er to God his own soul and the soul of others than that he
should offer any other external gift whatsoever.

"But thou, our God, art gracious and true, patient, and ordering
all things in mercy. For if we sin, we are Thine, knowing Thy
greatness: and if we sin not, we know that we are counted with
Thee. For to know Thee is perfect justice: and to know Thy
justice, and Thy power, is the root of immortality."[472]

III

Is the Active Life a Hindrance to the Contemplative Life?

S. Gregory says[473]: "They who would hold the citadel of contemplation
must first needs exercise themselves on the battle-field of toil."

We may consider the active life from two points of view. For we may
first of all consider the actual occupation with, and practice of,
external works; and from this point of view it is clear that the active
life is a hindrance to the contemplative, for it is impossible for a man
to be simultaneously occupied with external works, and yet at leisure
for Divine contemplation.

But we may also consider the active life from the standpoint of the
harmony and order which it introduces into the interior passions of the
soul; and from this point of view the active life is an assistance to
contemplation since this latter is hindered by the disturbance arising
from the passions. Thus S. Gregory says[474]: "They who would hold the
citadel of contemplation must first needs exercise themselves on the
battle-field of toil; they must learn, forsooth, whether they still do
harm to their neighbours, whether they bear with equanimity the harm
their neighbours may do them; whether, when temporal good things are set
before them, their minds are overwhelmed with joy; whether when such
things are withdrawn they are over much grieved. And lastly, they must
ask themselves whether, when they withdraw within upon themselves and
search into the things of the spirit, they do not carry with them the
shadows of things corporeal, or whether, if perchance they have touched
upon them, they discreetly repel them."

Thus, then, the exercises of the active life are conducive to
contemplation, for they still those interior passions whence arise those
imaginations which serve as a hindrance to contemplation.

Some, however, maintain that the active life is a hindrance to the
contemplative, thus:

1. A certain stillness of mind is needful for contemplation, as the
Psalmist says: _Be still and see that I am God._[47