Sentantiae Differentiarum De Activa Vita Atque Contemplativa [Incertus] (Appendix XIV)

APPENDIX XIV. SENTENCES OF DIFFERENCES ON THE ACTIVE LIFE AND THE CONTEMPLATIVE LIFE. There are two lives by which all the elect attain to eternal blessedness: the active, namely, and the contemplative. For the active life pertains to love of neighbor, the contemplative, however, to love of God. For each is so connected to the other that one without the other can in no way suffice. Because neither does love of neighbor without love of God avail anything; nor can love of God without love of neighbor produce a perfect result (See Isidoriana, c. 85, n. 8). Meanwhile, however, many make progress in the active life, but few in the contemplative. Those, however, are known to be perfect who, within the Church, at a fitting time know how to ascend from the active life to the contemplative, and know how to descend from the contemplative to the active through fraternal compassion. i. The active life, if it is rightly maintained, as is fitting, acquires eternal life for its followers. The contemplative life, however, accumulates not only life but also reward.

Thus to the active life pertains honorable marriage; to the contemplative life, however, virginity and continence. And therefore a precept has been given concerning marriage; concerning virginity and continence, however, there is not a precept, but an exhortation. As in the Apostle, where he says: “Concerning virgins I have no precept of the Lord, but I give advice” (1 Cor. 7:25). And the Truth in the Gospel: “Not all,” it says, “take in that word, but those to whom it is given” (Matt. 19:11). And within: “He who is able to take it, let him take it” (Ibid., 1). And through the prophet Isaiah the Lord, promising concerning eunuchs, that is, virgins, says: “Thus says the Lord to the eunuchs: Those who have kept my sabbaths and chosen what I have willed, and have held to my covenant, I will give them a place in my house and within my walls, and a name better than that of sons and daughters. I will give them an everlasting name, which will not perish” (Isa. 56:4, 5). For where a choice is offered to the elect, it is without doubt granted.

For the active life, indeed, it befits each faithful person to use his own wife, not to covet another’s, not to divide his body among any other woman while his wife lives. For the contemplative life, however, it pertains to spurn marriage, to flee carnal union, to imitate a celibate life in this mortality, to generate spiritual children not by flesh but by word and example. For active action, indeed, it suits each faithful person within the Church to possess his own property and to administer it reasonably; not to covet others’ goods, nor to seize or defraud them. For the contemplative life, however, it suits to abandon all one’s possessions utterly and, freed from worldly cares, to be vacant for God. Thus to the active life pertains that which Truth first set before a certain young man questioning her, saying: “If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.” He says: “Which?” Jesus then said: “You shall not commit homicide, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not commit theft, you shall not bear false witness. Honor your father and your mother, and love your neighbor as yourself.” For the contemplative life, however, that which He added to him is expedient, saying: “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell all your possessions, and give to the poor, and you will have a treasure in heaven, and come, follow me” (Matthew 19:17).

To the contemplative life, therefore, pertains this: that our Redeemer himself prayed alone on the mountain by night. To the active life, however, pertains this: that by day, mingled with the crowds, he preached to them and healed their sick. To the contemplative life, indeed, belongs this: what the apostle Paul says of himself and other perfect ones: “Whether we are out of our minds, for God.” To the active life, however, belongs that which he added: “Whether we are sober, for you.” For the charity of Christ compels us (2 Cor. 5:13, 14). To the contemplative life, by which each perfect person builds greater virtues upon the foundation of faith, pertains that which the same apostle says: “But if someone builds upon the foundation not gold, precious stones, if someone’s work endures, that which he builds upon, he will receive a reward.” To the active life, however, is referred that which he added: “Wood, hay, straw,” that is, earthly substance and concern for domestic affairs: concerning which, adding, he says: “If someone’s work perishes, he will suffer loss. He himself, however, will be safe, yet as if through fire” (1 Cor. 3:12).

He will be saved, he says, yet he will not receive the reward, he said, as concerning him who builds up gold, silver, and precious stones, that is, spiritual riches. Fire, however, in this place is to be understood as the tribulations of the present life, through which the just are tested. For to the active life pertains: to care for the poor, to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to visit the sick or those placed in prison, to gather guests, to console the sorrowful, to bury the dead, not to neglect one's own household, to serve the servants of God, to judge the affairs of the people justly, and to assign to each his own right, to aid the oppressed, to free the weak from the hand of the violent, to protect widows and orphans, to resist the wicked, and to restrain criminals from evil acts through severity. All these things and those similar are necessary only in the present life. To the theoretical, that is, the contemplative life, pertains: to abandon the present world utterly, and to be alien to worldly affairs, to set aside all present things in the mind, to extend one's intention toward heavenly things, and to despise all things that are seen as if they have passed away, to fix the mind's thought not on those things which are seen, but on those which are not seen, to devote oneself to reading, to persist in prayer, and to keep watch without ceasing in the praises of God.

He, as was said above, lives strenuously who, at the fitting time, knows how to rise from the active life to the contemplative, and knows how to descend from the contemplative to the active. Concerning this active life, that is, simple action, if anyone should decline a little toward the lower things, he will at once fall into the vices, which do not lift him upward, but plunge him downward into the abyss of sins. For the contemplative life was signified by that inner cave in which Abraham buried his deceased wife Sarah, and he himself, buried, rests; just as eternal contemplation receives all the elect after the course of the present life, which is compared to the active life. The active life, however, is intimated by the outer part of the same cave, through which one passes to the inner part. Because just as the active life is the tomb of the worldly life, so the contemplative life is the sepulcher of the active life. For in that life, that is, in the active, a man dies to every sin, as the Apostle says: "The love of one's neighbor does not work evil." In this life, however, that is, the contemplative, he is, as it were, dead and buried away from all action of secular affairs.

It is fitting for the intention of contemplation, figuratively, that Jacob saw the angels of God ascending by a ladder leaning up to heaven; for the active life, that he saw them descending. Concerning this ascent and descent, the Truth says in the Gospel: “Amen, I say to you, you will see the heavens opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man” (John 1:51). By the angels of God, indeed, it signifies the holy preachers; by the Son of Man, all the faithful of the Church, who are members of Christ. The active life, that is, simple action, is mystically signified by the six years in which the law commands us to sow our fields and to apply cultivation to the vineyards. The higher life, that is, the contemplative, is signified by the seventh year, in which we are ordered to cease from earthly work, not to sow the field, nor to prune the vine, so that we may permit the land of our possession to keep its sabbaths, that is, we who once served the world, which was made in six days, and were occupied with its acts, having at last turned to the service of God, and freed from the care of this age and the burdens of the world, may be able to sabbatize in God, that is, to rest in mind.

It pertains to the perseverance of the active life that those animals by which the holy preachers are signified in the book of the prophet Ezekiel went and did not return. In that they went and returned, however, it pertains to the measure of the contemplative life, in which, while each one strives, struck by his own weakness, he bends, and again with renewed intention he is raised up to those things from which he had descended. This cannot happen in the active life; if anyone turns away from it even for a little while, he is immediately seized by the luxury of vices. The wings of the same animals, that is, of the holy men, signify the higher life, that is, the intellectual life, by which they are lifted up to high things, that is, to heavenly things; their hands placed beneath the wings designate the actual life, for this reason, because contemplation stands above action, but action follows contemplation. Therefore, the six cubits in that reed, from which the prophet Ezekiel saw that whole spiritual building measured, mystically figure the active life. The palm, which is said to be added above the six cubits in the same spiritual measure, expresses the contemplative life.

This is why: because active action has its perfection in the present life; contemplative action, however, begins here but is perfected in the future; and therefore it does not attain a full cubit, but, as it were, a half, in the present life, from future contemplation. The active life was mystically signified by Leah, the wife of Jacob, who, although she was fruitful in offspring, nevertheless had bleary eyes, because actual action, although it generates many sons in good works, yet, on account of the anxiety of this world, cannot clearly see those things which are of God. The contemplative life, however, was signified by Rachel, who is said to be barren in her offspring, but yet of pure face, because the contemplative life, insofar as it is free from the actions of the world, becomes so clear in the contemplation of God. The diligent reader can infer this comparison also from Peninnah and Hannah, and from Mary and Martha. But it must be known that every convert to God must first, through the active life, that is, simple action, drain away former vices which oppose him on the way of God, and thus finally rise to contemplation; so that, cleansed from all filth of sins, with a pure heart and a righteous body, he may be able freely to contemplate those things which are of God.

For one who is not yet fit for good action through simple activity should by no means extend himself to contemplation, lest, while he indiscreetly begins to desire what he cannot sustain, he falls and fails, and again takes up what he had renounced, and his last state becomes worse than his first. This indeed is what Truth signifies when, salubriously restraining all the weak-minded from this intention, it says: But if the right eye scandalizes you, by which contemplative life is signified, pluck it out and cast it from you (Matt. 5:29). For there are two eyes in the face: active life and contemplative life in a person. Therefore, one who taught error through contemplation would do better, if, with the eye of contemplation plucked out, he keeps for himself one gaze of actual life, so that it is more useful for him to go to life through simple action than to be sent into unquenchable gehenna through the error of contemplation. Again, the same Lord showed this in the man whom he cured of a legion of demons, when he forbade him from following him, saying: Go into your house, and tell how much God has done for you (Matt. 9:6); expressing this mystically, that one who is still harmful with many vices cannot follow God through contemplation.

This also the law figuratively commands, when it says: If anyone has built a new house and has not dedicated it, let him go and return to his own house, lest he die in battle and another man dedicate it. Who is the man who has planted a vineyard and has not yet made it common, from which he might eat? Let him go and return to his own house (Deut. 20:5), and so forth. That is, one who through a simple life does not yet know how to govern himself well, nor knows how to preside over his own household, should by no means aspire to spiritual malice, that is, to the priestly ministry: lest through weakness of mind and a reprobate life he himself perish, and leave to those following him an example of perdition. Concerning such persons the Apostle says: For he who does not know how to preside over his own household, how will he have diligence for the Church of God? Not a neophyte, lest, puffed up with pride, he fall into the judgment of the devil (1 Tim. 3:5, 6).

It must be known, indeed, that the active life, if it is rightly held as is fitting for obtaining life, suffices for itself even without the contemplative—that is, without the reward of things—even if it is unable to renounce all that it possesses. The contemplative life, however, as long as we live mortally, cannot unfold itself without the active. For no one can live so perfectly suspended in the contemplation of God in this life that it is not necessary for him, at least on account of the weakness of the flesh and fraternal compassion, to descend to earthly action. Therefore, the active life has its beginning and its end here; the contemplative life, however, begins in this life but is fully attained in the next. And thus it is not before the death of the flesh, but after death, that it can reach that which it ardently loves.