Chapter 7.—Steps to Wisdom:  First, Fear; Second, Piety; Third, Knowledge; Fourth, Resolution; Fifth, Counsel; Sixth, Purification of Heart; Seventh, Stop or Termination, Wisdom.

9.  First of all, then, it is necessary that we should be led by the fear of God to seek the knowledge of His will, what He commands us to desire and what to avoid.  Now this fear will of necessity excite in us the thought of our mortality and of the death that is before us, and crucify all the motions of pride as if our flesh were nailed to the tree.  Next it is necessary to have our hearts subdued by piety, and not to run in the face of Holy Scripture, whether when understood it strikes at some of our sins, or, when not understood, we feel as if we could be wiser and give better commands ourselves.  We must rather think and believe that whatever is there written, even though it be hidden, is better and truer than anything we could devise by our own wisdom.

10.  After these two steps of fear and piety, we come to the third step, knowledge, of which I have now undertaken to treat.  For in this every earnest student of the Holy Scriptures exercises himself, to find nothing else in them but that God is to be loved for His own sake, and our neighbor for God’s sake; and that God is to be loved with all the heart, and with all the soul, and with all the mind, and one’s neighbor as one’s self—that is, in such a way that all our love for our neighbor, like all our love for ourselves, should have reference to God.56    Comp. Matt. xxii. 37–40.  And on these two commandments I touched in the previous book when I was treating about things.57    See Book 1. c. 22.  It is necessary, then, that each man should first of all find in the Scriptures that he, through being entangled in the love of this world—i.e., of temporal things—has been drawn far away from such a love for God and such a love for his neighbor as Scripture enjoins.  Then that fear which leads him to think of the judgment of God, and that piety which gives him no option but to believe in and submit to the authority of Scripture, compel him to bewail his condition.  For the knowledge of a good hope makes a man not boastful, but sorrowful.  And in this frame of mind he implores with unremitting prayers the comfort of the Divine help that he may not be overwhelmed in despair, and so he gradually comes to the fourth step,—that is, strength and resolution,58    Fortitudo.—in which he hungers and thirsts after righteousness.  For in this frame of mind he extricates himself from every form of fatal joy in transitory things, and turning away from these, fixes his affection on things eternal, to wit, the unchangeable Trinity in unity.

11.  And when, to the extent of his power, he has gazed upon this object shining from afar, and has felt that owing to the weakness of his sight he cannot endure that matchless light, then in the fifth step—that is, in the counsel of compassion59    Consilium misericordiæ.—he cleanses his soul, which is violently agitated, and disturbs him with base desires, from the filth it has contracted.  And at this stage he exercises himself diligently in the love of his neighbor; and when he has reached the point of loving his enemy, full of hopes and unbroken in strength, he mounts to the sixth step, in which he purifies the eye itself which can see God,60    Matt. v. 8. so far as God can be seen by those who as far as possible die to this world.  For men see Him just so far as they die to this world; and so far as they live to it they see Him not.  But yet, although that light may begin to appear clearer, and not only more tolerable, but even more delightful, still it is only through a glass darkly that we are said to see, because we walk by faith, not by sight, while we continue to wander as strangers in this world, even though our conversation be in heaven.61    1 Cor. xiii. 12; 2 Cor. v. 7.  And at this stage, too, a man so purges the eye of his affections as not to place his neighbor before, or even in comparison with, the truth, and therefore not himself, because not him whom he loves as himself.  Accordingly, that holy man will be so single and so pure in heart, that he will not step aside from the truth, either for the sake of pleasing men or with a view to avoid any of the annoyances which beset this life.  Such a son ascends to wisdom, which is the seventh and last step, and which he enjoys in peace and tranquillity.  For the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.62    Ps. cxi. 10.  From that beginning, then, till we reach wisdom itself, our way is by the steps now described.

CAPUT VII. Gradus ad sapientiam: primus, timor; secundus, pietas; tertius, scientia; quartus, fortitudo; quintus, consilium; sextus, purgatio cordis; septimus gradus seu finis, sapientia.

9. Ante omnia igitur opus est Dei timore converti ad cognoscendam ejus voluntatem, quid nobis appetendum fugiendumque praecipiat. Timor autem iste cogitationem de nostra mortalitate et de futura morte necesse est incutiat, et quasi clavatis carnibus omnes superbiae motus ligno crucis affigat. Deinde mitescere opus est pietate, neque contradicere divinae Scripturae sive intellectae, si aliqua vitia nostra percutit; sive non intellectae, quasi nos melius sapere meliusque praecipere possimus: sed cogitare potius et credere id esse melius et verius quod ibi scriptum est, etiam si lateat, quam id quod nos per nosmetipsos sapere possumus.

10. Post istos duos gradus timoris atque pietatis ad tertium venitur scientiae gradum, de quo nunc agere institui. Nam in eo se exercet omnis divinarum Scripturarum studiosus, nihil in eis aliud inventurus quam diligendum esse Deum propter Deum, et proximum propter Deum: et illum quidem ex toto corde, ex tota anima, ex tota mente diligere; proximum vero tanquam seipsum (Matth. XXII, 37 et 39), id est, ut tota proximi, sicut etiam nostri, dilectio referatur in Deum. De quibus duobus praeceptis, cum de rebus ageremus, libro superiore tractavimus. Necesse est ergo, ut primo se quisque in Scripturis inveniat amore hujus saeculi, hoc est, temporalium rerum, implicatum, longe sejunctum esse a tanto amore Dei et tanto amore proximi, quantum Scriptura ipsa praescribit. Tum vero ille timor quo cogitat de judicio Dei, et illa pietas qua non potest nisi credere et cedere auctoritati sanctorum Librorum, cogit eum seipsum lugere. Nam ista scientia bonae spei hominem non se jactantem, sed lamentantem facit: quo affectu impetrat sedulis precibus consolationem divini adjutorii, ne desperatione frangatur, et esse incipit in quarto gradu, hoc est fortitudinis, quo esuritur et sititur justitia. Hoc enim affectu ab omni 0040 mortifera jucunditate rerum transeuntium sese extrahit, et inde se avertens convertit ad dilectionem aeternorum, incommutabilem scilicet unitatem eamdemque Trinitatem.

11. Quam ubi aspexerit, quantum potest, in longinqua radiantem, suique aspectus infirmitate sustinere se illam lucem non posse persenserit; in quinto gradu, hoc est in consilio misericordiae, purgat animam tumultuantem quodammodo atque obstrepentem sibi de appetitu inferiorum conceptis sordibus. Hic vero se in dilectione proximi guaviter exercet, in eaque perficitur; et spe jam plenus atque integer viribus, cum pervenerit usque ad inimici dilectionem, ascendit in sextum gradum, ubi jam ipsum oculum purgat, quo videri Deus potest, quantum potest ab iis qui huic saeculo moriuntur quantum possunt. Nam in tantum vident, in quantum moriuntur huic saeculo; in quantum autem huic vivunt, non vident. Et ideo quamvis jam certior, et non solum tolerabilior, sed etiam jucundior species lucis illius incipiat apparere; in aenigmate adhuc tamen et per speculum videri dicitur (I Cor. XIII, 12,), quia magis per fidem quam per speciem ambulatur, cum in hac vita peregrinamur (II Cor. V, 6, 7), quamvis conversationem habeamus in coelis (Philipp. III, 20.) In hoc autem gradu ita purgat oculum cordis, ut veritati ne ipsum quidem praeferat aut conferat proximum; ergo nec seipsum, quia nec illum quem diligit sicut seipsum. Erit ergo iste sanctus tam simplici corde atque mundato, ut neque hominibus placendi studio detorqueatur a vero, nec respectu devitandorum quorumlibet incommodorum suorum, quae adversantur huic vitae. Talis filius ascendit ad sapientiam, quae ultima et septima est, qua pacatus tranquillusque perfruitur. Initium enim sapientiae timor Domini (Psal. CX, 10, et Eccli. I, 16). Ab illo enim usque ad ipsam per hos gradus tenditur, et venitur.