What profiteth a man to gain the world and lose his eternal life? Here was the Gospel basis of the matter. And, following their conception of Christ’s teaching, the Fathers of the Church elaborated and defined the conditions of attainment of eternal life with God, which was salvation. This was man’s whole good, embracing every valid and righteous element of life. Thus it had been with Christ; thus it was with Augustine; thus it was with Benedict of Nursia and Gregory the Great; only in Benedict and Gregory the salvation which represented the true and uncorrupt life of man on earth, as well as the assured preparation for eternal life with God, had shrunken from the universality of Christ, and even from the fulness of desire with which Augustine sought to know God and the soul. In these later men the conception of salvation had contracted through ascetic exclusion and barbaric fear.
Yet with Benedict and Gregory, in whom there was much constructive sanity, and indeed with all men who were not maniacally constrained, there was recognition that salvation was of the mind as well as through faith and love, or abhorrent fear. It is necessary to know the truth; and surely it is absolutely good to desire to know the truth forever, without the cumbrances of fleshly mortality. This desire is a true part of everlasting life. Through it Origen, Hilary of Poictiers, Augustine largely, and after them the great scholastics with Dante at their close, achieved salvation.
But why should one desire to know the truth utterly and forever, were not the truth desirable, lovable? Naturally one loves that which through desire and effort one has come to know. Love is required and also faith by him who will have and know the salvation which is eternal life; the emotions must take active part. Yet salvation comes not through the unguided sense-desiderative nature. It is for reason to direct passionate desire, and raise it to desire rationally approved, which is volition.
Thus salvation not only requires the action of the whole man, but is in and of his entire nature. It presents a unity primarily because of its agreement with the will of God, and then because of its unqualified and universal insistence that it, salvation, life eternal, be set absolutely first in man’s endeavour. What indeed could be more irrational, and more loveless and faithless, than that any desire should prevail over the entire good of man and the will of God as well? Oneness and peace consist in singleness of purpose and endeavour for salvation. Herein lies the standard of conduct and of discrimination as touching every element of mortal life.
With mediaeval men, the application of the criterion of salvation depended on how the will of God for man, and man’s accordant conduct, was conceived. What kind of conduct, what elements of the intellectual and emotional life were proper for the Kingdom of Heaven? What matters barred the way, or were unfit for the eternal spiritual state? The history of Christian thought lies within these queries. An authoritative consensus of opinion was represented by the Church at large, holding from century to century a juste milieu of doctrine, by no means lax and yet not going to ascetic extremes. Seemingly the Church maintained varying standards of conduct for different orders of men. Yet in truth it was applying one standard according to the responsibilities of individuals and their vows.
The Church (meaning, for our purpose, the authoritative consensus of mediaeval ecclesiastical or religious approvals) always upheld as the ideal of perfect living the religious life, led under the sanction and guidance of some recognized monastic regula. So lived monks and nuns, and in more extreme or sporadic instances, anchorites and reclusae. The main peril of this strait and narrow path was its forsaking, the breaking of its vows. Less austerely guarded and exposed to further dangers were the secular clergy, living in the world, occupied with the care of lay souls, and with other cares that hardly touched salvation. The world avowedly, the flesh in reality, and the devil in all probability, beset the souls of bishops and other clergy. In view of their exposed positions “in the world,” a less austerely ascetic life was expected of the seculars, whose lapses from absolute holiness God might—or perhaps might not—condone.
Around, and for the most part below, regulars and seculars were the laity of both sexes, of all ages, positions, and degrees of instruction or ignorance. They had taken no vows of utter devotion to God’s service, and were expected to marry, beget children, fight and barter, and fend for themselves amid the temptations and exigencies of affairs. Well for them indeed if they could live in communion with the Church, and die repentant and absolved, eligible for purgatory.
For all these kinds of men and women like virtues were prescribed, although their fulfilment was looked for with varying degrees of expectation. For instance, the distinctly theological virtues, faith, hope, and charity, especially the first, could not be completely attained by the ignorance and imperfect consecration of laymen. The vices, likewise, were the same for all, pride, anger, hypocrisy, and the rest; only with married people a venial unchastity was sacramentally declared not to constitute mortal sin. For this one case, human weakness, also mankind’s necessity, was recognized; while, in practice, the Church, through its boundless opportunities for penitence and absolution, mercifully condoned all delinquency save obstinate pride, impenitence, and disbelief.
These were the bare poles ethical of the orthodox mediaeval Christian scheme. How as to its intellectual and emotional inclusiveness? The many-phased interest of the mind, i.e. the desire to know, was in principle accepted, but with the condition that the ultimate end of knowledge should be the attainment of salvation. It was stated and re-emphasized by well-nigh every type of mediaeval thinker, that Theology was the queen of sciences, and her service alone justified her handmaids. All knowledge should make for the knowledge of God, and enlarge the soul’s relationship to its Creator and Judge. “He that is not with me is against me.” Knowledge which does not aid man to know his God and save his soul, all intellectual pursuits which are not loyal to this end, minister to the obstinacy and vainglory of man, stiff-necked, disobedient, unsubmissive to the will of God. Knowledge is justified or condemned according to its ultimate purpose. Likewise every deed, business, occupation, which can fill out the active life of man. As they make for Christ and salvation, the functions of ruler, warrior, lawyer, artisan, priest, are justified and blessed—or the reverse.
But how as to the appetites and the emotions? How as to love, between the sexes, parent and child, among friends? The standard of discrimination is still the same, though its application vary. Appetite for food, if unrestrained, is gluttony; it must be held from hindering the great end. One must guard against love’s obsession, against sense-passion, which is so forgetful of the ultimate good: concupiscence is sinful. Through bodily begetting, the taint of original sin is transmitted; and in all carnal desire, though sanctioned by the marriage sacrament, is lust and spiritual forgetfulness. When in fornication and adultery its acts contravene God’s law, they are mortal sins which will, if unabsolved, cast the sinner into hell.