Eucharisticum de Vita Sua

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. It is an oracle of the most learned teacher of the Gentiles that our weakness gives birth to power, and that the earthly soul grows strong in contrition, when the virtue which has flowed from the substance of the flesh runs toward the spirit, and while our collapse composes the heavenly man, to be placed in the divine citadel, for the fruit of the spirit. Thus, when bodies are without cultivation or harvest, it is sweet, and when diminution has come for the sake of increase: the rich grace of God is reached through the fasting and barren poverty of the limbs. Therefore, after God, it is to you, our weakness, that we owe having risen from the affection for sublime things. The votive necessity of my fever and the embraceable burning of my marrow have given me both to fear God from the departure of health and to rejoice in Him at its return. Now the health of the mind, procured by illnesses, rejoices in our Author. Where is the pride of long-lasting health, sought as a mockery? Where is the arrogance, through which you believed the divine gift to be your own possession? Suddenly the constancy of your strength abandoned you, and, subjected to the weights of sickness, you lay with crushed neck: after your prosperity fled, you meditate on late repentance, you recognize that what you had been able to do was of our God.

thanks to you, ruler and founder of the heavens, who by a subtle dispensation and hidden paths of mercy both compose our ways from affliction and restore us to perfect virtue through a pious laceration. We cannot come to your medicine except by the support of a wound, when we grow accustomed to soften the hardness of our heart through your striking, and to suppress the suggestion of earthly baseness by the noble and most sweet passion of our troubles. Behold, I am the one who, with cheerfulness prolonged for me, used to applaud myself, and while I enjoyed it as if it were never to be interrupted by any cessation, I used to ask how death, the penalty for sin, could come. For, lifted up by insane successes, I had ignorantly enrolled myself in the flock of poets of a venerable profession: poems constructed with squared particles and solidified by the variety of ordered feet delighted me: a flowing or tender poem of mine used to mingle with the choirs of angels, and if it happened that I was a shaper of famous verses with the law preserved, I used to see whatever is covered by the vault of heaven placed beneath my feet. For a long time, mortal life and the certain blindness of miseries tossed me about, inept, and exalted me with the false happiness of speaking. How often did my head, bared because of religion, swell with the blasts of applauders, and did I believe that the deceptions of lips could command the hearts of those who had love for me by their allurements? But you, who dwell in the heavens, used to laugh at me: you whom words do not charm, but purity: you with whom we often speak when mute and are silent when shouting.

while the charm of superfluous composition in the fields of rhetoric and poetry stirred me, I had followed a counterfeit wisdom and departed from true wisdom, desiring nothing but to rise through the empty praise of the ear. There was a loathing of prayer, while I was held by the desire to plead a case and sell my words. Unhappy man that I was! Who could rescue me from this body of death? The grace of God, granted through the ministry of a curable disease. For behold, suddenly pain entered the seat of the trembling soul and fed the secret places of the heart with a hostile fire: then everything that is human grew old with a constant burning, and through the natural passages an internal searing revealed itself. For while arrogance was being driven from its hiding places, although I still retained something of the superstitious, I no longer had anything of the survivor. This alone remained of the living consciousness: that I trusted I could be healed by you, my God, whom I had provoked to anger by my error. Yet that ravaging and masterful pestilence did not lie hidden in the chambers of my entrails, nor, content with a veil, had it clothed me entirely in a cloud of livid color, so that whatever in other afflictions is sought by the fingers of physicians, this the common crowd could see set before them for their correction. The long calamity burned those who loved me, it burned my enemies: some were tormented by despair of my death, others by its imminence; the city was united in a division of opinion regarding its zeal.

Meanwhile, a consuming fire was ravaging me with its internal work and was nourished by the constant efforts of those who cared for me. For, as if it were fostering diseases, whatever was provided against them only added to them. Then that worldly philosophy, worn down by the supports of Hippocrates and Galen, turned to faithful assistance, sometimes sensing that the blandishments of the world were fading and that a man was not being helped by human aids. For nearly two months, this calamity had kept me pressed down under its weight: I was already awaiting death as a remedy and found nothing pleasant in the usury of this life. Recalling that I was to break off my delays, I desired to go, even if with the burden of sin. Consider, readers, what scourges, what torments awaited me here, so that from fear of present tortures I sought the punishments of Gehenna and hastened to those penalties of the immortal furnace and the dreadfully breathing expiations. But the Lord did not fail me, who kills and brings to life, leads down to the underworld and leads back, by His majesty—He whose promise is: "While the words are still in your mouth, behold, I am here," says the Lord. For when one of those who attended me and daily enriched my inequality at the expense of their resources declared himself weary and that nothing remained to be done, immediately the despair of my caretaker brought me hope of life. For heavenly aid is more ready where the ill-omened services to the sick have withdrawn.

I immediately transported myself to the often-tested protections of the blessed martyr Victor and, weeping, entrusted to God through him the petitions I was to lay before the most powerful one: that it was enough to merit his clemency if he would always set before his eyes from what state he had taken us, and that it was not easy for base matter to pass swiftly to the height of his commandments. Although, through the second nature of pious baptism, whatever filth we contracted from the parental slime has been washed away, yet, because the enemy of our salvation, while he cloaks destruction with enticements, has seasoned vices with a sweet flavor; and while we are drawn out by the itch of the year, by the delight of tasting, death enters through the windows—whither is one to flee from his wrath, unless to the mercy of him who recalled the returning son, prodigal of the granted portion, whom, after he had consigned him, through the foul food of husks, to unclean communion with swine, he recalled to the white robe, to the precious ring, to those riches of the paternal estate, as if he had always kept his commands? I prayed through his chosen one that he would remit to me many debts, that I might, once absolved, show more diligence.

And I demanded this in accordance with the bond of his promise and a chaste pledge, that he also grant, through his precepts, that I might run with a lovable devotion, because, although what we are called to and what we acquiesce to when called are his, they are rewarded to us as if they arose from us, and he himself suggests both willing what is right and accomplishing it, yet he gives the reward as if bound by our devotion. I also promised that if, through his grace, he should grant me the disposition of a more brilliant zeal, this confession would proceed from the hand of my tongue, that I would offer to him the fat of my own little talent from his gifts, so that the care of my pen would never be wearied by the windy execution of worldly affairs, and that I would renounce the other foulnesses with which I was defiled, provided, however, that he make me willing to do what he inspired me to speak. I begged that he be present in me through his benefits and not turn away from him whom the protection of innate support, when abandoned, he had mercifully fostered and had preferred to those who rejoiced in the defense of parents. And that these things be granted did not render the price of my innocence, but showed how much a happy and learned sinner owed to his grace. For if he, having followed piety, did not abandon the guardianship of what is right, and terrified us as a judge and did not foster us as a father, nowhere would the path of salvation, nowhere would the means of escape lie open.

My God, my redemption, what of these things that you have done with me, what of those that I have done against myself, present themselves to me? If they are compared, no time is empty either of your help or of my fault. It pleases me to draw one from the countless gifts you have bestowed upon me and, passing over the multitudes of your bounties, to touch upon a single one briefly. At the time when the most desired entry of King Theoderic revived Italy, when everything was being laid waste by his enemies with indescribable destruction and what survived was being killed by famine more than by swords, when scarcity was breaking through the high peaks of mountains and fortresses and want, more savage than arms, besieged those placed on the heights, I, about sixteen years old, was deprived of the comfort of my aunt, who had raised me, in that storm: I remained alone, destitute of resources and bereft of counsel, one to whom only adversity could grant a remedy. Lest I, free-born, should beg for the means of living among relatives—a fate more bitter than the lot of captivity—and endure the hardships of strangers known to me, you immediately extended your accustomed right hand, my defense, and compelled a house rich in both property and piety not to reject my comfort. I sought in marriage the little daughter of a certain most noble woman well known to you; at once, with you arranging that she should anticipate me, I was received, as if this ought to have been hoped for from me.

Your companionship with those pleasing to you brought it about that I both abounded in sustenance and, fleeing the darkness of faithlessness, made my way toward your worship: almost before I knew my own desolation, the means to supply my needs began to be granted to me. Then for the first time, changed from a beggar into a king, I began to mock the misfortunes of the afflicted and, as though prosperity were owed to me, to neglect the author of it. Yet your swelling was not at once dashed against my rebellious spirit and stiff neck: you prolonged the times of vengeance, lest I be stung and, healed, feel only this—who the provider was. But because a man is not corrected by injustice, nor is he easily reduced from stains to whiteness, I persisted in that opinion of mine by which I would fall, and I conquered your patience by the continuation of my sin. And because, although you are most merciful, you do not always set aside justice, stripped of your protection I received that voice which was directed to the ears of the first parent: Adam, where are you? In my confusion I counted how many treasures of your mercy I had lost and of what endowment I had been stripped: the estimation of the things conferred by you was granted to me at the moment when it was perishing for me: I returned to myself and to my hardships, and I wept over the joys that had been prolonged. Immediately you came to my aid by a different path, yet not an unequal one. You arranged that I be healed by compulsion through the office of the Levites, and that the burden of imposed honor should remove from me the weight that was pressing me down.

But after the venerable burden of office released me, I had a guardian spirit from the title, not a clear conscience from the brilliance of my actions. O mind, drunk with bewitching severity, neither instructed by examples nor by warnings! If the teachings of venerable books are lacking for you, you can be shaped for progress by punishments, and unless you plunge yourself into the mire of perdition, you can derive instruction from penalty. But let Him who commands do these things in us, and let Him Himself work with us what He enjoins, so that we may be equal to His commands. These and many other things, as I said before, I suggested be communicated through the most trustworthy witness, the blessed Victor; neither rest nor delay slowed the matter: he took up my petition, repeated it, and obtained it. My advocate earned more than I had asked: that she who was joined to me in the equality of marriage should also share with me the adornment of religious habit, and become the woman leader of a distinguished title. But would that we might follow her, fragile in sex, in strength of spirit, and that in noble action she might not so much excel in merit as she seems to follow the pretext of female weakness! She, by the vigor of precious constancy, subdued the known evils of the flesh and preserved a chaste affection, not coerced. She, by obstinately loving the observance of righteousness, drove it into nature. Would that the hour of strict judgment not be set before me in her case, and that while she appears strong in her weakness, I might not be fragile in my natural strength!

Behold, Lord, I have recounted those very things which you already knew, and I have been faithful only to this extent: that I did not snatch away what you held. Be present, King of Glory, be present to your suppliant, and according to the custom of your kindness, arrange what is to follow. Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.