XLVI
POVERTY
The really
virtuous man does not want God. What I have I want not. He makes no
plans, he sets no store by things. As God is higher than man so he is
readier to give than man is to receive. Not by his fasts and vigils and
his many outward works does a man prove his progress in the virtuous life, but
it is a sure sign of his growth if he finds eternal things more and more
attractive than the things that pass. The man who has a thousand marks of
gold and gives it all away for the love of God is doing a fine thing; yet I say,
it were far finer and far better for him to despise it, setting it at naught on
God's account.
A man should orient his will and all
his works to God and having only God in view go forward unafraid, not thinking,
am I right or am I wrong? One who worked out all the chances ere starting
his first fight would never fight at all. And if, going to some place, we
must think how to set the front foot down we shall never get there. It is
our duty to do the next thing: go straight on, that is the right way.
There are five kinds of
poverty. The first is devilish poverty; the second, golden poverty; the
third is willing poverty; the fourth is spiritual poverty; the fifth, divine
poverty.
The first, or devilish poverty,
applies to all who have not what they fain would have, outward or inward. That
is their hell.
The second, golden poverty, is theirs
who in the midst of goods and properties pass empty out and in. If everything
they own was burnt the effect on them would be to leave them quite
unmoved. Heaven must needs be theirs and they would have no less.
The third is willing poverty and
belongs to those who, renouncing goods and honours, body and soul, leave
everything with right good grace. These give judgment with the twelve
apostles and by pronouncing judgment it is their judgment day who, knowing what
they leave, yet set another in their heart and mightily bestir themselves about
their own departure. Such are the willing poor.
The fourth are spiritual poor. These
have forsaken friends and kindred, not merely goods and honour, body and soul;
further, they are quit of all good works: the eternal Word does all their work
while they are idle and exempt from all activity. And since in the eternal
Word is neither bad nor good, therefore they are absolutely emtpy.
The fifth are godly poor, for God can
find no place in them to work in. Theirs is riddance without and within
for they are bare and free from all contingent form. This is the man: in this
man all men are one man and that man is Christ. Of him one master says,
'Earth was never worthy of this man who looks on heaven and earth the
same.' This man is object-free in time and in eternity.
Now enough of those who have no
object in eternity, but one thing more of those who are objectless in
time. What is meant by object? There are two objects: one is
otherness (not I): the other is a man's own proper self (his I).
The first otherness is becoming,
all that has come into existence; such things breed otherness and pass away.
This applies to the passage of time.
He who knows one matter in all things
remains unmoved. For matter is the subject of form and there can be no
matter without form nor form devoid of matter. Form without matter is nothing at
all; but matter ever cleaves to form and is one undivided whole in every single
part of it. Now since form in itself is naught, therefore it moves
nothing. And since matter is perfectly impartible, therefore it is
unmoved. This man then is unmoved by form or matter and is therefore
objectless in time.
Man's other object is to possess his
proper self, to identify himself with all perfection, with the most precious
treasure his own aught: that is his quest. Now when a thing has gotten its
own form, no more nor less, that thing is all its own and no one else's.
He who conceives this really is perfect in the sense that he is wholly
objectless to eternity, etc.