Last Disputation: On the State of the Active and the Contemplative Life

Notorious is this division into the Active and Contemplative life, long prefigured in the two wives of Jacob, Rachel and Lia; long fulfilled in the nightly watches of Christ the Savior and his daytime labors; commended also in the busy cares of Martha and the repose of Mary; and likewise marked in the solicitude of Peter and the solitude of John; as I shall draw out more fittingly below in the proofs, intending afterward to speak of the comparison of one to the other, and also of the excellence of each, whether taken separately or jointly. But after the Active life alone, or the Contemplative, (as each is called a state, or a certain excellence over the other) had long been exercised in the Church, there emerged at last the Mixed life, not only most useful and profitable to the Church, but in itself, because of the concord struck between Martha and Mary, most illustrious. But near the end we shall consider the principal acts of the Active life, and likewise the grades of the Contemplative.