John Donne - Delphi Poets Series

by John Donne

  I intended not to speak of his actual impenitence or of his repentance, but only to observe to you that this last act is not imputed to him, nor is repentance said to be precluded by it.

  8. Nobody denies the passive action of Eleazar, but they hold that the endangering of himself was an act of virtue. Still it was a forsaking and exposing of himself to certain destruction (I Macc. 6:43-46). For every elephant had thirty-two men on him and was guarded by 1,000 foot- soldiers and 500 horsemen; the elephant he slew was in his opinion the king’s and therefore the better provided. Even if prior to killing the elephant he hoped to escape, his creeping under it was a direct killing of himself, as expressly as Samson’s pulling down the house. The reasons for this action are rendered in the text to have been to deliver his people and to earn a perpetual name.

  Saint Ambrose extols this act by many glorious circumstances; for instance, “That he flung away his shield, which might have sheltered him, so that, despising death, he forced his way into the midst of the army.” Also, “Being hemmed in rather than overwhelmed by catastrophe, he was buried in his triumph.” Again, “By death he begat peace as the heir of his valor.”

  Very many scholastics have stretched and exercised their wits in praise of this action. Cajetan gives a reason for it that as is applicable to very many self-homicides: “To expose ourselves to certain death, if our first aim is not our own death but the common good, is lawful. For,” he says, “our actions that may be morally good or bad must be judged to be such by the reason that first motivates them, not by any accident, concomitance, accompaniment, or succeeding of them, although necessarily.” This decision of Cajetan’s will include many cases and instances that are condemned headlongly by intemperate censures.

  9. The fall of Razis, our last example, is reported as follows. “He was beseiged and set afire. Willing to die manfully and to escape reproach that would be unworthy of his house, he fell upon his sword. In haste, he missed his first stroke and threw himself from the castle wall. Still, he got up again and ran to a high rock, took out his own bowels, and threw them among the people, calling upon the Lord of life and spirit. So he died” (II Macc. 14:41-46 excerpted).

  This act the text does not accuse. Saint Thomas Aquinas accuses it of nothing except cowardliness, which Aristotle also imputes to this manner of dying, as we said before. Either Aquinas then spoke serviceably and advantageously to the point that he had in hand, or else he spoke for the most part, because for the most part infirmities provoke men to this act.

  Saint Augustine, who argued as earnestly as Aristotle that this act is not one of greatness of mind, confesses that it was just that in Cleombrotus who, simply upon reading Plato’s Phaedo, killed himself. Said Augustine, “When no calamity urged him, no crime either true or imputed, nothing but greatness of mind moved him to apprehend death and to break the sweet bands of this life.” To be sure, he added that “It was done rather greatly than well.” But we now are seeking only the concession that sometimes there is in this act greatness and courage. What moved Aristotle and all the rest to be loath to cite too many cases was to quench in men their natural love of self-homicide.

  For Augustine says, “Except for Lucrecia, it is not easy to find any example worth prescribing or imitating—except Cato, not only because he did it but because, being reputed learned and honest, men might justly think that what he did was well done and might well be done again.” For all this, he is loath to let Cato’s act pass with much approbation, for he adds, “Yet many of his learned friends thought it a weakness to let him die thus.” He adds it because, when men have before them the precedent of a brave example, they do not ask further than what he did—not why he did it.

  It is truly said, “Examples do not stop, nor do they consist in the degree where they began, but they grow, and no man thinks that what has profited another is unworthy for himself.” Saint Augustine, for this reason loath to give glory to many examples, still allows all greatness and praise to Regulus, of whom we spoke before—even though, to my understanding, there are in this example many impressions of falsehood and of ostentation, from all of which Cato’s story is free.

  To conclude this point, whether it is always done from cowardliness, Diogenes Laertius says that “Antisthenes the philosopher seemed to show more weakness in that, lying extremely sick, and Diogenes asking him if he lacked a friend (meaning to kill him) and also offering his dagger to do it himself, the philosopher said he desired an end of pain but not of life.”

  Since the self-homicide of Razis may have proceeded from greatness, Nicholas of Lyra excused it from all sin, by reasons that are applicable to many others. He says, “Either to escape torment, by which a man might probably be seduced to idolatry, or to take away the occasion of making others reproach God in him, a man may kill himself, for both of these cases are ordained by God.” Francisco de Vitoria allows this as the more probable opinion. Soto and Valencia follow Aquinas’s opinion. Paul of Burgos condemns it on the presumption that he could not do it for the love of the common good, because the act could not redeem his people who were already captive. Paul of Burgos’s accusing him helps our case in that, if by his death he could have redeemed them, he might lawfully have done it.

  CONCLUSION

  This is as far as I allowed my discourse to progress in this way, forbidding it earnestly all dark and dangerous withdrawals and diversions into points of our free will and God’s destiny. Still, allowing many ordinary contingencies to be under choice, it may seem reasonable that our main periods—of birth, death, and major alterations—in this life are more immediately worked upon by God’s determination. It is usefully said and applicable to good purpose (although by a wicked man, Muhammad, with the intention of crossing Moses) that “Man was made of shadow and the devil of fire.” For as shadow is not darkness but grosser light, so is man’s understanding in these mysteries not blind but clouded. As fire does not always give light (for fire is accidental and must have air to work upon) but burns naturally, so the desire of knowledge that the devil kindles in us—he as willingly bellows to inflame a heart curious of knowledge as he brings more ashes to stupify and bury deeper a slumbering understanding—does not always give us light. But fire always burns us and imprints upon our judgment stigmatic marks, and at least it sears up our conscience.

  If the reasons that differ from me and my reasons are otherwise equal, still theirs have this disadvantage; they fight with themselves and suffer a civil war of contradiction. For many of their reasons incline us to a love of this life and a horror of death, and yet they say often that we are by nature too much addicted to all that. It is well noted by Alcuin (I think from Saint Augustine) that “Although there are four things that we must love, yet there is no precept given concerning more than two, God and our neighbor.” Thus the others, which concern loving ourselves, may be omitted on some occasions.

  Enough has been occasionally inserted above concerning the benefits of death. Having presented Cyprian’s encouragement to it—who out of a contemplation that the whole frame of the world decayed and languished, cries to us, “The walls and the roof shake, and would you not go out? You are tired in a pilgrimage, and would you not go home?”—I shall end by applying to death, which deserves it better, Ausonius’s thanks to the emperor, “You provide that your benefits and the good that you bring shall not be transitory and that the ills from which you deliver us shall never return.” So, because death has a little bitterness, but medicinally, and a little alloy, but to make it more useful, they would utterly decline and avert our nature from it.

  Paracelsus says of that foul, contagious disease [i e., syphilis] that then had invaded mankind in a few places and has since overflowed into all places, God first inflicted that disease for the punishment of general licentiousness, and when the disease would not reduce us he sent a second and worse affliction, ignorant and torturing physicians. I may say the same of this case, that in punishment of Adam’s sin God cast upon us an infectious death, and since then
he has sent us a worse plague of men who accompany death with so much horror and fright that it can hardly be made wholesome and agreeable to us. They teach with too much liberty what Hippocrates admitted in cases of much profit and little danger, “Worse meat may be given to a patient, if it is pleasanter, and worse drink, if it is more acceptable.”

  I thought it needful to oppose this antidote—as much to encourage men toward a just contempt of this life and to restore them to their nature, which is a desire of supreme happiness in the next life through the loss of this one, as to rectify and wash again the frame of those who, religiously assuring themselves that in cases when we are destitute of other means, we might be to ourselves the stewards of God’s benefits and the ministers of his merciful justice.

  These persons, being innocent within themselves, as Ennodius said, had incurred injury of opinion. Still, as I said before, I abstained intentionally from extending this discourse to particular rules or instances, both because I dare not profess myself a master in so curious a science and because the limits of the subject are obscure, steep, slippery, and narrow, and also because every error is deadly, except where a competent diligence has been employed and a mistake of our conscience may provide an excuse.

  The curing of diseases by touch or by charms is forbidden by various laws, even though one excellent surgeon (Paracelsus) and one excellent philosopher (Pomponazzi) are of the opinion that it may be done—because man, who is all, is capable of whatever virtue the heavens infuse into any creature, and, being sustained when that virtue is exacted, may receive a similar impression or may give it to a word or character made at that instant. Although this curing is forbidden by various laws, because of a just prejudice that vulgar owners of such a virtue would misuse it, still none objects that the kings of England and France should cure one sickness by such a means, nor that the kings of Spain should exorcise demon-possessed persons in this way, because kings are justly presumed to use all their power to the glory of God. So it is fitting that this privilege of which we speak should be contracted and restrained.

  That is certainly true of what Cassian says of a lie, “It has the nature of [the herb] hellebore, wholesome in desperate diseases but otherwise poison,” although I do not agree with him that, “We are in desperate diseases whenever we are in a state of great wealth or injury, and in humility to the shunning of vainglory.” However, if Cassian mistakes that and we this, yet as he, Origen, Chrysostom, and Jerome are excused for following Plato’s opinion that a lie might have the nature of medicine and be allowed in many cases (because in their time the church had not declared herself in that point nor pronounced that a lie was naturally evil), by the same reason I am excusable in this paradox.

  If prejudice or contempt for my weakness or misdevotion has blocked any against the reasons for my case and against charity, such that they have not been pleased to taste and digest them, I must leave them to their drowsiness and bid them enjoy the favor of that indulgent physician, “Let him who cannot digest food sleep.”

  PSEUDO-MARTYR

  This 1610 polemical tract argues that English Roman Catholics should take the Oath of Allegiance of James I of England. Donne had converted from Catholicism, but had not moved decisively into the Protestant camp. From 1604 he was involved in controversial theology as an onlooker, assisting his friend Thomas Morton in a reply to James Anderton, commissioned by Richard Bancroft. In publishing this work, Donne entered directly into one of the major debates of the period, supporting Sir Edward Coke against the Jesuit Robert Parsons. Pseudo-Martyr launched Donne’s career in the Church of England, establishing his name as one of the prominent religious thinkers of the time.

  With regret, no transcription of the text is available in the public domain, so the text cannot appear in this eBook. However, readers can access an original publication of the text for free via this weblink.

  The original frontispiece

  IGNATIUS HIS CONCLAVE

  This 1611 work satirises the Jesuits and concerns the story of St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, who is portrayed as being in Hell: The text’s purpose is to mock Jesuit evangelism by making references to many scientists of the day, including Copernicus, Kepler, Brahe and Galileo.

  IGNATIUS HIS CONCLAVE

  In the twinckling of an eye, I saw all the roomes in Hell open to my sight. And by the benefit of certain spectacles, I know not of what making, but, I thinke, of the same, by which Gregory the great, and Beda did discerne so distinctly the soules of their friends, when they were discharged from their bodies, and sometimes the soules of such men as they knew not by sight, and of some that were never in the world, and yet they could distinguish them flying into Heaven, or conversing with living men, I saw all the channels in the bowels of the Earth; and all the inhabitants of all nations, and of all ages were suddenly made familiar to me. I thinke truely, Robert Aquinas when he tooke Christs long Oration, as he hung upon the Crosse, did use some such instrument as this, but applied to the eare: And so I thinke did he, which dedicated to Adrian 6, that Sermon which Christ made in prayse of his father Joseph: for else how did they heare that, which none but they ever heard? As for the Suburbs of Hel (I meane both Limbo and Purgatory) I must confesse I passed them over so negligently, that I saw them not: and I was hungerly caned, to find new places, never discovered before. For Purgatory did not seeme worthy to me of much diligence, because it may seeme already to have beene beleeved by some persons, in some corners of the Romane Church, for about 50 yeares; that is, ever since the Councell of Trent had a minde to fulfill the prophecies of Homer, Virgil, and the other Patriarkes of the Papists; and beeing not satisfied with making one Transubstantiation, purposed to bring in another: which is, to change fables into Articles of faith. Proceeding therefore to more inward places, I saw a secret place, where there were not many, beside Lucifer himselfe; to which, onely they had title, which had so attempted any innovation in this life, that they gave an affront to all antiquitie, and induced doubts, and anxieties, and scruples, and after, a libertie of beleeving what they would; at length established opinions, directly contrary to all established before. Of which place in Hell, Lucifer affoarded us heretofore some little knowledge, when more than 200 yeares since, in an Epistle written to the Cardinall S. Sexti, hee promised him a roome in his palace, in the remotest part of his eternall Chaos, which I take to bee this place. And here Pope Boniface 3, and Mahomet, seemed to contend about the highest roome. Hee gloried of having expelled an old Religion, and Mahomet of having brought in a new: each of them a great deluge to the world. But it is to be feared, that Mahomet will faile therein, both because hee attributed something to the old Testament, and because he used Sergius as his fellow-bishop, in making the Alcoran; whereas it was evident to the supreme Judge Lucifer, (for how could he be ignorant of that, which himselfe had put into the Popes mind?) that Boniface had not onely neglected, but destroyed the policy of the State of Israel, established in the old Testament, when he prepared Popes a way, to tread upon the neckes of Princes, but that he also abstained from all Example and Coadjutor, when he took upon him that newe Name, which Gregorie himselfe (a Pope neither very foolish, nor over-modest) ever abhord. Besides that, every day affoords new Advocates to Boniface his side. For since the Franciscans were almost worne out (of whome their General, Francis, had seene 6000 souldiers in one army, that is, in one chapter) which, because they were then but fresh souldiers, he saw assisted with 1800 Divels, the Jesuits have much recompenced those decayes and damages, who sometimes have maintained in their Tents 200000 schollers. For though the Order of Benedict have ever bene so fruitfull, that they say of it, That all the new Orders, which in later times have broken out, are but little springs, or drops, and that Order the Ocean, which hath sent out 52 Popes, 200 Cardinals, 1600 Archbishops, 4000 Bishops, and 50000 Saints approved by the Church, and therefore it cannot be denied, but that Boniface his part is much releeved by that Order; yet if they be compared to the Jesuits, or to the weake and unperfect
Types of them, the Franciscans, it is no great matter that they have done. Though therefore they esteeme Mahomet worthy of the name of an Innovator, & therein, perchance not much inferiour to Boniface, yet since his time, to ours, almost all which have followed his sect, have lived barren in an unanimity, and idle concord, and cannot boast that they have produced any new matter: whereas Boniface his successors, awakened by him, have ever beene fruitfull in bringing forth new sinnes, and new pardons, and idolatries, and King-killings. Though therefore it may religiously, and piously be beleeved, that Turkes, as well as Papists, come daily in troupes to the ordinary and common places of Hell; yet certainly to this more honourable roome, reserved for especiall Innovators, the Papists have more frequent accesse; and therefore Mahomet is out of hope to prevaile, and must imitate the Christian Emperours, and be content to sit (as yet hee doth) at the Popes feet. Now to this place, not onely such endeavour to come, as have innovated in matters, directly concerning the soule, but they also which have done so, either in the Arts, or in conversation, or in any thing which exerciseth the faculties of the soule, and may so provoke to quarrelsome and brawling controversies: For so the truth be lost, it is no matter how. But the gates are seldome opened, nor scarce oftener then once in an Age. But my destiny favoured mee so much, that I was present then, and saw all the pretenders, and all that affected an entrance, and Lucifer himselfe, who then came out into the outward chamber, to heare them pleade their owne Causes. As soone as the doore creekt, I spied a certaine Mathematitian, which till then had bene busied to finde, to deride, to detrude Ptolomey; and now with an erect countenance, and setled pace, came to the gates, and with hands and feet (scarce respecting Lucifer himselfe) beat the dores, and cried; “Are these shut against me, to whom all the Heavens were ever open, who was a Soule to the Earth, and gave it motion?”