the Great explained, depends on the cultivation of right knowledge.
“To your person” (capiti—literally “to your head”), Paulinus’s biology lesson continues, God has added “the grace of spiritual knowledge, that it may illuminate your judgment and lead you toward eternal life.”50 Following the long exegetical tradition of original sin, Paulinus wrote later in his book that the “human race” (genus humanum) is damned because of the actions of its first parents. Adam and Eve’s sins were lust and pride, but importantly, their pride stemmed from their “damnable” neglect of the likeness of God in which they were made.51 Eric must always remember that he is not simply a count with secular duties of office and family; he is a “work of divine majesty,” formed in divine likeness. The metaphor of construction is invoked again and again throughout the text; the more Eric loves his Builder, says Paulinus, the more he will understand himself to be built by God.52
An Ideology of Equality: “Persona Has No Meaning in the House of God”
After explaining to Eric his true nature, the remainder of the book expands on the emotional bonds that a man must strive to create in order to earn salvation. Paulinus taught that, because the inner self is far more important than the outer in the eyes of God, all persons, regardless of their rank or way of life, must follow the same rules and guidelines for living, which center on emotional interconnection with and care for other souls. Eric must develop feeling for all others, whether they are of his station or below. “I beg you,” Paulinus entreats him, “although a layman, be prompted to all work of God, kind to the poor and sick, consoler to the dying, compassionate to the miseries of all people, generous in alms, mindful of the widow’s two mites in the Gospel, and of the prophet saying, ‘Break your bread with those who are hungry,’ but on the other hand foreseeing discretion of alms, so that everyone, namely giver and receiver, might have solace.”53 The key term in the passage is quamvis: “although.”54 Although a layman, Eric must perform God’s work. Although not a priest, Eric must be kind to the sick and to those less fortunate than he. Although not a monk, he is to console the dying and to show compassion for the woes of others. The moral burden of God’s work, the passage claims, is shared equally by all Christians.
Through comparative statements about relative duty, Paulinus placed particular emphasis in his book on the equality of professional religious and lay aristocratic men. Paulinus urges Eric at a later point in Liber exhortationis to command the members of his household and all those subject to him to live a life of sobriety while at the same time not taking too much pride in their abstinence. With God’s help, they are to do all things “temperately, justly, kindly, and religiously” because, Paulinus explains, Christ poured out his blood “not only for us clerics, but also for the whole human race, who are predestined for eternal life.”55 The Kingdom of Heaven was promised not only to “us” (by which, again, Paulinus refers to himself and his “professional” religious identity—that is to say, his identity as a man who has professed formal vows) but to all laypersons who serve God’s precepts “with their whole heart.”56 The message is for all, he says; no laypersons, clerics, or sacral virgins should neglect the salvation of their souls.57
Paulinus’s comparative diction directly calls into question what he perceives to be a prevalent assumption among laypersons—namely, that the lay Christian life requires fundamentally different precepts for living. Without question, for Paulinus, it does not. At first, he pressures Eric to learn Christian doctrine. There is “great confusion among lay souls” who believe that “a clergyman … should do the things that a clergyman does” and who thus fail to appreciate the importance of learning their Christian duties. In order to share in the goods of the earth provided by God and the happiness of the Kingdom of Heaven, all must “carry the yoke of Christ with equal labor.”58 “What good is it,” he continues, “for there to be men exalted by such things on one side within the secular world [i.e., the side of bishops and priests], and made lowly on the other [i.e., the lay side]?”59 Equality among aristocratic worldly men is Paulinus’s main theme. “Let there be no worry about being a layperson,” he writes, “for persona” (literally, one’s “mask”) “has no meaning in the house of God.”60
Taken out of context, the thrust of such statements may seem to support Riché’s observation of an inferiority complex inflicted by a sanctimonious and strict clergy upon the Carolingian lay world. Within context, however, it becomes clear that Paulinus is simply making a claim for shared responsibility. Thereby, he actually elevates the status of the layman to equal authority with his professional Christian brethren. He uses the word “persona”—the ancient Roman word for the theatrical mask—inflecting his lesson with the notion that worldly distinctions are simply the roles that humans play in life. He invokes traditional Christian corporal metaphors and explains to Eric that the celestial kingdom is open to all men—just as much for laymen as for clerics and monastics—because all men are in Christ and Christ is in all men.61 Once again, the novelty of what Paulinus writes lies not in the rhetoric or the doctrine but rather in the fact that he extends and recasts tradition to make a specific argument for equal lay and clerical authority. He rhetorically asks Eric how one hand could be the enemy of the other, how one foot could hate the other. In the body of the Christian ecclesia, God is the head. Layman and cleric are both hands, both feet. Neither is subordinate to the other. They are equal parts of the same holy body.62 Paulinus neither assuages nor creates feelings of lay inferiority. He instead calls for all aristocratic men to recognize their common identity and duty.
To this end, he employs further metaphors of cohesion and cooperation: a city that is fortified in one part but ruined in another is open to enemy attack, he says; even the strongest boat will still sink if a single plank of its wood has a hole.63 God calls upon “every layman, cleric, and monk equally,” he writes, to exhibit faith, hope, and caritas; to serve God with his whole heart; to make true confession and to do worthy penance.64 All men share these qualities and deeds together because worldly differences are indistinguishable in the divine gaze.
An Ideology of Affect: “Faith Is Our Capacity to Feel, and Caritas Is Our Health”
For both laymen and the professional religious, therefore, the performance of God’s service in the form of good works constitutes the sole criterion for discipleship, and caritas is the binding force that drives these works. Indeed, Paulinus describes active good works as the primary manifestation of caritas, working in concert with faith and hope to complete the Christian soul. Paulinus tells Eric that “there are three things” compared to which “in this world there are no better: the soul of a spiritual man persevering in good works, which is more brilliant than the sun; the holy angels who take up that soul; and paradise, into which that soul is led.”65 This call to work runs throughout the Liber: “faith is our capacity to feel,” he explains, “and caritas is our health. Faith believes, caritas works, hope strengthens.”66
Yet again, this is a long and well-established tradition of Christian doctrine cast within a particularly Carolingian ideological frame. The good works of caritas described within the Liber include the primary duties of the Frankish aristocrat. True holiness for Paulinus rests in doing works of “justice” (iustitia), defined not in the classical sense of balance but instead in terms of discipleship and correct understanding of the divine order: doing what God wills and not doing what God prohibits.67 Paulinus urges Eric to obey the teachings of the clergy, but he also encourages him to read scripture for himself. The holy books are a direct message from God, he says, about what he expects from humanity: “God himself, our Lord, speaks to us through them, and shows us feeling (affectum) with his pius will.”68 This statement would be extraordinarily rare to find in later centuries of the Christian church, but in this Carolingian text, it demonstrates just how clearly each individual Christian was thought to have control over his (or her) connection with the divine.
