Making Each Renunciation Complete

That is why it will not be of much use to us to have made our first renunciation with the greatest devotion and faith, if we do not complete the second with the same zeal and ardor. And when we have succeeded in that, we will be able to reach the third as well. In it we go out from the house of our former parent and fix our whole mental gaze on heavenly things. He, as we well know, was our father from our very birth, according to the old self, when we were “by nature children of wrath, even as others.” Of this father Scripture says to Jerusalem, which had despised God, the true Father: “Your father was an Amorite, and your mother a Hittite.” And in the gospel we read: “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you love to do.” [a]

When we have left him, as we pass from things visible to things unseen, we will be able to say with the apostle: “But we know that if our earthly house of this tent is dissolved, we have a dwelling from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” We will be able to say this too, which we quoted a little while ago: “But our way of life is in heaven, from which we also look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus, who will refashion the body of our lowliness to be like the body of his glory.” And this saying of blessed David as well: “For I am a sojourner on the earth,” and, “a stranger, as all my fathers were.” So we may, in keeping with the Lord’s word, be made like those of whom the Lord speaks to his Father in the gospel in this way: “They are not of the world, as I am not of the world.” And again he says to the apostles themselves: “If you were of this world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of this world, therefore the world hates you.”

We will reach the perfection of this third renunciation, then, whenever our soul is stained by no trace of fleshly coarseness, but has had all of it carefully removed and been freed from every earthly quality and desire. We reach it when, by constant meditation on divine things and by spiritual contemplation, the soul has passed so far into things unseen that, in its earnest seeking after the things above and the things of the spirit, it no longer feels that it is imprisoned in this fragile flesh and bodily form, but is caught up into such an ecstasy that it not only hears no words with the outward ear and is not busy gazing at the forms of things present, but does not even see things close at hand, or large objects right before its very eyes. No one can understand the truth and force of this except one who has tried what has been said and been taught by experience. That is, one the eyes of whose soul the Lord has turned away from all present things, so that he no longer regards them as things that will soon pass away, but as things already over and done with, and sees them vanish into nothing like misty smoke. Like Enoch, he “walks with God,” and is “taken” from human life and its ways, so that he is “not found” among the vanities of this life. That this actually happened bodily in the case of Enoch, the book of Genesis tells us: “And Enoch walked with God, and was not found, for God took him.” And the apostle also says: “By faith Enoch was taken, so that he should not see death”—the death, that is, of which the Lord says in the gospel: “He who lives and believes in me will not die forever.”

So if we are eager to reach true perfection, we must see to it that, just as we have outwardly, with the body, made light of parents, home, and the riches and pleasures of the world, we also inwardly, with the heart, forsake all these things, and are never drawn back by any desires to the things we have forsaken. Those who were led up out of Egypt by Moses did not literally go back, yet they are said to have returned to Egypt in heart. They did so by forsaking God, who had led them out with such mighty signs, and by worshiping the idols of Egypt, which they had once scorned. As Scripture says: “And in their hearts they turned back to Egypt, saying to Aaron: Make us gods to go before us.” Otherwise we would fall into the same condemnation as those who, while living in the desert, after they had tasted manna from heaven, craved the filthy food of sins and of low vileness. We would seem to grumble along with them in the same way: “It was well with us in Egypt, when we sat over the pots of meat and ate the onions and garlic and cucumbers and melons.” This way of speaking referred first to that people, yet we see it fulfilled today in our own case and way of life. For everyone who, after renouncing this world, turns back to his old desires and returns to his former likings declares in heart and act the very same thing they did, and says: “It was well with me in Egypt.” And I am afraid that the number of these will be as large as the multitude of backsliders we read of under Moses. For though six hundred and three thousand armed men were counted as having come out of Egypt, of that number not more than two entered the promised land. So we should be careful to take our examples of goodness from those who are few and far between, because, according to the figure we have spoken of from the gospel, “many are called, but few” are said to be “chosen.”

A renunciation in body alone, then, a mere change of place out of Egypt, will do us no good if we do not succeed in achieving that renunciation in heart, which is far higher and more valuable. For of that merely bodily renunciation we have spoken of, the apostle declares: “Though I give all my goods to feed the poor, and give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.” The blessed apostle would never have said this had he not foreseen in the spirit that some who had given all their goods to feed the poor would not be able to reach the perfection the gospel teaches and the lofty heights of love. For while pride or impatience ruled their hearts, they took no care to cleanse themselves of their former sins and unrestrained habits, and for that reason they could never reach that love of God which never fails. Falling short as they do in this second stage of renunciation, they can still less reach that third stage, which is most certainly far higher.

But consider very carefully in your minds, too, that he did not simply say, “If I give my goods.” For someone might perhaps have thought he was speaking of one who had not fulfilled the command of the gospel but had kept something back for himself, as some half-hearted people do. But he says, “Though I give all my goods to feed the poor,” that is, even if my renunciation of earthly riches is perfect. And to this renunciation he adds something still greater: “And though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, I am nothing.” It is as if he had said in other words: Though I give all my goods to feed the poor, in keeping with the command in the gospel where we are told, “If you would be perfect, go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven,” and renounce them so as to keep nothing at all back for myself; and though to this distribution of my goods I should add martyrdom by the burning of my flesh, so as to give up my body for Christ; and yet I am impatient, or quick-tempered, or envious, or proud, or stirred up by wrongs others do me, or seek what is mine, or indulge evil thoughts, or am not ready and patient to bear all that can be inflicted on me—then this renunciation and the burning of the outer man will profit me nothing, while the inner man is still caught up in its former sins. For in the fervor of the early days of my conversion I made light of mere worldly wealth, which is said to be neither good nor evil in itself but indifferent. Yet I took no care to cast out in the same way the harmful powers of a bad heart, or to reach that love of the Lord which is patient, which “is kind, does not envy, is not puffed up, is not quickly angered, does not act perversely, does not seek its own, thinks no evil,” which “bears all things, endures all things,” and which, finally, never lets the one who pursues it fall through the deceitfulness of sin.