The Four Last Things - by St Thomas More : Of Wrath

Sir Thomas More. Holbein the Younger (1527). Frick Collection.

The following posts reproduce the text and notes of an edition by D. O’Connor published in 1903 which is close to the English original of 1557. 

The 1903 footnotes are shown as [ ] and my own as [ ].

 

👈While outwardly he enjoyed a life of comfort, in the privacy of his spiritual life he wore a hair shirt, attended daily Mass, and practised a strict discipline of prayer. He is believed to have become a Third Order Franciscan (and indeed his name is listed in the calendar of Franciscan saints). This may be the significance of the cord shown. 

Sancte Thoma 

Ora pro nobis.

Of Wrath

Pride the root of wrath

Let us now somewhat see how this part of our medicine, that is to wit the remembrance of death, may cure us of the fierce rageous fever of wrath. For wrath is undoubtedly another daughter of pride. For albeit that wrath sometimes riseth upon a wrong done us, as harm to our person or loss in our goods, which is an occasion given us and often sudden, by reason whereof the sin is somewhat less grievous, the rule of reason being let[1] for the while by the sudden brunt of the injury, not forethought upon, coming upon us unprovided ; yet shall ye find that in them which have so turned an evil custom into nature that they seem now naturally disposed to wrath and waywardness ; the very root of that vice is pride. Although their manner and behaviour be such beside that folk would little ween[2] it. For go they never so simply, look they never so lowly, yet shall ye see them at every light occasion testy. They cannot abide one merry[3] word that toucheth them, they cannot bear in reasoning to be contraried, but they fret and fume if their opinion be not accepted, and their invention be not magnified.

Whereof riseth this waywardness? but of a secret root of setting much by[4] themselves, by which it goeth to their heart when they see any man less esteem them than they seem worthy to themselves.

Wilt thou also well perceive that the setting by ourself is more than half the weight of our wrath ? We shall prove it by them that would haply say nay. Take me one that reckoneth himself for worshipful, and look whether he shall not be much more wroth with one opprobrious and rebukeful word as “knave,” percase[5], or “beggar” (in which is no great slander) spoken to his face by one that he reckoneth but his match or far under him, than with the selfsame word spoken to him by one that he knoweth and knowledgeth[6] for a great deal his better.

Actions of trespass

We see this point confirmed by all the laws made among men, which laws for as much as the actions of trespass be given to revenge men, not of the wrongs only done unto them in their bodies or their goods, but also of their contumelies, griefs and despites[7], whereby they conceive any displeasure at heart, lest, in lack of law to do it for them, they should in following their irous[8] affection, revenge themselves immoderately with their own hands. The law, I say, considereth, pondereth and punisheth the trespasses done to every man, not only after the hurt that is done or loss that is taken, but and if it be such as the party grieved is like to be wroth withal, the punishment is aggrieved or minished, made less or more after the difference in degree of worship and reputation between the parties. And this is the provision of the laws almost in every country, and hath been afore Christ was born. By which it appeareth by a common consent that a man’s own estimation setting by himself, disdaining to take rebuke of one worse than himself, maketh his wrath the sorer.

For the assuaging whereof the law contenteth him with the larger punishment of his offender.

In Spain a dry blow.

And this so far forth that in Spain it is sorer taken and sorer punished if one giveth another a dry blow with his fist, than if he draw blood upon him with a sword. The cause is none other but the appeasing of his mind that is so stricken, forasmuch as commonly they take themselves for so very manly men that three strokes with a sword could not anger one of them so much as that it should appear that, by a blow given him with a bare hand, any man should so reckon him for a boy that he would not vouchsafe to draw any weapon at him.

Good anger

So that, as I said, it well appeareth by the common confession of the world, expressed and declared by their laws, that the point and readiness that men have to wax angry groweth of the secret pride by which we set over much by ourselves. And like as that kind of good anger that we call a good zeal, riseth of that we set, as we should do, so much by our Lord God that we cannot be but wroth with them whom we see set so little by Him that they let[9] not to break His high commandments, so riseth of much setting by ourselves that affection of anger, by which we be moved against them with ire and disdain that displease us, and show by their behaviour that they set less by us than our proud heart looketh for. By which, though we mark it not, yet indeed we reckon ourselves worthy more reverence than we do God Himself only.

I doubt not but men will say nay ; and I verily believe that they think nay; and the cause is for that we perceive not of what root the branches of our sins spring. But will ye see it proved that it is so? Look whether we be not more angry with our servants for a breach of one commandment of our own than for a breach of God’s all ten; and whether we be not more wroth with one contumelious or despiteful word spoken against ourselves than with many blasphemous words irreverently spoken of God. And could we, trow ye, be more moved with the minishing of our own worship than God’s, or look to have our own commandments better obeyed than God’s, if we did not indeed set more by ourselves than Him ?

The harms of wrath

And therefore this deadly sore of wrath, of which so much harm groweth, that maketh men unlike themselves, that maketh us like wood[10] wolves or furies of hell, that driveth us forth headlong upon sword points, that maketh us blindly run forth upon other men’s destruction with our own ruin, is but a cursed branch rising and springing out of the secret root of pride.

And like as it is in physic[11] a special thing necessary to know where and in what place of the body lieth the beginning and as it were the fountain of the sore from which the matter is always ministered unto the place where it appeareth (for, the fountain once stopped, the sore shall soon heal of itself, the matter failing that fed it, which continually resorting from the fountain to the place, men may well daily purge and cleanse the sore, but they shall hardly heal it) ; likewise, I say, fareth it by the sore of the soul : if we perceive once the root and dig up that, we be very sure the branches be surely gone. But while the root remaineth, while we cut off the branches, we let well the growing and keep it somewhat under ; but fail they may not always to spring again.

And therefore, sith this ungracious branch of wrath springeth out of the cursed root of pride, and setting much by ourself, so secretly lurking in our heart that unneth[12] we can perceive it ourselves, let us pull up well the root, and surely the branch of wrath shall soon wither away. For taken once away the setting by ourselves, we shall not greatly dote upon that we set little by.

So shall there of such humility, contempt and abjection of ourselves shortly follow in us, high estimation, honour and love of God and every other creature in order for His sake, as they shall appear more or less lief[13] unto Him.

And sith that by the destruction of pride followeth, as I have said, the destruction of wrath, we shall apply to the repression of wrath the self-same considerations in the remembrance of death that we before have shewed to serve to the repression of pride.

For who could be angry for the loss of goods if he well remembered how little while he should keep them, how soon death might take them from him ? Who could set so much by himself to take to heart a lewd rebukeful word spoken to his face, if he remembered himself to be, as he is, a poor prisoner damned to death, or so very wroth as we be now with some bodily hurt done us upon some one part of the body, if we deeply remembered that we be, as we be indeed, already laid in the cart carrying towards execution.

And if the wretchedness of our own estate nothing moved us – which, being such as it is, should if it were well pondered make us little regard the causes of our wrath, considering that all the while we live we be but in dying – yet might the state of him that we be wroth withal make us ashamed to be wroth. For who would not disdain to be wroth with a wretched prisoner, with him that is in the cart and in[14] the way to hanging, with him that were adying ? And of this would a man be the more ashamed if he considered in how much peril and jeopardy of himself his own life and his own soul is, while he striveth, chideth and fighteth with another, and that ofttimes for how very trifles ! First, shame were it for men to be wroth like women for fantasies and things of nought, [even] if there were no worse therein. And now shall ye see men fall at variance for kissing of the pax[15], or going before in procession or setting of their wives’ pews in the church. Doubt ye whether this wrath be pride ? I doubt not but wise men will agree that it is either foolish pride or proud folly.

How much is it now the more folly if we consider that we be but going in pilgrimage and have here no dwelling-place than to chide and fight for such follies by the way. How much more shame and folly is it yet when we be going together to our death, as we be indeed.

If we should see two men fighting together for very great things, yet would we reckon them both mad if they left not off when they should see a ramping lion coming on them both, ready to devour them both. Now when we see surely that the death is coming on us all, and shall undoubtedly within short space devour us all, and how soon we know not [at] all, is it not now more than madness to be wroth and bear malice one to another, and for the more part for as very trifles, as children should fall at variance for cherry stones, death coming, as I say, upon us, to devour us all ?

If these things, and such other as they, be very true, so they were well and deeply remembered, I little doubt that they would both abate the crooked branch of wrath and pull up from the bottom of the heart the cankered root of pride.

Footnotes

[1] Hindered.

[2] Think.

[3] Jocular, humorous, witty, teasing.

[4] Greatly esteeming.

[5] Perhaps.

[6] Acknowledges..

[7] Malice. [Ed. Action that shows contemptuous disregard; contemptuous treatment or behaviour; insulting action; OED].

[8] Angry.

[9] Withhold themselves.

[10] Wild.

[11] The practice of medicine.

[12] Scarcely..

[13] Dear.

[14] i.e., on.

[15] The pax or kiss of peace is given during Solemn High Mass after the recitation of the Agnus Dei. In ancient times it was given to every one present, but this was discontinued in the thirteenth century, under Pope Innocent III. A small instrument made of silver or of gold and bearing a representation of our Lord on the cross, was introduced and denominated the osculatorium, which all, even the celebrant, kissed at this part of Mass. Though once very common, this practice is now only kept up in a few religious houses.

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The Virgin of Tenderness. >12th century.

SUB tuum præsidium confugimus, Sancta Dei Genitrix. Nostras deprecationes ne despicias in necessitatibus, sed a periculis cunctis libera nos semper, Virgo gloriosa et benedicta. Amen. 

 

Totus tuus ego sum

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:

Ad Jesum per Mariam.

He that hearkeneth to me, shall not be confounded: and they that work by me, shall not sin. They that explain me shall have life everlasting. Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) xxiv. 30-31.30-31.

The Four Last Things - by St Thomas More : Of Envy

Sir Thomas More. Holbein the Younger (1527). Frick Collection.

The following posts reproduce the text and notes of an edition by D. O’Connor published in 1903 which is close to the English original of 1557. 

The 1903 footnotes are shown as [ ] and my own as [ ].

 

👈While outwardly he enjoyed a life of comfort, in the privacy of his spiritual life he wore a hair shirt, attended daily Mass, and practised a strict discipline of prayer. He is believed to have become a Third Order Franciscan (and indeed his name is listed in the calendar of Franciscan saints). This may be the significance of the cord shown. 

Sancte Thoma 

Ora pro nobis.

Of Envy

Now let us see what help we may have of this medicine against the sickness of envy, which is undoubtedly both a sore torment and a very consumption. For surely envy is such a torment that all the tyrants in Sicily never devised a sorer. 

The image of death

And it so drinketh by the moisture of the body and consumeth the good blood, so discoloureth the face, so defaceth the beauty, disfigureth the visage, leaving it all bony, lean, pale and wan, that a person well set awork with envy needeth none other image of death than his own face in a glass. This vice is not only devilish but also very foolish. For, albeit that envy, where it may hover, doth all the hurt it can, yet sith the worse most commonly envieth the better, and the feebler the stronger, it happeth for the more part that, as the fire of the burning hill of Etna burneth only itself, so doth the envious person fret, fume and burn in his own heart without ability or power to do the other hurt. And little marvel it is, though envy be an ungracious graft, for it cometh of an ungracious stock.

Envy the daughter of pride.

It is the first-begotten daughter of pride, gotten in incest by the devil, father of them both. For as soon as the devil had brought out his daughter pride, without wife, of his own body, like as the venomous spider bringeth forth her cobweb, when this poisoned daughter of his had holpen[1] him out of heaven, at the first sight Adam and Eve in paradise set in the way to such worship, the devil anon took his own unhappy daughter to wife, and upon pride begat envy ; by whose enticement he set upon our first parents in paradise and by pride supplanted them, and there gave them so great a fall by their own folly that unto this day all their posterity go crooked thereof. And therefore ever since envy goeth forth mourning at every man’s welfare, more sorry of another man’s wealth than glad of her own, of which she taketh no pleasure if other folk fare well with her. In so far forth that one Publius, a Roman, when he saw one Publius Mutius sad and heavy, whom he knew for an envious person. Surely, quoth he, either he hath a shrewd[2] turn himself or some man else [hath] a good turn, noting that his envious nature was as sorry of another man’s weal as of his own hurt.

A fable of Aesop of envy

I cannot here, albeit I nothing less intend than to meddle much with secular authors in this matter, yet can I not here hold my hand from the putting in remembrance of a certain fable of Aesop ; it expresseth so properly the nature, the affection and the reward of two capital vices, that is to wit, envy and covetise[3]. Aesop, therefore, as I think ye have heard, feigneth that one of the paynim[4] gods came down into earth, and finding together in a place two men, the one envious, the other covetous, shewed himself willing to give each of them a gift, but there should but one of them ask for them both ; but look, whatsoever that one that should ask would ask for himself, the other should have the self-same thing doubled. When this condition was offered, then began there some courtesy between the envious and the covetous whether of them should ask, for that would not the covetous be brought unto for nothing, because himself would have his fellow’s request doubled. And when the envious man saw that, he would provide that his fellow should have little good of the doubling of his petition. And forthwith he required for his part that he might have one of his eyes put out. By reason of which request the envious man lost one eye, and the covetous man lost both. 

Lo ! such is the wretched appetite of this cursed envy ready to run into the fire so he may draw his neighbour with him. Which envy is, as I have said, and as St Austin saith, the daughter of pride, in so far forth that, as this holy doctor saith, strangle the mother and thou destroyest the daughter. And therefore look what manner [of] consideration in the remembrance of death shall be medicinable against the pestilent swelling sore of pride, the self-same considerations be the next remedies against the venomous vice of envy. For whosoever envies another, it is for something whereof himself would be proud if he had it. Then if such considerations of death as we have before spoken of in the repressing of pride should make thee set neither much by those things, nor much the more by thyself for them, if thyself hadst them, it must needs follow that the self-same considerations shall leave thee little cause to envy the self-same things in any other man. For thou wouldst not for shame that men should think thee so mad to envy a poor soul for playing the lord one night in an interlude. And also couldst thou envy a perpetual sick man, a man that carrieth his death’s wound with him, a man that is but a prisoner damned[5] to death, a man that is in the cart already carrying forward ? For all these things are, as I think, made meetly[6] probable to thee before. It is also to be considered that, sith it is so that men commonly envy their betters, the remembrance of death should, of reason, be a great remedy thereof. For, I suppose, if there were one right far above thee, yet thou wouldst not greatly envy his estate, if thou thoughtest that thou mightest be his match the next week ; and why shouldst thou then envy him now, while thou seest that death may make you both matches the next night, and shall undoubtedly within few years? 

A similitude

If it so were that thou knewest a great duke[7] keeping so great estate and princely port in his house that thou, being a right mean man, hadst in thine heart great envy thereat, and specially at some special day in which he keepeth for the marriage of his child, a great honourable court above other times ; if thou being thereat, and at the sight of the royalty and honour shewed him of all the country about resorting to him, while they kneel and crouch to him, and at every word bareheaded begrace[8] him ; if thou shouldst suddenly be surely advertised that, for secret treason lately detected to the King, he should undoubtedly be taken the morrow, his court all broken up, his goods seized, his wife put out, his children disinherited, himself cast in prison, brought forth and arraigned, the matter out of question, and he should be condemned, his coat armour reversed, his gilt spurs hewn off his heels, himself hanged, drawn and quartered ; how thinkest thou by thy faith amid thine envy, shouldst thou not suddenly change into pity?

Surely so it is that if we considered everything aright, and esteemed it after the very nature, not after men’s false opinion, sith we be certain that death shall take away all that we envy any man for, and we be uncertain how soon, and yet very sure, that it shall not be long, we should never see cause to envy any man, but rather to pity every man, and those most that most hath to be envied for, sith they be those that shortly shall most lose.

Footnotes

[1] Helped.

[2] hurtful; dangerous, injurious. Obsolete.

[3] Avarice. Here, Inordinate or excessive desire for the acquisition and possession of wealth, etc.; esp. of possessing what belongs to another; = covetousness.1297–1652 : OED

[4] Pagan.

[5] Condemned.

[6] Properly.

[7] An allusion to the execution of the Duke of Buckingham on a charge of high treason in 1521.

[8] To address (a person) as ‘your grace’. (OED citing this very line).

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The Virgin of Tenderness. >12th century.

SUB tuum præsidium confugimus, Sancta Dei Genitrix. Nostras deprecationes ne despicias in necessitatibus, sed a periculis cunctis libera nos semper, Virgo gloriosa et benedicta. Amen. 

 

Totus tuus ego sum

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:

Ad Jesum per Mariam.

He that hearkeneth to me, shall not be confounded: and they that work by me, shall not sin. They that explain me shall have life everlasting. Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) xxiv. 30-31.30-31.

The Four Last Things - by St Thomas More : Of Pride (Pt 2)

Sir Thomas More. Holbein the Younger (1527). Frick Collection.

The following posts reproduce the text and notes of an edition by D. O’Connor published in 1903 which is close to the English original of 1557. 

The 1903 footnotes are shown as [ ] and my own as [ ].

 

👈While outwardly he enjoyed a life of comfort, in the privacy of his spiritual life he wore a hair shirt, attended daily Mass, and practised a strict discipline of prayer. He is believed to have become a Third Order Franciscan (and indeed his name is listed in the calendar of Franciscan saints). This may be the significance of the cord shown. 

Sancte Thoma 

Ora pro nobis.

Of Pride (Pt 2)

As for all other kinds of pride, rising of beauty, strength, wit or cunning, me thinketh that the remembrance of death may right easily mend it, sith that they be such things as shall shortly by death lose all their gloss, the owners wot [not how] near, how soon.

Hypocrites

And as lightly may there by the same consideration be cured the pride of these foolish proud hypocrites, which are yet more fools than they that plainly follow the ways of the world and pleasure of their body. For they, though they go to the devil therefor, yet somewhat they take therefor. 

Vainglory

These mad hypocrites be so mad that, where they sink in hell as deep as the other, yet in reward of all their pain taken in this world, they be content to take the vain praise of the people, a blast of wind of their mouths, which yet percase[1] praise them not, but call them as they be. And if they do [praise them], yet themselves hear it not often. And sure they be that within short time death shall stop their ears, and the clods cover all the mouths that praise them. Which if they well and advisedly considered, they would, I ween turn their appetites from the laud[2] of silly mortal men, and desire to deserve their thanks and commendation of God only, whose praise can never die.

Ambition.

Now the high mind of proud fortune, rule and authority, Lord God, how slight a thing it would seem to him that would often and deeply remember that death shall shortly take away all this royalty, and his glory shall, as Scripture saith, never walk with him into his grave[3], but he that overlooketh[4] every man, and no man may be so homely[5] [as] to come too near him, but thinketh that he doth much for them whom he vouchsafeth to take by the hand or beck upon[6], whom so many men dread and fear, so many wait upon – he shall within a few years, and only God knoweth within how few days, when death arresteth him, have his dainty body [turned] into stinking carrion, be borne out of his princely palace, laid in the ground and there left alone, where every lewd[7] lad will be bold to tread on his head. Would not, ween ye, the deep consideration of this sudden change, so surely to come and so shortly to come, withdraw the wind that puffeth us up in pride upon the solemn sight of worldly worship ? 

A stage play.

If thou shouldest perceive that one were earnestly proud of the wearing of a gay golden gown, while the lorel[8] playeth the lord in a stage play, wouldest thou not laugh at his folly, considering that thou art very sure that when the play is done he shall go walk a knave in his old coat? Now thou thinkest thyself wise enough, while thou art proud in thy player’s garment, and forgettest that, when thy play is done, thou shalt go forth as poor as he. Nor thou rememberest not that thy pageant may happen to be done as soon as his.

All prisoners.

We shall leave the examples of plays and players, which be too merry for this matter. I shall put thee a more earnest image of our condition, and that not a feigned similitude, but a very true fashion and figure of our worshipful estate. Mark this well, for of this thing we be very sure, that old and young, man and woman, rich and poor, prince and page, all the while we live in this world we be but prisoners, and be within a sure prison, out of which there can no man escape[9]. And in worse case be we than those that be taken and imprisoned for theft. For they, albeit their heart heavily harkeneth after the sessions, yet have they some hope either to break prison the while, or to escape there by favour, or after condemnation some hope of pardon. 

All condemned to death.

But we stand all in other plight; we be very sure that we be already condemned to death, some one, some other, none of us can tell what death we be condemned to, but surely can we all tell that die we shall. And clearly know we that of this death we get no manner of pardon. For the King, by whose high sentence we be condemned to die, would not of this death pardon His own Son. As for escaping, no man can look for [it]. The prison is large, and many prisoners in it, but the jailer can lose none ; he is so present in every place that we can creep into no corner out of his sight. For as holy David saith[10] to this jailer: “Whither shall I go from thy spirit, or whither shall I flee from Thy face ?” as who saith : No whither. There is no remedy therefore, but as condemned folk and remedyless in this prison of the earth we drive forth awhile, some bounden to a post, some wandering abroad, some in the dungeon, some in the upper ward, some building them bowers and making palaces in the prison, some weeping, some laughing, some labouring, some playing, some singing, some chiding, some fighting, no man almost remembering in what case he standeth till that suddenly, nothing less looking for, young, old, poor and rich, merry and sad, prince, page, pope and poor soul-priest, now one, now other, sometimes a great rabble at once, without order, without respect of age or of estate, all stripped stark naked and shifted out in a sheet, be put to death in divers wise in some corner of the same prison, and even there thrown in a hole, and either worms eat him underground or crows above. 

Builders.

Now come forth, ye proud prisoner, for I wis[11] ye be no better, look ye never so high, when ye build in the prison a palace for your blood, is it not a great royalty if it be well considered ? Ye build the tower of Babylon in a corner of the prison, and be very proud thereof, and sometimes the jailer beateth it down again with shame. Ye leave your lodging for your own blood, and the jailer, when ye be dead, setteth a strange prisoner in your building, and thrusteth your blood into some other cabin. 

Arms of ancestry. 

Ye be proud of the arms of your ancestors set up in the prison, and all your pride is because ye forget that it is a prison. For if ye took the matter aright, the place a prison, yourself a prisoner condemned to death, from which ye cannot escape, ye would reckon this gear as worshipful as if a gentleman thief, when he should go to Tyburn, would leave for a memorial the arms of his ancestors painted on a post in Newgate. Surely, I suppose that if we took not [the] true figure for a fantasy, but reckoned it, as it is indeed, the very express fashion and manner of all our estate, men would bear themselves not much higher in their hearts for any rule or authority that they bear in this world, which they may well perceive to be indeed no better but one prisoner bearing a rule among the remnant, as the tapster doth in the Marshalsea[12]; or, at the uttermost, one so put in trust with the jailer, that he is half an under-jailer over his fellows till the sheriff and the cart come for him.

Footnotes

[1] Perhaps. 

[2] Praise.

[3] Ps. xlviii. 18.

[4] looketh down on.

[5] familiar (i.e., show such familiarity).

[6] Nod to.

[7] Common, ordinary; of low social status. Also: ill-bred, ill-mannered, vulgar, uncouth. Obsolete.

[8] A worthless fellow.

[9] This passage derives a very deep interest from the reflection that the author of it was to spend fifteen months in the Tower and be thence led out to execution.

[10] Psalm cxxxviii. 7.

[11] I wis = iwis: Certainly, assuredly, indeed, truly. The writing with capital I, and separation of the two elements, have led later authors to understand and use it as equivalent to I wot, I know, as if a present of I wist. OED.

[12] Prison in Southwark.

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The Virgin of Tenderness. >12th century.

SUB tuum præsidium confugimus, Sancta Dei Genitrix. Nostras deprecationes ne despicias in necessitatibus, sed a periculis cunctis libera nos semper, Virgo gloriosa et benedicta. Amen. 

 

Totus tuus ego sum

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:

Ad Jesum per Mariam.

He that hearkeneth to me, shall not be confounded: and they that work by me, shall not sin. They that explain me shall have life everlasting. Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) xxiv. 30-31.30-31.

The Four Last Things - by St Thomas More : Of Pride (Pt 1)

Sir Thomas More. Holbein the Younger (1527). Frick Collection.

The following posts reproduce the text and notes of an edition by D. O’Connor published in 1903 which is close to the English original of 1557. 

The 1903 footnotes are shown as [ ] and my own as [ ].

 

👈While outwardly he enjoyed a life of comfort, in the privacy of his spiritual life he wore a hair shirt, attended daily Mass, and practised a strict discipline of prayer. He is believed to have become a Third Order Franciscan (and indeed his name is listed in the calendar of Franciscan saints). This may be the significance of the cord shown. 

Sancte Thoma 

Ora pro nobis.

Of Pride (Pt 1)

Now sith I have somewhat laid afore thy face the bodily pains of death, the troubles and vexations spiritual that come therewith by thy ghostly enemy the devil, the unrestful encumbrance of thy fleshly friends, the uncertainty of thyself how soon this dreadful time shall come, that thou art ever sick of that incurable sickness, by which, if none other come, thou shalt yet in few years undoubtedly die, and yet moreover that thou art already dying, and ever hast been since thou first begannest to live, let us now make some proof of this one part of our medicine, how the remembrance of death in this fashion considered in his kind will work with us to the preservation of our souls from every kind of sin, beginning at the sin that is the very head and root or all sins, that is to wit pride, the mischievous mother of all manner of vice. 

The children of pride

I have seen many vices ere this that at the first seemed far from pride, and yet, well considered to the uttermost, it would well appear that of that root they sprang. As for wrath and envy, [they] be the known children of pride, as rising of a high estimation of our self. But [what would] seem farther from pride than drunken gluttony ? And yet shall ye find more that drink themselves sow drunk[1] of pride to be called good fellows than for lust of the drink itself. 

Hypocrites. Spiritual pride.

So spreadeth this cursed root of pride his branches into all other kinds, besides his proper malice for his own part, not only in high mind[2] of fortune, rule and authority, beauty, wit, strength, learning, or such other gifts of God, but also the false pride of hypocrites that fain to have the virtues that they lack, and the perilous pride of them that for their few spotted[3] virtues, not without the mixture of other mortal vices, take themselves for quick[4] saints on earth, proudly judging the lives of their even[5] Christians, disdaining other men’s virtue, envying other men’s praise, bearing implacable anger where they perceive themselves not accepted and set by[6] after the worthiness of their own estimation. 

Which kind of spiritual pride, and thereupon following envy and wrath, is so much the more pestilent in that it carrieth with it a blindness almost incurable save God’s great mercy. For the lecher knoweth he doth naught[7], and hath remorse thereof; the glutton perceiveth his own fault and sometime thinketh it beastly; the slothful body misliketh his dulness[8], and thereby is moved to mend ; but this kind of pride, that in his own opinion taketh himself for holy, is farthest from all recovery. For how can he mend his fault that taketh it for none, that weeneth[9] all is well that he doth himself, and nothing that any man doth else ? that covereth his purpose with the pretext of some holy purpose that he will never begin while he liveth ? taketh his envy for an holy desire to get before his neighbour in virtue, and taketh his wrath and anger for an holy zeal of justice ? And thus, while he proudly liketh his vices, he is out all the way to mend them[10]. 

In so far forth that I surely think there be some who had in good faith made the best merchandise[11] that ever they made in their lives for their own souls, if they had changed those spiritual vices of pride, wrath and envy, for the beastly carnal sins of gluttony, sloth and lechery. Not that these three were good, which be undoubtedly damnable, but for the like as God said in the Apocalypse unto the Church of Laodicea, “Thou art neither hot nor cold, but lukewarm ; I would thou were cold, that thou mightest wax warm,”[12] signifying that if he were in open and manifest sins he would have more occasion to call fervently for grace and help ; so if these folk had these carnal sins they could not be ignorant of their own faults. 

God alway knocking

For, as St Paul saith[13], the fleshly sins be eth[14] to perceive, and so should they have occasion to call for grace and wax good, where now by their pride, taking themselves for good where they be naught[15], they be far from all occasion of amendment, saving the knocking of our Lord, which always standeth at the door of man’s heart and knocketh[16], whom I pray God we may give ear unto and let him in. And one of His good and gracious knockings is the putting us in remembrance of death, which remembrance, as I have said, let us see what stead it may stand us in against this cursed sin of pride. And surely against this last branch of pride, of such as repute themselves for holy with the disdain of others, and an inward liking of all their spiritual vices, which they commend unto themselves under the cloak and shadow of some kind of virtue, most hard it is to take remedy by the remembrance of death, forasmuch as they reckon themselves thereby ready to go straight to heaven. But yet if they consider the labour and solicitation of our ghostly enemy, the devil, that shall at the time of their death be busy to destroy the merits and good works of all their life before, and that his subtlest craft and most venomous dart, and the most for them to avoid, shall be under the colour of a faithful hope of heaven, as a thing more than due to their own holiness, to send them wretchedly to the fire of hell for their sinful and wilful blind presumption. I say the remembrance and consideration of this perilous point and fearful jeopardy likely to fall on them at the time of their death is a right effectual ointment long before in their life to wear away the web that covereth the eyes of their souls in such wise as they cannot with a sure sight look upon their own conscience.

Footnotes

[1] sow drunk : Certain sources suggest that in the Middle Ages there were four distinct phases of intoxication. A man was ‘sheep drunk’ when he was merry and easily handled; then ‘lion drunk’ when he was aggressive and boastful; ‘ape drunk’ when he behaved in a silly, irresponsible manner and finally ‘sow drunk’ when he fell to the ground in an alcoholic stupor. See e.g., Sow-drunk or Sheep-drunk.

[2] conceitedness.

[3] i.e., corrupted.

[4] i.e., living.

[5] i.e., consistent fellow Christians.

[6] i.e., esteemed.

[7] i.e., evil.

[8] Sluggishness, inertness, inactivity.

[9] i.e., thinketh.

[10] he has no way to amend them.

[11] merchandise: here the action or business of buying and selling goods or commodities (obsolete).

[12] Apoc. iii. 15.

[13] Gal. v. 19-21.

[14] i.e., easy.

[15] bad.

[16] Apoc. iii. 20.

+       +        +

The Virgin of Tenderness. >12th century.

SUB tuum præsidium confugimus, Sancta Dei Genitrix. Nostras deprecationes ne despicias in necessitatibus, sed a periculis cunctis libera nos semper, Virgo gloriosa et benedicta. Amen. 

 

Totus tuus ego sum

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:

Ad Jesum per Mariam.

He that hearkeneth to me, shall not be confounded: and they that work by me, shall not sin. They that explain me shall have life everlasting. Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) xxiv. 30-31.30-31.

The Four Last Things - by St Thomas More : The Remembrance of Death (Pt 5 of 5)

Sir Thomas More. Holbein the Younger (1527). Frick Collection.

The following posts reproduce the text and notes of an edition by D. O’Connor published in 1903 which is close to the English original of 1557. 

The 1903 footnotes are shown as [ ] and my own as [ ].

 

👈While outwardly he enjoyed a life of comfort, in the privacy of his spiritual life he wore a hair shirt, attended daily Mass, and practised a strict discipline of prayer. He is believed to have become a Third Order Franciscan (and indeed his name is listed in the calendar of Franciscan saints). This may be the significance of the cord shown. 

Sancte Thoma 

Ora pro nobis.

The Remembrance of Death (Pt 5 of 5)

Now, if thou thinkest this reason but a sophistical subtlety, and thinkest while thou art a young man thou mayest for all this think thy death far off, that is to wit as far as thou hast by likelihood of nature many years to live, then will I put thee an homely example, not very pleasant, but nathless very true and very fit for the matter. 

If there were two, both condemned to death, both carried out at once toward execution, of which two the one were sure that the place of his execution were within one mile, the other twenty miles off – yea, an hundred, an ye will – he that were in the cart to be carried a hundred miles would not take much more pleasure than his fellow in the length of his way, notwithstanding that it were a hundred times as long as his fellow's, and that he had thereby a hundred times as long to live, being sure and out of all question to die at the end.

Reckon me now yourself a young man in your best lust[1] – twenty years of age if ye will. Let there be another, ninety. Both must ye die, both be ye in the cart carrying forward. His gallows and death standeth within ten mile at the farthest, and yours within eighty. I see not why ye should reckon much less of your death than he, though your way be longer, since ye be sure ye shall never cease riding till ye come at it.

And this is true, although ye were sure that the place of your execution stood so far beyond his.

But what if there were to the place of your execution two ways, of which the one were four score mile farther about than your fellow’s, the other nearer by five mile than his ; and when ye were put in the cart ye had warning of both, and though ye were shewed that it were likely that ye should be carried the longer way, yet it might hap ye should go the shorter, and whether ye were carried the one or the other ye should never know till ye come to the place ; I trow ye could not in this case make much longer of your life than of your fellow’s.

Now in this case are we all, for our Lord hath not indented[2] with us of the time. He hath appointed what we may not pass, but not how soon we shall go, nor where, nor in what wise. And therefore if thou wilt consider how little cause thou hast to reckon thy death so far off by reason of thy youth, reckon how many as young as thou have been slain in the selfsame ways in which thou ridest, how many have been drowned in the self-same waters in which thou rowest. And thus shalt thou well see that thou hast no cause to look upon thy death as a thing far off, but a thing undoubtedly nigh thee and ever walking with thee. By which – not a false imagination, but a very true contemplation – thou shalt behold him and advise him such as he is, and thereby take occasion to flee vain pleasures of the flesh that keep out the very[3] pleasures of the soul.

Footnotes

[1] i.e., vigour.

[2] i.e., made a contract.  Cf. The days of man are short, and the number of his months is with thee: thou hast appointed his bounds which cannot be passed. Job xiv. 5

[3] i.e., true.

+       +        +

The Virgin of Tenderness. >12th century.

SUB tuum præsidium confugimus, Sancta Dei Genitrix. Nostras deprecationes ne despicias in necessitatibus, sed a periculis cunctis libera nos semper, Virgo gloriosa et benedicta. Amen. 

 

Totus tuus ego sum

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:

Ad Jesum per Mariam.

He that hearkeneth to me, shall not be confounded: and they that work by me, shall not sin. They that explain me shall have life everlasting. Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) xxiv. 30-31.30-31.

The Four Last Things - by St Thomas More : The Remembrance of Death (Pt 4)

Sir Thomas More. Holbein the Younger (1527). Frick Collection.

The following posts reproduce the text and notes of an edition by D. O’Connor published in 1903 which is close to the English original of 1557. 

The 1903 footnotes are shown as [ ] and my own as [ ].

 

👈While outwardly he enjoyed a life of comfort, in the privacy of his spiritual life he wore a hair shirt, attended daily Mass, and practised a strict discipline of prayer. He is believed to have become a Third Order Franciscan (and indeed his name is listed in the calendar of Franciscan saints). This may be the significance of the cord shown. 

Sancte Thoma 

Ora pro nobis.

The Remembrance of Death (Pt 4)

But now consider if it were so that one whole country were born all lepers, which is a sickness rather foul and perilous than painful, or all an whole country born with the falling sickness, so that never any of them had ever in their lives known or heard of either themselves or any other void of those diseases, trow ye that then that they would ever have reckoned them for sickness ? Nay surely, but they would have counted for sickness the colic and the stone, and such other like as come and go. But as for their leprosy and falling evil, they would never account it other than we account hunger or sleep. For as for that that (sic) thy hunger doth thee pleasure when it is fed, so doth some time the itch of a sore leg when thou clawest about the brinks[1].

Our life a continual sicknesses

And thus mayest thou surely see that all our whole life is but a sickness never curable, but as one incurable canker, with continual swaddling and plastering botched up to live as long as we may, and in conclusion, undoubtedly, to die of the same sickness and though there never came other.

Death a nigh neighbour

So that, if thou consider this well, thou mayest look upon death not as a stranger, but as a nigh neighbour. For as the flame is next the smoke, so is death next an incurable sickness, and such is all our life. 

And yet, if this move you little, but that ye think for all this that death is far from you, I will go somewhat near you. Thou reckonest every man near his death when he is dying. Then if thyself be now already dying, how canst thou reckon thyself far from death ? 

Some man saith merrily to his fellow : “Be merry, man ; thou shalt never die as long as thou livest.” And albeit he seemeth to say true, yet saith he more than he can make good. For if that were true, I could make him much merrier, for that he should never die. 

Ye will peradventure marvel of this, but it is ethe[2] to prove. For I think ye will grant me that there is no time after that a man hath once life, but he is either alive or dead. Then will there no man say that one can die, either before he get life or after that he hath lost it, and so hath he no time left to die in, but while he hath life. Wherefore, if we neither die before our life, nor when we be dead already, needs must it follow that we never die but while we live.

We die all the while we live

It is not all one to die and to be dead. Truth it is that we be never dead while we live. And it is, me seemeth, as true not only that we die while we live, but that we die all the while we live. What thmg is dying? Is it any other thing than the passage and going out of this present life ? 

Now tell me then, if thou wert going out of an house, whether art thou going out only when thy foot is on the uttermost inch of the threshold, thy body half out of the door, or else when thou beginnest to set the first foot forward to go out, in what place of the house soever ye stand when ye buskle[3] forward? I would say that ye he going out of the house from the first foot ye set forward to go forth. No man will think other, as I suppose, but all is one reason in going hence and coming hither. Now if one were coming hither to this town, he were not only coming hither while he were entering in at the gate, but all the way also from whence he came hitherward. Nor in likewise in going hence from this town, a man is not only going from this town while he hath his body in the gate going outward, but also while he setteth his foot out of his host's house to go forward. And therefore, if a man met him by the way, far yet within the town, and asked him whither he were going, he should truly answer that he were going out of the town, all[4] were the town so long that he had ten miles to go ere he came at the gate.

And surely me thinketh that in likewise a man is not only dying, that is to say, going in his way out of this life, while he lieth drawing on, but also all the while that he is going toward his end, which is by all the whole time of his life, since the first moment to the last finished, that is, to wit, sith the first moment in which he began to live until the last moment of his life, or rather the first in which he is full dead.

Now if this he thus, as me seemeth that reason proveth, a man is always dying from afore his birth ; and every hour of our age, as it passeth by, cutteth his own length out of our life, and maketh it shorter by so much, and our death so much the nearer. Which measuring of time and minishing of life, with approaching toward death, is nothing else but, from our beginning to our ending, one continual dying ; so that wake we, sleep we, eat we, drink we, mourn we, sing we, in what wise soever live we, all the same while die we.

So that we never ought to look toward death as a thing far off, considering that although he made no haste toward us, yet we never cease ourselves to make haste toward him.

Footnotes

[1] i.e., when thou scratchest near the precipice.

[2] i.e., easy.

[3] Bustle.

[4] i.e., although.

+       +        +

The Virgin of Tenderness. >12th century.

SUB tuum præsidium confugimus, Sancta Dei Genitrix. Nostras deprecationes ne despicias in necessitatibus, sed a periculis cunctis libera nos semper, Virgo gloriosa et benedicta. Amen. 

 

Totus tuus ego sum

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:

Ad Jesum per Mariam.

He that hearkeneth to me, shall not be confounded: and they that work by me, shall not sin. They that explain me shall have life everlasting. Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) xxiv. 30-31.

The Four Last Things - by St Thomas More : The Remembrance of Death (Pt 3)

Sir Thomas More. Holbein the Younger (1527). Frick Collection.

The following posts reproduce the text and notes of an edition by D. O’Connor published in 1903 which is close to the English original of 1557. 

The 1903 footnotes are shown as [ ] and my own by [ ].

 

👈While outwardly he enjoyed a life of comfort, in the privacy of his spiritual life he wore a hair shirt, attended daily Mass, and practised a strict discipline of prayer. He is believed to have become a Third Order Franciscan (and indeed his name is listed in the calendar of Franciscan saints). This may be the significance of the cord shown. 

Sancte Thoma 

Ora pro nobis.

The Remembrance of Death (Pt 3)

Remembrance of death by sickness

Thou wouldst somewhat remember death the more effectually, and look upon him somewhat the more nearly, if thou knewest thyself sick, and especially of any perilous sickness that would make an end of thee, though thou feltest yet little pain. For commonly when we be sick then begin we to know ourselves, then pain bringeth us home, then we think how merry a thing it were to be praying in health, which we cannot now do for grief[1]. Then care we little for our gay gear, then desire we no delicate dainties, and as for Lady Lechery, then abhor we to think on [it]. And then we think in ourselves that if ever we recover and mend in body we will amend in soul, leave all vices and be virtuously occupied the remnant of our life. Insomuch that very true we find the words of the epistle that the well-learned man, Plinius Secundus, after his sickness,wrote unto his friend, wherein, after the description of men’s fantasies in their disease, he closeth up his letter in this wise : “Look,” saith he, “all the good counsel and precepts that all the philosophers and wise men in this world give us for instruction of virtuous living, all that I can compendiously give to myself and thee in few words ; no more, lo ! but let us be such when we be whole as we think we will be when we be sick.”

Ever sick.

Now then, if thou be ever sick, and ever sick of a perilous sickness, wouldst thou not, if thou knewest thyself in such  case, have better remembrance of death than thou hast ? It would be hard peradventure to make thee believe thyself sick while thou feelest no harm, and yet is that no sure knowledge of health. Trow ye not that many a man is infect with the great sickness a good while ere he perceive it, and the body sore corrupt within ere he feel the grief? How many men have there been that have gone about with God’s marks on their body never perceiving themselves to be sick, but as merry as ever they were in their lives, till other men gave them warning how near they were their deaths ? And therefore never reckon thyself whole, though thou feel no grief.

But thou wilt haply say : “Be it that I cannot surely reckon myself whole, yet ye show me not why I should reckon myself sick.” Thou sayest right well, and that shall I show thee now. Tell me, if one were in case that he must be fain once or twice a day to swaddle and plaster his leg, and else he could not keep his life, wouldst thou reckon his leg sick or whole ? I ween ye will agree that his leg is is not well at ease, nor the owner neither. Now if ye felt your belly in such case that ye must be fain all day to tend it with warm clothes, or else ye were not able to abide the pain, would ye reckon your belly sick or whole ? I ween ye would reckon your belly not in good quart[2]. If thou shouldst see one in such case that he could not hold up his head, that he could not stand on his feet, that he should be fain to lie down along and there lie speechless as a dead stock an hour or two every day, wouldst thou not say that he were perilously sick, and had good cause to remember death, when he lieth every day in such case as though he were dead already ?

Now then, I pray thee consider me, that all our bodies be ever in such case, so tender of themselves that except we lapped them continually with warm clothes we were not able to live one winter week. Consider that our bodies have so sore a sickness and such a continual consumption in themselves that the strongest were not able to endure and continue ten days together, were it not that once or twice a day we be fain to take medicines inward, to clout[3] them up withal, and keep them as long as we can. For what is our meat and drink but medicines against hunger and thirst, that give us warning of that we daily lose by our inward consumption ? And of that consumption shall we die in conclusion, for all the medicines that we use, though never other sickness came at us.

Consider also that all our swaddling and tending with warm clothes and daily medicines, yet can our bodies not bear themselves, but that almost half our time ever in twenty-four hours, we be fain to fall in a swoon which we call sleep, and there lie like dead stocks[4] by a long space ere we come to ourselves again ; insomuch that among all wise men of old it is agreed that sleep is the very image of death.

Now thou wilt, peradventure, say that this is but a fantasy. For, though we call this hunger sickness and meat a medicine, yet men know well enough what very sickness is, and what very medicines be ; and thereby we know well enough that they be none.

Sickness

If thou think this, then would I wit[5] of thee what thou callest a sickness. Is not that a sickness that will make an end of thee if it be not holpen[6] ? If that be so, then I suppose thou bearest ever thy sickness with thee. For very sure art thou that it will make an end of thee if thou be not holpen.

Medicine

What callest thou then a medicine? Is it not such a thing as, either applied outwardly to thy body or received inward, shall preserve thee against that sore or sickness that else would put thee or some part of thee in peril ? What can be more properly and more verily a medicine than is our meat and drink, by which is resisted the peril and undoubted death that else should in so few days follow by the inward sickness of our own nature continually consuming us within ? For as for that ye reckon that we know which be sicknesses, that is but a custom of calling by which we call no sickness by that name but such as be casual and come and go. For that that is common to all men and never from any man, because we reckon it natural, we give it not the name of sickness ; but we name sickness a passion that cometh seldomer and, as we reckon, against nature, whereas the conflict of the divers qualified elements tempered in our body, continually labouring each to vanquish other and thereby to dissolve the whole, though it be as sore against the continuance of our nature, and as sore laboureth to the dissolution of the whole body as other sickness do, yet we neither call it sickness nor the meat that resisteth it we call no medicine, and that for none other cause but for the continual familiarity that we have therewith.

Footnotes

[1] i.e., pain or sickness.

[2] i.e., health.

[3] i.e., to patch.

[4] stock: Old English– A tree-trunk deprived of its branches; the lower part of a tree-trunk left standing, a stump. 

[5] i.e., know.

[6] helped.

+       +        +

The Virgin of Tenderness. >12th century.

SUB tuum præsidium confugimus, Sancta Dei Genitrix. Nostras deprecationes ne despicias in necessitatibus, sed a periculis cunctis libera nos semper, Virgo gloriosa et benedicta. Amen. 

 

Totus tuus ego sum

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:

Ad Jesum per Mariam.

He that hearkeneth to me, shall not be confounded: and they that work by me, shall not sin. They that explain me shall have life everlasting. Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) xxiv. 30-31.