"May she," says her son, in dutiful remembrance of
her words, "rest in peace with her husband, before and
after whom she never had any; whom she obeyed, with
patience bringing forth fruit unto Thee, that she might[{25}]
win him also unto Thee. And inspire, O Lord my God,
inspire Thy servants, my brethren,—Thy sons, my
masters,—whom, in heart, voice, and writing I serve,
that so many as read these confessions, may at Thy altar
remember Monica, Thy handmaid, with Patricius, her[{30}]
sometime husband, from whom Thou broughtest me into
this life; how, I know not. May they with pious affection
remember those who were my parents in this
transitory light,—my brethren under Thee, our Father,
in our Catholic Mother,—my fellow-citizens in the
eternal Jerusalem, after which Thy pilgrim people sigh
from their going forth unto their return: that so, her[{5}]
last request of me may in the prayers of many receive
a fulfillment, through my confessions, more abundant
than through my prayers."—ix. 37.
CHRYSOSTOM
Introductory
I confess to a delight in reading the lives, and
dwelling on the characters and actions, of the
Saints of the first ages, such as I receive from none
besides them; and for this reason, because we
know so much more about them than about most[{5}]
of the Saints who come after them. People are
variously constituted; what influences one does
not influence another. There are persons of
warm imaginations, who can easily picture to
themselves what they never saw. They can at[{10}]
will see Angels and Saints hovering over them
when they are in church; they see their
lineaments, their features, their motions, their
gestures, their smile or their grief. They can go
home and draw what they have seen, from the[{15}]
vivid memory of what, while it lasted, was so
transporting. I am not one of such; I am touched
by my five senses, by what my eyes behold and
my ears hear. I am touched by what I read
about, not by what I myself create. As faith[{20}]
need not lead to practice, so in me mere
imagination does not lead to devotion. I gain more
from the life of our Lord in the Gospels than from
a treatise de Deo. I gain more from three verses
of St. John than from the three points of a
meditation. I like a Spanish crucifix of painted wood
more than one from Italy, which is made of gold.
I am more touched by the Seven Dolors than by
the Immaculate Conception; I am more devout[{5}]
to St. Gabriel than to one of Isaiah's seraphim.
I love St. Paul more than one of those first
Carmelites, his contemporaries, whose names and acts
no one ever heard of; I feel affectionately towards
the Alexandrian Dionysius, I do homage to St.[{10}]
George. I do not say that my way is better than
another's; but it is my way, and an allowable
way. And it is the reason why I am so specially
attached to the Saints of the third and fourth
century, because we know so much about them.[{15}]
This is why I feel a devout affection for St.
Chrysostom. He and the rest of them have
written autobiography on a large scale; they
have given us their own histories, their thoughts,
words, and actions, in a number of goodly folios,[{20}]
productions which are in themselves some of their
meritorious works....
The Ancient Saints have left behind them just
that kind of literature which more than any other
represents the abundance of the heart, which[{25}]
more than any other approaches to conversation;
I mean correspondence. Why is it that we feel
an interest in Cicero which we cannot feel in
Demosthenes or Plato? Plato is the very type
of soaring philosophy, and Demosthenes of[{30}]
forcible eloquence; Cicero is something more than
an orator and a sage; he is not a mere ideality, he
is a man and a brother; he is one of ourselves.
We do not merely believe it, or infer it, but we
have the enduring and living evidence of
it—how? In his letters. He can be studied,[{5}]
criticised if you will; but still dwelt upon and
sympathized with also. Now the case of the Ancient
Saints is parallel to that of Cicero. We have their
letters in a marvelous profusion. We have
above 400 letters of St. Basil's; above 200 of[{10}]
St. Augustine's. St. Chrysostom has left us
about 240; St. Gregory Nazianzen the same
number; Pope St. Gregory as many as 840....
A Saint's writings are to me his real "Life";
and what is called his "Life" is not the outline[{15}]
of an individual, but either of the auto-saint or
of a myth. Perhaps I shall be asked what I
mean by "Life." I mean a narrative which
impresses the reader with the idea of moral unity,
identity, growth, continuity, personality. When[{20}]
a Saint converses with me, I am conscious of the
presence of one active principle of thought, one
individual character, flowing on and into the
various matters which he discusses, and the
different transactions in which he mixes. It is[{25}]
what no memorials can reach, however skillfully
elaborated, however free from effort or study,
however conscientiously faithful, however
guaranteed by the veracity of the writers. Why
cannot art rival the lily or the rose? Because the [{30}]
colors of the flower are developed and blended
by the force of an inward life; while on the other
hand, the lights and shades of the painter are
diligently laid on from without. A magnifying
glass will show the difference. Nor will it
improve matters, though not one only, but a dozen[{5}]
good artists successively take part in the picture;
even if the outline is unbroken, the coloring is
muddy. Commonly, what is called "the Life,"
is little more than a collection of anecdotes brought
together from a number of independent quarters;[{10}]
anecdotes striking, indeed, and edifying, but
valuable in themselves rather than valuable as parts
of a biography; valuable whoever was the
subject of them, not valuable as illustrating a
particular Saint. It would be difficult to mistake[{15}]
for each other a paragraph of St. Ambrose, or of
St. Jerome, or of St. Augustine; it would be very
easy to mistake a chapter in the life of one holy
missionary or nun for a chapter in the life of
another.[{20}]
An almsgiving here, an instance of meekness
there, a severity of penance, a round of religious
duties,—all these things humble me, instruct
me, improve me; I cannot desire anything
better of their kind; but they do not necessarily[{25}]
coalesce into the image of a person. From such
works I do but learn to pay devotion to an
abstract and typical perfection under a certain
particular name; I do not know more of the real
Saint who bore it than before. Saints, as other[{30}]
men, differ from each other in this, that the
multitude of qualities which they have in
common are differently combined in each of them.
This forms one great part of their personality.
One Saint is remarkable for fortitude; not that
he has not other heroic virtues by concomitance,[{5}]
as it may be called, but by virtue of that one gift
in particular he has won his crown. Another is
remarkable for patient hope, another for
renunciation of the world. Such a particular virtue
may be said to give form to all the rest which are[{10}]
grouped round it, and are molded and modified
by means of it. Thus it is that often what is
right in one would be wrong in another; and, in
fact, the very same action is allowed or chosen
by one, and shunned by another, as being [{15}]
consistent or inconsistent with their respective
characters,—pretty much as in the combination of
colors, each separate tint takes a shade from
the rest, and is good or bad from its company.
The whole gives a meaning to the parts; but it[{20}]
is difficult to rise from the parts to the whole.
When I read St. Augustine or St. Basil, I hold
converse with a beautiful grace-illumined soul,
looking out into this world of sense, and leavening
it with itself; when I read a professed life of him,[{25}]
I am wandering in a labyrinth of which I cannot
find the center and heart, and am but conducted
out of doors again when I do my best to penetrate
within.
This seems to me, to tell the truth, a sort of[{30}]
pantheistic treatment of the Saints. I ask something
more than to stumble upon the disjecta
membra of what ought to be a living whole. I
take but a secondary interest in books which
chop up a Saint into chapters of faith, hope,
charity, and the cardinal virtues. They are too[{5}]
scientific to be devotional. They have their
great utility, but it is not the utility which they
profess. They do not manifest a Saint, they
mince him into spiritual lessons. They are
rightly called spiritual reading, that is just what[{10}]
they are, and they cannot possibly be anything
better; but they are not anything else. They
contain a series of points of meditation on
particular virtues, made easier because those points
are put under the patronage and the invocation[{15}]
of a Saint. With a view to learning real
devotion to him, I prefer (speaking for myself) to have
any one action or event of his life drawn out
minutely, with his own comments upon it, than
a score of virtues, or of acts of one virtue, strung[{20}]
together in as many sentences. Now, in the
ancient writings I have spoken of, certain
transactions are thoroughly worked out. We know all
that happened to a Saint on such or such an
occasion, all that was done by him. We have a view[{25}]
of his character, his tastes, his natural infirmities,
his struggles and victories over them, which in
no other way can be attained. And therefore it
is that, without quarreling with the devotion of
others, I give the preference to my own.[{30}]
Here another great subject opens upon us,
when I ought to be bringing these remarks to
an end; I mean the endemic perennial fidget
which possesses us about giving scandal; facts
are omitted in great histories, or glosses are put
upon memorable acts, because they are thought[{5}]
not edifying, whereas of all scandals such
omissions, such glosses, are the greatest. But I am
getting far more argumentative than I thought
to be when I began; so I lay my pen down, and
retire into myself. [{10}]