The holy court in five tomes, the first treating of motives which should excite men of qualitie to Christian perfection, the second of the prelate, souldier, states-man, and ladie, the third of maxims of Christianitie against prophanesse ..., the fourth containing the command of reason over the passions, the fifth now first published in English and much augemented according to the last edition of the authour containing the lives of the most famous and illustrious courtiers taken out of the Old and New Testament and other modern authours / written in French by Nicholas Caussin ; translated into English by Sr. T.H. and others.

§ 1. Its Essence, Degrees, and Differences.

WHat a Comet is among stars, Hatred is * 1.1 among virtues. It is a passion ma∣ligne, cold, pernicious, deadly, which ever broodeth some egge of the ser∣pent, out of which it produceth infi∣nite disastres. It is not content to vent its poison in certain places and times, but it hateth to the worlds end, yea, as farre as eternity. To set be∣fore your eyes the havock it maketh in a soul; it is ne∣cessary to understand it in all the degrees and dimensi∣ons thereof. For which purpose you shall observe, that Hatred being properly an hostility of the appetite against those things which it apprehendeth to be contra∣ry * 1.2 to its contentment; It hath some similitude with Choler, but there is much difference, as between pieces engraven, and painted, which may easily be defaced. Choler is more sudden, more particular, more ardent, and more easie to be cured: Hatred, more radicall; more generall, more extended, more sad, and more remedi∣lesse. It hath two notable properties, whereof, the one * 1.3 consisteth in aversion and flight, the other in persecu∣tion and dammage. There is a Hatred of aversion, which is satisfied to flie from all that is contrary to it. There is another Enmity, which pursueth and avengeth, and tends to the destruction of all whatso∣ever. The first property hateth the evill; the second, wisheth it to the authour of the evill, and when it hath once possessed a black soul, it maketh terrible progres∣sions, and is especially augmented by four very consi∣derable degrees.

First, it beginneth in certain subjects by a simple * 1.4 aversion, and a hatred of humour, which is the cause we have an horrour at all those things that oppose na∣turall harmony, which appears as well in the good con∣stitution of body, as in the correspondencies of senses, and the faculties of the soul with their objects. And although this contrariety be not alwayes evident enough unto us; yet there is some feeling which in the beginning maketh us many times to have an aversion from some person whom we never saw, and from whom we have never received the least suspicion of affront or dammage: Be it out of some disproportion of body, of speech, of behaviour, or whether it be there is some se∣cret disaccord; we often hate, not well knowing the cause thereof, which very easily happeneth to the femall sex. For, women being full of imaginations; the vi∣vacity of fancy furnisheth them with infinite many species of conveniences and inconveniences that cause a diversity of humours which very seldome make a good harmony; but if they do, it is ever easie enough to be disturbed.

There are loves and hatreds which cannot be put on and put off, as easily as a man would do a shirt; which teacheth us it is very hard to make one to love by commands, as if we went about to introduce love by cannon-shots. The first degree of Hatred is properly called Antipathy, and is so generall in nature that it * 1.5 passeth into things inanimate, and into bruit beasts, which are no sooner born, but they exercise their enmi∣ties and warre in the world. A little chicken, which yet drags her shell after her, hath no horrour at a horse, nor at an elephant, which would seem so terrible crea∣tures to those that know not their qualities; but it al∣ready feareth the kite, and doth no sooner espy him, but it hasteneth to be hidden under the wings of the hen. Drums made of sheep-skins crack (as it is said) if ano∣ther * 1.6

ther be strucken near them, made of a wolfs hide; and such as are made of the skin of a camel scare horses. The lion is troubled at the crowing of a cock; Cab∣bages and herb-grace cannot endure each others neigh∣bour-hood, such enmity they have; and a thousand other such like things are observed in nature, wherein there are such expresse and irreconciliable hatreds.

If man, who should moderate his passions by rea∣son, suffers himself to run into Antipathies and naturall aversions, and doth not represse them by virtue; it falleth out they increase, and are enflamed out of inter∣est, contempt, slander, ill manners, outrages, offences, or out of simple imaginations of offence, which then causeth a second degree of hatred, which is a humane hatred, consented to with deliberation; which putteth * 1.7 it self into the field to exercise its hostilities: here, by injuries; there, by wrangling; here, by forgery; there, by violence, and by all the wayes which passion in∣venteth to do hurt by. Abject courages hate with a cold and cloudy hatred which they long hatch in their hearts through impotency of vindicative strength. The haughty and proud do it with noise, accompanied * 1.8 with disdains, affronts, and insolency. All they who love themselves tenderly perpetually swarm in hatreds and aversions, seeing themselves countre-buffed and crossed in a thousand objects which they passionately affect. All the most violent hatreds come out of love; * 1.9 and namely, when lovers, the most passionate, see themselves to be despised; despair of amity transport∣eth them to a•• outrageous hatred, finding they have afforded love the most precious thing that is in our dispose, to receive scorn.

There are likewise who, without receiving any in∣jury, begin to hate out of wearisomnesse in love, and coming to know the defects of such as they had the most ardently loved; they take revenge upon the abuse of their own judgement, by the evill disposi∣tion of their own will, and do as those people who * 1.10 burnt the Gods they had adored. Whether ha∣tred arises out of a weary love, or whether it pro∣ceeds from an irritated love; it is ever to be feared: and there are not any worse aversions in the world, then those which come from the sources of amity. Quintillian also hath observed, That the Hatreds of neighbours are enmities irrecoverable, and wounds which never are cured, because bands woven by flesh, bloud and bowels, cannot be untied, but by making a rupture remedilesse.

Out of this second degrée, oft-times a melancho∣lick Hatred sprouteth, which the Grecians call man∣hating, * 1.11 which is an Hatred bred in feeble, black, ugly, and ulcerated souls in the world, who, to be revenged of their mishaps, extend (as it were) their aversions over Totall Nature. You see men pale, meagre, hidrous, who being unable to en∣dure a reasonable yoke which God hath put about their necks, or finding themselves to be disfavoured in their ambitions, endeavours, and pretentions; * 1.12 steal out of all amities, out of all companies, hi∣ding themselves, not in those glorious Hermitages of Religion, where heavenly souls are; but in shame∣full solitudes, where they busie themselves to feed on gall, and gnaw some heart in imagination, since they have not been able to transfix it with iron. Others grow up like poisons with the tongue of a ser∣pent▪ which is ever in action; They have a Pthisick of spirit that gnaws, burns, and consumeth them: so that they have no other profession in their life, but to blame all which is done, becoming like unto those ill presaging night-birds which cast forth boading scrietches in the dead time of night, as if they envied us darknesse and the sweetnesse of repose. Such was the disease of Dioclesian and Tyberius, when they retired from the Court to hide themselves in solitary places, as ser∣pents among thorns. Lastly, this Hatred ever fo∣mented, if it fall upon men powerfull and facti∣ous; it maketh tyrants of them who passe to the degree of brutishnesse and execrable Barbarisme, which causeth some to eat hearts stark raw, others to disentomb the dead, and to exercise cruelty on those who have nothing common with the living: Others, to invent torments never seen, heard, nor imagined; others, to make themselves goblets of the heads of their enemies, therein, still to drink revenge, as of∣ten as they do wine, as did Alboinus a monster wor∣thy of the horrour and execration of all men. See here somewhat near the essence, qualities, division cau∣ses, and effects of hatred.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Hatred a hidenus Comet.
• * 1.2

  Its nature.
• * 1.3

  Its proper∣ties.
• * 1.4

  Its degrees.
• * 1.5

  The natural antipathies.
• * 1.6

  Jo. ••. Por a in Chao.
• * 1.7

  Humane hatred.
• * 1.8

  Its differ∣ences.
• * 1.9

  Hatred of love.
• * 1.10

  Quintil. decl. 17. Non habent proximo∣rum odia regressum: quaecunque nexus acce∣pere naturae & quae san∣guine visce∣ribúsque constructa sunt, non la∣xantur di∣ducta, sed percunt.
• * 1.11

  Melancholy hatred. Man hatred
• * 1.12

  Plin. l. 18. cap. 1. Homines quidam ut venena na∣scuntur: atra ceu serpen∣tium lingua vibrat: ta∣bé{que} animi contracta adurit, cul∣pantium omnia, ac dirarum ali∣tum modo tenebris quoque suis & ipsarum noctium quieti invi∣d••••tium.