Chapter II.

Other things, hindrances equally of the soul, may have accompanied you as far as the prison gate, to which also your relatives may have attended you. There and thenceforth you were severed from the world; how much more from the ordinary course of worldly life and all its affairs! Nor let this separation from the world alarm you; for if we reflect that the world is more really the prison, we shall see that you have gone out of a prison rather than into one. The world has the greater darkness, blinding men’s hearts. The world imposes the more grievous fetters, binding men’s very souls.  The world breathes out the worst impurities—human lusts. The world contains the larger number of criminals, even the whole human race.  Then, last of all, it awaits the judgment, not of the proconsul, but of God. Wherefore, O blessed, you may regard yourselves as having been translated from a prison to, we may say, a place of safety. It is full of darkness, but ye yourselves are light; it has bonds, but God has made you free. Unpleasant exhalations are there, but ye are an odour of sweetness. The judge is daily looked for, but ye shall judge the judges themselves.  Sadness may be there for him who sighs for the world’s enjoyments. The Christian outside the prison has renounced the world, but in the prison he has renounced a prison too. It is of no consequence where you are in the world—you who are not of it. And if you have lost some of life’s sweets, it is the way of business to suffer present loss, that after gains may be the larger.  Thus far I say nothing of the rewards to which God invites the martyrs. Meanwhile let us compare the life of the world and of the prison, and see if the spirit does not gain more in the prison than the flesh loses. Nay, by the care of the Church and the love of the brethren,3    [Who ministered to their fellow-Christians in prison, for the testimony of Jesus. What follows is a sad picture of social life among heathens.] even the flesh does not lose there what is for its good, while the spirit obtains besides important advantages.  You have no occasion to look on strange gods, you do not run against their images; you have no part in heathen holidays, even by mere bodily mingling in them; you are not annoyed by the foul fumes of idolatrous solemnities; you are not pained by the noise of the public shows, nor by the atrocity or madness or immodesty of their celebrants; your eyes do not fall on stews and brothels; you are free from causes of offence, from temptations, from unholy reminiscences; you are free now from persecution too. The prison does the same service for the Christian which the desert did for the prophet.  Our Lord Himself spent much of His time in seclusion, that He might have greater liberty to pray, that He might be quit of the world. It was in a mountain solitude, too, He showed His glory to the disciples. Let us drop the name of prison; let us call it a place of retirement. Though the body is shut in, though the flesh is confined, all things are open to the spirit.  In spirit, then, roam abroad; in spirit walk about, not setting before you shady paths or long colonnades, but the way which leads to God. As often as in spirit your footsteps are there, so often you will not be in bonds.  The leg does not feel the chain when the mind is in the heavens. The mind compasses the whole man about, and whither it wills it carries him. But where thy heart shall be, there shall be thy treasure.4    Matt. vi. 21. Be there our heart, then, where we would have our treasure.

CAPUT II.

Caetera aeque animi impedimenta usque ad limen 0621B carceris deduxerint vos, quousque et parentes vestri. Exinde segragati est is ab ipso mundo, quanto magis a saeculo, rebusque ejus? Nec hoc vos consternet, 0622A quod segregati estis a mundo . Si enim recogitemus ipsum magis mundum carcerem esse, exisse vos e carcere, quam in carcerem introisse, intelligemus. Majores tenebras habet mundus, quae hominum praecordia excaecant. Graviores catenas induit mundus, quae ipsas animas hominum constringunt. Pejores immunditias exspirat mundus, libidines hominum. Plures postremo mundus reos continet, scilicet universum hominum genus. Judicia denique non proconsulis, sed Dei sustinet. Quo vos, benedicti, de carcere in custodiarium si forte translatos existimetis. Habet tenebras, sed lumen estis ipsi: habet vincula, sed vos soluti Deo estis. Triste illic exspirat, sed vos odor estis suavitatis; Judex exspectatur , sed vos estis de judicibus ipsis 0622B judicaturi (Sap. III). Contristetur illic, qui fructum saeculi suspirat. Christianus etiam extra carcerem saeculo renuntiavit, in carcere autem etiam carceri. 0623A Nihil interest, ubi sitis in saeculo, qui extra saeculum estis; et si aliqua amisistis vitae gaudia, negotiatio est aliquid amittere, ut majora lucreris. Nihil adhuc dico de praemio, ad quod Deus martyres invitat. Ipsam interim conversationem saeculi et carceris comparemus, si non plus in carcere spiritus acquirit quam caro amittit, imo et quae justa sunt caro non amittit per curam Ecclesiae, agapen fratrum: et insuper quae semper utilia fidei, spiritus adipiscitur. Non vides alienos deos, non imaginibus eorum incurris, non solemnes nationum dies ipsa commixtione participas, non nidoribus spurcis verberaris, non clamoribus spectaculorum, atrocitate, vel furore, vel impudicitia celebrantium caederis: non in loca libidinum publicarum oculi tui impingunt: vacas a scandalis, 0623B a tentationibus, a recordationibus malis, jam et a persecutione. Hoc praestat carcer christiano, quod eremus prophetis (Marc, I). Ipse Dominus in secessu frequentius agebat, ut liberius oraret, ut saeculo cederet (Luc, IV). Gloriam denique suam discipulis in solitudine demonstravit (Matth., XVII; Marc, IX; Luc, II; I Petri, 1). Auferamus carceris nomen, secessum vocemus. Etsi corpus includitur, etsi caro detinetur, omnia spiritui patent. Vagare spiritu, spatiare spiritu, et non stadia opaca aut porticus longas praeponens tibi, sed illam viam, quae ad Deum ducit. Quotiens eam spiritu deambulaveris, totiens in carcere non eris. Nihil crus sentit in nervo cum animus in coelo est. Totum hominem animus circumfert, et quo velit transfert (Matth., VI): 0623CUbi autem erit cor tuum, illic erit et thesaurus tuus. Ibi ergo sit cor nostrum, ubi volumus habere thesaurum.