Repentance is one of the core principles of the Catholic faith. We are not expected to be perfect in our acts, but we are expected to recognize when we have sinned, to confess those sins to a priest, to perform some small act, such as recitation of prayers, and then make a sincere effort not to repeat that sin.
Montaigne was a Catholic, but he didn’t have much use for repentance, and so this essay created more problems for him than anything else in his body of work.
And yet, through multiple revisions of his essays, he never backed away from anything in it. Perhaps because he included it in his final volume of essays he was able to get away with that. To believe that repentance is not necessary is somewhat akin to being a Protestant, which Montaigne never claimed to be, making comments like this striking:
Let me here excuse what I often say, that I rarely repent and that my conscience is content with itself—not as the conscience of an angel or a horse, but as the conscience of a man; always adding this refrain, not perfunctorily but in sincere and complete submission: that I speak as an ignorant inquirer, referring the decision purely and simply to the common and authorized beliefs. I do not teach, I tell.
That last part is trying to get off the hook by saying he claims no good authority to believe what he does, he’s just being honest about himself. So if the church has a problem, he fully admits that he’s wrong in their eyes. But he won’t repent on it.
His argument against repenting is basically that it’s pointless—we all know when we sin, and we all feel bad about doing it. So why take the extra step?
There is no vice truly a vice which is not offensive, and which a sound judgment does not condemn; for its ugliness and painfulness is so apparent that perhaps the people are right who say it is chiefly produced by stupidity and ignorance. So hard it is to imagine anyone knowing it without hating it.
He had an interesting point of view about virtue as well. Montaigne thought that virtue basically came down to whatever public opinion believed to be virtuous at that time, and considering how stupid humanity was, then no one should chase virtuous behavior merely to win the public’s approval:
To found the reward for virtuous actions on the approval of others is to choose too uncertain and shaky a foundation. Especially in an age as corrupt and ignorant as this, the good opinion of the people is a dishonor. Whom can you trust to see what is praiseworthy? God keep me from being a worthy man according to the descriptions I see people every day giving of themselves in their own honor. What were vices now are moral acts [Seneca].
Which isn’t to say don’t be virtuous, Montaigne certainly believed it in, but follow your own moral compass. If others disagree, then to hell with them. Which in a way supports his opening position that repenting is a waste of time, because Montaigne sees it only as a show to be back in the good graces of others.
To make up for that lack of public approval or condemnation, Montaigne sets up his own moral code:
Those of us especially who live a private life that is on display only to ourselves must have a pattern established within us by which to test our actions, and, according to this pattern, now pat ourselves on the back, now punish ourselves. I have my own laws and court to judge me, and I address myself to them more than anywhere else.
This aligns with my own view—I make up for not caring about others’ opinions by being a harsh judge of myself. That isn’t always easy, however. I’ve found that I often do far more public harm to myself when I am right about something than when I’m wrong. When I’m in error, I readily acknowledge my mistake, even if I come across it months after the fact. But when I’m right, I will often push my righteousness to an extreme and want to hear back an acknowledgement of failure that I often never receive. This is not a good spot to be in—it merely causes unnecessary social friction. I’ve tried to learn to keep my knowledge of righteousness to myself.
Montaigne echoes this approach:
There is no one but yourself who knows whether you are cowardly and cruel, or loyal and devout. Others do not see you, they guess at you by uncertain conjectures; they see not so much your nature as your art. Therefore do not cling to their judgment; cling to your own.
He closes out his thoughts on repentance with a devastating critique that I’m surprised didn’t earn him Vatican censorship. (It was brought up, however, when he was up for Roman citizenship:)
If repentance were weighing in the scale of the balance, it would outweigh the sin. I know of no quality so easy to counterfeit as piety, if conduct and life are not made to conform with it. Its essence is abstruse and occult; its semblance, easy and showy.
He goes on to say other things to close out the essay, mostly about his sex life and how we shouldn’t think too much of virtuous amorous behavior of older people because their drives aren’t as strong. I don’t think what he says is original or interesting enough to examine.
But I do want to look at one other aspect of this essay, the introduction, where he returns to the question of our ever-changing nature. Montaigne has some of his most poetic language here, describing how human beings are just like the planet we inhabit, in constant motion even when we feel we are standing still.
He feels obliged to take on the question of contradictions. How can we trust anything he says if he is in continual flux? Montaigne sees no contradiction in this:
This is a record of various and changeable occurrences, and of irresolute and, when it so befalls, contradictory ideas: whether I am different myself, or whether I take hold of my subjects in different circumstances and aspects. So, all in all, I may indeed contradict myself now and then; but truth, as Demades said, I do not contradict. If my mind could gain a firm footing, I would not make essays, I would make decisions; but it is always in apprenticeship and on trial.
That’s an interesting way of looking at his project. If everything were so simple, why write at all? Just do. It’s the lack of clarity, the challenge, that sparks the need for words.
I was thinking today about the succession of days in life and how challenging days, while often unpleasant while we are in them, become over time our most valuable ones. Each day holds a lesson for us. The toughest lessons sometimes come with a great deal of weight attached. But by surviving them and remembering the challenge, we come prepared to face similar days in the future. The small defeats in life best prepare us for the greatest challenges.
Montaigne believed that this was the only proper subject for any writing, and he was not too shy to take a bow for where it placed him by the time he wrote his third volume:
At least I have one thing according to the rules: that no man ever treated a subject he knew and understood better than I do the subject I have undertaken; and that in this I am the most learned man alive.
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