PART II: PRACTICAL

THE CONTEMPLATIVE AND ACTIVE LIVES
i. ST AUGUSTINE
ANALYSIS
PAGE
G. THE TWO LIVES *57
H. THE CONTEMPLATIVE LIFE THE BETTER 160
J. THE CLAIMS OF THE TWO LIVES ON THE INDIVIDUAL 163
K. CONTEMPLATION OPEN TO ALL 166
ST AUGUSTINE
As in so many other departments of Christian thought in the West; as in formulating the theory and fixing the terminology of the Christian spiritual life; 1 so in the matter of the contemplative life and the active life, the relations between them, and the claims of each upon the individual, St Augustine laid down the great lines along which all subsequent thought in the Catholic Church has run. I do not know that any co-ordinated presentation of his teaching as a whole has hitherto been made. Yet I think it will appear that hardly any writer, if any, has discoursed on these topics with such fullness and insight as has Augustine.
G. THE Two LIVES
The simplest and most distinct definition given by St Augustine of the 'Two Lives' is, I believe, the following: The study and pursuit of wisdom lies in action and in contemplation, so that one part of it may be called 'active', the other 'contemplative'. The active has to say to living one's life and to moral conduct; the contemplative to beholding the causes of nature and most pure truth (de Civ. Dei, viiL 4). The words employed are 'contemplativa' and 'activa'.
Here the familiar piece in the Breviary for the Feast of St John the Apostle comes to mind, wherein the two lives are contrasted in a series of sharp antitheses:
The Church knows two lives divinely preached and commended unto her: whereof the one is in faith, the other in 'specie 5 ; the one is in the time of pilgrimage, the other in eternity of abiding; the one is in labour, the other in rest; the one is on the way, the other in the [true] country; the one is in the work of action, the other in the reward of contemplation; the one turns away from evil and does good, the other has no evil from which to turn away, and has great good to enjoy; the one wars with the foe, the other reigns without a foe; the one is strong in things adverse, the other has no sense of aught adverse; the one bridles the lusts of the flesh, the other is given up to the joys of the spirit; the one is anxious with the care of getting the victory, the other in the peace of victory is without care; the one is helped in temptations, the other, without any temptation, rejoices in its Helper Himself; the one assists the needy, the other is where it finds none needy; the one pardons the sins of others that its own sins may be pardoned, the other suffers nothing 1 See Abbe" P. Pourrat's Spiritualiti Chretienne, L 270-330.
158 WESTERN MYSTICISM
that it can pardon, nor does anything that calls for pardon; the one is scourged with evil that it be not lifted up with good things, the other through so great fullness of grace is without any evil, so that without temptation of pride it cleaves to the Supreme Good; the one discerns between good and evil, the other sees things which are only good: therefore the one is good, but still in miseries; the other is better and in beatitude (Tract, in loan, cxxiv. 5).
A contemplative life such as is described in this passage up to this point is for the next world, not for this. But what follows shows that Augustine's meaning is that there may be some beginnings of the contemplative life in this world, but its perfection only in the next; whereas the active life may be fully carried out in this world, and ceases with it.
The active life is signified by the Apostle Peter, the contemplative by John. The first is wholly carried out here until the end of this world, and there finds an end; the last is deferred, to be completed after the end of this world, but in the world to come it hath no end. ... Let perfected action follow Me> informed by the ensample of My Passion; but let contemplation that has been begun, tarry till I come, to be perfected when I come (ibid.).
In the following similar piece the treatment is less absolute; the contemplative life is less definitely allocated to the other world, and at the end the nature of a contemplative life in this world is indicated:
Two virtues are set before the soul of man, the one active, the other contemplative; the one whereby we journey, the other whereby we reach our journey's end; the one whereby we toil that our heart may be cleansed for the vision of God, the other whereby we repose and see God; the one lies in the precepts for carrying on this tem- poral life, the other in the doctrine of that life which is eternal. Hence it is that the one toils, and the other reposes; for the former is in the purgation of sins, the latter in the light [or illumination] of the purgation effected. Hence it is that, in this mortal life, the former consists in the work of leading a good life, the latter more in faith, and with some few, through a mirror in enigma and in part, in some vision of unchangeable Truth. These two virtues are seen figured in the two wives of Jacob 3 concerning whom I dis- coursed in my work 'Against Faustus'. The three first Evangelists, who principally record the words and deeds of our Lord for the right conduct of the present life, are chiefly concerned with active virtue; but John is chiefly concerned in commending contemplative virtue (de Cons. Evang. i 8).
ST AUGUSTINE 159
The following is the passage on Jacob's wives referred to:
Two lives are held out to us in the Body of Christ the one temporal, in which we labour; the other eternal, in which we shall contemplate the delights of God. The names of Jacob's wives teach us to understand this. For it is said that Lia is interpreted labour- ing 3 , and Rachel 5 the Beginning seen 5 , or 'the Word by which is seen the Beginning'. Therefore the action of human and mortal life, in which we live by faith, doing many laborious works, is Lia. But the hope of the eternal contemplation of God, which has a sure and delightful understanding of the truth, is Rachel (0. Faust, xxii. 52).
The remainder of this chapter, and all the six that follow, are of great interest for the matter in hand, and are (so far as is known to me) the source of one phase of teaching on the contemplative life that runs through the medieval mystical writers of the West. The whole is an elaborate allegorical interpretation, worked out in minutest detail, of the story of Jacob's wives (Gen. xxix. xxx.). It would be much too long (six columns in Migne) to be reproduced in its entirety; so an attempt will be made to summarize the heads of its teaching, detached from the allegory:
It is for the hope of the eternal contemplation of God that every- one is converted and undergoes the process of repentance and purification from sin. No one in the works of justice loves the actual toil of the things done and suffered; no one seeks the active life for its own sake: it is undertaken and endured as the means of attaining tfo contemplation. For everyone would wish, were it possible, with- out undergoing the labour that has to be embraced in the active life, to arrive straightway at the delights of contemplation. But this is not possible in this world, where the labour of working the works of righteousness precedes the pleasure of contemplating truth. To see the Beginning is what every rational mind that desires the truth chiefly longs for. But this longing should make it not refuse but endure the active life, without which there is no coming to that which is so ardently loved. But when this latter is attained to, then will be united in this world the beauty of contemplation and the labours of righteousness. However keenly and clearly unchangeable 'truth is seen by mortal man, the corruptible body weighs down the soul. Therefore must we tend to the One, but for its sake bear the Many. So the one life is loved, the other endured. But the one which is endured is more abundantly fertile, so that it becomes beloved, if not for its own sake, at any rate for its offspring. For the labour of the just bears great fruit in those they beget for the Kingdom of God by preaching the Gospel. But the life given up to the pursuit of contemplation desires to be free from all business, and therefore is sterile. For by striving after leisure, whereby the pursuit of con- templation is enkindled, it is not brought into touch with men's
l6o WESTERN MYSTICISM
infirmities, who desire to be helped in their needs. But the con- templative life also is aflame with the love of generating, for it desires to teach what it knows. Mankind have more appreciation for the active life, whereby their infirmities and necessities are cared for, than for the contemplative, from which what is divine and unchangeable is learned. But those who spend their life in active good works, and are good pastors, will bear witness to that other life, which is at leisure for sake of the endeavour to attain to and to contemplate truth. It would not be right that the contemplative life should keep in leisure one fit and apt for the administration of ecclesiastical charges } or that those who are worthy of being en- trusted with the government of the Church, should, through being inflamed with the desire of pursuing and contemplating wisdom,, withdraw themselves wholly from the troubles attendant on action, and bury themselves in the leisure of contemplation. So those who are enamoured with the contemplative life are often called upon, by the needs of the Church, to undertake the works of the active life; and thereby the contemplative life is held in greater esteem by the generality of men (c. Faust, xxii. 52, 58).
The contemplative life spoken of in the foregoing passage is such a contemplative life as may be lived in this world. It is perhaps the most important single exposition of St Augustine's theories on the relations between the Two Lives, and supplies a valuable summary of the chief points of doctrine that will be further illustrated from other of his writings. As Augustine here sets the interpretation that became traditional in the west, whereby Lia represents the active life and Rachel the contemplative, so did he also initiate the chief features of the Western treatment of the case of Martha and Mary as representing the Two Lives.
H. THE CONTEMPLATIVE LIFE THE BETTER
St Augustine has no hesitation in afHrming the superiority of the contemplative life over the active. This judgement he^ in common with the rest of theologians, bases on the story of Martha and Mary, which forms the theme of his discourses in various of the Sermons (ciii 3 civ., clxix., clxxix, 3 cclv.). His exegesis became the tradition with the Western mystical writers. Its most salient points of teaching may be summarized as follows;
Martha chose a good part, but Mary the better. What Martha chose passes away. She ministered to the hungry, the thirsty, the homeless: but all these pass away, there will be when none will hunger nor thirst. Therefore will her care be taken from her, 'Mary hath chosen the better part (meliorem), which shall not be taken away from her*. She hath chosen to contemplate, to live by the Word (cbdx, 17).
ST AUGUSTINE l6l
Martha's part Is holy and great: yet Mary hath chosen the better, in that while her sister was solicitous and working and caring for many things, she was at leisure and sat still and listened. Mary's part will not be taken from her, Martha's will for the ministering to the saints will pass away; to whom will food be given, where none hungers? Mary's part does not pass away, for her delight was in justice and truth, and in this same will be her delight in eternity. What Mary chose waxes greater; for the delight of the human heart, of a faithful and holy human heart, in the light of truth and the affluence of wisdom, if it be sweet now, will then be sweeter far (clxxix.).
The sweetness of truth is eternal: it will not be taken away but increased increased in this life, and perfected in the next (ciii. 5) .
In these two women, both pleasing the Lord, two lives were figured:
the present and the future,
the laborious and the quiet,
the troublous and the happy,
the temporal and the eternal.
Both are praiseworthy: but the one is laborious, the other leisured. What Martha was doing, there we are; what Mary, that we hope for. While in this life how much can we have of Mary's part? For even now we do somewhat of her work, when removed from busi- nesses and laying aide our ordinary cares. Inasmuch as we do thus, we are like to Mary (civ. 4).
Even Mary only signified the life of contemplation; she did not yet lay hold of it (cclv.) .
In the following passage also he treats of Martha and Mary:
Jesus Christ will bring those who believe to the contemplation of God, where is the end of all good actions, and everlasting rest, and joy that never will be taken from us. A similitude of this joy Mary prefigured, sitting at the feet of the Lord, and intent on His words; resting, that is, from all action, and intent on the truth in such wise as this life is capable of, whereby she prefigured what is to be in eternity. For while her sister Martha was occupied about things that had to be done, good indeed and useful, but destined to pass away when rest succeeds them, she was resting on the word of the Lord. And when Martha complained, He said, not that what she was doing was a bad part, but that Mary's was the best, which should not be taken away. For that which lies in ministering to want, when want is no more, is taken away. And abiding rest is the reward of a transient good work. In that contemplation God will be all in all; because nought else will be sought from Him, but it will suffice to be illumined by Him and to enjoy Him (de Trin. i. 20).
The relations between contemplation and action, and the superiority of contemplation, are treated of in a series of passages
l62 WESTERN MYSTICISM
based on I Cor. xii. 8-io ? wherein are contrasted 'wisdom' and 'knowledge 5 'sapientia' and 'scientia' (de Trin. xii. 22, 25, xiii. i; Enar. in Psalm, cxxxv. 8; Conf. xiiL 21, 23). The same idea, the same exegesis, runs through these passages, and their import may be thus summarized:
Action, whereby we use aright things temporal., is different from the contemplation of things eternal; and contemplation is assigned to e wisdom', action to 'knowledge'. 1 Here action is taken as being the right ordering of the present life, in so far as it is concerned with transitory things. And so he goes on to explain that 'knowledge' has to do with the abstaining from evil and the striving after good, wherein our action is exercised. 2 Thus it includes the practice of the moral virtues: also the exercising of works of mercy, both spiritual and corporal.
Contemplation, or 'wisdom 5 , is the intellectual cognition of things eternal. 3 In its wide sense it has to do with Platonic Ideas abstract ideas and universals; but pre-eminently it lies in the cognition and love of That which always is and unchangeably abides, viz. God; 4 for what among eternal things is so excellent as God, Whose nature alone is unchangeable? 5
The pre-eminence of contemplation over action is unequivocally asserted in the following passages:
We have distinguished the function of the rational mind in^ things temporal, wherein not only cognition but also our action is con- cerned, from that more excellent function of the same mind which is exercised in contemplating things eternal, and is completed in cognition alone. 6
And he says that no one can doubt that the intellectual cognition of things eternal (i.e. wisdom, contemplation) is to be placed above the rational cognition of things temporal (i.e. knowledge, action) . 7
The same teaching is enforced in a passage near the end of the Confessions. It occurs in a highly elaborated allegorical interpretation of the first chapter of Genesis.
The souls that thirst after Thee and that appear before Thee, Thou waterest by a sweet spring, that the earth may bring forth her fruit, and Thou Lord God so commanding, our soul may bud forth works of mercy according to their kind [divers spiritual and corporal works of mercy are enumerated]: which fruits, having sprung out of
2 de Trin. xii. 23. * Md. 21, 22.
8 Ibid. 25. * Enar. in Psalm, cxxxv* 8.
5 de Trin. xii. 522. * Ibid. xiii. I.
7 Ibid. xii. 25.
ST AUGUSTINE 163
the earth, see it is good; and let ourselves, from this lower fruitfulness of action arriving at the delights of contemplation, appear like lights in the world.
He goes on to explain that day and night signify respectively those who give themselves to the things of the mind (intelligibilia) and those who are preoccupied with the things of sense (sensibilia) ; and that of the gifts of the Spirit enumerated in r Cor. xii. 7-10, 'word of wisdom 5 , i.e. contemplation, is 'the greater light, for their sakes who are delighted with the light of perspicuous truth, as it were for the rule of the day'; whereas the 'word of knowledge' is the lesser light, and the other gifts the stars, 'for the rule of the night 5 , the regulation of the things of this life 'inasmuch as they come short of that brightness of wisdom which gladdens the fore-mentioned day' (Conf. xiii. 21-23),
The following passage declares that contemplation is the supreme act of the human soul:
The going to God, that is to the very contemplation of Truth, . . . the striving to grasp intellectually those things which truly and supremely are, is the highest act of seeing (aspectus) of the soul, than which it has none more perfect or better (de Quant. Anim. 74, 75).
J. CLAIMS OF THE Two LIVES
The practical conciliation of the claims of the Two Lives on the individual is treated of by Augustine, as it had been by philosophers before him. At the end of the passage on Rachel and Lia, already cited, he lays down quite definitely that it is not proper for one who is capable of the administration of ecclesiastical charges, or of the government of the Church, to withdraw himself wholly from the active life in order to give himself up to the contemplative. 1 The same principle is set forth in the following piece:
In the persons of them who know how to hear gladly and humbly, and to pass a quiet life in sweet and wholesome studies, let holy Church take her delight and say, C I sleep, and my heart waketh', I so rest that I may hear; my leisure is not bestowed on the nourishing of sloth, but on the getting of wisdom: I am unoccupied, and see that Thou art the Lord: I rest from the hurry of business, and my mind bends itself up for godly affections.
But in them who in this manner sweetly and humbly rest, while
in their persons the Church doth leisurely take her delight, behold
He knocketh Who saith, 'That which ye hear in the ear, preach ye
upon the house-tops.' ... He knocketh to break the repose of the
1 c. Faust, xxii. 57 (supra, p. 232).
164 WESTERN MYSTICISM
saints who live in leisure, and crieth, 'Open to me. 5 ... Hence it comes to pass that also these who love the leisure of virtuous studies, and are loth to have to bear the troubles of laborious active duties, because they feel themselves ill-suited to minister in these things, and to do them without blame the Church, turning her regard to them who have, in whatever sort, the ability to preach, to win new flocks and to rule them, and so open unto Christ, but in the diffi- culties of these active duties fear to sin, saith, 'I have washed my feet; how shall I defile them?' When we preach Thee, we tread upon earth that we may open unto Thee. Wash our feet, once cleansed, but while we walk through earth to open unto Thee, again defiled (Tract in loan. Ivii. compressed).
In similar terms he writes to the Abbot of a community of monks on the island of Capraria. He exhorts them to hold fast to their manner of life and to persevere in it to the end; and if Mother Church desires any work from them, neither to take it on with keen elation, nor to refuse it through indolence: 'and do not prefer your own leisure to the needs of the Church; for if no good men were willing to help her in childbirth, how would her children come to the birth? 5 (Ep. xlviii.)
In the nineteenth Book of the 'City of God' he defines more accurately his ideas on the relations between the Two Lives and the manner in which their claims are to be conciliated in practice. Here he does not employ the terms 'contemplative* and 'active', but speaks of 'otium' (leisure) and 'negotium* (business), and so of a Vita otiosa s and a 'vita negotiosa 5 , a life leisured for contemplation, and a life busied in action.
First of all he defines that there are three kinds of life, 'one which, not lazily, but in the contemplation and examination of the truth, is leisured; another which is busied in carrying on human affairs; and a third which combines both of these' (de Civ. Dei, xix. 2). Just before he had thus expressed himself:
Men may love a leisured life, as those who have desired, and have been able, to give themselves up only to the pursuit of doctrine; or a busied life, as those who, though they cultivated intellectual things, were greatly occupied in administering and directing affairs; or one combined of both, as those who gave up the alternating times of their life partly to learned leisure and partly to necessary business {ibid. xix. i),
In a later passage he reverts to this division, and gives practical advice as to the principles that should govern the choice to be made.
Concerning the three kinds of life the leisurely [contemplative], the busy [active], and the life which combines the two [mixed]
ST AUGUSTINE 165
though any one may without prejudice to his faith spend his life in any one of them and attain to an everlasting reward, for all that it does matter what a man holds to through love of truth, and what he expends himself on through the service of charity. For no one should be so at leisure as in his leisure not to think of his neighbour's welfare; nor so busied as not to seek after the contemplation of God. In his leisure he should not find delight in an idle vacancy, but it should be a seeking and finding of the truth: so that each one may advance in this, and not grudge to others what he finds. In the life of action honour in this life is not to be loved, nor power; but the work itself which is done in virtue of the said honour and power, if it be rightly and usefully done, that is, if it work the salvation of those under us. ... No one is precluded from the pursuit of knowing the truth, which is the work of a leisure that is praiseworthy. . . . Wherefore the love of truth seeks for a holy leisure; and the obliga- tions of charity make us undertake righteous business.
If no one lays this burden on us, we should give ourselves up in leisure to the perception and contemplation of truth; but if it be laid upon us, it must be undertaken because of the obligation of charity: but even so, we must not wholly abandon the delight in truth, lest that sweetness be withdrawn from us, and the obligations we have undertaken overwhelm us. 1
Elsewhere St Augustine emphasizes the warning here given, that idleness is the danger in the leisured or contemplative life: 'Mary's life was leisured (otiosa) but not idle (desidiosa), from which the leisured life must be on its guard.' 2 Also, commenting on the words of Psalm xlv. n, * Vacate et videte quia Ego sum Deus,' which he cites in the Old Latin form, 'Agite otium 5 , he says: 'Be at leisure not the leisure of idleness, but the leisure of thought.' 3 St Benedict uses 'otiositas* in the bad sense of idleness: 'Otiositas inimica est animae' (c. 48).
In an autobiographical note in the Confessions Augustine tells how he himself combined the two lives, giving up to contemplation the time he was able to save from the duties imposed by the calls of the active life. Speaking of his inner communion with God, he says:
This I often do, this delights me, and as far as I may be freed from necessary duties, unto this pleasure have I recourse. And sometimes Thou dost admit me to an interior experience most unwonted, to a wondrous sweetness (Conf* x. 65).
1 'Quamobrem otium sanctum quaerit caritas veritatis: negotium iustum suscipit necessitas caritatis. Quam sarcinam si nullus imponit, percipiendae et intuendae vacandum est veritati: si autem imponitur, suscipienda est propter caritatis necessitatem: sed nee sic ornni modo veritatis delectatio deserenda est, ne subtrahatur ilia suavitas, et opprimat ista necessitas' (de Civ. Dei, xix. 19).
* Serm. civ. 4. * de Vera Relig. 65.
l66 WESTERN MYSTICISM
K. CONTEMPLATION OPEN TO ALL
St Augustine in more than one place describes a contemplative life in practice, as it may be lived in this world. One of these passages St Thomas adopts as a practical definition of a contemplative life:
Let them choose for themselves the better part: let them devote themselves to the word of God; let them yearn for the sweetness of doctrine; let them occupy themselves with the knowledge that leads to salvation (Serm. civ. 2). 1
Elsewhere he describes as follows those given up to the con- templative life:
Inflamed with the desire of doctrine and of searching out and contemplating wisdom, they desire to remove themselves from all the troubles of action, and to bury themselves in a leisure of learning and teaching (c. Faust, xxii. 57).
After saying that the act of contemplation is the highest act (literally 'look', 'summus aspectus') of the soul, he goes on to say that certain choice souls who have been admitted to it, have in some measure described its joys. He continues:
I now dare to aver that we, if we steadfastly hold to the course that God commands us, and that we have undertaken to hold to, we shall come by the Power and Wisdom of God to that First Cause, or First Principle of all things; which when we have in- tellectually seen, we shall truly see the vanity of all things under the sun (de Quant. Anim. 76).
Contemplation, and, be it noted, in this life, is here promised to those who faithfully pursue the way laid down by God for attaining to it. This teaching is illustrated by other passages, as the following, which is of value also as a set-off against the apparent pervading intellectualism of St Augustine's accounts of contemplation; it shows that, to his mind, those who arrive there are not the 'intellectuals', but the 'little ones' who follow the path of Christ crucified:
If we be faithful, we have already arrived at the way of faith; and if we do not abandon it, we shall without doubt arrive at not merely so great an understanding of things incorporeal and unchangeable as cannot in this life be grasped by all, but even to the height of contemplation, which the Apostle calls Tace to face'. For some of the least ones, who yet perseveringly walk in the path of faith, come to that most blessed contemplation: while others who have know- ledge of what invisible, unchangeable, incorporeal nature is, but 1 C St Thomas, 'Summa*, Secunda Secundae, quaest. clxxxi. art. 3.
ST AUGUSTINE 167
refuse to follow the path leading to the abode of such happiness, which seems folly to them, viz. Christ crucified, are not able to come to the shrine of that quiet, although their mind is already, as at a distance, touched by the ray of its fight. 1
But he recognizes that the hermits, such as those of Egypt, have unique advantages for the pursuit of contemplation:
They enjoy converse with God, to Whom with pure minds they inhere, and are most blessed in the contemplation of His beauty, which cannot be perceived save by the intellect of the holy. 2
1 Ep. cxx. 4. 2 de Mor. Eccl. Cath. 66.
THE CONTEMPLATIVE AND ACTIVE LIVES
2. ST GREGORY THE GREAT
ANALYSIS
PAGE
INTRODUCTORY SKETCH OF THEORY I?I
G. THE TWO LIVES I?3
H. THE CONTEMPLATIVE LIFE THE BETTER 174
J. CLAIMS OF THE TWO LIVES 176
(1) THE UNION OF THE Two LIVES SHOULD BE AIMED AT
(2) PASTORS OF SOULS MUST EXERCISE BOTH LIVES
(3) WHY PASTORS MAY NOT NEGLECT EITHER LIFE
(4) EXTERNAL WORKS SHOULD BE UNDERTAKEN BY CONTEMPLATIVES
WITH RELUCTANCE
(5) CONTEMPLATIVES SHOULD ACCEPT OFFICE WHEN CALLED UPON
TO DO so
(6) IN DEARTH OF WORKERS CONTEMPLATIVES SHOULD UNDERTAKE
ACTIVE WORK
(7) PERIODS OF RETIREMENT ARE NECESSARY FOR THOSE EMPLOYED
IN ACTIVE WORKS
(8) CONTEMPLATIVE LIFE AIDED BY ADMIXTURE OF ACTIVE
(9) FOR CONTEMPLATION TRANQUILLITY OF MIND is NECESSARY (10) CONCILIATION OF CONTEMPLATIVE LIFE WITH EXTERNAL
WORKS (i i) A TRUE ' MLXED LIFE' THE BEST
(12) THE CONTEMPLATIVE LIFE AS ACTUALLY LIVED
(13) REMINDER TO CONTEMPLATIVES OF THEIR INDEBTEDNESS TO
ACTIVE LIVERS
K. CONTEMPLATION OPEN TO ALL 186
ST GREGORY THE GREAT
ST GREGORY treats of this branch of the subject with great copi- ousness and in many places. His indebtedness to St Augustine is much more apparent here than in Part I., where he treats of contempla- tion; but his teaching, if it falls short of the intellectual inspiration of Augustine's, is characterized by a practicality and good sense, essentially Roman, that make it a truly valuable guide for the shaping of life. Much of it was written for his own monks in the Morals, and so has a value and interest all its own, as being the ideas on one of the most fundamental aspects of the theory of the monastic life held by its first and greatest Western exponent, next to St Benedict himself. As such it has profoundly influenced Benedictine life in subsequent ages. But no less profoundly has St Gregory's teaching on the contemplative and active lives influenced all clerical life, of secular priests and religious alike, in the West. His great book on the Pastoral Office, the Regula Pastoralis y was the first to lay down the master principles that should regulate the lives of the pastoral clergy. For though intended primarily for bishops, it is equally applicable to all pastors of souls, to all who hold posts of spiritual superiority, or exercise the cure of souls in any form. Thus what he has to tdach should be of surpassing interest and value not only to monks but to all priests.
The section from the Homilies on Ezechiel, n ii., which characterizes the act of contemplation, was taken in Part I. as the basis of the investigation of St Gregory's teaching on contemplation. In that same Homily he gives the first formal definition of the Two Lives, the active and the contemplative, which has ever since been taken as the classical and standard definition:
There are two lives in which Almighty God by His holy word instructs us the active and the contemplative.
The active life is: to give bread to the hungry, to teach the ignorant the word of wisdom, to correct the erring, to recall to the path of humility our neighbour when he waxes proud, to tend the sick, to dispense to all what they need, and to provide those entrusted to us with the means of subsistence.
But the contemplative life is: to retain indeed with all one's mind the love of God and neighbour, but to rest from exterior action, and cleave only to the desire of the Maker, that the mind may now take no pleasure in doing anything, but having spurned all cares, may
172 WESTERN MYSTICISM
be aglow to see the face of its Creator; so that it already knows how to bear with sorrow the burden of the corruptible flesh, and with all its desires to seek to join the hymn-singing choirs of angels, to mingle with the heavenly citizens, and to rejoice at its everlasting incomip- tion in the sight of God ( 7, 8).
The subsequent paragraphs unfold St Gregory's theory on the relations between the Two Lives. As a bird's-eye view of his theory this section will now be cited in full:
8. While placed in this life we taste only the beginnings of intimate contemplation; whereas the active life can be fully laid hold of.
9. The two women, Martha and Mary, well symbolized these two lives; whereof one was busied about much service, but the other sat at the Lord's feet and listened to the words of His mouth. And on Martha complaining of her sister, that she neglected to help her, the Lord answered saying: 'Martha, thou art occupied and busied about many things; only one is necessary. But Mary hath chosen the best part, which shall not be taken away from her/ See Martha's