Simplicity

SIMPLICITY. - In the abstract, it expresses the absence of complexity. In the moral order it contrasts with duplicity or hypocrisy, and involves two degrees: one obligatory, the other counselled.

Obligatory simplicity is opposed to the vice of duplicity, which drives one to deceit; and since the distortion of truth is not merely a particular sin, but is the secret of every dishonesty, in this its first and necessary degree simplicity is a general synonym for uprightness, for probity, for authentic piety. Thus frequently in Sacred Scripture (Job 1:1; Prov. 2:21-22, etc.). This fundamental simplicity Jesus praised in Nathanael, while he welcomed him among his disciples (John 1:47). Whoever does not nourish an absolute horror of every fraud and lie, however small, cannot enter into the evangelical spirit.

The duplicity to which evangelical simplicity, or the simplicity of counsel, is directly opposed, is no longer that of immorality, but that of consented imperfection or spiritual mediocrity, of an intention divided between the esteem of God and that of the world, between the desire for eternal goods and that for temporal goods, between the appeals of charity and the seductions of self-love — in short, between "spirit" and "flesh" (Gal. 5:16). God is not loved "with all one's heart"; the eye of the soul is not clear (Matt. 6:22-23); intentions foreign, even if not strictly contrary, to the love of God clutter the heart; the inclinations toward what is not God are not purely ordered to satisfying God: they do not proceed, at least virtually, from charity. In the simple, undivided heart, on the other hand, nothing interferes with the promptings of Grace, which guides every step in detachment and disinterestedness, which are the two interior aspects of evangelical simplicity.

Detachment from the world, simplicity with regard to the necessary cares of temporal life (ἁπλότης: Matt. 6:25-34; 1 Cor. 29-35; Phil. 4:6), finds its example (1 Thess. 1:7) in the generosity of the newly converted of Macedonia, whose "extreme poverty overflowed in the riches of their simplicity" on behalf of the poor (2 Cor. 8:1-4); simplicity explains that luminous abundance of good works (Matt. 5:16; Rom. 12:8; 2 Cor. 9:11), which resembles the "shadowless" light of God (James 1:17; 1 John 1:5), who "gives to all simply" (Matt. 5:43-48; James 1:5). Its symbol is the earth without thorns, which represents the soul not obscured by temporal solicitudes (Luke 8:14).

Personal disinterestedness, forgetfulness of self, gives rise to a more equitable simplicity, designated by the word ἁπλότης, which evokes both the good earth "not stony" of the parable (Luke 8:13) and the "leveled way" preached by the Baptist (Luke 3:4-5; cf. Spanish llaneza). Its classic example is that given in the gatherings of the primitive community of Jerusalem (Acts 2:46-47), free from every favoritism (James 2:1-4), from every egoistic contrast (1 Cor. 11:20-22), from every hidden calculation (Luke 14:11-14), indeed from every bustling about (Luke 10:41-42). Of such simplicity in living together, all modest welcome and frankness, the city of Siena in the time of its Saints carved the promise on the pediment of the Porta Camollia: Cor magis tibi Sena pandit ("Siena opens to you a heart wider than this gate"); it is opposed to the closedness and hardness of heart.

In short, the simplicity praised in the Gospel is that of charity (1 Cor. 13:4-7), which opens the soul to the influence, direct or mediated, of Christ — not any sort of naivety, not the puerility that makes one accessible to the seductions of evil and error (2 Cor. 11:3). "In life, one wants a little malice, says St. Teresa, and not so much simplicity!" (Ep. 270, n. 3; cf. Ps. 17:26-27; Prov. 9:4, 16). Simplicity must be allied with Christian maturity (1 Cor. 14:20), with the evangelical art of insinuating oneself even into the heart of one's neighbor, however ill-disposed, in order to win him for God: "be simple as doves" (Matt. 10:16) because the Lord takes up the defense of the simple (Ps. 73:19; Luke 13:34). The simplicity of the dove is properly evangelical purity (ἀκεραιότης, Cant. 2:10; 5:2); this is the perfect one. Simplicity keeps the intention (v.) upright and seeks God in everything; purity illumines even the deepest affections, and succeeds in finding God in everything (Matt. 5:8); because God converses with the simple (Prov. 3:32).

Michele Ledrus