Taken out of context, the thrust of such statements may seem to support Riché’s observation of an inferiority complex inflicted by a sanctimonious and strict clergy upon the Carolingian lay world. Within context, however, it becomes clear that Paulinus is simply making a claim for shared responsibility. Thereby, he actually elevates the status of the layman to equal authority with his professional Christian brethren. He uses the word “persona”—the ancient Roman word for the theatrical mask—inflecting his lesson with the notion that worldly distinctions are simply the roles that humans play in life. He invokes traditional Christian corporal metaphors and explains to Eric that the celestial kingdom is open to all men—just as much for laymen as for clerics and monastics—because all men are in Christ and Christ is in all men.61 Once again, the novelty of what Paulinus writes lies not in the rhetoric or the doctrine but rather in the fact that he extends and recasts tradition to make a specific argument for equal lay and clerical authority. He rhetorically asks Eric how one hand could be the enemy of the other, how one foot could hate the other. In the body of the Christian ecclesia, God is the head. Layman and cleric are both hands, both feet. Neither is subordinate to the other. They are equal parts of the same holy body.62 Paulinus neither assuages nor creates feelings of lay inferiority. He instead calls for all aristocratic men to recognize their common identity and duty.
To this end, he employs further metaphors of cohesion and cooperation: a city that is fortified in one part but ruined in another is open to enemy attack, he says; even the strongest boat will still sink if a single plank of its wood has a hole.63 God calls upon “every layman, cleric, and monk equally,” he writes, to exhibit faith, hope, and caritas; to serve God with his whole heart; to make true confession and to do worthy penance.64 All men share these qualities and deeds together because worldly differences are indistinguishable in the divine gaze.
An Ideology of Affect: “Faith Is Our Capacity to Feel, and Caritas Is Our Health”
For both laymen and the professional religious, therefore, the performance of God’s service in the form of good works constitutes the sole criterion for discipleship, and caritas is the binding force that drives these works. Indeed, Paulinus describes active good works as the primary manifestation of caritas, working in concert with faith and hope to complete the Christian soul. Paulinus tells Eric that “there are three things” compared to which “in this world there are no better: the soul of a spiritual man persevering in good works, which is more brilliant than the sun; the holy angels who take up that soul; and paradise, into which that soul is led.”65 This call to work runs throughout the Liber: “faith is our capacity to feel,” he explains, “and caritas is our health. Faith believes, caritas works, hope strengthens.”66
Yet again, this is a long and well-established tradition of Christian doctrine cast within a particularly Carolingian ideological frame. The good works of caritas described within the Liber include the primary duties of the Frankish aristocrat. True holiness for Paulinus rests in doing works of “justice” (iustitia), defined not in the classical sense of balance but instead in terms of discipleship and correct understanding of the divine order: doing what God wills and not doing what God prohibits.67 Paulinus urges Eric to obey the teachings of the clergy, but he also encourages him to read scripture for himself. The holy books are a direct message from God, he says, about what he expects from humanity: “God himself, our Lord, speaks to us through them, and shows us feeling (affectum) with his pius will.”68 This statement would be extraordinarily rare to find in later centuries of the Christian church, but in this Carolingian text, it demonstrates just how clearly each individual Christian was thought to have control over his (or her) connection with the divine. All men should read scripture for themselves because the pius will of God—here used in the Augustinian sense not of “pious” but “infinitely loving”—is the primary exemplar for the depth of feeling that each and every human should show toward others.69
It is true, as readers of Liber exhortationis have previously noted, that Paulinus describes God’s direct message in terms that Eric, a warlord in the service of Charlemagne, would certainly have understood.70 If a mission comes from the king, Paulinus asks Eric rhetorically, “do we not then accept the letters, throwing our cares aside with readied will and with all devotion?” Certainly, since the “King of kings and Lord of lords” has seen fit to direct his letters (that is, scripture) to Eric and to the rest of humanity through his prophets and apostles, Eric should respond with all the more diligence to his divine command.71 This is not, however, a simplification of the message so as to make it palatable for a lay audience. Rather, it frames the enactment of caritas in terms of a metaphor that both Paulinus and Eric, as Frankish aristocrats, know well. Just as they are equally in their service of their earthly lord, they are equally servants of their heavenly king.
An Ideology of Inner Asceticism: “May the Sweetness of This World Not Separate Us in Any Way from the Love of Christ”
Throughout its discussion, Paulinus’s text naturalizes the ideological authority of the ascetic male, presenting it as a given that need not even be explained. This “natural” authority of the ascetic does not, however, require all Christian men to be monks. Instead, just as in Gregory the Great’s Regulae pastoralis liber, it requires men of the world to perform their asceticism symbolically and to tether themselves to God through affective deeds of caritas.
“Do not obscure your goodness through the malice of others,” Paulinus continues, “but as much as you have power, may you everywhere appear lovable before God and all people.”72 Paulinus serves as his own model for the emotional bond that caritas represents, following exactly from Gregory the Great’s ideology—his pastoral caritas for his flock is more than a simple expression of care; it is also the means by which, as a man of the secular world, he avoids worldly corruption. Paulinus explains how Eric, too, must embody caritas in order to separate himself from worldly influences. “I desire and entreat God with all the feeling (affectu) of my heart,” he says, “that you stretch toward what is preeminent, reach for the lofty crown of everlasting beatitude, and not allow the nobility of your soul to be altered from the love of Christ by either the counsel of friends or secular ambition.”73 This is not a condemnation of the secular world, describing it as incongruent with Eric’s position. It is traditional Gregorian ideology of worldly authority. The Christian leader must live within the boundaries of the secular world but learn to keep his mind firmly connected to the heavenly world beyond.
Caritas—love of God and neighbor—is the key to worldly authority because emotional connection between souls is the form of world denial that all men can perform. “Let us have the love of God and of neighbor inside us,” Paulinus urges. From love of God and neighbor comes tranquility, he writes. Hatred brings only disaster and ruin.74 Paulinus demonstrates in his discussion the differences between the Christian man with caritas in his heart and the Christian who harbors hatred. Fusing the language of the Gospel with Stoic, Augustinian, and Gregorian interpretations, he explains that the “meek” and “kindly” man (mitis et benignus), even if he suffers evil, does not retaliate in the face of injury, while the “evil man” (inequus) takes offense at even the slightest word: “He who is filled with caritas walks with tranquil soul and most serene face.”75
The text describes the second component of