There is a third kind of person different from those I have spoken about. They do not have such faults. They have virtue but they hold it within themselves in a low position and block it from growing by yielding submissively to a single man who indeed does not have as much virtue as they nor as much knowledge of virtue. But because by arrangements of the world or by classification based on age or by some degree which puts him above and in a rank superior to another, he involves himself almost unconsciously with this other person and subordinates his spirit to his own just as if a subordination should result from him. This happens more easily when the person who is established in authority has natural advantages caused by his spirit or by his human industriousness. For then someone who was already involved with him by other considerations, if he is just a little inclined by his nature to yield and is timid, he becomes completely submissive to the leadership and to all the opinions of the person to whom he was already submissive for so many reasons.
This is why in a society of men living together, when the man who leads the others is fortified by such qualities and in addition is somewhat superior naturally and dominant, all those who live under his leadership take easily all his opinions and they rule their lives based on them. This is the misfortune that the Son of God warned us about in the gospel when he said that one blind man leads another blind man and both of them fall into the pit, that is, into hell. For by these blind men he means the most excellent persons among the Jews in knowledge and virtue. They gave themselves the names of rabbis or teachers having taken titles of authority to distinguish themselves from all others who made a profession of living well and leading souls.
There is nothing in my opinion that does more harm to the first steps of a man with tendencies towards virtue and is stronger in preventing that it grow to its fullness. It is amazing if such an obstacle does not finally ruin a virtue that is just beginning, if it is true that someone who does not make his virtue grow diminishes it.
This is why in scripture the wise man (in Ecclesiastes) who knew perfectly all the detours of the soul and the smaller obstacles to virtue, urges us to ask God with great insistence for a director who can lead us in spirit and truth. For in that lies the great interest of a man who wishes to become truly virtuous and avoid all the obstacles that oppose him and that block the entrance to grace which is the seed of virtue and virtue itself.
For Christian virtue to take root in ourselves and to remain steadfast, it is necessary that it have nothing encircling it as is shown in the tree by means of which Scripture paints for us virtue and its fruits. Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
God, as I believe, by his inspiration has put you in my hands and by me into the hands of Antoine Arnauld, as to someone whom everyone considered being the most appropriate for you. My desire that you become an excellent Christian, in which alone resides divine virtue in its perfection, has caused me to make this digression in order to make you circumspect by the misfortune of those that I have seen almost perish before me in the middle of their youth and before dying.
(Saint-Cyran next gives his advice how to become an excellent Christian.)
Translated from the French by Daniel McNeill. The United States of the World, The End of All Beginnings, The Theater of the Impossible, books by Daniel McNeill, are for sale at:
amazon.com/author/graceisall
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