Distinction XIII

GRATIAN. Part I. Likewise, no dispensation is admitted against natural law, unless perhaps two evils press in such a way that it is necessary to choose one of them. Hence it is read in the Eighth Council of Toledo [c. 2]:

Although two evils are to be guarded against with the utmost caution, nevertheless, if the necessity of danger has compelled one of them to be moderated, we ought to resolve upon that which is known to bind us with the lesser bond. Let us investigate with the acuteness of pure reason which of these is lighter and which graver. For when we are compelled to swear falsely, we indeed offend the Creator, but we stain only ourselves. But when we fulfill harmful promises, we both despise God’s commands and harm our neighbors with impious cruelty, and we slaughter ourselves with the still more cruel sword of death. In the former case we are destroyed by the double weapon of faults; in the latter we are slain threefold.

Likewise Gregory, in the Moralia, Part VI, Book XXXV, c. XIV [on Job 40, Book XXXII, cc. 17, 18, 19, and 20]. The sinews of Leviathan’s testicles are entangled, because the devices of his suggestions are bound up in intricate contrivances, so that they cause many persons to sin in such a way that, if perhaps they desire to flee sin, they cannot escape it without another snare of sin, and they commit a fault while avoiding one, and are by no means able to free themselves from one unless they consent to bind themselves in another. We show this better if we bring forth from human conduct some examples of this entanglement. §1. Behold, while a certain person seeks the friendships of this world, he binds himself by an oath to another person leading a life similar to his own that he will conceal the latter’s secrets with complete silence. But the one to whom the oath was sworn is discovered to be committing adultery, so that he even attempts to kill the adulteress’s husband. The one who furnished the oath, however, returns to his senses and is assailed on either side by diverse thoughts: he fears to remain silent, lest by his silence he become a participant in both the adultery and the homicide; he trembles to disclose it, lest he bind himself with the guilt of perjury. He is therefore bound by the entangled sinews of the testicles, because in whichever direction he turns, he fears that he will not be free from the contagion of transgression. §2. Another, abandoning everything that belongs to the world and seeking to break his own wills in every respect, desires to subject himself to another’s governance; but with insufficiently cautious inquiry he discerns the one who ought to preside over him toward God. For perhaps the man who is chosen without judgment, once he has begun to preside, prohibits the things that are of God and commands the things that are of the world. Thus the subject, weighing both what the fault of disobedience is and what the contagion of secular life is, trembles to obey and fears not to obey, lest either by obeying he abandon God in his commandments, or, again, by not obeying he despise God in the one whom he previously chose. §3. Another, neglecting to weigh the burden of ecclesiastical honor, ascends to a place of governance by payments. But because everything that is eminent here is afflicted more by sorrows than it rejoices in honors, while his heart is pressed by tribulation, his fault is recalled to memory; he grieves that he reached this labor with fault, and, broken by the very difficulty, recognizes how wicked was what he committed. Therefore, recognizing himself as guilty through the payments expended, he wishes to abandon the place of eminence he obtained, but fears that it would be a graver offense to have abandoned the guardianship of the flock he received; he wishes to exercise the care of the flock he received, but fears that it is a worse fault to possess a pastoral government that was purchased. Thus he sees himself bound on either side by fault through the ambition for honor. For he sees that neither course is without the guilt of crime: either the flock once received is abandoned, or a sacred action purchased in worldly fashion is retained. He fears on every side and dreads every suspect direction, lest either, remaining unworthily in the governance he purchased, he lament what he does not amend by also abandoning it, or certainly, abandoning the governance while he strives to lament one thing, he commit another in turn through the very desertion of the flock.

Part II. §4. There is nevertheless something that may be subtly done to destroy the cunning devices of Behemoth: when the mind is constrained between lesser and greatest sins, if no approach whatsoever lies open without sin, the lesser are always to be chosen. For one who is enclosed on every side by the circuit of walls, lest he escape, casts himself into flight where the shorter wall confronts him. Hence Paul, when he saw certain incontinent persons in the Church, conceded the least things so that they might avoid the greater, saying: “Because of fornication, however, let each man have his own wife.” And because spouses are without fault in intercourse only when they are joined not to fulfill lust but to receive offspring, in order to show that even what he had conceded was not without fault, though the fault was very slight, he immediately added: “I say this, however, according to indulgence, not according to command.” For what is pardoned, not commanded, is not without vice. He certainly saw a sin that he foresaw could be indulged. But when we are constrained amid doubtful things, we are usefully subjected to the least, lest we sin in great things without pardon. §5. Thus the entanglement of this Behemoth’s sinews is very often loosed when one passes to the greatest virtues through lesser offenses.