[Ancient wisdom prescribed nothing other than what should be done and what should be avoided; and in those days, men were better. Since the arrival of the learned, good men are lacking. For that simple and open virtue has been transformed into an obscure and subtle kind of knowledge; and we are taught how to argue, not how to live.]
In the preface to his Ductor dubitantium, or, The rule of conscience (1660), Jeremy Taylor invokes "the wisdom of the Ancients" by quoting Seneca. He sets out the aim of this work - how to live in "simple and open virtue", not how to argue. In 1660, of course, the Three Kingdoms were looking back upon decades of argument: divisive, harsh, bloody arguments. As Taylor stated in the work's dedication to the newly-restored King Charles II, "we have been sorely smitten and for a long time".
Now that God has "scatter[ed] the people that delight in War", "the wisdom of the Ancients" could guide 'the rule of conscience', by means of what Taylor terms "the right and plain measures of Simplicity, Christian Charity, Chastity, Temperance and Justice". This list of virtues, of course, is a slightly modified version of the Stoic virtues. In the sermon at Taylor's funeral, George Rust would describe Ductor dubitantium as "a Book that is able alone to give its Author Immortality". Rust, in other words, judges this as Taylor's central work. The place of "the wisdom of the Ancients" in this work, therefore, is revealing, indicating how such wisdom was a defining characteristic of Taylor's theological and moral vision.
This post will consider the place of Cicero and Seneca in Books I and II of Ductor dubitantium. Both Roman writers feature heavily in the work. Even this summary, however, does not do justice to their significance to Taylor. As will hopefully be evident, Cicero and Seneca are profoundly important guides in the moral vision set forth in Ductor dubitantium. We will consider their place in Taylor's thinking on conscience, the law of nature, and worship.
Conscience is God's Angel: Grieve not the Angel lest he smite thee, doe nothing against him, lest he forsake thee. Viro bono fixum in omni vita est, transversum unguem a recta conscientia non discedere, said Cicero; Every good man is perfectly resolved not to depart from his right conscience a hairs bredth during his whole life;
True peace of conscience relies not upon popular noises, and is not a sleep procured by the tongues of flatterers, or opinions of men, but is a peace from within, relying upon God and its own just measures. It is an excellent discourse which Seneca hath, Est aliquando gratus qui ingratus videtur, quae mala interpres opinio in contrarium deducit. Hic quid aliud sequitur, quam ipsam conscientiam quae etiam obruta delectat, quae concioni ac samae reclamat, & in se omnia reponit, & cum ingentem ex altera parte turbam contra sentientium aspexit, non numerat suffragia, sed una sententia vincit? Some men are thankful, who yet seem unthankful, being wronged by evil interpretation. But such a man what else does he follow but his conscience, which pleases him, though it be overborn with slander, and when she sees a multitude of men that think otherwise, she regards not, nor reckons suffrages by the poll, but is victorious by her single sentence?
It is striking that Taylor regards the examples of Christ and Saint Peter as demonstrating the peace that flows from following conscience, as stated by Cicero:
Nulla re tam laetari soleo quà m officiorum meorum conscientie. I am pleased in nothing so much as in the remembrances and conscience of my duty, said Cicero. Upon this pillow and on this bed, Christ slept soundly in a storm, and S. Peter in Prison so fast that the brightness of an Angel could not awake him, or make him to rise up without a blow on his side.
This contrasts with how conscience afflicts the evil, "very well rendered by Seneca":
This accusation and watchfulness, and vocal, clamorous guards of Conscience are in perpetual attendance, and though they may sleep, yet they are quickly awakened, and make the evil man restless ... which is very well rendred by Seneca, Ideo non prodest latentibus, quod latendi etiamsi felicitatem habeant, fiduciam non habent. They that live unjustly, always live miserably and fearfully; because although their crime be secret, yet they cannot be confident that it shall be so: meaning, that because their conscience does accuse them, they perceive they are discovered, and previous to an eye, which what effect it will have in the publication of the crime here and hereafter, is not matter of knowledge, but cannot choose but be matter of fear for ever.
It is conscience that is also to guide us in considering "all sorts of Authors" apart from the canonical Scriptures, with Cicero providing an interpretation of a difficult Pauline statement:
Truth is to be weighed by argument not by testimony, and it is never otherwise but when men are ruled by prejudice, or want reason to rule them in that particular. Tantum opinio praejudicata poterat, ut etiam sine ratione valeret authoritas, said Cicero. And this is to be extended to all sorts of Authors that are not Canonical, or Divine. S. Paul gave us the Rule, Whatsoever is not of faith is sin. Quod dubitas ne feceris, said Cicero. For if we doe it with a doubting conscience, we doe it without our Rule, which is the dictate of our conscience, and since no action is indifferent between lawful and unlawful (though between good and bad there may) to doe without our Rule of lawful and permitted it to doe against it, even that which is not permitted, and therefore is unlawful.
The humanism of Cicero and Seneca, then, is fundamental to Taylor's understanding of the conscience and its centrality to his moral vision. That the conscience - not the claims of authority, secular or ecclesiastical, or "popular noises" - determines the moral life was indicated in the dedication of Ductor dubitantium when Taylor, addressing Charles II, stated:
you will best govern by the arguments and compulsory of Conscience, and this alone is the greatest firmament of Obedience.
Here was a humanism rooted in Cicero and Seneca, standing against the exalted claims for church or state heard in the mid-17th century.
Closely related to this view of conscience for Taylor was an understanding of what is good and right - virtue - expressed in the law of Nature, for "the law of Nature is the foundation of all laws and the measure of their obligation". Quoting from two of Cicero's work - De Legibus and De Inventione - Taylor sets out how law is to be virtuous by conforming to the law of Nature:
For all good laws, and all justice hath the same reasonableness, the same rules and measures, and are therefore good because they are profitable, and are therefore just because they are measured by the common analogies and proportions: and are therefore necessary because they are bound upon us by God mediately or immediately. And therefore Cicero defin'd vertue to be perfecta & ad summum perducta natura, or Habitus animi naturae modo rationi consentaneus, The perfection of Nature, or a habit of mind agreeing to Natural reason. But more expressly and full in his third book de legibus: lex est justorum injustorumque distinctio ad illam antiquissimam & rerum omnium principem expressa Naturam, ad quam leges hominum diriguntur, quae supplicio improbos afficiunt, & defendunt & tuentur bonos. A law is the distinction of good and bad, of just and unjust, expressed or fitted to Nature, which is the first and the prince of all, and to which humane laws are directed for the punishment of evil doers, and the defence of the good.
It is because the law of Nature is the expression of virtue that evil actions, according to Seneca, disorder the soul:
It is punishment enough to doe an Unnatural and a base action, it puts our soul and its faculties from their centre, and the ways of perfection. And this is fully observed by Seneca: Male de nobis actum erat quòd multa scelera legem & Judicem effugiunt, & scripta supplicia, nisi illa naturalia & gravia de praesentibus solverent & in locum patientiae timor cederet. Mankind were in an ill state of provisions, if those wickednesses which escape the law and the Judge, did not suffer the more grievous inflictions of natural punishment and fear came into the place of patience; still, fear is the bridle: but it is an honest fear, a fear of God and of natural disorders and inconvenience.
Here, then, is how both the soul and the commonwealth are to be ordered: by conformity to the law of Nature. Against both exalted claims for secular or ecclesisatical authority, or sectarian zeal, this is what makes soul and commonwealth agree with virtue and reason.
Taylor also turns to Cicero and Seneca when considering Christian worship in the context of the law of Nature. Christian worship is also to be according to virtue and reason, for the law of Nature is the law of God. This is way, Taylor declares after Cicero, that religion does not become superstition:
Hanc video sapientissimorum fuisse sententiam, legem neque hominum ingeniis excogitatam, neque scitum aliquod esse populorum, sed aeternum quiddam, quod universum mundum regeret, imperandi prohibendique sapientia. Ita principem legem illam, & ultimam mentem esse dicebant omnia ratione aut cogentis aut vetantis Dei, said Cicero. Neither the wit of man, nor the consent of the people is a competent warranty for any prime law; for law is an eternal thing, fit to governe the world, it is the wisdome of God commanding or forbidding. Reason indeed is the aptness, the disposition, the capacity and matter of the eternal law; but the life and forme of it is the command of God.
Superstition is particularly found in idolatry. For Taylor, the supposed distinction between 'image' and 'idol' was a chief cause of idolatry within Christianity. This leads him to explicitly reject Nicaea II:
although about the time of the Second Nicene Councel, this distinction of idolum and imago was brought into the Christian Church, yet it was then new, and forc'd, made to serve the ends of new opinions, not of Truth.
In contrast, Cicero confirms that idol and image have the same meaning:
And that once for all I may make it clear, that an idol and an image was all one in the sense of the word and of the Ancient Church it is undeniably so used in Cicero lib 1. de fin. bonor. & mal. Imagines quae idola nominant, quorum incursione non solum videamus sed etiam cogitemus.
And it is in Seneca, that Taylor sees the prime expression of how Christianity is to follow virtue and reason, rather than the path of idolatry:
When Seneca intreated his friend Lucilius to make himself worthy of God, he tells him how: Finget autem non auro, non argento: non potest ex hac materia imago Dei fingi similis: Not with gold and silver; for of these an image like to God can never be made.
Similarly, the wisdom of Seneca also points to the way of conformity in public worship.
He that sayes that without a surplice we cannot pray to God acceptably, and he that sayes we cannot well pray with it, are both to blame; but if a positive law of our superiour intervenes, that's another consideration: for, quaedam quae licent, tempore & loco mutato non licent, said Seneca; and so on the contrary, that may be lawful or unlawful, necessary or unnecessary, accidentally, which is not so in its own nature and the intentions of God.
The surplice is neither necessary for divine service, nor an impediment to divine service. That it is directed by authority as for clergy during divine service makes conformity wise, virtuous and reasonable. What is more, later in Ductor dubitantium quotes Cicero on the fitting nature of the surplice:
Colorem album Deo maxime decorum, said Cicero, quod sit index puritatis & nitelae, omnemque fucum excludat veritate nativa contentus, The white garment is most comely for religion, as being content with its native simplicity, and an indication of brightnesse and purity
Fitting and directed by authority:
intended for an exteriour honour to religion, and that is sufficient (say the lawyers) to make a custome reasonable; and if it be reasonable, it must be complied with.
Just as the absence of images in the parish church was Ciceronian and Senecan in character, so too was the wearing of the surplice for divine service. In both these matters, Taylor pointed to Cicero and Seneca as a way beyond the sectarian and confessional strife experienced in Europe and the Three Kingdoms. Even as idolatry and iconoclasm led to sectarian conflict in central Europe, Cicero and Seneca encouraged the way of virtue and reason, of abandoning images in wise recognition that God cannot be rendered as an image. Even as the Three Kingdoms had descended into chaos, with the surplice a focus for the discontents of those who stood against Church and King, Seneca and Cicero could lead to a recognition of the surplice as both naturally fitting and a sign peaceable conformity.
The humanism of Cicero and Seneca also, for Taylor, offered an alternative to the bitter controversies and conflicts "as we see at this day in the sad divisions of Christendome". It was, as we have seen above, the words of Cicero which led to an understanding that "Neither the wit of man, nor the consent of the people" is "competent warranty" for the teaching of Christian churches but, rather, the law of God in nature and Scripture. In Seneca, Taylor also saw a wisdom which encouraged a return to the primitive simplicity of Christianity, as Seneca saw in the old Romans:
And what Seneca said of the wisdome of the old men in infant Rome, is very true of the Aborigenes in Christianity, in the first spring of our Religion; Antiqua sapientia nihil aliud quam facienda & vitanda praecepit: & tum longe meliores erant viri: postquam docti prodierunt, desunt boni. The Ancient and primitive wisdome did onely command vertue, and prohibite vice; and then men liv'd good lives: but when they became more learned they became less vertuous. Simplex erat ex simplici causa valetudo: multos morbos multa fercula fecerunt. The old world eat a simple and a natural diet, and they had a simple and a natural religion: but when variety of dishes were set upon the table, variety of diseases entred together with them.
The "simple and ... natural diet" of "a simple and a natural religion". Such was the faith bestowed to us by Christ. As Taylor had declared in The Great Exemplar (1649):
It was this "natural religion", "in this simplicity of belief which the Apostles recommended to all the world" in the Apostles' Creed, which should be the "natural diet" of Christendom, rather than the bitter controversies over "any new necessities".
In Ductor dubitantium, Taylor, amidst the fierce and bloody confessional disputes of mid-17th century Europe, demonstrated how a Ciceronian and Senecan humanism, taken up into and shaping a Christian humanism, offered a wise and peaceable way for a distracted Christendom.
Would I be right in saying that Jeremy Taylor did not mind some degree of Christian visual imagery?
ReplyDeleteTaylor was deeply sceptical of imagery in churches. He was explicit and robust in his rejection of Nicaea II. He regarded the Lutheran use of images as permissible but too likely to lead to the misuse of images. He provided an exposition of the second Commandment which was clearly Reformed. And, above all, he declared: "if the Christian Church were wholly without images, there would nothing perish to the faith or to the charity of the Church, or to any grace which is in order to Heaven".
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