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← ExitThe Anatomy of Melancholy

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Treatment of Despair Through Medicine, Good Counsel, Consolation, and So On.

As a father, says David in Psalm 103:13, has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him. And he will receive them again as the prodigal son was welcomed, Luke 15, if they come with tears in their eyes and a penitent heart. Let the sinner acknowledge his fault; God forgives.

The Lord is full of compassion and mercy, slow to anger and great in kindness, Psalm 103:8. He will not always rebuke, nor keep his anger forever. Verse 9. As high as heaven is above the earth, so great is his mercy toward those who fear him. Verse 11. As far as east is from west, so far has he removed our sins from us. Verse 12.

Though Cain cries out in the anguish of his soul, my punishment is greater than I can bear, it is not so. You lie, Cain, says Augustine; God’s mercy is greater than your sins. His mercy is above all his works, Psalm 145:9, able to make satisfaction for everyone’s sins, a ransom in exchange, 1 Timothy 2:6.

His mercy is a cure-all, a balm for an afflicted soul, a sovereign medicine, an antidote to all sin, a charm against the devil. His mercy was great toward Solomon, Manasseh and Peter, great toward all offenders; and whoever you are, it may be so toward you.

For why should God tell us to pray, as Augustine reasons, Deliver us from all evil, unless he himself remained merciful, if he did not intend to help us? Therefore anyone who doubts the forgiveness of his sins denies God’s mercy and does him an injustice, says Augustine.

Yes, but you reply, I am a notorious sinner; my offences are not merely great but infinite. Hear Fulgentius: God’s invincible goodness cannot be overcome by sin; his infinite mercy cannot be bounded by anything. The abundance of his mercy equals his greatness.

Hear Chrysostom: Your wickedness may be measured, but God’s mercy cannot be bounded; your wickedness has limits, his mercies are infinite. As a drop of water is to the sea, so are your misdeeds to his mercy. Indeed, even that proportion cannot be assigned: although the sea is great, it can be measured, but God’s mercy cannot be bounded.

Whatever your sins may be, then, in quantity or quality, number or magnitude, do not fear them or lose trust. I do not say this, says Chrysostom, to make you complacent and negligent, but to encourage you.

Yes, but you insist again, I take little comfort from what has been said; it does not concern me. Repentance is empty when subsequent wrongdoing defiles it. It is pointless for me to repent and then do worse than ever before, persist in sin and return to my lusts like a dog to its vomit or a sow to the mud. What is the point of asking forgiveness for my sins while sinning again and again each day, doing evil from habit?

Every day and hour I offend in thought, word and deed, relapsing through my own weakness and wilfulness. My good guardian spirit, my good protecting angel, is gone. I have fallen from what I was, or wished to be, growing worse and worse; my latter end is worse than my beginning. If you sin daily, repent daily, says Chrysostom. If you offend daily, repent daily: if twice, three times, a hundred, a hundred thousand times, repent twice, three times, a hundred thousand times.

Treat your soul as people treat an old house in disrepair, continually mending one part or another: keep reforming some vice and repairing it through repentance. Call to him for grace and you shall have it, for we are freely justified by his grace, Romans 3:24. If your enemy repents, forgive him seventy-seven times, as our Saviour commanded Peter. Why should you think God will not forgive you? Why should the enormity of your sins trouble you? God can do it; he will do it.

My conscience, says Anselm, tells me that I deserve damnation; my repentance will not suffice to make satisfaction. But your mercy, O Lord, entirely overcomes all my transgressions.

Once, as the poets imagine, the gods wished to pull Jupiter out of heaven with a golden chain, but all together could not move him; yet he could draw and turn them as he pleased. Despite all the force and fury of these infernal fiends and clamorous sins, his grace is sufficient.

Compare the debt and its payment; Christ and Adam; sin and its cure; the disease and its medicine. Compare the sick person with the physician, and you will soon see that his power is infinitely greater than the disease. As Bernard tells us, God is better able to help than sin is to harm us; Christ is better able to save than the devil is to destroy.

If he is a skilful physician, as Fulgentius adds, he can cure every disease; if merciful, he will. Goodness is not perfect unless it overcomes all wickedness: his goodness is not complete and perfect if it cannot overcome all wickedness.

Submit yourself to him, as Saint Augustine advises: he knows best what he does. Be as patient when he corrects you as you are pleased when he sustains you; he is almighty and can cure all diseases when he judges the time right.

He looks down from heaven upon earth to hear the prisoners’ mourning and deliver those condemned to death, Psalm 102:19–20. And though our sins are as red as scarlet, he can make them as white as snow, Isaiah 1:18.

Do not doubt this or ask how it will be done. He who promises is all-sufficient: he who made the clean from the unclean, says Chrysostom; he who made a fair world from nothing can do this and much more on his part. For your part, only believe, trust in him, rely on him, repent and be sincerely sorry for your sins.

Repentance is a sovereign remedy for every sin, a spiritual wing to raise us up again, a charm against our miseries, a protective amulet to expel sin’s venom and an attracting lodestone to draw God’s mercy and graces to us. Sin is the wound, repentance the medicine: sin made the breach, repentance must repair it. However your offence arose—through error, sloth, obstinacy or ignorance—the way out is through repentance; this is the sole means of relief.

From this comes our hope of salvation; by this alone sinners are saved and God is moved to mercy. It loosens all that is bound, illuminates darkness, repairs what is broken and restores life to what was dying beyond hope. It makes no distinction between offences or persons.

13083.The Latin contrasts agnoscat, acknowledge, with ignoscit, forgives. Its wordplay cannot be reproduced exactly in English. The prodigal son’s return is told in Luke 15:11–32.

13084.Cain’s cry is Genesis 4:13. The Greek term antilutron in 1 Timothy 2:6 means a ransom, here rendered a ransom in exchange. Burton’s Augustine attribution is retained, but the precise source of the rebuke to Cain remains unverified.

13085.Panacea is a universal remedy; alexipharmacum is an antidote to poison. Burton extends his medical vocabulary into the account of divine mercy. The direct address now makes the imagined sufferer the reader.

13087.The Latin says unless he himself remained merciful; Burton follows it with his own explanatory English paraphrase, if he did not intend to help us. Both are translated separately.

13089.Terminated means bounded or limited. Burton develops the consolation as a dialogue, answering objections put into the distressed reader’s voice. The precise Fulgentius passage remains for collation.

13091.The sea comparison ultimately proves inadequate because the sea, unlike divine mercy, has a limit. A related comparison appears in Chrysostom’s Homily 61 on Matthew; that parallel does not establish the exact edition or wording of Burton’s printed Homily 3 on Repentance reference.

13093.Secure again means carelessly assured. The qualification prevents encouragement from becoming the presumption Burton has already rejected.

13095.The animal comparison occurs in 2 Peter 2:22, with the dog also in Proverbs 26:11. Burton’s Latin maxim and its English development are preserved as distinct parts of the objection; the maxim’s precise source is unresolved.

13097.The complaint draws on 2 Peter 2:20. Bonus Genius is translated before Burton’s own explanation, and the repeated Latin and English injunctions to repent remain. The marginal Latin says a hundred thousand; Burton’s English additionally includes a hundred.

13098.The house metaphor makes repentance continuing repair. Burton prints 77. Matthew 18:22 is traditionally rendered seventy times seven in the King James Bible and seventy-seven in some other translations; Burton’s number is retained.

13100.The I is the speaker in the prayer attributed to Anselm, not a new autobiographical statement by Burton. Satisfaction means making adequate amends for sin. The exact prayer and its attribution require collation.

13101.The golden-chain comparison comes from Homer, Iliad 8.18–27. There Zeus issues a hypothetical challenge to all the gods, rather than recounting an actual attempt; Burton’s retelling is preserved. Maugre means despite.

13103.Confer means compare. The sequence draws together legal, biblical and medical analogies. The margin explicitly compares the good effected by Christ’s death with the evil of human sins; Burton’s body gives a broader restatement.

13105.The medical language here is an analogy for divine power and mercy. Burton repeats the Latin proposition in English, and both are retained. Malice means wickedness rather than only personal spite.

13107.Augustine, Exposition of Psalm 102.5, supplies the physician metaphor in Latin: allow yourself to be healed, and endure cutting as well as comforting. Burton’s margin prints doceri, to be taught, where the compared text has curari, to be healed. Both his quotation and body wording remain unchanged. The image asks for patience under divine correction; the source of the verbal difference remains untraced.

13108.Children of death is a biblical expression for those appointed or condemned to die. Burton joins the promise of release to Isaiah’s image of cleansing.

13109.Mundum can mean clean or world, while immundo means unclean. The Latin is rendered according to that verbal contrast; Burton’s following English instead gives a creation-from-nothing paraphrase. Both remain, without making the Latin say nought. The quotation’s exact source is unresolved.

13111.Rerear means raise again; a lodestone is a naturally magnetic stone. The accumulation of medical and protective images belongs to Burton’s religious rhetoric. The printed medicinam has an awkward case form; the intended sense is translated without altering the original.

13113.Safety here means salvation. Provoked means moved or stirred, without the modern implication of anger. The margin adds Isidor, presumably an attribution to Isidore, but gives no title or locator; that identification remains provisional.