[page 141]
The Mirror of Simple Souls — a rare work on the spiritual
life, of which manuscripts exist in the British Museum, the
Bodleian, and one or two other public libraries — has so far
received little or no attention from students of religious
literature. Yet it may turn out to possess great importance, as one of the missing links in the history of English
mysticism: for it is a middle-English translation, made at
the close of the fourteenth century or beginning of the
fifteenth, of the lost work of a French thirteenth-century
mystic. It shows, therefore, that the common view of
French mediaeval religion as unmystical needs qualification;
and further indicates a path by which the contemplative
tradition of western Europe reached England and affected
the development of our native mystical school.
The Mirror of Simple Souls, as we now have it, is a work
of nearly 60,000 words in length. So far from being simple,
it deals almost exclusively with the rarest and most sublime
aspects of spiritual experience. Its theme is the theme of
all mysticism: the soul's adventures on its way towards
union with God. It is not, like the Melum of Richard Rolle,
or Revelations of Julian of Norwich, a subjective book; the
record of personal experiences and actual "conversations in
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heaven." Rather it is objective and didactic, a work of
geography, not a history of travel; an advanced text-book
of the contemplative life. Only from the ardour and exactitude of its descriptions, its strange air of authority, its defiance of pious convention, can we gather that it is the fruit
of first-hand experience, not merely of theological study:
though its writer was clearly a trained theologian, familiar
with the works of St. Augustine and Dionysius the Areopagite, whom no mystic of the Middle Ages wholly escaped,
and apparently with those of St. Bernard, Hugh and Richard
of St. Victor, and other mediæval authorities on the inner life.
I have said that the Mirror, as we have it, purports to
be the translation of an unknown French treatise. This
translation, so far as we can judge from its language, was
probably made in the early years of the fifteenth century,
perhaps at the end of the fourteenth. Its author, then,
lived at the close of the golden age of English mysticism:
he was the contemporary of Julian of Norwich, who was
still living in 1413, and of Walter Hilton, who died in 1395.
Himself a mystic, he was no servile translator; rather the
eager interpreter of the book which he wished to make accessible to his countrymen. Our manuscripts begin with his
prologue: an ingenuous confession of the difficulties of the
undertaking, his own temerity in daring to touch these "high
divine matters," his fear lest the book should fall into unsuitable hands and its more extreme teachings be misunderstood. It appears from this prologue that our version of
the Mirror is a second, or revised edition; the first having
failed to be comprehensible to its readers.
The character of the translator, as disclosed for us in his
prologue, is itself interesting. Clearly he was a contemplative; and the "high ghostly feelings" of which he treats
are to him the strictly practical objects of supreme desire,
though he modestly disclaims their possession. He appears
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before us as a gentle, humble, rather timid soul: often
frankly terrified by the daring flights of his "French book,"
which he is at pains to explain in a safe sense. One would
judge him, from the peeps which he gives us into his mind, a
disciple of the devout and homely school of Walter Hilton,
rather than a descendant of the group of advanced mystics
which produced in the mid-fourteenth century The Cloud
of Unknowing, The Pistle of Private Counsel, and other
profound studies of the inner life. These books were written
under the strong influence of Dionysius the Areopagite;
whose Mystical Theology, under the title of Dionise Hid
Divinite, was first translated into English by some member
of the school. But to the translator of the Mirror his author's
drastic applications of the Dionysian paradoxes of indifference, passivity, and nescience as the path to knowledge
teem with "hard sayings." His attitude towards them is
that of reverential alarm: he fears their probable effect on
the mind of the hasty reader. They seem, as he says in one
place, "fable or error or hard to understand" until one has
read them several times. He is sure that their real meaning
is unexceptionable; but terribly afraid that they will be
misunderstood.
Here, then, is the prologue which sets forth his point of
view.
"To the worship and laud of the Trinity be this work
begun and ended ! Amen.
"This book, the which is called The Mirror of Simple Souls,
I, most unworthy creature and outcast of all other, many
years gone wrote it out of French into English after my
lewd [=lay, unlearned DCW] cunning; in hope that by the grace of God it should
profit the devout souls that shall read it. This was forsooth
mine intent. But now I am stirred to labour it again new,
for because I am informed that some words thereof have
been mistaken. Therefore, if God will, I shall declare these
words more openly. For though Love declare the points
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in the same book, it is but shortly spoken, and may be taken
otherwise than it is meant of them that read it suddenly and
take no further heed. Therefore such words to be twice
opened it would be more of audience [understanding]: and
so by grace of our Lord good God it shall the more profit to
the auditors. But both the first time and now, I have great
dread to do it. For the book is of high divine matters and
high ghostly feelings, and cunningly and full mystically it is
spoken, and I am a creature right wretched and unable to
do any such work: poor and naked of ghostly fruits, darkened
with sins and defaults, environed and wrapped therein oft
times, the which taketh away my taste and my clear sight;
so that little I have of ghostly understanding and less of the
feeling of divine love. Therefore I may say the words of
the prophet: 'My teeth be nought white to bite of this
bread.' But Almighty Jesu, God that feedeth the worm and
gives sight to the blind and wit to the unwitty; give me
grace of wit and wisdom in all times wisely to govern myself,
following alway His will, and send me clear sight and true
understanding well to do this work to His worship and
pleasaunce: profit also and increase of grace to ghostly
lovers that be disposed and called to this high election of
the freedom of soul."
He goes on to the difficulty which dogs all writers on
mysticism; the impossibility of making mystic truth seem real
to those who have no experience of the mystic life. It has
been said that only mystics can write about mysticism. It
were truer to say that only mystics can read about it.
"Oh ye that shall read this book! do ye as David says
in the Psalter, Gustate et videte: that is to say, "Taste and
see.' But why trow ye he said, taste first, e'er than he said
see? For first a soul must taste, e'er it have very understanding and true sight; sight of ghostly workings of divine
love. Oh full naked and dark, dry and unsavoury be the
speakings and writings of these high ghostly feelings of the
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love of God to them that have not tasted the sweetness
thereof. But when a soul is touched with grace, by which
she has tasted somewhat of the sweetness of this divine
fruition, and begins to wade, and draweth the draughts to
her-ward, then it savours the soul so sweetly that she desires
greatly to have of it more and more, and pursueth thereafter.
And then the soul is glad and joyful to hear and to read of all
thing that pertains to this high feeling of the workings of
divine love, in nourishing and increasing her love and devotion to the will and pleasing of Him that she loves, God
Christ Jesu. Thus she enters and walks in the way of illumination, that she might be taught into the ghostly influences
of the divine work of God, there to be drowned in the high
flood, and oned to God by ravishing of love, by which she is
all one spirit with her Spouse. Therefore to these souls that
be disposed to these high feelings Love has made of him this
book in fulfilling of their desire."
But even for those who have been initiated into this
way of illumination, the translator acknowledges that many
things in the Mirror are difficult and obscure: "often
he leaveth the nut and the kernel within the shell unbroken,
that is to say, that Love in this book leaves to souls the touches
of his divine works privily hid under dark speech, for they
should taste the deeper the draughts of his love and drink;
and also to make them have the more clear insight in divine
understandings to divine love, and declare himself." Therefore he has added his own explanations to the more difficult
passages. "Where meseems most need I will write more
words thereto in manner of gloss after my simple cunning as
meseems best. And in these few places that I put in more
than I find written I will begin with the first letter of my
name M. and end with this letter N. the first of my surname."
He ends with a gentle complaint of the badness of the text
from which he worked, and the confession that he has allowed
himself a certain amount of editorial liberty. "The French
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book that I shall write after is evil written, and in some places
for default of words and syllables the reason is away. Also
in translating of French some words need to be changed, or
it will fare ungoodly, not according to the sentence. Wherefore I will follow the sentence according to the matter, as
near as God will give me grace; obeying me ever to the
correction of Holy Kirk, praying ghostly livers and clerks
that they will vouchsafe to correct and amend there that I
do amiss."
So much for M.N., the English mystic. The prologue of
the author, which comes next, tells us all that we know
about the anonymous French writer of the book. This
person was of a very different temper from M.N. As a
Catholic scholar has observed of St. Teresa, " L'auteur ne se
faisait pas illusion sur le merite de son oeuvre." Like Teresa,
he believed himself to have written underder immediate divine
inspiration; a fact which somewhat excuses his complacency
in regard to the result. This is a common claim with the
mystics, in whom subconscious cerebration is always exceptionally active, and whose writings often exhibit an
automatic and involuntary character, seeming to them the
work of another mind. Jacob Boehme, Madame Guyon, and
Blake are obvious cases in point. The author of the Mirror,
however, was anxious that his claim to inspiration should
be endorsed. He therefore — most fortunately for us — sent
his work to various "learned clerks," persons of importance
in the theological world, and chronicles their appreciatory
remarks in the prologue; which becomes in his hands a form
of mediaeval "advance-notice." It will be observed that
his critics share the opinion of M.N., that though full of "ghostly cunning" this is a dangerous work to put into
the hands of the plain man.
Of these critics " The first was a Friar Minor of great name,
of life of perfection. Men called him Friar John of Querayne. . .
. He said soothly that this book is made by the Holy
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Ghost. And though all the clerks of the world heard it,
but if they understand it, that is to say, but if they have
high ghostly feelings and this same working, they shall nought
wit what it means. And he prayed for the love of God that
it be wisely kept: and that but few should see it. And he
said thus, that it was so high that himself might not understand it. And after him a monk of Cisetyns [Citeaux] read
it, that hight Dan Frank, Chantor of the Abbey of Viliers:
and he said that it proved well by the Scripture that it is
all truth that this book says. And after him read it a Master
of Divinity, that hight Master Godfrey of Fountaynes: and
he blamed it nought, no more than did the other. But he
said thus, that he counselled nought [sic] that few should
see it; and for this cause, for they might leave their own
working and follow this calling, to the which they should
never come, and so they might deceive themselves, for it is
made of a spirit so strong and so cutting, that there be but
few such or none. . . . For the peace of auditors was this
proved, and for your peace we say it to you. For this seed
should bear holy fruit to them that hear it and worthy be."
Of the three persons here mentioned, Friar John and Dan
Frank still remain unidentified: but Godfrey of Fountaynes
is almost certainly the Master of Divinity, called Doctor
Venerandus, who was a prominent member of the University
of Paris at the end of the thirteenth century. He was at
the height of his fame about 1280-1290, and died about 1306. "Grande lumen sludii magister Godefridum de Fontanis,"
he is called in a letter of 1301. In the great war between
Friars and Seculars which divided the University at the end
of the thirteenth century, this Godfrey was one of the bitterest
opponents of the Mendicant Orders. He wrote against them,
and attacked them in the Synod of Paris in 1283. We see
therefore that the author of the Mirror, in placing Godfrey's
testimonial beside that of Friar John, secured with a cunning
other than ghostly a friend in each of the opposing camps.
There is, however, one obvious and significant omission
in this list of patrons. There is no name which emanates
directly from the great school of St. Thomas Aquinas; supreme
at that moment in the University, and the custodian of orthodox philosophy. There is, indeed, little trace of scholastic
influence in the Mirror, which is far more in harmony with
the mystical theology favoured by St. Bonaventura, and
continued during the following century in the Franciscan
schools: a fact which explains at once the guarded approbation of Friar John, and the absence of Dominican patronage.
In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the Franciscans
were eager students of and commentators on Dionysius the
Areopagite: and the order which produced and upheld the
hardy speculations of Duns Scotus might well look with
indulgence on the most extravagant statements of The
Mirror of Simple Souls.
The original version of this book, then, was. probably written
in the last quarter of the thirteenth century, and certainly
before 1306. Its writer was therefore the contemporary
of Eckhart and Jacopone da Todi, the great mystical lights
of the Preaching and the Minor Friars. He was no provincial
recluse, but a person in touch with the intellectual life of his
time. He had connections with the University of Paris,
but the names of his patrons prove him to have been neither
a member nor an enemy of the Mendicant Orders. It is
probable that he was a monk, possible that he was a Carthusian; a strictly contemplative order celebrated for its mystical
leanings, which produced in the later Middle Ages many
students of the Dionysian writings, and many works upon
contemplation. He was widely read, and many parallels
could be established between his doctrines and the classics
of Christian mysticism. His lost book is so far our only
evidence that abstruse prose treatises of this kind were
already written in the vernacular; and this alone gives it
great interest from the literary point of view. He was, so
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far as we know, the first French mystic to write in French;
the forerunner of St. Francis de Sales, of Madame Guyon,
of Malaval. If we except the semi-mystical writings of Gerson,
we must wait till the seventeenth century to provide him
with a worthy successor.
II
We come next to the manner and content of the book. The
manner is that of a dramatic dialogue: an unusual if not
unique form for works of this kind. It consists of a debate
— often a lively debate — between Love, the Soul, Reason,
and a few intervening characters, of whom Pure Courtesy
and Discretion are the chief. The student will at once be
reminded of the Romaunt de la Rose: but he will have
difficulty in matching this form within the confines of ascetic
literature. Duologues, such as those in the Third Book
of the Imitatio, or Suso's conversations with Eternal Wisdom,
are not uncommon: but I know of no other instance of an
elaborate mystical doctrine presented through the mouths
of a group of symbolic personages.
The Soul is naturally that of the author. Lady Love is
his instructress, and all the most beautiful passages are given
to her. Reason's role is interrogatory. He catechises Love
sharply though respectfully, and represents the invariable
attitude of common sense confronted by the claims of mysticism. Sometimes he goes too far; Love or the Soul is driven
to put him in his place. "Oh, understanding of Reason!"
says this soul noughted, "what thou hast of rudeness! Thou
takest the shell or the chaff and leavest the kernel or the
grain. Thine understanding is so low, that thou mayst not
so highly reach as them behoves that well would have understanding of the Being that we speak of." In general, however
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ever, the figure of Reason is used with great art to elucidate
the hard sayings of Love. The alert intelligence of the writer
notes all possible objections to his doctrine, and states and
refutes them out of the mouths of his characters. "0 Lady
Love, what is this that you say?" says the shocked voice
of Reason whenever the argument becomes paradoxical or
abstruse. "Reason," says Love to this, "I will answer for
the profit of them for whom thou makest to us this piteous
request. Reason," says Love, " where be these double words
that thou prayest me to discuss . . . it is well asked, and I
will," says Love, "answer thee to all thy asking."
What, then, is the doctrine which these discussions put
before us? It is the doctrine of the soul's possible ascent
from illusion to reality, from separateness to union with the
Divine: the primal creed of all mysticism, here stated in
its most extreme form, and pressed to its logical conclusion.
It offers, not a chart of the way to a distant heaven of beatitude and recompense, but initiation into that state of being
wherein we find our heaven here and now. "I took Jesus
for my heaven," said Julian of Norwich. So the writer of
the Mirror: "Paradise is no other thing than God Himself
. . . why was the thief in Paradise anon as the soul was
departed from his body? . . . He saw God, that is Paradise;
for other thing is not Paradise than to see God. And this
doth she [the soul] in sooth at all times that she is uncumbered
of herself." The super-essential and unknowable Godhead,
whose nature is but partially revealed in the Blessed Trinity,
is the only substance of reality, and the only satisfaction of
the soul's desire. " Though this soul had all the knowledge,
love and learning that ever was given, or shall be given, of
the Divine Trinity, it should be naught as in regard of that
that she loves and shall love . . . for there is no other God
but He that none may know, which may not be known."
The history of human transcendence is the history of the
soul's transmutation to that condition of love in which it is,
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as the author is not afraid to say, deified; and so merged
in the Reality from which it came forth, that it is no longer
aware of its own separate experience but is "all one spirit
with its Spouse."
"I am God," says Love, "for Love is God and God is
Love. And this soul is God by condition of love, and I am
God by nature divine. And this is hers by right-wiseness of
love. So that this Precious, loved of me, is learned and led
by me out of herself, for she is turned to me, in me."
This process is set forth by the writer of the Mirror under
three chief heads: those of Liberty as the aim, the Will as
the agent, and Surrender as the method of the spiritual quest.
In the conception of Liberty as the supreme aim of the
spiritual life we have what is perhaps the most original
feature of his work: though it is a conception which is of
course implicit in the New Testament. Where most contemplatives lay emphasis on the glad servitude of love, and
use the symbols of wedlock to express the willing subjugation
of the soul to its Divine Bridegroom, the key of this book
is the idea of spiritual freedom; and that freedom as consisting in the liberation of man's will from finite desires that
it may rejoin and lose itself within the Will of the Infinite.
We are to learn, it says in the first chapter, something of "the pure love, of the noble love, and of the high love of the
free soul; and how the Holy Ghost has His sail in his ship."
With our "inward subtle understanding" — that spiritual
intuition which is the instrument of all real knowledge — we
are to follow its progress from the bondage of desire to the
point at which, purged of self-will, perfected in meekness
and love, " noughted and abased," it reaches the "Seventh
Estate of Grace," and participates in the perfect liberty of
Pure Being, wherein "the soul has fulhead of perception by
divine fruition in life of peace." "Not-willing" is the secret
of liberation, and lord of our true life. "And this not-willing
sows in souls the Divine Seed, fulfilled of the divine will of
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God. This seed may never fail, but few souls dispose them
to receive this seed." Though this emancipation is only
attained by the utter surrender of all personal desire and
achievement, yet throughout the book the dominant note
is of glad liberation, of flying, of a rapturous ascent. As we
read, we seem to hear from every page "the thunder of new
wings." The free soul is "six-winged like the seraphim."
She is "the eagle that flies high: so right high and yet more
high than does any other bird; for she is feathered with fine
love, and she beholds above other the beauty of the sun,
and the beams and the brightness of the sun. Dame Nature,"
says she, "I take leave of you: Love is me nigh, that holds
me free of him against all without dread. Then," says Love," she afraies her nought for tribulation, nor stints for consolation."
It is clear to the writer that only certain persons are capable
of this complete freedom in love: and is to them — the
natural mystics, the people with a genius for reality — that
his book is addressed. They are "of that lineage that be
folks royal," "called without fail of the Divine goodness,"
and it is on their spiritual intuition, their transcendent knowledge, that "all Holy Church is founded"; a suspicious
statement in the eyes of orthodox theology. They possess,
or are able to possess, the incommunicable gift of spiritual
vision.
"This gift is given," says Love, "sometimes in a moment
of time. Who that has it, keep it: for it is the most perfect
gift that God gives to creature." So removed is the resulting perception of reality from human wisdom that no
one can teach the illuminated soul anything. "Now for
God," says Reason, "Lady Love, say what is this to say? This
is to say," says Love, "that this soul is of so great knowing
that though she had all the knowing of all creatures that
ever were, be or shall be, she would think it naught in regard
of that that she loves." Yet, true to Neoplatonic principles,
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she is aware that her highest perceptions are nothing, and her "right great and high words" but "gabbynge" or idle
talk, compared with the ineffable reality. She wots all
and wots naught," and is content it should be so. "He only
is my God that none can one word of say, nor all they of
Paradise one only point attain nor understand, for all the
knowing that they have of Him."
But though the Transcendent God is unknowable, the free
soul, in singular contradiction to contemporary asceticism,
finds Him everywhere immanent in the world. " And for
this, that He is all in all, this soul, says Love, finds Him over
all. So that for this all things are to this soul covetable, for
she nor finds anything but she finds God." So Meister
Eckhart: "To it all creatures are pure to enjoy; for it
enjoyeth all creatures in God and God in all creatures."
The preliminary discipline of the mystic, the hard acquirement of that "very charity" which is "the perfection of
virtues" and "dwelleth always in God's sight . . . obeying
to nothing that is made but to love " is little dwelt on by
the author of the Mirror; who did not write for beginners
in the contemplative life, but for the mature soul whose
love has made him free, and who therefore needs "nor masses
nor sermons nor fasting nor orisons, and gives to nature all
that he asks, without grudging of conscience" — a practical
application of St. Augustine's dangerous saying, " Love, and
do what you like." M.N., however, interpolates a prudent
reminder that "by this way and by sharp contricion souls
must go, or than they come to these divine usages."
The author's own instructions are really reducible to one
point: the complete and loving surrender of the individual
will to the Primal Will — detachment, or, as he calls it, the" noughting " of the soul. This is that "peace of charity
in life noughted," which constitutes the higher life of love;
in contrast to the active life of virtue, struggling to keep
unbroken its attitude of charity to God and man. In it
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the soul dwells, as do the Seraphim, within the divine atmosphere, and has direct access to the sources of its life." This
is the proper being of Seraphim: there is nought mediate
between their love and the Divine Love; they have always
its tidings without means. So hath this soul, that seeks
not the divine science amongst the masters of the world,
but the world and herself inwardly despises. Ah, God!
what great difference it is between a gift given by means,
of the Loved to the Lover, and the gift given without means
of the Loved to the Lover. This book says sooth of this
soul. It says she hath six wings as have the Seraphim.
With two she covers the face of our Lord: that is to say,
the more knowledge this soul hath of the Divine Goodness
the more she knows that she knows not the amount of a
mote as in regard to His Goodness, the which is not comprehended but of Himself. And with two she covers His
feet: this is to say, the more that this soul hath knowledge
of the sufferance that Jesu Christ suffered for us, the more
perfectly she knows that she knows naught, as in regard of
it that He suffered for us, the which is not known but of
Him. And with two she flies, and so dwells in standing and
sitting: this is to say, that all she covets and loves and
prizes, it is the Divine Goodness. These be the wings that
she flies with, and so dwells in standing, for she is alway in
the sight of God: and sitting, for she dwells alway in the
Divine Will. Whereof should this soul have dread, though
she be in the world? An the world, the flesh, and our Enemy
the Fiend, and the four elements, the birds of the air and the
beasts of the field, tormented her and despised her and devoured her if it might so be, what might she lose if God
dwelled with her? Oh, is he not Almightiful? Yea, without
doubt: He is all might, all wisdom and all goodness, our
Father and Brother and our true Friend."
"This soul," says Love, "can no more speak of God;
for she is noughted to all outward desires, and of all the
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affections of the spirit. So that what this soul does, she
does it by usage of good custom, and by commandment of
Holy Church, without any desire: for will is dead, that
gave her desire. . . . Who that asks these free souls, sure and
peaceful, if they would be in purgatory, they say nay. If they
would living be certified of their salvation, they say nay. Eh,
what would they? They have nothing of will, this for to
will; and if they willed, they should descend from Love:
for He it is that hath their will. . . . Thus departs the soul
from her will and the will departs from this soul, so she again
puts it and gives and yields it in God where it was first."
Such a doctrine easily slides into the complete passivity or "holy indifference" which was the ideal of the seventeenth
century Quietists: and the Mirror certainly does contain
passages which, if taken alone, would convict their author
of a fondness for this heresy. " I certify thee that these
souls that fine love leads, they have as lief shame as worship,
and worship as shame; and poverty as riches and riches as
poverty; and torments of God and of His creatures as comforts of God and of His creatures; and to be hated as loved,
and loved as hated; and hell as paradise and paradise as
hell . . . the free soul has no will to will or unwill, but only to
will the will of God and suffer in peace His divine ordinance."
Nevertheless, other passages make it clear that active
surrender, not mere passivity is the aim, and that the "noughting" of the self within the All is a loving sacrifice, consistent
with its achievement of completest happiness. " True love
has but only one intent; and that is, that she might alway
love truly, for of the love of her Lover has she no doubt,
that He does what best is. And she follows this: that she
does that that she ought to do. And she wills nought but
one thing; and that is, that the Will of God be alway in her
done. . . . This soul," says Love, "swims in the sea of joy,
that is, in the sea of delights, streaming of divine influences.
She feels no joy, for she herself is joy. She swims and drenches
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in joy, for she lives in joy without feeling any joy. So is joy
in her, that she herself is joy, by the virtue of joy that has
merged her in Him. And so is the will of the Loved and the
will of this soul turned into one as fire and flame."
The teaching of the writer seems to be, that so long as
the will is consciously active and desirous — however good
its actions or desires — its owner cannot be liberated from
the illusions and anxieties of the personal life. What he
needs, if he did but know it, is reunion with that fontal life
from which he came, to which he is perpetually drawn by
love. Here his separate will finds its meaning, and is not
annihilated but absorbed. "The understanding, that gives
light, shows to the soul the thing that she loves. And the
soul that receives by light of understanding the nighing and
the knitting by accord of union in plenteous love, sees the
Being, where that she holds to have her seat; receiving
gladly the light of knowing that brings her tidings of love.
And then she would become so, that she had but one will
and love; and that is, the only will of Him that she loves."
The detached soul who is thus "noughted in God" enjoys
a freedom from stress, an immunity from disappointment
incredible to those who still live the individual life. "Now
shall I say to you what they be that sit in the mountain above
the wind and the rain? These be they that have in earth
neither shame nor worship, nor dread of anything that befalls." She has, moreover, passed beyond that moral conflict
which arises from the discord between conscience and desire,
and is the essential character of the active life; for she has
within her "the Master of Virtues, that is called Divine
Love, that has her merged in them all and to Him united."
Thus she is able to say, "Virtues, I take leave of you for
evermore. Now shall my heart be more free and more in
peace than it has been. Forsooth, I wot well your service
is too travaillous. Sometime I laid my heart in you without
any dissevering: ye wot well this. I was in all thing to you
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obedient. 0, I was then your servant: but now I am
delivered out of your thralldom."
M.N. is quick to gloss this dangerous declaration: "I am
stirred here to say more to the matter . . . when a soul gives
her to perfection, she labours busily day and night to get
virtues by counsel of reason, and strives with vices at every
point, at every word and deed . . . thus the virtues be
mistresses and every virtue makes her to war with her contrary. . . . But so long one may bite on the bitter bark of
the nut that at last he shall come to the sweet kernel. Right
so, ghostly to understand, it fares with these souls that be
come to peacefulness. They have so long striven with vices
and wrought by virtues that they be come to the nut's kernel,
that is to say, to the love of God, which is sweetness. And
when the soul has deeply tasted this love . . . then is she
mistress and lady over the virtues, for she has them all within
herself . . . and then this soul takes leave of virtues, as of
thralldom and painful travail . . . and now she is lady and
sovereign and they be subjects."
In the technical language of mysticism she has passed
from the active to the contemplative life, the crucial phase
in the evolution of man's transcendental consciousness.
This evolution is described for us with great psychological
exactness in the Mirror, under the traditional formula of the "States" of the soul's ascent. Since few mystics have
escaped the mania for significant numbers, one is not surprised to find seven steps on this " steep stairway of love." "I am called," says this soul, "of the touchings of Love,
something to say of the Seven Estates that we call beings:
for so it is. And these be the degrees by which man climbs
from the valley, to the top of the mountain that is so several
[apart] that it sees but God."
"The First Estate is, That a soul is touched of God by grace
and dissevered from sin: and, as to her power, in intention
to keep the commandments of God." This is, of course,
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equivalent to the conversion or change of heart which begins
the spiritual life. "The Second is, that a soul hold what God counsels to
His special lovers, passing that what he commands. And
he is no good lover that demenes him not to fulfill all that
the which he wist might best please to his Beloved.
"The Third is, that a soul holds the affection of love of
works of perfection, by which her spirit is ripened by desires: taking the love of these works to multiply in her.
And what does the subtlety of her thought, but makes it
seem to the understanding of her humble affection, that
she cannot make offering to her Love that might comfort
her, but of thing that He loves: for other gift is not prized
in love.
"The Fourth is that a soul is drawn by highness of love
into delight of thought by meditation, and relinquishes all
labours outward, and obedience to others, by highness of
love in contemplation. Then the soul is dangerous, noble
and delicious: in which she may not suffer that anything
her touch but the touchings of pure delight of love, in the
which she is singularly gladsome and jolly. What marvel
is it if this soul be upheld and updrawed thus graciously?
Love makes her all drunken, that suffers her not to attend
but to Him." These four stages have brought the self to
the complete practice of the contemplative life, and prepared
the way for that second great phase in the achievement of
reality which consists in the surrender of the separate will.
"The Fifth is, that a soul beholds what God is, and His
Goodness, by Divine Light. She sees the Will, by the spreading illumination of Divine Light, the which light gives her
the will again to put in God this will; which she may not
without this light yield, that may not her profit unless she
departs from her own will. Thus departs the soul from her
will, and the will departs from this soul, so she again puts
it and gives and yields it in God, where it was first.
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"Now is this soul fallen of love into nought, without the
which nought, she may not all be. The which falling is so
perfectly fallen, if she be fallen aright, that the soul may not
arise out of this deepness, nor she ought not to do it. Within
she ought to dwell. And then leaves the soul pride and play,
for the spirit has become bitter, that suffers her no more to
be playing nor jolly; for the spirit is departed from her that
made her oft love in the highness of contemplation, and in
the fourth estate fierce and dangerous." Here the spirit of
the mystic experiences that terrible and characteristic reaction from the exalted joys of contemplation which is sometimes called the "mystic death" or "dark night of the
soul," and destroys in it the last roots of selfhood. In this
stage she completes the abandonment or "self-noughting"
which initiate her into that which the German mystics called" the Upper School of the Holy Spirit." Thence she passes
to the Sixth Estate, of union with the Divine life, in so far
as it can be achieved by those still in the flesh. The Seventh
is that indescribable state of "glory" or super-essential life,
which constitutes the beatific vision of the Saints, known
only of those that "be fallen of love into this being."
"The Sixth is, that a soul sees neither her nought by
deepness of meekness, nor God by highful bounty. But
God sees it in her of His Divine Majesty that illuminated her
of Him. So that she sees that none is, but God Himself.
And then is a soul in the Sixth Estate of all things made
free, pure and illuminated. Not glorified, for gloryfying [sic] is
in the Seventh Estate, that we shall have in glory that none
can speak of. But, pure and clarified, she sees nor God nor
herself: but God sees this of Him, in her, for her, withouten
her, that shows her that there is none but He. Nay, she
knows but Him, nor she loves but Him, nor she praises but
Him, for there is but He. And the Seventh keeps He within
Him, for to give us in everlasting glory. If we wit it not
now, we shall wit it when the body our soul leaves."
END