Wednesday, June 24, 2020

ST. PETER DAMIAN Selected Writings on the Spiritual Life translated with an Introduction by PATRICIA MCNULTY




THE PURPOSE OF ASCETICISM

Christian asceticism is directed to one end, the enjoyment of
the visio Dei, and the ascetic life can only be understood in
relation to this end; therefore, if Damian's ascetical teaching is
to be seen in its true light, it must be so considered. Was he a
contemplative in the tradition of Augustine and Gregory?
Were his incredible penances, his severe rule of life and his
defence of flagellation the fruit of a burning love of God and a


desire for the exquisite delight of mystic union, or was he in
fact a cold, austere figure, a mere master of negative asceticism,
a masochist with an almost Manichaean hatred of the flesh, as
he has sometimes been pictured ? It was not hardness of heart
that led him to shun the delights of human society, for, as has
rightly been said, it is not the man whose senses are blunt who
makes the sternest ascetic. All his actions sprang from the
fervour of his love for God; it was this that moulded his mind
and character. He was in the truest sense a contemplative.

Dante Alighieri recognized this quality in him. The poet
spent some time at Fonte Avellana, and could not fail to imbibe
something of the spirit of its second founder. When, in the
Paradiso> Damian draws near to the poet as he beholds Jacob's
ladder, thronged with bright spirits, which stretches up from
Saturn, the latter says to him: *Io veggio ben Famor che tu
m'accene', and the saint later describes his life at Fonte Avel-
lana to Dante in the following words:

'. . . Quivi

al servigio di Dio mi fei si fermo
che pur con cibi di liquor d'ulivi
lievemente passava caldi e gieli,
contento nei pensier contemplativi.' 1

Commenting on Dante's remarks, J. P. Whitney said: 'Damian
is the type of the contemplative life which comes nearest to
God, and is therefore most useful to man. If we take this as the
centre of Damian's personality, all his activities and his writ-
ings fall into their proper place. Instead of accidental denun-
ciations of corruptions and evils, isolated comments on theo-
logical or clerical life, we have a coherent whole, a full ex-
pression of a well-ordered personality. If to most people he is
merely an ascetic, and a prophet of asceticism, he himself
valued the ascetic life as a help to contemplation, and as
necessary to ensure its perfection.'

But the best answer to the critics is Damian's own. At the
beginning of the eighth chapter of the De Perfections Mona-
1 Dante, Diviw Commedia, Paradiso, Canto xxi,

chorum> he defines the purpose of the monastic life: 'Our whole
new way of life and our renunciation of the world has but one
end: rest. But a man can only come to this state of rest if he
stretches his sinews in many labours and strivings, so that
when all the clamour and disturbance is at an end the soul may
be lifted up by the grace of contemplation to search for the
very face of truth.' Who serves God, he asks, that he may
endure toil and hardship and suffer temptation? All who seek
God do so with one hope and expectation: that they may find
rest, and sleep in the joys of contemplation as though in the
arms of the lovely Rachel.

This, then, is the end of the religious life. For although
Damian does not regard the grace of contemplation as the sole
prerogative of those living the monastic life, he believes that
it is most surely attained in the cloister. Men, like the children
of Israel long ago, must go forth into the desert if they are to
see the pillar of light which is Christ; and the body of monks
has this in common with the wandering Hebrews. So he writes
to the monks of Cluny: c As a fiery light shone in the night's
darkness upon those wandering in the desert, so those who
dwell in spiritual monasteries are often lightened by the rays
of a supernal light, which dispels the darkness of fleshly
passions and bathes them in the brilliance of inward contem-
plation.' 1 The parallel is carried still further in his thought.
For him, those who literally choose the desert, who seek the
solitude of the hermitage, are putting themselves even more
surely in the way of such grace than their cenobitic brethren.
He believes that of all forms of religious life the eremitic is the
most perfect; even when he praises the spirituality of Cluny,
it is because its monks might almost be hermits. The contem-
plative must be a solitary at least in spirit; Damian holds, with
Catherine of Siena, that knowledge of the Godhead does not
come *senza 1'abitatione della cella del cuore e dell' anima
nostra'.

In what did contemplation consist for Peter Damian ? Like
all other great mystics, he desired union with God. The con-
1 Epistohe lib. vi, 5. P.L. 144, 381.
28

templative life has been described in the following words:
'The mystics' claim has been expressed by the Christian mystics
as "the experimental perception of God's presence and being"
and especially "union with God" a union, that is to say, not
merely psychological, in conforming the will to God's will, but,
it may be said, ontological, of the soul with God, spirit with
spirit. And they declare that the experience is a momentary
foretaste of the bliss of Heaven.' 1

Certainly Damian believed that the holy man can see his
Creator while still in the body of this death, and that he can be
mystically united to Him in spiritual wedlock. He says so quite
clearly in a letter to Desiderius: 'Holy men are able to look
even now upon their Creator by the grace of contemplation/
He goes on to say that this glimpse of God is necessarily in-
complete, but this does not make the statement any the less
striking in itself. Again, writing to his beloved Empress Agnes,
he speaks of the mystical marriage of contemplation, and prays
that its grace may be vouchsafed to her: 'May Christ hold con-
verse with you; may he be your comrade and your guest . .
may he clasp you in his virginal embrace, so that in you also
the words of Isaiah may be fulfilled: "As the bridegroom
rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee."
Secure in his embraces may you sweetly rest, so that He may
offer as if to Himself a haven of inward peace Who vouchsafed
to suffer shipwreck for you amid the rising storms of this
world/

Like his predecessors, Damian makes use of many analogies
in an endeavour to describe the contemplative state; like them
too, he has recourse above all to two images. The first and
most frequent is that of light. That which the mystic beholds
in contemplation he calls, in various places, 'the light of
eternity', 'the light of contemplation', 'the heavenly light', 'the
splendour of inward contemplation'. He is illumined 'by the
shining rays of the Divine light'. This is the language of the
early western contemplatives; he makes no mention of rays of
Divine darkness or dark nights of the soul, but is true to
1 Cuthbert Butler, Western Mysticism, prologue.
2 9

the tradition of what has been called Benedictine asceticism.
His second analogy has an equally long and distinguished
history. By it, the contemplative state is described as a spiritual
marriage. Two examples will suffice as illustration. The first is
again addressed to the Empress Agnes: *It remains for you to
come to the innermost sweetness of your husband (Christ), to
that delightful union of conjoined spirits'; 1 the other comes
from a letter to a fellow-bishop: 'When any holy soul is truly
joined to its Redeemer by love, then it is united with Him as
if on the bridal couch in a bond of intimate delight.' 2

His words leave no doubt that for him the vision of God is
the aim of the ascetic life. But he does not claim that this vision
is enjoyed by the contemplative still imprisoned in the bonds
of the flesh in exactly the same manner as it is by the blessed in
Heaven. Something is inevitably lacking; a magnum aliquid, as
he described it to Desiderius, to which man's spirit cannot
aspire while it remains within the corruptible body. In an
admirable and striking passage he compares the soul to a flying-
fish; with the aid of the wings of virtue it leaps from the con-
fining waters into the heavenly air of contemplation, yet must
of its nature always fall back into the sea of everyday human
life.

It must be stressed that Damian did not regard contempla-
tion as the prerogative of the intellectual. It was not an eso-
teric science, though it demanded discipline and method, but a
way of life as accessible to the simple and unlettered as to the
scholar: 'There are some simple brethren who do not know
the meaning of contemplation, and therefore cannot exert
themselves in spiritual studies; but when they make them-
selves utterly dead to the world, and strive to wear themselves
out in labours for obedience' sake, and long in all things to
obey their superiors they obtain a place very near to God.' 3
Indeed, mere worldly learning could be a hindrance rather than
a help to contemplation; certainly it was not essential. 'Who

1 opusc. 56, 6. P.L. 145, 815.

2 Epistolae lib. iv, 16. PX. 144, 333.
8 Epistolae lib. ii, 12. P,L. 144, 280.


lights a lantern that he may seen the sun, or candles that he
may behold the glory of the stars ?' 2 asks Damian.

Contemplation, then, is the visio Dei here on earth; it is the
beholding of the face of truth, albeit imperfectly; it is attain-
able by all who desire it and strive for it; its root is love of
God, its stem the mortification of flesh and spirit, its fruit the
sweetness of the mystic union, its flower an all-embracing
charity. But although he maintains that it can be granted to
anyone, Damian never fails to remind us that it is a charisma,
a grace freely given, bestowed or withheld by God as He sees
fit. He speaks always of "the grace of contemplation', of 'the
things which it was given to me to behold'. Here is no Pelagian
reliance on the will and power of man; the ascetic must strive,
but he must also pray. Contemplation is a gift, not a virtue.

The preparations which the would-be contemplative must
make, the spiritual journey to that point from which he may
see, by God's grace, those things which eye has not seen, nor
ear heard and which the heart of man cannot conceive, are
described by Damian in the form of an analogy dear to all
mystical writers from St. Augustine onwards; that of the two
wives of Jacob, Leah and Rachel. He divides his comparison
into three sections. The first, represented by the first of
Jacob's periods of bondage to Laban, is the first rung of the
contemplative ladder, the destruction of vice by means of
obedience to the commandments of the Old Law; this is what
ascetical theologians describe as the purgative stage. He who
passes through it successfully hopes to come at once to the
delights of contemplation; but this cannot be. Instead of the
lovely Rachel, he must marry her elder sister Tor in the dark-
ness of human ignorance we are enjoined to be patient in
labour*. The second stage, represented by the second period of
Jacob's servitude, consists in the implanting of virtues; the
monk passes from a slavish obedience to the precepts of the
Decalogue to a free adherence to the counsels of the New
Testament; for perseverance in good works must be estab-
lished before the repose of contemplation can be granted. At

2 Opusc* 45, 8. P.L. 145, 701-2.


last, after years of toil and weariness, Jacob wins Rachel; the
seeker after God is given the grace of contemplation. But he
cannot rest there in peace. Rachel is beautiful but barren; and
like Jacob the monk must continue to be fruitful in good
works. Damian makes this point even clearer when he com-
pares the contemplative to Moses going in and out of the
Temple of the Covenant: *He goes in and out of the temple to
show us that he who is inwardly rapt in contemplation is often
outwardly troubled by the affairs of the needy; within he con-
templates the hidden things of God, but outwardly he bears
the burdens of carnal things.' 1

But how far were his teachings based upon personal ex-
perience ? To those who have some knowledge of his writings
there can be no doubt that Peter Damian was a true contem-
plative. As Dom Leclercq says: 'The fervour and beauty and
freshness of his language are certain indications of personal
experience.' 2 It was the vision of God that he sought and found
in the rocky solitude of Fonte Avellana. 'I longed to cleave
with all my heart to the everlasting light. My heart then, as It
seemed, was made of wax, as that of the Lord's prophet was of
flesh; and it melted in flame under the breath of heavenly
desire, and my sorrowing countenance was often watered by
rich tears. ... I often beheld, by an immediate perception of
my mind, Christ hanging from the cross, fastened with nails,
and thirstily received His dripping blood in my mouth. But if
I were to attempt to tell you of the heights of contemplation
which were vouchsafed to me, both of our Redeemer's most
sacred humanity and of the indescribable glory of Heaven, the
day would be at an end before I had finished.' 3

It was because the burdens and racketings of life outside the
monastery, even of ecclesiastical life, shattered the spiritual
quiet so necessary to the pursuit of contemplation that Damian
partook with reluctance in the ecclesiastical politics of his day.
He was forced to accept the cardinalate thrust upon him by

1 Epistolae lib. ii, 12. P.L. 144, 282.

2 J. Leclercq, Contemplation' in Dictionnaire de Spirituality t.H
8 Opusf. 19. P.L. 145, 432.


Stephen IX, but he spent the ten years after the latter's death
in trying to rid himself of his episcopal burden. He went on
papal legations when the good of the Church demanded it; he
attended many of the important synods held by Leo IX,
Nicholas II and Alexander II, but he paid the price in the loss
of that tranquillity which he so greatly prized as a means to con-
templation, and did not hesitate to point this out to those who
charged him with the affairs of the Church. It was perhaps for
this reason that the glimpses which Damian gives us of those
moments of grace when he was rapt in contemplation are rare.
But he has a great deal to say about the long and arduous
preparation for the mystical life, chiefly in the letters and
sermons addressed to his monks, and his ascetical teaching was
a vital factor in the life of his own and later generations.

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