HUMAN ACTIONS ARE WITHOUT VALUE WHEN DONE WITHOUT LOVE OF GOD
God’s great friend, Abraham, had by Sara, his principal wife, none other than his most dear only son, Isaac, who also became his sole heir. Although Abraham also had Ismael by Agar, and several other children by Cetura, who were wives of a servile and inferior condition. He gave them only certain presents and legacies to put them off and disinherit them. Since they were not acknowledged by the principal wife they could not succeed him. They were not acknowledged because, with regard to the children of Cetura, they were all born after Sara’s death (Gen. 25: 1-2). As for Ismael, his mother Agar had conceived him by the authority of Sara, her mistress. However, finding herself pregnant she despised her mistress (Gen. 16:4). She did not place the child on Sara’s knees as Bala placed her children on Rachel’s knees.
[In the same way] Theotimus, it is only the children, that is, the actions of most holy charity, who are heirs of God and joint heir's with Christ (Rom. 8:17). Also the children or actions which the other virtues conceive and give birth to and are accepted, under its commandment, or at least under the wings and favour of its presence. But when the moral virtues, yes even the supernatural virtues, produce their actions in the absence of charity, as they do among schismatics, according to St. Augustine, and sometimes among bad Catholics, they are of no value for Heaven. Even almsgiving is useless, though it should lead us to distribute all our goods to the poor. Not even martyrdom either, when we would deliver our body to the flames to be burnt. No, Theotimus, without charity, says the Apostle, all this is of no profit (1Cor. 13:3), as we show more fully elsewhere[1]
There is something more. It happens that in the production [of the actions] of the moral virtues the will makes itself disobedient to its mistress which is charity. This takes place when by pride, vanity, worldly interest or by some other evil motive, virtues are turned from their proper nature. Surely then those actions are driven out from Abraham’s house and Sara’s company, that is, they are deprived of the fruit and of the privileges of charity, and as a result are left without value or worth. In fact those actions, thus infected by a bad intention, are more vicious than virtuous. They have only the exterior body of virtue. their interior belongs to the vice which serves them for a motive; as is seen in the fasts, offerings and other actions of the Pharisee (Lk. 18: 12, 14).
In the end, besides all this, [we remember] how the Israelites lived peacefully in Egypt during the lifetime of Joseph and of Levi, but soon after the death of Levi were tyrannically reduced to slavery. This gave rise to a Jewish proverb: “One brother being dead, the others are made slaves. (Related in the Great Chronology of the Hebrews published by the learned Archbishop of Aix, Gilbert Gen- ebrard. I name him with honour and consolation, having been his student, though without profit, when he was Royal Reader at Paris and lectured on the Song of Songs.) In the same way, the merits and fruits of virtues, moral as well as Christian, remain very gently and peacefully in the soul while sacred love lives and reigns in it. But as soon as Divine love dies in the soul, all the merits and fruits of the other virtues die at once. These are the works which theologians call “mortified" [killed]. Having been born alive, under the protection of charity, like Ismael in the family of Abraham, they lose afterwards life and the right of inheritance by the subsequent disobedience and rebellion of the human will which is their mother.
Oh God, Theotimus, what a calamity! When a righteous person turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity... none of the righteous deeds which he has done shall be remembered... He shall die in his sin, says our Lord in Ezekiel (18:24). Hence mortal sin ruins all the merit of virtues. As for those which are practised while it reigns in the soul, they are born so dead that they are forever useless for claiming eternal life. Regarding those virtues which were practised before the sin was committed, that is, while sacred love was alive in the soul, their value and merit perish and die as soon as mortal sin comes. They are not able to preserve their life after the death of charity which gave it to them.
The lake which non-Christian writers usually call Asphaltite, and Christian writers the Dead Sea, has such a severe curse on it that nothing that is put into it can live. When the fish of the river Jordan reach it they die unless they promptly turn back against the stream. The trees upon its shore produce nothing that lives. Their fruits are in appearance and exterior shape like the fruits of other places. Nevertheless, when one tries to pluck them they are found to be only skins and rinds full of ashes that are blown away by the wind. These are signs of the notorious sins in punishment of which this region, once peopled by four prosperous cities, was in the distant past transformed into this abyss of corruption and infection. Nothing, it seems, can better represent the misery of sin than this abominable lake which has its origin in the most detestable disorder that human beings can commit.
Sin, therefore, like a Dead Sea that is mortal, kills all that comes near it. Nothing is alive of all that is born in a soul which sin possesses, or of all that grows around it. O God, nothing, Theotimus. Not only is sin a dead work, but it is so infectious and poisonous that the most excellent virtues of the sinful soul do not produce any living action. Though sometimes the actions of sinners have a great resemblance to the actions of the just, they are in reality only skins filled with wind and dust. God’s goodness sees them, indeed, and even rewards them with temporal presents which are given to them as to the children of servants. For all that, they are skins which neither are nor can be tasted and relished by divine justice so as to be rewarded with an eternal reward. They perish on their trees and cannot be preserved in the hand of God because they lack true value. As it is said in the Apocalypse (3:1), to the Bishop of Sardis: he was considered to be a living tree by reason of the many virtues he practised, and yet he was dead because he was in sin. His virtues were not true living fruits. They were dead skins, pleasing to the eyes, not savoury apples good for eating.
So we can all proclaim this true saying, in imitation of the holy Apostle: Without charity I am nothing, nothing profits me (1Cor. 13: 2-3), and this one with St. Augustine, “Put charity into a heart and everything profits; take charity from the heart and nothing profits," I mean that nothing profits for eternal life. As we say elsewhere,[2] the virtuous actions of sinners are not useless for temporal life. Theotimus, my friend, what does it profit a person, if he gains the whole world temporarily and loses his soul eternally (Mt 16:26).
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[1] TLG, Bk X: Ch. 8.
[2] TLG, Bl XI, Ch. 2.