Michel Eyquem de Montaigne 1533 - 1592
Michel Eyquem de Montaigne was one of the most influential writers of the French Renaissance, known for popularizing the essay as a literary genre. He became famous for his effortless ability to merge serious intellectual exercises with casual anecdotes and autobiography—and his massive volume Essais (translated literally as "Attempts" or "Trials") contains, to this day, some of the most widely influential essays ever written. Montaigne had a direct influence on writers all over the world, including Rene Descartes, Blaise Pascal, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Albert Hirschman, William Hazlitt, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Friedrich Nietzsche, Stefan Zweig, Erich Hoffer, Isaac Asimov and possibly on the later works of William Shakespeare.
In his own lifetime, Montaigne was admired more as a statesman than as an author. The tendency in his essays to digress into anecdotes and personal ruminations was seen as detrimental to proper style rather than as an innovation, and his declaration that, 'I am myself the matter of my book', was viewed by his contemporaries as self-indulgent. In time, however, Montaigne would come to be recognized as embodying, perhaps better than any other author of his time, the spirit of freely entertaining doubt which began to emerge at that time. He is most famously known for his skeptical remark, 'Que sçay-je?' (literally 'What know I?', i.e. 'What do I know?', in Middle French; directly rendered Que sais-je? in modern French, though Qu'est-ce que je sais?, 'What is it that I know?', is a more ordinary modern usage). Remarkably modern even to readers today, Montaigne's attempt to examine the world through the lens of the only thing he can depend on implicitly—his own judgment—makes him more accessible to modern readers than any other author of the Renaissance. Much of modern literary non-fiction has found inspiration in Montaigne and writers of all kinds continue to read him for his masterful balance of intellectual knowledge and personal story-telling.
CHAPTER II - OF SORROW
No man living is more free from this passion than I, who yet neither like it in myself nor admire it in others, and yet generally the world, as a settled thing, is pleased to grace it with a particular esteem, clothing therewith wisdom, virtue, and conscience. Foolish and sordid guise ! ["No man is more free from this passion than I, for I neither love nor regard it: albeit the world hath undertaken, as it were upon covenant, to grace it with a particular favour.Therewith they adorne age, vertue, and conscience. Oh foolish and base ornament !" Florio, 1613, p. 3] - The Italians have more fitly baptized by this name - [La tristezza] - malignity; for 'tis a quality always hurtful, always idle and vain; and as being cowardly, mean, and base, it is by the Stoics expressly and particularly forbidden to their sages.
But the story - [Herodotus, iii. 14.] - says that Psammenitus, King of Egypt, being defeated and taken prisoner by Cambyses, King of Persia, seeing his own daughter pass by him as prisoner, and in a wretched habit, with a bucket to draw water, though his friends about him were so concerned as to break out into tears and lamentations, yet he himself remained unmoved, without uttering a word, his eyes fixed upon the ground; and seeing, moreover, his son immediately after led to execution, still maintained the same countenance; till spying at last one of his domestic and familiar friends dragged away amongst the captives, he fell to tearing his hair and beating his breast, with all the other extravagances of extreme sorrow.
A story that may very fitly be coupled with another of the same kind, of recent date, of a prince of our own nation, who being at Trent, and having news there brought him of the death of his elder brother, a brother on whom depended the whole support and honour of his house, and soon after of that of a younger brother, the second hope of his family, and having withstood these two assaults with an exemplary resolution; one of his servants happening a few days after to die, he suffered his constancy to be overcome by this last accident; and, parting with his courage, so abandoned himself to sorrow and mourning, that some thence were forward to conclude that he was only touched to the quick by this last stroke of fortune; but, in truth, it was, that being before brimful of grief, the least addition overflowed the bounds of all patience. Which, I think, might also be said of the former example, did not the story proceed to tell us that Cambyses asking Psammenitus, "Why, not being moved at the calamity of his son and daughter, he should with so great impatience bear the misfortune of his friend ?" "It is," answered he, "because only this last affliction was to be manifested by tears, the two first far exceeding all manner of expression."
And, peradventure, something like this might be working in the fancy of the ancient painter, - [Cicero, De Orator., c. 22 ; Pliny, xxxv. 10.]- who having, in the sacrifice of Iphigenia, to represent the sorrow of the assistants proportionably to the several degrees of interest every one had in the death of this fair innocent virgin, and having, in the other figures, laid out the utmost power of his art, when he came to that of her father, he drew him with a veil over his face, meaning thereby that no kind of countenance was capable of expressing such a degree of sorrow. Which is also the reason why the poets feign the miserable mother, Niobe, having first lost seven sons, and then afterwards as many daughters (overwhelmed with her losses), to have been at last transformed into a rock -
"Diriguisse malis,"
["Petrified with her misfortunes."—Ovid, Met., vi. 304.]
thereby to express that melancholic, dumb, and deaf stupefaction, which
benumbs all our faculties, when oppressed with accidents greater than we
are able to bear. And, indeed, the violence and impression of an excessive
grief must of necessity astonish the soul, and wholly deprive her of her
ordinary functions: as it happens to every one of us, who, upon any sudden
alarm of very ill news, find ourselves surprised, stupefied, and in a
manner deprived of all power of motion, so that the soul, beginning to
vent itself in tears and lamentations, seems to free and disengage itself
from the sudden oppression, and to have obtained some room to work itself
out at greater liberty.
"Et via vix tandem voci laxata dolore est."
["And at length and with difficulty is a passage opened by grief for
utterance."—AEneid, xi. 151.]
In the war that Ferdinand made upon the widow of King John of Hungary,
about Buda, a man-at-arms was particularly taken notice of by every one
for his singular gallant behaviour in a certain encounter; and, unknown,
highly commended, and lamented, being left dead upon the place: but by
none so much as by Raisciac, a German lord, who was infinitely enamoured
of so rare a valour. The body being brought off, and the count, with the
common curiosity coming to view it, the armour was no sooner taken off but
he immediately knew him to be his own son, a thing that added a second
blow to the compassion of all the beholders; only he, without uttering a
word, or turning away his eyes from the woeful object, stood fixedly
contemplating the body of his son, till the vehemency of sorrow having
overcome his vital spirits, made him sink down stone-dead to the ground.
"Chi puo dir com' egli arde, a in picciol fuoco,"
["He who can say how he burns with love, has little fire"
—Petrarca, Sonetto 137.]
say the Innamoratos, when they would represent an 'insupportable passion.
"Misero quod omneis
Eripit sensus mihi: nam simul te,
Lesbia, aspexi, nihil est super mi,
Quod loquar amens.
Lingua sed torpet: tenuis sub artus
Flamma dimanat; sonitu suopte
Tintinant aures; gemina teguntur
Lumina nocte."
["Love deprives me of all my faculties: Lesbia, when once in thy
presence, I have not left the power to tell my distracting passion:
my tongue becomes torpid; a subtle flame creeps through my veins; my
ears tingle in deafness; my eyes are veiled with darkness."
Catullus, Epig. li. 5]
Neither is it in the height and greatest fury of the fit that we are in a
condition to pour out our complaints or our amorous persuasions, the soul
being at that time over-burdened, and labouring with profound thoughts;
and the body dejected and languishing with desire; and thence it is that
sometimes proceed those accidental impotencies that so unseasonably
surprise the lover, and that frigidity which by the force of an immoderate
ardour seizes him even in the very lap of fruition. - [The edition of
1588 has here, "An accident not unknown to myself."] - For all
passions that suffer themselves to be relished and digested are but
moderate:
"Curae leves loquuntur, ingentes stupent."
["Light griefs can speak: deep sorrows are dumb."
—Seneca, Hippolytus, act ii. scene 3.]
A surprise of unexpected joy does likewise often produce the same effect:
"Ut me conspexit venientem, et Troja circum
Arma amens vidit, magnis exterrita monstris,
Diriguit visu in medio, calor ossa reliquit,
Labitur, et longo vix tandem tempore fatur."
["When she beheld me advancing, and saw, with stupefaction, the Trojan arms around me,
terrified with so great a prodigy, she fainted away at the very sight: vital warmth forsook her
limbs: she sinks down, and, after a long interval, with difficulty speaks."—
AEneid, iii. 306.]
Besides the examples of the Roman lady, who died for joy to see her son
safe returned from the defeat of Cannae; and of Sophocles and of Dionysius
the Tyrant, - [Pliny, vii. 53. Diodorus Siculus, however (xv. c. 20),
tells us that Dionysius "was so overjoyed at the news that he made a great
sacrifice upon it to the gods, prepared sumptuous feasts, to which he
invited all his friends, and therein drank so excessively that it threw
him into a very bad distemper."] -who died of joy; and of Thalna, who
died in Corsica, reading news of the honours the Roman Senate had decreed
in his favour, we have, moreover, one in our time, of Pope Leo X., who
upon news of the taking of Milan, a thing he had so ardently desired, was
rapt with so sudden an excess of joy that he immediately fell into a fever
and died. -[Guicciardini, Storia d'Italia, vol. xiv.] -And for a
more notable testimony of the imbecility of human nature, it is recorded
by the ancients -[Pliny, 'ut supra'] - that Diodorus the
dialectician died upon the spot, out of an extreme passion of shame, for
not having been able in his own school, and in the presence of a great
auditory, to disengage himself from a nice argument that was propounded to
him. I, for my part, am very little subject to these violent passions; I
am naturally of a stubborn apprehension, which also, by reasoning, I every
day harden and fortify.
CHAPTER XVII——OF FEAR
"Obstupui, steteruntque comae et vox faucibus haesit."
["I was amazed, my hair stood on end, and my voice stuck in my
throat." Virgil, AEneid, ii. 774.]
I am not so good a naturalist (as they call it) as to discern by what
secret springs fear has its motion in us; but, be this as it may, 'tis a
strange passion, and such a one that the physicians say there is no other
whatever that sooner dethrones our judgment from its proper seat; which is
so true, that I myself have seen very many become frantic through fear;
and, even in those of the best settled temper it is most certain that it
begets a terrible astonishment and confusion during the fit. I omit the
vulgar sort, to whom it one while represents their great-grandsires risen
out of their graves in their shrouds, another while werewolves,
nightmares, and chimaeras; but even amongst soldiers, a sort of men over
whom, of all others, it ought to have the least power, how often has it
converted flocks of sheep into armed squadrons, reeds and bullrushes into
pikes and lances, friends into enemies, and the French white cross into
the red cross of Spain ! When Monsieur de Bourbon took Rome, - [In 1527] - an
ensign who was upon guard at Borgo San Pietro was seized with such a
fright upon the first alarm, that he threw himself out at a breach with
his colours upon his shoulder, and ran directly upon the enemy, thinking
he had retreated toward the inward defences of the city, and with much
ado, seeing Monsieur de Bourbon's people, who thought it had been a sally
upon them, draw up to receive him, at last came to himself, and saw his
error; and then facing about, he retreated full speed through the same
breach by which he had gone out, but not till he had first blindly
advanced above three hundred paces into the open field. It did not,
however, fall out so well with Captain Giulio's ensign, at the time when
St. Paul was taken from us by the Comte de Bures and Monsieur de Reu, for
he, being so astonished with fear as to throw himself, colours and all,
out of a porthole, was immediately, cut to pieces by the enemy; and in the
same siege, it was a very memorable fear that so seized, contracted, and
froze up the heart of a gentleman, that he sank down, stone-dead, in the
breach, without any manner of wound or hurt at all. The like madness does
sometimes push on a whole multitude; for in one of the encounters that
Germanicus had with the Germans, two great parties were so amazed with
fear that they ran two opposite ways, the one to the same place from which
the other had fled. -[Tacit, Annal., i. 63.] -Sometimes it adds
wings to the heels, as in the two first: sometimes it nails them to the
ground, and fetters them from moving; as we read of the Emperor
Theophilus, who, in a battle he lost against the Agarenes, was so
astonished and stupefied that he had no power to fly -
"Adeo pavor etiam auxilia formidat"
["So much does fear dread even the means of safety."—Quint.
Curt., ii. II.]
—till such time as Manuel, one of the principal commanders of his
army, having jogged and shaked him so as to rouse him out of his trance,
said to him, "Sir, if you will not follow me, I will kill you; for it is
better you should lose your life than, by being taken, lose your empire." -[Zonaras, lib. iii.] - But fear does then manifest its utmost
power when it throws us upon a valiant despair, having before deprived us
of all sense both of duty and honour. In the first pitched battle the
Romans lost against Hannibal, under the Consul Sempronius, a body of ten
thousand foot, that had taken fright, seeing no other escape for their
cowardice, went and threw themselves headlong upon the great battalion of
the enemies, which with marvellous force and fury they charged through and
through, and routed with a very great slaughter of the Carthaginians, thus
purchasing an ignominious flight at the same price they might have gained
a glorious victory. -[Livy, xxi. 56.]
The thing in the world I am most afraid of is fear, that passion alone, in the trouble of it, exceeding all other accidents. What affliction could be greater or more just than that of Pompey's friends, who, in his ship, were spectators of that horrible murder ? Yet so it was, that the fear of the Egyptian vessels they saw coming to board them, possessed them with so great alarm that it is observed they thought of nothing but calling upon the mariners to make haste, and by force of oars to escape away, till being arrived at Tyre, and delivered from fear, they had leisure to turn their thoughts to the loss of their captain, and to give vent to those tears and lamentations that the other more potent passion had till then suspended.
"Tum pavor sapientiam omnem mihiex animo expectorat."
["Then fear drove out all intelligence from my mind."—Ennius, ap.
Cicero, Tusc., iv. 8.]
Such as have been well rubbed in some skirmish, may yet, all wounded and
bloody as they are, be brought on again the next day to charge; but such
as have once conceived a good sound fear of the enemy, will never be made
so much as to look him in the face. Such as are in immediate fear of a
losing their estates, of banishment, or of slavery, live in perpetual
anguish, and lose all appetite and repose; whereas such as are actually
poor, slaves, or exiles, ofttimes live as merrily as other folk. And the
many people who, impatient of the perpetual alarms of fear, have hanged or
drowned themselves, or dashed themselves to pieces, give us sufficiently
to understand that fear is more importunate and insupportable than death
itself.
The Greeks acknowledged another kind of fear, differing from any we have spoken of yet, that surprises us without any visible cause, by an impulse from heaven, so that whole nations and whole armies have been struck with it. Such a one was that which brought so wonderful a desolation upon Carthage, where nothing was to be heard but affrighted voices and outcries; where the inhabitants were seen to sally out of their houses as to an alarm, and there to charge, wound, and kill one another, as if they had been enemies come to surprise their city. All things were in disorder and fury till, with prayers and sacrifices, they had appeased their gods - [Diod. Sic., xv. 7]; and this is that they call panic terrors. - [Ibid. ; Plutarch on Isis and Osiris, c. 8.]
CHAPTER LVI - OF PRAYERS
I propose formless and undetermined fancies, like those who publish doubtful questions, to be after a disputed upon in the schools, not to establish truth but to seek it; and I submit them to the judgments of those whose office it is to regulate, not my writings and actions only, but moreover my very thoughts. Let what I here set down meet with correction or applause, it shall be of equal welcome and utility to me, myself beforehand condemning as absurd and impious, if anything shall be found, through ignorance or inadvertency, couched in this rhapsody, contrary to the holy resolutions and prescriptions of the Catholic Apostolic and Roman Church, into which I was born and in which I will die. And yet, always submitting to the authority of their censure, which has an absolute power over me, I thus rashly venture at everything, as in treating upon this present subject.
I know not if or no I am wrong, but since, by a particular favour of the divine bounty, a certain form of prayer has been prescribed and dictated to us, word by word, from the mouth of God Himself, I have ever been of opinion that we ought to have it in more frequent use than we yet have; and if I were worthy to advise, at the sitting down to and rising from our tables, at our rising from and going to bed, and in every particular action wherein prayer is used, I would that Christians always make use of the Lord's Prayer, if not alone, yet at least always. The Church may lengthen and diversify prayers, according to the necessity of our instruction, for I know very well that it is always the same in substance and the same thing: but yet such a privilege ought to be given to that prayer, that the people should have it continually in their mouths; for it is most certain that all necessary petitions are comprehended in it, and that it is infinitely proper for all occasions. 'Tis the only prayer I use in all places and conditions, and which I still repeat instead of changing; whence it also happens that I have no other so entirely by heart as that.
It just now came into my mind, whence it is we should derive that error of having recourse to God in all our designs and enterprises, to call Him to our assistance in all sorts of affairs, and in all places where our weakness stands in need of support, without considering whether the occasion be just or otherwise; and to invoke His name and power, in what state soever we are, or action we are engaged in, howsoever vicious. He is indeed, our sole and unique protector, and can do all things for us: but though He is pleased to honour us with this sweet paternal alliance, He is, notwithstanding, as just as He is good and mighty; and more often exercises His justice than His power, and favours us according to that, and not according to our petitions.
Plato in his Laws, makes three sorts of belief injurious to the gods; "that there are none; that they concern not themselves about our affairs; that they never refuse anything to our vows, offerings, and sacrifices." The first of these errors (according to his opinion, never continued rooted in any man from his infancy to his old age); the other two, he confesses, men might be obstinate in.
God's justice and His power are inseparable; 'tis in vain we invoke His power in an unjust cause. We are to have our souls pure and clean, at that moment at least wherein we pray to Him, and purified from all vicious passions; otherwise we ourselves present Him the rods wherewith to chastise us; instead of repairing anything we have done amiss, we double the wickedness and the offence when we offer to Him, to whom we are to sue for pardon, an affection full of irreverence and hatred. Which makes me not very apt to applaud those whom I observe to be so frequent on their knees, if the actions nearest to the prayer do not give me some evidence of amendment and reformation:
"Si, nocturnus adulter,
Tempora Santonico velas adoperta cucullo."
["If a night adulterer, thou coverest thy head with a Santonic
cowl."—Juvenal, Sat., viii. 144.—The Santones were the people
who inhabited Saintonge in France, from whom the Romans derived the
use of hoods or cowls covering the head and face.]
And the practice of a man who mixes devotion with an execrable life seems
in some sort more to be condemned than that of a man conformable to his
own propension and dissolute throughout; and for that reason it is that
our Church denies admittance to and communion with men obstinate and
incorrigible in any notorious wickedness. We pray only by custom and for
fashion's sake; or rather, we read or pronounce our prayers aloud, which
is no better than an hypocritical show of devotion; and I am scandalised
to see a man cross himself thrice at the Benedicite, and as often at Grace
(and the more, because it is a sign I have in great veneration and
continual use, even when I yawn), and to dedicate all the other hours of
the day to acts of malice, avarice, and injustice. One hour to God, the
rest to the devil, as if by composition and compensation. 'Tis a wonder to
see actions so various in themselves succeed one another with such an
uniformity of method as not to interfere nor suffer any alteration, even
upon the very confines and passes from the one to the other. What a
prodigious conscience must that be that can be at quiet within itself
whilst it harbours under the same roof, with so agreeing and so calm a
society, both the crime and the judge ?
A man whose whole meditation is continually working upon nothing but impurity which he knows to be so odious to Almighty God, what can he say when he comes to speak to Him? He draws back, but immediately falls into a relapse. If the object of divine justice and the presence of his Maker did, as he pretends, strike and chastise his soul, how short soever the repentance might be, the very fear of offending the Infinite Majesty would so often present itself to his imagination that he would soon see himself master of those vices that are most natural and vehement in him. But what shall we say of those who settle their whole course of life upon the profit and emolument of sins, which they know to be mortal? How many trades and vocations have we admitted and countenanced amongst us, whose very essence is vicious? And he that, confessing himself to me, voluntarily told me that he had all his lifetime professed and practised a religion, in his opinion damnable and contrary to that he had in his heart, only to preserve his credit and the honour of his employments, how could his courage suffer so infamous a confession? What can men say to the divine justice upon this subject ?
Their repentance consisting in a visible and manifest reparation, they lose the colour of alleging it both to God and man. Are they so impudent as to sue for remission without satisfaction and without penitence ? I look upon these as in the same condition with the first: but the obstinacy is not there so easy to be overcome. This contrariety and volubility of opinion so sudden, so violent, that they feign, are a kind of miracle to me: they present us with the state of an indigestible agony of mind.
It seemed to me a fantastic imagination in those who, these late years past, were wont to reproach every man they knew to be of any extraordinary parts, and made profession of the Catholic religion, that it was but outwardly; maintaining, moreover, to do him honour forsooth, that whatever he might pretend to the contrary he could not but in his heart be of their reformed opinion. An untoward disease, that a man should be so riveted to his own belief as to fancy that others cannot believe otherwise than as he does; and yet worse, that they should entertain so vicious an opinion of such great parts as to think any man so qualified, should prefer any present advantage of fortune to the promises of eternal life and the menaces of eternal damnation. They may believe me: could anything have tempted my youth, the ambition of the danger and difficulties in the late commotions had not been the least motives.
It is not without very good reason, in my opinion, that the Church interdicts the promiscuous, indiscreet, and irreverent use of the holy and divine Psalms, with which the Holy Ghost inspired King David. We ought not to mix God in our actions, but with the highest reverence and caution; that poesy is too holy to be put to no other use than to exercise the lungs and to delight our ears; it ought to come from the conscience, and not from the tongue. It is not fit that a prentice in his shop, amongst his vain and frivolous thoughts, should be permitted to pass away his time and divert himself with such sacred things. Neither is it decent to see the Holy Book of the holy mysteries of our belief tumbled up and down a hall or a kitchen they were formerly mysteries, but are now become sports and recreations. 'Tis a book too serious and too venerable to be cursorily or slightly turned over: the reading of the scripture ought to be a temperate and premeditated act, and to which men should always add this devout preface, 'sursum corda', preparing even the body to so humble and composed a gesture and countenance as shall evidence a particular veneration and attention. Neither is it a book for everyone to fist, but the study of select men set apart for that purpose, and whom Almighty God has been pleased to call to that office and sacred function: the wicked and ignorant grow worse by it. 'Tis, not a story to tell, but a history to revere, fear, and adore. Are not they then pleasant men who think they have rendered this fit for the people's handling by translating it into the vulgar tongue? Does the understanding of all therein contained only stick at words? Shall I venture to say further, that by coming so near to understand a little, they are much wider of the whole scope than before. A pure and simple ignorance and wholly depending upon the exposition of qualified persons, was far more learned and salutary than this vain and verbal knowledge, which has only temerity and presumption.
And I do further believe that the liberty every one has taken to disperse the sacred writ into so many idioms carries with it a great deal more of danger than utility. The Jews, Mohammedans, and almost all other peoples, have reverentially espoused the language wherein their mysteries were first conceived, and have expressly, and not without colour of reason, forbidden the alteration of them into any other. Are we assured that in Biscay and in Brittany there are enough competent judges of this affair to establish this translation into their own language? The universal Church has not a more difficult and solemn judgment to make. In preaching and speaking the interpretation is vague, free, mutable, and of a piece by itself; so 'tis not the same thing.
One of our Greek historians age justly censures the he lived in, because the secrets of the Christian religion were dispersed into the hands of every mechanic, to expound and argue upon, according to his own fancy, and that we ought to be much ashamed, we who by God's especial favour enjoy the pure mysteries of piety, to suffer them to be profaned by the ignorant rabble; considering that the Gentiles expressly forbad Socrates, Plato, and the other sages to inquire into or so much as mention the things committed to the priests of Delphi; and he says, moreover, that the factions of princes upon theological subjects are armed not with zeal but fury; that zeal springs from the divine wisdom and justice, and governs itself with prudence and moderation, but degenerates into hatred and envy, producing tares and nettles instead of corn and wine when conducted by human passions. And it was truly said by another, who, advising the Emperor Theodosius, told him that disputes did not so much rock the schisms of the Church asleep, as it roused and animated heresies; that, therefore, all contentions and dialectic disputations were to be avoided, and men absolutely to acquiesce in the prescriptions and formulas of faith established by the ancients. And the Emperor Andronicus having overheard some great men at high words in his palace with Lapodius about a point of ours of great importance, gave them so severe a check as to threaten to cause them to be thrown into the river if they did not desist. The very women and children nowadays take upon them to lecture the oldest and most experienced men about the ecclesiastical laws; whereas the first of those of Plato forbids them to inquire so much as into the civil laws, which were to stand instead of divine ordinances; and, allowing the old men to confer amongst themselves or with the magistrate about those things, he adds, provided it be not in the presence of young or profane persons.
A bishop has left in writing that at the other end of the world there is an isle, by the ancients called Dioscorides, abundantly fertile in all sorts of trees and fruits, and of an exceedingly healthful air; the inhabitants of which are Christians, having churches and altars, only adorned with crosses without any other images, great observers of fasts and feasts, exact payers of their tithes to the priests, and so chaste, that none of them is permitted to have to do with more than one woman in his life - [What Osorius says is that these people only had one wife at a time.] - as to the rest, so content with their condition, that environed with the sea they know nothing of navigation, and so simple that they understand not one syllable of the religion they profess and wherein they are so devout: a thing incredible to such as do not know that the Pagans, who are so zealous idolaters, know nothing more of their gods than their bare names and their statues. The ancient beginning of 'Menalippus', a tragedy of Euripides, ran thus:
"O Jupiter! for that name alone
Of what thou art to me is known."
I have also known in my time some men's writings found fault with for
being purely human and philosophical, without any mixture of theology; and
yet, with some show of reason, it might, on the contrary, be said that the
divine doctrine, as queen and regent of the rest, better keeps her state
apart, that she ought to be sovereign throughout, not subsidiary and
suffragan, and that, peradventure, grammatical, rhetorical, logical
examples may elsewhere be more suitably chosen, as also the material for
the stage, games, and public entertainments, than from so sacred a matter;
that divine reasons are considered with greater veneration and attention
by themselves, and in their own proper style, than when mixed with and
adapted to human discourse; that it is a fault much more often observed
that the divines write too humanly, than that the humanists write not
theologically enough. Philosophy, says St. Chrysostom, has long been
banished the holy schools, as an handmaid altogether useless and thought
unworthy to look, so much as in passing by the door, into the sanctuary of
the holy treasures of the celestial doctrine; that the human way of
speaking is of a much lower form and ought not to adopt for herself the
dignity and majesty of divine eloquence. Let who will 'verbis
indisciplinatis' talk of fortune, destiny, accident, good and evil hap,
and other suchlike phrases, according to his own humour; I for my part
propose fancies merely human and merely my own, and that simply as human
fancies, and separately considered, not as determined by any decree from
heaven, incapable of doubt or dispute; matter of opinion, not matter of
faith; things which I discourse of according to my own notions, not as I
believe, according to God; after a laical, not clerical, and yet always
after a very religious manner, as children prepare their exercises, not to
instruct but to be instructed.
And might it not be said, that an edict enjoining all people but such as are public professors of divinity, to be very reserved in writing of religion, would carry with it a very good colour of utility and justice - and to me, amongst the rest peradventure, to hold my prating? I have been told that even those who are not of our Church nevertheless amongst themselves expressly forbid the name of God to be used in common discourse, nor so much even by way of interjection, exclamation, assertion of a truth, or comparison; and I think them in the right: upon what occasion soever we call upon God to accompany and assist us, it ought always to be done with the greatest reverence and devotion.
There is, as I remember, a passage in Xenophon where he tells us that we ought so much the more seldom to call upon God, by how much it is hard to compose our souls to such a degree of calmness, patience, and devotion as it ought to be in at such a time; otherwise our prayers are not only vain and fruitless, but vicious: "forgive us," we say, "our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us"; what do we mean by this petition but that we present to God a soul free from all rancour and revenge ? And yet we make nothing of invoking God's assistance in our vices, and inviting Him into our unjust designs:
"Quae, nisi seductis, nequeas committere divis"
["Which you can only impart to the gods, when you have gained them
over."—Persius, ii. 4.]
the covetous man prays for the conservation of his vain and superfluous
riches; the ambitious for victory and the good conduct of his fortune; the
thief calls Him to his assistance, to deliver him from the dangers and
difficulties that obstruct his wicked designs, or returns Him thanks for
the facility he has met with in cutting a man's throat; at the door of the
house men are going to storm or break into by force of a petard, they fall
to prayers for success, their intentions and hopes of cruelty, avarice,
and lust.
"Hoc igitur, quo to Jovis aurem impellere tentas,
Dic agedum Staio: 'proh Jupiter! O bone, clamet,
Jupiter!' At sese non clamet Jupiter ipse."
["This therefore, with which you seek to draw the ear of Jupiter,
say to Staius. 'O Jupiter! O good Jupiter!' let him cry. Think
you Jupiter himself would not cry out upon it?"—Persius, ii. 21.]
Marguerite, Queen of Navarre, - [In the Heptameron.] - tells of a
young prince, who, though she does not name him, is easily enough by his
great qualities to be known, who going upon an amorous assignation to lie
with an advocate's wife of Paris, his way thither being through a church,
he never passed that holy place going to or returning from his pious
exercise, but he always kneeled down to pray. Wherein he would employ the
divine favour, his soul being full of such virtuous meditations, I leave
others to judge, which, nevertheless, she instances for a testimony of
singular devotion. But this is not the only proof we have that women are
not very fit to treat of theological affairs.
A true prayer and religious reconciling of ourselves to Almighty God cannot enter into an impure soul, subject at the very time to the dominion of Satan. He who calls God to his assistance whilst in a course of vice, does as if a cut-purse should call a magistrate to help him, or like those who introduce the name of God to the attestation of a lie.
"Tacito mala vota susurro Concipimus."
["We whisper our guilty prayers."—-Lucan, v. 104.]
There are few men who durst publish to the world the prayers they make to
Almighty God:
"Haud cuivis promptum est, murmurque, humilesque susurros
Tollere de templis, et aperto vivere voto"
["'Tis not convenient for every one to bring the prayers he mutters
out of the temple, and to give his wishes to the public ear.
—"Persius, ii. 6.]
and this is the reason why the Pythagoreans would have them always public
and heard by every one, to the end they might not prefer indecent or
unjust petitions as this man:
"Clare quum dixit, Apollo!
Labra movet, metuens audiri: Pulcra Laverna,
Da mihi fallere, da justum sanctumque videri;
Noctem peccatis, et fraudibus objice nubem."
["When he has clearly said Apollo! he moves his lips, fearful to be
heard; he murmurs: O fair Laverna, grant me the talent to deceive;
grant me to appear holy and just; shroud my sins with night, and
cast a cloud over my frauds."—Horace, Ep., i. 16, 59.—(Laverna
was the goddess of thieves.)]
The gods severely punished the wicked prayers of OEdipus in granting them:
he had prayed that his children might amongst themselves determine the
succession to his throne by arms, and was so miserable as to see himself
taken at his word. We are not to pray that all things may go as we would
have them, but as most concurrent with prudence.
We seem, in truth, to make use of our prayers as of a kind of jargon, and as those do who employ holy words about sorceries and magical operations; and as if we reckoned the benefit we are to reap from them as depending upon the contexture, sound, and jingle of words, or upon the grave composing of the countenance. For having the soul contaminated with concupiscence, not touched with repentance, or comforted by any late reconciliation with God, we go to present Him such words as the memory suggests to the tongue, and hope from thence to obtain the remission of our sins. There is nothing so easy, so sweet, and so favourable, as the divine law: it calls and invites us to her, guilty and abominable as we are; extends her arms and receives us into her bosom, foul and polluted as we at present are, and are for the future to be. But then, in return, we are to look upon her with a respectful eye; we are to receive this pardon with all gratitude and submission, and for that instant at least, wherein we address ourselves to her, to have the soul sensible of the ills we have committed, and at enmity with those passions that seduced us to offend her; neither the gods nor good men (says Plato) will accept the present of a wicked man:
"Immunis aram si terigit manus,
Non sumptuosa blandior hostia
Mollivit aversos Penates
Farre pio et saliente mica."
["If a pure hand has touched the altar, the pious offering of a
small cake and a few grains of salt will appease the offended gods
more effectually than costly sacrifices."
—Horace, Od., iii. 23, 17.]
