SIMPLICITÀ. — In the abstract, it expresses the absence of complexity. In the moral order it is opposed to duplicity or hypocrisy, and comprises two degrees: one obligatory, the other recommended.
Obligatory s. is opposed to the vice of duplicity, which impels one to deceive; and since the distortion of truth is not merely a particular sin, but the secret of every dishonesty, in this first and necessary degree s. is a general synonym for uprightness, probity, and authentic piety. Thus it frequently appears in Sacred Scripture (Iob 1,1; Prov. 2, 21-22, etc.). Jesus praised this fundamental s. in Natanaele, as he welcomed him among his disciples (Io. 1,47). Whoever does not feel absolute horror toward every fraud and lie, however slight, cannot enter into the evangelical spirit.
The duplicity directly opposed by evangelical s., or s. of counsel, is no longer that of immorality, but that of willingly accepted imperfection or spiritual mediocrity: of an intention divided between esteem for God and esteem for 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 the heart»; the eye of the soul is not clear (Mt. 6, 22-23); intentions foreign, even if not actually contrary, to the love of God encumber the heart; inclinations toward what is not God are not purely ordered to pleasing 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, the two internal aspects of evangelical s.
Detachment from the world, s. with regard to the necessary concerns of temporal life (ἀπλότης: Mt. 6, 25-34; I Cor. 29-35; Phil. 4,6), finds its example (I Thess. 1,7) in the generosity of the newly converted Macedonians, whose «extreme poverty abounded in the riches of their s.» for the benefit of the poor (II Cor. 8, 1-4); s. explains that luminous abundance of good works (Mt. 5,16; Rom. 12,8; II Cor. 9, 11), which resembles the «shadowless» light of God (Iac. 1, 17; I Io. 1,5), who «gives to all simply» (Mt. 5, 43-48; Iac. 1,5). Its symbol is the soil without thorns, representing the soul not obscured by temporal cares (Lc. 8, 14).
Personal disinterestedness, forgetfulness of self, gives rise to a more equistia s., designated by the word ἀρπλάτης, which recalls both the «stony» good soil of the parable (Lc. 8, 13) and the «level path» preached by the Baptist (Lc. 3, 4-5; cf. spagn. llaneza). Its classical example is that offered in the gatherings of the primitive community of Jerusalem (Act. 2, 46-47), free from all partiality (Iac. 2, 1-4), all selfish conflict (I Cor. 11, 20-22), all hidden calculation (Lc. 14, 11-14), and even all busyness (Lc. 10, 41-42). Of such s. in social life, wholly welcoming, modest, and frank, the city of Siena, in the time of its Saints, carved this promise on the façade 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 s. praised in the Gospel is that of charity (I Cor. 13, 4-7), which opens the soul to the direct or mediated influence of Christ—not any kind of naivety, nor the childishness that makes one accessible to the seductions of evil and error (II Cor. 11, 3). «In life, one needs a little cunning, says s. Teresa, and not so much s.!» (Ep. 270, n. 3; cf. Ps. 17, 26-27; Prov., 9, 4, 16). S. must be allied with Christian maturity (I 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 that person for God: «be simple as doves» (Mt. 10, 16), because the Lord takes the simple under his protection (Ps. 73, 19; Lc. 13, 34). The s. of the dove is properly evangelical purity (ἀπεραλύτης, Cant. 2, 10; 5, 2); this is the perfect form. S. intention (v.) upright and seeks God in all things; purity illumines even the deepest affections and succeeds in finding God in all things (Mt. 5,8), because God associates with the simple (Prov. 3, 32).