About the work:
The Ars Moriendi, or “Art of Dying” was a genre of Christian spirituality that rose to prominence after the disaster of the Bubonic Plague wiped out up to fifty percent of Europe’s population. The present work was written in the mid-fifteenth century, probably by a Dominican friar, and reminds you, the reader, that you also will soon die.
But it is greatly to be noted, and to be taken heed of, that right seldom (that) any man — yea among religious and devout men — dispose themselves to death betimes as they ought. For every man weeneth himself to live long, and troweth not that he shall die in short time; and doubtless that cometh of the devil’s subtle temptation. And often times it is seen openly that many men, through such idle hope and trust, have for-slothed (that is, lost through laziness) themselves, and have died intestate, or unavised, or undisposed, suddenly. And therefore every man that hath love and dread of God, and a zeal of [the heal of] man’s soul, let him busily induce and warn every of his even Christians that is sick, or in any peril of body or of soul, that principally and first, over all other things, and withouten delays and long tarryings, he diligently provide and ordain for the spiritual remedy and medicine of his soul.
For often times, as a certain decretal saith, bodily sickness cometh of the sickness of the soul; and therefore the Pope in the same decretal chargeth straitly every bodily leech that he give no sick man no bodily medicine unto the time that he hath warned and induced him to seek his spiritual leech (that is, his healer). But this counsel is now for-slothed almost of all men, and is turned into the contrary; for men seek sooner and busier after medicines for the body than for the soul. Also all our evils and adversities, by righteous doom of God, cometh evermore to men for sins; as the Prophet witnesseth, that saith thus: NON EST MALUM IN CIVITATE, QUOD DEUS NON FECIT. There is none evil in the city, but God do it. Thou shalt not understand that God doeth the evil of the sin, but yieldeth the punishing for sin.
Therefore every sick man, and every other man that is in any peril, should be diligently induced and exhorted that he maketh himself, before all other things, peace with God; receiving spiritual medicines, that is to say the sacraments of Holy Church; ordaining and making his testament; and lawfully disposing for his household, and other needs, if he hath any to dispose for. And there should not be given first to no man too much hope of bodily heal. But the contrary thereof is now often times done of many men, into great peril of souls; and namely of them that actually and openly be drawing and in point hastily to die, for none of them will hear nothing of death.
And so as the great Clerk, the Chancellor of Paris saith : Often times by such a [vain and a] false cheering and comforting, and feigned behoting (that is, false promising) of bodily heal, and trusting thereupon, men run and fall into certain damnation everlastingly. And therefore a sick man should be counselled and exhorted to provide and procure himself his soul’s heal by very contrition and confession — and if it be expedient for him, that shall greatly avail to his bodily heal; and so he shall be most quiet and sure.
And forasmuch, witnessing Saint Gregory, as a man hath seldom very contrition, and as Saint Austin saith also, in the fourth Book of Sentences, the twentieth distinction, and other doctors also: Repentance that is deferred, and had in a man’s last end, unneth (that is, seldom) is very repentance or penance sufficient to everlasting heal. And specially in them that all their time before neither the commandments of God nor their voluntary avows kept not effectually nor truly, but only feignedly and to the outward seeming.
Therefore to every such man that is in such case and is come to his last end, is to be counselled busily that he labour, with reason of his mind after his power, to have ordinate and very repentance; that is to mean — notwithstanding the sorrow and grievance of sickness, and dread that he hath of hasty death — that he use reason as much as he may, and enforce himself to have, wilfully, full displeasing of all sin, for the due end and perfect intent that is for God; and withstand his evil natural inclining to sin, though he might live longer, and also the delectations of his sins before; and labour as much as he may to have a very displeasure of them, though it be never so short. And lest he fall into despair tell him, and arm him with such things as be said above, in the second part, of temptation of Desperation. Exhort him also that he be strong in his soul against other temptations that be put and told, also mightily and manly withstand them all; for he may not be compelled by the devil to consent to none of them all. Let him also be charged and counselled that he die as a very true Christian man, and in full belief.
Also it is to be considered whether he be involved with any censures of Holy Church; and if he be let him be taught that he submit himself with all his might to the ordinance of Holy Church, that he may be assoiled. Also, if he that shall die have long time and space to be-think himself, and be not taken with hasty death, then may be read afore him, of them that be about him, devout histories and devout prayers, in the which he most delighted in when he was in heal; or rehearse to him the commandments of God, that he may be-think him the more profoundly if he may find in himself that he hath negligently trespassed against them.
And if the sick man hath lost his speech, and yet he hath full knowledge of the interrogations that be made to him, or the prayers that be rehearsed before him, then only with some outer sign, or with consent of heart, let him answer thereto. Nevertheless it is greatly to be charged and hasted that the interrogations be made to him or he lose his speech; for if his answers be not likely, and seemeth not in all sides to be sufficient to full heal and perpetual remedy of his soul, then must he put thereto remedy and counsel in the best manner that it may be done.
Then there shall be told unto him plainly the peril that he should fall in, though he should and would be greatly a-feared thereof. It is better and more rightful that he be compunctious and repentant, with wholesome fear and dread, and so be saved, than that he be damned with flattering and false dissimulation; for it is too inconvenient and contrary to Christian religion, and too devil-like, that the peril of death and of soul — for any vain dread of a man, lest he were anything distroubled thereby — shall be hid from any Christian man or woman that should die. But Isaye the Prophet did the contrary; for when the King Ezcchiel lay sick and upon the point of death, he glosed (that is, flattered) him not, nor used no dissimulation unto him, but plainly and wholesomely a-ghasted him, saying that he should die; and yet nevertheless he died not at that time. And Saint Gregory also wholesomely a-ghasted the monk that was approprietary (that is, a monk who had appropriated the belongings of another), as it is read in the fourth Book of his Dialogues.
Also present to the sick the image of the crucifix; the which should evermore be about sick men, or else the image of our Lady, or of some other saint the which he loved or worshipped in his heal. Also let there be holy water about the sick; and spring often times upon him, and the others that be about him, that fiends may be voided from him. If all things abovesaid may not be done, for hastiness and shortness of time, then put forth prayers; and namely such as be directed to our Saviour, specially Our Lord Jesu Christ. When man is in point of death, and hasteth fast to his end, then should no carnal friends, nor wife, nor children, nor riches, nor no temporal goods, be reduced unto his mind, neither be communed of before him; only as much as spiritual health and profit of the sick man asketh and requireth.
In this matter that is of our last and most great need, all manner of points and sentences thereof, and adverbs also that be put thereto, should most subtly and diligently be charged and considered of every man; forasmuch as there shall no man be rewarded for his words alone, but for his deeds also joined and according to his words. As it is said in the book cleped Compendium of the Truth of Divinity, the second book, the tenth chapter: That what man that lusteth, and will gladly die well and surely and meritorily, without peril, he must take heed visibly, and study and learn diligently this craft of dying, and the dispositions thereof abovesaid, while he is in heal; and not abide till the death entereth in him.
For sooth, dear sister or brother, I tell thee sooth, believe me thereof, that when death or great sickness falleth upon thee, devotion passeth out from thee; and the more near they take thee and grip thee, the further fleeth devotion from thee. Sicker this is sooth, I know it by experience; for in sooth thou shalt have little devotion if thou be sore touched with sickness. Therefore if thou wilt not be deceived or err — if thou wilt be sure — do busily what thou mayst while thou art in heal, and hast the use and freedom of thy five wits and reason well disposed, and while thou mayst be master of thyself and of thy deeds.
O Lord God how many, yea without number, (that) have abiden so to their last end have forslothed and deceived themselves everlastingly. Take heed, brother or sister, and beware, if ye list, lest it happen thee in the same wise. But let no man wonder, nor think that it is inconvenient that so great charge and diligence and wise disposition and providence, and busy exhortation should be had and ministered to them that be in point of death, and in their last end — as it is abovesaid — for they be in such peril and in so great need at that time, that, and it were possible, all a city should come together with all haste to a man that is nigh to the death or dying; as the manner is in some religious, in which it is ordained that when a sick man is nigh the death, then every of the brothers shall, when they hear the table smitten (that is, a flat board that was struck much as we might strike a bell) — what hour that ever it be, and where that ever they be — all things being left, hastily come to him that is a-dying. Therefore it is read that religious people and women — for the honesty of estate — should not run but to a man that is a-dying and for fire.
—
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Book_of_the_Craft_of_Dying/craft
Leave a Reply