“The communion of saints and the forgiveness of sins are obtained by
the _waves of the night_--that is to say, by two sacraments of the
Holy Church, baptism and penance. These are the waves which by faith
wash that night of darkness, sin. And God has sworn, even from the
time of Abraham, that He would give Himself to us and would become
our familiar friend, and because of His all-embracing and overflowing
love, He has willed to wash us in His blood. And in order that we might
believe without doubting in the oath which He sware by Himself, He has
sealed it with His own death, and has given the merits of His death
to all men in the Holy Church for the remission of sins, and to the
saints, for the adornment of their glory. That precious stone, the
chrysolite, symbolises to us that article of the creed, ‘the communion
of saints, the forgiveness of sins,’ for it is like the waves of the
sea, translucent and green, and moreover it has gleams of gold. And so
likewise all saints and just men are translucent by grace or by glory,
and they are green by their holy life, and they gleam with the gold of
divine love which shines through them. And these three adornments are
common to all saints and to all just persons, for they are the treasure
of the holy churches, here and in eternal life. And all who by penance
have put away from them the colour of the Red Sea--that is, a sinful
life--are like the chrysolite.
“You must know that this sea is red because of its country and the
colour of its bed. It is between Jericho and Zoar, Jericho signifies
‘the moon,’ and Zoar the beast which blinds the reason. Between
the moon of inconstancy and the inclination of reason towards the
beast, there is always the Red Sea--that is to say, an impure life.
No creature can live in the Red Sea, and whatever does not live in it
sinks to the bottom; and that is why it is called the Dead Sea, because
there is no movement in it, and it is like bitumen or pitch, because it
seizes and slays whatever enters it, and in this way it very closely
resembles sin, which seizes man and puts him to spiritual death in the
sight of God, and plunges him into hell.”
Let us see, lastly, how he applies the emerald and the jasper to the
third and sixth articles of the Apostles’ Creed:--
“In this article we compare to the Son of God that beautiful stone
which is called the emerald, and which is so green that neither leaves
nor grass nor any other green thing can compare with its viridity. And
it fills and feeds with its greenness the eyes of those who behold it.
Now when the eternal Word of the Father was made man, then was seen the
greenest colour ever known on earth. That union of natures is so green
and so lovely and so joyful, that no other colour can equal it; and so
in a holy vision it has filled and fed the eyes of such men as have
prepared themselves to perceive it. Nothing is more lovely and more
pleasant to the eye than the emerald when it has been cut and polished,
and everything that it reflects may be recognised and seen as in a
mirror. And so, if we examine in detail the divine being of Him who
took our nature through His love for us, we must needs admire, and we
cannot sufficiently praise its sublimity. And when we consider how He
became man, we must be ashamed of ourselves, remembering His humility,
and we cannot abase ourselves too deeply. And when we remember what His
motive was in becoming man, we cannot rejoice enough or love Him as He
deserves.
“In these three ways we shall behold with eager desire, and we shall
polish and lovingly examine Christ our noble emerald; and so doing, we
shall find nothing more pleasant to the eyes of our reason, nothing
more attractive, for we shall find Him reflected in us, and we shall
find ourselves re-echoed in Him through His grace and a virtuous life,
and so we shall turn away from earthly things and keep this mirror ever
before our eyes.
“In another article we compare Christ to the noble jasper, which has
a green colour, very pleasant to the eye; and it almost equals the
emerald in its greenness. And so we compare it to the ascension of our
Lord, who was green and beautiful in the eyes of the apostles, and so
pleasant that they could never forget Him during all their lives. And
we shall rightly have the same experience; we shall consider that the
noble emerald, the eternal Word, descended into our nature because of
His love for us, with an overflowing greenness, and we shall rejoice
in this above all, for this vision is full of grace. We shall further
consider that the glorious jasper, by which I mean our Lord Jesus,
ascended to heaven wearing our nature, and is seated at the right hand
of the Father, and has prepared for us the state of glory--Amen.”
Next comes _The Book of the Twelve Virtues_, which Laurentius Surius
entitles more exactly _Tractatus de præcipuis quibusdam virtutibus_.
In it the hermit of Grönendal seems to have made a violent effort to
open his bodily eyes, and all his thoughts are intertwined with the
simplicity of divine children, in the green and blue rays of humility
and mercy, while his prose, which is usually quite impersonal, is
enlivened here with various counsels and practical matters.