Centuries of Meditations

Centuries of Meditations is an amazingly high quality, yet largely unknown, work by Thomas Traherne from the mid-1600s. His work was really a Christian devotional that was unpublished until it was rediscovered in 1908.

When you do a deep-dive into old literature with an eye for virtue you will be amazed how much it was discussed in most ages. Ancient Christian devotional literature is one of the deepest wells of wisdom and insight into virtuous living.

The great part about good works on virtue being so old is that many of them are free. You can find a copy of Centuries here, though I loved it so much my wife bought me a hard copy for my birthday. Here is an Amazon link to the one I have in anticipation of you loving the book as much as I do.

In this article I will examine two of the main excerpts from Centuries that deepened my understanding of virtue from a uniquely Christian perspective.

Holiness Background

The Christian conception of holiness is paramount to understanding this first passage. It deserves an in-depth treatment of the Biblical theme of holiness, but for the time being a brief summary will have to do.

The Bible regards God as holy. Included in this concept is the idea of moral goodness, purity, and beauty. Also included is the idea that God is entirely “other,” different, and set apart by his holiness. His holiness can be compared to the sun. It is so very good and life-giving that it powers the whole planet with its energy, yet it is so pure and blazing that it will consume anyone who is foolish enough to get too close without matching its heat.

In Leviticus 11:44, God declares that humans must “Be holy, for I am holy.” This instruction is repeated in the New Testament in 1 Peter 1:16. Unfortunately, since the entire story of the Bible is about how every single human starting with Adam and Eve have been anything but holy, this requirement has a pretty depressing ring to it.

Yet, the narrative of the Bible is about God promising a perfect substitute to sacrifice himself for the sins of humanity to make them holy, meeting God’s requirement. This way people can be in God’s presence without getting burned up by his holiness so to speak. That narrative is fulfilled in the person of Jesus in the New Testament. The latter portions of the New Testament then deal with how an actual person can start living an actually holy life now that Jesus has handled our sin problem.

So now we come to Traherne discussing how a Christian on this side of Jesus’ atonement can start thinking about how to increase in holiness in the way they live.

Can you be Holy without accomplishing the end for which you are created? Can you be Divine unless you be Holy? Can you accomplish the end for which you were created, unless you be Righteous? Can you then be Righteous, unless you be just in rendering to Things their due esteem?
All things were made to be yours, and you were made to prize them according to their value: which is your office and duty, the end for which you were created, and the means whereby you enjoy. The end for which you were created, is that by prizing all that God hath done, you may enjoy yourself and Him in Blessedness (1st Century, 12).

Amazingly, Traherne arrives at the very core of his conception of holiness through a series of questions. For him, the path to holiness (living in line with God’s character and design) is by being “just in rendering to Things their due esteem.”

This “just rendering” is the ancient concept of virtue, the idea that specific people, things, actions, situations, and experiences can actually necessitate a specific and particular emotional response and particular actions or thoughts. Emotions, thoughts, and actions that are appropriate are considered virtuous, while those responses that are incongruous with the created order are not virtuous.

You can call this idea something like objective virtue, the belief that virtue is hardwired into the created order. Unfortunately, it is obvious that these virtuous responses are not hardwired into us humans. The Bible explains this as original sin, that human virtue is corrupt and broken due to our rebellion and disobedience against God.

Change Your Desires, Don’t Kill Them

Interestingly, for Traherne the answer to our dilemma is not to eliminate our desires, but to transform them.

To be Holy is so zealously to desire, so vastly to esteem, and so earnestly to endeavor it, that we would not for millions of gold and silver, decline, nor fail, nor mistake in a tittle. For then we please God when we are most like Him. We are like Him when our minds are in frame. Our minds are in frame when our thoughts are like His. And our thoughts are like His when we have such conceptions of all objects as god hath, and prize all things according to their value. For God doth prize all things rightly, which is a Key that opens into the very thoughts of His bosom.
It seemeth arrogance to pretend to the knowledge of His secret thoughts. But how shall we have the Mind of God unless we know His thoughts? Or how shall we be led by His divine spirit, till we have His Mind? His thoughts are hidden: but He hath revealed unto us the hidden Things of Darkness. By His works and by His attributes we know His Thoughts: and by thinking the same, are Divine and Blessed (1st Century, 13).

For Traherne, the “Key” to being holy is to have the mind of God, and you have the mind of God when you value each and every thing in the same way and to the same degree that God does.

So if you go about training yourself to value things in the same way and degree that God does, your thoughts, emotions, and actions will begin to align with God’s. In essence, you will be holy as he is holy.

I have found a wealth of insight into the practice of virtue in Centuries. Traherne is deeply spiritual and profound while staying very practical through his logic and Socratic-like question and answer method. I hope these selections serve as a helpful introduction to his work.