BOOK I

LIGHT, LIFE, AND LOVE

Selections from the German Mystics of the Middle Ages

by

W. R. Inge

LONDON

Second Edition

1919

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

ECKHART

TAULER

MEDITATIONS ON THE SEVEN WORDS FROM THE CROSS

SUSO

RUYSBROEK

THEOLOGIA GERMANICA

INTRODUCTION

Sect. 1. THE PRECURSORS OF THE GERMAN MYSTICS

TO most English readers the "Imitation of Christ" is the

representative of mediaeval German mysticism. In reality, however,

this beautiful little treatise belongs to a period when that

movement had nearly spent itself. Thomas a Kempis, as Dr. Bigg has

said,[1] was only a semi-mystic. He tones down the most

characteristic doctrines of Eckhart, who is the great original

thinker of the German mystical school, and seems in some ways to

revert to an earlier type of devotional literature. The "Imitation"

may perhaps be described as an idealised picture of monastic piety,

drawn at a time when the life of the cloister no longer filled a

place of unchallenged usefulness in the social order of Europe. To

find German mysticism at its strongest we must go back a full

hundred years, and to understand its growth we must retrace our

steps as far as the great awakening of the thirteenth century--the

age of chivalry in religion--the age of St. Louis, of Francis and

Dominic, of Bonaventura and Thomas Aquinas. It was a vast revival,

bearing fruit in a new ardour of pity and charity, as well as in a

healthy freedom of thought. The Church, in recognising the new

charitable orders of Francis and Dominic, and the Christianised

Aristotelianism of the schoolmen, retained the loyalty and profited

by the zeal of the more sober reformers, but was unable to prevent

the diffusion of an independent critical spirit, in part provoked

and justified by real abuses. Discontent was aroused, not only by

the worldiness of the hierarchy, whose greed and luxurious living

were felt to be scandalous, but by the widespread economic distress

which prevailed over Western Europe at this period. The crusades

periodically swept off a large proportion of the able-bodied men, of

whom the majority never returned to their homes, and this helped to

swell the number of indigent women, who, having no male protectors,

were obliged to beg their bread. The better class of these female

mendicants soon formed themselves into uncloistered charitable

Orders, who were not forbidden to marry, and who devoted themselves

chiefly to the care of the sick. These Beguines and the

corresponding male associations of Beghards became very numerous in

Germany. Their religious views were of a definite type. Theirs was

an intensely inward religion, based on the longing of the soul for

immediate access to God. The more educated among them tended to

embrace a vague idealistic Pantheism. Mechthild of Magdeburg

(1212-1277), prophetess, poetess, Church reformer, quietist, was the

ablest of the Beguines. Her writings prove to us that the technical

terminology of German mysticism was in use before Eckhart,[2] and

also that the followers of what the "Theologia Germanica" calls the

False Light, who aspired to absorption in the Godhead, and despised

the imitation of the incarnate Christ, were already throwing

discredit on the movement. Mechthild's independence, and her

unsparing denunciations of corruption in high places, brought her

into conflict with the secular clergy. They tried to burn her

books--those religious love songs which had already endeared her to

German popular sentiment. It was then that she seemed to hear a

voice saying to her:

Lieb' meine, betrŸbe dich nicht zu sehr,

Die Wahrheit mag niemand verbrennen!

The rulers of the Church, unhappily, were not content with burning

books. Their hostility towards the unrecognised Orders became more

and more pronounced: the Beghards and Beguines were harried and

persecuted till most of them were driven to join the Franciscans or

Dominicans, carrying with them into those Orders the ferment of

their speculative mysticism. The more stubborn "Brethren and Sisters

of the Free Spirit" were burned in batches at Cologne and elsewhere.

Their fate in those times did not excite much pity, for many of the

victims were idle vagabonds of dissolute character, and the general

public probably thought that the licensed begging friars were enough

of a nuisance without the addition of these free lances.

The heretical mystical sects of the thirteenth century are very

interesting as illustrating the chief dangers of mysticism. Some of

these sectaries were Socialists or Communists of an extreme kind;

others were Rationalists, who taught that Jesus Christ was the son

of Joseph and a sinner like other men; others were Puritans, who

said that Church music was "nothing but a hellish noise" (nihil nisi

clamor inferni), and that the Pope was the magna meretrix of the

Apocalypse. The majority were Anti-Sacramentalists and Determinists;

and some were openly Antinomian, teaching that those who are led by

the Spirit can do no wrong. The followers of Amalric of Bena[3]

believed that the Holy Ghost had chosen their sect in which to

become incarnate; His presence among them was a continual guarantee

of sanctity and happiness. The "spiritual Franciscans" had dreams of

a more apocalyptic kind. They adopted the idea of an "eternal

Gospel," as expounded by Joachim of Floris, and believed that the

"third kingdom," that of the Spirit, was about to begin among

themselves. It was to abolish the secular Church and to inaugurate

the reign of true Christianity--i.e. "poverty" and asceticism.

Such are some of the results of what our eighteenth-century

ancestors knew and dreaded as "Enthusiasm"--that ferment of the

spirit which in certain epochs spreads from soul to soul like an

epidemic, breaking all the fetters of authority, despising tradition

and rejecting discipline in its eagerness to get rid of formalism

and unreality; a lawless, turbulent, unmanageable spirit, in which,

notwithstanding, is a potentiality for good far higher than any to

which the lukewarm "religion of all sensible men" can ever attain.

For mysticism is the raw material of all religion; and it is easier

to discipline the enthusiast than to breathe enthusiasm into the

disciplinarian.

Meanwhile, the Church looked with favour upon the orthodox mystical

school, of which Richard and Hugo of St. Victor, Bonaventura, and

Albertus Magnus were among the greatest names. These men were

working out in their own fashion the psychology of the contemplative

life, showing how we may ascend through "cogitation, meditation, and

speculation" to "contemplation," and how we may pass successively

through jubilus, ebrietas spiritus, spiritualis jucunditas, and

liquefactio, till we attain raptus or ecstasy. The writings of the

scholastic mystics are so overweighted with this pseudo-science,

with its wire-drawn distinctions and meaningless classifications,

that very few readers have now the patience to dig out their

numerous beauties. They are, however, still the classics of mystical

theology in the Roman Church, so far as that science has not

degenerated into mere miracle-mongering.

Sect. 2. MEISTER ECKHART

It was in 1260, when Mechthild of Magdeburg was at the height of her

activity, that Meister Eckhart, next to Plotinus the greatest

philosopher-mystic, was born at Hocheim in Thuringia. It seems that

his family was in a good position, but nothing is known of his early

years. He entered the Dominican Order as a youth, perhaps at

sixteen, the earliest age at which novices were admitted into that

Order. The course of instruction among the Dominicans was as

follows:--After two years, during which the novice laid the

foundations of a good general education, he devoted the next two

years to grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic, and then the same amount

of time to what was called the Quadrivium, which consisted of

"arithmetic, mathematics, astronomy, and music." Theology, the queen

of the sciences, occupied three years; and at the end of the course,

at the age of twenty-five, the brothers were ordained priests. We

find Eckhart, towards the end of the century, Prior of Erfurt and

Vicar of Thuringia, then Lector Biblicus at Paris, then Provincial

Prior of Saxony. In 1307 the master of the Order appointed him

Vicar-General for Bohemia, and in 1311 he returned to Paris. We find

him next preaching busily at Strassburg,[4] and after a few more

years, at Cologne, where the persecution of the Brethren of the Free

Spirit was just then at its height. At Strassburg there were no less

than seven convents of Dominican nuns, for since 1267 the Order had

resumed the supervision of female convents, which it had renounced a

short time after its foundation. Many of Eckhart's discourses were

addressed to these congregations of devout women, who indeed were to

a large extent the backbone of the mystical movement, and it is

impossible not to see that the devotional treatises of the school

are strongly coloured by feminine sentiment. A curious poem, written

by a Dominican nun of this period, celebrates the merits of three

preachers, the third of whom is a Master Eckhart, "who speaks to us

about Nothingness. He who understands him not, in him has never

shone the light divine." These nuns seem to have been fed with the

strong meat of Eckhart's mystical philosophy; in the more popular

sermons he tried to be intelligible to all. It was not very long

after he took up his residence at Cologne that he was himself

attacked for heresy. In 1327 he read before his own Order a

retractation of "any errors which might be found" (si quid errorum

repertum fuerit) in his writings, but withdrew nothing that he had

actually said, and protested that he believed himself to be

orthodox. He died a few months later, and it was not till 1329 that

a Papal bull was issued, enumerating seventeen heretical and eleven

objectionable doctrines in his writings.

This bull is interesting as showing what were the points in

Eckhart's teaching which in the fourteenth century were considered

dangerous. They also indicate very accurately what are the real

errors into which speculative mysticism is liable to fall, and how

thinkers of this school may most plausibly be misrepresented by

those who differ from them. After expressing his sorrow that "a

certain Teuton named Ekardus, doctor, ut fertur, sacrae paginae, has

wished to know more than he should," and has sown tares and thistles

and other weeds in the field of the Church, the Pope specifies the

following erroneous statements as appearing in Eckhart's

writings[5]:--1. "God created the world as soon as God was. 2. In

every work, bad as well as good, the glory of God is equally

manifested. 3. A man who prays for any particular thing prays for an

evil and prays ill, for he prays for the negation of good and the

negation of God, and that God may be denied to him.[6] 4. God is

honoured in those who have renounced everything, even holiness and

the kingdom of heaven. 5. We are transformed totally into God, even

as in the Sacrament the bread is converted into the Body of Christ.

Unum, non simile. 6. Whatever God the Father gave to His

only-begotten Son in His human nature, He has given it all to me. 7.

Whatever the Holy Scripture says about Christ is verified in every

good and godlike man. 8. External action is not, properly speaking,

good nor divine; God, properly speaking, only works in us internal

actions. 9. God is one, in every way and according to every reason,

so that it is not possible to find any plurality in Him, either in

the intellect or outside it; for he who sees two, or sees any

distinction, does not see God; for God is one, outside number and

above number, for one cannot be put with anything else, but follows

it; therefore in God Himself no distinction can be or be understood.

10. All the creatures are absolutely nothing: I say not that they

are small or something, but that they are absolutely nothing." All

these statements are declared to have been found in his writings. It

is also "objected against the said Ekardus" that he taught the

following two articles in these words:--1. "There is something in

the soul, which is uncreated and uncreatable: if the whole soul were

such, it would be uncreated and uncreatable: and this is the

intelligence.[7] 2. God is not good or better or best: I speak ill

when I call God good; it is as if I called white black."[8] The bull

declares all the propositions above quoted to be heretical, with the

exception of the three which I have numbered 8-10, and these "have

an ill sound" and are "very rash," even if they might be so

supplemented and explained as to bear an orthodox sense.

This condemnation led to a long neglect of Eckhart's writings. He

was almost forgotten till Franz Pfeiffer in 1857 collected and

edited his scattered treatises and endeavoured to distinguish those

which were genuine from those which were spurious. Since Pfeiffer's

edition fresh discoveries have been made, notably in 1880, when

Denifle found at Erfurt several important fragments in Latin, which

in his opinion show a closer dependence on the scholastic theology,

and particularly on St Thomas Aquinas, than Protestant scholars,

such as Preger, had been willing to allow. But the attempt to prove

Eckhart a mere scholastic is a failure; the audacities of his German

discourses cannot be explained as an accommodation to the tastes of

a peculiar audience. For good or evil Eckhart is an original and

independent thinker, whose theology is confined by no trammels of

authority.

Sect. 3. ECKHART'S RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY

The Godhead, according to Eckhart, is the universal and eternal

Unity comprehending and transcending all diversity. "The Divine

nature is Rest," he says in one of the German discourses; and in the

Latin fragments we find: "God rests in Himself, and makes all things

rest in Him." The three Persons of the Trinity, however, are not

mere modes or accidents,[9] but represent a real distinction within

the Godhead. God is unchangeable, and at the same time an

"everlasting process." The creatures are "absolutely nothing"; but

at the same time "God without them would not be God," for God is

love, and must objectify Himself; He is goodness, and must impart

Himself. As the picture in the mind of the painter, as the poem in

the mind of the poet, so was all creation in the mind of God from

all eternity, in uncreated simplicity. The ideal world was not

created in time; "the Father spake Himself and all the creatures in

His Son"; "they exist in the eternal Now"[10]--"a

becoming without a becoming, change without change." "The Word of

God the Father is the substance of all that exists, the life of all

that lives, the principle and cause of life." Of creation he says:

"We must not falsely imagine that God stood waiting for something to

happen, that He might create the world. For so soon as He was God,

so soon as He begat His coeternal and coequal Son, He created the

world." So Spinoza says: "God has always been before the creatures,

without even existing before them. He precedes them not by an

interval of time, but by a fixed eternity." This is not the same as

saying that the world of sense had no beginning; it is possible that

Eckhart did not mean to go further than the orthodox scholastic

mystic, Albertus Magnus, who says: "God created things from

eternity, but the things were not created from eternity." St

Augustine (Conf. xi. 30) bids objectors to "understand that there

can be no time without creatures, and cease to talk nonsense."

Eckhart also tries to distinguish between the "interior" and the

"exterior" action of God. God, he says, is in all things, not as

Nature, not as Person, but as Being. He is everywhere, undivided;

yet the creatures participate in Him according to their measure.[11]

The three Persons of the Trinity have impressed their image upon the

creatures, yet it is only their "nothingness" that keeps them

separate creatures. Most of this comes from the Neoplatonists, and

much of it through the pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, a

Platonising Christian of the fifth century, whose writings were

believed in the Middle Ages to proceed from St Paul's Athenian

convert. It would, however, be easy to find parallels in St

Augustine's writings to most of the phases quoted in this paragraph.

The practical consequences will be considered presently.

The creatures are a way from God; they are also a way to Him. "In

Christ," he says, "all the creatures are one man, and that man is

God." Grace, which is a real self-unfolding of God in the soul, can

make us "what God is by Nature"--one of Eckhart's audacious phrases,

which are not really so unorthodox as they sound. The following

prayer, which appears in one of his discourses, may perhaps be

defended as asking no more than our Lord prayed for (John xvii.) for

His disciples, but it lays him open to the charge, which the Pope's

bull did not fail to urge against him, that he made the servant

equal to his Lord. "Grant that I, by Thy grace, may be united to Thy

Nature, as Thy Son is eternally one in Thy Nature, and that grace

may become my nature."

The ethical aim is to be rid of "creatureliness," and so to be

united to God. In Eckhart's system, as in that of Plotinus,

speculation is never divorced from ethics. On our side the process

is a negative one. All our knowledge must be reduced to

not-knowledge; our reason and will, as well as our lower faculties,

must transcend themselves, must die to live. We must detach

ourselves absolutely "even from God," he says. This state of

spiritual nudity he calls "poverty." Then, when our house is empty

of all else, God can dwell there: "He begets His Son in us." This

last phrase has always been a favourite with the mystics. St Paul

uses very similar language, and the Epistle to Diognetus, written in

the second century, speaks of Christ as, "being ever born anew in

the hearts of the saints." Very characteristic, too, is the doctrine

that complete detachment from the creatures is the way to union with

God. Jacob Bšhme has arrived independently at the same conclusion as

Eckhart. "The scholar said to his master: How may I come to the

supersensual life, that I may see God and hear Him speak? The master

said: When thou canst throw thyself but for a moment into that place

where no creature dwelleth, then thou hearest what God speaketh. The

scholar asked: Is that near or far off? The master replied: It is in

thee, and if thou canst for a while cease from all thy thinking and

willing, thou shalt hear unspeakable words of God. The scholar said:

How can I hear, when I stand still from thinking and willing? The

master answered: When thou standest still from the thinking and

willing of self, the eternal hearing, seeing, and speaking will be

revealed to thee, and so God heareth and seeth through thee."

In St Thomas Aquinas it is "the will enlightened by reason" which

unites us to God. But there are two sorts of reason. The passive

reason is the faculty which rises through discursive thinking to

knowledge. The active reason is a much higher faculty, which exists

by participation in the divine mind, "as the air is light by

participation in the sunshine." When this active reason is regarded

as the standard of moral action, it is called by Aquinas

synteresis.[12] Eckhart was at first content with this teaching of

St Thomas, whom he always cites with great reverence; but the whole

tendency of his thinking was to leave the unprofitable

classification of faculties in which the Victorine School almost

revelled, and to concentrate his attention on the union of the soul

with God. And therefore in his more developed teaching,[13] the

"spark" which is the point of contact between the soul and its Maker

is something higher than the faculties, being "uncreated." He seems

to waver about identifying the "spark" with the "active reason," but

inclines on the whole to regard it as something even higher still.

"There is something in the soul," he says, "which is so akin to God

that it is one with Him and not merely united with Him." And again:

"There is a force in the soul; and not only a force, but something

more, a being; and not only a being, but something more; it is so

pure and high and noble in itself that no creature can come there,

and God alone can dwelt there. Yea, verily, and even God cannot come

there with a form; He can only come with His simple divine nature."

And in the startling passage often quoted against him, a passage

which illustrates admirably his affinity to one side of Hegelianism,

we read: "The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which He

sees me. Mine eye and God's eye are one eye and one sight and one

knowledge and one love."

I do not defend these passages as orthodox; but before exclaiming

"rank Pantheism!" we ought to recollect that for Eckhart the being

of God is quite different from His personality. Eckhart never taught

that the Persons of the Holy Trinity become, after the mystical

Union, the "Form" of the human soul. It is the impersonal light of

the divine nature which transforms our nature; human personality is

neither lost nor converted into divine personality. Moreover, the

divine spark at the centre of the soul is not the soul nor the

personality. "The soul," he says in one place, using a figure which

recurs in the "Theologia Germanica," "has two faces. One is turned

towards this world and towards the body, the other towards God." The

complete dominion of the "spark" over the soul is an unrealised

ideal.[14]

The truth which he values is that, as Mr Upton[15] has well

expressed it, "there is a certain self-revelation of the eternal and

infinite One to the finite soul, and therefore an indestructible

basis for religious ideas and beliefs as distinguished from what is

called scientific knowledge. . . . This immanent universal principle

does not pertain to, and is not the property of any individual mind,

but belongs to that uncreated and eternal nature of God which lies

deeper than all those differences which separate individual minds

from each other, and is indeed that incarnation of the Eternal, who

though He is present in every finite thing, is still not broken up

into individualities, but remains one and the same eternal

substance, one and the same unifying principle, immanently and

indivisibly present in every one of the countless plurality of

finite individuals." It might further be urged that neither God nor

man can be understood in independence of each other. A recent writer

on ethics,[16] not too well disposed towards Christianity, is, I

think, right in saying: "To the popular mind, which assumes God and

man to be two different realities, each given in independence of the

other, . . . the identification of man's love of God with God's love

of Himself has always been a paradox and a stumbling-block. But it

is not too much to say that until it has been seen to be no paradox,

but a simple and fundamental truth, the masterpieces of the world's

religious literature must remain a sealed book to us."

Eckhart certainly believed himself to have escaped the pitfall of

Pantheism; but he often expressed himself in such an unguarded way

that the charge may be brought against him with some show of reason.

Love, Eckhart teaches, is the principle of all virtues; it is God

Himself. Next to it in dignity comes humility. The beauty of the

soul, he says in the true Platonic vein, is to be well ordered, with

the higher faculties above the lower, each in its proper place. The

will should be supreme over the understanding, the understanding

over the senses. Whatever we will earnestly, that we have, and no

one can hinder us from attaining that detachment from the creatures

in which our blessedness consists.

Evil, from the highest standpoint, is only a means for realising the

eternal aim of God in creation; all will ultimately be overruled for

good. Nevertheless, we can frustrate the good will of God towards

us, and it is this, and not the thought of any insult against

Himself, that makes God grieve for our sins. It would not be worth

while to give any more quotations on this subject, for Eckhart is

not more successful than other philosophers in propounding a

consistent and intelligible theory of the place of evil in the

universe.

Eckhart is well aware of the two chief pitfalls into which the

mystic is liable to fall--dreamy inactivity and Antinomianism. The

sects of the Free Spirit seem to have afforded a good object-lesson

in both these errors, as some of the Gnostic sects did in the second

century. Eckhart's teaching here is sound and good. Freedom from

law, he says, belongs only to the "spark," not to the faculties of

the soul, and no man can live always on the highest plane.

Contemplation is, in a sense, a means to activity; works of charity

are its proper fruit. "If a man were in an ecstasy like that of St

Paul, when he was caught up into the third heaven, and knew of a

poor man who needed his help, he ought to leave his ecstasy and help

the needy." Suso[17] tells us how God punished him for disregarding

this duty. True contemplation considers Reality (or Being) in its

manifestations as well as in its origin. If this is remembered,

there need be no conflict between social morality and the inner

life. Eckhart recognises[18] that it is a harder and a nobler task

to preserve detachment in a crowd than in a cell; the little daily

sacrifices of family life are often a greater trial than

self-imposed mortifications. "We need not destroy any little good in

ourselves for the sake of a better, but we should strive to grasp

every truth in its highest meaning, for no one good contradicts

another." "Love God, and do as you like, say the Free Spirits. Yes;

but as long as you like anything contrary to God's will, you do not

love Him."

There is much more of the same kind in Eckhart's sermons--as good

and sensible doctrine as one could find anywhere. But what was the

practical effect of his teaching as a whole? It is generally the

case that the really weak points of any religious movement are

exposed with a cruel logicality most exasperating to the leaders by

the second generation of its adherents. The dangerous side of the

Eckhartian mysticism is painfully exhibited in the life of his

spiritual daughter, "Schwester Katrei," the saint of the later

Beguines. Katrei is a rather shadowy person; but for our present

purpose it does not much matter whether the story of her life has

been embroidered or not. Her memory was revered for such sayings and

doings as these which follow. On one occasion she exclaimed:

"Congratulate me; I have become God!" and on another she declared

that "not even the desire of heaven should tempt a good man towards

activity." It was her ambition to forget who were her parents, to be

indifferent whether she received absolution and partook of the Holy

Communion or not; and she finally realised her ambition by falling

into a cataleptic state in which she was supposed to be dead, and

was carried out for burial. Her confessor, perceiving that she was

not really dead, awoke her: "Art thou satisfied?" "I am satisfied at

last," said Katrei: she was now "dead all through," as she wished to

be.

Are we to conclude that the logical outcome of mysticism is this

strange reproduction, in Teutonic Europe, of Indian Yogism? Many who

have studied the subject have satisfied themselves that Schwester

Katrei is the truly consistent mystic. They have come to the

conclusion that the real attraction of mysticism is a pining for

deliverance from this fretful, anxious, exacting, individual life,

and a yearning for absorption into the great Abyss where all

distinctions are merged in the Infinite. According to this view,

mysticism in its purest form should be studied in the ancient

religious literature of India, which teaches us how all this world

of colour and diversity, of sharp outlines and conflicting forces,

may be lost and swallowed up in the "white radiance," or black

darkness (it does not really matter which we call it) of an empty

Infinite.

The present writer is convinced that this is not the truth about

mysticism. Eckhart may have encouraged Schwester Katrei in her

attempt to substitute the living death of the blank trance for the

dying life of Christian charity; but none the less she caricatured

and stultified his teaching. And I think it is possible to lay our

finger on the place where she and so many others went wrong. The

aspiration of mysticism is to find the unity which underlies all

diversity, or, in religious language, to see God face to face. From

the Many to the One is always the path of the mystic. Plotinus, the

father of all mystical philosophy in Europe (unless, as he himself

would have wished, we give that honour to Plato), mapped out the

upward road as follows:--At the bottom of the hill is the sphere of

the "merely many"--of material objects viewed in disconnection,

dull, and spiritless. This is a world which has no real existence;

it may best be called "not-being" ("ein lauteres Nichts," as Eckhart

says), and as the indeterminate, it can only be apprehended by a

corresponding indeterminateness in the soul. The soul, however,

always adds some form and determination to the abstract formlessness

of the "merely many." Next, we rise to, or project for ourselves,

the world of "the one and the many." This is the sphere in which our

consciousness normally moves. We are conscious of an overruling

Mind, but the creatures still seem external to and partially

independent of it. Such is the temporal order as we know it. Above

this is the intelligible world, the eternal order, "the one-many,"

das ewige Nu, the world in which God's will is done perfectly and

all reflects the divine mind. Highest of all is "the One," the,

Absolute, the Godhead, of whom nothing can be predicated, because He

is above all distinctions. This Neoplatonic Absolute is the Godhead

of whom Eckhart says: "God never looked upon deed," and of whom

Angelus Silesius sings:

"Und sieh, er ist nicht Wille,

Er ist ein' ewige Stille."

Plotinus taught that the One, being superessential, can only be

apprehended in ecstasy, when thought, which still distinguishes

itself from its object, is transcended, and knower and known become

one. As Tennyson's Ancient Sage says:

"If thou would'st hear the Nameless, and descend

Into the Temple-cave of thine own self,

There, brooding by the central altar, thou

May'st haply learn the Nameless hath a voice,

By which thou wilt abide, if thou be wise;

For knowledge is the swallow on the lake,

That sees and stirs the surface-shadow there

But never yet hath dipt into the Abysm."

In the same way Eckhart taught that no creature can apprehend the

Godhead, and, therefore, that the spark in the centre of the soul

(this doctrine, too, is found in Plotinus) must be verily divine.

The logic of the theory is inexorable. If only like can know like,

we cannot know God except by a faculty which is itself divine. The

real question is whether God, as an object of knowledge and worship

for finite beings, is the absolute Godhead, who transcends all

distinctions. The mediaeval mystics held that this "flight of the

alone to the alone," as Plotinus calls it, is possible to men, and

that in it consists our highest blessedness. They were attracted

towards this view by several influences. First, there was the

tradition of Dionysius, to whom (e.g.) the author of the "Theologia

Germanica" appeals as an authority for the possibility of "beholding

the hidden things of God by utter abandonment of thyself, and of

entering into union with Him who is above all existence, and all

knowledge." Secondly, there was what a modern writer has called "the

attraction of the Abyss," the longing which some persons feel very

strongly to merge their individuality in a larger and better whole,

to get rid not only of selfishness but of self for ever. "Leave

nothing of myself in me," is Crashaw's prayer in his wonderful poem

on St Teresa. Thirdly, we may mention the awe and respect long paid

to ecstatic trances, the pathological nature of which was not

understood. The blank trance was a real experience; and as it could

be induced by a long course of ascetical exercises and fervid

devotions, it was naturally regarded as the crowning reward of

sanctity on earth. Nor would it be at all safe to reject the

evidence, which is very copious,[19] that the "dreamy state" may

issue in permanent spiritual gain. The methodical cultivation of it,

which is at the bottom of most of the strange austerities of the

ascetics, was not only (though it was partly) practised in the hope

of enjoying those spiritual raptures which are described as being

far more intense than any pleasures of sense[20]: it was the hope of

stirring to its depths the subconscious mind and permeating the

whole with the hidden energy of the divine Spirit that led to the

desire for visions and trances. Lastly, I think we must give a place

to the intellectual attraction of an uncompromising monistic theory

of the universe. Spiritualistic monism, when it is consistent with

itself, will always lean to semi-pantheistic mysticism rather than

to such a compromise with pluralism as Lotze and his numerous

followers in this country imagine to be possible.

But it is possible to go a long way with the mystics and yet to

maintain that under no conditions whatever can a finite being escape

from the limitations of his finitude and see God or the world or

himself "with the same eye with which God sees" all things. The old

Hebrew belief, that to see the face of God is death, expresses the

truth under a mythical form. That the human mind, while still "in

the body pent," may obtain glimpses of the eternal order, and enjoy

foretastes of the bliss of heaven, is a belief which I, at least,

see no reason to reject. It involves no rash presumption, and is not

contrary to what may be readily believed about the state of immortal

spirits passing through a mortal life. But the explanation of the

blank trance as a temporary transit into the Absolute must be set

down as a pure delusion. It involves a conception of the divine

"Rest" which in his best moments Eckhart himself repudiates. "The

Rest of the Godhead," he says, "is not in that He is the source of

being, but in that He is the consummation of all being." This

profound saying expresses the truth, which he seems often to forget,

that the world-process must have a real value in God's sight--that

it is not a mere polarisation of the white radiance of eternity

broken up by the imperfection of our vision. Whatever theories we

may hold about Absolute Being, or an Absolute that is above Being,

we must make room for the Will, and for Time, which is the "form" of

the will, and for the creatures who inhabit time and space, as

having for us the value of reality. Nor shall we, if we are to

escape scepticism, be willing to admit that these appearances have

no sure relation to ultimate reality. We must not try to uncreate

the world in order to find God. We were created out of nothing, but

we cannot return to nothing, to find our Creator there. The still,

small voice is best listened for amid the discordant harmony of life

and death.

The search for God is no exception to the mysterious law of human

nature, that we cannot get anything worth having--neither holiness

nor happiness nor wisdom--by trying for it directly. It must be

given us through something else. The recluse who lives like

Parnell's "Hermit":

"Prayer all his business, all his pleasure praise,"

is not only a poor sort of saint, but he will offer a poor sort of

prayers and praises. He will miss real holiness for the same reason

that makes the pleasure-seeker miss real happiness. We must lose

ourselves in some worthy interest in order to find again both a

better self and an object higher than that which we sought. This the

German mystics in a sense knew well. There is a noble sentence of

Suso to the effect that "he who realises the inward in the outward,

to him the inward becomes more inward than to him who only

recognises the inward in the inward." Moreover, the recognition that

"God manifests Himself and worketh more in one creature than

another" ("Theologia Germanica"), involves a denial of the

nihilistic view that all the creatures are "ein lauteres

Nichts."[21] It would be easy to find such passages in all the

fourteenth-century mystics, but it cannot be denied that on the

whole their religion is too self-centred. There are not many maxims

so fundamentally wrong-headed and un-Christian as Suso's advice to

"live as if you were the only person in the world."[22] The life of

the cloistered saint may be abundantly justified--for the spiritual

activity of some of them has been of far greater service to mankind

than the fussy benevolence of many "practical" busybodies--but the

idea of social service, whether in the school of Martha or of Mary,

ought surely never to be absent. The image of Christ as the Lover of

the individual soul rather than as the Bridegroom of the Church was

too dear to these lonely men and women. Unconsciously, they looked

to their personal devotions to compensate them for the human loves

which they had forsworn. The raptures of Divine Love, which they

regarded as signal favours bestowed upon them, were not very

wholesome in themselves, and diverted their thoughts from the needs

of their fellow-men. They also led to most painful reactions, in

which the poor contemplative believed himself abandoned by God and

became a pray to terrible depression and melancholy. These fits of

wretchedness came indeed to be recognised as God's punishment for

selfishness in devotion and for too great desire for the sweetness

of communing with God, and so arose the doctrine of "disinterested

love," which was more and more emphasised in the later mysticism,

especially by the French Quietists.

I have spoken quite candidly of the defects of Eckhart's mystical

Christianity. As a religious philosophy it does not keep clear of

the fallacy that an ascent though the unreal can lead to reality.

"To suppose, as the mystic does, that the finite search has of

itself no Being at all, is illusory, is Maya, is itself nothing,

this is also to deprive the Absolute of even its poor value as a

contrasting goal. For a goal that is a goal of no real process has

as little value as it has content."[23] But, as Prof. Royce says,

mysticism furnishes us with the means of correcting itself. It

supplies an obvious reductio ad absurdum of the theory with which it

set out, that "Immediacy is the one test of reality," and is itself

forced to give the world of diversity a real value as manifesting in

different degrees the nature of God. Those who are acquainted with

the sacred books of the East will recognise that here is the

decisive departure from real Pantheism. And it may be fairly claimed

for the German mystics that though their speculative teaching

sometimes seems to echo too ominously the apathetic detachment of

the Indian sage, their lives and example, and their practical

exhortations, preached a truer and a larger philosophy. Eckhart, as

we have seen, was a busy preacher as well as a keen student, and

some of the younger members of his school were even more occupied in

pastoral work. If the tree is to be judged by its fruits, mysticism

can give a very good account of itself to the Marthas as well as the

Marys of this world.

Sect. 4. THE GERMAN MYSTICS AS GUIDES TO HOLINESS

THIS little volume is a contribution to a "Library of Devotion," and

in the body of the work the reader will be seldom troubled by any

abstruse philosophising. I have thought it necessary to give, in

this Introduction, a short account of Eckhart's system, but the

extracts which follow are taken mainly from his successors, in whom

the speculative tendency is weaker and less original, while the

religious element is stronger and more attractive. It is, after all,

as guides to holiness that these mystics are chiefly important to

us. This side of their life's work can never be out of date, for the

deeper currents of human nature change but little; the language of

the heart is readily understood everywhere and at all times. The

differences between Catholic and Protestant are hardly felt in the

keen air of these high summits. It was Luther himself who discovered

the "Theologia Germanica" and said of it that, "next to the Bible

and St Augustine, no book hath ever come into my hands whence I have

learnt or would wish to learn more of what God and Christ and man

and all things are. I thank God that I have heard and found my God

in the German tongue, as I have not yet found Him in Latin, Greek,

or Hebrew." The theology of these mystics takes us straight back to

the Johannine doctrine of Christ as the all-pervading Word of God,

by whom all things were made and in whom all things hold together.

He is not far from any one of us if we will but seek Him where He is

to be found--in the innermost sanctuary of our personal life. In

personal religion this means that no part of revelation is to be

regarded as past, isolated, or external. "We should mark and know of

a very truth," says the author of the "Theologia Germanica," "that

all manner of virtue and goodness, and even the eternal Good which

is God Himself, can never make a man virtuous, good, or happy, so

long as it is outside the soul." In the same spirit Jacob Bšhme, 250

years later, says: "If the sacrifice of Christ is to avail for me,

it must be wrought in me." Or, as his English admirer, William Law,

puts it: "Christ given for us is neither more nor less than Christ

given into us. He is in no other sense our full, perfect, and

sufficient Atonement than as His nature and spirit are born and

formed in us." The whole process of redemption must in a sense be

reenacted in the inner life of every Christian. And as Christ

emptied Himself for our sakes, so must we empty ourselves of all

self-seeking. "When the creature claimeth for its own anything good,

such as life, knowledge, or power, and in short whatever we commonly

call good, as if it were that, or possessed that--it goeth astray."

Sin is nothing else but self-assertion, self-will. "Be assured,"

says the "Theologia Germanica," "that he who helpeth a man to his

own will, helpeth him to the worst that he can." He, therefore, who

is "simply and wholly bereft of self" is delivered from sin, and God

alone reigns in his inmost soul. Concerning the highest part or

faculty of the soul, the author of this little treatise follows

Eckhart, but cautiously. "The True Light," he says, "is that eternal

Light which is God; or else it is a created light, but yet Divine,

which is called grace." In either case, "where God dwells in a godly

man, in such a man somewhat appertaineth to God which is His own,

and belongs to Him only and not to the creature." This doctrine of

divine immanence, for which there is ample warrant in the New

Testament, is the real kernel of German mysticism. It is a doctrine

which, when rightly used, may make this world a foretaste of heaven,

but alas! the "False Light" is always trying to counterfeit the

true. In the imitation of the suffering life of Christ lies the only

means of escaping the deceptions of the Evil One. "The False Light

dreameth itself to be God, and sinless"; but "none is without sin;

if any is without consciousness of sin, he must be either Christ or

the Evil Spirit."

Very characteristic is the teaching of all these writers about

rewards and punishments. Without in any way impugning the Church

doctrine of future retribution, they yet agree with Benjamin

Whichcote, the Cambridge Platonist, that "heaven is first a temper,

then a place"; while of hell there is much to recall the noble

sentence of Juliana of Norwich, the fourteenth-century visionary,

"to me was showed no harder hell than sin." "Nothing burneth in hell

but self-will," is a saying in the "Theologia Germanica."[24] They

insist that the difference between heaven and hell is not that one

is a place of enjoyment, the other of torment; it is that in the one

we are with Christ, in the other without Him. "The Christlike life

is not chosen," to quote the "Theologia Germanica" once more, "in

order to serve any end, or to get anything by it, but for love of

its nobleness, and because God loveth and esteemeth it so highly. He

who doth not take it up for love, hath none of it at all; he may

dream indeed that he hath put it on, but he is deceived. Christ did

not lead such a life as this for the sake of reward, but out of

love, and love maketh such a life light, and taketh away all its

hardships, so that it becometh sweet and is gladly endured." The

truly religious man is always more concerned about what God will do

in him than what He will do to him; in his intense desire for the

purification of his motives he almost wishes that heaven and hell

were blotted out, that he might serve God for Himself alone.

Sect. 5. WRITERS OF THE SCHOOL OF ECKHART--TAULER

Such are the main characteristics of the religious teachings which

we find in the German mystics. Among the successors of Eckhart, from

whose writings the following extracts are taken, the most notable

names are those of Tauler, Suso, and Ruysbroek. From Tauler I have

taken very little, because a volume of selections from his sermons

has already appeared in this series.[25] Accordingly, it will only

be necessary to mention a very few facts about his life.

John Tauler was born at Strassburg about 1300, and studied at the

Dominican convents of Strassburg and Cologne. At both places he

doubtless heard the sermons of Eckhart. In 1329 the great interdict

began at Strassburg, and was stoutly resisted by many of the clergy.

It is a disputed point whether Tauler himself obeyed the Papal

decree or not. His uneventful life, which was devoted to study,

preaching, and pastoral work, came to an end in 1361. Like Eckhart,

he had a favourite "spiritual daughter," Margaret Ebner, who won a

great reputation as a visionary.

Sect. 6. SUSO

Henry Suso was born in 1295 and died in 1365. His autobiography was

published not long before his death. He is the poet of the band. The

romance of saintship is depicted by him with a strange vividness

which alternately attracts and repels, or even disgusts, the modern

reader. The whole-hearted devotion of the "Servitor" to the "Divine

Wisdom," the tender beauty of the visions and conversations, and the

occasional na•veté of the narrative, which shows that the saint

remained very human throughout, make Suso's books delightful

reading; but the accounts of the horrible macerations to which he

subjected himself for many years shock our moral sense almost as

much as our sensibilities; we do not now believe that God takes

pleasure in sufferings inflicted in His honour. Moreover, the erotic

symbolism of the visions is occasionally unpleasant: we are no

longer in the company of such sane and healthy people as Eckhart and

Tauler. The half-sensuous pleasure of ecstasy was evidently a

temptation to Suso, and the violent alternations of rapture and

misery which he experienced suggest a neurotic and ill-balanced

temperament.[26]

On this subject--the pathological side of mysticism--a few remarks

will not be out of place, for there has been much discussion of it

lately. A great deal of nonsense has been written on the connexion

between religion and neuroticism. To quote Professor James' vigorous

protest, "medical materialism finishes up St Paul by calling his

vision on the road to Damascus a discharging lesion of the occipital

cortex, he being an epileptic. It snuffs out St Teresa as an

hysteric, St Francis of Assisi as an hereditary degenerate. George

Fox's discontent with the shams of his age, and his pining for

spiritual veracity, it treats as a symptom of a disordered colon.

Carlyle's organ-tones of misery it accounts for by a gastro-duodenal

catarrh. All such mental over-tensions, it says, are, when you come

to the bottom of the matter, mere affairs of diathesis

(auto-intoxications most probably), due to the perverted action of

various glands which physiology will yet discover."[27] Now, even if

it were true that most religious geniuses, like most other geniuses,

have been "psychopaths" of one kind or another, this fact in no way

disposes of the value of their intuitions and experiences. Nearly

all the great benefactors of humanity have been persons of

one-sided, and therefore ill-balanced, characters. Even Maudsley

admits that "Nature may find an incomplete mind a more suitable

instrument for a particular purpose. It is the work that is done,

and the quality in the worker by which it is done, that is alone of

moment; and it may be no great matter from a cosmical standpoint, if

in other qualities of character he (the genius) was singularly

defective."[28] Except in the character of our Lord Himself, there

are visible imperfections in the record of every great saint; but

that is no reason for allowing such traces of human infirmity to

discredit what is pure and good in their work. More particularly, it

would be a great pity to let our minds dwell on the favourite

materialistic theory that saintliness, especially as cultivated and

venerated by Catholicism, has its basis in "perverted sexuality."

There is enough plausibility in the theory to make it mischievous.

The allegorical interpretation of the Book of Canticles was in truth

the source of, or at least the model for, a vast amount of

unwholesome and repulsive pietism. Not a word need be said for such

a paltry narrative of endearments and sickly compliments as the

"Revelations of the Nun Gertrude," in the thirteenth century. Nor

are we concerned to deny that the artificially induced ecstasy,

which is desired on account of the intense pleasure which is said to

accompany it, nearly always contains elements the recognition of

which would shock and distress the contemplatives themselves.[29]

There are, however, other elements, of a less insidious kind, which

make the ecstatic trance seem desirable. These are, according to

Professor Leuba, the calming of the restless intellect by the

concentration of the mind on one object; the longing for a support

and comfort more perfect than man can give; and, thirdly, the

consecration and strengthening of the will, which is often a

permanent effect of the trance. These are legitimate objects of

desire, and in many of the mystics they are much more prominent than

any tendencies which might be considered morbid. As regards the

larger question, about the alleged pathological character of all

distinctively religious exaltation, I believe that no greater

mistake could be made than to suppose that the religious life

flourishes best in unnatural circumstances. Religion, from a

biological standpoint, I take to be the expression of the racial

will to live; its function (from this point of view) is the

preservation and development of humanity on the highest possible

level. If this is true, a simple, healthy, natural life must be the

most favourable for religious excellence--and this I believe to be

the case. Poor Suso certainly did not lead a healthy or natural

life. But in his case, though the suppressed natural instincts

obviously overflow into the religious consciousness and in part

determine the forms which his devotion assumes, we can never forget

that we are in the company of a poet and a saint who will lift us,

if we can follow him, into a very high region of the spiritual life,

an altitude which he has himself climbed with bleeding feet.

The simple confidence which at the end of the dialogue he expresses

in the value of his work is, I think, amply justified. "Whoever will

read these writings of mine in a right spirit, can hardly fail to be

stirred to the depths of his soul, either to fervent love, or to new

light, or to hunger and thirst for God, or to hatred and loathing

for his sins, or to that spiritual aspiration by which the soul is

renewed in grace."

Sect. 7. RUYSBROEK

[Note: the Ruysbroek selection has not been reproduced in this

electronic edition. An electronic text of a larger collection of

Ruysbroek's works may be available.]

Sect. 8. THEOLOGIA GERMANICA

The "Theologia Germanica," an isolated treatise of no great length

by an unknown author, was written towards the end of the fourteenth

century by one of the Gottesfreunde, a widespread association of

pious souls in Germany. He is said to have been "a priest and warden

of the house of the Teutonic Order at Frankfort." His book is both

the latest and one of the most important productions of the German

mystical school founded by Eckhart. The author is a deeply religious

philosopher, as much interested in speculative mysticism as Eckhart

himself, but as thoroughly penetrated with devout feeling as Thomas

ˆ Kempis. The treatise should be read by all, as one of the very

best devotional works in any language. My only reason for not

translating it in full here is that a good English translation

already exists,[30] so that it seemed unnecessary to offer a new one

to the public. I have therefore only translated a few characteristic

passages, which are very far from exhausting its beauties, and a few

of the more striking aphorisms, which indicate the main points in

the religious philosophy of the writer.

Sect. 9. MODERN MYSTICISM

The revival of interest in the old mystical writers is not

surprising when we consider the whole trend of modern thought. Among

recent philosophers--though Lotze, perhaps the greatest name among

them, is unsympathetic, in consequence of his over-rigid theory of

personality--the great psychologist Fechner, whose religious

philosophy is not so well known in this country as it deserves to

be, has with some justice been called a mystic. And our own greatest

living metaphysician, Mr F.H. Bradley, has expounded the dialectic

of speculative mysticism with unequalled power, though with a bias

against Christianity. Another significant fact is the great

popularity, all over Europe, of Maeterlinck's mystical works, "Le

Trésor des Humbles," "La Sagesse et la Destinée," and "Le

Temple Enseveli."

The growing science of psychology has begun to turn its attention

seriously to the study of the religious faculty. Several able men

have set themselves to collect material which may form the basis of

an inductive science. Personal experiences, communicated by many

persons of both sexes and of various ages, occupations, and levels

of culture, have been brought together and tabulated. It is claimed

that important facts have already been established, particularly in

connexion with the phenomena of conversion, by this method. The

results have certainly been more than enough to justify confidence

in the soundness of the method, and hope that the new science may

have a great future before it. Towards mysticism, recent writers on

the psychology of religion have been less favourable than the pure

metaphysicians. While the latter have shown a tendency towards

Pantheism and Determinism, which makes them sympathise with the

general trend of speculative mysticism, psychology seems just at

present to lean towards a pluralistic metaphysic and a belief in

free-will or even in chance. This attitude is especially noticeable

in the now famous Gifford Lectures of Professor William James[31]

and in the recent volume of essays written at Oxford.[32] But even

if the rising tide of neo-Kantianism should cause the speculative

mystics to be regarded with disfavour, nothing can prevent the

religion of the twentieth century from being mystical in type. The

strongest wish of a vast number of earnest men and women to-day is

for a basis of religious belief which shall rest, not upon tradition

or external authority or historical evidence, but upon the

ascertainable facts of human experience. The craving for immediacy,

which we have seen to be characteristic of all mysticism, now takes

the form of a desire to establish the validity of the

God-consciousness as a normal part of the healthy inner life. We may

perhaps venture to predict that the Christian biologist of the

future will turn the Pauline Christology into his own dialect

somewhat after the following fashion:--"The function of religion in

the human race is closely analogous to, if not identical with, that

of instinct in the lower animals. Religion is the racial will to

live; not, however, to live anyhow and at all costs, but to live as

human beings, conforming as far as possible to the highest type of

humanity. Religion, therefore, acts as a higher instinct, inhibiting

all self-destroying and race-destroying impulses in the interest of

a larger self than the individual life." To turn this statement into

theological form it is only necessary to claim that the "perfect

man" which the religious instinct is trying to form is "the measure

of the stature of the fulness of Christ," that that perfect humanity

was once realised in the historical Christ, and that the higher

instinct within us--ourselves, yet not ourselves--which makes for

life and righteousness, and is the source of all the good that we

can think, say, or do, may (in virtue of that historical

incarnation) be justly called the indwelling Christ. This is all

that the Christian mystic needs.

Sect. 10. SPECIMENS OF MODERN MYSTICISM

I conclude this introductory essay with a few extracts from recent

American books on the psychology of religion. It is interesting to

find some of the strangest experiences of the cloister reproduced

under the very different conditions of modern American life. The

quotations will serve to show how far Tauler and the "Theologia

Germanica" are from being out of date.

"The thing which impressed me most" (says a correspondent of

Professor William James)[33] "was learning the fact that we must be

in absolutely constant relation or mental touch with that essence of

life which permeates all and which we call God. This is almost

unrecognisable unless we live into it ourselves actually--that is,

by a constant turning to the very innermost, deepest consciousness

of our real selves or of God in us, for illumination from within,

just as we turn to the sun for light, warmth, and invigoration

without. When you do this consciously, realising that to turn inward

to the light within you is to live in the presence of God or of your

Divine self, you soon discover the unreality of the objects to which

you have hitherto been turning and which have engrossed you

without."

The next quotation comes from a small book by one of the "New

Thought" or "Mind Cure" school in America. The enormous sale of the

volume testifies to the popularity of the teaching which it

contains.[34]

"Intuition is an inner spiritual sense through which man is opened

to the direct revelation and knowledge of God, the secret of nature

and life, and through which he is brought into conscious unity and

fellowship with God, and made to realise his own deific nature and

supremacy of being as the son of God. Spiritual supremacy and

illumination thus realised through the development and perfection of

intuition under divine inspiration gives the perfect inner vision

and direct insight into the character, properties, and purpose of

all things to which the attention and interest are directed. It is,

we repeat, a spiritual sense opening inwardly, as the physical

senses open outwardly; and because it has the capacity to perceive,

grasp, and know the truth at first hand, independent of all external

sources of information, we call it intuition. All inspired teaching

and spiritual revelations are based upon the recognition of this

spiritual faculty of the soul and its power to receive and

appropriate them. Conscious unity of man in spirit and purpose with

the Father, born out of his supreme desire and trust, opens his soul

through this inner sense to immediate aspiration and enlightenment

from the divine omniscience, and the co-operative energy of the

divine omnipotence, under which he becomes a seer and a master. On

this higher plane of realised spiritual life in the flesh the mind

acts with unfettered freedom and unbiassed vision, grasping truth at

first hand, independent of all external sources of information.

Approaching all beings and things from the divine side, they are

seen in the light of the divine omniscience.[35] God's purpose in

them, and so the truth concerning them, as it rests in the mind of

God, are thus revealed by direct illumination from the divine mind,

to which the soul is opened inwardly through this spiritual sense we

call intuition."

The practice of meditation "without images," as the mediaeval

mystics called it, is specially recommended. "Many will receive

great help, and many will be entirely healed by a practice somewhat

after the following nature:--With a mind at peace, and with a heart

going out in love to all, go into the quiet of your own interior

self, holding the thought, I am one with the Infinite Spirit of

Life, the life of my life. I now open my body, in which disease has

gotten a foothold, I open it fully to the inflowing tide of this

infinite life, and it now, even now, is pouring in and coursing

through my body, and the healing process is going on." "If you would

find the highest, the fullest, and the richest life that not only

this world but that any world can know, then do away with the sense

of the separateness of your life from the life of God. Hold to the

thought of your oneness. In the degree that you do this, you will

find yourself realising it more and more, and as this life of

realisation is lived, you will find that no good thing will be

withheld, for all things are included in this."[36]

This modern mysticism is very much entangled with theories about the

cure of bodily disease by suggestion; and it is fair to warn those

who are unacquainted with the books of this sect that they will find

much fantastic superstition mixed with a stimulating faith in the

inner light as the voice of God.

But whatever may be the course of this particular movement there can

be no doubt that the Americans, like ourselves, are only at the

beginning of a great revival of mystical religion. The movement will

probably follow the same course as the mediaeval movement in

Germany, with which this little book is concerned. It will have its

philosophical supportees, who will press their speculation to the

verge of Pantheism, perhaps reviving the Logos-cosmology of the

Christian Alexandrians under the form of the pan-psychism of Lotze

and Fechner. It will have its evangelists like Tauler, who will

carry to our crowded town populations the glad tidings that the

kingdom of God is not here or there, but within the hearts of all

who will seek for it within them. It will assuredly attract some to

a life of solitary contemplation; while others, intellectually

weaker or less serious, will follow the various theosophical and

theurgical delusions which, from the days of Iamblichus downward,

have dogged the heels of mysticism. For the "False Light" against

which the "Theologia Germanica" warns us is as dangerous as ever; we

may even live to see some new "Brethren of the Free Spirit" turning

their liberty into a cloak of licentiousness. If so, the world will

soon whistle back the disciplinarian with his traditions of the

elders; prophesying will once more be suppressed and discredited,

and a new crystallising process will begin. But before that time

comes some changes may possibly take place in the external

proportions of Christian orthodoxy. The appearance of a vigorous

body of faith, standing firmly on its own feet, may even have the

effect of relegating to the sphere of pious opinion some tenets

which have hitherto "seemed to be pillars."

For these periodical returns to the "fresh springs" of religion

never leave the tradition exactly where it was before. The German

movement of the fourteenth century made the Reformation inevitable,

and our own age may be inaugurating a change no less momentous,

which will restore in the twentieth century some of the features of

Apostolic Christianity.

LIGHT, LIFE AND LOVE

ECKHART

GOD

GOD is nameless, for no man can either say or understand aught about

Him. If I say, God is good, it is not true; nay more; I am good, God

is not good. I may even say, I am better than God; for whatever is

good, may become better, and whatever may become better, may become

best. Now God is not good, for He cannot become better. And if He

cannot become better, He cannot become best, for these three things,

good, better, and best, are far from God, since He is above all. If

I also say, God is wise, it is not true; I am wiser than He. If I

also say, God is a Being, it is not true; He is transcendent Being

and superessential Nothingness. Concerning this St Augustine says:

the best thing that man can say about God is to be able to be silent

about Him, from the wisdom of his inner judgement. Therefore be

silent and prate not about God, for whenever thou dost prate about

God, thou liest, and committest sin. If thou wilt be without sin,

prate not about God. Thou canst understand nought about God, for He

is above all understanding. A master saith: If I had a God whom I

could understand, I would never hold Him to be God. (318)[37]

God is not only a Father of all good things, as being their First

Cause and Creator, but He is also their Mother, since He remains

with the creatures which have from Him their being and existence,

and maintains them continually in their being. If God did not abide

with and in the creatures, they must necessarily have fallen back,

so soon as they were created, into the nothingness out of which they

were created. (610)

REST ONLY IN GOD

IF I had everything that I could desire, and my finger ached, I

should not have everything, for I should have a pain in my finger,

and so long as that remained, I should not enjoy full comfort. Bread

is comfortable for men, when they are hungry; but when they are

thirsty, they find no more comfort in bread than in a stone. So it

is with clothes, they are welcome to men, when they are cold; but

when they are too hot, clothes give them no comfort. And so it is

with all the creatures. The comfort which they promise is only on

the surface, like froth, and it always carries with it a want. But

God's comfort is clear and has nothing wanting: it is full and

complete, and God is constrained to give it thee, for He cannot

cease till He have given thee Himself. (300)

It is only in God that are collected and united all the perfections,

which in the creatures are sundered and divided. (324)

Yet all the fulness of the creatures can as little express God, as a

drop of water can express the sea. (173)

GOD IS ALWAYS READY

NO one ought to think that it is difficult to come to Him, though it

sounds difficult and is really difficult at the beginning, and in

separating oneself from and dying to all things. But when a man has

once entered upon it, no life is lighter or happier or more

desirable; for God is very zealous to be at all times with man, and

teaches him that He will bring him to Himself if man will but

follow. Man never desires anything so earnestly as God desires to

bring a man to Himself, that he may know Him. God is always ready,

but we are very unready; God is near to us, but we are far from Him;

God is within, but we are without; God is at home, but we are

strangers. The prophet saith: God guideth the redeemed through a

narrow way into the broad road, so that they come into the wide and

broad place; that is to say, into true freedom of the spirit, when

one has become a spirit with God. May God help us to follow this

course, that He may bring us to Himself. Amen. (223)

GRACE

THE masters say: That is young, which is near its beginning.

Intelligence is the youngest faculty in man: the first thing to

break out from the soul is intelligence, the next is will, the other

faculties follow. Now he saith: Young man, I say unto thee, arise.

The soul in itself is a simple work; what God works in the simple

light of the soul is more beautiful and more delightful than all the

other works which He works in all creatures. But foolish people take

evil for good and good for evil. But to him who rightly understands,

the one work which God works in the soul is better and nobler and

higher than all the world. Through that light comes grace. Grace

never comes in the intelligence or in the will. If it could come in

the intelligence or in the will, the intelligence and the will would

have to transcend themselves. On this a master says: There is

something secret about it; and thereby he means the spark of the

soul, which alone can apprehend God. The true union between God and

the soul takes place in the little spark, which is called the spirit

of the soul. Grace unites not to any work. It is an indwelling and a

living together of the soul in God. (255)

Every gift of God makes the soul ready to receive a new gift,

greater than itself. (15)

Yea, since God has never given any gift, in order that man might

rest in the possession of the gift, but gives every gift that He has

given in heaven and on earth, in order that He might be able to give

one gift, which is Himself, so with this gift of grace, and with all

His gifts He will make us ready for the one gift, which is Himself.

(569)

No man is so boorish or stupid or awkward, that he cannot, by God's

grace, unite his will wholly and entirely with God's will. And

nothing more is necessary than that he should say with earnest

longing: O Lord, show me Thy dearest will, and strengthen me to do

it. And God does it, as sure as He lives, and gives him grace in

ever richer fulness, till he comes to perfection, as He gave to the

woman at Jacob's well. Look you, the most ignorant and the lowest of

you all can obtain this from God, before he leaves this church, yea,

before I finish this sermon, as sure as God lives and I am a man.

(187)

O almighty and merciful Creator and good Lord, be merciful to me for

my poor sins, and help me that I may overcome all temptations and

shameful lusts, and may be able to avoid utterly, in thought and

deed, what Thou forbiddest, and give me grace to do and to hold all

that Thou hast commanded. Help me to believe, to hope, and to love,

and in every way to live as Thou willest, as much as Thou willest,

and what Thou willest. (415)

THE WILL

THEN is the will perfect, when it has gone out of itself, and is

formed in the will of God. The more this is so, the more perfect and

true is the will, and in such a will thou canst do all things. (553)

SURRENDER OF THE WILL

YOU should know, that that which God gives to those men who seek to

do His will with all their might, is the best. Of this thou mayest

be as sure, as thou art sure that God lives, that the very best must

necessarily be, and that in no other way could anything better

happen. Even if something else seems better, it would not be so good

for thee, for God wills this and not another way, and this way must

be the best for thee. Whether it be sickness or poverty or hunger or

thirst, or whatever it be, that God hangs over thee or does not hang

over thee--whatever God gives or gives not, that is all what is best

for thee; whether it be devotion or inwardness, or the lack of these

which grieves thee--only set thyself right in this, that thou

desirest the glory of God in all things, and then whatever He does

to thee, that is the best.

Now thou mayest perchance say: How can I tell whether it is the will

of God or not? If it were not the will of God, it would not happen.

Thou couldst have neither sickness nor anything else unless God

willed it. But know that it is God's will that thou shouldst have so

much pleasure and satisfaction therein, that thou shouldst feel no

pain as pain; thou shouldst take it from God as the very best thing,

for it must of necessity be the very best thing for thee. Therefore

I may even wish for it and desire it, and nothing would become me

better than so to do.

If there were a man whom I were particularly anxious to please, and

if I knew for certain that he liked me better in a grey cloak than

in any other, there is no doubt that however good another cloak

might be, I should be fonder of the grey than of all the rest. And

if there were anyone whom I would gladly please, I should do nothing

else in word or deed than what I knew that he liked.

Ah, now consider how your love shows itself! If you loved God, of a

surety nothing would give you greater pleasure than what pleases Him

best, and that whereby His will may be most fully done. And, however

great thy pain or hardship may be, if thou hast not as great

pleasure in it as in comfort or fulness, it is wrong.

We say every day in prayer to our Father, Thy will be done. And yet

when His will is done, we grumble at it, and find no pleasure in His

will. If our prayers were sincere, we should certainly think His

will, and what He does, to be the best, and that the very best had

happened to us. (134)

Those who accept all that the Lord send, as the very best, remain

always in perfect peace, for in them God's will has become their

will. This is incomparably better than for our will to become God's

will. For when thy will becomes God's will--if thou art sick, thou

wishest not to be well contrary to God's will, but thou wishest that

it were God's will that thou shouldest be well. And so in other

things. But when God's will becomes thy will--then thou art sick: in

God's name; thy friend dies: in God's name! (55)

SUFFERING

MEN who love God are so far from complaining of their sufferings,

that their complaint and their suffering is rather because the

suffering which God's will has assigned them is so small. All their

blessedness is to suffer by God's will, and not to have suffered

something, for this is the loss of suffering. This is why I said,

Blessed are they who are willing to suffer for righteousness, not,

Blessed are they who have suffered. (434)

All that a man bears for God's sake, God makes light and sweet for

him. (45)

If all was right with you, your sufferings would no longer be

suffering, but love and comfort. (442)

If God could have given to men anything more noble than suffering,

He would have redeemed mankind with it: otherwise, you must say that

my Father was my enemy, if he knew of anything nobler than

suffering. (338)

True suffering is a mother of all the virtues. (338)

SIN

DEADLY sin is a death of the soul. To die is to lose life. But God

is the life of the soul; since then deadly sin separates us from

God, it is a death of the soul.

Deadly sin is also an unrest of the heart. Everything can rest only

in its proper place. But the natural place of the soul is God; as St

Augustine says, Lord, thou hast made us for Thyself, and our heart

is restless till it finds rest in Thee. But deadly sin separates us

from God; therefore it is an unrest of the heart. Deadly sin is also

a sickness of the faculties, when a man can never stand up alone for

the weight of his sins, nor ever resist falling into sin. Therefore

deadly sin is a sickness of the faculties. Deadly sin is also a

blindness of the sense, in that it suffers not a man to know the

shortness of the pleasures of lust, nor the length of the punishment

in hell, nor the eternity of joys in heaven. Deadly sin is also a

death of all graces; for as soon as a deadly sin takes place, a man

becomes bare of all graces. (217)

Every creature must of necessity abide in God; if we fall out of the

hands of his mercy, we fall into the hands of His justice. We must

ever abide in Him. What madness then is it to wish not to be with

Him, without whom thou canst not be! (169)

CONTENTMENT

A GREAT teacher once told a story in his preaching about a man who

for eight years besought God to show him a man who would make known

to him the way of truth. While he was in this state of anxiety there

came a voice from God and spake to him: Go in front of the church,

and there shalt thou find a man who will make known to thee the way

of truth. He went, and found a poor man whose feet were chapped and

full of dirt, and all his clothes were hardly worth

twopence-halfpenny. He greeted this poor man and said to him, God

give thee a good morning. The poor man answered, I never had a bad

morning. The other said, God give thee happiness. How answerest thou

that? The poor man answered, I was never unhappy. The first then

said, God send thee blessedness. How answerest thou that? I was

never unblessed, was the answer. Lastly the questioner said, God

give thee health! Now enlighten me, for I cannot understand it. And

the poor man replied, When thou saidst to me, may God give thee a

good morning, I said I never had a bad morning. If I am hungry, I

praise God for it; if I am cold, I praise God for it; if I am

distressful and despised, I praise God for it; and that is why I

never had a bad morning. When thou askedst God to give me happiness,

I answered that I had never been unhappy; for what God gives or

ordains for me, whether it be His love or suffering, sour or sweet,

I take it all from God as being the best, and that is why I was

never unhappy. Thou saidst further, May God make thee blessed, and I

said, I was never unblessed, for I have given up my will so entirely

to God's will, that what God wills, that I also will, and that is

why I was never unblessed, because I willed alone God's will. Ah!

dear fellow, replied the man; but if God should will to throw thee

into hell, what wouldst thou say then? He replied, Throw me into

hell! Then I would resist Him. But even if He threw me into hell, I

should still have two arms wherewith to embrace Him. One arm is true

humility, which I should place under Him, and with the arm of love I

should embrace Him. And he concluded, I would rather be in hell and

possess God, than in the kingdom of heaven without Him. (623)

DETACHMENT

THE man who has submitted his will and purposes entirely to God,

carries God with him in all his works and in all circumstances.

Therein can no man hinder him, for he neither aims at nor enjoys

anything else, save God. God is united with Him in all his purposes

and designs. Even as no manifoldness can dissipate God, so nothing

can dissipate such a man, or destroy his unity. Man, therefore,

should take God with him in all things; God should be always present

to his mind and will and affections. The same disposition that thou

hast in church or in thy cell, thou shouldst keep and maintain in a

crowd, and amid the unrest and manifoldness of the world.

Some people pride themselves on their detachment from mankind, and

are glad to be alone or in church; and therein lies their peace. But

he who is truly in the right state, is so in all circumstances, and

among all persons; he who is not in a good state, it is not right

with him in all places and among all persons. He who is as he should

be has God with him in truth, in all places and among all persons,

in the street as well as in the church; and then no man can hinder

him. (547)

It is often much harder for a man to be alone in a crowd than in the

desert; and it is often harder to leave a small thing than a great,

and to practise a small work than one which people consider very

great. (565)

PRAYER

GOOD and earnest prayer is a golden ladder which reaches up to

heaven, and by which man ascends to God.

The man who will pray aright should ask for nothing except what may

promote God's honour and glory, his own profit and the advantage of

his neighbours. When we ask for temporal things we should always

add, if it be God's will and if it be for my soul's health. But when

we pray for virtues, we need add no qualification, for these are

God's own working. (359)

LOVE OF OUR NEIGHBOUR

IT is a hard thing to practise this universal love, and to love our

neighbours as ourselves, as our Lord commanded us. But if you will

understand it rightly, there is a greater reward attached to this

command, than to any other. The commandment seems hard, but the

reward is precious indeed. (135)

LOVE

HE who has found this way of love, seeketh no other. He who turns on

this pivot is in such wise a prisoner that his foot and hand and

mouth and eyes and heart, and all his human faculties, belong to

God. And, therefore, thou canst overcome thy flesh in no better way,

so that it may not shame thee, than by love. This is why it is

written, Love is as strong as death, as hard as hell. Death

separates the soul from the body, but love separates all things from

the soul. She suffers nought to come near her, that is not God nor

God-like. Happy is he who is thus imprisoned; the more thou art a

prisoner, the more wilt thou be freed. That we may be so imprisoned,

and so freed, may He help us, Who Himself is Love. (30)

THE UNION WITH GOD

THE union of the soul with God is far more inward than that of the

soul and body. (566)

Now I might ask, how stands it with the soul that is lost in God?

Does the soul find herself or not? To this will I answer as it

appears to me, that the soul finds herself in the point, where every

rational being understands itself with itself. Although it sinks and

sinks in the eternity of the Divine Essence, yet it can never reach

the ground. Therefore God has left a little point wherein the soul

turns back upon itself and finds itself, and knows itself to be a

creature. (387)

God alone must work in thee without hindrance, that He may bring to

perfection His likeness in thee. So thou mayest understand with Him,

and love with Him. This is the essence of perfection. (471)

THE LAST JUDGMENT

PEOPLE say of the last day, that God shall give judgment. This is

true. But it is not true as people imagine. Every man pronounces his

own sentence; as he shows himself here in his essence, so will he

remain everlastingly. (471)

PRECEPT AND PRACTICE

BETTER one life-master than a thousand reading-masters (wêger wêre

ein lebemeister denne tûsent lesemeister). If I sought a master

in the scriptures, I should seek him in Paris and in the high

schools of high learning. But if I wished to ask questions about the

perfect life, that he could not tell me. Where then must I go?

Nowhere at all save to an utterly simple nature; he could answer my

question. (599)

RELICS

MY people, why seek ye after dead bones? Why seek ye not after

living holiness, which might give you everlasting life? The dead can

neither give nor take away. (599)

SAYINGS OF ECKHART

MASTER ECKHART saith: He who is always alone, he is worthy of God;

and he who is always at home, to him is God present; and be who

abides always in a present now, in him doth God beget His Son

without ceasing. (600)

Master Eckhart saith: I will never pray to God to give Himself to

me: I will pray Him to make me purer. If I were purer, God must give

Himself to me, of His own nature, and sink into me. (601)

Master Eckhart was asked, what were the greatest goods, that God had

done to him. He said, there are three. The first is, that the lusts

and desires of the flesh have been taken away from me. The second

is, that the Divine Light shines and gives me light in all my

doings. The third is, that I am daily renewed in virtue, grace and

holiness. (602)

TAULER

OUR AIM

THINK, and think earnestly, how great, how unutterable will be the

joy and blessedness, the glory and honour of those who shall see

clearly and without veil the gladsome and beauteous face of God, how

they will enjoy the best and highest good, which is God Himself. For

in Him is included all pleasure, might, joy, and all beauty, so that

the blessed in God will possess everything that is good and

desirable, with everlasting joy and security, without fear lest they

should ever be parted from Him. (138)[38]

CONSEQUENCES OF THE FALL

FROM the time when the first man gave a ready ear to the words of

the enemy, mankind have been deaf, so that none of us can hear or

understand the loving utterances of the eternal Word. Something has

happened to the ears of man, which has stopped up his ears, so that

he cannot hear the loving Word; and he has also been so blinded,

that he has become stupid, and does not know himself. If he wished

to speak of his own inner life, he could not do it; he knows not

where he is, nor what is his state. (91)

How can it be that the noble reason, the inner eye, is so blinded

that it cannot see the true light? This great shame has come about,

because a thick coarse skin and a thick fur has been drawn over him,

even the love and the opinion of the creatures, whether it be the

man himself or something that belongs to him; hence man has become

blind and deaf, in whatever position he may be, worldly or

spiritual. Yes, that is his guilt, that many a thick skin is drawn

over him, as thick as an ox's forehead, and it has so covered up his

inner man, that neither God nor himself can get inside; it has grown

into him. (92)

THE FALL

THROUGH two things man fell in Paradise--through pride, and through

inordinate affection. Therefore we too must return by two things,

that nature may recover her power: we must first sink our nature and

bring it down under God and under all men in deep humility, against

whom it had exalted itself in pride. We must also manfully die to

all inordinate lusts. (1)

LIFE A BATTLE

NOTHING in the world is so necessary for man as to be constantly

assailed; for in fighting he learns to know himself. As grace is

necessary to a man, so also is fighting. Virtue begins in fighting,

and is developed in fighting. In every state to which a man is

called, inward and outward, he must of necessity be assailed. A high

Master said: As little as meat can remain without salt and yet not

become corrupt, so little can a man remain without fighting. (104)

A man should in the first place act as when a town is besieged, and

it is certain that the besieging army is stronger than the town.

When the town is weakest, men take the very greatest care to guard

and defend the town; if they neglected to do so, they would lose the

town, and with it their lives and properties. So should every man

do: he should be most careful to find out in what things the evil

spirit most often besets him--that is, on what side the man is

weakest, and to what kind of errors and failings he is most prone,

and should manfully defend himself at those points.

Next, turn thyself earnestly away from sin; for I tell you of a

truth, by whatever temptation a man is assailed, if he turns not

from it heartily, but stands in it vacillating, he has no

wholehearted desire to leave his sins by God's will, and without

doubt the evil spirit is close upon him, who may make him fall into

endless perdition.

Know of a truth, that if thou wouldst truly overcome the evil

spirit, this can only be done by a complete manful turning away from

sin. Say then with all thy heart: Oh, everlasting God, help me and

give me Thy Divine grace to be my help, for it is my steadfast

desire never again to commit any deadly sin against Thy Divine will

and Thine honour. So with thy good will and intention thou entirely

overcomest the evil spirit, so that he must fly from thee ashamed.

Understand, however, that it is a miserable and pitiable thing for a

reasonable man to let himself be overcome by the evil spirit, and in

consequence of his attacks to fall voluntarily into grievous and

deadly sin, whereby man loses the grace of God. A reasonable man,

who allows himself voluntarily to be overcome by the evil spirit, is

like a well-armed man who voluntarily lets a fly bite him to death.

For man has many great and strong weapons, wherewith he may well and

manfully withstand the evil spirit--the holy faith, the blessed

sacrament, the holy word of God, the model and example of all good

and holy men, the prayers of holy Church, and other great supports

against the power of the evil spirit, whose power is much less than

that of a fly against a great bear. If a man will manfully and

boldly withstand the evil spirit, the evil one can gain no advantage

against his free will.

Turn, therefore, manfully and earnestly from your sins, and watch

diligently and earnestly; for I tell you of a truth, that when you

have come to the next world, if you have not withstood the evil

spirit, and if you are found there without repentance and sorrow,

you will be a mockery to all the devils and to yourself, and you

will be eternally punished and tormented. And it will then be a

greater woe to you, that you have followed the evil spirit, than all

the external pains that you must endure eternally for your sins.

Thirdly, a man should diligently attend to his inner Ground, that

there shall be nothing in it save God alone, and His eternal glory.

For alas! there are many men, both lay and clerical, who live

falsely beneath a fair show, and imagine that they can deceive the

everlasting God. No, in truth, thou deceivest thyself, and losest

the day of grace, and the favour of God, and makest thyself guilty

towards God, in that He gives the evil spirits power over thee, so

that thou canst do no good work. Therefore, watch while it is day,

that the hour of darkness and God's disfavour may not overtake thee,

and take heed that in thy inner ground God may dwell, and nought

besides. (75)

Even as each man in his baptism is placed under the charge of a

special angel, who is with him always and never leaves him, and

protects him waking and sleeping in all his ways and in all his

works, so every man has a special devil, who continually opposes him

and exercises him without ceasing. But if the man were wise and

diligent, the opposition of the devil and his exercises would be

much more profitable to him than the aid of the good angel; for if

there were no struggle, there could be no victory. (139)

SIN

WHEN a man has had the fair net of his soul torn by sin, he must

patch and mend it by a humble, repentant return to the grace and

mercy of God. He must act like one who wishes to make a crooked

stick straight: he bends the stick further back than it ought to go,

and by being thus bent back it becomes straight again. So must a man

do to his own nature. He must bend himself under all things which

belong to God, and break himself right off, inwardly and outwardly,

from all things which are not God.

Every deadly sin causes the precious blood of Christ to be shed

afresh. Jesus Christ is spiritually crucified many times every day.

(75)

FISHING FOR SOULS

THE fisherman throws his hook, that he may catch the fish; but the

fish itself takes the hook. When the fish takes the hook, the

fisherman is sure of the fish, and draws it to him. Even so, God has

thrown His hook and His net into all the world, before our feet,

before our eyes, before our minds, and He would gladly draw us

securely to Himself by means of all His creatures. By pleasurable

things He draws us on; by painful things He drives us on. He who

will not be drawn, is in fault; for he has not taken God's hook, nor

will he be caught in God's net. If he came therein, beyond doubt he

would be caught by God and would be drawn by God. It is not God's

fault if we will not be drawn; we should grasp the hand held out to

us. If a man were in a deep pool, and one tried to help him and pull

him out, would he not gladly grasp his hand and allow himself to be

pulled out? (42)

Where two things are so related to each other, that one may receive

something for the other, there must be something in common between

them. If they had nothing in common, there must be a middle term

between them, which has something in common both with the higher,

from which it may receive, and with the lower, to which it may

impart. Now God hath created all things, and especially mankind,

immediately for Himself. He created man for His pleasure. But by

sin, human nature was so far estranged from God, that it was

impossible for a man to attain to that, for which he was made. Now

Aristotle says that God and Nature are not unprofitable

workers--that is, what they work at, they carry to its end. Now God

created man that He might have pleasure in him. If then God's work

in creating mankind was not to be unprofitable, when they were so

far estranged from God by sin, that they could not receive that by

which they might return and attain the enjoyment of eternal

happiness, a Mediator was necessary between us and God, one who has

something in common with us and our natures, and also shares in the

nature of God. In order that on the one side, He might in Himself

destroy our sickness, which was a cause of all our sins, and also

destroy all our sins, to which our weakness has brought us; and on

the other side that He might include in Himself all the treasure of

grace and of God's honour, that He might be able to give us grace

richly, and forgiveness of our sins, and eternal glory hereafter,

this could only be, if the Son of God became man. (90)

Yea, the highest God and Lord of all lords, the Son of God, in His

deep love felt pity for us poor, sinful men, condemned to the flames

of hell. Though He was in the form of God, He thought it not robbery

(as St Paul says) to be equal with God, and He annihilated Himself,

and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made like any other

man, being found in fashion as a man. He humbled Himself, and became

obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. (117)

THE EFFICACY OF DIVINE GRACE

ALL works which men and all creatures can ever work even to the end

of the world, without the grace of God--all of them together,

however great they may be, are an absolute nothing, as compared with

the smallest work which God has worked in men by His grace. As much

as God is better than all His creatures, so much better are His

works than all the works, or wisdom, or designs, which all men could

devise. Even the smallest drop of grace is better than all earthly

riches that are beneath the sun. Yea, a drop of grace is more noble

than all angels and all souls, and all the natural things that God

has made. And yet grace is given more richly by God to the soul than

any earthly gift. It is given more richly than brooks of water, than

the breath of the air, than the brightness of the sun; for spiritual

things are far finer and nobler than earthly things. The whole

Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, give grace to the soul, and

flow immediately into it; even the highest angel, in spite of his

great nobility, cannot do this. Grace looses us from the snares of

many temptations; it relieves us from the heavy burden of worldly

cares, and carries the spirit up to heaven, the land of spirits. It

kills the worm of conscience, which makes sins alive. Grace is a

very powerful thing. The man, to whom cometh but a little drop of

the light of grace, to him all that is not God becomes as bitter as

gall upon the tongue. (86)

Grace makes, contrary to nature, all sorrows sweet, and brings it

about that a man no longer feels any relish for things which

formerly gave him great pleasure and delight. On the other hand,

what formerly disgusted him, now delights him and is the desire of

his heart--for instance, weakness, sorrow, inwardness, humility,

self-abandonment, and detachment from all the creatures. All this is

in the highest degree dear to him, when this visitation of the Holy

Ghost, grace, has in truth come to him. Then the sick man, that is

to say the external man, with all his faculties is plunged

completely into the pool of water, even as the sick man who had been

for thirty-eight years by the pool at Jerusalem, and there washes

himself thoroughly in the exalted, noble, precious blood of Christ

Jesus. For grace in manifold ways bathes the soul in the wounds and

blood of the holy Lamb, Jesus Christ. (22)

PRAYER

THE essence of prayer is the ascent of the mind to God, as holy

teachers tell us. Therefore every good man, when he wishes to pray,

ought to collect his outer senses into himself, and look into his

mind, to see whether it be really turned to God. He who wishes that

his prayers may be truly heard, must keep himself turned away from

all temporal and external things, and all that is not Divine,

whether it be friend or joy (Freund oder Freude), and all vanities,

whether they be clothes or ornaments, and from everything of which

God is not the true beginning and ending, and from everything that

does not belong to Him. He must cut off his words and his conduct,

his manners and his demeanour, from all irregularity, inward or

outward. Dream not that that can be a true prayer, when a man only

babbles outwardly with his mouth, and reads many psalms, gabbling

them rapidly and hastily, while his mind wanders this way and that,

backwards and forwards. Much rather must the true prayer be, as St

Peter tells us, "one-minded"[39]—that is, the mind must cleave to

God alone, and a man must look with the face of his soul turned

directly towards God, with a gentle, willing dependence on Him. (80)

If thy prayer has these conditions, thou mayst with true humility

fall at the feet of God, and pray for the gentle succour of God;

thou mayest knock at His fatherly heart, and ask for bread—that is,

for love. If a man had all the food in the world, and had not bread,

his food would be neither eatable, nor pleasant, nor useful. So it

is with all things, without the Love of God. Knock also at the door

through which we must go--namely, Christ Jesus. At this door, the

praying man must knock for three ends, if he wishes to be really

admitted. First he must knock devoutly, at the broken heart and the

open side, and enter in with all devotion, and in recognition of his

unfathomable poverty and nothingness, as poor Lazarus did at the

rich man's gate, and ask for crumbs of His grace. Then again, he

should knock at the door of the holy open wounds of His holy hands,

and pray for true Divine knowledge, that it may enlighten him and

exalt him. Finally, knock at the door of His holy feet, and pray for

true Divine love, which may unite thee with Him, and immerse and

cover thee in Him. (57)

MEDITATIONS ON THE SEVEN WORDS FROM THE CROSS

[From a devotional treatise on the Passion of Christ, published in a

Latin translation, by Surius, in 1548, and wrongly ascribed by him

to Tauler. The author was an unknown German of the fourteenth

century.]

THE FIRST WORD

NOW, O my soul, and all ye who have been redeemed by the precious

blood of Christ, come, and let us go with inward compassion and

fervent devotion to the blessed palm-tree of the Cross, which is

laden with the fairest fruit. Let us pass like the bee from flower

to flower, for all are full of honey. Let us consider and ponder

with the greatest care the sacred words of Christ, which He spoke

upon the Cross; for everything that comes From this blessed Tree is

wholesome and good. In the Cross of our Lord and Saviour are centred

all our salvation, all our health, all our life, all our glory; and,

"if we suffer with Him," saith the Apostle, "we shall also reign

with Him." That we may not be found ungrateful for these inestimable

benefits, let us call upon heaven and earth, and all that in them

is, to join us in praising and blessing and giving thanks to God.

Let us invite them to come and look upon this wondrous sight, and

say: "Magnify the Lord with me, for He hath done marvellous things.

O praise and bless the Lord with me, for great is His mercy toward

us." Come up with me, I pray you, ye angelic spirits, to Mount

Calvary, and see your King Solomon on His throne, wearing the diadem

wherewith His mother has crowned Him. Let us weep in the presence of

the Lord who made us, the Lord our God. O all mankind, and all ye

who are members of Christ, behold your Redeemer as He hangs on high;

behold and weep. See if any sorrow is like unto His sorrow.

Acknowledge the heinousness of your sins, which needed such

satisfaction. Go to every part of His body; you will find only

wounds and blood. Cry to Him with lamentations and say, "O Jesus,

our redemption, our love, our desire, what mercy has overcome Thee,

that Thou shouldest bear our sins, and endure a cruel death, to

rescue us from everlasting death?" And Thou, O God, the almighty

Father of heaven, look down from Thy sanctuary upon Thine innocent

Son Joseph, sold and given over unjustly to the hands of bloody men,

to suffer a shameful death. See whether this be Thy Son's coat or

not. Of a truth an evil beast hath devoured Him. The blood of our

sins is sprinkled over His garments, and all the coverings of His

good name are defiled by it. See how Thy holy Child has been

condemned with the wicked, how Thy royal Son has been crowned with

thorns. Behold His innocent hands, which have known no sin, dripping

with blood; behold His sacred feet, which have never turned aside

from the path of justice, pierced through by a cruel nail; behold

His defenceless side smitten with a sharp spear; behold His fair

face, which the angels desire to look upon, marred and shorn of all

its beauty; behold His blessed heart, which no impure thought ever

stained, weighed down with inward sorrow. Behold, O loving Father,

Thy sweet Son, stretched out upon the harp of the Cross, and harping

blessings on Thee with all His members. Wherefore, O my God, I pray

Thee to forgive me, for the sake of Thy Son's Passion, all the sins

that I have committed in my members. O merciful Father, look on Thy

only-begotten Son, that Thou mayst have compassion on Thy servant.

Whenever that red blood of Thy Son speaks in Thy sight, do Thou wash

me from every stain of sin. Whenever Thou beholdest the wounds of

this Thy Son, open to me the bosom of Thy fatherly compassion.

Behold, O tender Father, how Thy obedient Son does not cry, "Bind my

hands and my feet, that I may not rebel against Thee," but how of

His own will He extends His hands and feet, and gladly allows them

to be pierced with nails. Look down, I pray Thee, not on the brazen

serpent hanging on a pole for the salvation of Israel, but on Thine

only Son hanging on the Cross for the salvation of all men. It is

not Moses who now stretches out his hand to heaven, that the thunder

and lightning and the other plagues may cease, but it is Thy beloved

Son, who lovingly stretches out His bleeding arms to Thee, that Thy

wrath may depart from the human race. Aaron and Hur are not now

holding up the hands of Moses that he may pray more unweariedly for

Israel; but hard and cruel nails have fastened the hands of Thy only

Son to the Cross, that He may wait with long-suffering for our

repentance, and receive us back into His grace, and that He may not

turn away in wrath from our prayers. This is that faithful David,

who now strings tight the harp-strings of His body, and makes sweet

melody before Thee, singing to Thee the sweetest song that has been

ever sung to Thee: "Father forgive them, for they know not what they

do." This is that High Priest, who by His own blood has entered into

the Holy of Holies, to offer Himself as a peace-offering for the

sins of the whole world. This is that innocent Lamb, who has washed

us in His own precious blood, who, Himself without spot of sin, has

taken away the sins of the world. Therefore from the storehouse of

His Passion I borrow the price of my debt, and I count out before

Thee all its merits, to pay what I owe Thee. For He has done all in

my nature, and for my sake. O merciful Father, if Thou weighest all

my sins on one side of the balance, and in the other scale the

Passion of Thy Son, the last will outweigh the first. For what sin

can be so great, that the innocent blood of Thy Son has not washed

it out? What pride, or disobedience, or lust, is so unchecked or so

rebellious, that such lowliness, obedience, and poverty cannot

abolish it? O merciful Father, accept the deeds of Thy beloved Son,

and forgive the errors of Thy wicked servant. For the innocent blood

of our brother Abel crieth to Thee from the Cross, not for

vengeance, but for grace and mercy, saying, "Father, forgive them,

for they know not what they do."

THE SECOND WORD

NOW the thieves who were crucified with Jesus reviled Him. But after

a while, the one who hung on the right side of Christ, when he saw

His great patience and long-suffering, wherewith He so lovingly

prayed to His Father for those who cast reproaches upon Him and

cruelly tortured Him, became entirely changed, and began to be moved

with very great sorrow and repentance for his sins. And he showed

this outwardly, when he rebuked his fellow-thief, who continued to

revile Christ, saying: "Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in

the same condemnation?" "Although" (he would say) "thou art so

obstinate as not to fear men, and thinkest nought of thy bodily

pain, yet surely thou must fear God, in the last moments of thy

life--God, who hath power to destroy both thy body and soul in hell.

And though we suffer the same punishment with Him, our deserts are

very different. We, indeed, suffer justly, for we receive the due

reward of our deeds, but this man hath done nothing amiss." He, who

but lately was a blasphemer, is now a confessor and preacher, he

distinguishes good from evil, blaming the sinner, and excusing the

innocent: the unbelieving thief has become the confessor of almighty

God. O good Jesus, this sudden change is wrought by Thy right hand,

at which he hung. Thy right hand touched him inwardly, and forthwith

he is changed into another man. O Lord, in this Thou hast declared

Thy patience, out of a stone Thou hast raised up a child unto

Abraham. Verily, the penitent thief received the light of faith

solely from that bright light on the candlestick of the Cross, which

shone there in the darkness and scattered the shades of night. But

what does this signify, save that our Lord Jesus, out of the

greatness of His goodness, looked upon him with the eyes of His

mercy, although He found no merit in him, except what it pleased Him

out of His goodness to bestow? For as God gives to His elect, out of

His goodness alone, what no one has a right to demand, so out of His

justice He gives to the wicked what they deserve. For this cause

David says: "He saved me because He desired me." And this is why the

thief, before the Lord touched his heart with the beams of His grace

and love, joined the other thief in reviling Christ, thus showing

first what his own character was, and afterwards what was wrought in

him by grace. At first he acted like the other, being, like him, a

child of wrath; but when the precious blood of Christ was shed as

the price of our redemption and paid to the Father for our debt,

then the thief asked God to give him an alms for his good, and at

once received it. For how can one alms diminish that inexhaustible

treasure? How could our tender Lord, whose property is always to

have mercy, have refused his request? Indeed He gave him more than

he asked. Yet how could the thief escape the glow of the fire which

was burning so near him? Truly this was the fire, which the Father

had sent down from heaven to earth, which had long smouldered, but

now, kindled anew, and fed by the wood of the Cross, and sprinkled

with the oil of mercy, and fanned, as it were, by the reproaches and

blasphemies of the Jews, sent up its flames to heaven, by which that

thief was quite kindled and set on fire, and his love became as

strong as death, so that he said: "I indeed suffer no grievous

penalty, for it is less than I deserve; but that this innocent One,

who has done no wrong, should be so tortured, contrary to justice

and righteousness, this, truly, adds grievous sorrow to my sorrow."

O splendid faith of this thief! He contemned all the punishment that

might be inflicted on him: he feared not the rage of the people, who

were barking like mad dogs against Jesus: he cared not for the chief

priests: he feared not the executioners with their weapons and

instruments of torture; but in the presence of them all, with a

fearless heart he confessed that Christ was the true Son of God, and

Lord of the whole world: and at the same time he confounded the Jews

by confessing that He had done nothing amiss, and therefore that

they had crucified Him unjustly. O wondrous faith! O mighty

constancy! O amazing love of this poor thief, love that cast out all

fear! He was indeed well drunken with that new wine which in the

wine-press of the Cross had been pressed out of that sweet cluster,

Jesus Christ, and therefore he confessed Christ without shame before

all the people. At the very beginning of the Passion, the apostles

and disciples had forsaken Christ and fled; even St Peter,

frightened by the voice of one maidservant, had denied Christ. But

this poor thief did not forsake Him even in death, but confessed Him

to be the Lord of heaven in the presence of all those armed men. Who

can do justice to the merits of this man? Who taught him so quickly

that faith of his, and his clear knowledge of all the virtues, save

the very Wisdom of the Father, Jesus Christ, who hung near him on

the Cross? Him whom the Jews could not or would not know, in spite

of the promises made to the patriarchs, the fulfilment of

prophecies, the teaching of the Scriptures, and the interpretation

of allegories, this poor thief learned to know by repentance. He

confessed Christ to be the Son of God, though he saw Him full of

misery, want, and torment, and dying from natural weakness. He

confessed Him at a time when the apostles, who had seen His mighty

works, denied Him. The nails were holding his hands and feet fixed

to the cross; he had nothing free about him, except his heart and

his tongue; yet he gave to God all that he could give to Him, and,

in the words of Scripture, "with his heart he believed unto

righteousness, and with his tongue he made confession of Christ unto

salvation." O infinite and unsearchable mercy of God! For what

manner of man was he when he was sent to the cross, and what when he

left it? (Not that it was his own cross, that wrought this change,

but the power of Christ crucified.) He came to the cross stained

with the blood of his fellow-man; he was taken down from it cleansed

by the blood of Christ. He came to the cross still savage and full

of rage, and while he was upon it he became so meek and pitiful that

he lamented for the sufferings of another more than for his own. One

member only was left to him, and at the eleventh hour he came to

work in God's vineyard, and yet so eagerly did he labour that he was

the first to finish his work and receive his reward. Indeed he

behaved like a just man; for he first accused himself and confessed

his sins, saying, "and we, indeed, justly, for we receive the due

reward of our deeds." Secondly, he excused Christ, and confessed

that He was the Just One when he said "but this Man hath done

nothing amiss." Thirdly, he showed brotherly love, for he said,

"dost not thou fear God?" Fourthly, with all his members, or at

least with all that he could offer, and with loving eyes and a

devout heart and a humble spirit, he turned himself to Christ and

prayed earnestly, "Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy

Kingdom." How great was the justice and humility and resignation

which he showed in this prayer, for he asked only for a little

remembrance of himself, acknowledging that he was not worthy to ask

for anything great. Nor did he pray for the safety of his body, for

he gladly desired to die for his sins. It was more pleasant for him

to die with Christ than to live any longer. Nor did he pray that our

Lord would deliver him from the pains of hell, or of purgatory, nor

did he ask for the kingdom of heaven; but he resigned himself

entirely to the will of God, and offered himself altogether to

Christ, to do what He would with him. In his humility he prayed for

nothing except for grace and mercy, for which David also prayed when

he said, "Deal with Thy servant according to Thy mercy." And

therefore, because he had prayed humbly and wisely, the Eternal

Wisdom, Who reads the hearts of all who pray, heard his prayer, and,

opening wide the rich storehouse of His grace, bestowed upon him

much more than he had dared to ask. O marvellous goodness of God!

How plainly dost Thou declare in this, that Thou desirest not the

death of a sinner, but rather that he should be converted and live.

Now Thou hast manifested and fulfilled what Thou didst promise

aforetime by Thy prophet: "When the wicked man shall mourn for his

sins, I will remember his iniquity no more." Thou didst not impose

upon him many years of severe penance, nor many sufferings in

purgatory for the expiation of his sins; but just as if Thou hadst

quite forgotten his crimes, and couldst see nothing in him but

virtue, Thou didst say: "This day shalt thou be with Me in

paradise." O immeasurable compassion of God! Our tender Lord forgot

all the countless crimes which that poor thief had done, and forgave

him when he repented, and gave so great and splendid a reward to the

good which there was in him, small indeed though it was. Our loving

God is very rich; He needs not our gifts; but He seeks for a heart

which turns to Him with lowliness and resignation, such a heart as

He found in this poor thief. For He says Himself: "turn to Me, and I

will turn to you." And so when this thief so courageously and

effectively turned to God, his prayer was at once not only accepted

but answered. For our Lord did not reject his prayer, or say to him:

"See how I hang here in torment, and I behold before My eyes My

mother in sore affliction, and I have not yet spoken one word to

her, so that to hear thee now would not be just." No, our Lord said

nothing of this kind to the thief. Rather, He heard his prayer at

once, and made answer in that sweet word, "Amen, I say unto thee,

this day shalt thou be with Me in paradise." O tender goodness, O

marvellous mercy of God! O great wisdom of the thief! He saw that

the treasures of Christ were wide open, and were being scattered

abroad. Who then should forbid him to take as much as would pay what

he owed to his Lord? And O the accursed hardness of the impenitent

thief, whom neither the rebuke of his associate, nor the patience of

Christ, nor the many signs of love and mercy that shone forth in

Christ, could melt or convert! He saw that alms were plentiful at

the rich man's gate, that more was given than was asked for, and yet

he was too proud and obstinate to ask. He saw that life and the

kingdom of heaven were being granted, and yet he would not bend his

heart to wish for them: therefore he shall not have them. He loved

better revilings and curses, and they shall come unto him, and that

for all eternity. These new first-fruits of the grape, which our

Lord gathered on the wood of the Cross from our barren soil, by much

sweat of His brow and much watering with His own precious blood, He

sent with great joy as a precious gift to His heavenly Father, by

His celestial messengers the holy angels. But if there is joy among

the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth, how must they

rejoice and exult at the salvation of this thief, of whom they had

almost despaired? We can picture to ourselves with what joy the

Father of heaven received these first-fruits of the harvest of His

Son's Passion. But Christ Himself, though He felt some joy at the

thief's conversion, was still more afflicted thereby, for by His

wisdom He foresaw that this thief would be the cause of perdition to

many, who would resolve to pass their whole lives in sin, hoping to

obtain pardon and grace at the moment of death. Truly a most foolish

hope, for nowhere in the Scriptures do we read that it has so

happened to any man. In truth, they who seek after God only when

they must, will not, it is to be feared, find Him near them in their

time of need. In the meantime, none can trust too much in God, and

no one has ever been forsaken by Him, who has turned to Him with his

whole heart, and leant upon Him with loving confidence.

THE THIRD WORD

THERE stood also by the Cross of Jesus His most holy and ever-virgin

mother Mary; not in order that His sufferings might thereby be

lessened, but that they might be greatly augmented. For if any

creature could have given consolation to the Lord while He hung on

the Cross, no one could have done it so fitly as His blessed mother.

But since it was God's will that Christ should die the most bitter

of deaths, and end His Passion without any comfort or relief, but

with true resignation, His mother's presence brought Him no

consolation, but rather added to His sufferings, for her sufferings

were thereby added to His, and this added yet more to His

affliction. Who then, O good Jesus can discover by meditation how

great was Thy inward grief, for Thou knowest the hearts of all, when

Thou sawest all the body of Thy holy mother tortured by inward

compassion, even as Thou wast tortured on the Cross, and her tender

heart and maternal breast pierced with the sword of sharp sorrow,

her face pale as death, telling the anguish of her soul, and almost

dead, yet unable to die. When Thou beheldest her hot tears, flowing

down abundantly like sweet rivers upon her gracious cheeks, and over

all her face, all witnesses to Thee that she shared in Thy sorrow

and love; when Thou heardest her sad laments, forced from her by the

weight of her affliction; when Thou sawest that same tender mother,

melted away with the heat of love, her strength quite failing her,

worn out and exhausted by the pains of Thy Passion, which wasted her

away; all this, truly, was a new affliction to Thee on the Cross; it

was itself a new Cross. For Thou alone, by the spear of, Thy pity,

didst explore the weight and grievousness of her woes, which to men

are beyond comprehension. All this, indeed, greatly increased the

pain of Thy Passion, because Thou wast crucified not only in Thy own

body, but in Thy mother's heart; for her Cross was Thy Cross, and

Thine was hers. O how bitter was Thy Passion, sweet Jesus! Great

indeed was Thy outward suffering, but far more grievous was Thy

inward suffering, which Thy heart experienced at Thy mother's

anguish. It was now, beyond doubt, that the sword of sorrow pierced

her through, for the queen of martyrs was terribly and mortally

wounded in that part which is impassible--that is, the soul; she

bore the death of the Cross in that part which could not die,

suffering all the more her grievous inward death, as outward death

departed further from her. Who, O most loving mother, can recount or

conceive in his mind the immeasurable sorrows of thy soul, or thine

inward woes? Him whom thou didst bring forth without pain, as a

blessed mother free from the curse of our first mother Eve, who

instead of the pains of labour wast filled with joy of spirit, and

who for thy refreshment didst listen to the sweet songs of the

angels as they praised thy Son, thou hast now seen slain before

thine eyes with the greatest cruelty and tyranny. How manifold was

that sorrow of thine, which thou wast permitted to escape at His

birth, when thou sawest thy blessed and only Son hanging in such

torment on the Cross, in the presence of a cruel and furious crowd,

who showered upon Him all the insults and contumely and shame that

they could think of; when thou sawest Him whom thou didst bear in

thy pure womb without feeling the burden, so barbarously stretched

on the Cross, and pierced with nails; when thou sawest His sacred

arms, with which He had so many times lovingly embraced thee,

stretched out so that He could not move them, and covered with red

blood, His adorable head pierced with sharp thorns, and His whole

body one streaming wound, while thou wast not able to staunch or

anoint any of those wounds. What must thy grief have been when thou

sawest Him whom thou hadst so often laid on thy virgin bosom that He

might rest, without anything on which to lean His sacred head; and

Him whom thou hadst nourished with the milk of thy holy breasts, now

vexed with vinegar and gall. O how thy maternal heart was oppressed

when thou beheldest with thy pure eyes that fair face so piteously

marred, so that there was no beauty in it, and nothing by which He

could be distinguished. How did the wave of affliction beat against

and overflow and overwhelm thy soul! Truly, if even a devout man

cannot without unspeakable sorrow and pity revolve in his mind the

Passion of thy Son, what must have been thy Cross, thy affliction,

who wast His mother and sawest it all with thine eyes? If to many

friends of God and to many who love Him, thy Son's Passion is as

grievous as if they suffered it themselves, if by inward pity they

are crucified with thy Son, how terribly, even unto death, must thou

have been crucified inwardly, when thou didst not only ponder and

search into the outward and inward pains of thy Son in thy devout

heart, but sawest them with thy bodily eyes? For never did any

mother love her child as thou lovedst thy Son. And if St Paul, who

loved so much, could say, out of his ardent love and deep pity for

thy Son, "I am crucified with Christ; and I bear in my body the

marks of the Lord Jesus," how much more wert thou crucified with

Him, and didst inwardly receive all His wounds, being made, in a

manner, an image and likeness of thy crucified Son?

THE FOURTH WORD

ABOUT the ninth hour our Lord Jesus cried with a loud voice, "My

God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" He cried with a loud voice,

that He might be easily heard by all, and also that by this wondrous

word He might shake off from our souls the sleep of sloth, and cause

them to wonder and marvel at the immeasurable goodness of God to us.

Therefore He saith, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" For

the sake of vile sinners, for evil and thankless servants, for

sinful and disobedient deceivers, Thou hast forsaken Thy beloved Son

and most obedient Child. That Thy enemies, who are vessels of wrath,

might be changed into children of adoption, Thou hast slain Thine

own Son, and given Him over to death like one guilty. "O my God,

why, I pray Thee, hast Thou forsaken me?" For the very cause why men

ought to praise and give thanks to Thee, and love Thee with an

everlasting love; because Thou hast delivered Thy dear Son to death

for their redemption, and sacrificed Him willingly, for this reason

they will find ground for blasphemy and reproach against Thee,

saying, "He saith He is the Son of God. Let God deliver Him now if

He will have Him." Why, O my God, hast Thou willed to spend so

precious a treasure for such vile and counterfeit goods? Besides,

this word may be understood to have been spoken by Christ against

those who seek to diminish the glory of His Passion, by saying that

it was not really so bitter and terrible, owing to the great support

and comfort which He drew from His Godhead. Let those who speak and

think thus know that they renew His Passion and crucify Him afresh.

It was to prove the error of such men that our Lord cried with a

loud voice, and said, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?"

It is as if He had said these words to His own Divine nature, with

which He formed one Person--for the Godhead of the Father and of the

Son is all one--wondering, Himself, at His own love, which had so

cast Him down and worn Him out and humbled Him, and that He who

brings help to all mankind should have forsaken Himself, and offered

Himself to suffer every kind of pain, impelled thereto by conquering

love alone. Again, we should not be wrong, if we were to interpret

this word which Christ spoke out of the exceeding bitterness of His

sorrow in the following way--namely, that His spirit and inward man,

taking upon itself the severe judgment of God upon all sinners, and

at the same time discerning clearly and feeling and measuring in

Himself the intolerable weight of His Passion, on this account cried

out in a sorrowful voice to His Father, and complained tenderly to

Him because He had been cast into these dreadful torments; as if the

goodness of His Father had become so embittered against the sins of

men, that in the ardour of His justice He had quite forgotten the

inseparable union between His passible humanity and His impassible

Godhead, and therefore in the zealousness of His justice had quite

given up His passible nature to the cruelty and malice of fierce

men, that they might waste it away and destroy it. For this reason,

therefore, He said, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?"

This word has besides an inward meaning, according to which Christ,

in His sensitive parts, complained to His Father that He had been

forsaken by Him. For as many as contend for His honour, and endure

patiently the troubles of this world, our merciful God so moderates

and tempers their crosses and afflictions by the inpouring of His

divine consolation, that by His sensible grace He makes their

crosses hardly felt; but He left His own beloved Son quite without

any comfort, and so deprived Him of all consolation and light, that

He endured as much in His human nature as had been ordained by the

Eternal Wisdom, according to the strictness of justice, as much as

was needed to atone for so many sins. And indeed our salvation was

the more nobly and perfectly achieved, in that it was done and

finished without any light at all, in absolute resignation and

abandonment. For a chief cause of the Passion was to show clearly

how great was the injury and insult brought upon His most high

Godhead by the sins of the human race. Now as the knowledge of

Christ was greater and more acute than that of all other beings, in

heaven or in earth, so much the greater and heavier was His sorrow

and agony. Nay more--what is more wonderful than anything--whatever

afflictions have been endured by all the saints, as members of

Christ, existed much more abundantly in Christ their Head; and this

I wish to be understood according to the spirit and reasonably. For

all the saints have suffered no more than flowed in upon them

through Christ, joined to them as His members, who communicated to

them His own afflictions. For He took upon Himself the afflictions

of all the saints, out of His great love for His members, and

wondrous pity, and He suffered far greater internal anguish than any

of the saints, nay, more even than the blessed Virgin, His mother,

felt her own sharp sorrow and sickness of heart. For if an earthly

father loves his child so much, that in fatherly pity he takes upon

himself the sorrows of his child, and grieves for them as if he

suffered them himself, what must have been Christ's Cross and

compassion for the affliction of His members, and above all, of

those who suffered for His name's sake? Truly He bore witness to His

members, how much He suffered from their afflictions, and how great

was His inward pity for their sufferings, when He took all their

debt upon Himself, and abolished all the penalties which they had

merited, so that they might depart free. The same is most amply

proved by the words which He spoke to St Paul, when He said, "Saul,

Saul, why persecutest thou Me?" For the persecution which Saul had

stirred up against the disciples, the members of the Lord, was not

less grievous to Him than if He had suffered it Himself. Therefore

He says to His friends and members, "He who touches you, touches the

apple of Mine eye." For is there anything suffered by the members,

which the Head does not suffer with them, He whose nature is

goodness, and whose property is always to have mercy and to forgive?

THE FIFTH WORD

OUR most tender Lord was so worn out and parched by the extreme

bitterness of His pain and suffering, and by the great loss of

blood, that He cried, "I thirst." A little word, but full of

mysteries.

In the first place it may be understood literally. For it is natural

for those who are at the point of death to feel thirst, and to

desire to drink. But how great was the drouth felt by Him who is the

fountain of living water, but who was now worn out and parched by

the heat of His ardent love, when he could truly say, "I am poured

out like water," and "My strength is dried up like a potsherd." For

not only did He shed all His own blood, and pour out moisture by

tears, but the very marrow of His bones, and all His heart's blood,

were consumed for our sakes by the heat and flame of love. Therefore

He said rightly, "I thirst."

But, secondly, the word may be understood spiritually, as if Christ

said to all men, "I thirst for your salvation." Hence St Bernard

says: "Jesus cried, I thirst, not, I grieve. O Lord, what dost Thou

thirst for? For your faith, your joy. I thirst because of the

torments of your souls, far more than for My own bodily sufferings.

Have pity on yourselves, if not on Me." And again, "O good Jesus,

Thou wearest the crown of thorns; Thou art silent about Thy Cross

and wounds, yet Thou criest out, I thirst. For what, then, dost Thou

thirst? Truly, for the redemption of mankind only, and for the

felicity of the human race." This thirst of Christ was a hundred

times more keen and intense than His natural thirst. And, besides,

He had another sort of thirst--that is to say, a thirst to suffer

more, and to prove to us still more clearly His immeasurable love,

as if He said to man, "See how I am worn out and exhausted for thy

salvation. See how terrible are the pains and anguish which I

endure. The fierce cruelty of man has almost brought Me to nothing;

the sinners of earth have drunk out all My blood, and yet I thirst.

Not yet is My heart satisfied, nor My desire accomplished, nor the

fire of My love quenched. For if it were possible for Me, and

according to My Father's will, that I should be crucified again a

thousand times for your salvation and conversion, or that I should

hang here, in all this pain and anguish, till the day of judgment, I

would gladly do it, to prove to you the immeasurable love which I

bear you in My heart, and to soften your stony hearts and rouse you

to love Me in return. This is why I hang here so thirsty by the

fountain of your hearts, that I may watch the pious souls who come

hither to draw from the deep well of My Passion. Therefore, the

maiden to whom I shall say, 'Give Me to drink a little water out of

the pitcher of thy conscience'--the water of devotion, pity, tears,

and mutual love--and who shall let down to Me her pitcher, and shall

say, 'Drink, my Lord; and for Thy camels also--that is, Thy

servants, who carry Thee about daily on their bodies, and who by

night and day are held bound fast by Thy yoke, I will draw the water

of brotherly love'--that is the maiden whom the Lord hath prepared

for the Son of My Lord, even the bride of the Word of God, united to

My humanity. And she shall be counted worthy to enter, like a bride

with her bridegroom, into the chamber of eternal rest, when the

Bridegroom invites her, saying, 'Come, My blessed bride, inherit the

Kingdom of My Father. For I was thirsty, and thou gavest Me drink.'"

Thirdly, we may apply this word to the Father, as if Christ said to

His Father: "Father, I have declared Thy name to mankind; I have

finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do; and in Thy service I

have spent My whole body as Thine instrument. Behold, I am all worn

out and exhausted; and yet I still thirst to do and suffer more for

Thine honour. This is why I hang here, extended to the furthest

breadth of love, for I long to be an everlasting sacrifice, a sweet

savour to Thee, and at the same time an eternal atonement and

salvation to mankind." Thus, too, might this strong Samson have

said: "O Lord, Thou hast put into the hand of Thy servant this very

great salvation and victory, and yet behold, I die of thirst." As if

He would say: "Father, I have accomplished Thy gracious will; I have

finished the work of man's salvation, as Thou didst demand; and yet

I still thirst; for the sins by which Thou art offended are

infinite. And so I desire that the love and merits of My Passion, by

which Thou wilt be appeased, may be infinite too. And as I now offer

myself as a peace-offering and a living sacrifice for the salvation

of all men, so through Me may all men appease Thee, by offering Me

to Thee as a peace-offering to Thine eternal glory, in memory of My

Passion, and to make good all their shortcomings." O how acceptable

to the Father must this desire of love have been! For what was this

thirst but a sweet and pleasant refreshment to the Father, and at

the same time the blessed renovation of mankind? Or what other

language does this burning throat speak to us, save that of Christ's

burning love, without measure and without limit, out of which He did

all His works? This truly is the most noble sacrifice of our

redemption, this is that peace-offering which will be offered even

to the last day, by all good men, to the Holy Ghost, to the highest

Father, in memory of the Son, to the eternal glory of the adorable

Trinity, and to the fruit of salvation for mankind. Here, certainly,

is the inexhaustible storehouse of our reconciliation, which never

fails, for it is greater than all the debts of the world. This is

that immeasurable love, which is higher than the heavens, for it has

repaired the ruin of the angels; deeper than hell, for it has freed

souls from hell; wider and broader than the earth, for it is without

end and incomprehensible by any created understanding. O how keen

and intense was this thirst of our Lord! For not only did He then

say once, "I thirst," but even now He says in our hearts

continually, "I thirst; woman, give me to drink." So great, so

mighty, is that thirst, that He asks drink not only from the

children of Israel, but from the Samaritans. To each one He

complaineth of His thirst. But for what dost Thou thirst, O good

Jesus? "My meat and drink," saith He, "is that men should do My

Father's will. Now this is the will of My Father, even your

sanctification and salvation, that you may sanctify your souls by

walking in My precepts, by doing works of repentance, by adorning

yourselves with all virtues, in order that, like a bride adorned for

her husband, you may be worthy to be present at My supper in My

Father's kingdom, and to sleep with Me as My elect bride, in the

chamber of My Father's heart." O how Christ longs to bring all men

thither! This is the meaning of His words: "Where I am there shall

also My servant be"; and again: "Father, I will that they may be one

even as We are one." O, how incomprehensible is this thirst of

Christ! What toil and labour He endured for thirty and three years,

for the sake of it! For this His very heart's blood was poured out.

See what our tender Lord says to His Father: "The zeal of Thine

house hath even eaten Me." Truly, He would have submitted to be

crucified a thousand times, rather than allow one soul to perish

through any fault of His. O how this inward thirst tormented Him,

when He thought that He had done all that He could, and even a

hundredfold more than He need have done, and yet that so few had

turned to Him, and been won by Him. His whole body was now worn out;

all His blood was shed; nothing remained for Him to do; and

therefore He was constrained to confess, "It is finished"; and yet

by all His labours, afflictions, and sufferings, He had brought no

richer harvest to the Father than this. Truly, this was the most

bitter of all His sorrows, that after so hard a battle His victory

had not been more glorious, and that He returned a conqueror to His

Father with so few spoils. Therefore, all those who do not refresh

Him by performing His will, and doing all that is pleasing and

honourable to Him, and withstanding all that reason tells them to be

displeasing to Him, will one day hear Him say, "I was thirsty, and

ye gave Me no drink. Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire."

Fourthly, there is yet another inward meaning of this word--namely,

that Christ spoke it out of the love which inwardly draws Him

towards all men, thus making known to us His ardent love, and

opening His own heart, as a delightful couch, on which we may feed

pleasantly, and inviting us to it, saying, "I thirst for you." For

as the liquid which we drink is sent down pleasantly through the

throat into the body, and so passes into the substance and nature of

our body, so Christ out of the ardent thirst of His love, takes

spiritual pleasure in drinking in all men into Himself, swallowing

them, as it were, and incorporating them into Himself, and bringing

them into the secret chamber of His loving heart. Therefore He says:

"I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto

Me"--all men, that is, who allow themselves to be drawn by Me, and

submit to Me as obedient instruments, suffering Me to do with them

according to My gracious will. But those who resist Him quench not

His thirst, but give Him a bitter draught instead, even the deeds of

their own self-will. These, when our Lord tasteth them, He

straightway rejects.

THE SIXTH WORD

WHEN Christ had tasted the draught of vinegar and gall, He spoke the

sixth word: "It is finished." Thereby He signified that by His

Passion had been fulfilled all the prophecies, types, mysteries,

scriptures, sacrifices, and promises, which had been predicted and

written about Him. This is that true Son of God, for whom the Father

of heaven made ready a supper in the kingdom of His eternal

blessedness; and He sent His servant--that is the human nature of

Christ, coming in the form of a servant, to call them that were

bidden to the wedding. For Christ, when He took human nature upon

Him, was not only a servant but a servant of servants, and served

all of us for thirty and three years with great toil and suffering.

Indeed, He spent His whole life in bidding all men to His supper. It

was for this that He preached, and wrought miracles, and travelled

from place to place, and proclaimed that the kingdom of heaven was

at hand, and that all should be prepared for it. But they would not

come. And when the Father of the household heard this, He said to

His Servant: "Compel them to come in, that My house may be filled."

Then that Servant thought within Himself: "How shall I be able

without violence to compel these men to come, that rebellion may be

avoided and yet that their privilege and power of free will may

remain unimpaired? For if I compel them to come by iron chains, and

blows, and whips, I shall have asses and not men." Then He said to

Himself: "I perceive that man is so constituted as to be prone to

love. Therefore I will show him such love as shall pass all his

understanding, love than which no other love can be greater. If man

will observe this, he will be so caught in its toils, that he will

not be able to escape its heat and flame, and will be constrained to

turn to God, and love Him in return. For, turn where he will, he

will always be met by the immeasurable benefits, the infinite

goodness, and the wonderful love of God; and at the same time he

will feel more and more compelled to return love for love, till he

will be no more able to resist it, and will be gently constrained to

follow." When this was done, Jesus Christ, this faithful and wise

Servant, said to His Lord and Father, "It is finished. I have

finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do. What more could I have

done, and have not done it? I have no member left that is not weary

and worn with toil and pain. My veins are dry, My blood is shed; My

marrow is spent, My throat is hoarse with crying. Such love have I

shown to man, that his heart cannot be human, cannot even be stony,

or the heart of a brute beast, but must be quite devilish and

desperate, if it be not moved by the thought of these things."

Moreover, this word of our Lord Jesus is a word of sorrow, not of

joy. He spoke it not as if He had now escaped from all His

suffering. No; when He said, "It is finished," He meant all that had

been ordained and decreed by the eternal Truth for Him to suffer.

Besides, all the sufferings which had been inflicted upon Him by

degrees and singly, He now endures together with immeasurable

anguish. Who can have such a heart of adamant as not to be moved by

such torment as this? How short were the words which our Lord Jesus

spoke on the Cross, yet how full of sacramental mysteries! Now were

fulfilled the words of Exodus: "And all things were finished which

belonged to the sacrifice of the Lord."

Moreover by this word our Lord declared the glorious victory of the

Passion, and how the old enemy, the jealous serpent, was overcome

and thrown down; for this was the cause for which He suffered. For

this He had taken upon Himself the garment of human nature, that He

might vanquish and confound the enemy, by the same weapons wherewith

the enemy boasted that he had conquered man. This was the chief

purpose of His Passion, and now He confesses that it is finished. O

how wonderful are the mysteries, and the victories, included in this

little but deep word: "It is finished!" All that the eternal Wisdom

had decreed, all that strict justice had demanded for each man, all

that love had asked for, all the promises made to the fathers, all

the mysteries, types, ceremonies in Scripture, all that was meet and

necessary for our redemption, all that was needed to wipe out our

debts, all that must repair our negligences, all that was glorious

and loving for the exhibition of this splendid love, all that we

could desire, for our spiritual instruction--in a word, all that was

good and fitting for the celebration of the glorious triumph of our

redemption, all is included in that one word, "It is finished."

What, then, remains for Him, but to finish and perfect His life in

this glorious conflict; and, because nothing remains for Him to do,

to commend His precious soul into His Father's hands, seeing that He

has fought the good fight, and finished His course in all holiness?

It is meet, then, that He should obtain the crown of glory which His

heavenly Father will give Him on the day of His exaltation.

Lastly, by this word Christ offered up all His toil, sorrow, and

affliction for all the elect, as the Apostle saith: "Who in the days

of His flesh offered up prayer and supplications with strong crying

and tears unto Him who was able to save Him from death, and was

heard in that He feared. For if the blood of bulls and of goats and

the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the

purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who

through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God,

purge our conscience from dead works to serve the living God?"

THE SEVENTH WORD

OUR Lord Jesus cried again with a loud voice, and said, "Father,

into Thy hands I commend My Spirit." O all ye who love our Lord

Jesus Christ, come, I beseech you, and let us watch, with all

devotion and pity, His passing away. Let us see what must have been

His sorrow and agony and torment, when His glorious soul was now at

last forced to pass out of His worthy and most sacred body, in which

for thirty and three years it had rested so sweetly, peacefully,

joyfully, and holily, even as two lovers on one bed. How hard was it

for them to be rent asunder, between whom no disagreement had ever

arisen, no strife, or quarrel, or treachery. How unspeakably

grievous was that Cross, when His sacred body was compelled to part

with so faithful a friend, so gentle an occupant, so loving a

teacher and master; and how great was the sorrow with which His

glorious and pure soul was torn away from so faithful a servant,

which had ever served obediently, never sparing any trouble, never

shrinking from cold or heat or hunger or thirst; always enduring

labour and sorrow in gentleness and patience. O how great was this

affliction! For, as the philosopher says: "Of all terrible things

death is the most terrible, on account of the natural and mutual

affection, which is very great, between soul and body." How much

greater must have been the anguish and sorrow, when the most holy

soul and body of Christ were sundered, between which there had

always been such wonderful harmony and love. Therefore, with inward

pity and anxious sorrow, let us meditate on this sad parting; for

the death of Christ is our life.

Let us meditate devoutly how His sacred body, the instrument of our

salvation, was steeped in anguish, when all His members, as if to

bid a last farewell, were bowing themselves down to die! Who can

look without remorse and sorrow and pity upon the most gracious face

of Christ, and behold how it is changed into the pallor and likeness

of death; how tears still flow from His dimmed eyes; how His sacred

head is bent; how all His members prove to us, by signs and motions,

the love which they can no longer show by deeds. Let us pity Him, I

pray you, for He is our own flesh and blood, and it is for our sins,

not His own, that He is shamefully slain. O ye who up till now have

passed by the Cross of Jesus with tepid or cold hearts, and whom all

these torments and tears, and His blood shed like water, have not

been able to soften; now at last let this loud voice, this terrible

cry, rend and pierce your hearts through and through. Let that voice

which shook the heaven and the earth and hell with fear, which rent

the rocks and laid open ancient graves, now soften your stony

hearts, and lay bare the old sepulchres of your conscience, full of

dead men's bones--that is to say, of wicked deeds, and call again

into life your departed spirits. For this is the voice which once

cried: "Adam, where art thou; and what hast thou done?" This is the

voice which brought Lazarus from Hades, saying, "Lazarus, come

forth: arise from the grave of sin, and let them free thee from thy

grave-clothes." Truly it was not so much the grievousness of His

sufferings, as the greatness of our sins, which made our Lord utter

this cry. He cried also, to show that He had the dominion over life

and death, over the living and the dead. For though he was quite

worn out, and destitute of strength, and though He had borne the

bitter pangs of death so long, beyond the power of man, yet He would

not allow Death to put forth its power against Him, until it pleased

Him.

With a loud voice He cried, that earthly men, who care only for the

things of earth, might quake with fear and trembling, and to cause

them to meditate and see how naked and helpless the Lord of lords

departed from this life. With a terrible voice He cried, to stir up

all those who live in wantonness, and who have grown old in their

defilement, and send forth a foul savour, like dead dogs, so that at

last these miserable men may rise from their lusts and pleasures and

sensual delights, and see how the Son of God, who was never strained

with any spot of defilement, went forth to His Father; and with what

toil and pain and anguish He departed from the light of day, and

what He had to suffer before He reached his Father's Kingdom. He

also cried with a loud voice, that He might inflame the lukewarm and

slothful to devotion and love.

Moreover He cried with a loud voice as a sign of the glorious

victory which He had gained, when after a single combat with His

strong and cruel enemy, and having descended into the arena--the

battlefield of this world--He had routed him on Mount Calvary and

stripped him bare of his spoils. This victory, this glorious

triumph, Christ proclaimed with a loud voice, and thus departing

from the battlefield triumphant and victorious, He departed to the

place of all delights, to the heart and breast of God, His Father,

commending to it, as to a safe refuge, both Himself and all His own,

with the words, "Father, into Thy hands I commend My Spirit."

We may learn from these words that the eternal Word, our Lord Jesus

Christ, had been let down like a fishing-hook or great net, by the

Father of heaven, into the great sea of this world, that He might

catch not fish but men. Hear how He says: "My word, that goeth forth

out of My mouth shall not return unto Me void, but shall execute

that which I please, and shall prosper in the thing whereto I send

it." And this net is drawn by the Father out of the salt sea, to the

peaceful shore of His fatherly heart, full of the elect, of works of

charity, of repentance, patience, humility, obedience, spiritual

exercises, merits and virtues. For Christ drew unto Himself all the

afflictions and good deeds of the good; just as St Paul says, "I

live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." Even so, Christ lives in

all the good, and all who have been willing and obedient instruments

in the hands of Christ. In all such Christ lives and suffers and

works. For whatever good there is in all men, is all God's work.

Therefore Christ, feeling His Father drawing Him, gathered together

in Himself in a wonderful manner all the elect with all their works,

and commended them to His Father, saying, "My Father, these are

Thine; these are the spoils which I have won by My conquest, by the

sword of the Cross; these are the vessels which I have purchased

with My precious blood; these are the fruits of My labours. Keep in

Thine own name those whom Thou hast given Me. I pray not that Thou

shouldest take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldest keep

them from the evil." Thus did Christ commend Himself and all His own

into His Father's hands. Come therefore, O faithful and devout soul,

and contemplate with great earnestness the coming in and the going

out of thy Lord Jesus; follow Him with love and longing, even to the

chamber and bed of joy, which He has prepared for thee in thy

Father's heart. Happy would he be, who could now be dissolved with

Christ, and die with the thief, and hear from the lips of the Lord

that comfortable word, "This day shalt thou be with Me in paradise."

And though this is not granted to us, yet whatever we can here gain

by labours and watchings and fastings and prayers, let us commend it

all with Christ to the Father; let us pour it back again into the

fountain, whence it flowed forth for us; and let nothing be left in

us of empty self-satisfaction, no seeking after human praise or

honour or reward. But whatever our God hath been willing to do in

us, let us return it back into His own hands and say, "We are

nothing of ourselves. It is He who made us, and not we ourselves.

All good was made by Him, and without Him was not anything made.

When therefore He taketh with Him what He made Himself, we are

absolutely nothing."

Lastly, Christ commended His soul into His Father's hands, to show

us how the souls of good and holy men mount up after Him to the

bosom of the eternal Father, who must otherwise have gone down to

hell; for it is He who has opened to us the way of life, and His

sacred soul, by making the journey safe and free from danger, has

been our guide into the kingdom of heaven.

SUSO

SUSO AND HIS SPIRITUAL DAUGHTER

AFTER this, certain very high thoughts arose in the mind of the

servitor's spiritual daughter, concerning which she asked him

whether she might put questions to him. He replied, Yea verily:

since thou hast been led through the proper exercises, it is

permitted to thy spiritual intelligence to enquire about high

things. Ask then whatever thou wilt. She said: Tell me, father, what

is God, and how He is both One and Three? The servitor replied,

These be indeed high questions. As to the first, What is God, you

must know that all the Doctors who ever lived cannot explain it, for

He is above all sense and reason. Yet if a man is diligent, and does

not relax his efforts, he gains some knowledge of God, though very

far off. Yet in this knowledge of God consists our eternal life and

man's supreme happiness. In this way, in former times, certain

worthy philosophers searched for God, and especially that great

thinker Aristotle, who tried to discover the Author of Nature from

the order of nature and its course. He sought earnestly, and he was

convinced from the well-ordered course of nature that there must of

necessity be one Prince and Lord of the whole universe--He whom we

call God. About this God and Lord we know this much, that He is an

immortal Substance, eternal, without before or after, simple, bare,

unchangeable, an incorporeal and essential Spirit, whose substance

is life and energy, whose most penetrating intelligence knows all

things in and by itself, whose essence in itself is an abyss of

pleasures and joys, and who is to Himself, and to all who shall

enjoy Him in a future life, a supernatural, ineffable, and most

sweet happiness. The maiden, when she heard this, looked up, and

said: These things are sweet to tell and sweet to hear, for they

rouse the heart, and lift the spirit up far beyond itself.

Therefore, father, tell me more about these things. The servitor

said: The Divine Essence, about which we speak, is an intelligible

or intellectual Substance of such a kind, that it cannot be seen in

itself by mortal eyes; but it can be discerned in its effects, even

as we recognise a fine artist by his works. As the Apostle teaches

us, "The invisible things of God from the creation of the world are

clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made." For the

creatures are a kind of mirror, in which God shines. This knowledge

is called speculation, by which we contemplate the great Architect

of the world in His works. Come now, look upward and about thee,

through all the quarters of the universe, and see how wide and high

the beautiful heaven is, how swift its motion, and how marvellously

its Creator has adorned it with the seven planets, and with the

countless multitude of the twinkling stars. Consider what

fruitfulness, what riches, the sun bestows upon the earth, when in

summer it sheds abroad its rays unclouded! See how the leaves and

grass shoot up, and the flowers smile, and the woods and plains

resound with the sweet song of nightingales and other birds; how all

the little animals, after being imprisoned by grim winter, come

forth rejoicing, and pair; and how men and women, both old and

young, rejoice and are merry. O Almighty God, if Thou art so lovable

and so pleasant in Thy creatures, how happy and blessed, how full of

all joy and beauty, must Thou be in Thyself? But further, my

daughter, contemplate the elements themselves--Earth, Water, Air,

and Fire, with all the wonderful things which they contain in

infinite variety--men, beasts, birds, fishes, and sea-monsters. And

all of these give praise and honour to the unfathomable immensity

that is in Thee. Who is it, Lord, who preserves all these things,

who nourishes them? It is Thou who providest for all, each in his

own way, for great and small, rich and poor. Thou, O God, doest

this; Thou alone art God indeed! Behold, my daughter, thou hast now

found the God whom thou hast sought so long. Look up, then, with

shining eyes, with radiant face and exulting heart, behold Him and

embrace Him with the outstretched arms of thy soul and mind, and

give thanks to Him as the one and supreme Lord of all creatures. By

gazing on this mirror, there springs up speedily, in one of loving

and pious disposition, an inward jubilation of the heart; for by

this is meant a joy which no tongue can tell, though it pours with

might through heart and soul. Alas, I now feel within me, that I

must open for thee the closed mouth of my soul; and I am compelled,

for the glory of God, to tell thee certain secrets, which I never

yet told to any one. A certain Dominican, well known to me, at the

beginning of his course used to receive from God twice every day,

morning and evening, for ten years, an outpouring of grace like

this, which lasted about as long as it would take to say the "Vigils

of the Dead" twice over.[40] At these times he was so entirely

absorbed in God, the eternal Wisdom, that he would not speak of it.

Sometimes he would converse with God as with a friend, not with the

mouth, but mentally; at other times he would utter piteous sighs to

Him; at other times he would weep copiously, or smile silently. He

often seemed to himself to be flying in the air, and swimming

between time and eternity in the depth of the Divine wonders, which

no man can fathom. And his heart became so full from this, that he

would sometimes lay his hand upon it as it beat heavily, saying,

"Alas, my heart, what labours will befall thee to-day?" One day it

seemed to him that the heart of his heavenly Father was, in a

spiritual and indescribable manner, pressed tenderly, and with

nothing between, against his heart; and that the Father's

heart--that is, the eternal Wisdom, spoke inwardly to his heart

without forms.[41] Then he began to exclaim joyously in spiritual

jubilation: Behold, now, Thou whom I most fervently love, thus do I

lay bare my heart to Thee, and in simplicity and nakedness of all

created things I embrace Thy formless Godhead! O God, most excellent

of all friends! Earthly friends must needs endure to be distinct and

separate from those whom they love; but Thou, O fathomless sweetness

of all true love, meltest into the heart of Thy beloved, and pourest

Thyself fully into the essence of his soul, that nothing of Thee

remains outside, but Thou art joined and united most lovingly with

Thy beloved.

To this the maiden replied: Truly it is a great grace, when anyone

is thus caught up into God. But I should like to be informed,

whether this is the most perfect kind of union or not? The servitor

answered: No, it is not the most perfect, but a preliminary, gently

drawing a man on, that he may arrive at an essential way of being

carried up into God. The maiden asked him what he meant by essential

and non-essential. He answered: I call that man essential or

habitual (so to speak), who by the good and persevering practice of

all the virtues, has arrived at the point of finding the practice of

them in their highest perfection pleasant to him, even as the

brightness of the sun remains constant in the sun. But I call him

non-essential, in whom the brightness of the virtues shines in an

unstable and imperfect way like the brightness of the moon. That

full delight of grace which I described is so sweet to the spirit of

the non-essential man, that he would be glad always to have it. When

he has it, he rejoices; when he is deprived of it, he grieves

inordinately; and when it smiles upon him, he is reluctant to pass

to doing other things, even things that are pleasing to God; as I

will show you by an example. The servitor of the Divine Wisdom was

once walking in the chapter-house, and his heart was full of

heavenly jubilation, when the porter called him out to see a woman

who wished to confess to him. He was unwilling to interrupt his

inward delight, and received the porter harshly, bidding him tell

the woman that she must find some one else to confess to, for he did

not wish to hear her confession just then. She, however, being

oppressed with the burden of her sins, said that she felt specially

drawn to seek comfort from him, and that she would confess to no one

else. And when he still refused to go out, she began to weep most

sadly, and going into a corner, lamented greatly. Meanwhile, God

quickly withdrew from the servitor the delights of grace, and his

heart became as hard as flint. And when he desired to know the cause

of this, God answered him inwardly: Even as thou hast driven away

uncomforted that poor woman, so have I withdrawn from thee my Divine

comfort. The servitor groaned deeply and beat his breast, and

hurried to the door, and as he did not find the woman there, was

much distressed. The porter, however, looked about for her

everywhere, and when he found her, still weeping, bade her return to

the door. When she came, the servitor received her gently, and

comforted her sorrowing heart. Then he went back from her to the

chapter-house, and immediately God was with him, with His Divine

consolations, as before.

Then said the maiden: It must be easy for him to bear sufferings, to

whom God gives such jubilation and internal joys. And yet, said the

servitor, all had to be paid for afterward with great suffering.

However, at last, when all this had passed away, and God's appointed

time had come, the same grace of jubilation was restored to him, and

remained with him almost continuously both at home and abroad, in

company and alone. Often in the bath or at table the same grace was

with him; but it was now internal, and did show itself outside.

Then the maiden said: My father, I have now learned what God is; but

I am also eager to know where He is. Thou shalt hear, said the

servitor. The opinion of the theologians is that God is in no

particular place, but that He is everywhere, and all in all. The

same doctors say that we come to know a thing through its name. Now

one doctor says that Being is the first name of God. Turn your eyes,

therefore, to Being in its pure and naked simplicity, and take no

notice of this or that substance which can be torn asunder into

parts and separated; but consider Being in itself, unmixed with any

Not-Being. Whatever is nothing, is the negation of what is; and what

is, is the negation of what is not. A thing which has yet to be, or

which once was, is not now in actual being. Moreover, we cannot know

mixed being or not-being unless we take into account that which is

all-being. This Being is not the being of this or that creature; for

all particular being is mixed with something extraneous, whereby it

can receive something new into itself. Therefore the nameless Divine

Being must be in itself a Being that is all-being, and that sustains

all particular things by its presence.

It shows the strange blindness of man's reason, that it cannot

examine into that which it contemplates before everything, and

without which it cannot perceive anything. Just as, when the eye is

bent on noticing various colours, it does not observe the light

which enables it to see all these objects, and even if it looks at

the light it does not observe it; so it is with the eye of the soul.

When it looks at this or that particular substance, it takes no heed

of the being, which is everywhere one, absolute and simple, and by

the virtue and goodness of which it can apprehend all other things.

Hence the wise Aristotle says, that the eye of our intelligence,

owing to its weakness, is affected towards that being which is

itself the most manifest of all things, as the eye of a bat or owl

is towards the bright rays of the sun. For particular substances

distract and dazzle the mind, so that it cannot behold the Divine

darkness, which is the clearest light.

Come now, open the eyes of thy mind, and gaze if thou canst, on

Being in its naked and simple purity. You will perceive that it

comes from no one, and has no before nor after, and that it cannot

change, because it is simple Being. You will also observe that it is

the most actual, the most present, and the most perfect of beings,

with no defect or mutation, because it is absolutely one in its bare

simplicity. This is so evident to an instructed intellect, that it

cannot think otherwise. Since it is simple Being, it must be the

first of beings, and without beginning or end, and because it is the

first and everlasting and simple, it must be the most present. If

you can understand this, you will have been guided far into the

incomprehensible light of God's hidden truth. This pure and simple

Being is altogether in all things, and altogether outside all

things. Hence a certain doctor says: God is a circle, whose centre

is everywhere, and His circumference nowhere.

When this had been said, the maiden answered: Blessed be God, I have

been shown, as far as may be, both what God is, and where He is. But

I should like also to be told how, if God is so absolutely simple,

He can also be threefold.

The servitor answered: The more simple any being is in itself, the

more manifold is it in its energy and operation. That which has

nothing gives nothing, and that which has much can give much. I have

already spoken of the inflowing and overflowing fount of good which

God is in Himself. This infinite and superessential goodness

constrains Him not to keep it all within Himself, but to communicate

it freely both within and without Himself. But the highest and most

perfect outpouring of the good must be within itself, and this can

be nought else but a present, interior, personal and natural

outpouring, necessary, yet without compulsion, infinite and perfect.

Other communications, in temporal matters, draw their origin from

this eternal communication of the Divine Goodness. Some theologians

say that in the outflow of the creatures from their first origin

there is a return in a circle of the end to the beginning; for as

the emanation of the Persons from the Godhead is an image of the

origin of the creatures, so also it is a type of the flowing back of

the creatures into God. There is, however, a difference between the

outpouring of the creatures and that of God. The creature is only a

particular and partial substance, and its giving and communication

is also partial and limited. When a human father begets a son, he

gives him part, but not the whole, of his own substance, for he

himself is only a partial good. But the outpouring of God is of a

more interior and higher kind than the creature's outpouring,

inasmuch as He Himself is a higher good. If the outpouring of God is

to be worthy of His pre-eminent being, it must be according to

personal relations.

Now, then, if you can look upon the pure goodness of the highest

Good (which goodness is, by its nature, the active principle of the

spontaneous love with which the highest Good loves itself) you will

behold the most excellent and superessential outpouring of the Word

from the Father, by which generation all things exist and are

produced; and you will see also in the highest good, and the highest

outpouring, the most holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,

existing in the Godhead. And if the highest outpouring proceeds from

the highest essential good, it follows that there must be in this

Trinity the highest and most intimate consubstantiality or community

of being, and complete equality and identity of essence, which the

Persons enjoy in sweetest communion, and also that the Substance and

power of the three almighty Persons is undivided and unpartitioned.

Here the maiden exclaimed: Marvellous! I swim in the Godhead like an

eagle in the air. The servitor, resuming his exposition, continued:

It is impossible to express in words how the Trinity can subsist in

the unity of one essence. Nevertheless, to say what may be said on

the subject, Augustine says that in the Godhead the Father is the

Fountain-head of the Son and the Holy Ghost. Dionysius says, that in

the Father there is an outflowing of the Godhead, which naturally

communicates itself to the Word or Son. He also freely and lovingly

pours Himself out into the Son; and the Son in turn pours Himself

out freely and lovingly into the Father; and this love of the Father

for the Son, and of the Son for the Father, is the Holy Ghost. This

is truly said, but it is made clearer by that glorious Doctor of the

Church, St Thomas, who says as follows: In the outpouring of the

Word from the Father's heart, God the Father must contemplate

Himself with His own mind, bending back, as it were, upon His Divine

essence; for if the reason of the Father had not the Divine essence

for its object, the Word so conceived would be a creature instead of

God; which is false. But in the way described He is "God of God."

Again, this looking back upon the Divine essence, which takes place

in the mind of God, must, in a manner, produce a natural likeness;

else the Word would not be the Son of God. So here we have the unity

of essence in the diversity of Persons; and a clear proof of this

distinction may be found in the word of that soaring eagle St John:

"The Word was in the beginning with God."

Thus the Father is the Fountain-head of the Son, and the Son is the

outflowing of the Father; and the Father and Son pour forth the

Spirit; and the Unity, which is the essence of the Fountain-head, is

also the substance of the three Persons. But as to how the Three are

One, this cannot be expressed in words, on account of the simplicity

of that Abyss. Into this intellectual Where, the spirits of men made

perfect soar and plunge themselves, now flying over infinite

heights, now swimming in unfathomed depths, marvelling at the high

and wonderful mysteries of the Godhead. Nevertheless, the spirit

remains a spirit, and retains its nature, while it enjoys the vision

of the Divine Persons, and abstracted from all occupation with

things below contemplates with fixed gaze those stupendous

mysteries. For what can be more marvellous than that simple Unity,

into which the Trinity of the Persons merges itself, and in which

all multiplicity ceases? For the outflowing of the Persons is always

tending back into the Unity of the same essence, and all creatures,

according to their ideal existence in God, are from eternity in this

Unity, and have their life, knowledge, and essence in the eternal

God; as it is said in the Gospel: "That which was made, was Life in

Him."[42] This bare Unity is a dark silence and tranquil inactivity,

which none can understand unless he is illuminated by the Unity

itself, unmixed with any evil. Out of this shines forth hidden

truth, free from all falsehood; and this truth is born from the

unveiling of the veiled Divine purity; for after the revelation of

these things, the spirit is at last unclothed of the dusky light

which up till now has followed it, and in which it has hitherto seen

things in an earthly way. Indeed, the spirit finds itself now

changed and something very different from what it supposed itself to

be according to its earlier light: even as St Paul says, "I, yet not

I." Thus it is unclothed and simplified in the simplicity of the

Divine essence, which shines upon all things in simple stillness. In

this modeless mode of contemplation, the permanent distinction of

the Persons, viewed as separate, is lost. For, as some teach, it is

not the Person of the Father, taken by Himself, which produces

bliss, nor the Person of the Son, taken by Himself, nor the Person

of the Holy Ghost, taken by Himself; but the three Persons, dwelling

together in the unity of the essence, confer bliss. And this is the

natural essence of the Persons, which by grace gives the substance

or essence to all their creatures, and it contains in itself the

ideas of all things in their simple essence. Now since this ideal

light subsists as Being, so all things subsist in it according to

their essential being, not according to their accidental forms; and

since it shines upon all things, its property is to subsist as

light. Hence all things shine forth in this essence in interior

stillness, without altering its simplicity.

Then the maiden said: I could wish greatly, sir, that you could give

me this mysterious teaching, as you understand it, under a figure,

that I might understand it better. I should also be glad if you

could sum up what you have been saying at length, so that it may

stick more firmly in my weak mind. The servitor replied: Who can

express in forms what has no form? Who can explain that which has no

mode of being, and is above sense and reason? Any similitude must be

infinitely more unlike than like the reality. Nevertheless, that I

may drive out forms from your mind by forms, I will try to give you

a picture of these ideas which surpass all forms, and to sum up a

long discourse in a few words. A certain wise theologian says that

God, in regard to His Godhead, is like a vast circle, of which the

centre is everywhere, and the circumference nowhere. Now consider

the image which follows. If anyone throws a great stone into the

middle of a pool, a ring is formed in the water, and this ring makes

a second ring, and the second a third; and the number and size of

the rings depend on the force of the throw. They may even require a

larger space than the limit of the pool. Suppose now that the first

ring represents the omnipotent virtue of the Divine nature, which is

infinite in God the Father. This produces another ring like itself,

which is the Son. And the two produce the third, which is the Holy

Ghost. The spiritual superessential begetting of the Divine Word is

the cause of the creation of all spirits and all things. This

supreme Spirit has so ennobled man, as to shed upon him a ray from

His own eternal Godhead. This is the image of God in the mind, which

is itself eternal. But many men turn away from this dignity of their

nature, befouling the bright image of God in themselves, and turning

to the bodily pleasures of this world. They pursue them greedily and

devote themselves to them, till death unexpectedly stops them. But

he who is wise, turns himself and elevates himself, with the help of

the Divine spark in his soul, to that which is stable and eternal,

whence he had his own origin: he says farewell to all the fleeting

creatures, and clings to the eternal truth alone.

Attend also to what I say about the order in which the spirit ought

to return to God. First of all, we should disentangle ourselves

absolutely from the pleasures of the world, manfully turning our

backs upon all vices; we should turn to God by continual prayers, by

seclusion, and holy exercise, that the flesh may thus be subdued to

the spirit. Next, we must offer ourselves willingly to endure all

the troubles which may come upon us, from God, or from the

creatures. Thirdly, we must impress upon ourselves the Passion of

Christ crucified; we must fix upon our minds His sweet teaching, His

most gentle conversation, His most pure life, which He gave us for

our example, and so we must penetrate deeper and advance further in

our imitation of Him. Fourthly, we must divest ourselves of external

occupations, and establish ourselves in a tranquil stillness of soul

by an energetic resignation, as if we were dead to self, and thought

only of the honour of Christ and His heavenly Father. Lastly, we

should be humble towards all men, whether friends or foes. . . . But

all these images, with their interpretations, are as unlike the

formless truth as a black Ethiopian is to the bright sun.

Soon after this holy maiden died, and passed away happy from earth,

even as her whole life had been conspicuous only for her virtues.

After her death she appeared to her spiritual father in a vision.

She was clothed in raiment whiter than snow; she shone with dazzling

brightness, and was full of heavenly joy. She came near to him, and

showed him in what an excellent fashion she had passed away into the

simple Godhead. He saw and heard her with exceeding delight, and the

vision filled his soul with heavenly consolations. When he returned

to himself, he sighed most deeply, and thus pondered: O Almighty

God, how blessed is he, who strives after Thee alone! He may well be

content to bear affliction, whose sufferings Thou wilt thus reward!

May the Almighty God grant that we likewise may be brought to the

same joys as this blessed maiden!

A MEDITATION ON THE PASSION OF CHRIST

THEN said the Eternal Wisdom to the servitor, Attend and listen

dutifully, while I tell thee what sufferings I lovingly endured for

thy sake.

After I had finished My last Supper with My disciples, when I had

offered Myself to My enemies on the mount, and had resigned Myself

to bear a terrible death, and knew that it was approaching very

near, so great was the oppression of My tender heart and all My

body, that I sweated blood; then I was wickedly arrested, bound, and

carried away. On the same night they treated Me with insult and

contumely, beating Me, spitting upon Me, and covering My head.

Before Caiaphas was I unjustly accused and condemned to death. What

misery it was to see My mother seized with unspeakable sorrow of

heart, from the time when she beheld Me threatened with such great

dangers, till the time when I was hung upon the cross. They brought

Me before Pilate with every kind of ignominy, they accused Me

falsely, they adjudged Me worthy of death. Before Herod I, the

Eternal Wisdom, was mocked in a bright robe. My fair body was

miserably torn and rent by cruel scourgings. They surrounded My

sacred head with a crown of thorns; My gracious face was covered

with blood and spittings. When they had thus condemned Me to death,

they led Me out with My cross to bear the last shameful punishment.

Their terrible and savage cries could be heard afar off: "Crucify,

crucify, the wicked man."

Servitor. Alas, Lord, if so bitter were the beginnings of Thy

passion, what will be the end thereof? In truth, if I saw a brute

beast so treated in my presence I could hardly bear it. What grief

then should I feel in heart and soul at Thy Passion? And yet there

is one thing at which I marvel greatly. For I long, O my most dear

God, to know only Thy Godhead; and Thou tellest me of Thy humanity.

I long to taste Thy sweetness, and Thou showest me Thy bitterness.

What meaneth this, O my Lord God?

Wisdom. No man can come to the height of My Godhead, nor attain to

that unknown sweetness, unless he be first led through the

bitterness of My humanity. My humanity is the road by which men must

travel. My Passion is the gate, through which they must enter. Away

then with thy cowardice of heart, and come to Me prepared for a hard

campaign. For it is not right for the servant to live softly and

delicately, while his Lord is fighting bravely. Come, I will now put

on thee My own armour. And so thou must thyself also experience the

whole of My Passion, so far as thy strength permits. Take,

therefore, the heart of a man; for be sure that thou wilt have to

endure many deaths, before thou canst put thy nature under the yoke.

I will sprinkle thy garden of spices with red flowers. Many are the

afflictions which will come upon thee; till thou hast finished thy

sad journey of bearing the cross, and hast renounced thine own will

and disengaged thyself so completely from all creatures, in all

things, which might hinder thine eternal salvation, as to be like

one about to die, and no longer mixed up with the affairs of this

life.

Servitor. Hard and grievous to bear are the things which Thou

sayest, Lord. I tremble all over. How can I bear all these things?

Suffer me, O Lord, to ask Thee something. Couldst Thou not devise

any other way of saving my soul, and of testifying Thy love towards

me, so as to spare Thyself such hard sufferings, and so that I need

not suffer so bitterly with Thee?

Wisdom. The unfathomable Abyss of My secret counsels no man ought to

seek to penetrate, for no one can comprehend it. And yet that which

thou hast suggested, and many other things, might have been

possible, which nevertheless never happen. Be assured, however, that

as created things now are, no more fitting method could be found.

The Author of Nature doth not think so much what He is able to do in

the world, as what is most fitting for every creature; and this is

the principle of His operations. And by what other means could the

secrets of God have been made known to man, than by the assumption

of humanity by Christ? By what other means could he who had deprived

himself of joy by the inordinate pursuit of pleasure, be brought

back more fittingly to the joys of eternity? And who would be

willing to tread the path, avoided by all, of a hard and despised

life, if God had not trodden it Himself? If thou wert condemned to

death, how could any one show his love and fidelity to thee more

convincingly, or provoke thee to love him in return more powerfully,

than by taking thy sentence upon himself? If, then, there is any one

who is not roused and moved to love Me from his heart by My immense

love, My infinite pity, My exalted divinity, My pure humanity, My

brotherly fidelity, My sweet friendship, is there anything that

could soften that stony heart?

Servitor. The light begins to dawn upon me, and I seem to myself to

see clearly that it is as Thou sayest, and that whoever is not

altogether blind must admit that this is the best and most fitting

of all ways. And yet the imitation of Thee is grievous to a slothful

and corruptible body.

Wisdom. Shrink not because thou must follow the footsteps of My

Passion. For he who loves God, and is inwardly united to Him, finds

the cross itself light and easy to bear, and has nought to complain

of. No one receives from Me more marvellous sweetness, than he who

shares My bitterest labours. He only complains of the bitterness of

the rind, who has not tasted the sweetness of the kernel. He who

relies on Me as his protector and helper may be considered to have

accomplished a large part of his task.

Servitor. Lord, by these consoling words I am so much encouraged,

that I seem to myself to be able to do and suffer all things through

Thee. I pray Thee, then, that Thou wilt unfold the treasure of Thy

Passion to me more fully.

Wisdom. When I was hung aloft and fastened to the wood of the cross

(which I bore for My great love to thee and all mankind), all the

wonted appearance of My body was piteously changed. My bright eyes

lost their light; My sacred ears were filled with mocking and

blasphemy; My sweet mouth was hurt by the bitter drink. Nowhere was

there any rest or refreshment for Me. My sacred head hung down in

pain; My fair neck was cruelly bruised; My shining face was

disfigured by festering wounds; My fresh colour was turned to

pallor. In a word, the beauty of My whole body was so marred, that I

appeared like a leper--I, the Divine Wisdom, who am fairer than the

sun.

Servitor. O brightest mirror of grace, which the Angels desire to

look into, in which they delight to fix their gaze, would that I

might behold Thy beloved countenance in the throes of death just

long enough to water it with the tears of my heart, and to satisfy

my mind with lamentations over it.

Wisdom. No one more truly testifies his grief over My Passion, than

he who in very deed passes through it with Me. Far more pleasing to

Me is a heart disentangled from the love of all transitory things,

and earnestly intent on gaining the highest perfection according to

the example which I have set before him in My life, than one which

continually weeps over My Passion, shedding as many tears as all the

raindrops that ever fell. For this was what I most desired and

looked for in My endurance of that cruel death--namely, that mankind

might imitate Me; and yet pious tears are very dear to Me.

Servitor. Since then, O most gracious God, the imitation of Thy most

gentle life and most loving Passion is so pleasing to Thee, I will

henceforth labour more diligently to follow Thy Passion than to weep

over it. But since both are pleasing to Thee, teach me, I pray Thee,

how I ought to conform myself to Thy Passion.

Wisdom. Forbid thyself the pleasure of curious and lax seeing and

hearing; let love make sweet to thee those things which formerly

thou shrankest from; eschew bodily pleasures; rest in Me alone; bear

sweetly and moderately the ills that come from others; desire to

despise thyself; break thy appetites; crush out all thy pleasures

and desires. These are the first elements in the school of Wisdom,

which are read in the volume of the book of My crucified body. But

consider whether anyone, do what he may, can make himself for My

sake such as I made Myself for his.

Servitor. Come then, my soul, collect thyself from all external

things, into the tranquil silence of the inner man. Woe is me! My

heavenly Father had adopted my soul to be His bride; but I fled far

from Him. Alas, I have lost my Father, I have lost my Lover. Alas,

alas, and woe is me! What have I done, what have I lost? Shame on

me, I have lost myself, and all the society of my heavenly country.

All that could delight and cheer me has utterly forsaken me; I am

left naked. My false lovers were only deceivers. They have stripped

me of all the good things which my one true Lover gave me; they have

despoiled me of all honour, joy, and consolation. O ye red roses and

white lilies, behold me a vile weed, and see also how soon those

flowers wither and die, which this world plucks. And yet, O most

gracious God, none of my sufferings are of any account, compared

with this, that I have grieved the eyes of my heavenly Father. This

is indeed hell, and a cross more intolerable than all other pain. O

heart of mine, harder than flint or adamant, why dost thou not break

for grief? Once I was called the bride of the eternal King, now I

deserve not to be called the meanest of his handmaids. Never again

shall I dare to raise mine eyes, for shame. O that I could hide

myself in some vast forest, with none to see or hear me, till I had

wept to my heart's desire. O Sin, Sin, whither hast thou brought me?

O deceitful World, woe to those who serve thee! Now I have thy

reward, I receive thy wages--namely, that I am a burden to myself

and the whole world, and always shall be.

Wisdom. Thou must by no means despair; it was for thy sins and those

of others that I came into this world, that I might restore thee to

Thy heavenly Father, and bring thee back to greater glory and honour

than thou ever hadst before.

Servitor. Ah, what is this, which whispers such flattering things to

a soul that is dead, abhorred, rejected?

Wisdom. Dost thou not know Me? Why art thou so despondent? Art thou

beside thyself with excessive grief, My dearest son? Knowest thou

not that I am Wisdom, most gentle and tender, in whom is the Abyss

of infinite mercy, never yet explored perfectly even by all the

saints, but none the less open to thee and all other sorrowing

hearts. I am he who for thy sake willed to be poor and an exile,

that I might recall thee to thy former honour. I am He who bore a

bitter death, that I might restore thee to life. I am thy Brother; I

am thy Bridegroom. I have put away all the wrong that thou ever

didst against Me, even as if it had never been, only henceforth,

thou must turn wholly to Me, and never again forsake Me. Wash away

thy stains in My blood. Lift up thy head, open thine eyes, and take

heart. In token of reconciliation, take this ring and put it on thy

finger as My bride, put on this robe, and these shoes on thy feet,

and receive this sweet and loving name, that thou mayst both be and

be called for ever My bride. Thou has cost Me much labour and pain;

for that cause, the Abyss of My mercy toward thee is unfathomable.

Servitor. O kindest Father, O sweetest Brother, O only joy of my

heart, wilt Thou be so favourable to my unworthy soul? What is this

grace? What is the Abyss of Thy clemency and mercy? From the bottom

of my heart I thank Thee, O heavenly Father, and beseech Thee by Thy

beloved Son, whom Thou hast willed to suffer a cruel death for love,

to forget my impieties. . . .

Now, O Lord, I remember that most loving word, wherewith in the book

of Ecclesiasticus[43] Thou drawest us to Thyself. "Come to me, all

ye who desire me, and be filled with my fruits. I am the mother of

beautiful affection. My breath is sweeter than honey, and my

inheritance above honey and the honeycomb." "Wine and music rejoice

the heart, and above both is the love of Wisdom."[44] Of a surety, O

Lord, Thou showest Thyself so lovable and desirable, that it is no

wonder that the hearts of all long for Thee, and are tormented by

the desire of Thee. Thy words breathe love, and flow so sweetly,

that in many hearts the love of temporal things has wholly dried up.

Therefore, I greatly long to hear Thee speak of Thy lovableness.

Come, O Lord, my only comfort, speak to the heart of Thy servant.

For I sleep sweetly beneath Thy shadow, and my heart is awake.

Wisdom. Hear, My son, and see; incline thine ear, forgetting thyself

and all other things. Lo, I in Myself am that ineffable Good, which

is and ever was; which has never been expressed nor ever will be.

For although I give Myself to be felt by men in their inmost hearts,

yet no tongue can ever declare or explain in words what I am. For

verily all the beauty, grace, and adornment which can be conceived

by thee or by others, exists in me far more excellently, more

pleasantly, more copiously, than any one could say in words. I am

the most loving Word of the Father, begotten from the pure substance

of the Father, and wondrously pleasing am I to His loving eyes in

the sweet and burning love of the Holy Spirit. I am the throne of

happiness, the crown of souls: most bright are Mine eyes, most

delicate My mouth, My cheeks are red and white, and all My

appearance is full of grace and loveliness. All the heavenly host

gaze upon Me with wonder and admiration; their eyes are ever fixed

upon Me, their hearts rest in Me, their minds turn to Me and turn

again. O thrice and four times happy is he, to whom it shall be

given to celebrate this play of love amid heavenly joys at My side,

holding My tender hands in happiest security, for ever and ever to

all eternity. Only the word that proceeds out of My sweet mouth

surpasses the melodies of all the angels, the sweet harmony of all

harps, and musical instruments of every kind....

Servitor. There are three things, O Lord, at which I marvel greatly.

The first is, that although Thou art in Thyself so exceedingly

loving, yet towards sin Thou art a most severe judge and avenger.

Alas, Thy face in wrath is too terrible; the words which Thou

speakest in anger pierce the heart and soul like fire. O holy and

adorable God, save me from Thy wrathful countenance, and defer not

till the future life my punishment.

Wisdom. I am the unchangeable Good, remaining always the same. The

reason why I do not appear always the same, is on account of those

who do not behold Me in the same way. By nature I am friendly; yet

none the less I punish vice severely, so that I deserve to be

feared. From My friends I require a pure and filial fear, and a

friendly love, that fear may ever restrain them from sin, and that

love may join them to Me in unbroken loyalty.

Servitor. What Thou sayest pleases me, O Lord, and it is as I would

have it. But there is another thing at which I greatly marvel--how

it is that when the soul is faint from desire of the sweetness of

Thy presence, Thou art wholly mute, and dost not utter a single word

that can be heard. And who, O Lord, would not be grieved, when Thou

showest Thyself so strange, so silent, to the soul that loves Thee

above all things?

Wisdom. And yet all the creatures speak of Me.

Servitor. But that is by no means enough for the soul that loves.

Wisdom. Also every word that is uttered about Me is a message of My

love; all the voices of holy Scripture that are written about Me are

letters of love, sweet as honey. They are to be received as if I had

written them Myself. Ought not this to satisfy thee?

Servitor. Nay but, O most holy God, dearest Friend of all to me,

Thou knowest well that a heart which is on fire with love is not

satisfied with anything that is not the Beloved himself, in whom is

its only comfort. Even though all the tongues of all the angelic

spirits were to speak to me, none the less would my unquenchable

love continue to yearn and strive for the one thing which it

desires. The soul that loves Thee would choose Thee rather than the

kingdom of heaven. Pardon me, O Lord: it would become Thee to show

more kindness to those who love Thee so ardently, who sigh and look

up to Thee and say: Return, return! Who anxiously debate with

themselves: alas, thinkest thou that thou hast offended Him? That He

has deserted thee? Thinkest thou that He will ever restore thee His

most sweet presence, that thou wilt ever again embrace Him with the

arms of Thy heart, and press Him to thy breast, that all thy grief

and trouble may vanish? All this, O Lord, Thou hearest and knowest,

and yet Thou art silent.

Wisdom. Certainly I know all this, and I watch it with great

pleasure. But I would have thee also answer a few questions, since

thy wonder, though veiled, is so great. What is it which gives the

greatest joy to the highest of all created spirits?

Servitor. Ah, Lord, this question is beyond my range. I prithee,

answer it Thyself.

Wisdom. I will do as thou desirest. The highest angelic spirit finds

nothing more desirable or more delightful than to satisfy My will in

all things; so much so, that if he knew that it would redound to My

praise for him to root out nettles and tares, he would diligently

fulfil this task in preference to all others.

Servitor. Of a truth, Lord, this answer of Thine touches me sharply.

I perceive that it is Thy will that I should be resigned in the

matter of receiving and feeling tokens of Thy love, and that I

should seek Thy glory alone, in dryness and hardness as well as in

sweetness.

Wisdom. No resignation is more perfect or more excellent, than to be

resigned in dereliction.

Servitor. And yet, O Lord, the pain is very grievous.

Wisdom. Wherein is virtue proved, if not in adversity? But be

assured, that I often come, and try whether the door into My house

is open, but find Myself repulsed. Many times I am received like a

stranger, harshly treated, and then driven out of doors. Nay, I not

only come to the soul that loves me, but tarry with her like a

friend; but that is done so secretly, that none know it save those

who live quite detached and separated from men, and observe My ways,

and care only to please and satisfy My grace. For according to My

Divinity I am purest Spirit, and I am received spiritually in pure

spirits.

Servitor. So far as I understand, Lord God, Thou art a very secret

Lover. How glad would I be if Thou wouldest give me some signs, by

which I might know Thee to be truly present.

Wisdom. By no other way canst thou know the certainty of My presence

better, than when I hide Myself from thee, and withdraw what is Mine

from thy soul. Then at last thou knowest by experience what I am,

and what thou art. Of a surety I am everlasting Good, without whom

no one can have anything good. When therefore I impart that immense

Good, which is Myself, generously and lovingly, and scatter it

abroad, all things to which I communicate Myself are clothed with a

certain goodness, by which My presence can be as easily inferred, as

that of the Sun, the actual ball of which cannot be seen, by its

rays. If therefore thou ever feelest My presence, enter into

thyself, and learn how to separate the roses from the thorns, the

flowers from the weeds.

Servitor. Lord, I do search, and I find within myself a great

diversity. When I am deserted by Thee, my soul is like a sick man,

whose taste is spoiled. Nothing pleases me, but all things disgust

me. My body is torpid, my mind oppressed; within is dryness, without

is sadness. All that I see or hear, however good in reality, is

distasteful and hateful to me. I am easily led into sins; I am weak

to resist my enemies; I am cold or lukewarm towards all good.

Whoever comes to me, finds my house empty. For the House-Father is

away, who knows how to counsel for the best, and to inspire the

whole household. On the other hand, when the day-star arises in my

inmost heart, all the pain quickly vanishes, all the darkness is

dispelled, and a great brightness arises and shines forth. My heart

laughs, my mind is exalted, my soul becomes cheerful, all things

around me are blithe and merry; whatever is around me and within me

is turned to Thy praise. That which before seemed hard, difficult,

irksome, impossible, becomes suddenly easy and pleasant. To give

myself to fasting, watching, and prayer, to suffer or abstain or

avoid, in a word all the hardnesses of life seem when compared with

Thy presence to have no irksomeness at all. My soul is bathed in

radiance, truth, and sweetness, so that all its labours are

forgotten. My heart delights itself in abundant sweet meditations,

my tongue learns to speak of high things, my body is brisk and ready

for any undertaking; whoever comes to ask my advice, takes back with

him high counsels such as he desired to hear. In short, I seem to

myself to have transcended the limits of time and space, and to be

standing on the threshold of eternal bliss. But who, O Lord, can

secure for me, that I may be long in this state? Alas, in a moment

it is withdrawn from me; and for a long space again I am left as

naked and destitute as if I had never experienced anything of the

kind; till at last, after many and deep sighings of heart, it is

restored to me. Is this Thou, O Lord, or rather I myself? Or what is

it?

Wisdom. Of thyself thou hast nothing except faults and defects.

Therefore that about which thou askest is I Myself, and this is the

play of love.

Servitor. What is the play of love?

Wisdom. So long as the loved one is present with the lover, the

lover knoweth not how dear the loved one is to him; it is only

separation which can teach him that.

Servitor. It is a very grievous game. But tell me, Lord, are there

any who in this life no longer experience these vicissitudes of Thy

presence?

Wisdom. You will find very few indeed. For never to be deprived of

My presence belongs not to temporal but to eternal life.

APHORISMS AND MAXIMS

ACT according to the truth in simplicity; and, whatever happens, do

not help thyself; for he who helps himself too much will not be

helped by the Truth.

God wishes not to deprive us of pleasure; but He wishes to give us

pleasure in its totality--that is, all pleasure.

Wilt thou be of use to all creatures? Then turn thyself away from

all creatures.

If a man cannot comprehend a thing, let him remain quiet, and it

will comprehend him.

Say to the creatures, I will not be to thee what thou art to me.

The power of abstaining from things gives us more power than the

possession of them would.

Some men one meets who have been inwardly drawn by God, but have not

followed Him. The inner man and the outer man in these cases are

widely at variance, and in this way many fail.

He who has attained to the purgation of his senses in God performs

all the operations of the senses all the better.

He who finds the inward in the outward goes deeper than he who only

finds the inward in the inward.

He is on the right road who contemplates under the forms of things

their eternal essence.

It is well with a man who has died to self and begun to live in

Christ.

RUYSBROEK

THE ADORNMENT OF THE SPIRITUAL NUPTIALS

BOOK I

PREFACE

"SEE the Bridegroom cometh: go forth to meet Him." St Matthew the

evangelist wrote these words, and Christ said them to His disciples

and to all men, in the Parable of the Ten Virgins. The Bridegroom is

our Lord Jesus Christ, and human nature is the bride, whom God has

made in His own image and likeness. He placed her at first in the

most exalted, the most beautiful, the richest and most fertile place

on earth--in paradise. He subjected to her all the creatures; He

adorned her with graces; and He laid a prohibition upon her, in

order that by obedience she might deserve to be established in an

eternal union with her Bridegroom, and never more fall into any

affliction, trouble, or guilt. Then came a deceiver--the infernal,

envious foe, under the guise of a cunning serpent. He deceived the

woman, and the two together deceived the man, who possessed the

essence of human nature. So the enemy despoiled human nature, the

bride of God, by his deceitful counsels, and she was driven into a

strange country; poor and miserable, a prisoner and oppressed,

persecuted by her enemies, as if she could never more return to her

country and the grace of reconciliation. But when God saw that the

time was come, and took pity on the sufferings of His beloved, He

sent His only Son to earth, in a rich abode and a glorious

temple--that is to say, in the body of the Virgin Mary. There he

married His bride, our nature, and united it to His Person, by means

of the pure blood of the noble Virgin. The priest who joined the

Bride and Bridegroom was the Holy Spirit; the angel Gabriel

announced the marriage, and the blessed Virgin gave her consent. So

Christ, our faithful Bridegroom, united our nature to His, and

visited us in a strange land, and taught us the manners of heaven

and perfect fidelity. And He laboured and fought like a champion

against our enemy, and He broke the prison and gained the victory,

and His death slew our death, and His blood delivered us, and He set

us free in baptism under the life-giving waters, and enriched us by

His sacraments and gifts, that we might go forth, as He said,

adorned with all virtues, and might meet Him in the abode of His

glory, to enjoy Him throughout all eternity.

Now the Master of truth, Christ, saith: "See, the Bridegroom

cometh, go forth to meet Him." In these words Jesus, our Lover,

teaches us four things. In the first word He gives a command, for He

says, "See." Those who remain blind, and those who resist this

command are condemned without exception. In the next word He shows

us what we shall see--that is to say, the coming of the Bridegroom,

when He says, "The Bridegroom cometh." In the third place, He

teaches us and commands us what we ought to do, when He says, "Go

forth." In the fourth place, when He says, "to meet Him," He shows

us the reward of all our works and of all our life, for that must be

a loving "going forth," by which we meet our Bridegroom.

We shall explain and analyse these words in three ways, first,

according to the ordinary mode of the beginner's life--that is to

say, the active life, which is necessary to all who would be saved.

In the second place, we shall analyse these words by applying them

to the inner life, exalted and loving, to which many men arrive by

the virtues and by the grace of God. Thirdly, we shall explain them

by applying them to the superessential and contemplative life, to

which few attain and which few can taste, because of the supreme

sublimity of this life.

ON THE ACTIVE LIFE

CHRIST, the Wisdom of the Father, hath said from the time of Adam

and still saith (inwardly, according to His Divinity), to all men,

"See"; and this vision is necessary. Now let us observe attentively

that for him who wishes to see materially or spiritually, three

things are necessary. First, in order that a man may be able to see

materially, he must have the external light of heaven, or another

natural light, in order that the medium--that is to say, the air

across which one sees, may be illuminated. In the second place, he

must have the will, that the things which he will see may be

reflected in his eyes. Thirdly, he must have the instruments, his

eyes, healthy and without flaw, that the material objects may be

exactly reflected in them. If a man lacks any one of these three

things, his material vision disappears. We shall speak no more of

this vision, but of another, spiritual and supernatural, wherein all

our blessedness resides.

Three things are necessary for spiritual and supernatural vision.

First, the light of the divine grace, then the free conversion of

the will towards God, and lastly, a conscience pure from all mortal

sin. Now observe: God being a God common to all, and His boundless

love being common to all, He grants a double grace; both antecedent

grace, and the grace by which one merits eternal life. All men,

heathens and Jews, good and bad, have in common antecedent grace. In

consequence of the common love of God towards all men, He has caused

to be preached and published His name and the deliverance of human

nature, even to the ends of the earth. He who wishes to be converted

can be converted. For God wishes to save all men and to lose none.

At the day of judgment none will be able to complain that enough was

not done for him, if he had wished to be converted. So God is a

common Light and Splendour which illumine heaven and earth, and men

according to their merits and their needs. But though God is common,

and though the sun shines on all trees, some trees remain without

fruit, and others bear wild fruit useless to mankind. This is why we

prune these trees and graft fertile branches upon them, that they

may bear good fruit, sweet to taste and useful for men. The fertile

branch which comes from the living paradise of the eternal kingdom,

is the light of divine grace. No work can have savour, or be useful

to man, unless it comes from this branch. This branch of divine

grace, which makes man acceptable and by which we merit eternal

life, is offered to all. But it is not grafted on all, for they will

not purge away the wild branches of their trees--that is to say,

unbelief or a perverse will, or disobedience to the commandments of

God. But in order that this branch of divine grace may be planted in

our soul, three things are necessary; the antecedent grace of God,

the conversion of our free will, and the purification of the

conscience. Antecedent grace touches all men; but all men do not

attain to free conversion and purification of the conscience, and

this is why the grace of God, by which they might merit eternal

life, fails to touch them. The antecedent grace of God touches man

from within or from without. From without, by sickness or loss of

outward goods, of relations and friends, or by public shame; or

perhaps a man is moved by preaching, or by the examples of saints

and just men, by their words or works, till he comes to the

knowledge of himself. This is how God touches us from without.

Sometimes also a man is touched from within, by recalling the pains

and sufferings of our Lord, and the good which God has done to him

and to all men, or by the consideration of his sins, of the

shortness of life, of the eternal pains of hell and the eternal joys

of heaven, or because God has spared him in his sins and has waited

for his conversion; or he observes the marvellous works of God in

heaven, on earth, and in all creation. These are the works of

antecedent divine grace, which touch man from within or from

without, and in divers manners. And man has still a natural

inclination towards God, proceeding from the spark of his soul or

synteresis, [Footnote: See Introduction] and from the highest

reason, which always desires the good and hates the evil. Now, in

these three manners God touches every man according to his needs, so

that the man is struck, warned, frightened, and stops to consider

himself. All this is still antecedent grace and not merited; it thus

prepares us to receive the other grace, by which we merit eternal

life; when the mind is thus empty of bad wishes and bad deeds,

warned, struck, in fear of what it ought to do, and considers God,

and considers itself with its evil deeds. Thence come a natural

sorrow for sin and a natural good will. This is the highest work of

antecedent grace.

When man does what he can, and can go no further because of his

weakness, it is the infinite goodness of God which must finish this

work. Then comes a higher splendour of the grace of God, like a ray

of the sun, and it is poured upon the soul, though it is as yet

neither merited nor desired. In this light God gives Himself, by

free will and by bounty, and no one can merit it before he has it.

And it is in the soul an internal and mysterious operation of God,

above time, and it moves the soul and all its faculties. Here then

ends antecedent grace; and here begins the other--that is to say,

supernatural light.

This light is the first necessary condition, and from it is born a

second spiritual condition--that is to say, a free conversion of the

will in a moment of time, and then love is born in the union of God

and the soul. These two conditions are connected, so that one cannot

be accomplished without the other. There, where God and the soul are

united in the unity of love, God grants His light above time, and

the sou! freely turns to God by the force of grace, in a moment of

time, and charity is born in the soul, from God and the soul, for

charity is a bond of love between God and the loving soul. From

these two things, the grace of God, and the free conversion of the

will illuminated by grace, is born charity--that is to say, divine

love. And from divine love proceeds the third point, the

purification of the conscience. And this is accomplished in the

consideration of sin and of the flaws in the soul, and because man

loves God, there enters into him a contempt for self and for all his

works. This is the order of conversion. From it are born a true

repentance and a perfect sorrow for the evil that we have done, and

an ardent desire to sin no more and to serve God henceforward in

humble obedience; from it are born a sincere confession, without

reserves, without duplicity and without pretences, the desire to

satisfy God and to undertake the practice of all the virtues and all

good works. These three things, as you have just heard, are

necessary for divine vision. If you possess them, Christ says to

you, "See," and you become really seeing. This is the first of the

four chief ways in which Christ, our Lord, says "See."

ON THE FIRST COMING OF CHRIST, IN THE FLESH

NEXT, He shows us what we shall see when He says, "The Bridegroom

cometh." Christ, our Bridegroom, says this word in Latin: Venit.

The word expresses two tenses, the past and the present, and yet

here it indicates the future. And this is why we must consider three

comings of our Bridegroom Jesus Christ. At His first coming He was

made man for love of man. The second coming is daily and frequent in

every loving soul, with new graces and new gifts, as man is able to

receive them. In the third coming, He will come manifestly on the

dreadful day of judgment or at the hour of each man's death. In all

these comings we must observe three things, the cause, the interior

mode, and the external work.

The cause of the creation of angels and men is the infinite goodness

and nobleness of God; He wished that the wealth and blessedness,

which are Himself, should be revealed to reasonable creatures, for

them to enjoy in time, and in eternity above time. The reason why

God became man, is His inconceivable love, and the distress of all

men, lost since the fall in original sin, and unable to raise

themselves again. But the reason why Christ, according to His

divinity and His humanity, accomplished His works on earth, is

fourfold--namely, His divine love, which is without measure; the

created love, which is called charity, and which He had in His soul

by the union of the Eternal Word and the perfect gift of His Father;

the great distress of human nature; and the glory of His Father.

These are the reasons for the coming of Christ, our Bridegroom, and

for all His works, exterior and interior.

Now we must observe in Jesus Christ, if we wish to follow Him in His

virtues according to our powers, the mode or condition which He had

within, and the works which He wrought without, for they are virtues

and the acts of virtues.

The mode which He had according to His divinity is inaccessible and

incomprehensible to us, for it is after this mode that He is

continually born of the Father, and that the Father in Him and by

Him knows and creates and orders, and rules everything in heaven and

on earth; for He is the Wisdom of the Father, and from them flows

spiritually a Spirit--that is to say, a love, which is the bond

between them and the bond of all the saints and just persons on

earth and in heaven. We will speak no more of this mode but of the

created mode which He had by these divine gifts and according to His

humanity. These modes are singularly multiform; for Christ had as

many modes as He had interior virtues, for each virtue has its

special mode. These virtues and these modes were, in the mind of

Christ, above the intelligence and above the comprehension of all

creatures. But let us take three--namely, humility, charity, and

interior or exterior suffering in patience. These are the three

principal roots and origins of all virtues and all perfection.

ON THE TWOFOLD HUMILITY OF CHRIST

NOW understand: there are two kinds of humility in Jesus Christ,

according to His divinity. First, He willed to become man; and this

nature, which was accursed even to the depth of hell, He accepted

according to His personality and was willing to unite Himself to it.

So that every man, good or bad, may say, Jesus Christ, the Son of

God, is my brother. Secondly, He chose for mother a poor virgin, and

not a king's daughter, so that this poor virgin became the mother of

God, who is the only Lord of heaven and earth and all creatures. In

consequence, of all the works of humility which Christ ever

accomplished, one may say that God accomplished them. Now let us

take the humility which was in Jesus Christ according to His

humanity and by grace and divine gifts; according to His humility

His soul inclined with all its power in respect and veneration

before the power of the Father. For an inclined heart is a humble

heart. This is why He did all His works to the praise and glory of

the Father, and sought in nothing His own glory according to His

humanity. He was humble, and submitted to the old law, and to the

commandments, and often to the customs. He was circumcised, and

carried to the Temple, and redeemed according to usages, and He paid

taxes to Caesar like other Jews. And He submitted Himself humbly to

His mother and to Joseph, and served them with a sincere deference

according to their needs. He chose for friends--for apostles--the poor

and the despised, in order to convert the world. In his intercourse

with them and all others He was humble and modest. This is why He

was at the disposal of all men, in whatever distress they were,

within or without; He was, as it were, the servant of the whole

world. This is what we find first in Jesus Christ, our Bridegroom.

ON THE LOVE OF CHRIST, ADORNED WITH ALL VIRTUES

NEXT comes charity, the beginning and source of all virtues. This

charity maintained the supreme forces of His soul in tranquillity,

and in the enjoyment of the same blessedness which He enjoys at

present. And this same charity kept Him continually exalted towards

His Father, with veneration, love, praise, respect, with internal

prayers for the need of all men, and with the offering of all His

works to the glory of God the Father. And this same charity made

Christ still overflow with love and kindness towards all the

material or spiritual needs of mankind. This is why He has given, by

His life, the model after which all men should fashion their lives.

He has given spiritual nourishment to all well-disposed men by real

internal teachings, as well as by outward miracles. We cannot

comprehend His charity to its full extent, for it flowed from the

unfathomable fountains of the Holy Spirit, above all the creatures

who have ever received charity, for He was God and man in one

Person. This is the second point of charity.

ON THE PATIENCE OF CHRIST, EVEN UNTO DEATH

THE third point is to suffer in patience. We will examine this

seriously, for it is this which adorned Christ, our Bridegroom,

during all His life. He suffered when He was newly born, from

poverty and cold. He was circumcised and shed his blood. He was

obliged to fly into a foreign country. He served Joseph and His

mother, He suffered from hunger and thirst, from shame and contempt

and from the wicked words and deeds of the Jews. He fasted, He

watched, and was tempted by the enemy. He was subject to all men, He

went from district to district, from town to town, to preach the

gospel painfully and zealously. Finally, He was taken by the Jews,

who were His enemies and whom He loved. He was betrayed, mocked,

insulted, scourged, struck, and condemned on false testimony. He

carried His cross with great pain to the mount of Calvary. He was

stripped naked as at His birth, and never was seen a body so

beautiful, nor a mother so unhappy. He endured shame, pain, and cold

before all the world, for He was naked, and it was cold, and He was

exhausted by His wounds. He was nailed with large nails to the wood

of the cross, and was so strained that His veins were burst. He was

lifted up and shaken upon the cross, so as to make His wounds bleed,

His head was crowned with thorns, and His ears heard the fierce Jews

crying out, "Crucify Him! crucify Him!" and many other shameful

words. His eyes saw the obstinacy and wickedness of the Jews, and

the distress of His mother, and His eyes were extinguished under the

bitterness of pain and death. His mouth and palate were hurt by the

vinegar and gall, and all the sensitive parts of His body wounded by

the scourge.

Behold then Christ, our Bridegroom, wounded to death, abandoned by

God and the creatures, dying on the cross, hanging from a post, with

no one to care much for Him except Mary, His unhappy mother, who

nevertheless could not aid Him. And Christ suffered moreover

spiritually, in His soul, from the hardness of the Jews' hearts and

those who made Him die, for in spite of the prodigies and miracles

which they saw, they remained in their wickedness; and He suffered

by reason of their corruption and the vengeance which God was about

to inflict upon them, in body and soul, for His death. He suffered

moreover for the grief and misery of His mother and disciples, who

were in great sadness. And He suffered because His death would be

wasted for many men, and for the ingratitude of many, and for the

blasphemies of those who would curse Him who died for love of us.

And His nature and interior reason suffered because God withdrew

from them the inflow of His gifts and consolations, and abandoned

them to themselves in such distress. Therefore Christ complained and

said, My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?

Behold then the interior virtues of Christ; humility, charity, and

suffering in patience. These three virtues Jesus, our Bridegroom,

practised throughout His life, and He died in them, and He paid our

debt by satisfying justice, and opened His side in His bounty. And

thence flow rivers of delight, and sacraments of blessedness. And He

was exalted to His power, and sat at the right hand of the Father,

and reigns eternally. This is the first coming of our Bridegroom,

and it is completely past.

ON THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST, HOW HE EVERY DAY FLOWS INTO OUR

HEARTS WITH NEW GRACE

THE second coming of Christ, our Bridegroom, takes place every day

in just men. We do not wish to speak here of the first conversion of

man, nor of the first grace which was given him when he was

converted from sin to virtue. But we wish to speak of a daily

increase of new gifts and new virtues, and of a more actual coming

of Christ, our Bridegroom, into our soul. Now we must observe the

cause, the mode, and the work, of this coming. The cause is fourfold;

the mercy of God, our misery, the divine generosity, and our

desire. These four causes make the virtues grow and increase.

Now understand. When the sun sends forth its bright rays into a deep

valley between two high mountains, and while it is at the zenith, so

that it can illuminate the depths of the valley, a triple phenomenon

occurs; for the valley is lighted from the mountains, and it becomes

warmer and more fertile than the plain. In the same way, when a just

man sinks in his misery, and recognises that he has nothing, and is

nothing, that he can neither halt nor go forward by his own

strength; and when he perceives also that he fails often in virtues

and good works, he thus confesses his poverty and distress, and

forms the valley of humility. And because he is humble and in need,

and because he confesses his need, he makes his plaint to the

kindness and mercy of God. He is conscious of the sublimity of God,

and of his own abasement.

Thus he becomes a deep valley. And Christ is the sun of justice and

mercy, which burns at the meridian of the firmament--that is to say,

at the right hand of the Father, and shines even to the bottom of

humble hearts; for Christ is always moved by distress, when man

humbly offers to Him complaints and prayers. Then the two mountains

rise--that is to say, a double desire, in the first place a desire to

serve and love God by his merits, in the second place to obtain

excellent virtues. These two desires are higher than heaven, for

they touch God without any intermediary, and desire His immense

generosity. Then that generosity cannot be kept back, it must flow,

for the soul is at this moment susceptible of receiving countless

boons.

These are the causes of the second coming of Christ, with new

virtues. Then the valley--that is to say, the humble heart, receives

three things. It is enlightened the more, and illuminated by grace,

and warmed by charity, and becomes more fertile in virtues and good

works. Thus you have the cause, the mode, and the work, of this

coming.

HOW WE MAY MAKE DAILY PROGRESS BY THE SACRAMENTS OF THE CHURCH

THERE is yet another coming of Christ, our Bridegroom, which takes

place every day, in the growth of grace and in new gifts--that is to

say, when a man receives some sacrament with a humble and

well-prepared heart. He receives then new gifts and more ample

graces, by reason of his humility, and by the internal and secret

work of Christ in the sacrament. That which is contrary to the

sacrament is in baptism the want of faith, in confession the want of

contrition; it is to go to the sacrament of the altar in a state of

mortal sin, or of bad will; and it is the same with the other

sacraments.

ON THE THIRD COMING OF CHRIST, TO JUDGMENT

THE third coming, which is still future, will take place at the last

judgment or at the hour of death. Christ, our Bridegroom and our

Judge at this judgment, will recompense and avenge according to

justice, for He will award to each according to his deserts. He

gives to every just man, for every good work done in the spirit of

the Lord, a reward without measure, which no creature can merit--

namely, Himself. But as He co-operates in the creature, the creature

deserves, through His merit, to have a reward. And by a necessary

justice He gives eternal pains to those who have rejected an eternal

good for a perishable.

ON THE THIRD SPIRITUAL GOING FORTH, TO ALL THE VIRTUES

NOW understand and observe. Christ says at the beginning of our

text, "See"--that is to say, see by charity and pureness of

conscience, as you have been told. Now, He has shown us what we

shall see--namely, His three comings.

He orders us what we must do next, and says, "Go forth" if you have

fulfilled the first necessary condition--that is to say, if you see

in grace and in charity, and if you have well observed your model,

Christ, in His "going forth"; there leaps up in you, from your love

and loving observation of your Bridegroom, an ardour of justice--

that is to say, a desire to follow Him in virtue. Then Christ says

in you, "Go forth." This going forth must have three modes. We must

go forth towards God, towards ourselves, and towards our neighbour

by charity and justice; for charity always pushes upward, towards

the kingdom of God, which is God Himself; for He is the source from

which it flowed without any intermediary, and He remains always

immanent in it. The justice which is born of charity wishes to

perfect the manners and the virtues which are suitable to the

kingdom of God--that is to say, to the soul. These two things,

charity and justice, establish a solid foundation in the kingdom of

the soul where God may dwell, and this foundation is humility. These

three virtues support all the weight and all the edifice of all the

virtues and all sublimity; for charity maintains man in presence of

the unfathomable good things of God from whence it flows, so that it

perseveres in God, and increases in all the virtues and in true

humility; and justice maintains man in presence of the eternal truth

of God, so that truth may be discovered by him, and that he may be

illuminated, and may accomplish all the virtues without error. But

humility maintains man always before the supreme power of God, so

that he remains always abased and little, and abandons himself to

God, and holds no longer by himself. This is the way in which a man

must bear himself before God, that he may grow alway in new virtues.

HOW HUMILITY IS THE FOUNDATION OF ALL THE VIRTUES

NOW understand; for having made humility the base of everything, we

must speak first of it. Humility is the desire of abasement or of

depth--that is to say, an inclination or internal desire for

abasement of heart and conscience before the sublimity of God. The

justice of God exacts this submission, and, thanks to charity, the

loving heart cannot abandon it. When the loving and humble man

considers that God has served him so humbly, so lovingly, and so

faithfully, and then that God is so high, so powerful, and so noble,

and that man is so poor, little, and base, there is born from all

this, in the humble heart, an immense respect and reverence towards

God; for to reverence God in all works, within and without, is the

first and most delightful work of humility, the sweetest work of

charity, and the most suitable work of justice. For the humble and

loving heart cannot pay honours to God and His noble humanity, nor

abase himself so deeply as to satisfy his desire. That is why it

seems to the humble man that he always does too little in honour of

God and in his humble service. And he is humble, and venerates Holy

Church and the sacraments, and he is temperate in meat and drink, in

his words, and in all relations of life. He is content with poor

raiment, with menial employment, and his face is naturally humble,

without pretence. And he is hunible in his practices, within and

without, before God and before men, that none may be offended by

reason of him. Thus he tames and removes far from him all pride,

which is the cause and origin of all sins. Humility breaks the

snares of sin, the world, and the Devil. And man is ordered within

himself, and established in the very place of virtue. Heaven is open

to him, and God is inclined to hear his prayer, and he is loaded

with graces. And Christ, the solid stone, is his support, and he who

builds his virtues upon humility cannot go wrong.

ON OBEDIENCE

FROM this humility is born obedience, for only the humble man can be

inwardly obedient. Obedience is a submission and pliant disposition,

and a good will ready for all that is good. Obedience subjects a man

to orders, to prohibitions, and to the will of God, and it subjects

the soul and sensual force to the highest reason, in such a way that

the man lives suitably and reasonably. And it makes men submissive

and obedient to Holy Church and to the sacraments, and to all the

good practices of holy Christianity. It prepares man, and makes him

ready for the service of all, in works, in bodily and spiritual

care, according to the needs of each, and prudence. Also, it drives

far away disobedience, which is the daughter of pride, and which we

ought to flee from more than from poison. Obedience in will and work

adorns, extends, and manifests the humility of man. It gives peace

to cloisters, and if it exists in the prelate, as it ought to exist,

it attracts those who are under his orders. It maintains peace and

equality among equals. And he who observes it is beloved by those

who are above him, and the gifts of God, which are eternal, elevate

and enrich him.

ON THE ABDICATION OF OUR OWN WILL

FROM this obedience is born the abdication of our own will. By this

abdication the substance and occasion of pride are repulsed, and the

greatest humility is accomplished. And God rules the man as He

wills; and the will of the man is so well united to that of God that

he can neither wish nor desire anything otherwise. He has put off

the old man, and has put on the new man, renewed and perfect

according to the divine will. It is of such an one that Christ said,

"Blessed are the poor in spirit," that is, those who have renounced

their will--"for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

ON PATIENCE

FROM the abandonment of the will is born patience; for no one can

be perfectly patient in everything, except he who has submitted his

will to the will of God, and to all men in things useful and

convenient. Patience is a tranquil endurance of all that can happen

to a man, whether sent by God or by men. Nothing can trouble the

patient man, neither the loss of earthly goods, nor the loss of

friends or relations, nor sickness, nor disgrace, nor life, nor

death, nor purgatory, nor the devil, nor hell. For he has abandoned

himself to the will of God in true love. And, provided that mortal

sin does not touch him, all that God orders for him in time or

eternity seems light. This patience adorns a man, and arms him

against anger and sudden rage, and against impatience of suffering,

which often deceives a man within and without, and exposes him to

manifold temptations.

ON GENTLENESS

FROM this patience are born gentleness and kindness, for no one can

be gentle under adversity if not the patient man. Gentleness creates

in man peace and repose from everything; for the gentle man endures

insulting words and gestures, and bad faces and bad deeds, and all

manner of injustice towards his friends and himself, and he is

content with all, for gentleness is suffering in repose. Thanks to

gentleness, the force of anger remains immovable in its

tranquillity, the force of desire lifts itself up towards the

virtues, and the reason rejoices, and the conscience dwells in

peace, for the other mortal sins, such as anger and rage, are

removed far from her. For the Spirit of God reposes in a gentle and

humble heart, as Christ saith, "Blessed are the meek, for they shall

inherit the earth"--that is to say, their own nature and the things

of earth in meekness, and, after this life, the things of eternity.

ON KINDNESS

FROM the same source as gentleness comes kindness, for the gentle

spirit alone can possess kindness. This kindness causes a man to

oppose a loving face and friendly words, and all the works of pity,

to those who are angry with him, and he hopes that they will return

to themselves and amend. Thanks to mercy and kindness, charity

remains lively and fruitful in a man; for the heart full of kindness

is like a lamp full of precious oil; and the oil of kindness

lightens the wandering sinner by its good example, and soothes and

heals by consoling words and deeds those whose heart is wounded,

saddened, or irritated. And it inflames and illumines those who are

in charity, and no jealousy or envy can touch it.

ON COMPASSION

FROM kindness is born compassion, by which we sympathise with every

one, for no one can suffer with all men, except he who has kindness.

Compassion is an inward movement of the heart, aroused by pity for

the bodily or spiritual distress of all men. This compassion makes a

man partaker in Christ's sufferings, when he considers the reason of

these sufferings, the resignation and love of Christ, His wounds,

His tortures, His shame, His nobleness, His misery, the shame which

He endured, the crown, the nails, and the death in patience. These

unheard of and manifold pains of Christ, our Redeemer and

Bridegroom, move to pity anyone who is capable of feeling pity.

Compassion makes a man observe and note his faults, his want of

power to do any good thing, and weakness in all that pertains to the

glory of God; his lukewarmness and slowness, the multitude of his

faults, the waste of his time, and his positive shortcomings in

virtue and good conduct. All this makes a man truly sorry for

himself. Then his compassion for himself makes him consider his

errors and wanderings, the small care which he has of God and of his

eternal salvation, his ingratitude for all the good that God has

done him, and for all that He has suffered for man. And he considers

also that he is a stranger to the virtues, that he neither knows

them nor practises them, while he is clever and crafty in all that

is bad and unjust; he sees how attentive he is to the loss or gain

of worldly goods, how inattentive and indifferent towards God, the

things of eternity, and his own salvation. This consideration makes

the just man feel a great compassion towards the salvation of all

men. The man will also observe with pity the bodily needs of his

neighbour and the manifold pains of nature, when he sees the hunger

which men suffer, the thirst, cold, nakedness, poverty, contempt,

and oppression; the sadness which they feel at the loss of

relations, friends, goods, honour, and repose; and the innumerable

afflictions to which flesh is heir. All this rouses the just man to

compassion, and he suffers with all men; but his greatest suffering

arises when he sees the impatience of others under their own

sufferings, by which they lose their reward and often deserve hell.

This is the work of compassion and pity.

This work of compassion and love for all men overcomes and removes

the third mortal sin--namely, hatred and envy; for compassion is a

wound of the heart, which makes us love all men, and can only work

healing in so far as some suffering lives in men; for God has

ordained that mourning and pain must precede all the other virtues.

This is why Christ said, "Blessed are they that mourn, for they

shall be comforted"--that is to say, when they shall reap in joy what

they now sow in compassion and sorrow.

ON GENEROSITY

FROM this compassion is born generosity, for no one can be

supernaturally generous, with faith in all men, and with love,

except the merciful man; though one many give to a particular

individual without charity, and without supernatural generosity.

Generosity is the copious outflow of a heart moved with charity and

pity. When a man considers with compassion the sufferings and pains

of Christ, from this compassion is born generosity, which excites us

to praise and thank Christ for His pains and for His love, at the

same time that it causes to be born in us respect and veneration,

and a joyous and humble submission of heart and soul, in time and in

eternity. When a man observes and pities himself, and considers the

good that God has done to him and his own weakness, he cannot help

flowing out into the liberality of God, taking refuge in His pity

and fidelity, and abandoning himself to God, with a free and perfect

wish to serve Him for ever. The generous man, who observes the

errors, the wanderings, and the injustice of men, desires and

implores the outflow of the divine gifts and the exercise of their

generosity on all men, that they may return to themselves and be

converted to the truth. The generous man considers also with

compassion the material needs of all men; he helps them, gives,

lends, consoles to the best of his power. By means of this

generosity, men practise the seven works of mercy, the rich by their

services and the bestowal of their goods, the poor by good will and

the desire to do good if they can, and thus the virtue of generosity

is perfected. Generosity in the depth of the heart multiplies all

the virtues, and illuminates the forces of the soul. For the

generous, man is always of joyful spirit, he is without anxiety; he

is full of sympathy, and is ready to do kindnesses to all men in the

works of virtue. He who is generous, and loves not the things of

earth, however poor he may be, is like unto God, for all that he

has, and all the thoughts of his heart flow out of him in largess.

And so he is delivered from the fourth of the deadly sins, avarice.

Jesus Christ saith to these: "Blessed are the merciful, for they

shall obtain mercy"; in the day when they shall hear this word

spoken unto them: "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the

kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world."

ON ZEAL AND DILIGENCE

FROM this generosity are born supernatural zeal and diligence in all

the virtues. None can exhibit this zeal, save the generous and

diligent man. This is an internal and eager impulse towards all the

virtues, and towards the imitation of Christ and the saints. In this

zeal, a man desires to expend in the honour of God the united powers

of his heart and senses, his soul and body, all that he is, and all

that he may receive. This zeal makes a man watchful in reason and

discrimination, and makes him practise the virtues in justice.

Thanks to this supernatural zeal, all the forces of his soul are

open to God, and prepared for all the virtues. His conscience is

refreshed, and divine grace is increased, virtue is practised with

joy, and his external works are adorned. He who has received this

lively zeal from God is removed far from the fifth deadly

sin--lukewarmness and gloominess towards the virtues necessary for

salvation. [Footnote: The best account in English of the deadly sin

of acedia, too much neglected in modern religious teaching, is to be

found in Bishop Paget's Spirit of Discipline.] And sometimes this

lively zeal disperses heaviness and sluggishness of the bodily

temperament. It is on this subject that Jesus Christ says: "Blessed

are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall

be filled." This will be, when the glory of God shall be manifested,

and shall fill every man in proportion to his love and justice.

ON TEMPERANCE AND SOBRIETY

FROM zeal are born temperance and sobriety within and without; for

none can maintain true moderation in sobriety, if he is not

thoroughly diligent and zealous to preserve his body and soul in

justice. Sobriety separates the higher faculties from the animal

faculties, and preserves a man from excesses. Sobriety wishes not to

taste nor know those things which are not permitted.

The incomprehensible and sublime nature of God surpasses all the

creatures in heaven and earth, for whatever the creature conceives

is creature. But God is above every creature, and within and without

every creature, and all created comprehension is too strait to

comprehend Him. In order that the creature may conceive and

comprehend God, it must be drawn up into God from above; it is only

by God that it can comprehend God. Those then who wish to know what

God is, and to study Him, let them know that it is forbidden. They

would become mad. All created light must fail here. What God is,

passes the comprehension of every creature. But Holy Scripture,

nature, and all the creatures show us that He is. We shall believe

the articles of faith without trying to penetrate them, for that is

impossible while we are here: this is sobriety. The difficult and

subtle teachings of the inspired writings we shall only explain in

accordance with the life of Christ and His saints. Man will study

nature and the Scriptures, and every creature; and will seek to

learn from them only what may be to his own advantage. This is

sobriety of spirit.

A man will maintain sobriety of the senses, and he will subdue by

reason his animal faculties, that the animal pleasure in food and

drink may not delight him too much, but that he may eat and drink as

a sick man takes a potion, because it is his duty to preserve his

strength for the service of God. This is sobriety of body. A man

will preserve moderation in words and actions, in silence and

speech, in eating and drinking, in what he does and abstains from

doing, as Holy Church enjoins and the saints give the example.

By moderation and sobriety of spirit within, a man maintains

constancy and perseverance in the faith, that purity of intelligence

and calmness of reason which are necessary to understand the truth,

readiness to bend to the will of God with regard to every virtue,

peace of heart and serenity of conscience. Thanks to this virtue, he

possesses assured peace in God and in himself.

By moderation and sobriety in the use of the bodily faculties, he

often preserves health and contentment of the bodily nature, his

honour in external relations, and his good name. And thus he is at

peace with himself and with his neighbour. For he attracts and

rejoices all men of good will, by his moderation and sobriety. And

he escapes the sixth deadly sin, which is want of temperance, and

gluttony. It is of this that Christ said: "Blessed are the

peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God." For

being like unto the Son, who has made peace in all creatures who

desire it, and who make peace in their turn, by moderation and

sobriety, the Son will divide among them the heritage of His Father,

and they will possess this heritage with Him throughout eternity.

ON PURITY

FROM this sobriety are born purity of soul and body, for none can be

absolutely pure in body and soul, save he who follows after sobriety

in body and soul. Purity of spirit consists in this--that a man

cleaves to no creature with any passionate desire, but attaches

himself to God only; for one may use all the creatures while

rejoicing in God only. Purity of spirit makes a man attach himself

to God above intelligence and above the senses, and above all the

gifts which God may bestow upon the soul; for all that the creature

receives in its intelligence or in its senses purity desires to

transcend, and to repose in God only. We should approach the

sacrament of the altar not for the sake of the delights, the

pleasure, the peace, or the sweetness which we find there, but for

the glory of God only, and that we may grow in all the virtues. This

is purity of spirit.

Purity of heart signifies that a man turns towards God without

hesitation in every bodily temptation and every disturbance of

nature, in the freedom of his will abandoning himself to Him with a

new confidence and a firm resolve to abide always with God. For to

consent to sin, or to the animal desires of the bodily nature, is a

separation from God.

Purity of body means that a man abstains from impure actions of

every kind, when his conscience assures him that they are impure and

contrary to the commandments, to the glory, and to the will of God.

Thanks to these three kinds of purity, the seventh deadly sin, that

of wantonness, is conquered and driven away. Wantonness is a

voluptuous inclination of the spirit, leading away from God towards

a created thing; it is the impure act of the flesh outside what

Holy Church permits, and the carnal occupation of the heart in some

taste or desire for a creature. I do not here refer to those sudden

stirrings of love or desire which none can escape.

You now know that purity of spirit preserves men in the likeness of

God, without care for the creatures, inclined towards God and united

to Him. The chastity of the body is compared to the whiteness of the

lily and to the purity of the angels. In its resistance to

temptation, it is compared to the redness of the rose, and to the

nobility of the martyrs. If it is preserved for love of God and in

His honour, it is then perfect, and it is compared to the

heliotrope, for it is one of the highest adornments of nature.

Purity of heart renews and increases the grace of God. In purity of

heart all the virtues are inspired, practised, and preserved. It

keeps and preserves the outer senses, it subdues and binds the

animal desires within, and it is the ornament of all the inner life.

It is the exclusion of the heart from things of earth and from all

lies, and its inclusion among the things of heaven and all truth.

And this is why Christ has said: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for

they shall see God." This is the vision in which consists our

eternal joy, and all our reward, and our entrance into bliss. This

is why a man will be sober and moderate in everything, and will keep

himself from every occasion which might tarnish the purity of his

soul and body.

ON THE THREE ENEMIES WHO ARE TO BE CONQUERED BY JUSTICE

IF we wish to possess this virtue and to repulse these enemies, we

must have justice, and we must practise it, and preserve it even

until our death, in purity of heart, for we have three powerful

enemies who try to attack us at all times, in all states, and in

many different ways. If we make our peace with any one of them and

follow him, we are vanquished, for they are in league with each

other in all wickedness and injustice. These three enemies are the

devil, the world, and our own flesh, which is the nearest to us, and

is often the worst and most mischievous of our foes. For our animal

desires are the weapons with which our enemies fight against us.

Idleness, and indifference to virtue and the glory of God are the

cause and occasion of war and combat. But the weakness of our

natures, our negligence and ignorance of truth are the sword by

which our enemies wound us and sometimes conquer us.

And this is why we must be divided in ourselves. The lower part of

ourselves, which is animal and contrary to the virtues, we ought to

hate and persecute and cause it to suffer by means of penitence and

austerities, so that it may be always crushed down and submissive to

reason, and that justice, with purity of heart, may always keep the

upper hand in all virtuous actions. And all the pains, sorrows, and

persecutions which God makes us suffer at the hands of those who are

enemies to virtue, we shall endure with joy, in honour of God and

for the glory of virtue, and in the hope of obtaining and possessing

justice in purity of heart; for Christ said: "Blessed are those who

are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of

heaven." For righteousness preserved in virtue and in virtuous

actions is a coin of the same weight and value as the kingdom of

heaven, and it is by it that we may purchase and obtain eternal

life. By these virtues a man goes forth towards God and towards

himself, in good conduct, virtue, and justice.

ON THE KINGDOM OF THE SOUL

HE who wishes to obtain and preserve these virtues, will adorn,

occupy, and order his soul like a kingdom. Free will is the king of

the soul. It is free by nature, and more free still by grace. It

will be crowned with a crown or diadem named Charity. We shall

receive this crown and this kingdom from the Emperor, who is the

Lord, the sovereign and king of kings, and we shall possess, rule,

and preserve this kingdom in His name. This king, free will, will

dwell in the highest town in the kingdom--that is to say, in the

concupiscent faculty of the soul. He will be adorned and clad with a

robe in two parts. The right side of his robe will be a virtue

called strength, that he may be strong and powerful to overcome all

obstacles and sojourn in the heaven, in the palace of the supreme

Emperor, and to bend with love and ardent self-surrender his crowned

head before the supreme monarch. This is the proper work of charity.

By it we receive the crown, by it we adorn the crown, and by it we

keep and possess the kingdom throughout eternity. The left side of

the robe will be a cardinal virtue, called moral courage. Thanks to

it, free will, the king, will subdue all immorality, will accomplish

all virtue, and will have the power to keep his kingdom even until

death. The king will choose councillors in his country, the wisest

in the land. They will be two divine virtues, knowledge and

discretion, illuminated by divine grace. They will dwell near the

king, in a palace called the reasonable force of the soul. They will

be crowned and adorned with a moral virtue called temperance, that

the king may always act and refrain from acting according to their

advice. By knowledge we shall purge our conscience from all its

faults and adorn it with all virtues; and, thanks to discretion, we

shall give and take, do and not do, speak and be silent, fast and

eat, listen and answer, and act in all ways according to knowledge

and discretion clad in their moral virtue, which is called

temperance or moderation.

This king, free will, will also establish in his kingdom a judge,

who will be justice, which is a divine virtue when it is born from

love. And it is one of the highest moral virtues. This judge will

dwell in the conscience, in the middle of the kingdom in the

irascible faculty. And he will be adorned with a moral virtue called

prudence. For justice without prudence cannot be perfect. This

judge, justice, will traverse the kingdom with royal powers,

accompanied by wise counsel and his own prudence. He will promote

and dismiss, he will judge and condemn, will condemn to death and

acquit, will mutilate, blind, and restore to sight, will exalt and

abase and organise, will punish and chastise according to justice,

and will destroy all vices. The people of the kingdom--that is to

say, all the faculties of the soul, will be supported by humility

and the fear of God, submitting to Him in all the virtues, each

after its own manner. He who has thus occupied, preserved, and

ordered the kingdom of his soul, has gone forth, by love and the

virtues, towards God, towards himself, and towards his neighbour.

This is the third of the four principal points which Christ speaks

of when He says, Go forth.

ON THE THREEFOLD MEETING OF THE SOUL

WHEN a man has, by the grace of God, eyes to see, and a pure

conscience, and when he has considered the three comings of Christ,

our Bridegroom, and lastly when he has gone forth by the virtues,

then takes place the meeting with our Bridegroom, and this is the

fourth and last point. In this meeting consist all our blessedness,

and the beginning and the end of all the virtues, and without this

meeting no virtue can be practised.

He who wishes to meet Christ as his well-beloved Bridegroom, and to

possess in Him and with Him eternal life, must meet Christ, now in

time, in three points or in three manners. First, he must love God

in everything wherein we shall merit eternal life. Secondly, he must

attach himself to nothing which he might love as much as or more

than God. Thirdly, he must repose in God with all his might, above

all creatures and above all the gifts of God, and above all acts of

virtue and above all the sensible graces which God might spread

abroad in his soul and body.

Now understand: he who has God for his end must have Him present to

himself, by some divine reason. That is to say, he must have in view

Him who is the Lord of heaven, and of earth, and of every creature,

Him who died for him, and who can and will give him eternal

salvation. In whatever mode and under whatever name he represents

God, as Lord of every creature, it is well. If he takes some divine

Person, and in Him sees the essence and power of the divine nature,

it is well. If he regards God as saviour, redeemer, creator,

governor, as blessedness, power, wisdom, truth, goodness, it is

well. Though the names which we ascribe to God are numerous, the

sublime nature of God is simple and unnameable by the creatures. But

we give Him all these names by reason of His nobleness and

incomprehensible sublimity, and because we cannot name or proclaim

Him completely. See now under what mode and by what knowledge God

will be present to our intention. For to have God for our aim is to

see spiritually. To this quest belong also affection and love, for

to know God and be without love aids and advances us not a whit, and

has no savour. This is why a man, in all his actions, must bend

lovingly towards God, whom he seeks and loves above everything.

This, then, is the meeting with God by means of intention and love.

In order that the sinner may turn from his sins in a meritorious

penitence, he must meet God by contrition, free conversion, and a

sincere intention to serve God for ever, and to sin no more. Then,

at this meeting, he receives from the mercy of God the assured hope

of eternal salvation and the pardon of his sins, and he receives the

foundation of all the virtues, faith, hope, and charity, and the

good will to practise all the virtues. If this man advances in the

light of faith, and observes all the works of Christ, all His

sufferings and all His promises, and all that He has done for us and

will do to the day of judgment and through eternity; if he examines

all this for his soul's health, he must needs meet with Christ; and

Christ must needs be present to his soul, so grateful and full of

thankfulness. So his faith is fortified, and he is impelled more

inwardly and powerfully towards all the virtues. If he still

progresses in the works of virtue, he must again meet with Christ,

by the annihilation of self. Let him not seek his own things; let

him set before him no extraneous ends; let him be discreet in his

actions; let him set God always before him, and the praise and glory

of God; and let him so continue till his death; then his reason

will be enlightened and his charity increased, and he will become

more pious and apt for all the virtues. We shall set God before us

in every good work; in bad works we cannot set Him before us. We

shall not have two intentions--that is to say, we shall not seek God

at the same time as something else, but all our intention must be

subordinated to God and not contrary to Him, but of one and the same

kind, so that it may help us and give us an impulse which may lead

us more easily to God. Then and then only is a man in the right

road. Moreover, we shall rest rather upon Him who is our aim and our

goal and the object of our love, than upon the messengers whom He

sends us--that is to say, His gifts. The soul will rest constantly

upon God, above all the adornments and presents which His messengers

may bring. The messengers sent by the soul are intention, love, and

desire. They carry to God all our good works and virtues. Above all

these, the soul will rest on God, its Beloved, above all

multiplicity. This is the manner in which we shall meet Christ all

through our life, in all our actions and virtues, by right

intention, that we may meet Him at the hour of our death in the

light of glory.

This mode, as you have learnt, is called the active life. It is

necessary to all men; or at least they must not live in a manner

contrary to any virtue, though they may not attain the degree of

perfection in all the virtues which I have described. For to live

contrary to the virtues is to live in sin, as Christ has said: "He

that is not with me is against me." He who is not humble is proud,

and he who is proud belongs not to God. We must always possess a

virtue and be in a state of grace, or possess what is contrary to

that virtue and be in a state of sin. May every man examine and

prove himself, and order his life as I have here described.

ON THE DESIRE TO KNOW GOD AS HE IS, IN THE NATURE OF HIS GODHEAD

THE man who thus lives, in this perfection, as I have here described

it, and who devotes all his life and actions to the honour and glory

of God, and who seeks and loves God above all things, is often

seized by the desire to see and know Christ, this Bridegroom who was

made man for love of him, who laboured in love even till death, who

drove away from him sin and the enemy, who gave him His grace, who

gave him Himself, who left him His sacraments and promised him His

kingdom. When a man considers all this, he is exceedingly desirous

to see Christ his Bridegroom, and to know what He is in Himself

While He only knows Him in His works he is not satisfied. So he will

do like Zacchasus, the publican, who desired to see Jesus Christ. He

will go in front of the crowd--that is to say, the multitude of the

creatures, for they make us so little and short, that we cannot

perceive God. And he will climb the tree of faith, which grows from

above downwards, for its roots are in the Godhead. This tree has

twelve branches, which are the twelve articles of faith. The lower

branches speak of the humanity of Christ, and of the things which

concern the salvation of our body and soul. The higher part of the

tree speaks of the Godhead, of the Trinity of the Divine Persons and

the Unity of the Divine Nature. A man will strive to reach the unity

at the top of the tree, for it is there that Jesus must pass with

all His gifts. Here Jesus comes, and sees the man, and tells Him in

the light of faith that He is, according to His Godhead,

immeasurable and incomprehensible, inaccessible and abysmal, and

that He surpasses all created light and all finite comprehension.

This is the highest knowledge acquired in the active life, to

recognise thus, in the light of faith, that God is inconceivable and

unknowable. In this light Christ saith to the desire of a man: "Come

down quickly, for I must lodge at thy house to-day." This rapid

descent to which God invites him is nothing else but a descent, by

desire and love, into the abyss of the Godhead, to which no

intelligence can attain in crested light. But where intelligence

remains outside, love and desire enter. The soul thus bending

towards God, by the intention of love, above all that the intellect

can comprehend, rests and abides in God, and God abides in her. Then

mounting by desire, above the multitude of the creatures, above the

work of the senses, above the light of nature, she meets Christ in

the light of faith, and is enlightened, and recognises that God is

unknowable and inconceivable. Finally, bending by her desires

towards this inconceivable God, she meets Christ and is loaded with

His gifts; by living and resting upon Him, above all His gifts,

above herself and above all the creatures, she dwells in God and God

in her.

This is how you will meet Christ at the summit of the active life,

if you have as your foundations justice, charity, and humility; and

if you have built a house above--that is to say, the virtues here

described, and if you have met Christ by faith--that is to say, by

faith and the intention of love, you dwell in God and God dwells in

you, and you possess the active life.

This is the first explanation of the word of Jesus Christ our

Bridegroom, when He said, "See, the Bridegroom cometh; go forth to

meet Him."