying of St. Paul: "Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places" (Eph. 6). Finally, in Baptism a taste of salt is given to infants; in Confirmation a slap on the cheek is given, that the Christian soldier may learn to fight not by striking, but by enduring.

But that we may the more easily understand what is the duty of a man anointed with Chrism — that is, of a Christian soldier — we must consider what the Apostles received in their confirmation, which was given them on the day of Pentecost. For the Apostles were not confirmed, properly speaking, through the Sacrament of Chrism, but they received from Christ, the Prince of priests, the effect of the Sacrament without the Sacrament. They received three gifts — wisdom, eloquence, and charity in the highest degree — and besides, the gift of miracles, most useful for converting unbelievers to God. And these gifts were signified by the fiery tongues that appeared on the day of Pentecost, and by the mighty sound that was heard at the same time: for the light of the fire signified wisdom, its heat charity, the form of the tongue eloquence, and the mighty sound the gift of miracles. The Sacrament of our Confirmation does not bring with it the gift of various tongues nor the gift of miracles, since these were necessary not for the Apostles' own advantage and perfection, but for the conversion of unbelievers; but it does bring the gift of charity, "which is kind and patient" (1 Cor. 13). And as a sign of this patience, which is a most rare and most precious virtue, the bishop publicly gives the confirmed man a slap on the cheek; that he may understand, no doubt, that a soldier of Christ has been created not to strike, but to endure; not to inflict injuries, but to bear them. For so is the battle waged in the Christian warfare, not against men, whom we see, but against demons, whom we do not see. For so fought and conquered our Emperor, Christ, who, nailed to the Cross, vanquished the powers of the air; and so fought the Apostles, newly confirmed, who, sorely scourged in the council of the Jews, went rejoicing from the presence of the council, because they had been counted worthy to suffer reproach for the name of Jesus (Acts 5). This indeed is the grace of the Sacrament of Confirmation: to bring it about that a man unjustly beaten does not think of vengeance, but rejoices that he suffers injury for justice' sake.

Now let the confirmed man enter into his heart, and diligently consider whether he finds in it the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and especially wisdom and fortitude. Let him consider, I say, whether he has received the wisdom of the saints, which makes much of eternal goods and despises temporal ones, and the fortitude of the soldiers of Christ, who suffer injuries more gladly than they inflict them. And lest perhaps he be deceived, let him descend to the practical test, and examine his conscience. For if he truly finds himself ready to give alms, not to heap up riches; and if, having suffered an injury, he has not thought of revenge, but most easily and most gladly has forgiven it — he may rightly exult in spirit, as one who bears in his heart the pledge of the Spirit of adoption of the sons of God. But if, after receiving the Sacrament of Confirmation, he sees himself no less covetous, no less avaricious, no less wrathful, no less impatient — and in fact can scarcely bear that a gold or silver coin should leave his purse to relieve a poor man, while on the contrary he perceives himself eager to seize every occasion of gain; and again, if he knows himself to be quick to anger, prone to vengeance, and even when begged by friends to forgive an offense will not suffer himself to be moved by their pleas — what can he conclude from this, except that he has received the Sacrament, but has not received the grace of the Sacrament?

This I have said for those who are of mature age when they approach to receive this Sacrament; for as for those who come to Confirmation in earliest age, when they are scarcely capable of sin, it is to be believed that the gifts and virtues are infused into them, since there is nothing to hinder it. But they must fear lest, with sins creeping upon them afterward and penance deferred for a long time, they extinguish the spirit received in Confirmation — that is, lose the grace of the Holy Spirit. For so is to be understood the Apostle's warning: "Extinguish not the Spirit" (1 Thess. 5). For he extinguishes the Holy Spirit, as far as in him lies, who extinguishes God's grace within himself.

Whoever, then, desires always to live well, that it may be his lot once to die well, let him esteem highly the grace of the Sacraments, which are vessels of heavenly treasures; and especially let him esteem those Sacraments which, once lost, can in no way be found again — such as the Sacrament of Confirmation, in which an incomparable treasure of good things is received. For although the character of the Sacraments cannot be blotted out, yet a character without the gifts of grace will bring no consolation, but will increase the punishment of confusion.

### CHAPTER XII.

On the twelfth precept of the art of dying well, which concerns the Eucharist.

The most holy Eucharist is the greatest of all the Sacraments, in which not only grace most abundantly, but the very Author of grace Himself, is contained. Now, that a Christian man may live well, as regards this Sacrament, and in due time die well, two things are necessary. The first, that he sometimes take this most holy food, the Lord saying: "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man, you shall not have life in you." The second, that he eat so excellent a food worthily, the Apostle saying in his Epistle to the Corinthians: "He that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the body of the Lord" (1 Cor. 11). But the question is, how often it is expedient to take this food; and again, what sufficient preparation must be made to approach this heavenly banquet worthily, or at least not unworthily. On the former question we find that there have been many and diverse customs in the Catholic Church. In the Church of the earliest times, the faithful most frequently received the Body of the Lord. For this reason St. Cyprian, in his discourse On the Lord's Prayer — which is the sixth in order — explains those words "Give us this day our daily bread" of the holy Eucharist; and he teaches that the Eucharist is to be received daily, unless one be hindered by a lawful impediment. Afterwards, however, as charity grew cold, not a few deferred the sacred communion for whole years. Hence Pope Innocent III issued a decree (cap. "Omnis," On Penance and Remission): that at least once a year, at the Easter season, all the faithful, both men and women, should be bound to receive the holy Eucharist. The more common opinion of the Doctors, however, seems to be that it is very pious and praiseworthy for those who are not priests not to hesitate to approach the most holy Eucharist on every Sunday, and on the still more solemn feasts. Well known among writers is that saying, as though uttered by St. Augustine: "To receive the Eucharist daily I neither praise nor blame; yet I advise and exhort all to communicate on every Lord's day." Although the book On Ecclesiastical Dogmas, from which this saying is drawn, may not seem to be by St. Augustine, yet it is the work of an ancient author, and is not contrary to the doctrine of St. Augustine (Ep. 118), who in his letter to Januarius teaches most plainly that neither those err who think one ought to communicate daily, nor those who judge that one should communicate not daily, but more rarely. Certainly he who teaches this would in no way reprove those who chose a middle course, so as to approach this Sacrament at least on each Lord's Day. That the same opinion was held by St. Jerome can be gathered from his commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians, where, expounding the fourth chapter, he speaks thus: "Just as it is lawful for us either to fast always or to pray always, and to keep the Lord's Day in continual rejoicing, having received the Body of the Lord, so it is not lawful for the Jews to sacrifice the lamb, etc." The same opinion was held by St. Thomas in the third part of the Summa Theologiae, question 80, article 10, at the end.

As regards the other point, namely the preparation for receiving so great a Sacrament, so that it may be received unto salvation and not unto judgment and condemnation: first of all it is required that the soul be living with the life of grace, not dead with the death of mortal sin. For this reason it is called food, and is given under the form of bread, because food is not for the dead but for the living. He that eateth this bread, says the Lord in John, shall live for ever; and in the same place: My flesh is meat indeed. (John 6; Council of Trent, sess. 13, can. 11.) But the Tridentine Synod added that it is not enough, for a fitting preparation to receive this heavenly food duly, that one who is defiled by mortal sin be content with contrition alone; he must also strive to expiate his sins through the Sacrament of Penance, provided he can have access to a confessor. Then, because this Sacrament is not only bread but also a medicine, and the best and most wholesome medicine against all the diseases of the vices, it is required in the second place that the sick man desire good health, and wish to be cured of all the diseases of the vices, and especially of the principal ones, which are lust, avarice, and pride. That the Eucharist is a medicine, St. Ambrose teaches in book 5 On the Sacraments, chapter 4: "He who has a wound," he says, "requires medicine: the wound is ours, because we are under sin; the medicine is the heavenly and venerable Sacrament;" and St. Bonaventure in book 2 On the Progress of Religious
chapter 78: "Let him who counts himself unworthy," he says, "reflect that the more he perceives himself to be sick, the more he needs and is bound to seek out a physician;" and St. Bernard, in his sermon on the Lord's Supper, admonishes his brethren to ascribe to the most holy Sacrament the benefit they feel when they experience in themselves a lessening of evil propensities and of the other maladies of the soul.

Finally, the most holy Sacrament is not only the food of wayfarers and the medicine of the sick, but also a most skillful and most loving physician; and therefore it is to be received with great exultation and reverence, and the house of the soul is to be adorned with every kind of virtue, especially faith, hope, charity, devotion, and piety, and with the fruits of good works, prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. For these are the adornments required by the sweet guest of our soul, who has no need of our goods. Add, too, that this physician who visits us is also a King and God, whose purity is infinite, and who requires a most pure dwelling. Hear St. John Chrysostom in his sixtieth sermon to the people of Antioch: "How much purer," he says, "must he be who partakes of such a sacrifice? Is he not brighter than the sun's ray who is filled with spiritual fire?"

Now let whoever desires to live well and to die well enter into the chamber of his soul, and with the door shut, alone with his own heart, before God who searches the reins and the hearts, let him attentively consider how often and with what preparation he approaches the Sacrament of the Lord's Body. And if indeed he finds that by the grace of God he communicates frequently and profitably, and is well nourished thereby, and is gradually cured of the diseases of the vices, and daily advances more and more in virtues and good works, let him rejoice with trembling, and continue to serve the Lord in fear, not so much servile as chaste and filial. But if he be one of those who, content with a yearly communion, think no more of the most wholesome Sacrament, and, forgetting to eat the life-giving bread — the fatter and more bloated they grow in body, the more their souls are weakened and withered — let him understand that he acts most foolishly and is far from the kingdom of God. For yearly communion was decreed by the sacred universal Council, not that it should be made only once a year, but that it should be made at least once a year, unless they wish to be cast out of the Church and delivered over to Satan. And so these men, for the most part, receive their Lord in the Sacrament not with filial love but with servile fear, and soon after return to the husks of the swine, to the delights of the world, to temporal gains, to the pursuit of fleeting honors, so that at death they may hear, together with the rich glutton: Son, remember that thou didst receive good things in thy lifetime. (Luke 16.) But if anyone be found,
who frequently handles the mysteries of the most holy Sacrament, either on every Lord's Day or even daily, if perhaps he exercises the priesthood; and yet neither guards himself from mortal sins, nor seriously exercises himself in good works, nor has truly gone out of the world, but, like others who are of the world, gapes greedily after pecuniary gain, delights in the allurements of the flesh, and sighs after degrees of honor and dignity: such a one assuredly eats the flesh of the Lord unto his own judgment, and the more often he unworthily handles the most holy mysteries, the more he imitates Judas the traitor, of whom the Lord says: It were better for him if that man had not been born. (Matt. 26.) But no one must despair of his salvation while he lives. Therefore let him who, in the chamber of his heart, reflects upon his years and his works, and knows that hitherto he has run outside the way of salvation, know that there is still time to return to his senses, provided he is willing to do penance in earnest,

It will be well to add, at the end of this chapter, what St. Bonaventure writes in the life of the holy Father Francis concerning the admirable piety and love of this most holy man toward the most holy Eucharist, so that from his ardor our lukewarmness or coldness may grow warm: "He burned," he says, "toward the Sacrament of the Lord's Body with the fervor of his whole inmost being, marveling with the greatest wonder at that most loving condescension and most condescending love. He communicated often, and so devoutly that he made others devout; and, inebriated in spirit, he was for the most part rapt into an ecstasy of mind." (Life of St. Francis, ch. 9.) So writes he. From this example are very far removed not only many lay communicants, but also very many priests who celebrate, performing so sacred a rite with such incredible haste that they themselves seem not to know what they are doing, nor do they allow others to consider so great a thing a little more attentively.

### CHAPTER XIII.

On the thirteenth precept of the art of dying well, which concerns Penance.

Next comes the Sacrament of Penance, which, as regards him who receives the Sacrament of Penance, consists chiefly in three things: contrition of heart, confession of mouth, and satisfaction of works. For those who duly perform these three things without doubt obtain the pardon of their sins. But we must see, and most attentively consider, whether the contrition be true, whether the confession be entire, whether the satisfaction be full.

Let us begin with contrition. The Prophet Joel cries out: Rend your hearts, and not your garments (Joel 2). The Hebrews, when they wished to show a sign of sorrow, rent their garments; but the holy Prophet warns us that, if we wish to demonstrate before God a true and inward sorrow for the sin committed, we should rend our hearts. And the Prophet David adds that we must not only rend them, but also crush them, and reduce them as it were to dust: A contrite and humbled heart, he says, O God, Thou wilt not despise. (Ps. 50.) These similitudes plainly show that to appease God by penance it is not enough to say in words: I repent that I have sinned; but there is need of an intimate and heavy sorrow of heart, which can hardly be found without sobs and tears and sighs. The holy Fathers also — it is marvelous how earnestly they speak of true contrition. St. Cyprian, in his Sermon on the Lapsed: "How greatly we must mourn: for a deep wound, let diligent and long treatment not be wanting; let not the penance be less than the crime. We must pray more earnestly and make supplication, pass the day in mourning, spend the nights in vigils and tears, occupy all our time in tears and lamentations, lie stretched upon the ground, and roll in sackcloth and ashes." Clement of Alexandria (bk. 1, ch. 11, otherwise 24), as quoted in Eusebius's History, calls penance "a baptism of tears." St. Gregory Nazianzen, in his second oration on Baptism: "I receive penitents," he says, "if I see them bathed in tears." Theodoret, in the Epitome of the Divine Decrees, in the chapter on penance, writes that the wounds incurred after Baptism are healed — but not, as at first, by the easy remedy of the laver of regeneration, but by many tears and laborious works.

These and similar things all the holy Fathers have left in writing concerning the truth of contrition. Nowadays very many approach confession who show little or no contrition. But those who wish to be truly reconciled with God, and to live rightly so that afterward they may die without fear, ought to enter into their own heart and, having shut the door to other business, ponder most attentively within themselves these or similar things: "Woe is me! What have I done, wretched man that I am, in committing such and such a shameful deed? First, I have offended that most sweet Father, the author of every good, who loves me most tenderly, who surrounded me on every side with His benefits, and of whose charity I see as many signs as I see good things in myself or in others. But what shall I say of my Christ, who loved me when I was His enemy and unworthy, and delivered Himself up for me, an oblation and a sacrifice to God for an odor of sweetness (Eph. 5) — and I, ungrateful and wretched, do not cease to offend Him? How great is my cruelty! My Lord was scourged with whips, crowned with thorns, and fastened with nails to the cross, that He might make a medicine for my old sins and crimes, and I do not cease always to add new ones; He, naked on the cross, cries out that He thirsts for my salvation, and I continue always to offer Him vinegar and most bitter gall to drink. Who, moreover, will explain to me from how great a glory I fell when I committed this or that mortal sin? I was an heir of the kingdom of heaven, of a most happy eternal life; from this so great felicity, truly so glorious and in every way the greatest, I wretchedly fell, for that most fleeting pleasure, and for those words, or for blasphemy against God, which brought me no good. And from that so great felicity to what lot did I come? To the captivity of the Devil, my most cruel enemy; and as soon as this crumbling wall of my body shall be broken down, which at every moment threatens ruin, so soon shall I also descend without any remedy into the eternal fire. Ah, wretched me! Perhaps tomorrow, perhaps this very night, I shall begin to dwell in those everlasting flames. But above all these things my heart is tortured and lacerated by my ingratitude — the ingratitude of the worst of sons and servants toward a most loving and most good Father and Lord; for the more He heaped me with benefits, the more I offended Him by my sins."

If you will attentively ponder these and similar things, shut up in the chamber of your heart — whoever you are who deign to read this little book — I hope with confidence that you will obtain the gift of contrition from our good Lord. The penitent David once entered into the solitude of his heart after the adultery he had committed, and having soon obtained contrition, began to water his couch with tears (Ps. 6). The penitent Peter entered into his heart after his denial of Christ, and going out, "wept bitterly"; and that penitent woman, a sinner, entered into her heart, and at once began to wash the feet of Jesus with her tears and to wipe them with her hair (Luke 7). These, then, are the fruits of holy contrition, which are born only in the solitude of the heart.

Now let us say a few words about confession. I see many men approach this most wholesome Sacrament without any fruit, or certainly with very little, and for no other reason than that they do not enter into their heart when they prepare themselves to make their confession. There are some who approach this work so negligently that they can say only in a general and confused sort of way that they have violated all the commandments, or have committed all mortal sins; to such persons no other than a general and confused absolution would be fitting — indeed, they are not even worthy of such an absolution, for they confess what perhaps they did not do, and what they truly did they do not confess. There are others who have indeed learned to recount their sins one by one and in order, but who take no account of the quality of the person, of the place, of the time, of the number, and of the other things that are usually called circumstances — which is a notable and dangerous negligence. For it is one thing to strike a cleric, another to strike a layman, since excommunication is annexed to the former offense but not to the latter. It is likewise one thing to commit a shameful deed with a virgin, another with a woman consecrated to God, another with a married woman, another with a harlot; and one thing to have fallen into the same sin once, another ten times — for the sin is the same, yet it is manifold. Finally, there are not lacking those — which is more to be wondered at — who judge that internal sins, such as desires of fornication, adultery, murder, or theft, are not sins unless they are carried out in deed; nay, they do not even count immodest looks or lascivious words among sins. And yet the Lord Himself speaks in express words when He says: "Whosoever shall look on a woman to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Matt. 5). It is necessary, therefore, that whoever wishes to take due care of his conscience and to make a profitable and salutary confession should first find some little book on the art of confessing sins rightly, or at least consult a pious and learned confessor; then let him enter into his heart, and not cursorily and briefly, but accurately and seriously examine his conscience, and diligently review his thoughts, desires, words, and deeds, as well as his omissions; and let him lay open his conscience to the pious and skilled physician of souls, and humbly receiving absolution from him, be ready to perform the penance which that confessor shall judge ought to be enjoined.

There remains satisfaction, of which our forefathers, most wise men, took far greater account than many of us seem to do. For since they seriously considered that satisfaction can be made to God much more easily here on earth than in the places of purgatory, they indeed imposed penances which, as regards their duration, lasted seven, or fifteen, or thirty years, and sometimes even a whole life. And as regards their quality, they enjoined most frequent fasts, prayers still more frequent, and besides, that penitents should not use baths, nor horses, nor carriages, nor costly garments; that they should abstain from games, spectacles, and theaters; in fine, almost their whole life was spent in the mourning and sorrow that befits penitents. I will give one example.

In the tenth Council of Toledo we read that the Bishop of Braga, Potamius by name, who had once been defiled by the touch of a woman (for so the Council speaks), of his own accord, with no one compelling him, shut himself up in a certain prison and did penance for nine months; and that afterward, by his own letter, he signified to the council of bishops both this sin of his and the penance he had voluntarily undertaken; and that the council decreed that he should persevere in doing penance for the whole remainder of his life — although the Council nonetheless declared that it had dealt with him more leniently and mercifully than the rules and severity of the ancients allowed. Such was the severity of the ancients. But now we are so weak and delicate that a fast on bread and water for a few days, together with the seven Psalms and litanies to be recited for as many days, and an alms of a few coins to be distributed to the poor, seems severe enough, even when imposed for the expiation of many shameful deeds and crimes. But whatever we spare ourselves here, we shall pay for grievously in the places of purgatory, the justice of God so requiring; unless the power of true contrition, proceeding from ardent charity, be so great that it can obtain from the mercy of God the remission of all our guilt. A truly contrite and humbled heart wondrously moves the compassion of God our Father; for such is the sweetness and goodness of the Father that He cannot but run (Luke 15) to meet the prodigal yet truly repentant son, embrace him, kiss him, give him the ring of peace, wipe away the tears of his sorrow, and fill him with tears of joy sweeter than any honeycomb.

### CHAPTER XIV.

On the fourteenth precept of the art of dying well, which concerns the Sacrament of Order.

The two Sacraments that follow, which are to be briefly considered, do not pertain to all Christians: one pertains to clerics, namely the Sacrament of Order; the other to laymen, the Sacrament of Matrimony. Let us speak briefly of the first — not of all the things that pertain to this Sacrament, but only of those that are necessary for the art of living well and dying happily.

The Orders are reckoned seven in number: four minor and three major; the highest of which, which is called the priesthood, is divided into two — for there are the greater Priests, who are called Bishops, and the lesser, who are called Presbyters. Before all these Orders comes the first tonsure, which is, as it were, the gate to all the Orders, and properly makes a man a cleric. And since what is required of clerics in regard to living piously and religiously is required with still greater reason of those who are placed in the minor or major Orders — and most of all of Presbyters and Bishops — I shall be content to consider and explain briefly what pertains to clerics. There are two things that seem to require explanation concerning clerics: first, the rite itself by which clerics are made; and secondly, the office which they are to discharge in the Church. The rite by which clerics are made, as can be learned from the Pontifical, is this: first, the hair of the head is cut; by which rite is signified the laying aside of superfluous thoughts and desires, such as the thoughts and desires of temporal things — riches, honors, pleasures, and other things of that kind; and at the same time those who are tonsured are bidden to say that verse of the fifteenth Psalm: "The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and of my cup; it is You who will restore my inheritance to me." Then the Bishop orders a white surplice to be brought, and with it he clothes the new cleric, saying those words of the Apostle to the Ephesians: "May the Lord clothe you with the new man, who according to God is created in justice and holiness of truth" (Eph. 4:24). Moreover, no office is properly assigned to the new cleric, but by custom his duty is to serve the priest in the performance of the sacred rite when he celebrates it privately.

Let us now consider how great an eminence of perfection is required in a cleric; and if so much is required in a cleric, how much in an Acolyte, in a Subdeacon, in a Deacon, in a Presbyter, in a Bishop? Surely my mind shudders even to think of it, since what is justly demanded of a simple cleric is scarcely to be found in many Presbyters. The cleric is bidden to cast away superfluous thoughts and desires, which belong properly to worldly men — that is, to men who belong to this world, who are of this world, who think on them and crave them unceasingly. The good cleric is bidden to seek no other portion or inheritance but God, that God alone may be his portion and his inheritance, and that he himself may truly be called, and be, the portion and inheritance of God alone. O the height of clerical perfection, which renounces the whole world that it may truly possess God alone, and itself be possessed by God alone! This is what those words of the Psalm signify: "The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and of my cup." That is called the "portion of the inheritance" which, when an inheritance is divided among many brothers, falls to the share of each one. And so the sense of those words is not that the cleric should wish one part of his inheritance to be God and another part to be earthly riches; but that he should long with all his heart to transfer his whole portion — that is, whatever could belong to him in this world — by a good affection entirely into God. Between the cup and the inheritance, however, there seems to be this difference: that the cup pertains to pleasure and delights, the inheritance to riches and honors. And so the full sense will be: O Lord my God, from this time forward, whatever in the world I could hope for — whether riches, or delights, or other temporal goods — all of it I desire to have in You alone; You alone are abundantly sufficient in place of all things. And since an abundance of heavenly goods cannot be had here on earth, the good cleric therefore continues in prayer and says: "It is You who will restore my inheritance to me." For the things I have despised and cast away for Your sake — whether by giving them to Your poor, or by forgiving those who despoiled me for Your sake — You faithfully keep for me, and will restore them in due time, not in corruptible form, but in Yourself, who are the inexhaustible fountain of all good things.

But lest anyone should doubt this explanation of ours, I will bring forward two witnesses greater than all exception: namely, St. Jerome and St. Bernard. St. Jerome, in his Epistle to Nepotian on the life of clerics, says: "Therefore let the cleric who serves the Church of Christ first interpret his own name; and when the definition of the name has been set forth, let him strive to be what it declares. For if in Greek it is called klēros, and in Latin sors — that is, a lot or portion — clerics are so called either because they are of the Lord's portion, or because the Lord Himself is the sors, that is, the portion of clerics. But whoever is himself the Lord's portion, or has the Lord for his portion, must so conduct himself that he both possesses the Lord and is possessed by the Lord. He who possesses the Lord, and says with the Prophet, 'The Lord is my portion' (Ps. 15:5), can possess nothing outside the Lord. But if he has anything else besides the Lord, the Lord will not be his portion; if, for example, he has gold, or silver, or estates, or costly furnishings — together with such portions the Lord will not deign to become his portion." So speaks St. Jerome; and if anyone will read his whole Epistle, he will surely find that an altogether great perfection of life is required in clerics. Now let St. Bernard come forward, who not only approves the teaching of St. Jerome, but sometimes uses his very words, although he does not name him. Thus he speaks in that very long discourse on the words of St. Peter, "Behold, we have left all things," which are recorded in St. Matthew: "A cleric," he says, "who has a portion on earth, will not have a portion in heaven. If a cleric has anything besides the Lord, the Lord will not be his portion" (Matt. 19:27). And a little further on, declaring what a cleric may retain for himself out of ecclesiastical benefices, he says:

"To withhold the goods of the poor from the poor is judged a crime equal to sacrilege; truly, whatever the ministers and dispensers — who are by no means lords and owners — take beyond food and clothing is stolen, with sacrilegious cruelty, from the patrimony of the poor and the resources of the Churches." So speaks St. Bernard, who together with St. Jerome utters not falsehoods but perfect truth.

There follows the rite of putting on the white surplice, with those words of the Apostle: "Put on the new man, who according to God is created in justice and holiness of truth" (Eph. 4:24). For it is not enough for clerics not to abound in riches; they must also lead an innocent and stainless life, since they are dedicated to the ministry of the altar, on which the Lamb without spot is daily immolated. Moreover, to put on the new man is nothing else than to put off the ways of the old Adam, who corrupted his way, and to put on the ways of the second Adam — that is, Christ — who, born of the Virgin in a new manner, established a new life in justice and holiness of truth; that is, not only in moral justice, but also in that most true and supernatural holiness which Christ displayed in Himself, who, as the Apostle Peter bears witness, "did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth" (1 Pet. 2:22). Would that we had many such clerics, who would show forth in their conduct and in their life what they display in their white garment!

Finally, it is the duty of clerics to assist at the divine Sacrifice — in which the Lamb of God is daily immolated — with angelic purity, devoutly, gravely, assiduously, and diligently. I know that many devout clerics are to be found in the Church; but not only do I know it — I have also very often seen impudent ones serving at the Lord's altar with wandering eyes, as though the work being done were not only not full of holy dread, but something common and trivial. And perhaps so grave a fault rests not on the minister alone, but clings also to the priest who celebrates the Sacrifice, who sometimes hurries so much and conducts himself with so little devotion that he seems not to know what he is doing. Let such men hear what St. John Chrysostom says about the time of the celebration of Mass: "At that time," he says in the sixth book of On the Priesthood, "the angels stand beside the priest, and the whole order of the heavenly powers raises its cries, and the place near the altar is filled with choirs of angels in honor of Him who is immolated — a thing one may well believe even from the greatness of the Sacrifice which is then being offered."

Let them hear also St. Gregory, who says in the fourth book of his Dialogues: "Which of the faithful," he says, "can doubt that at the very hour of the immolation, at the voice of the priest, the heavens are opened, the choirs of angels are present, the lowest things are united to the highest, earthly things are joined to heavenly things, and one thing is made of the visible and the invisible?" If the priest, and the cleric who assists him, pondered these things seriously, how could it possibly be that they perform so great a work in the manner in which they perform it? O what a sad and deplorable spectacle it would be, if we had the eyes of the mind open, to see a priest celebrating, surrounded on every side by choirs of angels, who stand in wonder and tremble at what he is doing, and in their amazement raise spiritual cries — while the priest, set in their midst, all cold and as it were stupefied, pays no heed to what he is doing, does not understand what he is saying, and so hastens toward the end, muddles the signs, and rushes the words, that he seems not to know what he is doing; and meanwhile the ministering cleric looks about this way and that, or chatters with someone. Thus is God offended, thus the most sacred things are despised, and thus is matter for slander given to the heretics. Since these things are so, I admonish and exhort all clerics, both greater and lesser, that, dead to the world, they live to God alone; that they not covet an abundance of temporal goods; that they guard their innocence with great zeal; and that they handle divine things religiously, as is fitting, and see to it that others so handle them; that so they may gain for themselves great confidence before God, and continually fill the Church of Christ with a sweet fragrance.

### CHAPTER XV.

Of the fifteenth precept of the art of dying well, which concerns Matrimony.

*Editorial note: The 1875 edition repeats the subtitle about three Gospel lessons here. The subtitle has been corrected to match this chapter’s subject.*

Next comes the Sacrament of Matrimony, which has a twofold institution: one, as it is a civil contract under the law of nature; the other, as it is a Sacrament under the law of the Gospel. Of both institutions we shall speak briefly, not in themselves, but in order to live well, so that we may afterwards die happily. The first institution was made by God in the earthly paradise: for those words of God, "It is not good for man to be alone; let us make him a help like unto himself" (Gen. 2), cannot rightly be understood except of a help for the begetting and rearing of offspring. For, as St. Augustine rightly teaches (On the Literal Interpretation of Genesis, Book 9, ch. 7), in no matter do men need the help of women except in begetting and rearing children; for in other things men are better helped by their fellow men. And so, a little after woman was created, Adam said by divine inspiration: "A man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife" — words which our Savior, in Matthew, attributes to God, saying: "Have you not read that He who made man from the beginning made them male and female, and said: For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and they two shall be in one flesh? What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder" (Matt. 19). The Lord therefore attributes those words to God, because Adam did not speak them of himself, but by the inspiration of God. And this was the first institution of Matrimony.

The second institution — or rather the exaltation of Matrimony to the dignity of a Sacrament — is found in the Apostle, in these words of the Epistle to the Ephesians: "For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and they two shall be in one flesh. This is a great sacrament; but I speak in Christ and in the Church" (Eph. 5). That Matrimony is a true Sacrament, St. Augustine teaches in his book On the Good of Marriage: "In our marriages," he says, "the holiness of the Sacrament is of more worth than the fruitfulness of the womb" (On the Good of Marriage, ch. 18); and in chapter twenty-four: "The good of marriage among all nations and all men," he says, "lies in the begetting of children and in the faith of chastity; but as regards the people of God, also in the holiness of the Sacrament"; and in his book On Faith and Works: "In the city of the Lord," he says, "and on His holy mountain, that is, in the Church, not only the bond of marriage but also the Sacrament is commended" (On Faith and Works, ch. 7). But it does not belong to this place to discuss these matters more exactly; what properly pertains here is to explain how men and women joined in Matrimony can so live that they may trust they will die well.

There are three goods of Matrimony, if one uses it well: offspring, faith, and the grace of the Sacrament. The begetting of offspring and their good upbringing must be kept in view, if one would make good use of marriage; on the contrary, he sins most grievously who seeks from marriage not offspring but only the pleasure of the flesh. Hence in Sacred Scripture one of the sons of Judah is most severely rebuked, because in lying with his wife he spilled his seed upon the ground, lest children be born. For this is not to use Matrimony, but to abuse it. But if at times devout spouses are burdened by a multitude of children whom, in their poverty, they cannot easily support, there is a remedy honorable and pleasing to God: by mutual consent to separate from the marriage bed, and thenceforth to devote themselves to prayer and fasting. For if it is pleasing to God — after the example of the Virgin Mother of God and St. Joseph — as it was in the Emperor Henry and his wife Cunegund, in King Edward and his wife Edith, in Count Elzear and his wife Delphine, and in not a few others, why should it displease God or men that married people, having begotten children, should by mutual consent withdraw from the marriage act, so as to spend what remains of their life in fasting and prayer?

Again, it is a grave sin if anyone placed in the state of Matrimony neglects the children he has begotten, and suffers them to lack either a pious upbringing or the necessities of life. Many examples of this are found in sacred and profane histories; but since I aim at brevity, I shall be content with one, which is found in the First Book of Samuel. For God Himself speaks thus: "In that day I will raise up against Eli all the things I have spoken concerning his house; I will begin, and I will make an end. For I have foretold to him that I would judge his house forever for iniquity, because he knew that his sons dealt wickedly, and he did not chastise them. Therefore have I sworn to the house of Eli that the iniquity of his house shall not be expiated with victims and offerings forever" (1 Sam. 3-4). This the Lord foretold, and soon after fulfilled: for the sons of Eli were slain in battle, and Eli himself, falling backward from his seat, broke his neck and perished miserably. If, then, Eli — otherwise a just man and a judge of his people — on account of the sins of his sons, whom he had not brought up as he ought and had not corrected when they grew worse, perished miserably together with his sons and lost the leadership of his people, what will become of those who not only do not strive to give their children a good upbringing, but by the example of their own evil lives invite them to sin? Surely they must expect nothing less than a horrible end, both for themselves and for their children, unless they repent in good time and do fitting penance for their sins.

The second good of Matrimony is faith, which consists in this: that spouses understand their body is not their own, but belongs to the other spouse; and that just as one cannot deny the other the marriage debt, so one cannot grant the use of one's body to any but one's own spouse — of which the ring is the sign. This doctrine is read in express words in the Apostle: "Let the husband," he says, "render the debt to his wife, and in like manner also the wife to her husband. The wife has not power over her own body, but the husband; and in like manner the husband has not power over his own body, but the wife. Defraud not one another, unless perhaps by consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to prayer" (1 Cor. 7). This is the teaching of the Apostle, which Christian spouses must diligently keep if they desire to die well. Adulterers, if they are public, either judges readily punish justly, or kinsmen and relatives put them out of the way for the sake of honor; but the secret ones — who are far more numerous — the almighty and most just Judge, from whom secrets are not hidden, will without doubt condemn to eternal punishments.

The third good, and the noblest, is the grace of the Sacrament, which God Himself pours into the hearts of devout spouses, if, when the marriage is lawfully celebrated, the spouses themselves are found well disposed and prepared. This grace, besides the other goods it brings with it, helps in a wonderful way to establish harmony; for temperaments, habits, illnesses, and the various dispositions of body and soul can easily sow enmities. But above all, it is the imitation of the marriage of Christ with the Church that makes married life sweetest and most blessed. Of this the Apostle thus speaks in the Epistle to the Ephesians: "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the Church, and delivered Himself up for it, that He might sanctify it, cleansing it by the laver of water in the word of life, that He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, having neither spot nor wrinkle" (Eph. 5). The blessed Apostle also admonishes women, saying: "Let women be subject to their husbands as to the Lord, because the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the Church. But as the Church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject to their husbands in all things." Finally the Apostle concludes: "Let every one love his wife as himself; and let the wife fear her husband."

This teaching of the Apostle, if it be diligently considered and observed, will make marriages blessed on earth and in heaven. But let us briefly explain the meaning of the Apostle Paul's words. First, the Apostle exhorts husbands to love their wives, as Christ also loved the Church. Christ certainly loved the Church with a love of friendship, not a love of concupiscence: He sought the good of the Church, the advantage of the Church, the salvation of the Church, not any advantage or pleasure of His own. Accordingly, they do not imitate Christ who love a wife for her surpassing beauty, captivated by love of her loveliness, or for a dowry of many thousands of gold pieces or a most opulent inheritance: for such men love not the bride but themselves, desiring to satisfy the concupiscence of their flesh or the concupiscence of their eyes, which is called avarice. Thus Solomon, wise at first but foolish at the last (1 Kings 11), loved his wives and concubines not with a love of friendship but with a love of concupiscence, desiring not to do them good but to satisfy his carnal concupiscence; and blinded by this concupiscence, he did not fear to sacrifice to strange gods, lest he should grieve his darling even in the least. Moreover, that Christ in His marriage with the Church did not seek Himself — that is, His own advantage or pleasure — but the good of the Church His bride, is clear from the words that follow: "And He delivered Himself up for her, that He might sanctify her, cleansing her by the laver of water in the word of life." This surely is true and perfect charity: to deliver oneself up to torments for the eternal salvation of the Church one's bride. Nor did Christ love the Church only with a love of friendship, not of concupiscence; He loved her also with a perpetual love, not for a time. For just as He never put aside the human nature which He had once assumed, so also He joined to Himself the Church, His bride, by the bond of an indissoluble marriage: "With an everlasting love have I loved you" (Jer. 31), He says through the Prophet. And this is the reason why a consummated marriage among Christians is altogether indissoluble: namely, because it is a Sacrament, signifying the marriage of Christ with the Church, which marriage is entirely indissoluble, whereas the marriage of the Hebrews and the pagans can be dissolved in certain cases.

Afterwards the same Apostle adds, instructing women, and teaches that they should be subject to their husbands just as the Church is subject to Christ. Jezebel did not observe this precept (1 Kings 21; 2 Kings 9), who wished to lord it over her husband, and brought ruin on herself and him together with all her children. And would that there were not many among us who strive to lord it over their husbands; but perhaps the fault lies with the husbands, who do not know how to keep their own primacy.

Certainly Sarah, the wife of Abraham, was so subject to her husband that she called him her lord: "Behold," she said, "I am now grown old, and my lord is an old man" (Gen. 18). St. Peter praised this virtue of Sarah in his first Epistle, saying: "The holy women were subject to their husbands; as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord" (1 Pet. 3). Now it may seem strange that the Apostles Peter and Paul everywhere teach that husbands should love their wives, and wives should fear their husbands — or, what comes to the same thing, be subject to them. Should not a wife also love her husband? She should indeed love her husband and be loved by him; but she ought to love with fear and reverence, so that love does not hinder fear: otherwise the woman turns into a tyrant. Certainly Delilah (Judg. 16) mocked her man, not as a husband but as a servant. And in the third book of Esdras (3 Esd. 4) the story is told of a king so captivated by love of his concubine that he suffered his mistress to sit at his right hand, while she would take the crown from the king's head and set it on her own, and even slap the king himself. And so it is no wonder that it was said by the Lord to the first woman herself: "You shall be under your husband's power, and he shall have dominion over you" (Gen. 3). For this reason no little wisdom is required in a husband, that he may at once love his wife and guide her; and likewise both admonish and teach her; and, if need be, correct and amend her — yet so that he truly loves her as a part of his own body, and brings it about that she in turn loves her husband, and is firmly persuaded that she is loved by him in like manner, and is admonished out of charity, not out of hatred. We have the example of St. Monica, the mother of St. Augustine, who, although she had a fierce and pagan husband, bore with him so prudently and piously that she was always loved by him, and he himself was at last converted to Christ. Let the reader consult the book of the Confessions of St. Augustine.

### CHAPTER XVI.

Of the sixteenth precept of the art of dying well, which concerns the Sacrament of Extreme Unction.

There remains the last Sacrament, which is called Extreme Unction, from which a most useful lesson is gathered — one not for the last hour only, but for the whole course of life. For in that Sacrament all those parts of the body are anointed in which the five senses of the body reside, and over each is said: "May God forgive you whatever you have sinned through the sight"; and so for the rest. From this we understand that the five senses are gates through which sins of every kind enter into the soul. Accordingly, if anyone diligently guards these gates, he will easily escape an immense multitude of sins, and so will live well and die most happily.

Let us therefore speak briefly of the guarding of these five gates. That the eye is a gate through which enter the sins pertaining to lust, Christ, the teacher of all, teaches when He says: "Whoever looks at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. And if your right eye scandalizes you, pluck it out and cast it from you: for it is better for you that one of your members should perish than that your whole body be cast into hell" (Matt. 5). Then we know that the elders who saw Susanna naked (Dan. 13) at once burned with lust for her, and were afterwards miserably put to death. We know too that David (2 Sam. 11), that special friend of God, from the mere sight of Bathsheba washing herself, fell into adultery, from which murder and countless losses followed. Finally, natural reason is ready at hand: for the beauty of a woman in a certain way compels itself to be loved by a man, and the beauty of a man by a woman; nor does that love rest until it comes to the union of bodies, on account of the concupiscence which remains in us from original sin. This evil the holy Apostle also laments when he says: "I see another law in my members, fighting against the law of my mind and making me captive in the law of sin that is in my members. Unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom. 7).

What remedy shall we find against this grave temptation? The remedy is ready and easy with God's help, if one is willing to use it. The remedy is found in St. Augustine, in the one hundred and ninth Epistle, which epistle contains the rule for consecrated virgins; for this holy Father speaks thus to his consecrated virgins: "Let your eyes, if they are cast upon anyone, be fixed upon no one." For a simple glance is almost unavoidable, but it cannot — or at least is not wont to — wound hearts unless it is prolonged. Therefore if anyone accustoms himself not deliberately to gaze upon a beautiful person, even if he chances to fall in with such persons and, out of good habit, straightway turns his eyes away, there will be no danger for him. For St. Augustine writes truly that it is not the sight but the lingering in looking that is dangerous. And this is what holy Job taught by his own example when he said: "I made a covenant with my eyes, that I would not so much as think upon a virgin" (Job 31). There he does not say, "I made a covenant that I would not look," but "that I would not think" — that is, that he would not linger so long in the sight of a virgin that the sight would penetrate to the heart, and he would begin to think about her beauty, and gradually even to desire her conversation and her embrace. And he gives an excellent reason, such as it became a most holy man to give: "For what part would God have in me?" — as if he meant to say: God is my portion and all my good, the greatest good indeed, than which nothing better can be conceived; but God loves none but the chaste and the just.

To this belongs also the admonition of the Lord: "If your eye scandalizes you, pluck it out" (Matt. 18); that is, so possess it as though you possessed it not, and so train your eyes as though you were blind. Moreover, those who in early youth begin to be careful about this matter do not have to struggle for the rest of their life to flee and avoid such vices; whereas those who have been badly habituated can indeed with difficulty — yet can, with the help of God's grace — change their ways and break the snare.

But someone will perhaps say: why does God not wish beauty to be looked upon and loved? The answer is easy, and indeed twofold. For God created men and women for marriage; for thus God said in the beginning: "It is not good for man to be alone; let us make him a help like unto himself" (Gen. 2). Now a man does not need the help of a woman except for begetting and rearing offspring, as we taught above from the doctrine of St. Augustine (On the Literal Interpretation of Genesis, Book 9, ch. 7) in his book on Genesis literally interpreted. But a man and a woman would not easily get along, nor gladly live together for their whole life, unless beauty were present to win love. Since, therefore, woman was made beautiful so as to be loved by her husband, she should not be loved with a love that urges toward union except by her own husband; for this reason it is said in the law of the Lord: "You shall not covet your neighbor's wife" (Exod. 20). And to husbands the Apostle says: "Husbands, love your wives" (Eph. 5). Besides, there are many good and beautiful things which are not to be desired by all, but only by those to whom they are suited. The eating of meat and the drinking of wine are good things, but for the healthy, not for the sick. So also the beauty of men and women after the resurrection, when we shall be truly healthy, will be able to be loved most safely by all, since then the disease of carnal concupiscence, under which mortals labor, will be absent. And so it should not seem strange if all are now permitted to gaze with delight upon the sun, and the moon, and the stars, and flowers, and other beautiful things of that kind, which do not nourish the disease of concupiscence, but are not permitted to contemplate with delight beautiful women or handsome men, lest perhaps that contemplation feed the disease. After the sense of sight comes the sense of hearing, which must be guarded no less diligently than the sense of sight.

But with the ears must be joined the tongue, which is the instrument of speech: for words, whether good or evil, do not reach the hearing unless they sound through the instrument of the tongue. And since the tongue, unless it be most diligently guarded, is the cause of very many evils, St. James therefore cries out and says: "If any man does not offend in word, he is a perfect man"; and a little after: "Behold how small a fire kindles how great a forest! And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity" (Jas. 3).

In this passage the holy Apostle teaches three things: first, that to guard the tongue well is a most difficult thing, and that therefore they are rare — and they alone perfect men — who know how to guard the tongue well. Secondly, that from an evil tongue very great harm can arise in the briefest time, which he explains by a similitude drawn from a spark of fire, which, unless it is at once extinguished, can consume a vast forest of trees. For so a single word incautiously uttered can stir up suspicions of some crime, whence enmities, quarrels, contentions, murders, and the destruction of entire families follow. Finally, St. James teaches that an evil tongue is not one single evil thing, but includes within itself a multitude of evils; therefore he calls it a world of iniquity. For by it all crimes are either prepared, as adulteries and robberies, or perpetrated, as perjuries and false testimonies, or defended, as when the wicked man excuses the evil he has committed, or feigns a good he has not done. And again the evil tongue is rightly called a world of iniquity, because through the tongue man sins against God, by blaspheming and forswearing; against his neighbor, by detracting and reviling; and against himself, by boasting that he has done good works which in truth he has not done, and by lying that he has not done the evils which he did.

To this testimony of the Apostle James I wish to add the testimony of the prophet David in the first of the Gradual Psalms: "Deliver my soul, O Lord," he says, "from wicked lips and from a deceitful tongue" (Ps. 119). If the holy king feared for himself because of a wicked and deceitful tongue, what ought private men to do — and much more, if they are not only private persons but poor, weak, and obscure?

The Prophet adds: "What shall be given to you, or what shall be added to you, to a deceitful tongue?" The words are obscure on account of the character of the Hebrew language, but the sense seems to me to be this: "Not without cause do I fear for myself because of a wicked and deceitful tongue, for so great an evil is such a tongue that no evil seems able to be added to it." The Prophet proceeds and says: "The sharp arrows of the mighty, with coals that lay waste." By these words it is declared, in a most elegant similitude, how great an evil the deceitful tongue is; for he makes it like to arrows. For first, arrows strike from afar and fly with such speed that they can hardly be avoided; next, the arrows to which the deceitful tongue is compared are said to be shot forth by a mighty and strong hand. Thirdly, it is added that those arrows are sharp — that is, well polished and sharpened by a skilled craftsman. Finally, he adds that they are like coals that lay waste — that is, so fiery that they can desolate anything, however hard — and that for this reason the deceitful and wicked tongue is like not so much the arrows of men as arrows sent down from heaven, such as the lightnings of heaven, which nothing at all can resist. Certainly this prophetic description of the deceitful and wicked tongue is such that no evil so great can be conceived that could bear comparison with the deceitful and wicked tongue.

And that all these things may be still more easily understood, I will add two examples from the Scriptures. Let the first be that of the most wicked Doeg the Edomite, who accused the priest Ahimelech before King Saul (1 Sam. 21) — which was sheer calumny and imposture. But because King Saul was at that time most ill-disposed toward David, he readily believed everything, and ordered to be slain at once not only Ahimelech but all the other priests, to the number of eighty-five men, who had in nothing sinned against the king. Nor was King Saul content with this slaughter: he ordered to be killed all who dwelt in the priestly city named Nob — not only men and women, but he extended his cruelty even to little children and sucklings, and to the very animals, the sheep, the oxen, and the asses. And of this very deceitful and wicked tongue of Doeg the Edomite it is credible that David spoke in the Psalm of which we have already expounded a part. By this example we plainly learn how great is the power of a deceitful and wicked tongue for evil.

The second example we shall take from the Gospel according to St. Mark (Mark 6). When the daughter of Herodias danced before Herod the Tetrarch and his princes, the dancing of that girl pleased Herod so much that before them all he swore he would give the girl whatever she should ask, even half of his kingdom. This foolish and rash oath was the cause of very many evils. For first the daughter of Herodias asked her mother what she should request, and her mother advised her to ask for the head of John the Baptist; this very thing she asked, and presently the head of the Lord's Forerunner, cut off from his body, was brought in on a dish. How great are the evils here! The mother sinned most grievously, asking a most unjust thing. Herod sinned no less grievously, who ordered one to be slain who was the Forerunner of the Lord, more than a prophet, than whom no greater had arisen among those born of women, and whom Herod himself knew to be a just and holy man — and that without cause, without trial, at the time of a solemn banquet, at the petition of a dancing girl.

But let us hear the evils of the punishment, now that we have heard the evils of the guilt. A little later Herod was stripped of his princedom by the emperor Gaius and relegated to perpetual exile; and thus he who had sworn that he would give half his kingdom exchanged the whole kingdom for perpetual exile, as Josephus bears witness in his book of the Antiquities (bk. 17, ch. 5). The daughter of Herodias herself, who by her dancing was the cause of the death of St. John the Baptist, while crossing a frozen river, fell into the deep when the ice broke — with her whole body except her head, which, severed from her body, danced upon the ice, so that all might understand for what cause she had so miserably perished. Finally, Herodias herself, seized with excessive grief, straightway died, and followed her daughter to the torments of hell. Nicephorus Callistus wrote this tragedy in his History (bk. 1, ch. 2). Behold how many evils, both of guilt and of punishment, followed from the rash oath of Herod the Tetrarch!

Let us now come to the remedy which prudent men must apply to the sins of the tongue. The holy prophet David, at the beginning of the thirty-eighth Psalm, indicates the remedy which he himself used: "I said," he says, "I will take heed to my ways, that I may not sin with my tongue" (Ps. 38); that is, "I, in order to escape the sins of the tongue, diligently guard my ways; for I neither speak, nor think, nor do anything, except after a prior judgment upon the things which I am about to do" — for "ways" are those by which men walk in this life. Therefore the remedy against harmful words — and not only against harmful words, but also against harmful deeds, or desires, or thoughts — is the reflection, or premeditation, of what I am about to do, to say, to think, or to desire. And this is proper to man: not to do anything rashly, but to bend his consideration back upon the things that are to be done, and if indeed they accord with right reason, to do them, but if not, not to do them. And what we have said of action must be understood likewise of speech, of desire, and of the other works of the rational soul.

But if perhaps some cannot premeditate all the things they are about to do or say, certainly there should be no prudent man, desirous of eternal salvation, who does not each day, early in the morning before he undertakes the business of this life, approach God in prayer, and beg that his ways, his deeds, his desires, his thoughts be directed to the glory of God and the salvation of his soul. Then, when the day is done, before he goes up to his bed to sleep, let him examine his conscience and ask an account of himself whether he has offended God in thought, in word, in deed, or in desire; and if he finds any offense against God, especially a mortal one, let him not dare to close his eyes to seek the night's rest until he has first been reconciled to God by true penance, and has formed a true and firm purpose of guarding his ways, that he may not sin with his tongue, nor in his deeds or appetites. And let this suffice concerning the guarding of the tongue.

As now concerns the sense of hearing, very little remains to be said. For if the tongue is restrained by the bridle of reason from breaking forth into evil words, there will be almost nothing that can corrupt the sense of hearing. There are four kinds of words for which the door of the sense of hearing must especially be closed, lest through the ears evil things should penetrate to infect the heart. The first place is held by words against the faith, which on account of human curiosity are listened to not unwillingly; and yet if they penetrate within, they take away faith from the heart — faith which is the root and beginning of all good things. But among unbelieving words none are more pernicious than those of men who deny either the providence of God or the immortality of the human soul. For such words make not so much heretics as atheists, and open the widest possible door to every crime. The second kind of evil words consists in detractions, which do away with fraternal charity, and are eagerly listened to — but by curious people. For holy David, who was a man according to God's own heart, says in the Psalms: "The man that secretly detracted his neighbor, him did I persecute" (Ps. 100). And since detractions are not seldom heard at banquets, St. Augustine had placed these little verses on the wall beside his table:

Whoever loves to gnaw with his words at the life of the absent, let him know that this table is unworthy of him.

This is related by Possidius in his Life of St. Augustine. The third kind of evil words is that which consists in flatteries. For flatteries are willingly heard, and yet they beget conceit and pride; and pride is the queen of vices, and most of all an enemy to God. The fourth kind of evil words pertains to lust, and is found in amatory talk and lascivious songs. And by the lovers of this world nothing is heard more sweetly, though nothing is more harmful than that kind of utterance. For lascivious songs are like the songs of the sirens, which delighted men in order to cast them into the sea and devour them.

Against all these dangers the salutary remedy is to have upright friends, and to be separated from the wicked with all watchfulness of mind. For strangers do not readily dare to mingle detracting, heretical, flattering, or lascivious words with those whom they have either not seen before, or with whom they are not familiar.

And so Solomon, instructing his son at the beginning of Proverbs, expressed the first precept in these words: "Hear, my son, the instruction of thy father," etc. "If sinners shall entice thee, consent not to them. If they shall say: Come with us, let us lie in wait for blood, let us hide snares for the innocent without cause; let us swallow him up alive like hell, and whole as one that goeth down into the pit; we shall find all precious substance, we shall fill our houses with spoils; cast in thy lot with us, let us all have one purse. My son, walk not thou with them," etc. "They themselves also lie in wait against their own blood, and practise deceits against their own souls" (Prov. 1). This counsel, then, of the wisest of men can readily serve as a remedy for the sense of hearing, that it be not easily corrupted by evil words; especially if we add the saying of the Lord (Matt. 10), who was wiser than Solomon and openly declared that a man's enemies are they of his own household. And so much for the sense of hearing.

The third sense is that of smell, about which almost nothing occurs that needs to be said. For the sense of smelling is concerned with odors, which have no great power to corrupt the soul; and precious perfumes pertain to but few: while common ones, such as the scents of flowers,

I come to the fourth sense, which is called the sense of taste. The sins that enter through this gate to corrupt the soul are in general two: gluttony and drunkenness; but from these very many others arise. Concerning gluttony and drunkenness we have the admonition of the Lord in Luke: "Take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness" (Luke 21). And another admonition of the Apostle in the Epistle to the Romans: "Not in rioting and drunkenness" (Rom. 13). Indeed, these two sins are numbered in Holy Scripture among deadly crimes, the Apostle saying in the Epistle to the Galatians: "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are: fornication, uncleanness, immodesty, lust, idolatry, witchcrafts, etc., murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like; of which I foretell you, as I have foretold, that they who do such things shall not obtain the kingdom of God" (Gal. 5). Nor is this the only punishment of these sins; gluttony and drunkenness also weigh down the hearts of men, so that they cannot rise to think of and pursue the things of God. This our Savior taught (Luke 21), and St. Basil in his homily on fasting explains it by two most fitting comparisons. The first is taken from the sun and vapors. For just as those thick vapors which rise from damp places cover the heaven with clouds and hinder the rays of the sun from reaching us, so also from gluttony and drunkenness certain fumes and, as it were, vapors are stirred up within us, which darken the heaven of reason and rob us of the rays of the divine light. The second comparison is drawn from smoke and bees. For just as bees, the makers of honey, are driven from their hives by smoke, so too the wisdom of God — which, like a bee, is wont to produce in our souls the honey of virtues, of grace, and of heavenly consolations — is driven out by nothing more readily than by the smoke of gluttony and drunkenness.

To this is added that gluttony and drunkenness also injure the health of the body. A physician named Antiphanes, most skilled in his profession, asserted — as Clement of Alexandria relates in the second book of his Pedagogue — that one cause of nearly all diseases is the abundance and variety of foods. On the contrary, St. Basil, in his first homily on fasting, judged that abstinence should be called the parent of good health. And everywhere physicians, to restore health to bodies that are ill, employ fasting and prescribe abstinence from wine and meat. Add to this that gluttony and drunkenness are greatly harmful not only to the well-being of body and soul, but also to one's domestic estate. Gluttony and drunkenness have made many a rich man poor, and many a master a slave. Finally, gluttony and drunkenness deprive many poor men and beggars of the alms of the rich. For those who are not content with sober food and drink easily consume all their substance on their own pleasures, so that nothing remains for their needy brethren. And that saying of the Apostle is fulfilled: "One indeed is hungry, and another is drunk" (1 Cor. 11).

But leaving these things aside, let us come to the remedies. A remedy against gluttony and drunkenness can be the example of all the saints. I pass over the Hermits and Monks, of whom St. Jerome writes in his epistle to Eustochium on the preservation of virginity, that among them to have eaten anything cooked was accounted luxury. I pass over St. Ambrose, who, as Paulinus testifies in his Life, fasted every day except the solemn feasts and Sundays. I pass over St. Augustine, who, as Possidius testifies in his Life, had vegetables and herbs at his table, and meat only sometimes for the sake of guests or the sick. I pass over the other Saints. If anyone will attentively consider what the Lord of all and the Father of all Himself did, when in the desert He Himself undertook the charge of feeding His people, he will without doubt learn the art of sobriety wonderfully well. For forty years God

— alone mighty, alone wise, and alone good — who was able, who knew how, and who willed to provide in the very best way for His beloved people, rained manna down upon them from heaven and drew water out of the rock. Now manna was a food not unlike a cake made of flour and honey, as is said in the book of Exodus (Ex. 16). Behold how soberly the most wise Lord willed His people to dine and sup: a cake was their food, water their drink; and yet they all lived sound and healthy, until they began to be held fast by a desire for flesh.

After the example of the Father, the Son of God, Christ Jesus, "in whom are all the treasures of the wisdom and knowledge of God" (Col. 2), when He furnished at once a dinner and a supper for many thousands of hearers, gave them pieces of bread and fish, and water to drink. Nor was it only while He was still mortal that the Lord Christ prepared so sober a banquet for His hearers; but also after the resurrection, when all power in heaven and on earth had been given to Him (John 21), He gave His disciples a meal on the seashore of bread and fish alone, and that a sparing one; nor is any mention made of wine or of other things. O how far distant are the counsels of God from the counsels of men! The King of heaven and earth delights in simplicity and sobriety, and is chiefly solicitous to enrich, to fill, and to gladden the soul; but men prefer to hearken to their own concupiscence, and to the devil their enemy, rather than to God — so that we may say with the Apostle (Phil. 3) that the god of carnal men is none other than the belly.

There remains the sense of touch, which is the coarsest of all, and at the same time the most lively of all. Through this sense there enter, to defile the soul and at the same time to corrupt other men, the works of the flesh, which the blessed Apostle enumerates, saying: "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are fornication, uncleanness, immodesty" (Gal. 5). And so by these three words the Apostle includes all kinds of impurity. Nor is there need to go further in explaining these things, which ought rather never to be heard of. For so speaks the same Apostle writing to the Ephesians: "But fornication and all uncleanness, let it not so much as be named among you, as becometh saints" (Eph. 5).

Now the remedies against all these evils that occur to me are the following; and they are nearly the very same ones that physicians use to cure the sick. For physicians begin first with fasting or abstinence: they forbid the sick the eating of meat and the drinking of wine. The very same must be done by the man who is given over to lust: he must abstain from excessive food and excessive drink. This is what the Apostle prescribes to his Timothy: "Use," he says, "a little wine for your stomach's sake and your frequent infirmities" (1 Tim. 5:23); that is: use wine because of the weakness of your stomach, but a little wine, so as to guard against lust, for "in wine is lust" (Eph. 5:18). Then the physicians of the body administer bitter potions, the opening of a vein, and other things of that kind which are repugnant to nature. So the holy man said with the Apostle: "I chastise my body and bring it into subjection, lest perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway" (1 Cor. 9:27). The holy Fathers established a way of life wholly contrary to the delights and pleasures of the flesh — in fastings, watchings, lying upon the ground, scourges, hair-shirts — not out of hatred for the body, but out of hatred for the lustful flesh. I will bring forward one example out of many. St. Hilarion, as St. Jerome bears witness in his Life, when he was tempted by lustful thoughts, said, addressing his own body: "I will see to it that you do not kick; I will not feed you on barley, but on chaff; I will waste you away with hunger and thirst, I will weigh you down with a heavy load; I will drive you through heat and cold, so that you think of food rather than of wantonness." Moreover, the physicians of the body prescribe exercise, or the game of ball, or something of that kind. And the like greatly conduces to preserving the health of the soul: namely, if a man who longs for eternal salvation assigns some hour each day to meditating on the mysteries of our redemption, or on the four last things, or on other devout subjects. But if meditation does not succeed as he would wish, let him at least spend some time every day in reading the holy Scriptures, or devout books, or the lives of the Saints.

Finally, a most effective remedy for overcoming all the temptations of the flesh and the sins of lust is to flee idleness. For no one is so exposed to shameful thoughts as the man who has nothing to do, and who wastes his time either watching the passers-by from a window, or gossiping and playing with friends. On the contrary, none are more free from filthy thoughts than those who spend whole days occupied in the labors of tilling the fields. For this reason our Master Christ chose poor parents, who earned their bread by their own labor; and He Himself too, before entering upon the labors of preaching, willed to follow a craftsman's trade, and assisted him who labored at that same craft — for they said of Him: "Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary?" I have wished to add this so that artisans and country folk may not be discontented with their lot, since the Wisdom of God chose that lot for Himself, for His Mother, and for His most holy foster father — not that they needed this remedy, but to warn us weak ones to flee idleness, if we would avoid these sins.

## BOOK TWO

### CHAPTER I.

Of the first precept of the art of dying well when death is now at hand, which is the meditation on death.

We divided the art of dying well, at the outset, into two parts. In the former were set down the precepts of dying well that could belong to that time in which death could still seem to be far away; in the latter, which is now before us, we shall set down those that belong to death as it were present, or soon to come. Now death is said to be imminent, or at the very doors, either when we are worn out with age — as the Apostle says: "That which grows old and decays is near its end" (Heb. 8:13) — or when a grave illness, judged most dangerous by the physicians, has seized us, whether it has struck an old man or a child. The first precept of this second order seems to us to be the meditation on death. For death, however diligently and attentively it is considered while we are in the flower of life, moves us hardly at all, since it seems to be far away, and for that reason less dreadful. But when it is seen to be near at hand, so that it can almost be touched with the hands, then it truly affects us, and the consideration of it profits us greatly. All arts are learned better by practice than by instruction; and it is agreed that those who, if not more often, have at least died twice — like blessed Christina, and that Drithelm the Englishman, and that hermit whose story John Climacus relates, of whom we shall say a few words in the last chapter — died quite readily. For us, who are permitted to die only once, no better way is opened than to meditate and reflect on what will take place in death.

First, then, we must consider that in death there takes place a separation of the soul from the body, yet neither is the soul extinguished, nor does the body fall and return to dust without hope of rising again. For if this were to happen, as atheists suppose, those who despised death would seem to have spoken rightly when they said: "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die" — a most ancient proverb, as can be understood from the twenty-second chapter of Isaiah, and from the Apostle in the fifteenth chapter of his first epistle to the Corinthians. But that there are among us men who say they believe, yet deny it by their deeds, can be understood from this: that some, even in extreme old age, do not think of death, just as if either they were never going to die, or they imagined that with the death of the body the soul also were utterly extinguished. But whatever these men may dream, the separation of the flesh from the soul, like that of a bride from her bridegroom, is a parting for a time, not a divorce forever; for the soul is immortal, and the flesh on the last day will without any doubt rise again.

We must therefore, if we are Christians and have any wisdom, think constantly of the death that is near at hand. For on this the whole sum of our affairs depends: that we die well. For in this life the passage from virtue to vice is not difficult, and — with God's grace — from vice to virtue. For he who is now an heir of the kingdom of heaven can tomorrow, through sin, be cut off from the inheritance of the children of God and become guilty of the eternal fire; and conversely, with God's grace aiding him, a slave of the devil can be freed from that slavery and enrolled once more among the children of God and heirs of the heavenly kingdom. But he who dies an enemy of God and guilty of the eternal fire will forever be an enemy of God and condemned to the eternal fire; and conversely, he who dies a friend of God and an heir of the kingdom of heaven will never be able to fall from that most eminent grace and glory. And so all our happiness or unhappiness depends upon a good or a bad death. Who then, unless plainly a fool and bereft of all judgment, will dare to depart from this life through death, unless he has first, with all diligence applied, learned to die well and prepared himself to undergo a good death?

A second consideration concerning death can be most useful: namely, that although death is most certain — as the Prophet says: "Who is the man that shall live and shall not see death?" (Ps. 88:49), and the Apostle agrees: "It is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment" (Heb. 9:27) — yet nothing is more uncertain than its day or hour; as Scripture itself cries out: "Watch, for you know neither the day nor the hour" (Matt. 25:13). Many are snatched away in infancy; others, on the contrary, attain a decrepit old age; some die in youth, others in mature years. But what is more wretched still, many die so suddenly that they have no leisure to call upon God and to commend their spirit to the divine mercy. Now the divine providence, according to the treasure of His wisdom, arranges these things for no other reason than that none of the elect should dare to remain, even for a moment, in the mire of mortal sin. Therefore, you who read these things, if perchance the consciousness of mortal sin bears witness against you, do not dare to wait for tomorrow — nay, do not even await the end of the present day or hour — without at least detesting your sin before God with a contrite and humbled heart.

A third consideration will be no less useful: in the morning, before you go forth to your daily business, and in the evening, before you compose yourself for sleep — lest death, coming upon you, should find you unprepared — diligently examine your conscience, whether you did anything during the past night or the day just ended that could appear to be a sin, especially a mortal one. And if you find nothing, give thanks to God, the author of all good things; but if you find that something has been committed against God, groan over it earnestly and from the heart, and at the first opportunity confess it at the feet of a priest; and willingly accept the penance imposed, and faithfully perform it. This practice of examining the conscience at least twice a day helps wonderfully, so that death never finds us unprepared.

A fourth consideration, no less useful than the foregoing, is that which Ecclesiasticus mentions: "In all your works remember your last end, and you shall never sin" (Sir. 7:40). For how could he sin in any of his works who weighs whatever he does in the balance of the divine judgment that will take place at death? To this belongs that memorable saying of that man who died twice, of whom John Climacus makes mention in his Ladder, at the sixth step. He speaks thus: « I will not omit to relate the history of that solitary who dwelt at Choreb. After he had lived for a long time most negligently, taking no care for his soul, he was at last seized by illness and brought to the brink of death; and when he had already departed completely from the body, after one hour he came back to himself, and begged us all to withdraw from there at once. Then, with the entrance of his cell blocked up with stones, he remained inside for twelve years, speaking to no one at all and tasting nothing except bread and water. As he sat there, he pondered in amazement only the things he had seen in his rapture, and he was so fixed upon them in thought that he never changed the expression of his face, but remaining always thus astonished, he silently poured forth a flood of burning tears. When he was now near death, we broke open the entrance and went in; and when we humbly begged a word of instruction from him, we heard only this from him: No one who has truly come to know the remembrance of death will ever be able to sin. » So he spoke. Let the reader consider that this is a true story, not a fable, and that it was written by one who was a holy man, and who wrote what he saw with his own eyes and heard with his own ears.

From this it is easy to understand how important it is to meditate on death, and never to drive its presence from one's memory. For this man had previously been negligent in seeking his salvation; but by the great mercy of God he tasted death and, rising again from the dead, for twelve years he thought constantly on death, and at the same time bewailed his sins with continual tears; and what before his first death he had deemed light and venial, having tasted the bitterness of death he judged to be most grave and worthy of being expiated by twelve years of tears. This, then, is the true commentary on those words of Scripture which said: Remember your last end, and you shall never sin

And if the perpetual remembrance of one of the last things brought so great a profit to that monk, that through twelve years of penance he redeemed the punishment of everlasting hell and gained the glory of the everlasting kingdom, what would the unceasing memory of the four last things — death, judgment, hell, and paradise — accomplish? Would that many would come to know this ready source of gain, and be willing to experience it.

### CHAPTER II.

On the second precept of the art of dying well when death is now at hand, which concerns the last judgment,

The second of the last things is judgment, which is indeed twofold: one particular, by which individual souls are judged as soon as they have departed from the body; the other general, which will take place on the last day. Both are most horrible and dreadful to the wicked, but lovely and glorious to the just. For those who desire to die happily, it is most profitable to reflect attentively and very frequently on both. That the particular judgment will follow upon the death of each person, no one is permitted to doubt, since it was declared against the heretics in the Council of Florence: that those who depart this life stained with mortal sin at once go down into the fire of hell; that those who die without lethal guilt, but owing a debt of temporal punishment, are led to purgatory; and finally that those who, after receiving Baptism, are found free of guilt and of the debt of punishment ascend straightaway into heaven to eternal felicity (St. Thomas, In IV Sent., d. 48; Dominic Soto, In IV Sent., d. 45). Moreover, it is credible, as the theologians teach, that the sentence of Christ the Judge is either signified through Angels or revealed by God to the minds of the souls themselves; but that devout souls, attended by Angels, either ascend into heaven or descend into purgatory, while the souls of the reprobate are seized by demons and hurled down into hell. This judgment can take place in a moment, because the Judge is present at hand, who, since He is God and man, knows all things even according to the form of man; for most truly did St. Peter say to Christ: Lord, You know all things (John 21). The accuser is present, who is the Devil, called in the Apocalypse the accuser of our brethren (Rev. 12); and he rushes upon the dying like a wolf, or a lion, or a dog upon its prey. The witness is present: the conscience of the soul, which, once loosed from the body, can no longer be deceived by ignorance or forgetfulness, but knows itself through and through, and sees whether it is pleasing to God or hateful to God. And so nothing prevents this judgment from taking place at once; and it may be called private, when it is considered in comparison with the judgment that will take place on the last day, which will be public and general, before absolutely all Angels and men.

But a brief account must be given of why it is necessary that those be judged again who have already been not only judged, but also rewarded with punishment or prize. The reasons are these. The first reason is on God's part: for now there is no lack of people who, seeing many just men unjustly afflicted by the wicked, who are no fewer in number, and on the contrary many wicked men abounding in temporal goods, suspect that God either does not see these things or does not care. Therefore, so that the whole human race may understand that the world is most wisely governed by God, it has pleased God Himself on the last day, before all Angels and men, to render rewards to the good and punishments to the wicked; whence all will be compelled to proclaim and say: You are just, O Lord; true and just are Your judgments (Rev. 16).

The second reason is that Christ, who was unjustly judged before men and subjected to a most grievous and most unworthy punishment, may Himself be seen before the whole world judging all the wicked from His lofty throne: so that what is written in the book of Job may be fulfilled: Your cause has been judged as that of the wicked; cause and judgment shall be recovered (Job 36:17). And so the ignominy of the Passion of the Son of God will be justly compensated by the glory of Him judging in the theater of the whole world; and then will be fulfilled that word of the Apostle: In the name of Jesus let every knee bow, of those in heaven, on earth, and under the earth (Phil. 2).

The third reason is that the recompense of the just may be complete. For the reward of justice is honor and glory. And since many men of outstanding justice have been publicly put to death as though they were criminals and wicked men, it was fitting that their justice should be proclaimed in the public theater of the whole world. To this number the holy martyrs of the Lord especially belong, who will stand crowned before the eyes of their persecutors — pagans or heretics — and of princes and kings.

The fourth reason is for the confusion of hypocrites. For there is no lack of those who die with a reputation for sanctity, though they are truly wicked — such as the Calvinist or Anabaptist heretics, and as formerly were those of whom St. Cyprian writes in his book On the Unity of the Church: « Though they should burn, delivered over to flames and fire, or lay down their lives cast to the beasts, that will not be the crown of faith, but the punishment of faithlessness; not the glorious end of religious virtue, but the ruin of despair. » And so it is necessary that at least in the universal judgment their hypocrisy be publicly exposed.

The fifth reason is that souls and bodies together may be judged. For in the particular judgment souls alone are judged, and receive reward or punishment; but in the universal judgment whole men will appear. And since souls have sinned or done well together with their bodies, so also is it right that after the resurrection souls together with their bodies should receive rewards or punishments.

The sixth and final reason is that not only the good or evil we have done in life may receive their rewards or punishments, but also the good or evil that springs from our good or evil works and is propagated until the consummation of the world may, at the consummation of the world, publicly receive praise or blame.

And to illustrate the matter with examples: there is no lack of devout men who build hospices, or monasteries, or schools, in which many either recover their health, or are formed in piety, or are instructed in the disciplines — and these works endure for a long time; others write books useful for wisdom, or for the various arts, or for piety, and propagate other good works, by which many in every age profit and help their neighbors. Nor is there a lack of wicked men who, by writing lascivious, or seditious, or even heretical books, ruin many men, and by erecting theaters for gladiatorial games, or for obscene comedies, or in some other way, harm their neighbors for a long time after their own death. Since, therefore, at the end of the world all these courses will come to their end, and the merits of all men, whether good or evil, will be consummated, it will be fitting that on that day — the most memorable of all the days that have flowed past since the beginning of the world — the sentence of the supreme, most powerful, and most just Judge be pronounced.

These, then, are the reasons why, besides the particular judgment that will take place at the death of each person, there will also be a general judgment at the consummation of the world. It must therefore be briefly explained who will be the Judge in this tremendous judgment, whence He will come, to what place He will come, whom He will judge, and what the sentence of the Judge will be. The Judge will without any doubt be our Lord Jesus Christ; for He Himself speaks thus in St. Matthew: When the Son of man shall come in His majesty, and all the Angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the seat of His majesty, and all nations shall be gathered together before Him (Matt. 25), and what follows. The Apostles Peter, Paul, and John confirm the same. Peter says in the Acts of the Apostles: It is He who was appointed by God to be Judge of the living and the dead (Acts 10). The Apostle Paul, in the same Acts, says: God has appointed a day, in which He is to judge the world in equity, by that Man whom He has appointed, raising Him from the dead (Acts 17). The Apostle John speaks thus in the Gospel: He gave Him power to execute judgment, because He is the Son of man (John 5). And in the same place: The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son.

Now He will come to judge from heaven, and He will come down as far as the air near the earth, so that He can be seen and heard by all who will be on the earth. Hear Christ Himself in Matthew: You shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven. Hear the Apostle Paul writing to the Thessalonians: We shall be caught up, he says, together with them in the clouds to meet Christ, into the air (1 Thess. 4). And this very thing the prophet Joel foretold: I will gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Josaphat, and there I will plead with them (Joel 3). Now from those words, Into the valley of Josaphat, it is rightly understood that in that place will take place the greatest judgment of all; both because the Hebrew word Josaphat properly signifies the judgment of God, and because the valley of Josaphat is near Jerusalem, on the eastern side of the temple, as St. Jerome testifies in his commentary on the third chapter of Joel. And no place could be more fitting for so great a judgment: for from there is seen Jerusalem, where Christ preached and foretold that the last judgment would take place; from there is also seen Mount Calvary, where the same Christ was fastened to the cross for the redemption of the human race, and the Mount of Olives, whence, as victor over death, He ascended into heaven. To that place, therefore, in the clouds of heaven, Christ will come with all the Angels, who are, at the least, thousands of thousands and ten thousand times a hundred thousand, as Daniel writes (Dan. 7). Now I said at the least, because it is the opinion of St. Dionysius the Areopagite (On the Celestial Hierarchy) and of St. Thomas (Part I, q. 50, art. 3) that the number of the holy Angels surpasses the number of all corporeal things.

There also, with Christ the King, will be present the whole multitude of holy men in glorified bodies, of whom it is said in the Apocalypse: I saw a great multitude, which no man could number, out of all nations, and tribes, and peoples, and tongues (Rev. 7). In this judgment, therefore, there will be a spectacle such as has not been from the beginning of the world, nor ever shall be. Furthermore, all the wicked will be destined for eternal death; having resumed their bodies, naked and sorrowful with a sorrow greatest and incredible, they will stand upon the earth, brought by the Angels from the whole world to the valley of Josaphat and the neighboring places. Now their number will be far greater than the number of the saints, since the Lord Himself said:

Many are called, but few are chosen; and Narrow is the way that leads to life, and few there are who find it; wide is the way that leads to perdition, and many there are who enter by it (Matt. 7; 22). But if it is true, as most true it is, that the multitude of holy men cannot be numbered: how much less will the throng of the reprobate be able to be numbered? (Rev. 7) And to these will be joined the evil spirits, who also are in very great number.

These things being thus arranged, before the sentence of the Judge is pronounced, the books of account will be opened, as can be understood from the prophet Daniel and from St. John (Dan. 7; Rev. 20). What these books are that will be opened in the judgment, the Apostle Paul explains to the Corinthians, saying: Judge not before the time, until the Lord comes, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of hearts (1 Cor. 4). For God will pour forth such a light that in it the consciences of all the wicked will be discerned. All, therefore, who will be in that theater will see the consciences of all, and thereby their works, words, thoughts, and desires. O what a spectacle it will be, to see the consciences of hypocrites, liars, traitors, and scoffers, who made nothing of perjuring themselves by all that is sacred! From this disclosure of the crimes and misdeeds of all men, from which a foretaste of the sentence to come will follow, that will come to pass which is read in the Apocalypse: The kings of the earth, and the princes, and the tribunes, and the rich, and the strong, and every bondman and every freeman will hide themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; and they will say to the mountains and to the rocks: Fall upon us, and hide us from the face of Him who sits upon the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: for the great day of their wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand? (Rev. 6) And this same thing the Lord foretold in the Gospel, when He was bearing the cross on His shoulders, addressing the devout women: Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not over me, but weep for yourselves and for your children; for behold, the days will come in which they will say: Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that have not borne, and the breasts that have not given suck. Then shall they begin to say to the mountains: Fall upon us; and to the hills: Cover us (Luke 23). At last the sentence will be pronounced by the Judge saying: Come, you blessed; depart, you cursed (Matt. 25); and the just will go into eternal life, and the unjust into eternal fire.

I now beseech my readers to think and think again, often and attentively, that they too will be in this theater; and now, while they have time, to deliberate seriously on what must be done. Nor let them object that the day of judgment is still far off, so that there is no need to torment oneself before the time, as though the day of the Lord were at hand. For even if the general judgment is far off, the particular judgment is not far off, but is at hand and plainly before the door; and such as the sentence of the particular judgment will be, such also will be that of the general. And so whoever is wise ought without fail so to prepare himself to hear the sentence of the divine judgment as though it were to be heard today or tomorrow; for the hour of judgment is no farther off than the hour of death, and the hour of death cannot be far from a man who is old or laboring under a grave illness. Therefore, in expectation of so great a judgment, in which the whole sum of the matter is at stake, it is necessary earnestly to implore the Advocate, who will also be the Judge. For we have an Advocate, Jesus Christ the just (1 John 2), as the Apostle John teaches us; and again to solicit the friends of the Advocate, and above all the most clement Virgin, the Mother of the Advocate, and the Angels, and holy men. And it is fitting that we approach both the Advocate and the friends of the Advocate not only with words but also with gifts: for the Saints do not refuse gifts, which profit not them but the poor of Jesus Christ; for they themselves, blessed in heaven, have no need of our goods.

### CHAPTER III.

On the third precept of the art of dying well when death is now at hand, which concerns hell.

After the consideration of death and of judgment, it is expedient to ponder most attentively also the torments of hell and the joys of paradise. For these are the two last things, one of which, Christ being judge, will fall to the lot of each of us; and these two are so contrary to one another that the one must render us most miserable and the other most happy. But since we have written of both in the book On the Ascent of the Mind to God, near the end of that book; and have written again of the joys of paradise in the whole book On the Eternal Happiness of the Saints, and of the torments of hell in the second book of On the Groaning of the Dove; and finally of all four last things in the Latin sermons that then came to mind, which we both delivered to the people and left in writing: it has seemed good in this place briefly to touch upon the chief points, so that the reader may have matter in which he may profitably exercise himself in attentive consideration, while he awaits death and prepares to receive it with joy.

Concerning, then, the most unhappy state of those damned to hell, we undertake to consider briefly three things: the place, the time, and the manner. The place is the depth; the time, eternity; the manner, punishment without bounds. The place, I say, is the depth: for reprobate men, on account of their enormous crimes of high treason against the divine Majesty, will have their prison in the deepest part of the world, which is farthest removed from the royal house that is in heaven; for it was fitting that the pride of the Devil and of proud men should be punished in this way. For the Devil said: I will ascend into heaven, above the stars of God I will exalt my throne, I will be like the Most High (Isa. 14); but the answer was given him: you shall be brought down to hell, into the depth of the pit — and the same will befall all men who are children of pride.

Now from this first misery of the reprobate three others will follow: darkness, narrowness, and want. For since hell is at the center of the earth, a place to which the rays of the sun, and of the moon, and of the stars cannot penetrate, there can be no light in it except such as can issue from the sulphurous fire, which will increase, not diminish, the punishment. For by that light they will see the demons, their most cruel enemies; they will also see those men, whether friends or kinsfolk, who were the cause of their perdition; and lastly they will see their own nakedness, their own beggary, their own chains, their own torments — all of which they would perhaps wish not to see; but anything good, from which they could receive consolation, they will certainly not see. O darkness that is no darkness: a darkness for concealing all good things, but not for making manifest all evil things.

Moreover, the straits in hell are so narrow that they can scarcely contain the multitude of the bodies of the damned. For since the earth is, as it were, an indivisible point when compared with the immensity of heaven, and since hell comprises not the whole earth, nor even half of it, but only the center; and since the number of men who are damned is greater than the number of those who are to be saved — of whom we nevertheless read in the Apocalypse: "I saw a great multitude, which no man could number" (Rev. 7:9) — who can conceive how straitened they must be in hell? Let the great kings go then — Nebuchadnezzar, Darius, Alexander, Julius Caesar, and the others whom the whole world could scarcely contain — and let them widen, if they can, the straits of hell, so that they may lie a little more comfortably! And yet nearly all mortals strive to extend and enlarge their fields, their dominions, their kingdoms, so that for a brief time they may glory in the multitude of their subjects; and it never enters their minds how great the straits are that await them in hell, where they will be forced to dwell not for a brief time but without any end, whether they will it or not.

But now what shall I say of the incredible destitution of lost men? They are in want of all good things; the abundance of punishments alone makes rich all those who dwell in the world below. Rich men in hell will indeed remember with what delights they abounded on earth while they lived — whether in food and drink, or in costly garments, or in hunting and fowling, or in gardens and vineyards, or in theaters and various games — but all this remembrance will increase their grief, when they see themselves in hell naked, prostrate, despised, most miserably stripped of all goods and fortunes. Then they will say what we read in the book of Wisdom: "What has pride profited us? Or what has the boasting of riches brought us? All those things have passed away like a shadow" (Wis. 5:8-9). Let us come to the second point, which is time. How long will the exile of hell last? Would that it lasted no longer than the sojourn of this present life! But there will be no comparison; for to time there will succeed not time, but eternity. And so the dwelling of the wicked in the torments of hell will last as long as the eternity of God, which, just as it has no beginning, so also will have no end. The damned will be tormented as long as the blessed will rejoice. Finally, the reprobate will die as long as God Himself lives; and unless God ceases to be what He is, the reprobate will not cease to be in the punishments in which they are. O death-dealing life! O immortal death! If you are life, how do you kill? If you are death, how do you endure? Therefore you must be called neither death nor life, since each of these has something good — life has rest, and death an end — but you have neither rest nor end. What then shall we say you are, but all the evil that both life and death have? It would surely be a great thing if we could even moderately understand what the eternity of punishments is. For this thought alone would, like a kind of bridle, restrain all the lusts of men, and would so govern our life that we should be compelled to be not only Christians, but all most holy. Let us come to the manner, which we have said is a punishment without measure. For the punishment of hell is not any single punishment, but the sum total of all punishments: for in hell all the senses are tormented, both internal and external, and that not by turns, but all those punishments rush upon a man as it were in battle array. Here on earth we never experience that universal evil of the damned, just as we never experience the universal good of the blessed: for he who suffers in his eyes does not at the same time suffer in his teeth, and he who suffers in his teeth does not at the same time suffer in his eyes; and so of the rest in the same manner. But in the world below, the most atrocious pains in all the members must be endured at one time, since the fire of hell encompasses the whole body, torments the whole most vehemently, and never consumes it. "Depart, you cursed, into everlasting fire," says the Judge (Matt. 25:41); and Isaiah: "Their worm dies not, and their fire is not quenched" (Isa. 66:24; Mark 9:44, 46, 48), which He repeated three times in the same chapter, that He might plainly impress upon our hearts that the punishment of hell is a fire that will endure for everlasting time, and will most cruelly afflict the whole body with the sharpest pain for all eternity. Those who have seen a man here on earth burned by fire under a just sentence have scarcely been able to endure the sight of such a punishment, though it is ended in a very short time. But if a man, however guilty, were to remain in the fire for a whole day, surely no one could bear so horrendous a spectacle. Let each one therefore say within himself: If I cannot bear the burning of a living man who is nothing to me, how shall I be able to bear the burning of my own body for one hour, or a day, or a month, or a year? And if this seems to me too horrendous even to think of, with what folly do I expose myself to so great a danger, that I should burn for eternity? Now if we do not believe these things, where is our faith? If we do believe them, where is our judgment? Where is our prudence? If we are of sound mind and have faith in the holy Scriptures, how can it be that we are not stirred up when so monstrous a danger hangs over us? Let each one, then, who desires to be saved enter into his own heart, and having most attentively considered all these things, so conduct himself that death may find him prepared, and that the fire of hell may not receive him, but that he may deserve to enter happily into the joy of his Lord.

### CHAPTER IV.

Of the fourth precept of the art of dying well when death is now at hand, which is of the glory of the blessed.

There remains the glory of the blessed, which holds the last place among the last things. Of this last thing I shall briefly consider only those three points which I considered in the preceding chapter on the punishments of hell: the place, the time, and the manner. The place of the glory of the blessed is the heavenly paradise; the time is eternity, which has no end; the manner is a happiness exceeding all measure.

Let us begin with the first. The place of the heavenly paradise is most high, above all the mountains of the earth, above all the elements, above all the stars. Hence in the holy Scriptures it is called the kingdom of heaven, the house of God, the city of the great King, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem (Ps. 47:3). From this most lofty situation of the heavenly city we can easily understand that this place has many privileges or prerogatives above all the places of the whole world. For first, the higher a place is in this universe of things, the greater and more capacious it also is; since the figure of the universe of created things is seen to be round, so that the orb of the earth holds the center of the world, while the highest heaven embraces within its compass an almost boundless expanse.

The place of the blessed, therefore, as it is the highest, so also is it the most spacious; just as, on the contrary, the place of the lost, as it is the lowest of all, so is it the narrowest of all. Moreover, the highest place is also the purest place; for surely water is purer than earth, air than water, fire than air, heaven than fire, and the empyrean heaven than the starry heaven. Finally, the highest place is also the safest, so that no evil can come to that place, nor can any scourge draw near to its dwelling. First, then, the seat of the blessed is most spacious, so that blessed men can pass freely from place to place; nor will there be any danger of their being wearied, since by the gift of agility they can go from place to place in a moment. How great will be that delight — now to pass from the East to the West, now to transfer oneself from the South to the North, now in a moment to circle the whole world — while lost men in hell, their hands and feet bound, remain in one place for all eternity (Matt. 22:13)! But greater still will be the felicity of blessed men, while they enjoy that purest air in heaven, which neither darkness, nor mists, nor vapors, nor blasts of wind, nor any pestilence can defile — while the inhabitants of hell, miserable beyond all measure, must lie in that place most full of horror, amid the darkness of the earth and the smoke of a seething furnace, without any hope of purer air. What now shall I say of the city on high, most safe by reason of its surpassing height from every assault or evil whatsoever? "Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem," says St. David, "praise your God, O Zion, for He has strengthened the bars of your gates" (Ps. 147:12-13). Yet this fortification of the gates does not mean what the words sound like; for it is said in the Apocalypse of the heavenly city: "And its gates shall not be shut by day, for there shall be no night there" (Rev. 21:25). God, therefore, strengthened the bars of the gates of the heavenly Jerusalem because He made it impregnable by reason of its height. And if the dragon fought in heaven with Michael the Archangel, the cause was not that he had ascended from the depths into heaven, but that, created in heaven before he was confirmed in grace, he rebelled against his Creator and, lifted up in pride, attempted to be equal to the Most High. But because the heavenly Jerusalem is founded in peace, the enemy of peace could not abide in her, but straightway fell like lightning from heaven (Luke 10:18), nor could he thereafter set foot in her; and from that time no one is admitted to dwell in the heavenly Jerusalem unless founded in perpetual peace and most firmly confirmed. And so much for the place.

Now a few words must be said about time. The time for dwelling in the heavenly Jerusalem, after the devil's fall, is a time without time — that is, a perpetual duration without the flow of days and nights. For thus in the Apocalypse the Angel "swore by Him who lives for ever and ever, that there should be time no longer" (Rev. 10); and the Lord in the Gospel, when the last day is ended, will say: "So shall these go — the wicked, that is — into everlasting fire, but the just into life everlasting" (Matt. 25). This alone will be the difference: the wicked will endure eternity unwillingly, and will seek death and will not find it; but the just will hear nothing more delightful than blessed eternity — that is, life without fear of dying, and the virtue of standing without fear of falling.

It remains for us to explain in a few words the manner in which the blessed will fare in paradise after the resurrection. And this one thing I judge can most truly be affirmed: all the good things that are desired on earth, though mingled with very many evils, are to be possessed by the blessed in heaven far greater and without any admixture of evils. The things reckoned among goods on earth are these: honor, power, riches, delights. The honor of the blessed in heaven might well seem plainly incredible, were it not affirmed by Him who cannot lie. Hear the Lord Christ, who is the truth, speaking thus in the Apocalypse of Blessed John: "To him who overcomes I will give to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat with My Father on His throne" (Rev. 3). What, I ask, can be added to this honor? Surely the throne of the Son of God in heaven is the highest, and he who sits upon it can be thought to have attained an honor plainly beyond belief. What applause, what praises will resound in heaven before God and all the Angels, when a man once mortal and frail is placed by the hands of God upon the throne of the Son of God, who is the Prince of the kings of the earth, and King of kings, and Lord of lords? Surely nothing can be added to this honor.

The power of this same blessed man will be so great that we can scarcely conceive it. The same Christ gives a promise in the Gospel concerning the faithful servant: "Amen I say to you, He will set him over all His goods" (Matt. 24). These words plainly signify that the faithful servant in heaven will share in the power that God has over all created things. And how great is God's power over created things? Altogether the greatest and incomparable. Therefore all the saints will be called — and most truly will be — kings of the whole world, not for a few years, but for all eternity. And this is the sentence that Christ the supreme Judge will pronounce at the last judgment, when He says to the just: "Come, ye blessed of My Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world" (Matt. 25).

Concerning the riches of the blessed, this alone ought to suffice for all men: that there will be riches most ample and everlasting, as the Prophet says (Ps. 33); and "God shall be all in all," as the Apostle says in the epistle to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 15). Theophylact and also St. Anselm explain these words so that the sense is: "God shall be all in all"; because now one thing is food for us, another drink, another clothing, another a house, another riches, another pleasure, another honor, another power; but in heaven, after the resurrection, God will be to all the blessed food, drink, clothing, house, riches, pleasure, honor, power. The blessed in heaven will therefore possess all things precious, all things incorruptible, all things divine. St. Jerome adds, in his letter to Amandus, that God will be all things to all the blessed — not only bodily things but also spiritual: for now the divine graces are not all given to all, but wisdom to one, as to Solomon; goodness to another, as to David; patience to another, as to Job; but when the end of all things has come, then all things will be in all, so that each of the saints will possess all virtues and gifts. What, I ask, would a miser give in this world to possess all the riches of all men? What would the voluptuary give to obtain all the pleasures he desires? What would the ambitious man give to attain all the honors and dignities he courts? And yet these things are temporal, quickly perishing, and — what is more miserable — soon to be exchanged for everlasting want, and pain, and ignominy. Why then do we not seek God, in whom alone we shall possess all spiritual and bodily goods that will endure for all eternity?

But what, finally, shall we say of the joy and delight of the blessed? Isaiah and Paul cry out and say: "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have they entered into the heart of man, the things God has prepared for those who love Him" (Isa. 64). For truly God has prepared for the just who love Him, in the heavenly fatherland, a joy, gladness, pleasure, delight, sweetness, and suavity such as no mortal has ever tasted, nor could ever attain even in thought. Three things are required for delight to be produced: a faculty, an object, and the union of the faculty with the object; and the greater these are, the greater the delight engendered. No faculty among created things is greater, more lively, or more capable of delight than the rational will; and no object is more excellent, more lovable, or sweeter than the essence of the Creator. "Taste," says David, "and see that the Lord is sweet" (Ps. 33). And the Wise Man, speaking of the sun and the stars, says: "If men, delighted by their beauty, took them for gods, let them know how much more beautiful their Lord is than these; for the author of beauty created all these things" (Wis. 13). No union more intimate can be conceived than that of God with the rational will, as the Apostle says: "He who cleaves to the Lord is one spirit" (1 Cor. 6). The union of bodies for the most part takes place on the surface and does not penetrate to the interior; and yet bodily pleasure so affects men that they are in a manner driven to madness. What sweetness, then, what delight will the soul taste, when it is so intimately united with God, who is infinite sweetness, that it becomes one spirit with Him? Here words utterly fail me, so that I can in no way express what I turn over within myself in thought.

Add to this that all human pleasure arising from created things is either momentary or certainly very brief; but the pleasure arising from the union of the human spirit with God, who is infinite sweetness, will never come to an end. And yet so great a madness reigns in many men that they prefer to enjoy carnal pleasures — sordid, meager, and lasting but a very short time — rather than the greatest and purest pleasures, which without any doubt will endure for all eternity. And let this suffice at this place concerning the four last things.

### CHAPTER V.

On the fifth precept of the art of dying well, when death is now at hand, which concerns the making of a last will

Now that the consideration of approaching death and of the other last things has been completed, it follows that he who is preparing to depart this world should set his house in order. For thus Isaiah admonished Hezekiah, saying: "Set your house in order, for you shall die and not live" (Isa. 38:1). From this trouble men living under religious rule are free, who can say with the Apostles: "Behold, we have left all things" (Matt. 19). One of these was St. Augustine, of whom Possidius writes in his Life: « He made no will, he says, for the poor man of Christ had nothing from which to make one; for although he was a bishop, yet after the manner of religious he retained nothing as his own. »

Moreover, a will should be made at the beginning of an illness, unless one has prudently made it beforehand; and they make no slight mistake who do not think about making a will until, as the sickness grows severe, they are compelled by relatives or friends — at which time they either begin to lose their reason, or at least do not arrange their affairs with the same prudence they would have used while they were in good health.

First of all, however, they must give thought to repaying whatever debts they may chance to be burdened with. Then they must leave their wealth entirely to those to whom they understand it belongs by right, and not allow themselves to be drawn toward persons they love more, if that would in any way be repugnant to justice. In matters that depend on their own discretion, let them look first to the glory of God, then to the needs of their neighbors. And if they happen to abound in riches which, as superfluous, they ought long ago to have distributed to the poor, let them not suppose they have satisfied their conscience merely by laying this before the priest along with their other sins and obtaining absolution, unless they have ordered those goods to be distributed to the poor, or better still, have distributed them themselves without delay. For it is the common opinion of the holy Fathers and the principal scholastic Doctors that superfluous goods are owed to the poor — a matter we treated in the previous book, chapter nine, and which is not to be repeated here. As for what they may give at their own discretion, let them consult devout men as to which works of charity are more pleasing to God, according to the place and the time; for in one place the building of a church or of a cemetery will be more urgent, elsewhere the dowering of poor maidens for marriage, elsewhere a multitude of the sick lying in the streets, elsewhere the ransom of captives. Finally, in this kind of distribution there is no better rule than "a sincere faith and a clear-sighted foresight," as St. Ambrose writes; or "charity joined with prudence, and prudence joined with charity" (De officiis, bk. 3, ch. 48; Pastoral Rule, pt. 3, adm. 21), as St. Gregory says. It seems, moreover, a matter of great importance that the alms given by the living, or ordered by the dying to be given, should above all be given at the time when the one who gives or orders them is pleasing to God; for then, by the merit of such good alms, the givers are received by good friends into everlasting dwellings (Luke 16), according to the promise of Christ recorded by Luke. But if they are given, or ordered to be given, by an ungodly man, then those alms are of no avail for eternal life — whatever his other merits may be — nor do they bring it about that the donors are received into everlasting dwellings. Therefore a prudent confessor, or his friends, should counsel the man who is conscious of having drawn up his will while he lay in mortal sin, that after a new confession has been made fully and duly he should confirm and approve, and hold as ratified, all that he had disposed in his will — and especially the alms to be bestowed after his death upon the Church or upon the poor.

Finally, it must be added that the man who in his will has enriched his neighbors with many gifts should not forget his own soul — especially since it can easily happen that it will not fly straight to heaven, but will be led away to the places of purgatory. He will therefore act prudently and devoutly if he orders part of his alms to be given to priests who will offer sacrifices to the Lord for his soul. For "it is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins" (2 Macc. 12), as is said in the books of Maccabees. From this passage St. Augustine gathers (On the Care for the Dead, ch. 4) that the souls of the dead are helped far more by the Sacrifice of the Body of Christ, if they were helped by the sacrifices of animals under the Old Testament.

### CHAPTER VI.

On the sixth precept of the art of dying well, when death is now at hand, which concerns the confession of sins.

After the consideration of the four last things, and with his household affairs set in order, it is necessary that a man — whether old, or laboring under a dangerous illness — should free himself from other cares and set about receiving the Sacrament of Penance in due manner. For it often happens that the Sacrament of Penance is received with less care at the very time when it is most necessary. For those who labor under a grave illness — whether hindered by pains or by weakness, or by failing judgment, or by the horror of approaching death, or by love of the dear ones they are loath to leave — make a rather imperfect confession of their sins, and amid those straits can arouse true and perfect contrition within themselves only with great difficulty. I myself can bear witness to this difficulty, which the sick for the most part endure. For once, when I was visiting a friend — a wealthy and noble man who, on account of a certain grave sin he had committed, had fallen into a mortal illness — and was telling him that nothing could be more salutary for him at that critical moment than true repentance and contrition for his sins, since God never despises a contrite and humbled heart, he answered: "And what is contrition? I do not understand what you are asking of me." I replied: "This is what I ask: that from a true heart you be displeased that you have sinned against God, and that you firmly resolve, should you live longer, never again to offend God — and that all this proceed from a true love of God, who has bestowed innumerable benefits upon you, and to whom you, most ungrateful, have returned injuries for His favors."

He answered: "I do not understand; I am not capable of such things." And so he died, leaving us clear enough signs of his damnation. This and similar examples warn us, while we are in good health, so to unburden our conscience and do true penance as though that confession were to be our last.

Nevertheless, even in the midst of a grave illness, sacramental confession ought to be made with all the diligence that is possible, and contrition especially must be stirred up — from true sorrow for past sins and a most firm purpose of sinning no more, should life have to continue. Nor must penance be done only for sins committed, but also for good works omitted which we were bound to perform by duty or by charity; for many examine with fair care the sins they have committed against God or neighbor, yet readily forget their omissions, or make little of them. I can add here an example that is quite instructive.

A bishop, very learned and devout, lay sick unto death. A priest who was a friend to us both came to him, and from him I heard what I am relating. Our mutual friend asked the bishop whether his conscience was clear of sins; he answered that, by the grace of God, nothing grave came to mind which he remembered having committed against God since his last confession. His priestly friend added whether his conscience did not reproach him for omissions, since the Apostle had so earnestly admonished Bishop Timothy, saying: "I charge thee, before God and Jesus Christ, who shall judge the living and the dead, by His coming and His kingdom: preach the word, be urgent in season, out of season; reprove, entreat, rebuke, in all patience and doctrine" (2 Tim. 4). Hearing this, the good bishop groaned and said: "Truly, my omissions alarm me not a little." And with these words, his eyes began to pour forth rivers of tears.

Furthermore, for those who are preparing themselves to die well, contrition is especially necessary; for confession without true contrition or attrition does not suffice for salvation, and satisfaction likewise either is of no avail without contrition, or can hardly be rendered by a sick man; but contrition, which includes charity, leads to salvation even without confession and satisfaction when these cannot be performed. For, as we said a little before, "A contrite and humbled heart, O God, thou wilt not despise" (Ps. 50). Contrition, therefore, is what we must earnestly seek when sick; and for this we have a splendid example in the holy Father Augustine who — as Possidius, who wrote his life, attests — in his last illness, of which he died, ordered the few psalms of David that concern penance to be written out for him; and as he lay in bed, he gazed at them, posted on the wall opposite, during the days of his sickness, and read them, weeping constantly and copiously. And lest his attention be hindered by anyone, he took care: about ten days before he departed from the body, he asked his household that no one should enter his room except at those hours when the physicians came in to examine him, or when food was brought to him; for all the rest of the time he devoted himself to prayer. O most blessed and most wise man! After receiving baptism and the forgiveness of the sins of his earlier life, he lived forty-three years, during which, right up to his last illness, he constantly preached the word of God; he wrote innumerable books most useful to the whole Church; he led a life without complaint, innocent and most holy; and yet in his last old age and illness he so devoted himself for many days to contrition and penance that in reading the penitential psalms he wept constantly and copiously. And those two words — "constantly" and "copiously" — are certainly to be noted. For he did not give himself to contrition on a single day or for a single hour, but over many days he bewailed his sins most frequently and most copiously; and what kind of sins did that most holy man bewail? In my opinion, only venial sins — so that, free not only from the flames of hell but also from the fire of purgatory, he might ascend straight to heaven. And if a holy and prudent man wept over venial faults for so many days, constantly and copiously, what must those do who have to satisfy God not only for venial faults but for mortal sins as well?

Therefore let all the sick who have death near at hand so prepare themselves before they fall ill, that in old age or sickness it will not be necessary for them to expiate grave sins, but only to do penance for lighter faults; and let them strive so to fortify themselves with holy confession, and communion, and Unction against the snares of the Devil, that, with God as their guide and the holy Angel as their companion, they may happily reach the heavenly fatherland.

### CHAPTER VII.

On the seventh precept of the art of dying well, when death is now at hand, which concerns the most holy Viaticum.

The ancient Christians, in administering the holy viaticum and the sacred Anointing to the sick, first anointed the sick with the sacred Unction, and then gave them the most holy Body of Christ. And to cite a testimony or two: in the first volume of Laurentius Surius there is found the life of St. William, Archbishop of Bourges, who lived in the time of Pope Innocent III. In it we read as follows: "He received the Sacrament of Anointing humbly and devoutly; and having received it, he most earnestly asked that the most holy Eucharist be brought to him, so that, fortified by so great a guide on his journey, he might the more safely break through the ranks of his enemies." The very same is recorded of St. Malachi in the life of him written by St. Bernard: namely, that he received the Eucharist as viaticum after Extreme Unction.

Besides these two testimonies, which demonstrate the order between Extreme Unction and the Eucharist, two others may be adduced which teach that the viaticum was the last, although no mention is made of Extreme Unction. In the life of St. Ambrose, which Paulinus wrote, it is recorded that the viaticum was given to St. Ambrose when death was already imminent, so that having received the viaticum he at once breathed forth his spirit. Symeon Metaphrastes writes the very same of St. John Chrysostom in his life. And so it is evident that among the ancients the last Sacrament was the viaticum of the Body of the Lord.

In our time we first fortify the sick with the holy viaticum, and then, after some days, as the illness grows worse, we anoint them with the holy Oil. Each practice has its own reasons. The ancients considered that the venerable Sacrament of the holy Oil was instituted both for the recovery of good health and for the driving out of sins, or of the remains of sins. For so speaks St. James: "Is any man sick among you? Let him bring in the priests of the Church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer of faith shall save the sick man, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he be in sins, they shall be forgiven him." (James 5) The ancients, therefore, hoping for the bodily health of the sick person from this sacred Anointing, did not defer this Sacrament to the time when, in the judgment of the physicians, all hope of recovery was despaired of; but as soon as the illness began to be judged dangerous by the physicians, they had recourse at once to the sacred Anointing. This can also be understood from what St. Bernard writes in the life of St. Malachi the Bishop: that the same saint, when he was ill, came down on his own feet from his chamber, which was in the upper part of the house, to the church, in order to receive first Extreme Unction and then the Viaticum; and that, having received these Sacraments, he returned again on his own feet, without any assistance, to his chamber and his bed. In our time the sick, when they hear mention made of Extreme Unction, think that all is over with their life; and for this reason relatives or friends, lest they frighten the sick, put off this Sacrament as long as they can.

There is also another reason which moved the ancients to anoint the sick first and then to give them the viaticum: namely, that in the Sacrament of Anointing sins are forgiven, as we have already heard from the Apostle James; and for this reason Extreme Unction is called by some of the ancients the Penance of the sick. The remission of sins and penance, moreover, is the right disposition for the most high Sacrament of the Eucharist, which requires the greatest purity.

Finally, all the Sacraments are concluded and, as it were, sealed by the Sacrament of the Body of the Lord. For thus those who are baptized as adults, such as Jews or Turks, are brought after Baptism to the Sacrifice of the Mass and receive the holy Eucharist. So too those who were doing penance, once their penance was completed, always approached the Eucharist, at least according to the ancient custom. Those also who receive minor or major Orders, having received their Orders, approach holy communion. Finally, those who are joined in Matrimony receive the Sacrament and confirm it. In our time the order is reversed, not without reasonable cause. For it often happens that Extreme Unction, lest the sick be frightened, is put off for a long time; and there is danger that in the meantime the sick person may either lose the use of reason or for some other cause become unfit duly to receive the most holy Eucharist. For this reason, therefore, in our time the viaticum is given first. "For it is better that these Sacraments be given to the sick in reversed order than that they should be deprived of one of them, and that the most salutary." For Extreme Unction can be conferred upon a sick person even when he is in his agony and neither understands nor perceives what is being done around him, provided he is still alive: for the dead are capable of no Sacrament. And so much for the order in which the Sacraments are to be given to the sick.

I come now to the precious Body of Christ, to be profitably given to the sick. First I shall briefly explain what the sick person must do before the Sacrament is brought to him; then what the same sick person must do while the Body of Christ is present; finally, how he should conduct himself when refreshed by this most divine food.

As regards the first, I would advise — unless the spiritual father should find something more useful to suggest — that the sick person diligently consider those words of St. Thomas: "O sacred banquet, in which Christ is received, the memory of His passion is recalled, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us." First, then, he will attentively consider that the most holy Eucharist is given to us wayfarers after the manner of food, so that we may not fail on the way to our homeland, especially at that time when, wearied by the long journey, our strength is wont to be diminished. Now this food is called a Banquet, and a Sacred banquet, because, although it is given under the appearance of bread alone, yet it is a complete banquet, not profane but sacred; not of the body but of the soul. Hence it is added, "in which Christ is received": for under those appearances, or accidents, of bread is the true Body of Christ, not separated from His soul and divinity; and therefore it is a thing most great and most precious, a boundless and most sweet banquet, surpassing every taste of sweetness, yet fitted to nourish and delight the soul, not the body.

What the fruits or benefits of this food are is added when it says: "The memory of His passion is recalled, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of glory is given to us." The first fruit, therefore, of this banquet is the memory of the passion of Christ: for this reason the Body and Blood of the Lord are consecrated under the twofold species of bread and wine, so that the species of bread may represent the body separated from the blood and thereby dead, and the species of wine may represent the blood separated from the body, although under either species Christ is present whole and living. For the Lord willed that through these mysteries a perpetual and daily memory of His venerable passion should remain among us — that passion through which we have escaped all evils and obtained all good things. For the Lord Himself said to His Apostles, speaking of this Sacrament: "Do this in commemoration of Me" (Luke 22); and the Apostle Paul, expounding these words of the Lord, says: "As often as you shall eat this bread and drink the chalice, you shall show forth the death of the Lord, until He come" (1 Cor. 11); that is: As often as you approach this most holy mystery, you will be mindful that Christ the Lord laid down His life for you; and this commemoration will last until the second coming of the Lord, that is, until the consummation of the world. Moreover, the Lord willed that we should be constantly mindful of His passion and death, because He knew that this memory would be most profitable for us: that, mindful of His so admirable charity toward us, we might place all our hope in Him, both in life and in death. For what could He deny to those for whom He Himself so willingly laid down His life?

The second fruit of this heavenly banquet is noted in those words: "The mind is filled with grace" — which is a singular privilege of the Sacrament of the Eucharist when it is received with due preparation. For just as bodily food is a single thing, and by eating is conveyed into the stomach, yet it restores, nourishes, strengthens, and gladdens all the members of the body; while on the contrary, excessive abstinence from food not only leaves the stomach empty but weakens all the members, wastes them, and renders them unsightly and feeble, and at last kills them: so this divine food restores, nourishes, and strengthens all the spiritual powers of the soul. By this sacred nourishment the memory is filled with the grace of the sweetest remembrance of the benefits of God, and especially of the Lord's passion, through which we have been delivered and saved. By this same nourishment the understanding is filled with the grace of faith — not only habitual but also actual (Acts 15); and faith purifies the heart from very many errors and fills the mind with the understanding of divine things, which begets an incredible joy. Finally, by this very nourishment the will is filled with the grace of a most certain hope and a most ardent charity; and charity, since it is the queen of the virtues, draws all the virtues to itself, by the possession of which a man becomes most rich in heavenly treasures. Thus, therefore, through this most divine Sacrament the mind is filled with grace.

Finally, « a pledge of future glory is given to us » through this same saving Sacrament. Now the metaphor of a pledge is taken from this: among men, what has been promised cannot be refused when a pledge has been left as security that the promise will be kept. Now the Lord left His Body in the Eucharist as a pledge of heavenly blessedness. Accordingly, he who dies having received the Lord's Body with due purity and reverence will show that pledge, and cannot be shut out from heavenly happiness. And he shows the pledge who dies united to Christ through true charity, which the worthy reception of this saving Sacrament leaves in the soul. For then the soul goes forth from the body like the Bride, leaning upon her Beloved.

And this is what St. John writes in the Apocalypse when he says: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord (Rev. 14); that is, blessed are the dying who die joined to the Lord as members to the head. For no man hath ascended into heaven, but he that descended from heaven, the Son of man who is in heaven (John 3). Now Christ, the Son of man, did not ascend without His body, of which He Himself is the head. Therefore only those die in the Lord who, when they die, cleave to the Lord as members to the head; and this is obtained by all who shortly before death worthily receive Christ in the Eucharist.

And so much for the preparation of the sick man to receive the Viaticum before the Viaticum itself is present. For as soon as the holy Viaticum has been brought in, the sick man ought, as best he can, to rise and adore his Lord — either prostrate on his knees or at least with head bowed. Moreover, the Lord often grants strength, so that even dying men rise up at that hour and bend their knees. For so we read of St. William, Archbishop of Bourges, who « when he had learned that his Lord had come to him, at once recovering his strength, leapt from his bed as though every fever had now left him — not without the amazement of those standing by, especially since he seemed now almost at his last breath — went with quickened step to meet his Savior, charity supplying his strength; and on bended knees, all bathed in tears, he adored Him: and bent his knees again and again; often prostrate, he rose, and commended his agony to Him with all devotion, praying that He would deign to purge whatever remained to be purged, lest the deadly enemy find anything in him. » Moreover, it seems to me the best thing that the sick man, before receiving the Lord's Body, should recite, or hear recited, those verses of St. Thomas Aquinas which at once profess faith, raise up hope, and enkindle charity. They are these:

I adore You devoutly, hidden Godhead, who beneath these forms truly lie concealed. To You my heart submits itself wholly, for in contemplating You it utterly fails.

Sight, taste, and touch are deceived in You, but by hearing alone is it safely believed. I believe whatever the Son of God has said; nothing is truer than this word of Truth.

On the cross the Godhead alone lay hidden,

but here the manhood lies hidden too. Yet believing and confessing both, I ask what the penitent thief asked.

Your wounds, like Thomas, I do not behold; yet I confess You to be my God. Make me ever believe in You more, have hope in You, and love You.

O memorial of the Lord's death, O living Bread who give life to man,

grant my soul to live on You,

and ever to savor Your sweetness.

O loving Pelican, Lord Jesus,

cleanse me, unclean, in Your blood — one drop of which could save the whole world from all its guilt.

O Jesus, whom now I behold veiled, I pray that that may come to pass for which I so thirst: that, seeing You with face unveiled,

I may be blessed in the vision of Your glory.

When these have been heard, let the usual confession, « I confess to God, etc. », be repeated; and when the Priest's absolution and blessing have been received and « Lord, I am not worthy » said, let him add with all the humility and devotion he can: « Into Your hands, O Lord, etc. », and confidently receive the most holy and heavenly food.

When the Viaticum has been received, there remains the giving of thanks for so outstanding a gift of God. And besides the vocal prayers usually recited from pious books, it would be most useful for the one who has received the Viaticum to enter the chamber of his heart and silently meditate within himself on those most sweet words of the Lord Jesus found in the Apocalypse: Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone opens to Me, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me. For these words properly apply to those who come away from holy communion: for the Lord, who instituted this Sacrament under the form of a banquet, desires nothing more than that Christians should come to that banquet; and this is signified by those words, Behold, I stand at the door and knock — that is: I invite Myself to the common banquet, that we may feast together. If anyone opens to Me — assenting to the good desire I have inspired in him, that we may feast together — I will come in to him through the most holy Sacrament, and will sup with him, and he with Me. For God is said to sup with us when He delights in our spiritual progress, according to that word of the Prophet: The Lord shall rejoice in His works (Ps. 103). And in the same place: Let my speech be pleasing to Him; but I will take delight in the Lord. In these words is expressed a mutual delight and, as it were, a sweet banquet of God with the soul and of the soul with God. For God delights in the soul's spiritual progress, and the soul delights in the gifts received from God — the chief of which is that He Himself, through this magnificent Sacrament, in a certain manner takes His meal together with the soul.

Let the faithful soul, then, after receiving the Viaticum, consider how sweet and how fruitful it is to have Christ as its guest — not only as God but also as man — while those sacred species endure; and that it can deal with Him in confidence, share with Him its dangers and straits in going forth from the body, commend itself to Him with its whole heart, and beg Him to restrain the tempter, to give it a holy Angel as companion, and to bring it to the harbor of salvation.

### CHAPTER VIII.


On the eighth precept of the art of dying well, when death is now near, which concerns Extreme Unction.

The last Sacrament is the sacred Anointing, which can bring great consolation to the sick man, if its power is understood and the Sacrament itself is received at the proper time. There are two effects of this Sacrament, as we said in the preceding chapter: bodily health, and the remission of sins. We shall speak briefly of each effect. Of the first, St. James speaks thus: Is any man sick among you? Let him bring in the priests of the Church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer of faith shall save the sick man. (James 5) This is surely a clear and certain promise. Now that the sick so rarely recover in our time after receiving this Anointing has two reasons. The first is that in our time this Sacrament is administered to the sick later than it ought to be; for miracles are not to be expected through this Sacrament — and it would be a miracle indeed if one who is breathing his last were to recover on the spot. But if this Sacrament were conferred on the sick while the danger of death is not yet desperate, it would produce the effect of health, which would follow not in a moment but in due time; and this is the reason why Extreme Unction is not conferred on those who are put to death by the executioner for crimes committed — for they cannot be freed from the danger of death except by a most manifest miracle. The second reason is that it is not always expedient for the sick man to be delivered from his illness, but it is expedient rather that he die; and the prayer of the Church, such as that which is poured forth in this Anointing, does not ask absolutely for the sick man's health, but only if it be profitable for his eternal salvation that he should recover at that time.

The other effect of this Sacrament is the remission of sins. For so speaks St. James: And if he be in sins, they shall be forgiven him. (James 5) But since the remission of original sin belongs properly to Baptism, and the remission of actual sin belongs both to Baptism — if adults are baptized — and to the Sacrament of Penance, theologians therefore teach that the sins remitted in the Sacrament of Extreme Unction are the remains of sins. Now there are two kinds of such remains. For sometimes "the remains of sins" means the mortal or venial sins themselves which were committed after the Sacrament of Penance had already been received and were not afterwards made known to a confessor — either from ignorance, because the penitent did not know that they were mortal sins; or from forgetfulness, because they did not come to mind — and for that reason the sick man did not seek a confessor to whom he might confess them. These remains of sins, therefore, the sacred Anointing blots out. And of this kind of sin St. James says: If he be in sins, they shall be forgiven him. Which the Council of Florence and the Council of Trent (session 14, chapter 2) also teach clearly enough.

Another kind of remains is a certain dread and dullness, or sadness and gloom, which come over the sick; and to this refers that promise of St. James: And the Lord shall raise him up. For this Sacrament gladdens the sick when they attend to the divine promises that are expressed in this venerable Sacrament; and for this reason it ought not to be deferred to that final moment when the sick man hears nothing or understands nothing.

How great the benefit of this Sacrament is can be understood from the very form of its words. For five places of the body are anointed with the holy Oil — the places in which the five senses have their seat, namely the sense of sight, the sense of hearing, the sense of smell, the sense of taste, and the sense of touch — and meanwhile the Priest says: « May the Lord forgive you whatever you have sinned through sight and hearing, » and so on for the rest. And since that prayer is the form of the Sacrament, without any doubt it efficaciously brings about what the words express, unless something on the part of the one receiving it stands in the way.

How great the liberality and kindness of our God are in this Sacrament will easily be understood by one who considers how great a multitude of sins flows forth from these five fountains of sin. And this is the reason why St. Bernard relates that a certain holy bishop, when he had put off for a few hours the administration of the Sacrament of Extreme Unction to a noblewoman who lay ill, and she had meanwhile exchanged life for death, was seized with so great a sorrow that he lay all night in the chamber of the dead woman together with his priests, praying and groaning, and reckoning it to his own fault that the pious woman had not, through the Sacrament of Extreme Unction, either recovered, or received so generous a remission of sins from the Lord's liberality. But because that holy bishop was a friend of God, he obtained from his Lord by prayers and tears that the woman should rise again; and anointed by that same holy man with immense devotion, she received both effects of the sacred anointing: for she fully recovered, lived on for many years, and, as we piously believe, did not lose the remission of her sins. This example of so great a man, faithfully committed to writing by another most holy man, can easily persuade everyone how highly this venerable Sacrament ought to be esteemed.

### CHAPTER IX.

On the ninth precept of the art of dying well, when death is now near, which concerns the first temptation of the Devil, that is, heresy.

As death draws near, the Devil, our adversary, like a roaring lion (1 Pet. 5), is not wanting to himself, but runs swiftly as though to his prey, and with all his strength attacks the dying man in that final struggle. His first combat he usually begins with a temptation concerning the faith. For the things we believe rise not only above sense, but even above natural reason; and this same faith is the foundation of our justification, and once that foundation is overturned, the whole edifice of good works collapses. Now this temptation is easily the most grievous of all, because our battle is with an adversary who is not only most learned and most keen, but has also been practiced in such combats since the beginning of the world. He it is who seduced all the leaders of the heretics, of whom not a few were most excellent and most wise men. Rightly therefore does the Apostle warn us, saying: Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, that is, against men, but against the spirits of wickedness in the high places (Eph. 6), that is, against demons, who are spirits — and most wicked spirits at that — and who behold us all from the airy heavens. Our weapons in this combat are not disputations, but the simple faith of the truth. For so the Princes of the Apostles teach us: the Apostle Peter says, Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour: whom resist ye, strong in faith (1 Pet. 5); and the Apostle Paul says, In all things taking the shield of faith, wherewith you may be able to extinguish all the fiery darts of the most wicked one (Eph. 6). And so, according to the teaching of the Apostles, we must not dispute with the devil, but with the shield of faith catch and hurl back all his darts, however fiery and burning — that is, however effective and subtle — they may appear. We have a very terrifying example from one who wrote three books on the method of dying well. In the second book he speaks thus: « There were once, as I have heard, two most learned men, easily the foremost in disputation of all who belonged to the same school, and likewise of good character and deeply religious. When one of them had departed this life, he appeared all in flames to the survivor, who happened to be in his library intent upon the study of Sacred Scripture; and when the terrified man asked him what was the cause of so great a punishment, groaning and grieving he answered: 'When I was about to depart from life, the ancient enemy came to me; and since he knew me to be exceptionally learned, he began to inquire about the faith, what I believed. I answered that I believed what is contained in the Apostles' Creed. He asked me to explain to him certain things that seemed less clear. I explained them as I had read in the Athanasian Creed, for I did not think they could be explained more clearly or more truly. Then he said: It is not as you think; but of what pertains to the Father, part is open and true, part obscure and false. For He is indeed eternal, yet not as He is always God, so is He always Father: rather He was God first, and Father afterwards. When at this I cried out that it was a heretical teaching and a doctrine of demons, he said: We must not dispute with shouting but with reasons, if we are said to be devoted to the investigation of truth. I can easily state what my view is; if you can explain yours, you will free me from a great error. Wretch that I was, who trusted in my talent and learning more than was right, I began to dispute with him as though with any other man; and at length, by the many arguments he kept heaping against me, and — what I marvel at even more — by the testimonies of Sacred Scripture, he little by little drove me into so nefarious an error that I no longer held either the Son or the Holy Spirit to be God. Meanwhile death snatched away my soul and presented it to the Judge just as it found it. By Him I was commanded to depart into this fire; which, though it is exceedingly great, I would yet somehow deem tolerable if it had to be ended after a thousand thousands of years. But it is eternal, and at the same time so great as no age among us has seen, so that almost every single hour I repent of the knowledge I acquired, which cast me down into so immense an abyss.' And saying this, he vanished. But the other, moved both by the strangeness of the event and by the loss of his friend, as soon as he had come back to himself, conferred with those who were dearest to him about what he had seen, asking what they thought best to do. It was resolved in common that each should hold himself to that faith which the Catholic Church keeps. A little afterward he fell into the illness of which he died. And behold, the ancient enemy likewise came to him, made bolder by the success of the earlier disputation, and asked about the faith, what he believed. He answered that he believed what Mother Church believes. Again the ancient enemy asked what Mother Church believes. And he said: What I believe; and in this manner, in the hearing of those who stood by, as though questioned by someone, he did not cease to say, I believe what the Church believes, and the Church believes what I believe, until he gave up his soul. Thus it came to pass that, the enemy's cunning having been eluded, he departed to heaven; and a few days later he appeared to the friends whom he had consulted about what would be best to do in such a matter, in a far different state of body, and thanked them because by their counsel he had ascended to the heavenly kingdom. I thought it worthwhile to describe these things as they occurred, so that from another's misfortune or success each one might learn that one must not dispute with the devil about the faith, but that it is enough if each one holds himself to that faith which the Catholic Church keeps. » Thus far Barocius, to whose account we have nothing to add.

### CHAPTER X.

On the tenth precept of the art of dying well, when death is now near, which concerns the second temptation, that is, despair.

The second temptation usually concerns despair; and with this temptation the Devil is accustomed to vex not only wicked men, but also sometimes very devout ones. And indeed, when death is at hand, he drags very wicked men easily enough down into the abyss of despair; for he sets before the eyes of the mind absolutely all the crimes they committed while they lived, as the Venerable Bede writes of a certain soldier in book V of the History of his nation, whose words are these (bk. V, ch. 14): « There was a certain man in the days of Coenred, who reigned after Ethelred, a man placed in the lay habit and in military office; but as much as he pleased the king by his outward industry, so much did he displease him by his inward neglect of himself. The king therefore earnestly admonished him to confess, to amend, and to abandon his crimes, lest by the sudden coming of death he should lose all time for repentance and amendment. But he, though frequently admonished, despised the words of salvation, and promised that he would do penance at a later time. Meanwhile, stricken by illness, he took to his bed and began to be tormented by sharp pain. The king went in to him (for he loved him dearly) and earnestly exhorted him that even then, before he died, he should do penance for the things he had committed. But he answered that he would not then confess his sins, but when he should rise up again from his sickness, lest perchance his companions should reproach him for doing out of fear of death what he had refused to do while in health. He spoke bravely indeed, as it seemed to himself, but he was led astray by the Devil's deceit. And when, his sickness growing worse, the king went in again to visit and admonish him, he at once cried out in a wretched voice: "What do you want now? Why have you come here? For you can no longer confer upon me any benefit or salvation." But the king said: "Do not speak so; see that you keep a sound mind." "I am not mad," he said, "but I hold certainly before my eyes a most wicked conscience. A little while ago two most beautiful youths came in to me and sat down beside me, one at my head and one at my feet; and one of them brought forth a most beautiful little book, but a very small one, and gave it me to read; and looking into it, I found written therein all the good things whatsoever I had done, and these were exceedingly few and small. Then suddenly there came upon me a host of malignant and horrid spirits. Then he who seemed the greatest, by the darkness of his gloomy aspect and the preeminence of his seat, brought forth a book dreadful to behold, of enormous size and almost unbearable weight, and ordered one of his attendants to bring it to me to read. And when I had read it, I found all my sins — not only those I had committed in deed or word, but even in the slightest thought — most plainly inscribed in it in black letters." Thus the wretch spoke in despair; and not long afterwards he died, and the penance which he had refused to do for a short time with the fruit of pardon, he does for ever without fruit, subjected to punishments. » So far the Venerable Bede. Herein we plainly see that our enemy the Devil first worked upon that wretched soldier, through the hope of a longer life, so that he would not do penance, and afterwards drove him into despair.

Another example is found in the same author in the following chapter, where he speaks thus (bk. V, ch. 15 of the History): « "I myself knew," he says, "a brother — would that I had not known him — whose very name I could mention, if it would be of any profit, who was placed in a noble monastery, but himself lived ignobly. Struck by illness and brought to his last end, he called the brethren and, grieving deeply and like one already condemned, began to relate that he saw hell open, and Satan plunged into the depths of the abyss, and Caiaphas also, with the rest who killed the Lord, delivered over beside him to avenging flames; 'in whose neighborhood,' he said, 'alas for wretched me, I see a place prepared for eternal perdition.' Hearing this, the brethren began earnestly to exhort him that even then, while still dwelling in the body, he should do penance. He answered in despair: 'There is no time now for me to change my life, since I have myself seen that my judgment is already accomplished.' Saying such things, he departed without the Viaticum, and his body was buried in the farthest parts of the monastery lands." » So far Bede. Now when this wretched monk says that there was then no time for him to change his life, it comes not from the truth, but from the Devil's delusion.

For the Holy Spirit most openly proclaims through the Prophet Ezekiel (Ezek. 18 and 33) that God is always ready to embrace those who turn from sin to penance; which Pope St. Leo teaches still more plainly in his epistle to Theodore, Bishop of Fréjus, in these words: « We can set no measure to the mercy of God, nor define its times, since conversion suffers no delay in coming to Him, as the Spirit of God says through the Prophet: "When you are converted and groan, you shall be saved." » I will add one or two examples to show that even the most devout men are tempted by the demon, at their departure from this life, with the sin of despair. There is extant in Laurentius Surius (tom. V, under September 27) the Life of Blessed Count Elzéar, who lived in virginity with his wife Delphine, and after a most holy death became illustrious for many signs and miracles. Yet he, at his departure from this life, endured most grievous temptations; for the author writes thus in the last chapter: « Finally, lying in his agony, he wore an exceedingly dreadful countenance, from which it could be gathered that he was engaged in a great struggle on account of certain things cast against him; and this was the power of demons, but the virtue and merits of the most holy Incarnation and Passion of Jesus Christ utterly broke it. A little later he cried out again and said: "I saw it plainly." And after a short space of time he said with a great cry: "I commit myself wholly to the divine judgment." And at these words his countenance was restored, and suffused with a certain ruddy brightness and great beauty, he gave up his spirit. »

Another example, far more terrible still, is found in John Climacus, who relates that a certain very venerable monk named Stephen, having lived about forty years in the desert, adorned with fastings, vigils, tears, prayers, and other virtues, at last came to his end. When, placed in that final agony, he was arraigned by demons for many crimes, so that he might be driven to despair, he suddenly was struck dumb in spirit and, with open eyes, began to answer in a clear voice: sometimes indeed, "Yes, truly it is so; but the crime has been washed away by penance and tears"; sometimes, "It is not so; you lie"; then again, "You speak truly, but I wept, but I ministered"; and of certain things, "You accuse me truly, and I have nothing to answer."

And so he died, leaving it uncertain whether he was saved or reprobate. These examples, therefore, and others of the same kind, warn us to purge our conscience with anxious care before that hour, and never to lose trust in the mercy of the Lord.

### CHAPTER XI.

On the eleventh precept of the art of dying well, when death is now near, which concerns the third temptation, that is, the hatred of God.

Our adversary the Devil not only strives with all his might to strip the dying of faith and hope and to lead them into heresy and despair; he also contends to separate the friends of God from His friendship, and to induce them into hatred of God, and into blasphemies and the magic arts. These men for the most part fear neither death nor the punishments of hell. For they hope that they will lead a happy life in the world below, as companions of the demons, who they suppose reign in the lower regions.

Grillandi writes on this matter in his book on sorceries, question 9, number 2, and after him Martin del Rio in book VI of the Investigations into Magic, chapter 1, section 3. These authors therefore speak thus: after the sorcerers have been captured, as he himself has often testified, the Devil then busies himself with nothing else, nor labors at anything, except persuading them to persist in their purpose even unto death. Though they be led to the place of execution and the fire kindled, he will, he tells them, openly snatch their bodies from both the noose and the flames, and will cause them to feel no pain at the touch of the flames. And should it befall them to die in the fire, that death will be free of torment: they will pass from the miseries of this life without any sense of punishment, so as to be carried over into the beatitude of the life to come; there they shall be like the demons, endowed with the same strength, knowledge, riches, power, and pleasure in which the demon himself abounds and exults — and that they shall never be damned. Such are the promises of the lying Devil.

There are, moreover, certain others who, though they are not properly sorcerers or magicians, are nevertheless so blinded by avarice that they differ very little indeed from unbelievers. For not without cause did the blessed Apostle call avarice the service of idols (Eph. 5:5; Col. 3:5).

I myself once visited a sick man who was near death; and when I began to speak with him about preparing for his departure from this present life, he answered with a resolute mind and without any fear, saying: « Father, I wished to speak with you — not for myself, but for my wife and my children; for I am hastening to hell, and there is no need for you to do anything for me. » And he uttered these words with a tranquil mind, as though he were speaking of a journey to some country house or town. So completely had the Devil made his soul subject to himself that the man neither desired nor wished to be torn away from him. Yet he was no magician or necromancer, but practiced a very dangerous art; and intent upon gain by fair means or foul, he seemed to have forgotten not only God, but even his own soul. In short, though with many words I tried to call him back to a better mind, I could accomplish nothing.

Someone will perhaps wish to know what art it was that he practiced. I will tell, so that his ruin may profit other men of the same art — if any there be like him — and bring them to their senses. He was an attorney in causes, one of those who trouble themselves little whether the cause they undertake to defend be just or unjust; and meanwhile they do wrong to both parties, provided only they fill their own purse. I will add one thing that befell me when I once fell upon this subject. A certain eminently learned man was conversing with me; and when I said to him of a certain cause, « You seem to me to be defending an unjust cause, » he assented and answered: « I am not the advocate of truth or of justice, but of my client; it is mine to set forth the merits of the cause, not to declare on which side sentence should be pronounced. » But I said: I would not have you give credence to me, but to St. Thomas Aquinas (Part II-II, q. 71, art. 3), a most great and most holy Doctor; for in the second part of the Summa Theologiae he speaks thus: « I answer that it is unlawful for anyone to cooperate in the doing of evil by any manner of consent; for to counsel and to assist is in some sort to do the deed. Hence the Apostle also says, writing to the Romans, that they are worthy of death who not only commit sin, but also consent to them that do it (Rom. 1). Wherefore, as has been said above, all such are bound to make restitution. Now it is evident that an advocate gives his aid and counsel to the party whose cause he undertakes; wherefore, if he knowingly defends an unjust cause, he sins grievously without a doubt, and is bound to make restitution for the loss which the other party, contrary to justice, incurs through his aid; but if he unknowingly defends an unjust cause, thinking it to be just, he is excused in the measure in which ignorance can excuse. » So far St. Thomas. Cardinal Cajetan, moreover, explains the last words of St. Thomas, saying: « He who defends a cause outright, not knowing it to be unjust — not through ignorance, but with an ignorance which does not excuse — pleads unjustly. And they who do not care to discern and search out whether the cause they undertake be just or unjust manifestly neglect to know what they are bound to know. » So far he.

To these temptations may be added another, which does not so much harm as profit, although the Devil makes use of it to do harm. For the enemy of the human race is himself wont for the most part to be present, and to show himself with a terrible countenance to the dying, so that, if he cannot deceive them, he may at least hinder them from eagerness and devotion in prayer. So Sulpitius Severus writes of St. Martin that, as he lay dying, the Devil appeared to him, and that St. Martin said to him: « Why do you stand here, bloodthirsty beast? You will find nothing in me, deadly one. » The Venerable Peter Damian also writes, in his Life of St. Odilo, that a little before his death the Devil appeared to the aforesaid Odilo in a most hideous form; of which the Blessed Odilo himself is said to have spoken thus: « In the very hour of my crisis, in that corner » — for he pointed, as it were, with his finger to the place — « I saw a figure most fierce and terrible, which, for all the horror of its most hideous aspect, could do me no harm by any attack, the power of Christ strengthening me. » For St. Adelhelm of Séez writes (April 22, in the Life of St. Opportuna the Virgin) that as St. Opportuna lay dying, the Devil appeared to her in the form of an Ethiopian of the blackest hue, whose hair and beard dripped as it were with hot and liquid pitch; his eyes were like glowing iron drawn sparkling with many sparks from the furnace; and from his mouth and nostrils issued flame and a sulfurous vapor.

Why God permits holy men to be tried by visions of this kind is taught by the Angel of the Lord in the Life of St. Aichard, which is found in Laurentius Surius under the fifteenth day of September. For when the Devil was in a certain monastery intent upon his prey, the holy Angel, the guardian of that monastery, said to the Devil: « You shall have a ministry here — fruitful indeed for the monks, but not profitable for yourself: for them unto expiation, but for you unto confusion. » And when the Devil answered, « Am I, then, a debtor for their salvation to these, or to any worshippers of Christ? » the Angel replied: « In this, said he, they are your debtors; for if there is anything in them that must be cut away, it is expiated by the horror of your sight. » After this the same Angel said to St. Aichard concerning the Devil: « Do not fear his countenance; no power to do harm has been given him in this family of Christ, save that to souls about to depart from the body the sight of him instills a terror that works expiation, so that if there is anything in them which must be cut away, it may be expiated by the terror of that horrid vision. »

### CHAPTER XII.

On the twelfth precept of the art of dying well, when death is now near, which concerns the first remedy against the temptations of the Devil.

We have set forth in the preceding chapters four temptations which are wont to trouble the dying grievously; and against these temptations two kinds of remedy may be applied. One is for those who are in possession of their reason and can hear and understand what is said to them; the other is general, for all, and is at once the most useful and the most safe.

As regards the first: if the temptation attacks the Catholic faith, it is in no wise expedient, as we said above, to dispute with the Devil; but the sick who are tempted must be admonished in a general way that, if the temptation concerns the nature of God — who must be believed to be one in essence and three in person — they should reflect how many things we do not know about created things, not only spiritual but also corporeal. For a great part of mankind cannot easily believe that each of the stars of the firmament is greater than the whole orb of the earth; and yet mathematicians easily demonstrate that this very thing is most true. But if this fact, which concerns a corporeal thing, is not understood by the many, who nevertheless put faith in learned men, why should they not believe concerning the nature of God what God Himself has revealed through the Apostles and the Prophets, and confirmed by very many and very great signs and miracles?

But if the temptation concerns those things which we believe God has done, and daily does — as is, above all, the changing of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, while the accidents of bread and wine remain — then we must adduce examples of the innumerable things which we believe God has done, though we can render no account of them. Who can comprehend that the whole world could be made out of nothing by the mere nod of God? And yet many believe this, who cannot be brought to believe the mystery of the Eucharist. Who likewise would believe that the bodies of all the dead — reduced to ashes or to dust, or devoured by beasts, or turned into grass — will rise again in a moment at the command of the Lord? And yet all Catholics believe this without difficulty, and confess it in the Creed; and Job himself believed this very thing some thousands of years ago, for he says: I know that my Redeemer liveth, and in the last day I shall rise out of the earth, and I shall be clothed again with my skin (Job 19). From these, therefore, and other wondrous works of God of the same kind, which surpass our comprehension, the other things which the Catholic Church proposes to us to be believed can easily be believed — since the Church is, as the Apostle testifies, the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Tim. 3). These and similar things may be set before those who are tempted concerning the faith.

But for those who suffer temptations concerning hope, we must set before them the plainly infinite greatness of the mercy of God, which far surpasses the number and the mass of all sins. For so speaks the Holy Spirit through David in the Psalm: The Lord is gracious and merciful: patient and plenteous in mercy. The Lord is sweet to all: and His tender mercies are over all His works. Likewise we must set before them the propitiation of the Mediator, of whom St. John says: He is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world (1 John 2). We must set before them also the power of penance, which, if it proceeds from a truly contrite heart, will never meet with refusal from God; for most truly did the Prophet write: A contrite and humbled heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise (Ps. 51). We must set before them likewise the example of the prodigal son, who had scarcely uttered those words, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee (Luke 15), when straightway the father's heart was moved, and he ran to embrace his son, and ordered him to be clothed with a precious robe, and a ring to be put upon his finger, and a solemn feast to be prepared; because his son had been lost, and was found.

Finally, we must set before them the example of St. Paul, who, while he was still persecuting the Church, was overtaken by the grace of God and changed from a persecutor into a preacher; which he himself writes was done so that all sinners might be converted by his example, and that no one, however wicked, should despair of the mercy of God. A faithful saying, he says, and worthy of all acceptance: that Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners, of whom I am the first; but for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Christ Jesus might show forth all patience, for the instruction of those who shall believe in Him unto life eternal. (1 Tim. 1:15–16.)

But those who are tempted by the devil with that most grievous temptation against the charity of God, and are incited to hatred of God and love of the Devil, must be taught in the first place that the Devil is a liar, as the Lord says: "When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own, because he is a liar and the father thereof." (John 8:44.) Here the words "and the father thereof" signify that the Devil is the father of the lie, as St. Augustine and St. John Chrysostom teach. (Tract. 44 on John; Hom. 42 on John.) For the Devil was the first of all to begin lying, when he said to Eve, and through her to Adam: "You shall not die the death." For God had told Adam not to eat of the forbidden tree if he wished never to die; the Devil, on the contrary, said that they should eat, because they would not die. Therefore no trust is to be placed in the Devil, since he is a liar and the father of the lie. Furthermore, the Devil has already been sentenced to eternal fire together with all who shall follow him; for so will the Lord say on the day of judgment: "Depart from Me, you cursed, into everlasting fire, which was prepared for the Devil and his angels." (Matt. 25:41.) They err, therefore, all who subject themselves to the Devil, hoping that after death they will reign with the Devil in hell and possess the greatest riches and pleasures. Finally, experience proves that all the Devil's promises are deceitful: for among all who have been able to come to our knowledge, no one has yet been found who received the vast treasures promised him by the Devil, nor any who, condemned by lawful authority to prison, or to the galleys, or even to death itself, could be snatched away by the Devil. If these three things were seriously pondered by covetous men, perhaps few or none would dare to forsake the true God — truly almighty, most wise, and most good — for the most lying, most beggarly, and most wretched Devil.

Of the fourth temptation there is nothing we need say, since it has already been shown abundantly enough that this temptation is not so much harmful as salutary for the dying. If anyone, however, wishes a remedy from Scripture in order to bear it more easily, let him read — or have read to him, while that horrible vision lasts — the twenty-sixth Psalm, which begins: "The Lord is my light and my salvation."

### CHAPTER XIII.

On the thirteenth precept of the art of dying well, now that death is near, which concerns the second remedy against the temptations of the devil.

We have explained the first remedy against each of the temptations of the devil; now we shall explain the second remedy, which will be common to all temptations. This great and salutary remedy consists in prayer — whether the sick man can pray for himself, or others pray for him, or the prayer of the sick man and of those standing by is joined together. For it is certain that the prayer of those who fear God avails much, especially since we hold it for certain that the devil cannot tempt except as far as the Lord permits him. For he is like a roaring lion, or a mad dog bound with an iron chain, who cannot bite at his own pleasure, but only as much as God — who holds the chain in His most powerful hand — allows him to bite. This is taught above all by St. Augustine, expounding those words of the Psalm: "Say to my soul: I am your salvation." (Ps. 34:3.) And adducing the example of Job: "God showed this," he says, "in the case of that holy man Job: that the Devil himself has no power to take away these temporal goods unless he has received it from that sovereign Power. He could envy the holy man — but could he harm him? He could accuse — but could he have dominion over him? Did he even wish to hurt him without saying to God: 'Put forth Your hand'? What is 'Put forth Your hand'? Give power. He received it; Job was tempted — yet, tempted, he conquered; the tempter was conquered. For God, who had permitted the Devil to take those things away, had not abandoned His servant inwardly; and the Devil himself had to be overcome by the soul of His servant — of man, I say. Conquered in paradise, he conquered on the dunghill. There he was conquered by the Devil through the woman; here he conquered both the Devil and the woman." This very thing that St. Augustine teaches — that the devil can do nothing except as much as God permits — St. Anthony and St. Francis of Assisi taught by their example. Of St. Anthony, St. Athanasius, who wrote his life, speaks thus: "Antony, when a multitude of demons gathered against him as if for battle, used to say, playing as it were with his enemies: 'Since you are broken, the Lord enfeebling you, you try by your numbers to strike terror — though this very thing is a sign of weakness, that you put on the shapes of irrational beasts.' And again he said with confidence: 'If you have any power, and the Lord has given you power over me, devour what has been given over to you; but if you cannot, why do you strive in vain? For the sign of the Cross and faith in the Lord is for us an impregnable wall.'"

Of St. Francis, St. Bonaventure relates nearly the same: "Seeking solitary places," he says, "he would go at night to abandoned solitudes to pray, where he frequently endured horrible battles with demons, who strove to disturb him in his devoted attention to prayer. (St. Bonaventure, Life of St. Francis, ch. 10.) But he, armed with heavenly weapons, the more violently he was attacked by the enemies, the stronger he became in the work; confidently saying to Christ: 'Under the shadow of Your wings protect me from the face of the wicked who have afflicted me.' And to the demons: 'Do whatever you can against me, you malignant and deceitful spirits. For you can do only as much as the hand from above permits you; and I stand ready with all joy to endure whatever He shall decree to inflict.' Unable to endure such constancy of mind, the proud demons departed in confusion." With this most solid foundation therefore laid — that the devil can do nothing except as much as God permits him — it cannot be doubted that fervent prayer to God, whether of the sick man or of others on his behalf, avails much, especially if those who pray are friends of God. We have a most illustrious example of this in St. Gregory, in the fourth book of the Dialogues, who also says that this very example occurred in his own monastery and that he related it while preaching. These are his words: "He of whom I remember having already spoken in homilies before the people," he says, "was a very restless boy named Theodore, who followed his brother into my monastery more from necessity than from choice. (Dial., bk. 4, ch. 3.) It was indeed burdensome to him if anyone said anything for his salvation, for he could not only not do good, he could not even bear to hear of it. By swearing, by anger, by mockery, he kept declaring that he would never come to the habit of holy living. Now in that plague which lately consumed a great part of the people of this city, he was struck in the groin and brought to the point of death. And as he breathed his last, the Brethren gathered to protect his passing by their prayers. His body had already died from the extremities inward; only in his breast did the vital warmth still gasp. All the Brethren therefore began to pray the more earnestly for him, as they saw him departing so quickly. Then he suddenly began to cry out to the same Brethren standing by, and with loud cries to interrupt their prayer, saying: 'Withdraw! Behold, I have been given to a dragon to be devoured, and because of your presence he cannot devour me; he has already swallowed my head in his mouth. Give place, that he may torment me no longer but do what he is about to do. If I have been given to him to devour, why should I suffer delay on your account?' Then the Brethren began to say to him: 'What are you saying, brother? Imprint the sign of the holy Cross upon yourself.' He answered: 'I want to sign myself, but I cannot, for I am being crushed by the scales of this dragon.' When the Brethren heard this, prostrate on the ground with tears they began to pray still more vehemently for his deliverance. And behold, suddenly the sick man began to cry out: 'Thanks be to God! Behold, that dragon which had received me to devour has fled; driven out by your prayers, he could not stand. Now intercede for my sins, for I am ready to be converted and to abandon secular life entirely.' The man, therefore, who — as has been said — had already died from the extremities of his body, was preserved for life and converted to God with his whole heart; and after, changed in heart, he had for a long time kept himself under the discipline of the scourge, his soul was at last loosed from the flesh." So far St. Gregory.

Let those therefore who assist the dying learn not so much to talk with the sick man as to pray ardently to God for him; and not to admit just anyone to visit a sick man placed in his last moments, but devout and upright men whose prayers may avail much with God. For the constant and fervent prayer of a just man avails much. And just as the Devil, because he has but a short time, leaves no stone unturned at that critical moment, so too — and much more — ought faithful friends to help with prayers and tears their brethren who are departing from this present world.

### CHAPTER XIV.

On the fourteenth precept of the art of dying well, now that death is near, which concerns those who die not of the usual sickness but from another cause.

We have hitherto taught how those who lie abed with a lingering illness should prepare themselves for death: now it has seemed good to add what those must do who are in danger of death not from a lingering illness but from some other cause. Now there are three kinds of men to whom the peril of death threatens apart from the ordinary sickness. For some, death is at hand, unforeseen, and certain — such as those who are struck down by apoplexy, or struck by a bolt from heaven. For others, death is at hand, neither unforeseen nor certain, but highly probable — such as those who wage war against enemies, or who on the high seas battle with the waves and the blasts of the winds. Finally, for others death is at hand, neither unforeseen nor uncertain — such as those who by sentence of the judge are struck down by the executioner. Men of the first kind have no other remedy than the daily — or rather the continual — remembrance of death. And to these properly belongs that most weighty admonition of the Lord and Savior: Watch, because you know not the day nor the hour (Matt. 25). A hard thing indeed, yet a precious necessity, which compels us to what is best and most profitable. If the Lord were to say: Keep watch, naked, in the coldest air, until you freeze and, your flesh rent on every side, are utterly extinguished — as the Forty Martyrs once kept watch — would not this have to be done, that we might arrive safe and glad at eternal happiness? And if He were to say: Keep watch, naked and bound to the gridiron, until, consumed by the fire burning beneath you with the deepest and sharpest pain, you depart this life — as we read was once done in the case of St. Lawrence — would not this also have to be done with a ready spirit, that we might escape the hell of eternal fire? Yet this is not what the Lord our God commands of us all; but that we keep watch, lest, while we sleep, the thief come in the night and steal from us, sleeping in sin, the treasure of chastity, or the treasure of faith, or the other goods of true virtue; and lest, overwhelmed by the sleep of mortal sin and overtaken by death, we forfeit the kingdom of heaven and be cast into the hell that burns with unquenchable fire. But few there are who die so suddenly that no remedy can be brought to them. Suppose they are few: how do you know that you will not be one of them? And if you shall be one of those few, what will the multitude of those who have escaped such a danger profit you? Hear, therefore, while it is permitted you to escape so dreadful an evil, the counsel of God our Father, who cries aloud and says: Watch, watch, because you know not the day nor the hour.

For the second kind of men — who either fall suddenly dead in war, or perish at sea by the violence of the storm — three things seem necessary if they are to die happily. The first is that they not go to war unless it is certain to them that the war is just; or if they take up arms not willingly but compelled by their own prince, that at least they not know the war to be unjust. For so teaches St. Augustine in his books against Faustus the Manichean (bk. 22, ch. 75): he writes that the case of the prince who commands is one thing, and that of the soldier who obeys another; and he teaches that the prince cannot wage war unless he knows the war to be just, but the soldier may, provided he does not know the war to be unjust. The second is that in war they observe the laws of St. John the Baptist, who, when asked by the soldiers what they must do to be saved, answered: Do violence to no man, accuse no man falsely, and be content with your pay (Luke 3). The last is that they never suffer mortal sin to dwell in their heart; otherwise it will easily come to pass that death, which in battles takes many out of the midst of life, will surprise them unprepared and send them away to eternal death to be tormented forever. Soldiers, therefore, stationed in camp and in the greatest danger, must keep perpetual watch, and fight no less against the demons tempting them to sins than against mortal enemies contending for temporal glory.

The same things may be said to those who sail the sea not without danger. For first they must take care not to set sail for an evil end — such as to seize and despoil all whom they meet, as pirates do. Next, if the voyage is undertaken for the sake of fighting, let them too observe the laws received from the most holy Forerunner of the Lord. Finally, let them likewise not dare to offend God by mortal sin, since they are no farther from death than their ship is from the waters.

Men of the third kind may, it seems, be called happy, if they know their own good. For they are put to death either justly, having been condemned, or unjustly. If justly, their death will be able to profit them as a satisfaction before God, provided they sincerely detest their sin and willingly accept death for the expiation of their sins. If they are unjustly slain, and forgive from the heart those who were the cause of their destruction, they will be imitators of the Redeemer, who prayed the Father for His crucifiers, saying: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Add to this that such men suffer far less in death than those who labor under a grievous and lingering illness. Moreover, since their senses are whole and their brain unimpaired, they can more easily give themselves to holy confession, to the receiving of the Sacrament of the Body of the Lord, and to prayer, than those who are kept in bed, occupied with enduring many kinds of pain, and for the most part weakened in their natural strength, or even utterly prostrate. Finally, in many places there are not wanting learned and pious men who, with the greatest diligence and solicitude, assist those who are to suffer death, and teach them how they should prepare themselves to receive death devoutly, so that when they begin to die to mortal life, they may begin to live to blessed immortality.

### CHAPTER XV.

On the happy death of those who have learned the art of dying well.

Now that the precepts of the art of dying well have been set forth, this one thing seems to remain: that we briefly explain what benefit there is in the art of dying well. The matter is easy, and yet of the greatest moment: for he who dies well dies happily. And it is not in just any manner that he who dies well dies happily, nor in just any manner unhappily that he who dies badly dies. But he who dies well passes from a mortal and miserable life to a life eternal and in every respect most blessed; and, contrariwise, he who dies badly passes from a life that seems long and happy to a life most full of every labor and pain, and one that will find no end of labor — so that it should rather be called eternal death than life: for the reprobate shall be dead, yet delivered over to every labor and pain.

That the matter stands so, the holy Scriptures openly teach us. Of those who die well, St. John speaks in the Apocalypse, saying: I heard a voice from heaven saying to me: Write: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord. From henceforth now, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; for their works follow them (Rev. 14). Among the writers there are not wanting those who think this sentence pertains to martyrs alone; but the more common and truer explanation teaches that the words of St. John pertain to all the saints who die devoutly in Christ. Certainly St. Bernard, in a certain letter entitled On the Maccabees, speaks thus: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord — not only they who die for the Lord; the Confessors, too, are indeed blessed. Two things, then, seem to me to make death precious: the life and the cause — but the cause more than the life. That death, moreover, will be most precious which both the cause commends and the life (Epist. 98). So much for him. To this is added that the Church, which is the best interpreter of the Scriptures, orders a lesson from this passage of the Apocalypse to be read in the Mass for all the dead. St. John says, therefore: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord — that is, blessed are all those who, when they die, are found in the Lord; that is, are found joined to the Lord by true charity, as living members of the Head, which is Christ. So St. Luke wrote of St. Stephen dying: He fell asleep in the Lord (Acts 7) — that is, united to the Lord as a member to the head.

But why those who die in the Lord are blessed, St. John explains, saying: From henceforth now, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors (Rev. 14). For the Holy Spirit openly declares that in the death of the saints an end is put to all laborious works, and everlasting rest is begun; and not only do all labors cease, but a most happy life is begun, full of every kind of delight — because their works follow them. For good and meritorious works of all consolation and delight — not temporal but eternal — do not remain on earth, but follow the holy laborers into heaven, according to that word of the Prophet: He hath distributed, he hath given to the poor: his justice remaineth for ever and ever (Ps. 111). The riches of the holy man are indeed left behind on earth, or rather are consumed on earth; but the justice, the liberality, the mercy by which earthly riches were shared with the poor remain for ever and ever; nor do they only remain, but they make most rich the man who distributes perishing wealth to the needy upon the earth. And not only do works of liberality follow them, but also works of wisdom, works of faith, works of hope, works of charity, works of the fear of the Lord, works of temperance, works of fortitude, works of chastity, works of religion — in short, all good works — follow them, and win for them most ample and everlasting rewards. Truly, then, most happy is he who dies well, since he gains both rest from his labors and the sum of all good things for eternity. To this most true testimony of Scripture are added the visitations of the saints, who are wont to be present with pious men at their death, so as to console them and assist them in their departure from the body, and to put to flight the demons, which at that very hour are wont to strike terror — a thing that is no small part of the happiness of those who die piously.

I could recount very many stories at this point, but I shall be content with the examples found in the Dialogues of St. Gregory (Bk. IV of the Dialogues, ch. 11). In the fourth book, then, the blessed Gregory himself speaks thus of Ursinus the priest: « Ursinus the priest, when he was near death, began with great joy to cry out, saying: Welcome, my lords! that you should deign to come to so lowly a servant — I come, I come, I give thanks. And when he kept repeating this, those who stood around him asked to whom he was speaking. To whom he, wondering, answered: Do you not see the holy Apostles assembled here? Do you not behold blessed Peter and blessed Paul, the foremost of the Apostles? And turning again to them, he said: Behold, I come; behold, I come. And amid these words he gave up his soul. And that he had truly seen the holy Apostles, he showed by following them. As often happens to the just, at their death they see visions of the saints who have gone before them, lest they should dread the penal sentence of their own death; but while the company of the heavenly citizens is shown to their mind, they are loosed from the bond of their flesh without the travail of pain and fear. »

The same St. Gregory relates in the same book, in the following chapter, that to Probus, bishop of the church of Rieti, as he lay dying, there came St. Juvenal and St. Eleutherius, martyrs, with a great splendor, and that soon the venerable Probus, loosed from the flesh, departed to heaven with those who had come to him. The same author relates, in the following chapter, that to St. Galla, a handmaid of God, sick and near death, St. Peter appeared and signified to her that all her sins had been forgiven her, so that she might depart from the world in security. In the following chapter, that at the death of Servulus the paralytic there were songs of Angels in heaven, and a wondrous odor was poured forth. In the following chapter he relates of Romula, a handmaid of God, that a great number of holy souls came to her from heaven with an inestimable brightness of light and a fragrance of sweetest odor. In the next chapter he relates of his aunt Tarsilla that she first saw appearing to her the blessed Pontiff Felix, her kinsman, who said: Come, for in this mansion of light I receive you; then, soon seized with fever and brought to her last hour, she expired with her gaze fixed upon Him; and that so great a fragrance of odor was left in that place, that the very sweetness showed that the Author of sweetness had been there. In the following chapter the same author writes that to the little girl Musa the Blessed Virgin, the Mother of God, appeared with a choir of virgins, and led her, as she died, with her to the kingdom of heaven. Finally, in the following chapter he writes that as Stephen, the man of God, lay dying, holy Angels were seen.

We have, then, on the testimony of St. Gregory, that pious men and women departing this life are wont to be attended not only by Angels, but also by Martyrs already departed, or by the princes of the Apostles, or by the Queen of heaven herself, or finally by Christ Himself, the King of eternal glory. But how great is this felicity, how great the glory, how great the joy of heart of those who have learned to live well and to die happily — only they can declare, to whom it is given to experience such great benefits of God.

### CHAPTER XVI.

Of the unhappy death of those who have neglected to learn the art of dying well.

Of Judas the traitor the Lord says: It were good for him if that man had not been born (Matt. 26). For nothing more unhappy can be conceived than a man who by his own fault strays from the end for which he was created. For other things — whether brute animals, or plants, or inanimate things — if they do not attain their end, suffer no harm, since they cease to be; but man, if he strays from his end — which is a blessed and everlasting life — cannot but continue to be and to live, and leads a life worse than every death, so that he forever seeks after death. Therefore more foolish than every fool and more senseless than every senseless man is he who does not strive with all his might to attain it; since no one can fall short of eternal felicity without falling into the abyss of eternal damnation.

To undertake, then, this matter of the highest moment in a fitting manner, I have thought it worth while to consider briefly those words of the Apostle Paul which are found in the second Epistle to the Corinthians: For that which is at present momentary and light of our tribulation worketh for us, above measure exceedingly, an eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal (2 Cor. 4). These apostolic and plainly golden words are most clear to the spiritual man, and by them above all the spiritual man learns, with the greatest ease, the art of living well and the art of dying well; but to the carnal or sensual man these words are mere darkness — Cimmerian darkness — as if to a man who knew only Latin or

Greek they were Hebrew or Arabic.

The spiritual man gathers from these words that tribulations, however grievous, when undertaken for God, are most light and most brief, even if they had to be endured for many years — because everything that has an end cannot be of long duration; and that these same tribulations effect before God a merit of so great a price, that thereby is purchased an immense and everlasting treasure of glory and of all good things. From this, wise men understand that tribulations are not to be feared, but sins are to be feared; and that temporal goods are not to be magnified, but eternal ones. From this it follows that they live well on earth, so that they may happily reign in heaven; and to this end they live piously, so that they may die happily. But sensual men, who have not the spirit — who in words say that they believe the words of divine Scripture, but in deeds deny them — these altogether pervert the apostolic words, and say, if not with the voice at least in the heart, that want, disgrace, and injuries are the most grievous tribulations, to be avoided and repelled with every precaution of mind, even should it be necessary to lie, to defraud, to commit murder, to sell God, and to endure hell after death. For who knows, they say, whether there be any hell at all, and who has seen an eternal weight of glory? But that want, disgrace, and injuries are evils — this we experience, this we know for certain, we touch it with our hands. These things the world and those who are of the world do not indeed proclaim with the mouth, but testify by their works; and this is the cause why a great part of mankind lives ill and dies most unhappily.

And now, to bring forward one or two examples of the most unhappy death of a lost man: there is found in St. Gregory, in the fourth book of the Dialogues, the example of a certain Chrysaorius. He was one of those I have described a little before — a worldly man, prudent and, as St. Gregory puts it, very capable in the affairs of the world, yet proud and avaricious. When he had come to the end of his life, he saw with open eyes most foul spirits standing before him and fiercely threatening to drag him off to the prison of hell. He began to tremble, to grow pale, to sweat, and with loud cries to beg a respite, crying out and saying: A respite at least until morning! A respite at least until morning! But as he cried thus, in the very midst of those words he was torn from the dwelling-place of his flesh. Of him it is surely agreed that he saw these things for our sake, not for his own, that his vision might profit us. For thus it is wont to happen to those who wish to put off their conversion until the last hour of life; and they are of the number of those who, as the same St. Gregory teaches at the beginning of the fourth book, do not easily believe what they do not see — or if they believe, do not believe in such a way as to lead them to repentance.

Another example in the same place the same St. Gregory relates, of a certain hypocrite monk, who was believed to fast while meanwhile he secretly ate and drank. For St. Gregory writes that this man was damned to hell, himself confessing his sin yet not doing penance; for God willed that his hypocrisy should be made manifest, yet did not grant him the grace of penance, so that others might learn not to put off confession and penance until the end.

But to leave aside those who by their own fault did not learn the art of living well, and therefore had no happy exit from this life: I return to the words of the holy Apostle Paul, which are pregnant with mysteries and most wholesome teachings.

First, then, it is fitting to observe how vehemently the Apostle makes light of his own merits — that is, his labors undertaken for Christ — and extols the glory of the kingdom of heaven, which is the reward of merits. What is, he says, momentary and light in our tribulation — this is his making light of his own merits. The Apostle labored with all his strength for about forty years. For when he came, called by Christ into His service, he was a young man; for so it is written in the Acts of the Apostles: They (the stoners of St. Stephen) laid down their garments at the feet of a young man who was called Saul (Acts 7). But he lived in the service of Christ even to old age, as he himself writes of himself to Philemon: Whereas thou art such a one as Paul, an old man. And so the Apostle Paul spent in the service of Christ all the years of his youth, and of his manhood, and part of his old age; and yet he says that his tribulations, which were continual for him from his conversion until his martyrdom, were momentary. And he speaks truly, if they be compared with the eternity of everlasting happiness; yet in themselves they lasted a long time.

He joins lightness to brevity, saying: "Momentary and light of our tribulation." But how cruel and harsh those tribulations were, he himself indicates when he says in the former Epistle to the Corinthians: Even unto this hour we both hunger and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no fixed abode, and we labour, working with our own hands: we are reviled, and we bless; we suffer persecution, and we endure it; we are blasphemed, and we entreat; we are made as the refuse of this world, the offscouring of all, even until now (1 Cor. 4). The same Apostle in the latter Epistle to the same Corinthians adds these things: In many more labours, in prisons more frequently, in stripes above measure, in deaths often. Of the Jews five times did I receive forty stripes save one; thrice was I beaten with rods, once I was stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I was in the depth of the sea: in journeyings often, in perils of rivers, in perils of robbers, in perils from my own nation, in perils from the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in labour and toil, in much watchings, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness (2 Cor. 11). These are the tribulations which he called light; and although in themselves they are most grievous, yet the love of Christ and the greatness of the reward, not without cause, made them seem most light. The Apostle adds the greatness of the reward, saying: above measure, in sublimity, an eternal weight of glory worketh in us. Here, after the manner of the holy Scriptures, which are wont to accommodate themselves to our capacity, the Apostle describes the reward of labours after the likeness of the greatness of a bodily thing. For a bodily thing is said to be great when it is lofty, lasting, broad, and deep. Of the loftiness of the happiness of the blessed he says, above measure, in sublimity; that is, the reward of our labours will be lofty above measure, that is, most high, so that no honour, no dignity, no loftiness can be thought greater. Of its length he says, eternal; which surely will have no end, in comparison with which every duration could be called most brief and momentary. Of its breadth and depth he says, a weight of glory. The name glory signifies a beatitude that will be like a splendour or light, which is spread abroad everywhere and fills all things. The name weight designates the depth of a thing solid and full, which is not superficial and empty, but most solid and most full. The beatitude of the saints will therefore be a thing lofty beyond all measure and proportion, eternal, most solid, and most full.

But because sensual men, such as are the citizens of this world, do not grasp these things, he adds: while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. This will be the whole and true reason why so few learn the art of living well and happily and of dying: because they either do not think, or do not seriously think, upon the things which are not seen and are eternal, but are wholly occupied in considering the beauty or usefulness of bodily and passing things, which are seen. And so this alone makes the difference between brute beasts and sensual men, who have not the Spirit: that the former consider only present things, because they have not a mind capable of reason, by which alone future and everlasting things can be considered; but carnal and sensual men neither think upon nor consider future and everlasting things, because, held captive by the bond of carnal concupiscence, they will not turn the mind away from present things and toward future things, which alone are truly great, precious, and everlasting. And so much for the first consideration of the Pauline sentence.

The second consideration, no less useful and salutary, concerns those who have gone down to hell: for they, upon whom punishment has now opened the eyes of the mind, which guilt had closed in this world; they, I say, now most clearly understand that the goods of this world, riches, honours, delights, kingdoms and empires, were for them momentary and light; and yet for their sake they lost things that will endure forever. Whence they will groan forever and find no consolation, because, when they were on earth, they were so foolish that for the sake of frail and perishing goods, which were not so much goods as shadows of goods, they lost the most eminent and heavenly goods, which have an eternal weight of glory, above measure, in sublimity.

Let us hear their voices from the book of Wisdom: for it pleased the Holy Spirit to record for us in the book of Wisdom the voices of those foolish men, which indeed are useless to them, but can be profitable to us, if we will. Therefore we have erred from the way of truth, they say, and the light of justice hath not shined unto us, and the sun of understanding hath not risen upon us. We have wearied ourselves in the way of iniquity and destruction, and have walked through hard ways, but the way of the Lord we have not known. What hath pride profited us? or what advantage hath the boasting of riches brought us? All those things are passed away like a shadow, and like a courier that runneth on, and as a ship that passeth through the waves, of which, when it is gone by, no trace can be found; or as a bird that flieth through the air, of whose journey no mark is found (Wis.). So says the Wise Man. From which words we understand not only that sensual men in hell will repent that for small and temporal goods they lost great and eternal goods, but also that they laboured much, even to great weariness, in acquiring or preserving perishing goods. Which is plainly most true; and it often happens that the despisers of temporal goods live more cheerful and joyful than those who abound in riches and honours.

Certainly the Apostle Paul, whose words we have undertaken to explain, says of himself: I am filled with comfort, I exceedingly abound with joy in all our tribulation (2 Cor. 7). Of St. Antony, who had forsaken all temporal goods, St. Athanasius relates in his Life that he was never seen sad. And the same can be said of all the saints, however poor, and labouring continually in prayer, and fasting, and the mortification of their own flesh. Therefore those who, for the sake of goods so small, do not fear to lose everlasting goods, not only lose the everlasting goods entirely, but also in great part, on account of those very temporal goods, suffer the loss of inward joy and consolation; and while they seek earthly happiness, they lose both earthly and heavenly happiness.

Would it not then be right that we, who are still on the way, should begin to be wise by the example of those who have gone before us? Surely, if while we were journeying someone warned us that the way we have entered does not lead to the place where we desire to arrive, but to a precipice or to a den of robbers, there would be none of us who would not accept the admonition with thanksgiving and, swifter than speech, take another road. And if we do this in bodily and temporal danger, it is surely right that we should do it much more willingly and readily in a danger at once spiritual and bodily, temporal and everlasting.

Finally, there remains a consideration for those men who are so carnal and sensual that they do not greatly esteem the loss of eternal life and of the heavenly glory that surpasses all sense. But these must be warned that, if they do not greatly esteem the heavenly glory which they have never seen, at least let them not despise the fire, and the brimstone, and the other bodily punishments which they know, and which are found in most cruel hell. For truly, that which is at present is momentary and light in the pleasure of the flesh; but above measure, in the depth of hell, an eternal weight of misery is wrought in the wicked. And indeed the Lord Christ on the last day will set forth this very thing in few words, saying: Depart, you cursed, into everlasting fire, which was prepared for the devil and his angels (Matt. 25). But St. John in the Apocalypse explained more fully what manner of torments are prepared for the devil and his angels, and for men deceived and seduced by him. Of the devil, the prince of the wicked, we read thus in the Apocalypse: And the devil, who seduced them, was cast into the pool of fire and brimstone, where both the beast and the false prophet shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever (Rev. 20). And in the following chapter it is said of the rest who are damned to hell: But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and fornicators, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, their portion shall be in the pool burning with fire and brimstone, which is the second death (Rev. 21). Of which words the first alone needs explanation, for the rest are manifest sins.

By the "fearful," then, St. John means those who do not dare to resist the tempter, whether the devil or a man, but at once yield and consent to the tempter. To these St. James says: Resist the devil, and he will flee from you (James 4:7). Yet there are not a few, but almost innumerable men, who have not learned to fight the battles of the Lord; without any resistance they receive the wounds of the devil and die the first death, which is deadly sin; and because they are fearful also in doing penance, since they do not dare to chastise their body and bring it into subjection, they therefore fall into the second death, which is hell. Rightly, then, did John place the fearful first, for fearfulness leads countless men down to hell.

What, then, will carnal men say to this? That temporal goods are momentary and slight, we have all learned from the experience of others and from our own; that the torments of hell are most grievous and will endure without end, divine Scripture, in which there can be no falsehood, openly testifies. From this it follows that the sum of the whole art of dying well is that which is contained in the three following propositions, or which is concluded by the following reasoning.

### CHAPTER XVII.

The sum of the whole art of dying well.

Momentary and small is both the consolation and the tribulation of the present life; eternal and greatest is both the consolation and the tribulation of the life to come. Therefore they are fools who despise the consolation or the tribulation of the life to come. The first proposition of this argument is known through experience; the second is most surely known through the Scripture of the Holy Spirit; the third follows from the two preceding. If anyone, then, wishes to master the art of dying well easily and quickly, let him not be content with reading this book or others like it; but let him consider attentively, not once but often, not with a mind to learn, but with the intention of living well and dying happily, how far eternal things surpass momentary ones, and the most grievous surpass the slightest. And if he desires to be most firmly confirmed in this most useful truth, let him consider the examples of those who were before us, whether they were wise or foolish — that is, whether by living well they died happily, or by living badly they perished eternally. And to spare my readers the labor of seeking out examples, I will myself bring forward three pairs of examples: one of kings, another of private men, a third of ecclesiastics; and I will set them all forth, drawn from the sacred Scriptures.

The first will be that of Saul and David. Saul, the first king of the Hebrews, when he was a private and poor man, was so upright that, as Scripture testifies (1 Sam. 9:2), there was not a better man than he among the children of Israel. Once made king, he changed his life and his ways, so that now no worse man than he could be found. He persecuted the innocent David even to death, for no other reason than that he suspected David would be king after him. At last, when he had reigned twenty years, he was slain in battle and went down to hell. David, faithful and devout, declared king after Saul's long persecution, governed the kingdom most justly for forty years, during which he endured many tribulations, and at last rested in peace. Let us now compare the consolations and tribulations of each, and see which of them learned better the art of living well and dying happily. While Saul lived, he did not enjoy the pleasure of ruling — which is usually the greatest of all — in its purity and fullness, because of the hatred with which he persecuted David. Thus for twenty years he tasted the sweetness of reigning, but not without the gall of envy. When those years had run their course, all the joy of life fled from him, and pure and eternal calamity took its place; and now for some two thousand and seventy years his nobler part, which is the soul, has lived in the greatest pains — and, what is more miserable still, in pains that will endure without end. David, on the contrary, lived seventy years and reigned forty. And although he tasted tribulations neither small nor few, yet he also experienced consolations most great and most frequent, from the divine revelations which he expressed in his sweetest Psalms; and after death he passed not to punishments but to refreshment, into Abraham's bosom with the holy Patriarchs; and after the resurrection of Christ the Lord, he ascended with Christ Himself to the eternal kingdom of heaven. Let the reader now judge whether the departure from the body of wicked men, even of kings or emperors, is not most unhappy, and the departure of the just, even though they be kings or emperors, most happy. Saul, as I have said, reigned twenty years; after his death he remained in the fire of hell for two thousand years and more, without any relief. What comparison is there between twenty years and two thousand? Who would choose twenty years of the highest and purest pleasure, if he knew for certain that on account of that pleasure he would remain in a most burning furnace for two thousand years and more? And would any man be so senseless as to consent to undergo the greatest of all torments for, I will not say two thousand, but two hundred years, in order afterwards to enjoy for twenty years a pleasure however great? What if we now add that the torment of hell will not last two thousand years, but will have no end?

Surely this eternity of torments alone, destined to endure without any cessation and without any relief, is such that it can bend an iron heart and a brazen breast to penance. The reader may add the same consideration for himself concerning the momentary and light tribulation of David, compared with the greatest and eternal glory and delight which this same David obtained after death in the heavenly kingdom — although the torments of hell move us no more than the joys of paradise.

The second example will be that of the rich glutton (Dives) and Lazarus, from the Gospel of St. Luke. The rich glutton rejoiced for a short time with his friends, for he was clothed in purple and fine linen and feasted sumptuously every day; Lazarus, on the contrary, a beggar and sick, lay at the rich glutton's gate full of sores, and longed to be filled with the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table, and no one gave him any. But a little later all was changed: the rich glutton died and went down to hell; Lazarus also died and was carried by the angels to the place of refreshment, into Abraham's bosom. And indeed the rich glutton, after his briefest consolation, began to be tormented in the flame of eternal fire; he is tormented even now, and without any relief or respite he will be tormented for ever and ever. Lazarus, devout and patient, after his brief tribulation passed to rest in Abraham's bosom; then, after the resurrection of Christ, he departed to the heavenly and most happy kingdom, where he will be blessed without end. Certainly, if we too had been among the living at that time, few or none of us would have wished to be like Lazarus, but all or most of us would have wished to be like the rich glutton; yet now we all judge Lazarus most happy and the rich glutton most miserable. Why, then, now that the choice is given us, do we not choose the virtue of Lazarus rather than the vices of the rich glutton? For riches are not to be blamed, since Abraham (Luke 16), David, and many others among the saints were exceedingly rich; but what is to be condemned is drunkenness, luxury, vanity, mercilessness, and the other vices which brought the rich glutton down to hell.

Nor do we consider in Lazarus only his poverty and his sores; we extol his patience and piety. But this is truly astonishing: although we know all these things, and judge the rich glutton most foolish and Lazarus most wise, yet still not a few are found who never cease to imitate the rich glutton in their manner of life, though they can be most certain that they will be like him in his punishments, whose likeness they have chosen to copy in his vices.

There remains a third example: that of Judas the traitor and of St. Matthias, who succeeded Judas in the apostolate. Judas, utterly unhappy in this world and most unhappy in the other, followed the Lord and Savior for three years, striving to fill his purse by sacrilegious theft, and not content with the moneys he used to take for himself from the common alms; until, goaded on by the disease of avarice, he came to the point of selling his Lord and Master. But a little afterward, driven by the Devil to despair, he gave back the money and hanged himself, losing at once both temporal and eternal life. And so the Lord pronounced that dreadful sentence upon Judas: "It were good for him if he had not been born." (Matt. 26:24.) St. Matthias, who succeeded Judas — that is, was chosen in his place — endured a momentary labor and sorrow, not without an abundance of heavenly delights; but now, with every labor and sorrow ended, he reigns in bliss with Christ in heaven, whom he served most faithfully on earth. This comparison of Judas with Matthias applies to bishops and religious. For Judas was an Apostle of Christ, and by that very fact a bishop designate: it was of Judas and Matthias that St. Peter explained those words of the Psalm, "His bishopric let another take." (Ps. 108:8.) And the same Judas was numbered among religious men, since St. Peter said in the name of all the Apostles: "Behold, we have left all things and have followed You; what then shall we have?" (Matt. 19:27.) Judas, then, the most unhappy of all men, when he had fallen from that most lofty state of perfection, lost by restoring it even the little gain he had wickedly acquired; and becoming his own executioner, he was condemned to eternal torments. He can serve as a warning to all ecclesiastics and religious, that they may see how they walk, and what danger hangs over them unless they answer to the perfection of their state by holy living. For Saul and the rich glutton passed by dying from temporal happiness to eternal misery; but Judas had no temporal happiness at all, only a shadow of it, or rather the hope of happiness — and yet by killing himself he went down to eternal ruin, and to a ruin indeed more dreadful than was the ruin of Saul and of the rich glutton. But even if Judas, by heaping up wealth, had surpassed the riches of all mortals, and had afterward still come, as in fact he now has, to eternal poverty and to the torments of hell that shall endure without end, what would that heap of riches have availed him?

Let the firm and true reasoning therefore stand, which we set down at the beginning of this chapter, and which we then found in the words of the Apostle: "That which is at present momentary and light of our tribulation worketh for us, above measure exceedingly, an eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal." (2 Cor. 4:17–18.)