16 Foolishness of the Body There is no remembrance with us of former days, neither of the days that shall be will there be any remembrance among them that shall come after. I, the Preacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem, and I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom concerning all that is done under heaven: this sore travail hath God given to the sons of men to be exercised withal. I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit. The crooked cannot be made straight and that which is wanting cannot be number'd. I communed with mine own heart, saying, Lo, I have gotten me great wisdom above all that were before me in Jerusalem: yea my heart had great experience of wisdom and knowledge. And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit, for In much wisdom is much grief, and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. Have we not then found . . a narrow path [of thought] which promises to lead us and our argument to the conclusion that while we are in the body, and while the soul is contaminated with its evils, our desire will never be thoroughly satisfied: and our desire, we say, is of the Truth. For thousand-fold are the troubles that the body gives us. . . It fills us full of loves, and lusts and fears, with all kinds of delusions and rank nonsense; and in very truth, as men say, it so disposes us The Quest that we cannot think wisely at all, never a whit. Nay, all wars, factions, and fighting have no other origin than this same body and its lusts. . . We must set the soul free of it; we must behold things as they are, and then, belike, we shall attain the wisdom that we desire, and of which we say we are lovers: not while we live but after death, as the argument shows; . . For then and not till then will the soul be parted from the body, and exist in herself alone. . . And thus having got rid of the foolishness of the body we shall, it would seem, be pure and hold converse with the pure, and shall in our own selves have complete knowledge of the Incorruptible, which is, I take it, no other than the very Truth. 17 O FRIEND, hope in Him while thou livest, For in life is thy release. If thy bonds be not broken while thou livest, It is but an empty dream that the soul must pass intc Because it hath passed from the body. If He is found now, He is found then : If not, we go but to dwell in the city of Death. If thou hast union now, thou shalt have it hereafter. Bathe in the Truth: know the true Master: Have faith in the true Name. Kabir saith: It is the spirit of the quest that helpeth. The Eremite 18 MY home The shimmery-bounded glare, To wander trembling-weak, For friend The dazzling breathing dream, 19 BENEATH the canopy of the skies roam I night and day: No sickness troubleth me nor silent pain tormenteth ; I come to Thee at last, driven from every threshold ; Drunk tho' we be with pleasure, Thou art our Faith; Whether we be Nazarenes, Mussalmans or Gebres, 20 Retirement the Great regrets his BEING upon a certain day overburdened with the Pope trouble of worldly business, in which men are oftentimes Gregory enforced to do more than of very duty they are bound, I retired to a solitary place congenial to grief, where monastic whatever it was in my affairs that was giving me discon- life. tent might plainly reveal itself, and all the things that were wont to inflict me with sorrow might come together and freely present themselves to my sight: And in that place, after that I had sat a long while in silence and great affliction, my very dear son Peter the deacon joined me, who since the flower of his early youth had been attached to me by close friendship and companionship in the study of the sacred books. He, when he saw me overwhelmed in heaviness and languor of heart, questioned me, saying: 'What is the matter? or what bad news have you heard? for some unusual grief plainly possesses you.' To whom I answered: O Peter, the grief that I daily endure is with me both old and new old through long use, and new by continual increase. And truth it is that my unhappy soul, wounded with worldly business, is now calling to mind in what state it once was when I dwelt in my monastery; how then it was superior to all transitory matters, and how it would soar far above things corruptible: How it was accustomed to think only of heavenly things, and tho' enclosed in mortal body would yet by contemplation pass beyond its fleshly bars: while as for death, which is to almost all men a punishment, that did it love, and would consider as the entrance to life, and the reward of its toil. But now by reason of my Retirement : pastoral charge my poor soul must engage in the businesses of worldly men; and after so fair a promise of rest it is defiled in the dust of earthly occupations: and when through much ministering to others it spendeth itself on outward distractions, it cannot but return impaired unto those inward and spiritual things for which it longeth. Now therefore I am meditating on what I suffer; I weigh what I have lost and when I think of that loss my condition is the more intolerable. For do but look how the ship of my mind is tossed by the waves and tempest, and how I am battered in the storm. Nay, when I recollect my former life, I sigh as one who turneth back his eyes to a forsaken shore. And what grieveth me yet more is that as I am borne ever onward by the disturbance of these endless billows, I almost lose sight of the port which I left. For thus it is that the mind lapseth first it is faithless to the good which it held, tho' it may still remember that it hath forsaken it: then when it hath further strayed, it even forgetteth that good until it cometh at length to such a pass that it cannot so much as behold in memory what before it had actively practised: All behaveth according to my picture: we are carried so far out to sea that we lose sight of the quiet haven whence we set forth. And not seldom is the measure of my sorrow increased by remembrance of the lives of some who with their whole heart relinquished this present world. Whose high perfection when I behold, I recognise how low I lie fallen: for many of them did in a very retired life please their Maker, and lest by contact with human affairs they should decay from their freshness, almighty God allowed not that they should be harassed by the labours of this world.' : |