Unde planctus et lamentum?
Quid mentem non erigis?
Quid revolvis monumentum?
Tecum est quem diligis;
Jesum quæris, et inventum
Habes, nec intelligis.
Unde gemis, unde ploras?
Verum habes gaudium.
In te latet quod ignoras
Doloris solatium.
Intus habes, quæris foras
Languoris remedium.[157]
HYMN OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
Vivo sin vivir mi,
Y tan alta vida espero
Que muero porque no muero.[158]
ST. THERESA.
On the next evening Atherton resumed his reading as follows:—
_Chronicle of Adolph Arnstein, continued._
1354. _March. St. Brigitta’s Day._—A fortnight ago this day, there
came to me, to buy as goodly a battle-axe as could be made, young
Sir Ulric—the same who, at the tourney the other day, graced his
new-won spurs by such gallant feats of arms. We fell into talk about
the great floods which have everywhere wrought of late such loss of
life, and cattle, and husbandry. He said he had but the day before
saved the life of a monk who, with his companion, had been carried
beyond his depth by the force of the water, as they were wading
across the fields.
‘The one most in danger,’ said Ulric, ‘had a big book in his bosom.
As he flounders about, out tumbles the book; he lets go his staff,
and makes after it; and souse he goes, over head and ears in a
twinkling. The other stands stock still, and bawls out to me for
help. I, just sworn to succour the distressed and be true to the
Church, spur Roland, plunge in, and lift out the draggled, streaming
father by the hood, half throttled and half drowned, but clutching
the book in his frozen fingers as though it were a standard or a
fair lady’s token. I lay him before me across my horse; his fellow
catches hold of my stirrup, and we land on the rising ground. When
my monk had somewhat come to himself, he pours as many blessings on
my head as there were drops running from his habit; not, he said,
for saving his poor life merely, but that the book was safe. He had
just finished writing it—there was not another copy in the world—the
devil had an especial spite against it—no doubt the fiend had raised
the waters to destroy the seed which fed men’s souls as well as the
grain which nourished their bodies; but the faithful God had sent
me, like his angel, just in time for rescue. I saw them in safety,
and he promised to remember me in his orisons. His name, I think he
said, was Seusse or Suso.’[159]
So Suso is in Strasburg, thought I,—the man I have long wished to
see. I lost no time in inquiring after him at the Dominican convent.
There I found, with no small satisfaction, that he was none the
worse for his mishap; saw him several times, and persuaded him, at
last, to honour for a few days my unworthy roof. He has been with us
for a week, but must pursue his journey to-morrow. On my part, I
could tell him news about Ruysbroek, and Tauler, and some of his old
friends at Cologne. On his, he has won the love of all the household
by his gentle, affectionate nature, blessed us by his prayers, and
edified every heart by his godly conversation. My good wife would
love him, if for nothing else, because he so loves the little ones.
They love him because he always goes with them to feed the old
falcon, and to throw out crumbs for the sparrows, because he joins
them in petting Argus, and talks so sweetly about the Virgin and
Child, and the lilies and violets and roses, and the angels with
gold-bright wings that live in heaven. Those three tall fellows, my
boys, fonder of sword-play, wrestling, and camping the bar, than of
churchmen or church-going, will listen to him by the hour, while he
tells of his visions, his journeys, his dangers, and his
deliverances. Rulman Merswin also came over and spent two evenings
with us. He talked much with Suso about Master Eckart. Suso was full
of reminiscences and anecdotes about him. In his youthful days he
had been his disciple at Cologne.
‘At one time,’ said Suso, ‘I was for ten years in the deepest
spiritual gloom. I could not realize the mysteries of the faith. A
decree seemed to have gone forth against me, and I thought I was
lost. My cries, my tears, my penance,—all were vain. I bethought me
at last of consulting my old teacher, left my cell, sailed down the
Rhine, and at Cologne the Lord gave to the words of the master such
power that the prison-doors were opened, and I stepped out into the
sunshine once more. Neither did his counsel cease with life. I saw
him in a vision, not long after his death. He told me that his place
was in the ineffable glory, and that his soul was divinely
transformed in God. I asked him, likewise, several questions about
heavenly things, which he graciously answered, strengthening me not
a little in the arduous course of the inner life of
self-annihilation. I have marvelled often that any, having tasted of
the noble wine of his doctrine, should desire any of my poor
vintage.’[160]
In talking with the brethren at the convent, while Suso was their
guest, I heard many things related concerning him altogether new to
me. I was aware that he had been greatly sought after as a preacher
in German throughout the Rhineland, and stood high in the esteem of
holy men as a wise and tender-hearted guide of souls. That he was an
especial friend of the Friends of God wherever he found them, I
knew. When at Cologne I heard Tauler praise a book of his which he
had in his possession, called the _Horologe of Wisdom_.[161]
Something of the fame of his austerities, conflicts, and
revelations, had come to my ears, but the half had not been told me.
It seems that his life, from his eighteenth to his fortieth year,
was one long self-torture. The Everlasting Wisdom (who is a tree of
life to them that lay hold upon her, more precious than rubies, and
with whom are durable riches and righteousness) manifested herself
to him. This was his call to the spiritual life. He seemed to behold
her—a maiden, bright as the sun,—her crown, eternity;—her raiment,
blessedness;—her words, sweetness; unknown, and yet well known;
near, and yet afar off; smiling on him, and saying, ‘My son, give me
thine heart!’ From that time forth he dedicated his life to her
service. He called himself the servant of the Eternal Wisdom, armed
his soul as her knight, wooed her as his heart’s queen, bore without
a murmur the lover’s pangs of coyness, doubt, and distance, with all
the hidden martyrdom of spiritual passion.[162]
But the rose of his love, as he is wont to term it, had fearful
thorns. I heard with a shudder of what he underwent that he might
crush to death his naturally active, buoyant, impulsive temperament.
Day and night he wore a close-fitting shirt in which were a hundred
and fifty sharp nails, the points turned inward on the flesh. In
this he lay writhing, like a mangled worm; and lest in his sleep he
should find some easier posture, or relieve with his hands in any
way the smart and sting that, like a nest of vipers, gnawed him
everywhere, he had leather gloves made, covered with sharp blades,
so that every touch might make a wound. Time after time were the old
scars opened into new gashes. His body appeared like that of one who
has escaped, half dead, from the furious clutches of a bear. This
lasted sixteen years, till a vision bade him cease.
Never satisfied with suffering, he devised a new kind of discipline.
He fashioned a wooden cross, with thirty nails whose points stood
out beyond the wood, and this he wore between his shoulders
underneath his garments, till his back was one loathly sore. To the
thirty nails he added afterwards seven more, in honour of the
sorrows of the Mother of God. When he would administer the
discipline, he struck a blow on this cross with his fist, driving
the points into his wounded flesh. He made himself, moreover, a
scourge, one of the iron tags of which was bent like a fisher’s
hook, and with this he lashed himself till it broke in his hand. For
many years he lay at nights in a miserable hole he called his cell,
with an old door for his bed, and in the depth of winter thought it
sin to approach the stove for warmth. His convent lay on a little
island where the Rhine flows out of the Lake of Constance. He could
see the sparkling water on every side. His wounds filled him with
feverish thirst; yet he would often pass the whole day without
suffering a drop to moisten his lips. His recompence was the vision
in which, at one time, the Holy Child brought him a vessel of
spring-water; and, at another, Our Blessed Lady gave him to drink
from her own heart. Such, they tell me, was his life till his
fortieth year, when it was signified to him that he should remit
these terrible exercises. He is now, I believe, little more than
fifty years old—the mere wreck of a man to look at; but with such
life and energy of spirit that, now he hath begun to live more like
other people, he may have a good thirty years before him still.[163]
I questioned him about his book called the _Horologe of Wisdom_, or
_Book of the Eternal Wisdom_, for it hath gone abroad under both
names. He said it was finished in the year 1340, since which time he
hath written sundry other pieces. He declared to me that he wrote
that treatise only in his most favoured moments, himself ignorant
and passive, but under the immediate impulse and illumination of the
Divine Wisdom. He afterwards carefully examined all he had written,
to be sure that there was nothing in his pages other than the holy
Fathers had taught, and the Church received.[164] Methought, if he
was sure of his inspiration, he might have spared himself this pain,
unless the Holy Spirit could in some sort gainsay his own words.
He is strongly moved by music,—but what must have been his rapture
to hear the hymns of the heavenly host! He has seen himself
surrounded by the choir of seraphim and cherubim. He has heard a
voice of thrilling sweetness lead the response, ‘Arise and shine,
Jerusalem,’ and has wept in his cell with joy to hear from angels’
lips, at early dawn, the soaring words, ‘Mary, the morning star, is
risen to-day.’ Many a time has he seen a heavenly company sent down
to comfort him. They have taken him by the hand, and he has joined
in spirit in their dance,—that celestial dance, which is a blissful
undulation to and fro in the depths of the divine glory. One day,
when thus surrounded in vision, he asked a shining prince of heaven
to show him the mode in which God had His secret dwelling in his
soul. Then answered the angel, ‘Take a gladsome look into thine
inmost, and see how God in thy loving soul playeth His play of
love.’ Straightway (said Suso to me) I looked, and behold the body
about my heart was clear as crystal, and I saw the Eternal Wisdom
calmly sitting in my heart in lovely wise: and, close by that form
of beauty, my soul, leaning on God, embraced by His arm, pressed to
His heart, full of heavenly longing, transported, intoxicated with
love![165]
We were talking one evening of May-day eve, and asking Suso wherein
their custom of celebrating that festival differed from our own. He
said that in Suabia the youths went out, much in our fashion,
singing songs before the houses of the maidens they loved, and
craving from them garlands in honour of the May. He told us how he,
in like manner, besought Our Lady with prayers and tears that he
might have a garland from her Son, the Eternal Wisdom. It was his
wont, he said, to set up a spiritual May-pole—the holy cross, that
May-bough of the soul, blossoming with grace and beauty. ‘Before
this,’ he continued, ‘I performed six venias,[166] and sung the
hymn, ‘Hail, holy cross!’ thereafter praising God somewhat thus:—
‘Hail! heavenly May of the Eternal Wisdom, whose fruit is
everlasting joy. First, to honour thee, I bring thee, to-day, for
every red rose a heart’s love; then, for every little violet a lowly
inclination; next, for every tender lily, a pure embrace; for every
bright flower ever born or to be born of May, on heath or grassplot,
wood or field, tree or meadow, my heart doth bring thee a spiritual
kiss; for every happy song of birds that ever sang in the kindly
May, my soul would give thee praises inexhaustible; for every grace
that ever graced the May, my heart would raise thee a spiritual
song, and pray thee, O thou blest soul’s May! to help me so to
glorify thee in my little time below, that I may taste thy living
fruit for evermore above!‘[167]
The beginning of a new stage of trial was made known to him by the
appearance, in a vision, of an angel, bringing him the attire and
the shoes of a knight. With these he was to gird himself for new and
yet more terrible conflicts. Concerning his own austerities he never
speaks, nor does he show to any one the letters of the name of
Jesus, which he is said to have cut with a style upon his bosom. But
of the sufferings which came upon him from without, he talks freely.
At one time, when in Flanders, he was brought before the chapter on
a charge of heresy; but his enemies gained not their wicked
end.[168] He was in greatest danger of his life shortly before the
coming of the plague, when the fearful rumour was abroad about the
poisoning of the wells. He himself told me the story, as follows:—
‘I was once despatched on a journey in the service of the convent,
and they gave me as my companion a half-witted lay-brother. We had
not been many days on the road, when, one morning, having early left
our quarters for the night, we arrived, after a long, hungry walk
through the rain, at a village on the banks of the Rhine. It
happened to be the fair-time. The street was full of booths and
stalls, horses and cattle, country-folk, players, pedlers, and idle
roystering soldiers. My fellow-traveller, Peter, catches sight of a
sign, and turns in straightway to warm himself at the fire, telling
me I can go on, do what I have to do, and I shall find him there. As
I learnt after, he sits himself down to table with a ruffianly set
of drovers and traders that had come to the fair, who first of all
make him half-drunk, and then seize him, and swear he has stolen a
cheese. At this moment there come in four or five troopers, hardened
fellows, ripe for any outrage, who fall on him also, crying, ‘The
scoundrel monk is a poisoner.’ The clamour soon gathers a crowd.
‘When Peter sees matters at this pass, he piteously cries out to
them to loose him, and stand still and listen: he will confess
everything. With that they let go their hold, and he, standing
trembling in the midst of them, begins: ‘Look at me, sirs,—you see I
am a fool; they call me silly, and nobody cares for what I say: but
my companion, he is a wise man, so our Order has given him the
poison-bag, and he is to poison all the springs between here and
Alsace. He is gone now to throw some into the spring here, to kill
every one that is come to the fair. That is why I stayed here, and
would not go with him. You may be sure that what I say is true, for
you will see him when he comes with a great wallet full of bags of
poison and gold pieces, which he and the Order have received from
the Jews for this murderous business.’
‘At these words they all shouted, ‘After the murderer! Stop him!
Stop him!’ One seized a spear, another an axe, others the first tool
or weapon they could lay hands on, and all hurried furiously from
house to house, and street to street, breaking open doors,
ransacking closets, stabbing the beds, and thrusting in the straw
with their swords, till the whole fair was in an uproar. Some
friends of mine, who heard my name mentioned, assured them of my
innocence of such an abominable crime, but to no purpose. At last,
when they could nowhere find me, they carried Peter off to the
bailiff, who shut him up in the prison.
‘When I came back to the inn, knowing nothing of all this, the host
told me what had befallen Peter, and how this evil rumour had
stirred up the whole fair against me. I hastened off to the bailiff
to beg Peter’s release. He refused. I spent nearly the whole day in
trying to prevail with him, and in going about in vain to get bail.
At last, about vesper time, with a heavy sum of gulden I opened the
heart of the bailiff and the doors of the jail.
‘Then my greatest troubles began. As I passed through the village,
hoping to escape unknown, I was recognised by some of the mob, and
in a moment they were swarming about me. ‘Down with the poisoner!’
they cried. ‘His gold shall not serve him with us as it did with the
bailiff.’ I ran a little way, but they closed me in again, some
saying, ‘Drown him in the Rhine;’ others answering, ‘No, burn him!
he’ll poison the whole river if you throw him in.’ Then I saw
(methinks I see him now) a gigantic peasant in a russet jerkin,
forcing his way through the crowd, with a pike in his hand. Seizing
me by the throat with one hand, and flourishing the pike in the
other, he shouted, ‘Hear me, all of you. Let me spit him with my
long pike, like a poisonous toad, and then plant it in this stout
hedge here, and let the caitiff howl and twist in the air till his
soul goes home to the devil. Then every one that goes by will see
his withered carcass, rotting and wasting, and sink him deeper down
in hell with curses. Come on,—it serves him right.’
‘My brain swam round. I closed my eyes. I expected the next instant
to feel the iron. By some merciful interposition, the wretch was not
suffered to execute his purpose. I thought I saw some of the better
sort looking on with horror-stricken faces, but they dared not
interfere. The women shrieked and wrung their hands. I made my way
from one to another of those who seemed least pitiless, beseeching
them to save me. Heaven must have heard my cries, though man did
not. They stood round watching me, disputing with horrid oaths among
themselves what they should do. At length—as I had sunk on my knees
under the hedge, praying for deliverance—I saw a priest, more like
an angel than a man, mightily thrusting them from side to side, and
when he reached me, laying his hand on my arm, he looked round on
the ring of savage faces, and threatened them with the hottest
curses of the Church if they harmed a hair upon the head of her
servant; outvoiced their angry cries with loud rebukes of their
cowardice, cruelty, and sacrilege, and led me out safely through
them all. He brought me to his house, made fast the doors, refreshed
and sheltered me for the night, and by the earliest dawn I was away
and safe upon my journey, while that abode of the wicked was sunk in
its drunken sleep. I keep the anniversary of that dreadful day, and
never shall I cease to praise the goodness which answered my prayer
in the hour of need, and delivered me as a bird from the snare of
the fowler.[169]
‘On one other occasion only,’ continued Suso, ‘did I taste so nearly
the bitterness of death.’
We begged him to tell us the adventure, and so he did, somewhat
thus—
‘I was once on my way home from Flanders, travelling up the Rhine. A
great feebleness and sickness had been upon me for some days, so
that I could not walk fast, and my companion, young and active, had
gone on about two miles ahead. I entered an old forest whose trees
overhung the steep river bank. It was evening, and it seemed to grow
dark in a moment as I entered the chilling shadow of a wood, in
which many a defenceless passenger had been robbed and slain. I had
gone on deeper and deeper into the growing gloom, the wind among the
pines sounding like a hungry sea. The fall of my own footsteps
seemed like the tread of one coming after me. I stood still and
hearkened. It was no one; when suddenly I saw, not far off among the
trees, two persons, a man and a woman, talking together and watching
me. I trembled in every limb, but I made the sign of the cross, and
passed on. Soon I heard quick footsteps behind me. I turned—it was
the woman. She was young and fair to look on. She asked my name, and
when she learnt it, said she knew and reverenced me greatly, told me
how that robber with whom I saw her had forced her to become his
wife, and prayed me there and then to hear her confession.
‘When I had shriven her, think how my fear was heightened to see her
go back and talk long and earnestly with the robber, whose brow grew
dark, as he left her without a word, and advanced gloomily towards
where I stood. It was a narrow pathway; on the one side the forest,
on the other the precipice, sheer down to the rapid river. Alas,
thought I, as my heart sank within me, now I am lost. I have not
strength to flee: no one will hear a cry for help: he will slay me,
and hide the body in the wood. All was still. I listened in vain for
the sound of a boat, a voice, or even the bark of a dog. I only
heard the feet of the outlaw and the violent beating of my own
heart. But, lo! when he approached me, he bowed his knee, and began
to confess. Blessed Mary, what a black catalogue! While he spake I
heard, motionless, every word of the horrible recital, and yet I was
all the time listening for rescue, watching his face, and minutely
noting every little thing about his person. I remember the very
graining of the wood of his lance which he laid aside on the grass
when he knelt to me—the long knife in his belt—his frayed black
doublet—his rough red hair, growing close down to his shaggy
eyebrows—two great teeth that stood out like tusks—and his hands
clasped, covered with warts, and just the colour of the roots of the
tree by which I stood. Even during those fearful moments, I can call
to mind distinctly how I marked a little shining insect that was
struggling among the blades of grass, climbing over a knot of wood,
and that got upon a fir-cone and fell off upon its back.
‘After revealing to me crimes that made my blood run cold, he went
on to say, ‘I was once in this forest, just about this hour of the
day, on the look-out for booty as I was this evening, when I met a
priest, to whom I confessed myself. He was standing just where you
are now, and when my shrift was ended, I drew out this knife,
stabbed him to the heart, and rolled his body down there into the
Rhine.’ When I heard this, the cold sweat burst out upon my face; I
staggered back giddy, almost senseless, against the tree. Seeing
this, the woman ran up, and caught me in her arms, saying, ‘Good
sir, fear nothing, he will not kill you.’ Whereat the murderer said,
‘I have heard much good of you, and that shall save your life
to-day. Pray for me, good father, that, through you, a miserable
sinner may find mercy in his last hour.’ At this I breathed again,
and promised to do as he would have me. Then we walked on some way
together, till they parted from me, and I reached the skirts of the
wood, where sat my companion waiting. I could just stagger up to
him, and then fell down at his side, shivering like a man with the
ague. After some time I arose, and we went on our way. But I failed
not, with strong inward groaning, to plead with the Lord for the
poor outlaw, that he might find grace and escape damnation. And, in
sooth, I had so strong an assurance vouchsafed to me of God, that I
could not doubt of his final salvation.’
With stories such as these of what befel himself, and many others,
whom he knew in Suabia and the Oberland, or met with on his
journeys, the holy man whiled away our windy March nights by the
ingle. Very edifying it was to hear him and Rulman Merswin talk
together about the higher experiences of the inward life.
Concerning the stages thereof, Suso said that the first consisted in
turning away from the world and the lusts of the flesh to God: the
second, in patient endurance of all that is contrary to flesh and
blood, whether inflicted of God or man: the third, in imitating the
sufferings of Christ, and forming ourselves after his sweet
doctrine, gracious walk, and pure life. After this, the soul must
withdraw itself into a profound stillness, as if the man were dead,
willing and purposing nought but the glory of Christ and our
heavenly Father, and with a right lowly demeanour toward friend and
foe. Then the spirit, thus advanced in holy exercise, arriveth at
freedom from the outward senses, before so importunate; and its
higher powers lose themselves in a supernatural sensibility. Here
the spirit parts with its natural properties, presses within the
circle which represents the eternal Godhead, and reaches spiritual
perfection. It is made free by the Son in the Son.
‘This I call,’ he said, ‘the transit of the soul,—it passes beyond
time and space, and is, with an amorous inward intuition, dissolved
in God. This entrance of the soul banishes all forms, images, and
multiplicity; it is ignorant of itself and of all things; it hovers,
reduced to its essence, in the abyss of the Trinity. At this
elevation there is no effort, no struggle; the beginning and the end
are one.[170] Here the Divine Nature doth, as it were, embrace, and
inwardly kiss through and through, the soul; that they may be for
ever one.[171] He who is thus received into the Eternal Nothing is
in the Everlasting Now, and hath neither before nor after. Rightly
hath St. Dionysius said that God is Non-being—that is, above all our
notions of being.[172] We have to employ images and similitudes, as
I must do in seeking to set forth these truths, but know that all
such figures are as far below the reality as a blackamoor is unlike
the sun.[173] In this absorption whereof I speak, the soul is still
a creature, but, at the time, hath no thought whether it be creature
or no.’[174]
Suso repeated several times this saying—‘A man of true
self-abandonment must be _un_built from the creature, _in_-built
with Christ, and _over_-built into the Godhead.’[175]
We bid adieu with much regret to this excellent man, and his visit
will abide long in our memory. We drew from him a half promise that
he would come to see us yet again.
_May, 1354._—Oh, most happy May! My brother Otto hath returned,
after trading to and fro so long in foreign parts. He is well and
wealthy, and will venture forth no more. What store of marvellous
tales hath he about the East! What hairs-breadth escapes to relate,
and what precious and curious things to show! Verily, were I to
write down here all he hath to tell of, I might be writing all my
days.
Only one thing will I note, while I think of it. He visited Mount
Athos, now fourteen years ago: he described to me the beauty of the
mountain, with its rich olives and lovely gardens, and the whole
neighourhood studded with white convents and hermitages of holy men.
Some of the monasteries were on rocks so steep that he had to be
drawn up by a rope in a basket to enter them. The shrines were
wondrous rich with gold and silver and precious stones. But nowhere,
he said, was he more martyred by fleas. When he was there, a new
doctrine or practice which had sprung up among the monks (taught, it
is said, by a certain Abbot Simeon), was making no small stir. There
was to be a synod held about it at that time in Constantinople. It
seems that some of the monks (called, if I mistake not, Hesychasts)
held that if a man shut himself up in a corner of his cell, with his
chin upon his breast, turning his thoughts inward, gazing towards
his navel, and centering all the strength of his mind on the region
of the heart; and, not discouraged by at first perceiving only
darkness, held out at this strange inlooking for several days and
nights, he would at length behold a divine glory, and see himself
luminous with the very light which was manifested on Mount Tabor.
They call these devotees Navel-contemplators. A sorry business! All
the monks, for lack of aught else to do, were by the ears about
it,—either trying the same or reviling it.[176]
Methought if our heretics have their extravagances and utmost
reaches of mystical folly here, there are some worse still among
those lazy Greeks.
KATE. And is that the end of Arnstein’s journal?
ATHERTON. No more has come down to posterity.
MRS. ATHERTON. That last piece of news from Mount Athos seems quite
familiar to me. I have just been reading Curzon’s _Monasteries of the
Levant_, and thanks to him, I can imagine the scenery of the mountain
and its neighourhood: the Byzantine convents, with their many little
windows rounded at the top, the whole structure full of arches and
domes,—the little farms interspersed, with their white square towers and
cottages of stone at the foot,—the forests of gigantic plane trees, with
an underwood of aromatic evergreens,—flowers like those in the
conservatory everywhere growing wild,—waterfalls at the head of every
valley, dashing down over marble rocks,—and the bells, heard tinkling
every now and then, to call the monks to prayer.
WILLOUGHBY. The crass stupidity of those Omphalopsychi shows how little
mere natural beauty can contribute to refine and cultivate,—at any rate
when the pupils are ascetics. The contemporary mysticism of the East
looks mean enough beside the speculation, the poetry, and the action of
the German mystics of the fourteenth century. It is but the motionless
abstraction of the Indian Yogi over again.
ATHERTON. Yet you will be unjust to the Greek Church (which has little
enough to boast of) if you reckon this gross materialist Quietism as the
only specimen of mysticism she has to show during this period. There was
a certain Cabasilas, Archbishop of Thessalonica,[177] a contemporary of
our German friends, an active man in the political and religious
movements of the time, whose writings exhibit very fairly the better
characteristics of Byzantine mysticism. His earnest practical devotion
rests on the basis of the traditional sacerdotalism, but he stands
between the extremes of the objective and the subjective mysticism,
though naturally somewhat nearer to the former. He presents, however,
nothing original to detain us;—so let us away to supper.
Note to page 354.
The following passage, placed in the mouth of the Everlasting Wisdom may
serve as a further specimen of the sensuous and florid cast of Suso’s
language:—
‘I am the throne of joy, I am the crown of bliss. Mine eyes are so
bright, my mouth so tender, my cheeks so rosy-red, and all my form so
winning fair, that were a man to abide in a glowing furnace till the
Last Day, it would be a little price for a moment’s vision of my beauty.
Behold! I am so beauteously adorned with a robe of glory, so delicately
arrayed in all the blooming colours of the living flowers—red roses,
white lilies, lovely violets, and flowers of every name, that the fair
blossoms of all Mays, and the tender flowerets of all sunny fields, and
the sweet sprays of all bright meadows, are but as a rugged thistle
beside my loveliness.’ (Then he breaks into verse):—
‘I play in the Godhead the play of joy,
And gladden the angel host on high
With a sweetness such that a thousand years
Like a vanishing hour of time run by.
‘... Happy he who shall share the sweet play, and tread at my side the
joy-dance of heaven for ever in gladsome security. One word from my
sweet mouth surpasses all the songs of angels, the sound of all harps,
and all sweet playing on stringed instruments.... Lo! I am a good so
absolute that he who hath in time but one single drop thereof finds all
the joy and pleasure of this world a bitterness,—all wealth and honour
worthless. Those dear ones who love me are embraced by my sweet love,
and swim and melt in the sole Unity with a love which knows no form, no
figure, no spoken words, and are borne and dissolved into the Good from
whence they sprang,’ &c.—_Leben_, cap. vii. p. 199.
The following is a sample of Suso’s old Suabian German, from the
extracts given by Wackernagel, p. 885:—
‘_Entwürt der ewigen wisheit._ Zuo uallende lon lit an sunderlicher
frœd. die diu sel gewinnet von sunderlichen vnd erwirdigen werken mit
dien si hie gesiget hat. alz die hohen lerer, die starken marterer. Vnd
die reinen iungfrowen. Aber wesentliche lon. lit an schöwlicher ver
einung der sele mit der blossen gotheit. Wan e geruowet si niemer, e si
gefueret wirt über alle ir krefte vnd mugentheit. vnd gewiset wirt in
der personen naturlich wesentheit. Vnd in dez wesens einvaltig blosheit.
Vnd in dem gegenwurf vindet si denn genuegde vnd ewige selikeit. Vnd ie
ab gescheidener lidiger usgang. ie frier uf gang., Vnd ie frier uf gang.
ie neher in gang. in die wilden wuesti. vnd in daz tief ab gründe der
wiselosen gotheit in die siu versenket ver swemmet vnd uer einet
werdent. daz siu nit anderz mugen wellen denn daz got wil, vnd daz ist
daz selb wesen daz do got ist. daz ist daz siu selig sint. von genaden.
als er selig ist von nature. [_Answer of the Everlasting
Wisdom._—_Adventitious_ reward consists in a particular joy which souls
receive for particular worthy deeds wherein they have here been
conquerors,—such, for example, are the lofty teachers, the stout
martyrs, and the pure virgins. But _essential_ reward consists in
contemplative union of the soul with the bare Godhead: for she resteth
not until she be carried above all her own powers and possibility, and
led into the natural essentiality of the Persons, and into the simple
absoluteness of the Essence. And in the reaction she finds satisfaction
and everlasting bliss. And the more separate and void the passage out
(of self), the more free the passage up; and the freer the passage up,
the nearer the passage into the wild waste and deep abyss of the
unsearchable Godhead, in which the souls are sunk and dissolved and
united, so that they can will nothing but what God wills, and become of
one nature with God,—that is to say, are blessed by grace as He is
blessed by nature.]
Footnote 157:
Why smite thy breast and lament? why not lift up thy soul? why
meditate for ever on the sign? He thou lovest is within thee. Thou
seekest Jesus—thou hast him; he is found, and thou perceivest it not.
Why these groans, this weeping? The true joy is thine; hidden within
thee, though thou knowest it not, lies the solace of thine anguish;
thou hast within, thou seekest without, the cure for thy languishing
soul.
Footnote 158:
I live, but with no life of mine, and long towards a life so high—I
die because I do not die.
Footnote 159:
The _Life of Suso_, published in Diepenbrock’s edition of his works,
was written by his spiritual daughter, Elsbet Stäglin, according to
the account she received at various intervals from his own lips. He
sprang from a good family,—his name, originally Heinrich vom Berg. The
name of Suso he adopted from his mother, a woman remarkable for her
devotion. The secret name of Amandus, concealed till after his death,
was supposed to have been conferred by the Everlasting Wisdom himself
on his beloved servant.
The incident of the rescue of himself and his book from the floods, by
the timely intervention of a knight passing that way, is related in
the twenty-ninth chapter of the _Life_, p. 68.
Footnote 160:
Heinrich Suso’s _Leben und Schriften_, von M. Diepenbrock (1837), pp.
15, 51, 86. Diepenbrock’s book is an edition of the biography by
Stäglin, and of the _Book of the Everlasting Wisdom_, &c., from the
oldest manuscripts and editions, and rendered into modern German.
Footnote 161:
_Leben_, cap. 48,—where it is also said that, on one occasion, as ‘the
servant was preaching at Cologne, one of his auditors beheld his face
luminous with a supernatural effulgence.’ It is known that Tauler
possessed a copy of the _Horologium Sapientiæ_.
See also Schmidt’s _Tauler_, p. 169. Comp. _Leben_, cap. xxxi. p. 72,
and cap. xlix.
Footnote 162:
_Leben_, cap. iv.
Footnote 163:
_Leben_, cap. xvii.-xx. Suso died in 1385 at Ulm; he was born about
the commencement of the century.
Footnote 164:
Suso sent a Latin version of the book of the Everlasting Wisdom, under
the title _Horologium Sapientiæ_, to Hugo von Vaucemain, Master of the
Order, for his approval. The date of the work is fixed between 1333
and 1342. The prologue contains the account of the ‘_inspiratio
superna_’ under which the work was written.—(_Diepenb. Vorbericht_, p.
6.) It was translated ere long into French, Dutch, and English, and
appears to have been in the fourteenth century almost what the
_Imitatio Christi_ became in the fifteenth.—_Ibid._, p. 15.
Footnote 165:
_Leben_, cap. vi.
Footnote 166:
Reverences or prostrations.
Footnote 167:
_Leben_, capp. x. and xiv.
Footnote 168:
_Leben_, cap. xxii. p 5; and xxv.
Footnote 169:
This incident is related at length in the twenty-seventh chapter of
the _Life_; and the adventure with the robber, which follows, in the
succeeding. The account given in the text follows closely in all
essential particulars the narrative in the biography.
Footnote 170:
_Leben_, cap. lvii. Suso speaks to this effect in a dialogue with his
spiritual daughter. She describes in another place (p. 74) how she
drew Suso on to talk on these high themes, and then wrote down what
follows.
Footnote 171:
_Ibid._, cap. xxxiv. p. 80; and comp. _Buch. d. E. Weisheit_, cap.
vii. p. 199.
Footnote 172:
_Buchlein von d. E. Weisheit_, Buch. iii. cap. ii.; and _Leben_, cap.
lvi. p. 168, and p. 302.
Footnote 173:
_Leben_, p. 171.
Footnote 174:
Extravagant as are his expressions concerning the absorption in God,
Suso has still numerous passages designed to preclude pantheism;
declaring that the distinction between the Creator and the creature is
nowise infringed by the essential union he extols. The dialogue with
the ‘nameless Wild,’ already alluded to, is an example.—Comp. _Leben_,
cap. lvi. pp. 166, 167, and _Buch. d. E. W._, Buch. iii. cap. vi.
Footnote 175:
_Leben_, cap. liii. p. 148. See Note, p. 357.
Footnote 176:
Schröckh’s _Kirchengeschichte_, vol. xxxiv. pp. 431-450.
Footnote 177:
See _Die Mystik des Nikolaus Cabasilas vom Leben in Christo_, von Dr.
W. Gass (1849).—In this work, Dr. Gass publishes, for the first time,
the Greek text of the seven books, _De Vita in Christo_, with an able
introduction. The authority for this summary of the theological
tendency of Cabasilas will be found, pp. 210-224.