Serenus on the Nature of the Mind

It is dangerous to jump to a conclusion and lay down the law hastily about the nature of anything before you have properly discussed the subject and considered its true character. Nor should you look only at your own weakness and hazard a guess, instead of giving a judgment based on the character and value of the practice itself and on the experience of others. Suppose someone who could not swim, but knew that water could not hold up the weight of his body, wanted to lay down, on the evidence of his own inexperience, that no one made of solid flesh could possibly be held up by water. We ought not therefore to think his opinion true, though he seemed to put it forward from his own experience. For it can be shown by the clearest proofs, before our very eyes, that this is not merely possible but is actually done very easily by others. So too the mind is defined as ever shifting and very shifting. That is how the so-called Wisdom of Solomon describes it, in other words: “The earthly tent weighs down the mind that muses on many things.” By its nature, then, the mind can never stay idle. Unless it is given a place to exercise its motions and something to keep it continually occupied, it must wander by its own fickleness and stray over all kinds of things. So it goes on until, accustomed by long practice and daily use (at which you say you have toiled without result), it tries and learns what food for the memory it ought to prepare. To that it can bring back its tireless flight and gain strength to remain there. In this way it may succeed in driving off the hostile suggestions of the enemy that distract it, and in holding fast to the state and condition it longs for. We ought not, then, to blame this wandering tendency of our heart either on human nature or on God its Creator. For Scripture says truly, “God made man upright, but they themselves found out many thoughts.” The character of these thoughts, then, depends on ourselves, for it says, “A good thought comes near to those who know it, but a prudent man will find it.” Where something lies within reach of our prudence and effort, so that it can be found, and yet it is not found, we ought certainly to put that down to our own laziness or carelessness, and not to a fault in our nature. The psalmist agrees with this meaning when he says, “Blessed is the man whose help is from you; in his heart he has arranged his ascents.” You see, then, that it lies in our power to arrange in our hearts either ascents, that is, thoughts that belong to God, or descents, that is, thoughts that sink down to fleshly and earthly things. If this were not in our power, the Lord would not have rebuked the Pharisees, saying, “Why do you think evil in your hearts?” Nor would he have given this charge through the prophet: “Take away the evil of your thoughts from my eyes,” and, “How long will wicked thoughts remain in you?” Nor would our thoughts, like our deeds, be taken into account in our case on the day of judgment, as the Lord threatens through Isaiah: “See, I come to gather together their works and their thoughts, together with all nations and tongues.” Nor would it be right for us to be condemned or defended by their evidence in that terrible and dreadful examination, as the blessed apostle says: “Their thoughts among themselves accusing or else defending one another, on the day when God will judge the secrets of men according to my good news.” [a]