Question II: Which state is more excellent: the state of the active life, or of the contemplative

This question is not difficult to decide; for Christ himself passed a decisive judgment in favor of the contemplative life, when those two sisters, Martha and Mary, in the presence of him who had come, were pleading their cause; the one speaking to the heart with studious silence, the other soliciting the ears of Christ with talkative ministry, saying: Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me alone to serve? Speak to her therefore, that she help me. To this, however, Christ brought forth a judicial definition (as the holy Doctor says), repeating and reiterating: Martha, Martha, thou art solicitous, and art troubled about many things; but one thing is necessary: Mary hath chosen the best part, and he adds the reason of the judgment: which shall not be taken away from her; on which words the holy Doctor thus comments: One is preferred to many, because not one from many, but from one, many, as St. Augustine says, tract. 27 on John, near the end: Many are the things that were made; one is he who made them; good are the things he made, how much better is he who made them; nay, absolutely the best: and this is the part of the contemplative soul.

Hence in Lamentations 3. it is said: The Lord is my portion, saith my soul, therefore will I wait for him; and in Psalm 141. I cried to thee, O Lord, and I said: Thou art my hope, my portion in the land of the living. This is the portion of those who contemplate, says St. Bonaventure, in whose person it is said, Deuteronomy 3. I will pass over, and will see this excellent land beyond the Jordan, and this goodly mountain, and Libanus.

This excellence of the contemplative life over the active is CONFIRMED by the holy Doctor from the defects of the latter, which Christ intimates by that reduplicated name: Martha, Martha, thou art solicitous, etc. For God is accustomed to repeat the name of him whom he wishes to arouse to more attentive consideration of his defects; thus in Jeremias 32. he upbraids the sinful man with a triplicated name: Earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord; and in Exodus 3,¹ seeing that Moses boldly drew near to see the vision of the bush which the flame had kindled and he had not yet seen, he called out to him, saying: Moses, Moses. So now he reproaches Martha for her excessive solicitude, calling her, Martha, Martha, and for this reason upbraids her for a threefold defect, as the holy Doctor pursues: namely, for solicitude in thought, for tribulation in affect, and for division in act. ¹ Editor's note: the 1655 print reads 'Exodi 30.'; the scene described (Moses at the burning bush, 'Moyses, Moyses') is Exodus 3, so the chapter citation is corrected here, with the print's reading preserved in this note.

But these three things chiefly hinder a man from spiritual progress in God; wherefore Philip. 4 gives counsel: Be nothing solicitous, but in every prayer, etc. let your petitions be made known to God; and 1 Peter, last chapter: Casting all your anxiety upon him, because he hath care for you. For solicitude distracts the powers of the soul, weakens them when dispersed, and at last divides them from God, who is one and loves unity; whence St. Paul says, 1 Cor. 7: He who is with a wife is solicitous about the things of the world, and is divided; but the unmarried woman and the virgin thinketh on the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit. Wherefore the Eastern Church, although it permitted clerics or priests, whose portion and study is to labor for the salvation of their neighbor, to take wives; yet we read that it was never attempted or permitted to Monks (even were they laymen); for they, having all things at once in one, ought not to abandon that one thing, as is said in Tob. 10.

Then tribulation in affect, by which the active life is most of all molested, is dissuaded in John 14: Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in me; for the troubled eye is not sharp enough to see, as the holy Doctor remarks here, of which kind was what Isaias foretold of Christ, Isaias (24): He shall not be sad, nor troublesome.

Finally division in act, which is frequent amid the multitude of affairs, is turned aside in Ecclesiasticus 11: Son, let not thy acts be in many things; for operations, even of the animal faculties, that is, of the sensitive and vegetative part, require a gathering, and as it were an attention, of all the powers of the soul, that they may be carried out well and completely; the more intensely one power is occupied about its object, the more remissly do the other faculties operate about their proper objects; and the more a man is distracted about temporal things, the more easily and frequently does he slip from the consideration of eternal things; whence, since these inconveniences are often encountered in the active life, our Savior reproved it in Martha, that by pointing out the defect of her action he might correct its importunity, as the holy Doctor concludes in the place cited, letter D.

Not therefore, however (the Seraphic Doctor resumes), is the part of Martha evil; for the excess of action, the manner or excess, not the substance, is reprehended; whence Christ said: Thou art troubled about many things; for turbation extinguishes the spirit of devotion; nor, even though it be born of fervor in acting or ministering charitably, is it laudable; because Charity, in order that it may profit the neighbor, must be well ordered in itself; as the Spouse says in the Canticles, when, at the approach of the young maidens, who had often experienced the fervor of her correction, they trembled: He ordered charity in me; for having attained a placid quiet of mind, after long contemplating and marveling at the beauty of her spouse, she dismissed every troubled manner of acting, as St. Bernard expounds on the Canticles on those words.

It is PROVED further by the holy Doctor on the same chapter 10 of Luke, that the Contemplative life excels the active: What is more permanent, other things being equal, is more excellent. But contemplation is more permanent than action: Therefore. The major is evident; for the excellence of Charity shines forth above the other theological virtues in this, that it never falls away, but endures even in the beatific vision, at least in specific reason; but the contemplative operation begins here and remains in the future, as the Gloss has it on those words: Which shall not be taken away, etc. Therefore it is the better, the more it remains, as the Seraphic Doctor subjoins; for, as he reports there from the said Gloss: the labor of multitude passes away, and the Charity of unity remains; in figure of which, speaking of John, who bore the person of the Contemplative, the Lord says: So I will have him remain till I come, indicating that the part which Mary chose is not to be taken away but to be perfected; concerning which he says in book 3 on chapter 10 of Luke, tome 5: The fire of love, which here begins to burn, when it shall have seen him whom it loves, blazes forth more in love; and this same is prefigured in Isaias 31: Whose fire is in Sion, and his furnace in Jerusalem.

It is PROVED lastly by St. Bonaventure in the same place, where in three little words he concludes all the reasons which Suarez there (in the place cited, chapter 6) deduces at length, saying: The Contemplative life is simply more to be desired, as being the better, both because it is more secure, and because it is sweeter, and because it is more stable. The Seraphic Doctor nevertheless concludes that the active life is not on that account to be despised: both because it is prior; and because it is more penal; and because it is more fruitful; for it avails for itself and for others, in which nonetheless the contemplative life prevailest over it for itself and for others; for the latter does not impede, nay rather promotes, the salvation of others; for whether one be a Prelate or a preacher, in order to rule well and preach well to himself and others, it is necessary that he not neglect Contemplation; whence St. Gregory says of both lives, book VI Morals, chapter 18, quoted by the Seraphic Doctor in the place cited: Great are the merits of the active life, but greater those of the Contemplative.

YOU WILL OBJECT: to what purpose, then, is the life that is only active, if even in Prelates and preachers the Contemplative life takes its place: for prelature and preaching are external actions principally ordered to the neighbor.

The holy Doctor ANSWERS in the place cited, letter D, and with him Suarez in the said chapter 6, that spiritual exercises, such as those of Prelates and Preachers, since they have a connection with contemplation, as being as it were its acts and effects, suppose it as their origin; for preaching is nothing else than the internal contemplation of truth described outwardly in words and gestures; whence spiritual men must sometimes go out and sometimes go in, now ascend, presently descend, as in that vision of Jacob, Gen. 28, the angels ascended and descended, at once contemplating God and aiding men. But that life which is purely active obtains the greater, or more proper, part of itself in bodily exercises, as in assisting the sick, visiting widows, succoring the bodily necessities of the poor. Now these actions, although they require proceeding from an intention and some consideration, do not properly require contemplation, such as will be described below in question 5; otherwise no action would be good or meritorious which did not suppose contemplation.

We conclude, however, with the holy Doctor, 1 part of the Cen(tury), sect. 46, that both lives, in order to be perfect, must affect, occupy, or engage the three powers of the soul, so that with respect to these, each one has three properties, in which the one exceeds the other, not by an excess of excellence, but of exclusion; so that the one excludes the other as to act, which is true only in those who cultivate either the active or the contemplative life alone; but not in those leading the mixed life, as I shall say below in the following question.

¶ The FIRST property of the active life is sedulous diligence of public utility and necessity; and this occupies the Rational power, whose office it is to consider how and why it should issue forth into action.

The SECOND is charity toward the neighbor, by compassionating his misery; and this holds the place in the Concupiscible.

The THIRD is fruitfulness of good works in acting, by persevering patiently unto the end; and this continually kindles the Irascible toward arduous things.

But of the CONTEMPLATIVE life the first property is the intuition of supernal beauty with delight, and this affects the Rational.

The SECOND is repose with serenity and security, and this pacifies the Irascible.

The THIRD is cleanness of heart, with the gust of supernal goodness, whereby the Concupiscible is delighted.