loving”—is the primary exemplar for the depth of feeling that each and every human should show toward others.69
It is true, as readers of Liber exhortationis have previously noted, that Paulinus describes God’s direct message in terms that Eric, a warlord in the service of Charlemagne, would certainly have understood.70 If a mission comes from the king, Paulinus asks Eric rhetorically, “do we not then accept the letters, throwing our cares aside with readied will and with all devotion?” Certainly, since the “King of kings and Lord of lords” has seen fit to direct his letters (that is, scripture) to Eric and to the rest of humanity through his prophets and apostles, Eric should respond with all the more diligence to his divine command.71 This is not, however, a simplification of the message so as to make it palatable for a lay audience. Rather, it frames the enactment of caritas in terms of a metaphor that both Paulinus and Eric, as Frankish aristocrats, know well. Just as they are equally in their service of their earthly lord, they are equally servants of their heavenly king.
An Ideology of Inner Asceticism: “May the Sweetness of This World Not Separate Us in Any Way from the Love of Christ”
Throughout its discussion, Paulinus’s text naturalizes the ideological authority of the ascetic male, presenting it as a given that need not even be explained. This “natural” authority of the ascetic does not, however, require all Christian men to be monks. Instead, just as in Gregory the Great’s Regulae pastoralis liber, it requires men of the world to perform their asceticism symbolically and to tether themselves to God through affective deeds of caritas.
“Do not obscure your goodness through the malice of others,” Paulinus continues, “but as much as you have power, may you everywhere appear lovable before God and all people.”72 Paulinus serves as his own model for the emotional bond that caritas represents, following exactly from Gregory the Great’s ideology—his pastoral caritas for his flock is more than a simple expression of care; it is also the means by which, as a man of the secular world, he avoids worldly corruption. Paulinus explains how Eric, too, must embody caritas in order to separate himself from worldly influences. “I desire and entreat God with all the feeling (affectu) of my heart,” he says, “that you stretch toward what is preeminent, reach for the lofty crown of everlasting beatitude, and not allow the nobility of your soul to be altered from the love of Christ by either the counsel of friends or secular ambition.”73 This is not a condemnation of the secular world, describing it as incongruent with Eric’s position. It is traditional Gregorian ideology of worldly authority. The Christian leader must live within the boundaries of the secular world but learn to keep his mind firmly connected to the heavenly world beyond.
Caritas—love of God and neighbor—is the key to worldly authority because emotional connection between souls is the form of world denial that all men can perform. “Let us have the love of God and of neighbor inside us,” Paulinus urges. From love of God and neighbor comes tranquility, he writes. Hatred brings only disaster and ruin.74 Paulinus demonstrates in his discussion the differences between the Christian man with caritas in his heart and the Christian who harbors hatred. Fusing the language of the Gospel with Stoic, Augustinian, and Gregorian interpretations, he explains that the “meek” and “kindly” man (mitis et benignus), even if he suffers evil, does not retaliate in the face of injury, while the “evil man” (inequus) takes offense at even the slightest word: “He who is filled with caritas walks with tranquil soul and most serene face.”75
The text describes the second component of caritas, love of neighbor, in terms of emotional interconnection and shared feeling. If Eric sees his neighbor turning good deeds, he is to rejoice with him (congratulare). If his neighbor suffers sadness, Eric must make that sadness his own.76 Returning to his recurring theme of the “interior man,” Paulinus explains this call for other-oriented emotional connection with a rousing call to inner manly vigor of the soul: spiritual virtus. “ Virtus of your soul is to love God and to hate those things that God does not love,” he writes, invoking the artful repetition and rhetorical crescendo of the popular preacher.77
Virtus of your soul is to follow patience and to avoid all impatience. Virtus of your soul is to guard chastity, of body as well as soul. Virtus of your soul is to despise the vain glory of this world and to spurn all fallen things and to work for the love of him who redeemed you while you live in the body. Virtus of your soul is to strive for humility and to abhor pride. Virtus of your soul is to confine and to repress anger and fury. Virtus of your soul is to decline from all folly and to embrace divine wisdom. Virtus of your soul is to subordinate all love of the flesh and to raise your mind toward Christ. Therefore, you can easily and readily obtain these virtutes if you will yourself to avoid caring for secular things and fallen things and earthly matters, and if you place nothing before the love of Christ.78
Virtus of the soul, in other words, involves that which keeps a man properly connected to the heavenly otherworld and protected from the dangers of the secular world and carnal will. Eric must demonstrate his inner connection with God through outward deeds toward his fellow man. “God is not a hearer and inspector of words,” Paulinus tells Eric, referring to the Old Testament’s Book of Wisdom 1:6 and echoing Augustine’s language of the interior will, “but a hearer and inspector of the human heart.”79 For laymen just as for clergymen, Paulinus explains, virtus flows from making God one’s most prized possession: “If we desire to possess anything in this secular world, let us possess with unencumbered mind God, who possesses all things, and let us hold in him whatever we happily and in a holy manner desire.”80
Christ himself becomes the model for secular living. Paulinus tells Eric that he must attempt to walk in Christ’s footsteps according to the Gospel: “What is it to walk just as Christ walked except to despise the vanity and happiness of this secular world and not to fear adversities suffered in his name? … May the sweetness of this wretched secular world not separate us in any way from the love of Christ, and let there not be namely the excuse of a wife or the influence of one’s children, nor more glut of gold and silver, love of possessions.”81 “Alas,” he exclaims in another passage, “how subtly does the ancient enemy trick us by deceiving us, and draw blindness over the eyes of our mind, lest we succeed in discerning between the joys of this secular world and the joys of the eternal kingdom!”82
Liber exhortationis fully and unabashedly espouses ascetic philosophy in these passages, borrowing heavily from works written expressly for monks. The secular is wretched (miserabilis); wives and children are mere baubles of distraction like any other trinket of gold or silver. Nevertheless, Paulinus is not calling for monastic withdrawal from secular life.83 He makes patently clear that God does not expect bodily renunciation from Eric. Instead, God wishes only that Eric effect a correct ordering of priorities—a right valuation of his heavenly goals above his secular pursuits. Achieving salvation is a matter not of indiscriminate renunciation but rather of education—of “discerning” (discernere) between secular and heavenly delights. As Paulinus explains, if Eric desires the promise of eternal life, he needs to guard the Lord’s precepts within himself against the world’s distractions. He must understand the limited value of friends and family, gold and silver, gems, bountiful vineyards, and farms—these are not necessarily evil, but they offer no protection for the soul.84
Paulinus even suggests that Eric strive to be “dead to sin and to the world”—a staggeringly ascetic demand when read out of context. Within context, however, it is clear that Paulinus is portraying a state of mind. Paulinus describes “being dead to sin” as a metaphor. The dead body, he says, does no harm. The dead man commits no robbery. He is violent toward no one. He blames no one without proof. He oppresses no one. He neither envies good people nor insults the bad. A soul that is dead to the world is never a slave to the luxuries of the flesh. He does not
