Dominic probably derived more pleasure than pain from his scourgings. For besides the vanity of achievement, and some ecstasy of contrition, the flesh itself turns morbid and rejoices in its laceration. Yet such austerity is pre-eminently penal, and is initially impelled by fear. With Dominic, with Romuald, with Damiani, the fear of hell entered the motives of the secluded life. To observe this fear writ large in panic terror, we turn to the old legend regarding the conversion of Bruno of Cologne, the founder of the Carthusian Order. The scene is laid in Paris, where (with much improbability) Bruno is supposed to be studying in the year 1082. One of the most learned and pious of the doctors of theology died. His funeral had been celebrated, and his body was about to be carried to the grave, when the corpse raised its head and cried aloud with a dreadful voice: "Justo Dei judicio accusatus sum." Then the head fell back. The people, terror-stricken, postponed the interment to the following day, when again, as before, with a grievous and terrible voice the corpse raised its head and cried: "Justo Dei judicio judicatus sum." Amid general terror the interment was again postponed to the next day, when, as before, with a horrible cry the corpse shrieked: "Justo Dei judicio condemnatus sum."
At this, Bruno, impressed and terrified, said to his friends: "Beloved, what shall we do? Unless we fly we shall all perish utterly. Let us renounce the world, and, like Anthony and John the Baptist, seek the caves of the desert, that we may escape the wrath of the Judge, and reach the port of salvation." So they flee, and the Carthusian Order, with its terrific asceticism, begins.[1]
This story, aside from its marvellous character, does not
- ↑ This story is told in all the early lives of Bruno, the Vita antiquior, the Vita altera, and the Vita tertia (Migne, Pat. Lat. 152, col. 482, 493, and 525). These lives, especially the Vita altera, are interesting illustrations of the ascetic spirit, which, as might be expected, also moulds Bruno's thoughts and his understanding of Scripture. All of which appears in his long Expositio in Psalmos (Migne, Pat. Lat. 152). To us, for example, the note of the twenty-third (in the Vulgate the twenty-second) psalm is love; to Bruno it is disciplinary guidance: the Lord guides me in the place of pasture, that is, He is my guide lest I go astray in the Scriptures, where the souls of the faithful are fed; I shall not want, that is an understanding of them shall not fail me. Thy rod, that is the lesser tribulation; thy staff, that is the greater tribulation, correct and chastise me.
