Undusted Texts

Hearts of Flesh and Iron

By Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet (1627-1704)

Introduction

Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet was born at Dijon to a family of lawyers, the fifth son of Beneigne and Marguerite (Mouchet) Bossuet. His parents decided that he would be a cleric, so he was tonsured at the age of 10 and was taught by the Jesuits at the Collège des Godrans in Dijon. In 1640, at age 13, he became a canon at the Cathedral of Metz and, two years later, enrolled the Collège de Navarre in Paris for further studies, where he was mentored by Nicolas Cornet (1572-1663). He was ordained sub-deacon in 1648, deacon in 1649, and priest ib March 18, 1652, after two years of retreat under the direction of St. Vincent de Paul. He first began his priestly life at Metz, becoming well-known for his sermons and his apologetics against the Huguenots; in 1657, at St. Vincent's recommendation, he moved to Paris, where he quickly became a common court preacher. He was consecrated bishop on September 21, 1670, for the bishopric of Condom, but he soon resigned the position, and his main task became tutoring Louis, the Gaund Dauphin (1661-1711), heir to the throne. When the Dauphin's formal education ended, Bossuet was appointed Bishop of Meaux in 1681, where he was embroiled in a battle between King Louis XIV and Pope Innocent XI--he aimed for compromise and unity, and wrote works supporting the French, but only mildly. At Meaux, he continued to battle the Huguenots, and he also fought with François Fénelon (1651-1715) over the understanding of contemplative prayer. (Eventually, Pope Xinnocent XII condemned Fenelon's thoughts, and Bossuet was the victor.) In 1702, he began to develop chronic kidney stones; his condition grew worse until his death on April 12, 1704. He was buried at Meaux Cathedral.

Bossuet is renowned as one of the greatest Catholic preachers; he left behind hundreds of sermons, though usually in rough draft. He is particularly known for a few funeral sermons, including sermons for Queen Henrietta Maria (d. 1669) and her daughter Henriette, Duchess of Orléans (d. 1670). Besides his sermons, he also wrote a number of works on politics and history for the Grand Dauphin, such as the unfinished Politics Drawn from the Very Words of Holy Scripture (published 1709, though begun in 1679), as well as works against the Huguenots and Fenelon. Among the anti-Protestant works, the most famous is the History of the Variations of the Protestant Churches (1688). Among these works, one can even find correspondence with mathematician and philosopher Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716), in which the two writers strove to reunite Catholics and Protestants.

The text below is a selection from a sermon on Pentecost; the editor of the French text, Joseph Lebarq (1844-1897), gives the following introduction to this homily: “This sermon was preached, according to Abbé Vaillant, Floquet, Lachat, etc., at Paris, in the house of the Carmelites, in 1661. Paleographic study of the manuscript does not allow it to be placed before 1658. On the other hand, the appellation Mesdames, addressed to the Religious, indicates another order than Carmelites. It treats, without doubt, of those Bernardines of Petit-Clairvaux of Metz, who ‘being placed on the base of canonesses, received none but noble daughters’ (cf. above, 210 and 266). It is in nowise necessary to look elsewhere until 1661,to find calamities, such that those to which allusion is made in this discourse. In 1658, in the ravages caused by so many years of war, there came to be added those of a flood, which had, for some time, slowed the arrival of missionaries to Metz, and had placed Saint Vincent de Paul in disquietude over their fate.” Paragraph divisions are original, but the numbers were added by me for clarity and are not found in the French edition.

From the Sermon for the Feast of Pentecost (June 9, 1658)

  1. It could seem, Christians, that the spirit of Christianity, in rendering our fathers so strong, would have, at the same time, rendered them less sensible, and that the firmness of their soul would have diminished something of the tenderness of their charity. For, be it that these two qualities, I mean to say, sweetness and great courage, depend on different complexions, be it that those men nourished on alarms, being accustomed for a long time to not be alarmed at their perils, nor brought down by their own evils, could not be easily moved by any of the other objects which strike them; we see, quite ordinarily, that those strong and those intrepid ones become, in the hazards of war, I know not how less sweet and less sensible, not to say harder and more rigorous.
  2. But it is not so with our generous Christians; they are firm against perils; but they are tender in loving their brethren, and the all-powerful Spirit which pushes them, knows well the secret of according such opposed contraries. This is why we read, in the Scriptures, that the Holy Sprit forms the faithful in two very different ways. Firstly, He makes them of a soft material, when He says through the mouth of Ezechiel: Dabo vobis cor carneum: “I will give you a heart of flesh” (Ez 36:26); and He also makes them of iron and of brass, when He says to Jeremiah: “I have placed you as a column of iron and as a wall of brass”: Dedi te in columnam ferream, et in murum æreum (Jer 1:18). Who does not see that He makes them of brass, to resist all perils; and that, at the same time, He makes them of flesh to be made tender through charity? And in the same way that that terrestrial fire so shares its virtue that there are things which it makes firmer, and there are others which it renders softer; it is a little close to the manner of that spiritual fire which falls today. It firms and it softens, but in an extraordinary manner; since those are the same hearts of the disciples, which seem to be hearts of diamond through their invincible firmness, which become human hearts and hearts of flesh through fraternal charity. This is the effect of that celestial fire, which rests upon them today. It softens the hearts of the faithful; it has, to speak thus, melted them; it has holily mixed them; and, making the ones flow into the others, by the communication of charity, it has composed, from this beautiful mixture, that marvelous unity of heart, which is represented to us in the Acts, in these words: Multitudinis autem credentium erat cor unum et anima una: “In all the society of the faithful, there was naught but one heart and one soul” (Acts 4:32): it is this which we must explain.
  3. I could develop, in this place, the most relevant principles of that beautiful theology, which teaches us that, the Holy Spirit being the eternal bond of the Father and of the Son, it behooved Him to be the bond of all the faithful; and that, having an infinite force of uniting, He has united us, in effect, in a manner even tighter than that which assembles the parts of the body. But, supposing these holy truths, and not willing to enter, today, into that high theology, I reduce myself to proposing to you a most fruitful maxim of Christian charity, which results from this doctrine: that is, that, being persuaded by the Scriptures that we are naught but one and the same body through charity, we ought to regard ourselves, not in ourselves, but in the unity of that body, and to direct, by this thought, all our conduct with regard to others. Let us explain this more distinctly, by the example of that nascent Church which forms the subject of all my discourse.
  4. I remark, then, in the Acts, where her history is reported to us, two kinds of multitude. When the Holy Spirit descended, there was, firstly, a multitude assembled by the noise and by the tumult. One hears the noise, one assembles: but what is this multitude? Behold how the sacred text names it: “A confused multitude”: Convenit multitudo, et mente confuse est (Acts 3:6): All thoughts are different; some say: “What is this? Others made a raillery: They are drunk” (Acts 3:12-13), they are not so; behold, a confused multitude. But I see, sometime later, a very different multitude, a tranquil multitude, an ordered multitude, where all conspire to the same design, “where there is naught but one heart and one soul”: Multitudinis credentium erat cor unum et anima una (Acts 4:32). Wherefrom, my sisters, comes this difference? It is that, in that first assembly, each regards himself in himself, and takes his thoughts as it pleases him, following the movements by which he is pushed: wherefore it comes that they are diverse, and there forms a confused multitude, a tumultuous multitude. But in that multitude of new believers, no one regards himself as detached; one considers himself as in the body where he is found with the others; one takes a spirit of society, a spirit of concord and of peace; and this is the spirit of Christianity which makes an ordered multitude, where there is naught but one heart and one soul.
  5. What could the infinite number of admirable effects, my sisters, which this beautiful consideration produces, say to you, that by which we regard ourselves, not in ourselves, but in the unity of the Church? But among such grand effects, I pray you, retain two, which will form the fruit of this talk: that is, that it exterminates two vices, which are the two pests of Christianity; envy and hardness. Envy, which is vexed by the good of others; hardness, which is insensible to their ills: envy, which pushes us to ruin our brethren; and the spirit of interest, which renders us culpable for the misery which they suffer by a cruel refusal.
  6. And firstly, Christians, the malignity of envy is not capable of troubling souls who know well how to consider themselves in that unity of the Church; and the reason is evident: for envy is not born in our hearts except from the sentiment of our indigence, when we see in others that which we believe that we lack. Yet if we want to consider ourselves in that unity of the Church, there remains no more indigence, we found ourselves infinitely rich there; consequently, envy is quenched. That one, you say, has great graces, she has extraordinary talents for spiritual guidance: nature, which is disquieted, believes that her splendor diminishes ours; what remedies are there against these thoughts, which sometimes attack better souls? Do not regard yourself, it is there that you will find yourself indigent: do not compare yourself with others, it is there that you will see inequality; but regard both yourself and others in the unity of the body of the Church: all is yours in this unity, and, through Christian fraternity, all goods are common among the faithful. It is this which I learn from Saint Augustine through those excellent words: “My brethren,” he says, “do not weep if there are gifts which you lack; love only unity, and the others will not have them except for you”: Si amas unitatem, etiam tibi habet quisquis in illa habet aliquid.[1] If the hand had its own sentiment, it would rejoice over that which the eye enlightens, since it enlightens for the whole body; and the eye would not envy the hand either its force or its address, which saves it itself in so many encounters. See the apostles of the Son of God: once they were always quarrelling over the subject of primacy; but since the Holy Spirit made them one heart and one soul, they are no longer jealous or contentious. They believed all to speak through Saint Peter, they believed all to preside with him; and if his shadow cured the sick, all the Church takes part in this gift and is glorified in Our Lord. “Thus, my brethren,” says Saint Augustine, “let us not regard ourselves, let us love the unity of the body of the Church, let us love ourselves in this unity, the riches of fraternal charity will supplement the default of our indigence; and that which we do not have in ourselves, let us find it abundantly in this marvelous unity: Si amas unitatem, etiam tibi habet…” Behold the means of excluding envy. Tolle invidiam, et tuum est quod habeo: tollam invidiam, et meum est quod habes: “Remove envy, that which I have is yours, that which you have is my; all is yours through charity.”[2] God gives you extraordinary graces; ah! my brother, I rejoice, I want to take part with you, I want to even rejoice with you in the unity of the body of the Church. Envy alone renders us poor, since it alone can deprive us of this holy communication of the goods of the Church.
  7. But if we have the consolation of participating in the goods of our brethren, what would our hardness be if we did not want to feel their ills? And it is here that it is necessary to deplore the miserable state of Christianity. Have we never felt that we are the members of one and the same body? Who of us has languished with illnesses? Who of us has suffered with weaknesses? Who of us has suffered with the poor? When I consider, faithful, the calamities which surround us, poverty, desolation, despair over so many ruined families, it seems to me that, on all sides, a cry of misery is raised around us, which would make our hearts crack, and which, perhaps, strikes not our ears. For, O proud and unpitiable rich one, if you heard this voice, could it obtain from you some mediocre subtraction from your table’s superfluities? Could it obtain that there be some little less gold in that rich furniture in which you glory? And you do not feel, miserable one, that the cruelty of your luxury snatches the soul from a hundred orphans, to whom divine Providence has assigned life on that foundation!
  8. But perhaps you tell me that charitable works are done in the Church. Christians, what charitable works! What miserable alms, feeble and useless succor of an extreme necessity, which we spread with an avaricious hand, like a drop of water on a great brazier, or a crumb of bread in extreme famine. Charity does not give in this way: it gives liberally; since it feels misery, since it is afflicted with affliction, and, giving solace to the needy, it feels itself alieved. It is thus that one lived in those first times which I tried to recall to you today. When one saw a pauper in the Church, all the faithful were touched; immediately, each accused himself, each regarded the misery of this poor afflicted member as the shame of the whole body, and as a sensible reproach for the hardness of particular persons: this is why they placed their goods in common, for fear that a person would be culpable for the indigence of one of his brethren. And Ananias, having despised this law, which charity had imposed, was exemplarily punished as an infamous one and as a thief, although he had retained naught but his own goods: wherefrom it comes that he is named by Saint Chrysostom “the thief of his own goods”: rerum suarum fur[3]. Let us tremble, then, let us tremble, Christians; and, being imitators of his crime, let us also dread his torture.
  9. And let one not object that we are no longer held to these laws, since this community no longer subsists: for what is the shame of this word! Are we still Christians, if there is no longer a community among us? Goods are no longer in common, but it will always be true that charity is common, that charity is compassionate, that charity regards other. Goods are, then, no longer in common by a common possession, but they are still in common by the communication of charity: and divine Providence, in dividing riches among particular people, has found this new secret of replacing them in common by another way: when it commits the dispensation to fraternal charity, which always regards the interest of others.
  10. Such is the spirit of Christianity; Christians, do not quench this spirit: and if all the world quenches it, holy and religious souls, act that it lives at least among you. It is in your holy societies that one still sees an image of that Christian community which the Holy Spirit had operated: this is why your houses resemble heaven; and as the purity which you profess makes you equal, in some way, to the holy angels, in such a way that that which unites your spirits is that which also unites the celestial spirits: that is to say, an ardent desire for serving your common Master. You all have naught but one and the same interest; all is common among you; and that so cold word of “mine” and “thine,” which gives birth to all quarrels and lawsuits, is excluded from your unity. What now remains, then, except that, having chased from your midst the seed of divisions, you make that Spirit of peace reign, Who will be the knot of your concord, the immovable support of your faith, and the pledge of your immortality? Amen.

    11. Footnotes: [1] St. Augustine, Tractates on the Gospel of John XXXII.8 (PL 35:1646).

    [2] St. Augustine, Tractates on the Gospel of John XXXII.8 (PL 35:1646).

    [3] Cf. St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles XII.2 (PG 60:101-102).

    Source: Œuvres Oratoires de Bossuet, ed. J. Lebarq, Tome Deuxième (Lille/Paris: Desclée, de Brouwer et Cie, 1891), 501-508.

    Introduction Source: Œuvres Oratoires de Bossuet, ed. J. Lebarq, Tome Deuxième (Lille/Paris: Desclée, de Brouwer et Cie, 1891), 485.


    Back