Honey from poison, and health from wounds

Ever since I decided to translate The Spiritual Combat, I have acquired a deep respect for translators. I've been working on the thing for years, and I've only just reached halfway, if one reckons by the number of chapters. If one reckons instead by the number of pages, I'm not so sure.

I translated three more chapters of The Spiritual Combat today, and a quote from the first of the three struck me:

Esteeming such resolutions as though they were already fact, we grow prideful in a different way. Unwilling to endure a trifle or a tiny word to the contrary, we meditate a long time on our resolutions of suffering great punishments for the love of God, even the punishments of purgatory. Since our lower nature does not feel repugnance to this, as if it were a distant thing, as sorrowful creatures we convince ourselves that we have attained the level of those who patiently suffer great things.
(from Ch. 30)

This text could serve as a word of warning to many, many of us.

Take me, for example. I noticed in myself a long time ago that I have a tendency to imagine myself persecuted by others because of my Christianity. One day I realized how absurd it was to think that I am persecuted in this country; I have since endeavored to avoid this sentiment. (I would like to think that this weblog has never once indulged in such pretensions to persecution.)

Such an attitude distracts us from the real challenges facing the individual Christian. If you imagine yourself a martyr, go look at a recent entry on Elliot's site, or this earlier entry on my site, or even this one. Whatever reservations I may have about such people's politics, they put their faith on the line in a way that I have not. Would I, were I in their circumstances? I don't know. I did quit seminary, under circumstances that suggest to me that I have not yet met those standards.

Of course, Catholics acknowledge something called White Martyrdom, where no blood is spilled. Even by that measure, we Americans are a marvelously un-martyred bunch. The surest sign that Christians are not persecuted in this country may be the fact that so many of them seem to be afraid it will happen at any moment. From what I've read, the early Christians who did face persecution did not fear it, but embraced it as a gift; it allowed them to imitate Christ more closely.

Man, does that send shivers down one's spine.

In any case. Scupoli's remedy for such flights of fancy is one that won't sit well with our culture: self-esteem. This assertion may shock the reader; isn't self-esteem the order of the day in our culture? Well, yes, but not in the way that Scupoli means it! Scupoli's notion of esteem is a radical one: esteem yourself for what you really are:

You are nothing,
you know nothing,
you can do nothing,
and you have nothing
aside from sorrows and defects,
nor do you deserve anything apart from eternal damnation.
(from ch. 32)

Scupoli is not a model for contemporary notions of self-esteem; we have here no medieval monk who thinks he has found the way to avoid troubles, and enjoy peace in this life. Scupoli spent most of his clerical career (1585—1610) unable to celebrate the sacraments, because his order had suspended him for some now-unknown crime. He remained as a lay brother in the priestly order of which he was a member, and the suspension was lifted near the end of his life. While translating the Italian today, I wondered if Scupoli were recalling personal experiences as he wrote these words:

If you desire that this awareness of your malice and vileness keep your [spiritual] enemies far from you and render you dear to God, act so that you not only disdain yourself as unworthy of every good and meriting every evil, but so that you prefer to be disdained even by others, abhorring honors, enjoying their vituperations and making yourself avilable to perform all those tasks that others disdain. To avoid abandoning this holy practice, you must not value the opinions of others. I assume of course that you do this for the sole aim of lowering yourself for this exercise, rather than through a certain presumption of spirit and an unknown pride, for which you may beneath a good pretext hold little or no regard for the opinions of others.

These are the words not of a man who has figured out how to avoid disquiet and obtain enlightenment, but has struggled with them over a long period.

It is also fashionable today to imagine oneself a nonconformist. Many people make a show of disdaining others' opinions, looking down on others and considering their opinions worthy only of sneers and condemnation. I have met such people; they would not hesitate to deny this statement about themselves. They abound in academia, and I worry that I myself share this trait.

Scupoli's idea is the complete opposite: one should disdain others' opinions precisely because the only opinion worth worrying about is God's. Scupoli reminds us again and again that our opinions of ourselves are usually wrong, and contribute to self-delusion. For this reason, one should consider one's own opinion least valuable of all. I was reminded today of the words of so many saints as I read these chapters.

I will never tire of speaking to you of this. If you desire to praise God, accuse yourself and desire that others accuse you. Humble yourself with all and beneath all, if you wish to exalt him in you and yourself in him. Lower yourself again and again whenever you can; he will come find you and embrace you. The more that you make yourself vile in your own sight, and the more you take pleasure in being humiliated by all and rejected as an abominable thing, the more will he gather you up and and draw you more tenderly to himself with love.
...In this way can we extract honey from poison, and health from wounds.