States of Christian Life and Vocation, According to the Doctors and Theologians of the Church/Part 1/Section 2/ARTICLE I. The State of Tendency to Perfection, or the Religious State/CHAPTER II. ORIGIN OF THE RELIGIOUS STATE.

by Jean-Baptiste Berthier

CHAPTER II. EVANGELICAL COUNSELS.

THESE counsels are obligatory upon no one, as we shall explain later ; yet we may ask whether they are addressed to every one. We have heard Cornelius a Lapide and the catechism of the Council of Trent teaching that perfect chastity is counselled to all men.^[1] Does the same hold for the counsels of poverty and obedience ?

Our blessed Lord said to a young man : "If thou wilt be perfect, go sell all thou hast." To elude these words, the heretic Osiander used to say that Jesus Christ had, indeed, counselled poverty to that young man, but had not done so to all men. "But," replies Suarez, "this assertion is gratuitous, and owes its origin solely to the obstinacy of him who makes it. For, why is such a counsel salutary for that young man, unless its object is in itself better and more profitable? Moreover, Jesus Christ said, besides, to the young man at the same time : If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments; and these other words: If thou wilt be perfect, go sell all thou hast. Now, the first portion was spoken, not for the young man alone, but for all men ; therefore so was the second." And the learned theologian concludes thus : " It is for all rich people an excellent counsel to love poverty, so as to shun the dangers attendant on riches."^[2]

Having shown that the counsel of obedience is contained in the words, " Follow me," addressed by our Lord to the young man, Suarez remarks that many of our Lord's words apply to all, and should not be restricted to the few who were present when he spoke, but are extended to whoever wishes to follow the evangelical counsels ; and since the object of the counsel of obedience is of importance for all the faithful, the words of our Lord which convey this counsel are addressed to every one^[3]

St. Thomas is still more explicit than Suarez. " We ought," says he, "to receive the words of our Lord handed down to us in Scripture, as if we heard them spoken by our Lord himself. Has he not said to his apostles, 'And what I say to you, I say to all : Watch' ? (Mark xiii, 37.) And St. Paul tells us: What things soever were written, were written for our learning. (Rom. xv, 4.)" Hereupon St. John Chrysostom comments as follows : " Had Jesus Christ spoken only for those who listened to him, his words would not have been written. They were spoken for the first disciples, but they were written for us. It is clear, then, that the words of Holy Scripture are addressed, not to those only who stood by when these words were delivered, but to all the faithful who are to live in the long course of ages."

But let us examine in particular whether the counsel of our Lord, " Go sell all thou hast " (Matt, xix, 21), was not given only to the young man to whom Jesus Christ addressed the words, or whether it was delivered for all men. Let us reflect on what follows. In the same chapter St. Peter says : " Behold, we have left all things and have followed thee " (v. 27); then our Lord promises a general reward : " And every one that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for my name's sake, shall receive an hundred fold, and shall possess life everlasting" (v. 29). Every one, therefore, can follow this counsel just as if he heard our Saviour address it to him in person. Although he spoke to that particular young man, he gave the same counsel in a general way when he said : "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." (Matt, xvi, 24.) Hereupon St. John Chrysostom says that our Lord spoke these words for all the world : If any one, that is, any man, or woman, if a king, if a freeman, if a slave, wishes ! According to St. Basil, this complete denial of self is a forgetfulness of the past, and a giving-up of one's own will; and in this self-denial is included the renunciation of earthly goods. We must therefore accept the counsel given by our Lord to the young man as if our Lord himself addressed it to every one in particular.^[4] This remarkable passage is wholly taken from St. Thomas.

But are the evangelical counsels possible? In treating of them, Suarez says that it is praiseworthy to vow any one of them and to keep it. Evidently, then, they are possible ; for, according to all theologians, a vow with regard to an impossible thing is null, and has no binding force. " The gratitude we owe to God," adds the same Suarez, " does not lay on us a rigorous obligation to virginity, nor to the practice of poverty, nor to any other good works which are not commanded ; although, if we wish to do anything of the kind out of gratitude to God, we are free to do it."^[5] And here returns the reasoning of the learned commentator whom we take a delight in quoting : " Nothing is counselled save what is in the power and subject to the free will of man under God's grace, a grace that God holds in readiness for, and bestows on, any one that asks for it."^[6]

To those who might fear that this beautiful and expansive doctrine of great theologians, while throwing open the path of perfection to generous souls, would depopulate the world, it were sufficient to recall what we have already said, and about which no one can entertain a doubt, namely : there is no hope that all the children of the Church will faithfully keep all the commandments. What apprehension, therefore, can there be that they will all turn to the practice of the evangelical counsels? The three counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience, are indispensable and essential to the religious state, properly speaking: this is the teaching of St. Thomas, and all the theologians hold it with him.^[7] The obligation always to practise these three counsels likewise belongs to the essence of the religious state; and this obligation is contracted by the vow which a person makes to God to keep them.^[8]

Having settled this point, we now return to our subject, and repeat the reasoning of Suarez : " In the Gospel, Jesus Christ exhorts us to put in practice the three counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience, and to take a perpetual vow to keep them. Now, the essence of the religious state consists in these three vows. Therefore, the religious state was established by Jesus Christ himself. If every one in particular of these counsels has been praised and commended by Jesus Christ, still more so has he exhorted us to keep them all ; for the observance of one of them helps rather than hinders the observance of the others. Our blessed Lord intimated as much to us in the words, Go sell all thou hast, and come follow me. For, by these words, he commands at once poverty and obedience, and necessarily supposes chastity : for, how could one freely follow Christ, if tied by the bonds of wedlock? Nor is it easy to combine poverty with the cares of a family."

Having quoted a number of passages from the Gospels in support of his thesis, Suarez concludes : " Jesus Christ has, then, clearly enough invited us to a state which fixes us permanently in the practice of the complete abnegation which he advises us to adopt. Our Lord has, therefore, instituted all that belongs to the substance of the religious state, even though he has not appointed or framed any particular rule. It was in the same way that he instituted the sacraments. He told us of their essentials, but he left to his Church the care of regulating everything accidental that pertains to them. I say, moreover," continues the same author, "that Christ established one religious institute in particular, by assembling a certain number of men, and laying down for them a peculiar mode of life. And, indeed, he called his apostles to a truly and properly called religious state. They really took the three vows of poverty, chastity and obedience ; and they took these vows with a view to the state of perfection. Jesus Christ called them to a mixed form of life ; that is, to a life both contemplative and active, and appointed as their special end the preaching of the Gospel. From the apostolic age down to our own day, the religious state has always been kept up in the Church. This is the common view of the fathers, and it is borne out by the history of the Church."^[9]

Footnotes

1. Sect, i, art. 2, c. i. Also Bellarm., De membris ecclesi., lib. 2, c. ix.
2. Suar., lib. 8, c. ii n. 4 ; et Matt, xix, 17, 21.
3. Suar., lib. 10, c. i, n. 18.
4. St. Th., opusc. 17, c. x.
5. Suar., lib. i, c. ix ; n. 21.
6. Corn., Comment, in c. xix Matt.
7. Suar., lib. 2, c. ii, n. 3.
8. Ibid., c. iii.
9. Suar., lib. 3, capp. ii et iii.