SIMPLICITY. - In the abstract, it expresses the absence of complexity. In the moral order, it contrasts with duplicity or hypocrisy, and comprises two degrees: one obligatory, the other recommended.
Obligatory simplicity opposes the vice of duplicity, which leads to deceit; and since the love of truth is not merely a particular virtue but the secret of all honesty, in this its first and necessary degree simplicity is a general synonym for rectitude, probity, and authentic piety. Thus it is frequently found in Holy Scripture (Job 1:1; Prov. 2:21-22, etc.). Our Lord Himself commends this fundamental simplicity in Nathanael when He receives him among His disciples (John 1:47). Whoever does not feel absolute horror toward even the slightest deceit or falsehood cannot enter into the spirit of the Gospel.
The duplicity which evangelical simplicity directly opposes is no longer that of immorality, but that of consented imperfection or spiritual discord, 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 calls of charity and the seductions of self-love—in short, between “spirit and flesh” (Gal. 5:16). God is not loved with one’s whole heart; the eye of the soul is not clear (Matt. 6:22-23); foreign intentions, even if not directly 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, even virtually, from charity. Instead, in the simple, undivided heart, there is nothing interior or subjective that obstructs the soul’s reception of grace, which guides every step in detachment and selflessness—these being the two internal aspects of evangelical simplicity.
Detachment from the world, simplicity regarding the necessary cares of temporal life (Matt. 6:25-34; 1 Cor. 7:29-35; Phil. 4:6), finds its exemplar (1 Thess. 1:7) in the generosity of the newly converted in Macedonia, whose “sincere love” is not a mere human sincerity (1 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 (Jas. 1:17; 1 John 1:5), given “simply to all” (Matt. 5:43-48; Jas. 1:5). Its symbol is the thornless soil, representing the soul unobscured by temporal cares (Luke 8:14).
Personal disinterestedness, forgetfulness of self, gives rise to a more refined simplicity, designated by the word ἀφελότης, which evokes both the good soil “without stones” in the parable (Luke 8:13) and the “level path” preached by the Baptist (Luke 3:4-5; cf. Spanish *llaneza*). Its classic example is found in the gatherings of the early Jerusalem community (Acts 2:46-47), free from all partiality (Acts 2:1-4), from all selfish contention (1 Cor. 11:20-22), from all hidden calculation (Luke 14:11-14), and indeed from all busyness (Luke 10:41-42). Of this simplicity in communal living—marked by modest welcome and candor—Siena inscribed the promise on the gateway of Porta Camollia during the age of its saints: *Cor magis tibi Sena pandit* (“Siena opens to you a heart wider than this gate”); it stands opposed to the hardness and closure of heart.
In sum, the simplicity praised in the Gospel is that of charity (1 Cor. 13:4-7), which opens the soul to the direct or mediated influence of Christ—not some naive simplicity, nor the childishness that renders one susceptible to the seductions of evil and error (2 Cor. 11:3). “In life,” says St. Teresa, “a little cunning is needed, and not so much simplicity!” (Letter 27, 3; cf. Ps. 17:26-27; Prov. 9:4, 16). Simplicity must be united with Christian maturity (1 Cor. 14:20), with the evangelical art of insinuating oneself even into the heart of the ill-disposed in order to win them for God: “Be as simple as doves” (Matt. 10:16), for the Lord takes the part of the simple (Ps. 73:19; Luke 13:34). The simplicity of the dove is properly the evangelical purity (ἀκέραιος, Matt. 10:16; 5:2), and this is its perfection. Simplicity preserves a right intention and seeks God in all things; purity illumines even the deepest affections and succeeds in finding God in all things (Matt. 5:8), for God dwells with the simple (Prov. 3:32).