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WE must now speak of the renunciations, of which tradition and the
authority of Holy Scripture show us three, and which every one of us ought
with the utmost zeal to make complete. The first is that by which as far as
the body is concerned we make light of all the wealth and goods of this
world; the second, that by which we reject the fashions and vices and
former affections of soul and flesh; the third, that by which we detach our
soul from all present and visible things, and contemplate only things to
come, and set our heart on what is invisible. And we read that the Lord
charged Abraham to do all these. three at once, when He said to him "Get
thee out from thy country, and thy kinsfolk, and thy father's house."
First He said "from thy country," i.e., from the goods of this world, and
earthly riches: secondly, "from thy kinsfolk," i.e., from this former life
and habits and sins, which cling to us from our very birth and are joined
to us as it were by ties of affinity and kinship: thirdly, "from thy
father's house," i.e., from all the recollection of this world, which the
sight of the eyes can afford. For of the two fathers, i.e., of the one who
is to be forsaken, and of the one who is to be sought, David thus speaks in
the person of God: "Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine
ear: forget also thine own people and thy father's house:" for the
person who says "Hearken, O daughter," is certainly a Father; and yet he
bears witness that the one, whose house and people he urges should be
forgotten, is none the less father of his daughter. And this happens when
being dead with Christ to the rudiments of this world, we no longer, as the
Apostle says, regard "the things which are seen, but those which are not
seen, for the things which are not seen are eternal," and going forth in
heart from this temporal and visible home, turn our eyes and heart towards
that in which we are to remain for ever. And this we shall succeed in doing
when, while we walk in the flesh, we are no longer at war with the Lord
according to the flesh, proclaiming in deed and actions the truth of that
saying of the blessed Apostle "Our conversation is in heaven." To these
three sorts of renunciations the three books of Solomon suitably
correspond. For Proverbs answers to the first renunciation, as in it the
desires for carnal things and earthly sins are repressed; to the second
Ecclesiastes corresponds, as there everything which is done under the sun
is declared to be vanity; to the third the Song of Songs, in which the soul
soaring above all things visible, is actually joined to the word of God by
the contemplation of heavenly things.
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