Hours with the Mystics - The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia (2025)

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

Hours with the Mystics (1855) is a book by Robert Alfred Vaughan, in dialogue form, published in March 1856, 2 vols.; an enlarged edition appeared in 1860, edited by his father; a third edition in 1880, edited by his son, Wycliffe Vaughan.

Full text of volume 1

Hours with the Mystics.

Vol. I.

The author ofthis work reserves to himself the right oftranslation.AND YET, AS ANGELS, IN SOME BRIGHTER DREAMS,CALL TO THE SOUL, WHEN MAN DOTH SLEEP;SO SOME STRANGE THOUGHTS TRANSCEND OUR WONTED THEMES,AND INTO GLORY PEΕΡ.Henry Vaughan.Hours with the MysticsA Contribution to the History ofReligious OpinionBy Robert Alfred Vaughan B.A.PAR-HSPARHAD ARDURGANDOIn Two VolumesVol . ILondonJohn W Parker and Son West Strand1856

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HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY 10931Phil 525,9 1875, March 22.Walker Bequest.Vol. I. 11.)LONDON:SAVILL AND EDWARDS, PRINTERS,CHANDOS- STREET .PREFACE.THE subject of the presentwork is onewhichwill generally be thought to need some words of explanation,if not of apology. Mysticism is almost everywhere synonymous with what is most visionary in religion and mostobscure in speculation. But a history of Mysticism-oldvisions and old obscurities, who is bold enough to expecta hearing for that? Is the hopeful present, strugglingtoward clear intelligence, to pause and hear how, somehundreds ofyears ago, men made themselves elaboratelyunintelligible? Is our straining after action and achievement to be relaxed while you relate the way in whichmystics reduced themselves to utter inactivity? Whilewe are rejoicing in escape from superstitious twilight, is itwell to recal from Limbo the phantasms of forgottendreamers, and to people our sunshine with ghostly shadows? And since Mysticism is confessedly more or lessamistake, were it not better to point out to us, ifyou can,vi Preface.a something true and wise, rather than offer us your portrait of an exaggeration and a folly?Such are some of the questions which it willbe naturalto ask. The answer is at hand. First of all, Mysticism,though an error, has been associated, for the most part,with a measure of truth so considerable, that its good hasgreatly outweighed its evil. On this ground alone, its history should be judged of interest. For we grow morehopeful and more charitable as we mark how small a leavenoftruth may prove an antidote to error, and how oftenthe genuine fervour of the spirit has all but made goodthe failures of the intellect.Inthe religious history of almost every age and country,wemeet with a certain class of minds, impatient of mereceremonial forms and technical distinctions, who havepleaded the cause of the heart against prescription, andyielded themselves to the most vehement impulses of thesoul, in its longing to escape from the sign to the thingsignified-from the human to the divine. The story ofsuch anambition, with its disasters and its glories, willnot be deemed, by any thoughtful mind, less worthy ofrecord than the career of a conqueror. Through all thechanges of doctrine and the long conflict of creeds, it isinteresting to trace the unconscious unity of mystical temperaments in every communion. It can scarcely be without some profit that we essay to gather together andPreface. viiarrange this company of ardent natures; to account fortheir harmony and their differences, to ascertain the extent of their influence for good and evil, to point out theirerrors, and to estimate even dreams impossible to cold ormeaner spirits.These mystics have been men of like passions and in likeperplexities with many of ourselves. Within them andwithout them were temptations, mysteries, aspirations likeour own. A change of names, or an interval of time, doesnot free us from liability to mistakes in their direction, orto worse, it may be, in a direction opposite. To distinguish between the genuine and the spurious in their opinion or their life, is to erect a guide-post on the very roadwe have ourselves to tread. It is no idle or pedanticcuriosity which would try these spirits by their fruits, andsee what mischief and what blessing grew out of their misconceptions and their truth. We learn a lesson for ourselves, as we mark how some ofthese mystics found Godwithin them after vainly seeking Him without-hearkenedhappily to that witness for Him which speaks in our conscience, affections, and desires; and, recognising love bylove, finally rejoiced in a faith which was rather the life oftheir heart than the conclusion of their logic. We learn alesson for ourselves, as we see one class among them forsaking common duties for the feverish exaltation of aromantic saintship, and another persisting in their convili Preface.ceited rejection of the light without, till they have turnedinto darkness their light within.But the interest attaching to Mysticism is by no meansmerely historic. It is active under various forms in ourown time. It will certainly play its part in the future.The earlier portion of this work is occupied, it must beconfessed, with modes of thought and life extremely remote from anything with which we are now familiar. Butonly bysuch inquiry into those by-gone speculations, couldthe character and influence ofChristian Mysticism be dulyestimated, or even accounted for. Those preliminariesonce past, the reader will find himself in contact with opinions and events less removed from present experience.The attempt to exhibit the history of a certain phase ofreligious life through the irregular medium of fiction, dialogue, and essay, may appear to some a plan too fancifulfor so grave a theme. But it must be remembered, thatany treatment of such a subject which precluded a genialexercise of the imagination would be necessarily inadequate, and probably unjust. The method adopted appeared also best calculated to afford variety and relief totopics unlikely in themselves to attract general interest.The notes which are appended have been made morecopious thanwas at first designed, in order that no confusionmay be possible between fact and fiction, and thatevery statement of importance might be sustained by itsPreface. ixdue authority. It is hoped that, in this way, the workmay render its service, not only to those who deemsecondary information quite sufficient on such subjects,but also to the scholar, who will thus be readily enabledto test for himself my conclusions, and who will possess,in the extracts given, a kind of anthology from the writingsofthe leading mystics. To those familiar with such inquiries, it may perhaps be scarcely necessary to state thatIhave in no instance allowed myself to cite as an authority any passage which I have not myself examined, withits context, in the place to which I refer. In the ChronicleofAdolfArnstein the minimum of invention has been employed, and no historical personage there introduced uttersany remark bearing upon Mysticism for which ample warrant cannot be brought forward. Wherever, in the conversations at Ashfield, any material difference of opinionis expressed by the speakers, Atherton may be understoodas setting forth what we ourselves deem the truth of thematter. Some passages in these volumes, and the substance of the chapters on Quietism, have made their appearance previously in the pages of one of our quarterlyperiodicals.It should be borne in mind that my design does not require of me that I should give an account of all who areanywhere known to have entertained mystical speculation,or given themselves to mystical practice. I have endea-X Preface.•voured to pourtray and estimate those who have madeepochs in the history of Mysticism, those who are fair representatives of its stages or transitions, those whose enthusiasm has been signally benign or notoriously baneful.Ihave either mentioned by name only, or passed by insilence, the followers or mere imitators of such men, andthose mystics also whose obscure vagaries neither produced any important result nor present any remarkablephænomena. Only by resolute omission on this principle,has it been possible to preserve in any measure that historical perspective so essential to the truth of such delineations.The fact that the ground I traverse lies almost whollyunoccupied, might be pleaded on behalf ofmy undertaking.The history of Mysticism has been but incidentally touchedby English writers. Germanypossesses many monographsofunequal value on detached parts of the subject. Onlyrecently has a complete account of Christian Mysticismappeared, at all on a level with the latest results of historical inquiry. * This laborious compilation presents thedry bones of doctrinal opinion, carefully separated fromactual life a grave defect in any branch of ecclesiastical history, absolutely fatal to intelligibility and readableness in this. If we except the researches of the Ger

• Die christliche Mystik. Von Dr. Ludwig Noack. Königsberg.

Preface.ximans into their own mediæval Mysticism, it may be trulysaid that the little done in England has been better donethanthe much in Germany. The Mysticism of the NeoPlatonists has found a powerful painter in Mr. Kingsley.The Mysticism of Bernard meets with a wise and kindlycritic in Sir James Stephen.If, then, the subject of this book be neither insignificantin itself, nor exhausted by the labours of others, my enterprise at least is not unworthy, however questionable itssuccess .February 1st, 1856.THE AUTHOR.

CONTENTS TO VOL. I.BOOK I. INTRODUCTION.CHAP. I. Henry AthertonLionel GowerFrank WilloughbyII. Connexion of the ArtsPAGE368IIMysticism in an EmblemHistory13. 17DefinitionsIII. EtymologyWho are Mystics?Christian MysticismIV. Causes of Mysticism .1923242729Reaction against FormalismWeariness of the World .3032The Fascination of Mystery 35V. Classification of Mystics . 38Théopathetic Mysticism . 41Theosophy 44Theurgy . 52BOOK II.-EARLY ORIENTAL MYSTICISM.CHAP. I. The Bagvat- GitaII . Characteristics of Hindoo Mysticism .The Yogis .576163xiv Contents.BOOK III. - THE MYSTICISM OF THE NEOPLATONISTS.PAGECHAP. I. Philo .The TherapeutæAsceticism697274II. Plotinus . 76Alexandria . 78EclecticismPlatonism and Neo- PlatonismPlotinus on EcstasyIII. Neo-Platonism in the Christian ChurchAnalogies between Ancient and Modern Specu81838791lation 93Intuition . 95Theurgy .97IV. Porphyry 100Philosophy seeks to rescue Polytheism 103Theurgic Mysticism of Iamblichus 1юбProclus 112BOOK IV.-MYSTICISM IN THE GREEK CHURCH.CHAP. I. Saint AntonyThe Pseudo-DionysiusII. The Hierarchies of DionysiusThe Via Negativa .Virtues human and superhumanStagnation118120122125131132BOOK V.-MYSTICISM IN THE LATIN CHURCH.CHAP. I. Intellectual Activity of the West 139The Services of Platonism 140Clairvaux 141The Mysticism of Bernard . 145Mysticism opposed to Scholasticism 151Moderation ofBernard 153Contents.CHAP. II. Hugo of St. VictorXVPAGE156Mysticism combined with Scholasticism 158The Eye of Contemplation 160Richard of St. Victor . 163The Six Wings of Contemplation 166The Truth and the Error of Mystical Abstraction 169The Inner Light and the Outer. 170BOOK VI. -GERMAN MYSTICISM IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.CHAP. I. The Chronicle of Adolf Arnstein of Strasburg . 182Hermann of Fritzlar and his Legends . 183The Heretics of the Rhineland . 185The Preaching of Master Eckart 189From the Known God to the Unknown . 191Disinterested Love 193Eckart's Story of the Beggar 197Ju-ju .The nameless WildII. The Doctrine of Eckart discussedResemblance to HegelPantheism Old and New .199201.203206208III. The Interdict 213Henry of Nördlingen . 217Insurrection in Strasburg 218The Friends of God 225Tauler on the Image of God 227His DisgraceHis RestorationIV. Tauler's DisappearanceThe People comforted and the Pope defiedV. Nicholas of Basle and TaulerThe Theology of TaulerHis Advice to MysticsEstimate of his Doctrine231235236237241246252255xvi Contents.PAGECHAP. VI. The Black Death . 262The Flagellants . 265AVisit to Ruysbroek at Grünthal 274Ruysbroek on Mystical Union 277Heretical Mystics 279Ecclesiastical Corruption . 281VII. Heinrich Suso 285His Austerities . 289His Visions 290His Adventures . 292The Monks of Mount Athos . • 299VIII. Nicholas of Basle 302BrigittaAngela de FoligniCatharine of Siena .The ' German Theology'The ' Imitation of Christ'Gerson304.305306309310311BOOK VII. -PERSIAN MYSTICISM IN THEMIDDLE AGE.CHAP. I. The Sufis; their Mystical PoetryNOTES .320Mystical Poetry in the West; Angelus Silesius 322R. W. Emerson 325II. Rabia 327The Oriental and the Western Mysticism compared 331347-404ERRATA.Page 128, line 12 frombottom, for mystical read mythical.4 دو 400, دو" top, siu underz " " siu nit anderz .BOOK THE FIRST.INTRODUCTION.VOL. I. B

3ITCHAPTER I.Wie fruchtbar ist der kleinste Kreis,Wenn man ihn wohl zu pflegen weiss. *GOETHE.T was on the evening of a November day that threefriends sat about their after-dinner table, chatting overtheir wine and walnuts, while the fire with its huge logcrackled and sparkled, and the wind without moanedabout the corners ofthe house.Everyone is aware that authors have in their studies anunlimited supply of rings of Gyges, coats of darkness,tarn-caps, and other means of invisibility, that they havethe key to every house, and can hear and see words andactions the most remote. Come with me, then, kindlyreader, and let us look and listen unseen; we have freeleave; and you must know these gentlemen better.First of all, the host. See him leaning back in hischair, and looking into the fire, one hand unconsciouslysmoothing with restless thumb and finger the taper stemof his wineglass, the other playing with the ears of afavourite dog. He appears about thirty years of age, istall, but loses something of his real height by a student's

• How fruitful may the smallest circle grow,

Ifwe the secret of its culture know.B24 [B. I. Introduction.stoop about the shoulders. Those decided, almost shaggyeyebrows he has would lead you to expect quick, piercingeyes, the eyes of the observant man of action. But nowthat he looks toward us, you see instead eyes of hazel,large, slow- rolling, often dreamy in their gaze, such forsize and lustre as Homer gives to ox-eyed Juno. Themouth, too, and the nose are delicately cut. Their outlineindicates taste rather than energy. Yet that massive jaw,again, gives promise of quiet power,-betokens a strengthof that sort, most probably, which can persevere in a courseonce chosen with indomitable steadiness, but is not anagile combative force, inventive in assaults and rejoicingin adventurous leadership. Men of his species resemblefountains, whose water-column a sudden gust ofwind maydrive aslant, or scatter in spray across the lawn, but-theviolence once past-they play upward as truly and asstrong as ever.Perhaps it is a pity that this Henry Atherton is so richas he is,-owns his Ashfield House, with its goodlygrounds, and has never been forced into active professionallife, with its rough collisions and straining anxieties.Abundance of leisure is a trial to which few men are equal.Graywas in the right when he said that something moreof genius than common was required to teach aman howto employ himself. My friend became early his own taskmaster, and labours harder from choice than many fromnecessity. To high attainment as a classical scholar hehas added a critical acquaintance with the literature andthe leading languages of modern Europe. Upstairs is anoble library, rich especially in historical authorities, andthere Atherton works, investigating now one historicquestion, now another, endeavouring out of old, yellow-C. I.] Atherton at Ashfield. 5faced annals to seize the precious passages which suggestthe life of a time, and recording the result of all in pilesofmanuscript.How often have I and Gower-that youngest of thethree, on the other side, with the moustache-urged himto write a book. But he waits, and, with his fastidiousness, will always wait, I am afraid, till he has practicallysolved this problem;-given a subject in remote history ,for which not ten of your friends care a straw; requiredsuch a treatment of it as shall at once be relished by themany and accredited as standard by the few. So, thinkingit useless to write what scarcely anyone will read, anddespairing of being ever erudite and popular at the sametime, he is content to enquire and to accumulate in mosthappy obscurity. Doubtless the world groans under itsmany books, yet it misses some good ones that wouldassuredly be written if able men with the ambition wereoftener possessed of the time required, or if able men withthe time were oftener possessed of the ambition.You ask me, ' Who is this Gower? 'An artist. Atherton met with him at Rome, where hewas tracing classic sites, and Gower worshipping the oldmasters. Their pathways chanced on one or two occasionsto coincide, and by little and little they grew fast friends.They travelled through Germany together on their wayhome, and found their friendship robust enough to survivethe landing on our British shore. Unquestionably thepictured Vatican, sunny Forum, brown Campagna, garlanded baths of Caracalla, with quaint, ingenious Nuremburg, and haunted Hartz, made common memories forboth. But this was not all. Atherton had found theyoung painter in a sentimental fever. He raved about6 Introduction. [B. I.Shelley; he was full of adoration for the flimsiest abstractions-enamoured of impersonations the most impalpable;he discoursed in high strain on the dedication of life as aHymn to Intellectual Beauty. The question of questionswith him concerned not Truth or Fable, but the Beautifulor the Not-Beautiful. Whatever charmed his taste wasfrom Ormuzd, the Good: whatever revolted it, fromAhriman, the Evil; and so the universe was summarilyparted. He fancied he was making art religious, while, infact, he made religion a mere branch of art, and thatbranch, of all others, the most open to individual caprice.From these wanderings Atherton reclaimed him, wisely,and therefore almost insensibly. Gower never forgot theservice. In his admiration for Atherton, when fullyconscious of it, he little suspected that he, too, had conferred a benefit in his turn. Atherton had looked toomuch within, as Gower too exclusively without. Acertainimaginative, even poetical element, dormant in the mindof the former, was resuscitated by this friendship.Gower rejoices in the distressingly novelish Christianname of Lionel. Why will parents give names to theiroffspring which are sure to entail ridicule during the mostsusceptible period of existence? No sooner did youngLionel enter school, with that delicate red- and-white complexion, and long curling hair, than he was nicknamedNelly. But he fought his way stoutly till he won atitlefrom the first part of his name rather than the last, and inschool traditions figures still as Lion, royally grim andnoble. That open countenance and high forehead, withthe deep piercing eyes set rather far apart, constitute notmerely a promising physiognomy for the artist, they bearfaithful witness to mental power and frankness of cha-C. I.] Lionel Gower. 7racter, to practical sagacity and force. In one respectonlycan he be charged with asserting in his personhisprofessional pretensions, his hair is parted in the middle,falling in natural waves on either side; long enough, asyour eye tells you, for grace; too short for affectation.One quality in Gower Ihave always especially liked,-his universality. Not that he sets up for Encyclopædism;on the contrary, he laments more than he need the scantiness of his knowledge and his want of time for its enlargement. What I mean is that with every kind ofenquiry, every province of culture, he seems to haveintuitively the readiest sympathy. Though his notion ofthe particular art or science may be only cursory andgeneral, his imagination puts him in some way in theplace of its exclusive devotees, and he enters into theirfeelings till their utmost worship appears scarcely excessiveto him. I have heard such votaries pour out unreservedlyinto his ear, as into that of a brother enthusiast, all thosedelightful details of adventure, of hope and fear, ofresearch and of conjecture, which make the very life ofthe most minute or the most arid pursuits, and whichbooks impart to us so rarely. And all this (making theworld to him such awide one) without taking aught fromhis allegiance to painting. Already have his genius andhis diligence achieved success-you will find his picturesrealizing high prices and that snug little box of his, onlyten minutes' walk from Ashfield, is furnished much toohandsomely to accord with the popular idea of what mustbe the residence of a young artist, five-and-twenty, butnewly started in his profession, and with all his ' expectations ' gathered up within his brush.The third member of the trio, Mr. Author, has not8 [B. I. Introduction.certainly the personal advantages of our friend Gower. Isuppose you expect me to say ' our' now, if only as acompliment. Yet stay-a very expressive face, with agenial hearty look about it;-there! now he is smiling,that rather clumsy mouth is quite pleasant; but he letstoo much beard grow for my taste.'Bearded Willoughby, O Reader, is a literary man, aconfirmed bachelor, they say; and encrusted with someroughnesses and oddities which conceal from the eyes ofstrangers his real warmth of heart and delicacy of feeling.His parents destined him for the Church from thosetender years wherein the only vocation manifest is thatwhich summons boyhood to peg-top andjam tart. Whenthe time drew near in which he should have taken orders,Willoughby went up to London, brimful of eager philanthropy, of religious doubts, and of literary ambition, tobecome one of the High-priests of Letters. His first workwas a novel to illustrate the mission of the literaryPriesthood, a topsy-turvy affair, but dashingly clever-bytheway, youcan scarcely offend him more thantomentionit now;-with this book he succeeded in producing asensation, and the barrier thus passed, his pen has foundfull employment ever since. He has now abandoned theextravagances of hero-worship, and I have even heard himintimate a doubt as to whether ' able editors' were, afterall, the great, divinely-accredited hierophants of thespecies.At present Willoughby is occupied, as time allows, withaphilosophical romance, in which are to be embodied hisviews of society as it is and as it should be. Thisdesperate enterprise is quite a secret; even Atherton andGowerknow nothing of it; so you will not mention it, ifC. I.] Frank Willoughby. 9you please, to more than half-a-dozen of your most intimate friends.Willoughby was first introduced to Atherton as theauthor of some articles in favour of certain social reformsin which the latter had deeply interested himself. Soremarkable were these papers for breadth, discrimination,and vivacity of style, that the admiring Atherton couldnot rest till he had made the acquaintance of the writer.The new combatant awakened general attention, andFrank Willoughby was on the point of becoming a lion.But his conversational powers were inconsiderable. Hisbest thoughts ran with his ink from the point of the pen.So Atherton, with little difficulty, carried him off from thelion-hunters.The three friends were agreed that the crowninglocality of all for any mortal was a residence a few milesfrom town, with congenial neighbours close at hand,-ahouse or two where one might drop in for an evening atany time. As was their theory so was their practice, andthe two younger men are often to be found in the eveningatAtherton's, sometimes in the library with him, sometimes in thedrawing-room, with the additional enjoymentafforded by the society of his fair young wife and hersister.But while I have beenBoswellizing to you about thepast history of these friends of mine, you cannot haveheard a word they have been saying. Now I will bequiet, let us listen.ACHAPTER II.Philosophy itselfSmacks of the age it lives in, nor is trueSave by the apposition of the present.And truths of olden time, though truths they be,And living through all time eternal truths,Yet want the seas'ning and applying handWhich Nature sends successive. Else the needOfwisdom should wear out and wisdom cease,Since needless wisdom were not to be wise.EDWIN THE FAIR.THERTON. Apleasant little knot to set us, Gower,-to determine the conditions of your art.WILLOUGHBY. And after dinner, too, of all times.GOWER. Why not? If the picture-critics would onlywrite their verdicts after dinner, many a poor victim wouldfind his dinner prospects brighter. This is the genialhour; the very time to discuss æsthetics, where genialityis everything.WILLOUGHBY. Do you remember that passage in oneof our old plays (I think it was in Lamb I saw it), wherethe crazed father asks all sorts of impossible things fromthe painter. He wants him to make the tree shriek onwhich his murdered son hangs ghastly in the moonlight.GOWER. Salvator has plenty of them, splintered withshrieking.WILLOUGHBY. But this man's frenzy demands moreThe Powers ofArt. IIyet:-make me cry, make me mad, make me well again,and in the end leave me in a trance, and so forth.ATHERTON. Fortunate painter-a picture gallery ordered in a breath!WILLOUGHBY. By no means. Nowdoes this request,whenyou come to think of it, so enormously violate theconditions of the art? Seriously, I should state thematter thus:-The artist is limited to a moment only, andyet is the greater artist in proportion as he cannot onlyadequately occupy, but even transcend that moment.GOWER. I agree with you. Painting reaches its highestaimwhen it carries us beyond painting; when it is notmerely itself a creation, but makes the spectator creative,and prompts him with the antecedents and the consequents of the represented action.ATHERTON. But all are not equal to the reception ofsuch suggestions.GOWER. And so, with unsusceptible minds, we must besatisfied if they praise us for our imitation merely.WILLOUGHBY. Yet even they will derive more pleasure,though unable to account for it, from works of this higherorder. Those, assuredly, are the masterpieces of art, inany branch, which are, as it were, triumphal arches thatlead us out into the domain of some sister art. Whenpoetry pourtrays with the painter,-GOWER. My favourite, Spenser, to wit.-WILLOUGHBY. When painting sings its story with theminstrel, and when music paints and sings with both,they are at their height. Take music, for instance. Whatscenes does some fine overture suggest, even when youknow nothing of its design, as you close your eyes andyield to its influence. The events, or the reading of the12 [B. I. Introduction.previous day, the incidents of history or romance, arewrought up with glorious transfigurations, and you are inthe land of dreams at once. Some of them rise beforeme at this moment, vivid as ever:-now I see the fairdamosels of the olden time on their palfreys, prancing onthe sward beside a castle gate, while silver trumpets blow';then, as the music changes, I hear cries far off on forlornand haunted moors; now it is the sea, and there sets thesun, red, through the ribs of a wrecked hull, that cross itlike skeleton giant bars. There is one passage in theoverture to Fra Diavolo, during which I always emerge,through ocean caves, in some silken palace of the east,where the music rises and rains in the fountains, andethereally palpitates in their wavering rainbows. Butdream-scenery of this sort is familiar to most persons atsuch times.GOWER. I have often revelled in it.WILLOUGHBY. And what is true for so many with regard to music, may sometimes be realized on seeingpictures.ATHERTON. Only, I think, in a way still more accidentaland arbitrary. An instance, however, of the thing youmention did happen to me last week. I had been readingaGermanwriter on mysticism, searching, after many disappointments, for a satisfactory definition of it. Pageafter page of metaphysical verbiage did I wade throughin vain. At last, what swarms of labouring words hadleft as obscure as ever, a picture seemed to disclose to mein amoment. I saw that evening, at a friend's house, apainting which revealed to me, as I imagined, the veryspirit of mysticism in a figure; it was a visible emblem orhieroglyph of that mysterious religious affection.c . 2.] An Emblem of Mysticism. 13WILLOUGHBY. Your own subjectivity forged both lockand key together, I suspect.GOWER. What in the world did the piece represent?ATHERTON. I will describe it as well as I can. Itwasthe interior of a Spanish cathedral. The most prominentobject in the foreground below was the mighty foot of astaircase, with a balustrade of exceeding richness, which,in its ascent, crosses and recrosses the picture till itshighest flight is lost in darkness, for on that side thecathedral is built against a hill. A half-light slanteddown-a sunbeam through the vast misty space-from awindow without the range of the picture. At variousstages of the mounting stairway figures on pillars, bearingescutcheons, saints and kings infretted niches, and paintedshapes of gules and azure from the lofty window in theeast, looked down on those who were ascending, some inbrightness, some in shadow. At the foot of the stairswere two couchant griffins of stone, with expanded spinywings, arched necks fluted with horny armour, and openthreateningjaws.GOWER. Now for the interpretation of your parable instone.ATHERTON. It represented to me the mystic's progress-my mind was full of that his initiation, his ascent, hisconsummation in self-loss. First of all the aspirant,whether he seeks superhuman knowledge or superhumanlove, is confronted at the outset by terrible shapes-theDwellers of the Threshold, whether the cruelty of asceticism, the temptations of the adversary, or the phantoms ofhis own feverish brain. This fiery baptism manfully endured, he begins to mount through alternate glooms andilluminations; now catching a light from some source14 Introduction. [B. I.beyond the grosser organs of ordinary men, again in darkness and barren drought of soul. The saintly memories ofadepts and ofheroes in these mystic labours are the faithful witnesses that cheer him at each stage, whose farglories beaconhim from their place of high degree as herises step by step. Are not those first trials fairly symbolized by my griffins, those vicissitudes of the soul bysuch light and shadow, and those exalted spectators bythe statues of my stairway and the shining ones of myoriel window? Then for the climax. The aim of themystic, if of the most abstract contemplative type, is tolose himself in the Divine Dark¹-to escape from everything definite, everything palpable, everything human,into the Infinite Fulness; which is, at the same time, the' intense inane. ' The profoundest obscurity is his highestglory; he culminates in darkness; for is not the deathlikemidnight slumber of the sense, he will ask us, the wakeful noonday of the spirit? So, as I looked on the picture,I seemed to lose sight of him where the summit of thestair was lost among the shadows crouched under theroof of that strange structure.GOWER. I perceive the analogy. I owe you thanks forenabling me to attach at least some definite idea to theword mysticism. I confess I have generally used theterm mystical to designate anything fantastically unintelligible, without giving to it any distinct significance.WILLOUGHBY. I have always been partial to the mystics, Imust say. They appear to me to have been theconservators of the poetry and heart of religion, especiallyin opposition to the dry prose and formalism of the schoolmen.ATHERTON. So they really were in great measure.C. 2.] Mysticism has its Lessons. 15They did good service, many of them, in their day-theirveryerrors often such as were possible only to great souls.Still their notions concerning special revelation and immediate intuition ofGodwere grievous mistakes.WILLOUGHBY. Yet without the ardour imparted bysuchdoctrines, they might have lacked the strength requisite to withstand misconceptions far more mischievous.ATHERTON. Very likely. We shouldhave moremercyon the one-sidedness of men, if we reflected oftener thatthe evil we condemn may be in fact keeping out somemuch greater evil on the other side.WILLOUGHBY. Ithink one may learn agreat deal fromsuch erratic or morbid kinds of religion. Almost all weare in a position to say, concerning spiritual influence,consists of negatives and what that influence is not wecan best gather from these abnormal phases of the mind.Certainly an impartial estimate of the good and of theevil wrought by eminent mystics, would prove a veryinstructive occupation; it would be a trying of the spiritsby their fruits.GOWER. And all the more useful as the mistakes ofmysticism, whatever they may be, are mistakes concerningquestions which we all feel it so important to have rightlyanswered; committed, too, by men of like passions withourselves, so that whatwas danger to them maybe dangeralso to some of us, in an altered form.ATHERTON. Unquestionably. Rationalism overratesreason, formalism action, and mysticism feeling-hencethe common attributes of the last, heat and obscurity.But a tendency to excess in each of these three directionsmust exist in every age among the cognate varieties ofmind. You remember how Pindar frequently introduces16 Introduction [B. I. .into an ode two opposite mythical personages, such as aPelops or a Tantalus, an Ixion or aPerseus, one ofwhomshall resemble the great man addressed by the poet in hisworse, the other in his better characteristics; that thus hemay be at once encouraged and deterred. Deeper lessonsthan were drawn for Hiero from the characters of theheroic age may be learnt by us from the religious strugglesof the past. It would be impossible to study the positionof the old mystics without being warned and stimulatedby a weakness and a strength to which our nature corresponds;-unless, indeed, the enquiry were conductedunsympathizingly; with cold hearts, as far from the faithof the mystics as from their follies.GOWER. If we are likely to learn in this way from suchan investigation, suppose we agree to set about it, and atonce.ATHERTON. With all my heart. I have gone a littleway in this direction alone; I should be very glad to havecompany upon the road.WILLOUGHBY. An arduous task, whenyou come to lookit in the face,-to determine that narrow line between thegenuine ardour of the Christian and the overwroughtfervours of the mystical devotee, to enter into thephilosophy of such a question; and that with a terminology so misleading and so defective as the best at ourservice. It will be like shaping the second hand ofawatch with a pair of shears, I promise you. We shallfind continually tracts of ground belonging to one of therival territories of True and False inlaid upon the regionsof the other, like those patches from a distant shire thatlie in the middle of some of our counties. Many of thewords we must employ to designate a certain cast of mindc. 2.] The Testimony ofHistory. 17or opinion are taken from some accidental feature ortransitory circumstance,-express no real characteristic ofthe idea in question. They indicate our ignorance, likethe castles with large flags, blazoned with the arms ofsovereigns, which the old monkish geographers set downin their maps of Europe to stand instead of the rivers,towns, and mountains of an unknown interior.ATHERTON. True enough; but we must do the best wecan. We should never enter on any investigation a littlebeneath the surface of things if we considered all thedifficulties so gravely. Besides, we are not going to be soponderously philosophical about the matter. The factsthemselves will be our best teachers, as they arise, and aswe arrange them when they accumulate.History fairly questioned is no Sphinx. She tells uswhat kind of teaching has been fruitful in blessing tohumanity, and why; and what has been a mere boastfulpromise or powerless formula. She is the true test ofevery system, and the safeguard of her disciples fromtheoretical or practical extravagance. Were her largelessons learned, from how many foolish hopes and fearswould they save men! We should not then see a fanaticalconfidence placed in pet theories for the summary expulsion of all superstition, wrongfulness, and ill-will,-theorieswhose prototypes failed ages back: neither would goodChristian folk be so frightened as some of them are atthe seemingly novel exhibitions of unbelief in our time.WILLOUGHBY. A great gain to be above both panicand presumption. I have never heartily given myself toa historic study without realizing some such twofoldadvantage. It animated and it humbled me. How minutemy power; but how momentous to me its conscientiousVOL. I. C18 [B. I. Introduction.exercise! I will hunt this mystical game with you, orany other, rignt willingly; all the more so, if we can keeptrue to a historic rather than theoretical treatment of thesubject.GOWER. As to practical details, then:-I propose thatwe have no rules.WILLOUGHBY. Certainly not; away with formalities;let us be Thelemites, and do as we like. We can takeup this topic as a bye-work, to furnish us with someconsecutive pursuit in those intervals of time we are soapt to waste. We canmeet-never mind at what intervals,from a week to three months and throw into the commonstock of conversation our several reading on the questionsinhand.ATHERTON. Or one of us may take up some individualor period; write down his thoughts; and we will assemblethen to hear and talk the matter over.GOWER. Very good. And if Mrs. Atherton and MissMerivale will sometimes deign to honour our eveningswith their society, our happiness will be complete.This mention of the ladies reminds our friends of thetime, and they are breaking up to join them.The essays and dialogues which follow have their originin the conversation to which we have just listened.CCHAPTER III.If we entertain the inward man in the purgative and illuminativeway, that is, in actions of repentance, virtue, and precise duty, that isthe surest way of uniting us to God, whilst it is done by faith andobedience; and that also is love; and in these peace and safety dwell.And after we have done our work, it is not discretion in a servant tohasten to his meal, and snatch at the refreshment of visions, unions,and abstractions; but first we must gird ourselves, and wait upon themaster, and not sit down ourselves, till we all be called at the greatsupper of the Lamb.-JEREMY TAYLOR.'SO, we are to be etymological to-night,' exclaimed Gower, as he stepped forward to join Willoughbyin his inspection of a great folio which Atherton had laidopen on a reading desk, ready to entertain his friends .6What says Suidas about our word mysticism? 'WILLOUGHBY. I see the old lexicographer derives theoriginal word from the root mu, to close: the secret ritesand lessons of the Greek mysteries were things aboutwhich the mouth was to be closed.¹GOWER. Wehave the very same syllable in our languagefor the same thing-only improved in expressiveness bythe addition of another letter, we say, ' to be mum. 'ATHERTON. Well, this settles one whole class of significations at once. The term mystical may be applied inthis sense to any secret language or ritual which is understood only by the initiated. In this way the philosophersborrowed the word figuratively from the priests, andc220 Introduction [B. I. .applied it to their inner esoteric doctrines. The disciple admitted to these was a philosophical ' myst,' ormystic.WILLOUGHBY. The next step is very obvious. Thefamily of words relating to mystery, initiation, &c. , areadopted into the ecclesiastical phraseology of the earlyChristian world,-not in the modified use of them occasionally observable in St. Paul, but with their old Pagansignificance .GOWER. So that the exclusive and aristocratic spirit ofGreek culture re-appears in Christianity?ATHERTON. Just so. Thus you see the church doorsshutting out the catechumens from beholding ' the mystery'(as they came to call the Eucharist, par excellence) quiteas rigidly as the brazen gates of Eleusis excluded the profane many. You hear Theodoret and Ambrosespeaking freely before the uninitiated on moral subjects,but concerning the rites they deemed of mysterious,almost magical efficacy, they will deliver only obscureutterances to such auditors; their language is purposelydark and figurative, suggestive to the initiated, unintelligible to the neophyte. How often, on approachingthe subject of the sacrament, does Chrysostom stop shortin his sermon, and break off abruptly with the formula,-' the initiated will understand what I mean. ' So Christianity, corrupted by Gentile philosophy, has in like mannerits privileged and its inferior order of votaries, becomesa respecter of persons, with arbitrary distinction makestwo kinds of religion out of one, and begins to nourishwith fatal treachery its doctrine of reserve.2WILLOUGHBY. But Suidas has here, I perceive, a secondmeaning in store for us. This latter, I suspect, is mostc. 3.] History ofthe Word Mysticism.21to our purpose,-it is simply an extension of the former.He refers the word to the practice of closing as completelyas possible every avenue of perception by the senses, forthe purpose of withdrawing the mind from everything external into itself, so as to fit it (raised above every sensuousrepresentation) for receiving divine illumination immediately from above.GOWER. Platonic abstraction, in fact.ATHERTON. So it seems. The Neo-Platonist was accustomed to call every other branch of science the ' lessermysteries: ' this inward contemplation, the climax of Platonism, is the great mystery, the inmost, highest initiation.Withdraw into thyself, he will say, and the adytum ofthine own soul will reveal to thee profounder secrets thanthe cave of Mithras. So that his mysticus is emphaticallythe enclosed, self-withdrawn, introverted man. This isan initiation which does not merely, like that of Isis or ofCeres, close the lips in silence, but the eye, the ear, everyfaculty of perception, in inward contemplation or in theecstatic abstraction of the trance.WILLOUGHBY. So then it is an effort man is to makeinharmonywith the matter- hating principles of this school-to strip off the material and sensuous integuments of hisbeing, and to reduce himself to a purely spiritual element.And in thus ignoring the follies and the phantasms ofAppearance-as they call the actual world-the worshipper of pure Being believed himself to enjoy at least atransitory oneness with the object of his adoration?ATHERTON. SO Plotinus would say, if not Plato. Andnow we come to the transmission of the idea and theexpression to the Church. A writer, going by the nameofDionysius the Areopagite, ferries this shade over into22 Introduction . [B. I.the darkness visible of the ecclesiastical world in the fifthcentury. The system of mystical theology introduced byhim was eminently adapted to the monastic and hierarchical tendencies of the time. His ' Mystic' is notmerely a sacred personage, acquainted with the doctrinesand participator in the rites called mysteries, but one alsowho (exactly after the Neo- Platonist pattern) bymortifyingthe body, closing the senses to everything external, andignoring every ' intellectual apprehension,' attains inpassivity a divine union, and in ignorance awisdom transcending all knowledge.GOWER. Prepared to say, I suppose, with one of oldGeorge Chapman's charactersI'll build all inward-not alight shall opeThe common out-way.-I'll therefore live in dark; and all my light,Like ancient temples, let in at my top.WILLOUGHBY. Not much light either. The mystic, assuch, was not to know anything about the Infinite, he was' to gaze with closed eyes,' passively to receive impressions,lost in the silent, boundless ' Dark' of the Divine Subsistence.ATHERTON. This, then, is our result. The philosophicalperfection ofAlexandria and the monastic perfection ofByzantium belong to the same species. Philosophers andmonks alike employ the word mysticism and its cognateterms as involving the idea, not merely of initiation intosomething hidden, but, beyond this, of an internal manifestation of the Divine to the intuition or in the feeling ofthe secluded soul. It is in this last and narrower sense,therefore, that the word is to be understood when wespeak of mystical death, mystical illumination, mysticalc. 3.] Definitions. 23union with God, and, in fact, throughout the phraseologyofwhat is specially termed Theologia Mystica.GOWER. I have often been struck by the surprisingvariety in the forms of thought and the modes of actionin which mysticism has manifested itself among differentnations and at different periods. This arises, I shouldthink, from its residing in so central a province of themind-the feeling. It has been incorporated in theism,atheism, and pantheism. It has given men gods at everystep, and it has denied all deity except self. It has appeared in the loftiest speculation and in the grossest idolatry. It has been associated with the wildest licence andwiththe most pitiless asceticism. It has driven men outinto action, it has dissolved them in ecstasy, it has frozenthem to torpor.ATHERTON. Hence the difficulty of definition. I haveseen none which quite satisfies me. Some include only aparticular phase of it, while others so define its provinceas to stigmatise as mystical every kind of religiousnesswhich rises above the zero of rationalism.WILLOUGHBY. The Germans have two words for mysticism-mystik and mysticismus. The former they usein a favourable, the latter in an unfavourable sense.-GOWER. Just as we say piety and pietism, or rationality and rationalism; keeping the first of each pair forthe use, the second for the abuse. A convenience, don'tyou think?ATHERTON. If the adjective were distinguishable likethe nouns-but it is not; and to have a distinction in theprimitive and not in the derivative word is always confusing. But we shall keep to the usage of our own language. I suppose we shall all be agreed in employing the24 [B. I. Introduction.wordmysticism in the unfavourable signification, as equivalent generally to spirituality diseased, grown unnatural,fantastic, and the like.-GOWER. At the same time admitting the true worth ofmany mystics, and the real good and truth of which sucherrors are the exaggeration or caricature.ATHERTON. Most certainly. What the Germans callmystik in the good sense is simply true religion-vitalgodliness,-heart-work, as our old divines term it; andthat we shall entitle, not mysticism, but genuine spirituality.GOWER. Come, then, since you are to be judge, let mebring some prisoners to your bar. Silence in the courtthere!Here is a man who humbly studies the word of God,and strives to follow it, believing that he shall receive thepromised assistance of the Holy Spirit to enlighten hisunderstanding, touch his heart, and guide his conduct bythe dictates of an instructed conscience. Guilty of mysticism or not guilty?ATHERTON. Does he, under such expectation of divineinfluence, neglect any ordinary helps to spiritual progress?Does he believe that the notion he gets of a passage afterearnest prayer is infallibly the right one, though he maynot have exercised diligence in comparing scripture withscripture, or in availing himself of the best instruction orassistance within his reach?GOWER. Says he hopes not.ATHERTON. While believing in spiritual influence, doeshedomore, and profess to discern in particular thoughts,frames, impulses, and inward witnessings, immediate communications from heaven, and extraordinary manifestationsc. 3.] Who are Mystics? 25tohim personally? Does he build on such things as distinguishing him with peculiar favour, or make his ownexperiences a code of law unto himself?GOWER. Never dared to do so; does not believe in special revelation to individuals apart from what he calls thegeneral testimony of the Spirit to the word.ATHERTON. Can you call good evidence to character?GOWER. First-rate.ATHERTON. Acquitted, with honour.WILLOUGHBY. My lord, I've a manhere for trial, whosegreat idea seems to be the union of the believer with God-participation in the Divine Nature.ATHERTON. Is it a living union of heart to Christ-aspiritual fellowship or converse with the Father-someshare morally in the divine hatred of sin and love of holiness?WILLOUGBY. Much more than this; his aim is an immediate identity of nature, a substantial union with God, theloss ofhis personality in the divine.ATHERTON. How does he try to attain this elevation?WILLOUGHBY. Says he has tried various methodsascetic practices, first of all; sometimes by a contemplative intellectual intuition; sometimes in a tumult of emotion; sometimes in a vision of glory; sometimes, also, hebelieves he has reached his object by feeling as though allhe said and did was performed literally by God in him.He says he knows what it is to have lost all volition, allknowledge, and has seemed to lapse into an infinite void,and this Nothing is his name for the All, or God.ATHERTON. Why, the man has three sorts of mysticismat least in his own single person. Guilty, guilty!GOWER. Here is one more, please your worship. He26 [B. I. Introduction.says he's a man of the spirit, not of the letter, and thatSt. John is a very particular friend of his . He has a greatdislike of dry morality, theological formulas, dogmaticalpedantry of system-building, and so forth.ATHERTON. Is that all?GOWER. He banishes knowledge and argument from hisreligion entirely, says the more indefinite a religiousidea, the more divine,-discards all doctrine as slavish literalism, and will have no external revelation whatever, onlythe inward light of his intuitions.ATHERTON. Then he does not hold to letter and spirit,but to spirit without letter, will supersede, not impregnate, the rational element with the emotional,-will havethe scent of the rose without the flower, the effect withoutthe cause. Is that it?GOWER. SO I understand him. He is nearer to pantheism, as it seems to me, than the last prisoner; for, whileboth confound divine and human, finite and infinite, thisone destroys, not his own personality, to resolve it intoGod, but that of God, to resolve it into his own.ATHERTON. No great difference philosophically; morallythere may be much.GOWER. He will be subject to no law without him, hesays, glories in a rampant subjectivity.ATHERTON. Guilty, beyond question.GOWER. This imaginary tribunal of ours, summary asit is, has cleared the subject not a little. I doubt ifany attempt at definition would have been so serviceable.ATHERTON. To leave particular instances, I think wemay say thus much generally-that mysticism, whether inreligion or philosophy, is that form of error which misc. 3.] Christian Mysticism. 27takes for a divine manifestation the operations of a merelyhumanfaculty.WILLOUGHBY. There you define, at any rate, the characteristic misconception of the mystics.GOWER. And include, if I mistake not, enthusiasts, withtheir visions; pretended prophets, with their claim of inspiration; wonder-workers, trusting to the divine powerresident in their theurgic formulas; and the philosopherswho believe themselves organs of the world-soul, and theirsystems an evolution of Deity.ATHERTON. Yes, so far; but I do not profess to giveany definition altogether adequate. Speaking of Christianmysticism, I should describe it generally as the exaggeration of that aspect of Christianitywhich is presented to usby St. John.GOWER. That answer provokes another question. Howshould you characterize John's peculiar presentation ofthe Gospel?ATHERTON. I refer chiefly to that admixture of the contemplative temperament and the ardent, by which he ispersonally distinguished,-the opposition so manifest inhis epistles to all religion of mere speculative opinion oroutward usage, the concentration of Christianity, as itwere, upon the inward life derived from union with Christ.This would seem to be the province of Christian truthespecially occupied by the beloved disciple, and this is theprovince which mysticism has in so manyways usurped.GOWER. Truly that unction from the Holy One, ofwhich John speaks, has found some strange claimants!WILLOUGHBY. Thus much I think is evident from ourenquiry-that mysticism, true to its derivation as denotinga hidden knowledge, faculty, or life (the exclusive privi28 [B. I. Introduction.lege of sage, adept, or recluse), presents itself, in all itsphases, as more or less the religion of internal as opposedto external revelation, of heated feeling, sickly sentiment,or lawless imagination, as opposed to that reasonable beliefin which the intellect and the heart, the inward witnessand the outward, are alike engaged.CHAPTER IV.The desire of the moth for the star,Of the night for the morrow,The devotion to something afarFrom the sphere of our sorrow.SHELLEY.WILLOUGHBY. Here's another definition for you:-say?Mysticism is the romance of religion. What do youGOWER. True to the spirit-not scientific, I fear.WILLOUGHBY. Science be banished! Is not the historyofmysticism bright with stories of dazzling spiritual enterprise, sombre with tragedies of the soul, stored withrecords of the achievements and the woes of martyrdomand saintship? Has it not reconciled, as by enchantment,the most opposite extremes of theory and practice? Seeit, in theory, verging repeatedly on pantheism, ego-theism,nihilism. See it, in practice, producing some of the mostglorious examples of humility, benevolence, and untiringself- devotion. Has it not commanded, with its indescribable fascination, the most powerful natures and the mostfeeble-minds lofty with a noble disdain of life, or lowwith aweak disgust of it? If the self-torture it enactsseems hideous to our sobriety, what an attraction in itsreward! It lays waste the soul with purgatorial painsbut it is to leave nothing there on which any fire may30 Introduction. [B. I.kindle after death. What a promise!-aperfect sanctification, adivine calm, fruition of heaven while yet uponthe earth!ATHERTON. Go on, Willoughby, I like your enthusiasm.Think of its adventures, too.WILLOUGHBY. Aye, its adventures-both persecutedand canonized by kings and pontiffs; one age enrollingthe mystic among the saints, another committing him tothe inquisitor's torch, or entombing him in the Bastille.And the principle indestructible after all-some mindsalways who must be religious mystically or not at all.ATHERTON. I thought we might this evening enquireinto the causes which tend continually to reproduce thisreligious phenomenon. You have suggested some already.Certain states ofsociety have always fostered it. Therehave been times when all the real religion existing in acountry appears to have been confined to its mystics.WILLOUGHBY. In such an hour, how mysticism risesand does its deeds of spiritual chivalryGOWER. Alas! Quixotic enough, sometimes.WILLOUGHBY. How conspicuous, then, grows this inward devotion!-even the secular historian is compelledto say a word about itATHERTON. And a sorry, superficial verdict he gives,too often.WILLOUGHBY. How loud its protest against literalism,formality, scholasticism, human ordinances! what a strenuous reaction against the corruptions of priestcraft!ATHERTON. But, on the other side, Willoughby-andhere comes the pathetic part of its romance-mysticism isheard discoursing concerning things unutterable. It speaks,as one in a dream, of the third heaven, and of celestial exc.4.]periences, and revelations fitter for angels than for men.Its stammering utterance, confused with excess of rapture,labouring with emotions too huge or abstractions too subtilefor words, becomes utterly unintelligible. Then it is misrepresented; falls a victimto reaction in its turn; thedelirium is dieted by persecution, and it is consignedonce more to secrecy and silence.Mysticism-its Causes. 31GOWER. There, good night, and pleasant dreams to it!WILLOUGHBY. It spins still in its sleep its mingledtissue ofgood and evil.ATHERTON. A mixture truly. We must not blindlypraise it in our hatred of formalism. We must notvaguely condemn it in our horror of extravagance.GOWER. What you have both been saying indicates atonce three of the causes we are in search of, indeed, thethree chief ones, as I suppose: first of all, the reactionyou speak of against the frigid formality of religioustorpor; then, heart-weariness, the languishing longingfor repose, the charm of mysticism for the selfish or theweak; and, last, the desire, so strong in some minds,to pierce the barriers that hide from man the unseenworld-the charm of mysticism for the ardent and thestrong.ATHERTON. That shrinking from conflict, that passionateyearning after inaccessible rest, how universal is it; whatwistful utterance it has found in every nation and everyage; how it subdues us all, at times, and sinks us intolanguor.WILLOUGHBY. Want of patience lies at the root-whowas it said that he should have all eternity to rest in?ATHERTON. Think how the traditions of every peoplehave embellished with their utmost wealth of imagination32 Introduction . [B. I.some hidden spot upon the surface of the earth, whichthey have pourtrayed as secluded from all the tumult andthe pain of time-a serene Eden-an ever-sunny Tempe-a vale of Avalon-a place beyond the sterner laws androugher visitations of the common world-a fastness ofperpetual calm, before which the tempests may blow theirchallenging horns in vain-they can win no entrance.Such, to the fancy of the Middle Age, was the famoustemple of the Sangreal, with its dome of sapphire, its sixand- thirty towers, its crystal crosses, and its hangings ofgreen samite, guarded by its knights, girded by impenetrable forests, glittering on the onyx summit of MountSalvage, for ever invisible to every eye impure, inaccessible to every failing or faithless heart. Such, to theHindoo, was the Cridavana meadow, among the heightsof Mount Sitanta, full of flowers, of the song of birds, thehum of bees- languishing winds and murmuring falls ofwaters.' Such was the secret mountain Kinkadulle, celebrated by Olaus Magnus, which stood in a region nowcovered only by moss or snow, but luxuriant once, in lessdegenerate days, with the spontaneous growth of everypleasant bough and goodly fruit. What places like thesehave been to the popular mind, even such a refuge for theIdeal from the pursuit of the Actual-that the attainmentofEcstasy, the height of Contemplation, the bliss of Union,has been for the mystic.GOWER. So those spiritual Lotos-eaters will onlyhearken what the inner spirit sings,There is no joy but calm;or, in their ' fugitive and cloistered virtue,' as Milton callsit, say,C. 4.] Weariness of the World.let us live and lie reclinedOn the hills like gods together, careless of mankind.33ATHERTON. Some; not all, however. Neither shouldwe suppose that even those who have sunk to such astateWILLOUGHBY. They would say-risenATHERTON. Be it by sinking or rising, they have notbeenbrought to that pass without a conflict. From life'sbattle- field to the hospital of the hermitage has been buta step for a multitude of minds. Hiding themselveswounded from the victor (for the enemy they could notconquer shall not see and mock their sufferings), they callinthe aid of an imaginative religionism to people theirsolitude with its glories. The Prometheus chained to hisrock is comforted if the sea nymphs rise from the deep tovisit him, and Ocean on his hippogriff draws near. Andthus, let the gliding fancies of a life of dreams, andImagination, the monarch of all their main of thought,visit the sorrow of these recluses, and they think they canforget the ravages of that evil which so vexed them once.Hence the mysticism of the visionary. He learns to craveecstasies and revelations as at once his solace and hispride.GOWER. Is it not likely, too, that some of thesemystics, in seasons of mental distress of which we have norecord, tried Nature as a resource, and found herwanting?Such a disappointment would make that ascetic theorywhich repudiates the seen and actual, plausible and evenwelcome to them. After demanding of the natural worldwhat it has not to bestow, they would hurry to the opposite extreme, and deny it any healing influence whatever.Go out into the woods and valleys, when your heart isVOL. I. D34 Introduction. [B. I.rather harassed than bruised, and when you suffer fromvexation more than grief. Then the trees all hold outtheir arms to you to relieve you of the burthen of yourheavy thoughts; and the streams under the trees glanceat you as they run by, and will carry away your troublealong with the fallen leaves; and the sweet-breathing airwill draw it off together with the silver multitudes of thedew. But let it be with anguish or remorse in your heartthat you go forth into Nature, and instead of your speakingher language, you make her speak yours. Your distressis then infused through all things, and clothes all things,andNature only echoes, and seems to authenticate, yourself-loathing or your hopelessness. Then you find thedevice of your sorrow on the argent shield of the moon,and see all the trees of the field weeping and wringingtheir hands with you, while the hills, seated at your sidein sackcloth, look down upon you prostrate, and reproveyou like the comforters of Job.ATHERTON. Doubtless, many of these stricken spiritssuffered such disappointment at some early period of theirhistory. Failure was inevitable, and the disease washeightened. How Coleridge felt this when he says somournfully in his Ode to Dejection,-It were a vain endeavourThough I should gaze for everOn that green light that lingers in the west:I may not hope from outward forms to winThe passion and the life whose fountains are within.WILLOUGHBY. The feeling of the other class we spokeof-the men of bolder temperament-has been this: ' I amaking and yet a captive; submit I cannot; I care not todream; I must in some way act.'C.4.] The Fascination ofthe Unseen. 35GOWER. And, like Rasselas, a prince and yet a prisonerin the narrow valley, such a man, in his impatience, takescounsel of aphilosopher, who promises to construct a pairof wings wherewith he shall overfly the summits thatfrown around him. The mystagogue is a philosophersuch as Rasselas found, with a promise as large and aresult as vain.ATHERTON. Hence the mysticism of the theurgist, whowill pass the bounds of the dreaded spirit-world; willdare all its horrors to seize one of its thrones; and aspires-aManfred or a Zanoni-to lord it among the powers ofthe air.WILLOUGHBY.--Andof the mysticism ofthe theosophist,too, whose science is an imagined inspiration, who writesabout plants and minerals under a divine afflatus, and whowill give you from the resources of his special revelationan explanation of every mystery.GOWER. The explanation, unhappily, the greatestmystery of all.ATHERTON. Curiously enough, the Bible has been madeto support mysticism by an interpretation, at one time toofanciful, at another too literal.WILLOUGHBY. We may call it, perhaps, the innocentcause of mysticism with one class, its victim with another:the one, running into mysticism because they wronglyinterpreted the Bible; the other interpreting it wronglybecause they were mystics. The mystical interpreters ofschool and cloister belong to the latter order, and many aCovenanter and godly trooper of the Commonwealth tothe former.GOWER. Not an unlikely result with the zealous Ironside-his reading limited to his English Bible and a fewD236 Introduction. [B. I.savoury treatises ofdivinity-poring over the warlike storyof ancient Israel, and identifying himself withthe subjectsof miraculous intervention, divine behest, and propheticdream. How glorious would those days appear to such aman, when angels went and came amongmen; when, in themidst of his husbandry or handicraft, the servant of theLord might be called aside to see some ' great sight; 'when the fire dropped sudden down from heaven on theaccepted altar, like a drop spilt from the lip of an angel'sfiery vial full of odours; when the Spirit of the Lordmoved men at times, as Samsonwas moved in the campof Dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol; and when the Lordsent men hither and thither by an inward impulse, asElijah was sent from Gilgal to Bethel, and from Bethelback to Jericho, and from Jericho on to Jordan. Imagination would reproduce those marvels in the world within,though miracles could no longer cross his path in theworld without. He would believe that to him also wordswere given to speak, and deeds to do; and that, whetherin the house, the council, or the field, he was the Spirit'schosen instrument and messenger.ATHERTON. This is the practical and active kind ofmysticism so prevalent in that age of religious wars, theseventeenth century.WILLOUGHBY. The monks took the opposite course.While the Parliamentarian soldier was often seen endeavouring to adapt his life to a mistaken application of theBible, the ascetic endeavoured to adapt the Bible to hismistaken life .GOWER. The New Testament not authorising the austerities of a Macarius or a Maximus, tradition must becalled inc.4.] Mystical Interpretation. 37WILLOUGHBY. And side by side with tradition, mysticalinterpretation. The Bible, it was pretended, must not beunderstood as always meaning what it seems to mean.ATHERTON. It then becomes the favourite employmentof the monk to detect this hidden meaning, and to makeScripture render to tradition the same service which themask rendered to the ancient actor, not only disguisingthe face, but making the words go farther. To be thusbusied was to secure two advantages at once; he hadoccupation for his leisure, and an answer for his adversaries.CHAPTER V.Oh! contemplation palls upon the spirit,Like the chill silence of an autumn sun:While action, like the roaring south-west wind,Sweeps, laden with elixirs, with rich draughtsQuickening the wombed earth.Guta. And yet what bliss,When, dying in the darkness of God's light,The soul can pierce these blinding webs of nature,And float up to the nothing, which is all thingsThe ground of being, where self-forgetful silenceIs emptiness,-emptiness fulness,-fulness God,-Till we touch Him, and, like a snow-flake, meltUpon his light-sphere's keen circumference!THE SAINT'S TRAGEDY.GOWER (flourishing a ruler, turning to the four points , and reading, with tremendous voice, aformulaof incantation from Hörst) . Lalle Bachera magotteBaphia Dajam Vagoth Heneche Ammi, Nazaz Adomator,Ole- Luk-Oie! Come! Come!ATHERTON. Angels and ministers of grace, defend us!WILLOUGHBY (springing upon Gower.) Seize him!He's stark staring mad.GOWER. Hands off! Were we not to discuss to-nightthe best possible order for your mystics PATHERTON. And a neat little plan I had set up-shakenall to pie at this moment by your madcap antics.AFairy Tale. 39GOWER. Thanks, if you please, not reproaches. I wascalling help for you, Iwas summoning the fay.WILLOUGHBY. The fay?GOWER. The fay. Down with you in that arm-chair,and sit quietly. Know that I was this morning readingAndersen's Märchen-all about Ole-Luk-Oie, his waysand works-the queer little elf. Upstairs he creeps, inhouses where children are, softly, softly, in the dusk ofthe evening, with what do you think under his arm P-twoumbrellas, one plain, the other covered with gay coloursand quaint figures. He makes the eyes of the childrenheavy, and when they are put to bed, holds over the headsof the good children the painted umbrella, which causesthem to dream the sweetest and most wonderful dreamsimaginable; but over the naughty children he holds theother, and they do not dream at all. Now, thought I, letme emulate the profundity of a German critic. Is thisto be treated as a simple child's tale? Far from it.There is a depth of philosophic meaning in it. Have notthe mystics been mostly child-like natures? Have nottheir lives been full of dreams, manifold and strange-andthey therefore, if any, especial favourites of Ole- Luk-Oie?They have accounted their dreams their pride and theirreward. They have looked on the sobriety of dreamlessness as the appropriate deprivation ofprivilege consequenton carnality and ignorance; in other words, the nondreamers have been with them the naughty children. Tolearn life's lessons well is, according to them, to enjoy asa recompence the faculty of seeing visions and of dreamingdreams. Here then is the idea of mysticism. You haveits myth, its legend. Ole-Luk-Oie is its presiding genius.Now, Atherton, if you could but get hold of his umbrella,40 [B. I. Introduction.the segments of that silken hemisphere, with its paintedconstellations, would give you your divisions in a twinkling.That was why I wanted him. But I do not see himletting himself down the bellrope, or hear his tap at thedoor. I am afraid we must set to work without him.ATHERTON. I think, Willoughby, we may dismiss thecriminal with a reprimand, if he will be bound over tokeep the prose.WILLOUGHBY. Now, then, to our classification. A localor historical division is out of the question. I scarcelythink you can find a metaphysical one that will bear thetest of application and be practically serviceable. Thenthe division some adopt, of heterodox and orthodox, savestrouble indeed, but it is so arbitrary. The Church ofRome, from whom many of these mystics called heretical,dared to differ, is no church at all in the true sense, andassuredly no standard of orthodoxy. In addition to thisIhave a nervous antipathy to the terms themselves; for,as I have a liking for becoming the champion of anycause which appears to be borne down by numbers, I findmy friends who are somewhat heterodox, frequentlycharging me with what is called orthodoxy, and thoseagain who are orthodox as often suspecting me ofheterodoxy.ATHERTON. Hear my proposed division. There arethree kinds of mysticism, theopathetic, theosophic, andtheurgic. The first of these three classes I will subdivide,if needful, into transitive and intransitive.GOWER. Your alliteration is grateful to my ear; I hopeyou have not strained a point to secure us the luxury.ATHERTON. Not a hair's breadth, I assure you.WILLOUGHBY. Etymologically such a division has thec. 5.] Theopathetic Mysticism. 41advantage of showing that all the forms of mysticism aredevelopments of the religious sentiment; that in all itsvarieties the relationship, real or imaginary, which mysticism sustains to the Divine, is its primary element;-thatits widely differing aspects are all phases it presents in itseccentric orbit about the central luminary of the Infinite .GOWER. Your theopathetic mysticism must include avery wide range. By the term theopathetic you denote,of course, that mysticism which resigns itself, in a passivity more or less absolute, to an imagined divine manifestation. Now, one man may regard himself as overshadowed, another as impelled by Deity. One mystic ofthis order may do nothing, another may display an unceasing activity. Whether he believes himself a mirrorin whose quiescence the Divinity ' glasses himself; ' or, asit were, a leaf, driven by the mighty rushing wind of theSpirit, and thus the tongue by which the Spirit speaks,the organ by which God works-the principle of passivityis the same.ATHERTON. Hence my subdivision of this class ofmystics into those whose mysticism assumes a transitivecharacter, and those with whom mysticism consists principally in contemplation, in Quietism, in negation, and so isproperly called intransitive.WILLOUGHBY. Yet some of those whose mysticism hasbeen pre-eminently negative, who have hated the veryname of speculation, and placed perfection in repose andmystical death, have mingled much in active life. Theyappear to defy your arrangement.ATHERTON. It is only in appearance. They have shrunkfrom carrying out their theory to its logical consequences.Their activity has been a bye-work. The diversities of42 Introduction [в. 1. .character observable in the mysticism which is essentiallyintransitive arise, not from a difference in the principle atthe root, but from varieties of natural temperament, ofexternal circumstances, and from the dissimilar nature orproportion of the foreign elements incorporated.GOWER. It is clear that we must be guided by the rulerather than the exception, and determine, according to thepredominant element in the mysticism of individuals, theposition to be assigned them. If we were to classify onlythose who were perfectly consistent with themselves, wecould include scarcely half-a-dozen names, and those, bythe way, the least rational of all, for the most thoroughgoing are the madmen.ATHERTON. The mysticism of St. Bernard, for example,in spite of his preaching, his travels, his diplomacy, is altogether contemplative-the intransitive mysticism of thecloister. His active labours were a work apart .GOWER. Such men have been serviceable as membersof society in proportion to their inconsistency as devoteesof mysticism. A heavy charge this against their principle.WILLOUGHBY. In the intransitive division of the theopathetic mysticism you will have three such names asSuso, Ruysbrook, Molinos, and all the Quietists, whetherFrench or Indian.ATHERTON. And in the transitive theopathy all turbulent prophets and crazy fanatics. This species of mysticism usurps the will more than the emotional part of ournature. The subject of it suffers under the Divine, as hebelieves, but the result of the manifestation is not confinedto himself, it passes on to his fellows.GOWER. If you believe Plato in the Ion, you mustc. 5.] Madmen. 43range here all the poets, for they sing well, he tells us,only as they are carried out of themselves by a divinemadness, and mastered by an influence which their versecommunicates to others in succession.WILLOUGHBY. We must admit here also, according toancient superstition, the Pythoness on her tripod, and theSibyl in her cave at Cumæ, as she struggles beneath themight of the god: -Phœbi nondum patiens immanis in antroBacchatur vates, magnum si pectore possitExcussisse Deum: tanto magis ille fatigatOs rabidum, fera corda domans, fingitque premendo.ATHERTON. I have no objection. According to Virgil'sdescription, the poor Sibyl has earned painfully enough aplace within the pale of mysticism. But those with whomwehave more especially to do in this province are enthusiasts such as Tanchelm, who appeared in the twelfth century, and announced himself as the residence of Deity; asGichtel, who believed himself appointed to expiate by hisprayers and penance the sins of all mankind; or as Kuhlmann, who traversed Europe, the imagined head of theFifth monarchy, summoning kings and nobles to submission.GOWER. Some of these cases we may dismiss in a summary manner. The poor brainsick creatures were cast onevil times indeed. What we should now call derangementwas then exalted into heresy, and honoured with martyrdom. We should have taken care that Kuhlmann wassent to an asylum, but the Russian patriarch burned him,poor fellow.ATHERTON. We must not forget, however, that this44 Introduction. [B. I.species of mysticism has sometimes been found associatedwith the announcement of vital truths. Look at GeorgeFox and the early Quakers.WILLOUGHBY. And I would refer also to this class someof the milder forms of mysticism, inwhich it is seen ratheras a single morbid element than as a principle avowed andcarried out. Jung Stilling is an instance of what I mean.You see him, fervent, earnest, and yet weak; without forethought, without perseverance; vain and irresolute, hechanges his course incessantly, seeing in every variationof feeling and of circumstance a special revelation of theDivine will.ATHERTON. Add to this modification a kindred error,the doctrine of a ' particular faith' in prayer, so much invogue in Cromwell's court at Whitehall. Howe boldlypreached against it before the Protector himself.WILLOUGHBY. Now, Atherton, for your second division-theosophic mysticism. Whom do you call theosophists?ATHERTON. Among the Germans I find mysticism generally called theosophy when applied to natural science.Too narrow a use of the word, I think. We should havein that case scarcely any theosophy inEurope till after theReformation. The word itself was first employed by theschool of Porphyry. The Neo-Platonist would say thatthe priest might have his traditional discourse concerningGod(theology), but he alone, withhis intuition, the highestwisdom concerning him.GOWER. I can't say that I have any clear conceptionattached to the word.ATHERTON. You want examples? Take Plotinus andBehmen.c. 5.] Theosophy.GOWER. What a conjunction!45ATHERTON. Not so far apart as may appear. Their difference is one of application more than of principle. HadPlotinus thought a metal or a plant worth his attention,hewould have maintained that concerning that, even asconcerning the infinite, all truth lay stored within the recesses of his own mind. But of course he only cared aboutideas . Mystical philosophy is really a contradiction interms, is it not?GOWER. Granted, since philosophy must build only uponreason.ATHERTON. Very good. Then when philosophy fallsinto mysticism I give it another name, and call it theosophy. And, on the other side, I call mysticism, tryingto be philosophical, theosophy likewise. That is all.WILLOUGHBY. So that the theosophist is one who givesyou a theory of God, or of the works of God, whichhas not reason, but an inspiration of his own for itsbasis.ATHERTON. Yes; he either believes, with Swedenborgand Behmen, that a special revelation has unfolded to himthe mystery of the divine dispensations here or hereafterlaid bare the hidden processes of nature, or the secrets ofthe other world; or else, with Plotinus and Schelling, hebelieves that his intuitions of those things are infalliblebecause divine-subject and object being identical,-alltruth being within him. Thus, while the mystic of thetheopathetic species is content to contemplate, to feel, orto act, suffering under Deity in his sublime passivity, themysticism I term theosophic aspires to know and believesitself in possession of a certain supernatural divine facultyfor that purpose.46 [B. I. Introduction.GOWER. You talk of mysticism trying to be philosophical; it does then sometimes seek to justify itself atthe bar of reason?ATHERTON. I should think so often: at one time tryingto refute the charge of madness and prove itself throughoutrational and sober; at another, using the appeal to reasonup to a certain point and as far as serves its purpose, andthen disdainfully mocking at demands for proof, and towering above argument, with the pretence of divine illumination.WILLOUGHBY. Some of these mystics, talking of reasonas they do, remind me of Lysander at the feet of Helena,protesting (with the magic juice scarce dry upon his eyelids) that the decision of his spell-bound faculties is thedeliberate exercise of manly judgmentThe mind of man is by his reason swayed,And reason says you are the worthier maid.GOWER. Now you come to Shakspeare, I must capyour quotation with another: I fit those mystics Athertonspeaks of as using reason up to a certain point and thenhaving done with it, with a motto from the Winter'sTale-much at their service. They answer, with youngenamoured Florizel, when Reason, like a grave Camillo,bids them be advised'-I am; and by my fancy: if my reasonWill thereto be obedient, I have reason;If not, my senses better pleased with madnessDo bid it welcome.ATHERTON. To classify the mystics adequately, weshould have a terminology of dreams rich as that ofHomer, and distinguish, as he does, the dream-image ofc. 5.] Mediæval Science mystical. 47complete illusion from the half-conscious dream betweensleeping and waking;-ὄναρ from ὕπαρ. How unanimous,by the way, would the mystics be in deriving ὄνειρον fromὄνειαρ-dream from enjoyment.WILLOUGHBY. To return from the poets to business;was not all the science of the Middle Age theosophicrather than philosophic? Both to mystical schoolmen andscholastic mystics the Bible was a book of symbols andpropositions, from which all the knowable was somehowto be deduced.ATHERTON. Most certainly. The mystical interpretation of Scripture was their measuring-reed for the templeof the universe. The difference, however, between themand Behmen would be this-that, while both essayed toread the book of nature by the light of grace, Behmenclaimed a special revelation, a divine mission for unfoldingthese mysteries in a new fashion; schoolmen, like Richardof St. Victor, professed to do so only by the supernaturalaid of the Spirit illuminating the data afforded by theChurch. And again, Behmen differs from Schelling andmodern theosophy in studying nature through the mediumof an external revelation mystically understood, while theyinterpret it by the unwritten inward revelation of Intellectual Intuition. I speak only of the difference of principle,not of result. But no one will dispute that nearly everyscientific enquiry of the Middle Age was conducted onmystical principles, whether as regarded our source ofknowing or its method.WILLOUGHBY. And what wonder? Does not Miltonremind us that Julian's edict, forbidding Christians thestudy of heathen learning, drove the two Apollinarii to' coin all the seven liberal sciences ' out of the Bible? The48 [B. I. Introduction.jealous tyranny of the Papacy virtually perpetuated thepersecution of the Apostate. Every lamp must be filledwith church oil. Every kind of knowledge must existonly as a decoration of the ecclesiastical structure. Everyscience must lay its foundation on theology. See a monument attesting this, a type of the times, in the cathedralof Chartres, covered with thousands of statues andsymbols, representing all the history, astronomy, andphysics of the age-a sacred encyclopædia transferredfrom the pages of Vincent of Beauvais to the enduringstone, so to bid all men see in the Church a Mirror of theUniverse-a speculum universale. Who can be surprisedthat by the aid of that facile expedient, mystical interpretation, many awork of mortal brain should have beenbound and lettered as ' HOLY BIBLE, ' or that researchshould have simulated worship, as some Cantab, pressedfor time, may study a problem at morning chapel?ATHERTON. What interminable lengths of the finespun, gay-coloured ribbons of allegory and metaphor hasthe mountebank ingenuity of that mystical interpretationdrawn out of the mouth of Holy Writ!GOWER. And made religion a toy-a tassel on thesilken purse of the spendthrift Fancy.WILLOUGHBY. Granting, Atherton, your general position that the undue inference of the objective from thesubjective produces mysticism, what are we to say of aman like Descartes, for example? You will not surelycondemn him as a mystic?ATHERTON. Certainly, not altogether; reason holds itsown with him-is not swept away by the hallucinationsof sentiment, or feeling, or special revelation; but none ofour powers act quite singly-nemo omnibus horis sapit-ac. 5.] Descartes. 49mystical element crops out here and there. I think hecarried too far the application of a principle based, ingreat part at least, on truth. In his inference of the objective from the subjective, I think he was so far rightthat our ability to conceive of a Supreme Perfectionaffords a strong presumption that such a God must exist.It is not to be supposed that the conception can transcendthe reality. His argument from within is a potentauxiliary of the argument from without, if not by itself soall-sufficient as he supposes. There are, too, I think,certain necessary truths which, by the constitution of ourmind, we cannot conceive as possibly other than they are,when once presented to us from without. But we surelyshould not on this account be justified in saying, with themystic Bernard, that each soul contains an infallible copyofthe ideas in the Divine Mind, so that the pure in heart,in proportion as they have cleansed the internal mirror,must in knowing themselves, know also God. It must beno less an exaggeration of the truth to say, with thephilosopher Descartes, that certain notions of the laws ofNature are impressed upon our minds, so that we may,after reflecting upon them, discover the secrets of theuniverse. On the strength of this principle he undertakesto determine exactly how long a time it must have required to reduce chaos to order. The effort made byDescartes to insulate himself completely from the externalworld and the results of experience, was certainly similarinmode, though very different in its object, from the endeavours after absolute self-seclusion made by many ofthe mystics. The former sought to detect by abstractionthe laws of mind; the latter, to attain the vision of God.GOWER. There is much more of mysticism discernible inVOL. I. E50 [B. I. Introduction.some of the systems which have followed in the pathopened byDescartes. What can be more favourable thanSchelling's Identity principle to the error which confounds,rather than allies, physics and metaphysics, science andtheology?ATHERTON. Behmen himself is no whit more fantasticalin this way than Oken and Franz Baader.GOWER. These theosophies, old and new, with theirself- evolved inexplicable explanations of everything, remind me of the Frenchman's play-bill announcing an exhibition of the Universal Judgment by means of threethousand five hundred puppets. The countless marionettefigures in the brain of the theosophist-Elements, Forms,Tinctures, Mothers of Nature, Fountain-spirits, PlanetaryPotencies, &c. , are made to shift and gesticulate unceasingly, through all possible permutations and combinations,and the operator has cried ' Walk in!' so long andloudly, that he actually believes, while pulling the wiresin his metaphysical darkness, that the great universe isbeing turned and twitched after the same manner as hispainted dolls .WILLOUGHBY. I must put in a word for men likeParacelsus and Cornelius Agrippa. They helped scienceout of the hands of Aristotle, baptized and spoiled bymonks. Europe, newly-wakened, follows in search oftruth, as the princess in the fairy-tale her lover, changedinto a white dove; now and then, at weary intervals, afeather is dropped to give a clue; these aspirants caughtonce and again a little of the precious snowy down, thoughoften filling their hands with mere dirt, and woundingthem among the briars. Forgive them their signatures,their basilisks and homunculi, and all their restless,c. 5.] Religious Euphuism. 51wrathful arrogance, for the sake of that indomitablehardihoodwhich did life-long battle, single-handed, againstenthroned prescription.ATHERTON. With all my heart. How venial the errorof their mysticism (with an aim, at least, so worthy), compared with that of the enervating Romanist theopathywhose holy vegetation' the Reformers so rudely disturbed.On the eve of the Reformation you see hapless Christianity, after vanquishing so many powerful enemies,about to die by the hand of ascetic inventions and super- stitions, imaginary sins and imaginary virtues, - theshadowy phantoms of monastic darkness; like thelegendary hero Wolf- Dietrich, who, after so manyvictories over flesh-and-blood antagonists, perishes atlast in a night-battle with ghosts .GOWER. The later mystical saints of the Romishcalendar seem to me to exhibit what one may call the degenerate chivalry of religion, rather than its romance.How superior is Bernard to John of the Cross! It iseasy to see how, in a rough age of fist-law, the laws ofchivalry may inculcate courtesy and ennoble courage. Butwhen afterwards an age of treaties and diplomacy comesin-when no Charles the Bold can be a match for theItalian policy of a Louis XI.-then these laws sink downinto a mere fantastic code of honour. For the manlygallantry of Ivanhoe we have the euphuism of a Sir PiercieShafton. And so a religious enthusiasm, scarcely toofervent for a really noble enterprise (could it only findone), gives birth, when debarred from the air of actionand turned back upon itself, to the dreamy extravagancesof the recluse, and the morbid ethical punctilios of theDirector.E252 Introduction. [B. I.WILLOUGHBY. The only further question is about yourthird division, Atherton,-theurgic mysticism. We maylet the Rabbinical Solomon-mastering the archdæmonAschmedai and all his host by the divine potency of theSchemhamporasch engraven on his ring, chaining at hiswill the colossal powers of the air by the tremendousname of Metatron, stand as an example of theurgy.GOWER. And Iamblichus, summoning Souls, Heroes,and the Principalities of the upper sphere, by prayer andincense and awful mutterings of adjuration.ATHERTON. All very good; but hear me a moment. Iwould use the term theurgic to characterize the mysticismwhich claims supernatural powers generally, -worksmarvels, not like the black art, by help from beneath, butas white magic, by the virtue of talisman or cross, demigod, angel, or saint. Thus theurgic mysticism is not content, like the theopathetic, with either feeling or proselytising; nor, like the theosophic, with knowing; but itmust open for itself a converse with the world of spirits,and win as its prerogative the power of miracle. Thisbroad use of the word makes prominent the fact that acommon principle of devotional enchantment lies at theroot of all the pretences, both of heathen and of Christianmiracle-mongers. The celestial hierarchy of Dionysiusand the benign dæmons of Proclus, the powers invokedby Pagan or by Christian theurgy, by Platonist, by Cabbalist, or by saint, alike reward the successful aspirantwith supernatural endowments; and so far Apollonius ofTyana and Peter of Alcantara, Asclepigenia and St.Theresa, must occupy as religious magicians the sameprovince. The error is in either case the same a divineefficacy is attributed to rites and formulas, sprinklingsc. 5.] Theurgy-a degenerate Mysticism. 53or fumigations, relics or incantations, of mortal manufacture.WILLOUGHBY. It is not difficult to understand how,after a time, both the species of mysticism we have beendiscussing may pass over into this one. It is the dreamof the mystic that he can elaborate from the depth of hisown nature the whole promised land of religious truth,and perceive (by special revelation) rising from within, allits green pastures and still waters,-somewhat as Pindardescribes the sun beholding the Isle of Rhodes emergingfrom the bottom of the ocean, new-born, yet perfect, inall the beauty of glade and fountain, of grassy upland andsilver tarn, of marble crag and overhanging wood, sparkling from the brine as after a summer shower. But alas,how tardily arises this new world of inner wonders! Itmust be accelerated-drawn up by some strong compelling charm. The doctrine of passivity becomes impossible to some temperaments beyond a certain pass. Theenjoyments of the vision or the rapture are too few andfar between-could they but be produced at will! Whether the mystic seeks the triumph of superhuman knowledge or that intoxication of the feeling which is to translate him to the upper world, after a while he craves a sign.Theurgy is the art which brings it. Its appearance isthe symptom of failing faith, whether in philosophy orreligion. Its glory is the phosphorescence of decay.ATHERTON. Generally, I think it is; though it prevailedin the age of the Reformation--borrowed, however, Iadmit, on the revival of letters, from an age of decline .

BOOK THE SECOND.EARLY ORIENTAL MYSTICISM.4CHAPTER I.From worldly cares himselfe he did esloyne,And greatly shunned manly exercise;From everie worke he chalenged essoyne,For contemplation sake: yet otherwiseHis life he led inlawlesse riotise;By which he grew to grievous maladie:For in his lustlesse limbs through evill guise,Ashaking fever raignd continually:Such one was Idlenesse, first of this company.SPENSER.HAVINGfree access to the Commonplace Book of my friend Atherton, I now extract therefrom a few notes,written after reading Wilkins' translation of the BagvatGita. This episode in a heroic poem of ancient India isconsidered the best exponent of early oriental mysticism.Igive these remarks just as I find them, brief and roughhewn, but not, I think, hasty.Observations on Indian mysticism, à propos of theBagvat- Gita.This poem consists of a dialogue between the godCrishna and the hero Arjoun. Crishna, though wearingahuman form, speaks throughout as Deity. Arjoun is ayoung chieftain whom he befriends. Agreat civil war israging, and the piece opens on the eve of battle. Crishna58 Early Oriental Mysticism. [B. II.is driving the chariot of Arjoun, and they are between thelines of the opposing armies. On either side the warshells are heard to sound-shells to which the Indianwarriors gave names as did the paladins of Christendomto their swords. The battle will presently join, but Arjoun appears listless and sad. He looks on eitherarmy; in the ranks of each he sees preceptors whom hehas been taught to revere, and relatives whom he loves.He knows not for which party to desire abloody victory;so he lays his bow aside and sits down in the chariot.Crishna remonstrates, reminds him that his hesitation willbe attributed to cowardice, and that such scruples are,moreover, most unreasonable. He should learn to actwithout any regard whatever to the consequences of hisactions . At this point commence the instructions of thegod concerning faith and practice.So Arjoun must learn to disregard the consequences ofhis actions . I find here not a ' holy indifference,' as withthe French Quietists, but an indifference which is unholy.The sainte indifférence of the west essayed to rise aboveself, to welcome happiness or misery alike as the will ofSupreme Love. The odious indifference of these orientalsinculcates the supremacy of selfishness as the wisdom ofa god. A steep toil, that apathy towards ourselves; afacilis descensus, this apathy toward others. One Quietistwill scarcely hold out his hand to receive heaven: anotherwill not raise a finger to succour his fellow.Mysticism, then, is born armed completely with itsworst extravagances. An innocent childhood it neverhad; for in its very cradle this Hercules destroys, asdeadly serpents, Reason and Morality. Crishna, it appears, can invest the actions of his favourites with suchC. 1.] Immoral Extreme. 59divineness that nothing theydo is wrong. Forthe mysticaladept of Hindooism the distinction between good andevil is obliterated as often as he pleases. Beyond thispoint mysticism the most perverted cannot go; sincesuch emancipation from moral law is in practice the worst aim of the worst men. The mysticism of a man whodeclares himself the Holy Ghost constitutes a stage morestartling but less guilty; for responsibility ends whereinsanity begins.The orientals know little of a system of forces. Theycarry a single idea to its consequences. The dark issue ofthe self-deifying tendency is exhibited among them on alarge scale, the degrees of the enormity are registeredand made portentously apparent as by the movement of ahuge hand upon its dial. Western mysticism, checked bymany better influences, has rarely made so patent theinherent evil even of its most mischievous forms. TheEuropean, mystic though he be, will occasionally pause toqualify, and is often willing to allow some scope to factsand principles alien or hostile to a favourite idea.It should not be forgotten that the doctrine of metempsychosis is largely answerable for Crishna's cold-bloodedmaxim. He tells Arjoun that the soul puts on manybodies, as many garments, remaining itself unharmed:the death of so many of his countrymen-a mere transition, therefore-need not distress him.CHAPTER II.Quel diable dejargon entends-je ici? Voici bien du haut style.MOLIÈRE.MYSTICISM has no genealogy. It is no tradition conveyed across frontiers or down the course ofgenerations as a ready-made commodity. It is a state ofthinking and feeling, to which minds of a certain temperament are liable at any time or place, in occident andorient, whether Romanist or Protestant, Jew, Turk, orInfidel. It is more or less determined by the positivereligion with which it is connected. But though conditioned by circumstance or education, its appearance isever the spontaneous product of a certain crisis in individual or social history.Amerely imitative mysticism, as exemplified by someTractarian ecclesiastics, is an artificial expedient, welcometo ambitious minds as an engine, to the frivolous as adevotional diversion, to the weak and servile as a softlycushioned yoke.Were mysticism a transmitted principle we should beable to trace it through successive translations to a formwhich might be termed primitive. We might mark andthrow off, as we ascended, the accretions with which it hasbeen invested, till we reached its origin-the simple ideaof mysticism, new-born. The mysticism of India, theearliest we can find, shows us that nothing of this sort isSummary.61possible. That set of principles which we repeatedlyencounter, variously combined, throughout the history ofmysticism, exhibits itself in the Bagvat-Gita almost complete. The same round of notions, occurring to minds ofsimilar make under similar circumstances, is common tomystics in ancient India and in modern Christendom.The development of these fundamental ideas is naturallymore elevated and benign under the influence of Christianity.Summarily, I would say, this Hindoo mysticism-(1.) Lays claim to disinterested love, as opposed to amercenary religion;(2.) Reacts against the ceremonial prescription andpedantic literalism of the Vedas;(3.) Identifies, in its pantheism, subject and object,worshipper and worshipped;(4.) Aims at ultimate absorption in the Infinite;(5.) Inculcates, as the wayto this dissolution, absolutepassivity, withdrawal into the inmost self, cessationof all the powers, giving recipes for procuringthis beatific torpor or trance;(6.) Believes that eternity may thus be realized intime;(7.) Has its mythical miraculous pretensions, i.e. , itstheurgic department;(8.) And, finally, advises the learner in this kind of religion to submit himself implicitly to a spiritualguide, his Guru.With regard to (1), it is to be observed that the disinterestedness of the worship enjoined by Crishna is byno means absolute, as Madame Guyon endeavoured to62 Early Oriental Mysticism. [B. II.6render hers. The mere ritualist, buying prosperity bytemple-gifts, will realise, says Crishna, only a partialenjoyment of heaven. Arjoun, too, is encouraged by theprospect of a recompence, for he is to aspire to far higherthings. Men who are endowed with true wisdom areunmindful of good or evil in this world,-wise men whohave abandoned all thought of the fruit which is producedfrom their actions are freed from the chains of birth, andgo to the regions of eternal happiness . 'In some hands such doctrine might rise above thepopular morality; in most it would be so interpreted asto sink below even that ignoble standard.(3.) ' God,' saith Crishna, ' is the gift of charity; God isthe offering; God is in the fire of the altar; by God isthe sacrifice performed; and God is to be obtained byhim who maketh God alone the object of his works. 'Again, ' I am moisture in the water, light in the sun andmoon, ... human nature in mankind, the understanding of the wise, the glory of the proud, the strength of thestrong, ' &c.(4.) This eternal absorption in Brahm is supposed to bein some way consistent with personality, since Crishnapromises Arjoun enjoyment. The mystic of the BagvatGita seeks at once the highest aim of the Hindoo religion,the attainment of such a state that when he dies he shallnot be born again into any form on earth. Future birthis the Hindoo hell and purgatory.So with Buddhism, and its Nirwana.But the final absorption which goes by the name ofNirwana among the Buddhists is described in terms whichcan only mean annihilation. According to the Buddhistsall sentient existence has within it one spiritual element,C. 2.] The Yogis. 63homogeneous in the animal andthe man,-Thought, whichis adivine substance. This Thought ' exists in its highestdegree in man, the summit of creation, and from the bestamongmen it lapses directly out of a particular existenceinto the universal. Thus the mind of man is divine, butmost divine when nearest nothing. Hence the monasticasceticism, inertia, trance, of this kindred oriental superstition. ( See Spence Hardy's Eastern Monachism.)(5.) ' Divine wisdom is said to be confirmed when aman can restrain his faculties from their wonted use, asthe tortoise draws inhis limbs.'The devotees who make it their principal aim to realisethe emancipation of the spirit supposed to take place intrance, are called Yogis .'The Yogi constantly exerciseth the spirit in private.He is recluse, of a subdued mind and spirit, free fromhope and free from perception. He planteth his ownseat firmly on a spot that is undefiled, neither too highnor too low, and sitteth upon the sacred grass which iscalled Koos, covered with a skin and a cloth. There hewhose business is the restraining of his passions shouldsit, with his mind fixed on one object alone; in the exerciseofhis devotion for the purification ofhis soul, keeping hishead, his neck, and body steady, without motion; hiseyes fixed on the point of his nose, looking at no otherplace around. 'The monks of Mount Athos, whose mysticism wasalso of this most degraded type, substituted, as a gazingpoint, the navel for the nose.Ward, in describing the Yogi practice, tells us that atthe latest stage the eyes also are closed, while the fingersand even bandages are employed to obstruct almost com-64 Early Oriental Mysticism. [B. II.১pletely the avenues of respiration. Then the soul is saidto be united to the energy of the body; both mount,and are as it were concentrated in the skull; whence thespirit bscapes by the basilar suture, and, the body havingbeen thus abandoned, the incorporeal nature is reunitedfor a season to the Supreme.¹Stupifying drugs were doubtless employed to assist ininducing this state of insensibility.Crishna teaches that ' the wisely devout' walk in thenight of time when all things rest, and sleep in the dayof time when all things wake. In other words, the escapefrom sense is a flight from illusion into the undeceivingcondition of trance. So the Code of Menu pronouncesthe waking state one of deceptive appearances a lifeamong mere phantasmata; that of sleep a little nearerreality; while that of ecstasy, or trance, presents thetruth-reveals a new world, and enables the inner eye(which opens as the outer one is closed) to discern theinmost reality of things.These are pretensions which mysticism has often repeated. This notion underlies the theory and practice ofspiritual clairvoyance.(6.) ' The learned behold him (Deity) alike in the reverend Brahmin perfected in knowledge; in the ox and inthe elephant; in the dog, and in him who eateth the fleshofdogs. Those whose minds are fixed on this equalitygain eternity even in this world' (transcend the limitationoftime).(7.) The following passage, given by Ward, exhibits atonce the nature of the miraculous powers ascribed to thehighest class ofdevotees, and the utter lawlessness arrogatedby these ' god-intoxicated' men: -C. 2.] Apathy accounted Perfection. 65' He (the Yogi) will hear celestial sounds, the songs andconversation of celestial choirs. He will have the perception of their touch in their passage through the air. Heis able to trace the progress of intellect through the senses,and the path ofthe animal spirit through the nerves. Heis able to enter a dead or a living bodyby the path of thesenses, and in this body to act as though it were his own.'He who in the body hath obtained liberation is of nocaste, of no sect, of no order; attends to no duties, adheresto no shastras, to no formulas, to no works of merit; he isbeyond the reach of speech; he remains at a distance fromall secular concerns; he has renounced the love and theknowledge of sensible objects; he is glorious as theautumnal sky; he flatters none, he honours none; he isnot worshipped, he worships none; whether he practisesand follows the customs of his country or not, this is hischaracter. 'In the fourteenth century, mystics were to be foundamong the lower orders, whose ignorance and sloth carriednegation almost as far as this. They pretended to imitatethe divine immutability by absolute inaction. The dregsand refuse of mysticism along the Rhine are equal inquality to its most ambitious produce on the banks of theGanges.(8.) The Guru is paralleled by the Pir of the Sufis, theConfessor of the Middle Age, and the Directeur of modernFrance.2Amysticism which rests ultimately on the doctrine thatthe human soul is of one substance with God, is fain to falldownandworship at the feet of a man. Such directorshipis, ofcourse, no essential part of mysticism-is , in fact, aninconsistency; but, though no member, or genuine outVOL. I. F66 Early Oriental Mysticism. [B. II.growth, it is an entozoon lamentably prevalent. Themystic, after all his pains to reduce himself to absolutepassivity, becomes not theopathetic, but anthropopathetic-suffers, not under God, but man.BOOK THE THIRD.THE MYSTICISM OF THE NEO-PLATONISTS.F2

KCHAPTER I.aman is not as God,But then most godlike being most a man.TENNYSON.ATE. What a formidable bundle of papers, Henry.ATHERTON. Don't be alarmed, I shall not read all thisto you; only three Neo- Platonist letters I have discovered.MRS. ATHERTON. We were talking just before you camein, Mr. Willoughby, about Mr. Crossley's sermon yesterdaymorning.WILLOUGHBY. Ah, the Tabernacle in the Wilderness;did you not think his remarks on the use and abuse ofsymbolism in general very good? Brief, too, and suggestive; just what such portions of a sermon should be.ATHERTON. He overtook me on my walk this morning,and I alluded to the subject. He said he had been dipping into Philo last week, and that suggested his topic.I told him I had paid that respectable old gentleman avisit or two lately, and we amused ourselves with some ofhis fancies . Think of the seven branches of the candlestick being the seven planets-the four colours employed,the four elements the forecourt symbolizing the visible,the two sanctuaries the ideal world-and so on.6970 TheMysticism of the Neo-Platonists. [B. III .GOWER. At this rate the furniture in one of Hoffmann'stales cannot be more alive with spirit than Philo's templeapparatus. An ingenious trifler, was he not?ATHERTON. Something better, I should say.GOWER. Not, surely, when his great characteristic is anunsurpassed facility for allegorical interpretation. Is notmystical exegesis an invariable symptom of religious dilettantism?ATHERTON. With the successors and imitators-yes;not with the more earnest originals, such names as Philo,Origen, Swedenborg.GOWER. But, at any rate, if this spiritualizing mania bePhilo's great claim to distinction, head a list of mysticalcommentators with him, and pass on to some one better.ATHERTON. He need not detain us long. For our enquiry he has importance chiefly as in a sort the intellectualfather of Neo-Platonism-the first meeting-place of thewaters of the eastern and the western theosophies. This ishis great object-to combine the authoritative monotheismof his Hebrew Scriptures with the speculation of Plato.GOWER. Absurd attempt!-to interpret the full, clearutterance of Moses, who has found, by the hesitant andconflicting conjectures of Plato, who merely seeks.WILLOUGHBY. Yet a very natural mistake for a Jew atAlexandria, reared in Greek culture, fascinated by thedazzling abstractions of Greek philosophy. He belongedless to Jerusalem, after all, than to Athens.ATHERTON. There lies the secret. Philo was proud ofhis saintly ancestry, yet to his eye the virtues of the OldTestament worthy wore a rude and homely air beside therefinement of the Grecian sage. The good man ofMosesand the philosopher of Philo represent two very differentC. I.] Influence ofPhilo. 71ideals. With the former the moral, with the latter themerely intellectual, predominates. So the Hebrew faithtakes with Philo the exclusive Gentile type,-despises thebody, is horrified by matter, tends to substitute abstractionfor personality, turns away, I fear, from the publican andthe sinner.GOWER. So, then, Platonism in Philo does for Judaismwhat it was soon to do for Christianity, substitutes anultra-human standard-an ascetic, unnatural, passivelygazingcontemplation-anambitious, would-be-disembodiedintellectualism, for the all-embracing activities of commonChristian life, so lowly, yet so great.WILLOUGHBY. Yet Alexandrian Platonism was thegainer by Philo's accommodation. Judaism enfeebledcould yet impart strength to heathendom. The infusionenabled the Neo-Platonists to walk with a firmer step inthe religious province; their philosophy assumed an aspectmore decisively devout. Numenius learns of Philo, andPlotinus of Numenius, and the ecstasy of Plotinus is thedevelopment of Philo's intuition.GOWER. Let me sum up; and forgive an antithesis.Philo's great mistake lay in supposing that the religion ofphilosophy was necessarily the philosophy of religion. Butwe have forgotten your letter, Atherton.ATHERTON. Here is the precious document a letterwritten by Philo from Alexandria, evidently just after hisjourney to Rome. (Reads.)PHILO TO HEPHÆSTION.Iambeginning to recover myself, after all the anxietyand peril of our embassy to Caligula. Nothing shall tempt72 The Mysticism ofthe Neo- Platonists. [B. III.me to visit Rome again so long as this Emperor lives. Ourdivine Plato is doubly dear after so long an absence. Onlyan imperative sense of duty to my countrymen could againinduce me to take so prominent a part in their publicaffairs . Except when our religion or our trade is concerned, the government has always found us more docilethan either the Greeks or the Egyptians, and we enjoyaccordingly large privileges. Yet when I saw the ill turnour cause took at Rome, I could not but sigh for anotherJulius Cæsar.Iam sorry to find you saying that you are not likely tovisit Alexandria again. This restless, wicked city can present but few attractions, I grant, to a lover of philosophicquiet. But I cannot commend the extreme to which I seeso manyhastening. Apassion for ascetic seclusion is becoming daily more prevalent among the devout and thethoughtful, whether Jew or Gentile. Yet surely theattempt to combine contemplation and action should notbe so soon abandoned. A man ought at least to haveevinced some competency for the discharge of the socialduties before he abandons them for the divine. First theless, then the greater.Ihave tried the life of the recluse. Solitude brings noescape from spiritual danger. If it closes some avenues oftemptation, there are few in whose case it does not openmore. Yet the Therapeutæ, a sect similar to the Essenes,withwhomyou are acquainted, number many among themwhose lives are truly exemplary. Their cells are scatteredabout the region bordering on the farther shore of theLake Mareotis. The members of either sex live a singleand ascetic life, spending their time in fasting and contemplation, in prayer or reading. They believe themselvesC. I.] Philo on the Contemplative Life . 73favoured with divine illumination-an inner light. Theyassemble on the Sabbath for worship, and listen to mysticaldiscourses on the traditionary lore which they say hasbeen handed down in secret among themselves. Theyalso celebrate solemn dances and processions, of a mysticsignificance, by moonlight on the shore of the great mere. Sometimes, on an occasion of public rejoicing, themargin of the lake on our side will be lit with a fiery chainofilluminations, and galleys, hung with lights, row to andfro with strains of music sounding over the broad water.Then the Therapeutæ are all hidden in their little hermitages, and these sights and sounds of the world theyhave abandoned, make them withdraw into themselves andpray.Their principle at least is true. The soul which is occupied with things above, and is initiated into the mysteriesof the Lord, cannot but account the body evil, and evenhostile. The soul of man is divine, and his highest wisdomis to become as much as possible a stranger to the bodywith its embarrassing appetites. God has breathed intoman from heaven a portion of his own divinity. Thatwhich is divine is indivisible. It may be extended, but itis incapable of separation. Consider how vast is the rangeofour thought over the past and the future, the heavensand the earth. This alliance with an upper world, ofwhich we are conscious, would be impossible, were not thesoul of man an indivisible portion of that divine andblessed Spirit (εἰ μὴ τῆς θείας καὶ εὐδαίμονος ψυχῆς ἐκείνηςἀπόσπασμα ἦν οὐ διαιρετόν) . Contemplation of the DivineEssence is the noblest exercise of man; it is the only meansof attaining to the highest truth and virtue, and thereinto behold God is the consummation of our happiness here.74 TheMysticism ofthe Neo- Platonists. [в. III .The confusion of tongues at the building of the tower ofBabel should teach us this lesson. The heaven those vainbuilders sought to reach, signifies symbolically the mind,where dwell divine powers. Their futile attempt represents the presumption of those who place sense above intelligence-who think that they can storm the Intelligibleby the Sensible. The structure which such impiety wouldraise is overthrown by spiritual tranquillity. In calm retirement and contemplation we are taught that we knowlike only by like, and that the foreign and lower world ofthe sensuous and the practical may not intrude into thelofty region of divine illumination.Ihave written a small treatise on the ContemplativeLife, giving an account of the Therapeutæ. If you willneither visit me nor them, I will have a copy of it made,and send you.¹ Farewell.GOWER. How mistaken is Philo in maintaining that thesenses cannot aid us in our ascent towards the supersensuous;-as though the maltreatment of the body, thevassal, by the soul, the suzerain, were at once the meansand the proof of mastery over it. Duly care for the body,and the thankful creature will not forget its place, andwhen you wish to meditate, will disturb you by no obtrusive hint of its presence. I find that I can rise aboveit only by attention to its just claims. If I violate itsrights I am sued by it in the high court of nature, andcast with costs .MRS. ATHERTON. And certainly our most favouredmoments of ascent into the ideal world have their originusually in some suggestion that has reached us throughC. I.] Body versus Soul. 75the senses . I remember a little song of Uhland's calledThe Passing Minstrel a brief parable of melody, likeso many of his pieces, which, as I understood it, wasdesigned to illustrate this very truth. The poet fallsasleep on a ' hill of blossoms ' near the road, and his soulflutters away in dream to the golden land of Fable. Hewakes, as one fallen from the clouds, and sees the minstrelwith his harp, who has just passed by, and, playing as hegoes, is lost to sight among the trees. ' Was it he, ' thepoet asks, ' that sang into my soul those dreams ofwonder?' Another might inform the fancy with anothermeaning, according to the mood of the hour. It appearedto me an emblem of the way in which we are often indebted to a sunset or a landscape, to a strain of music ora suddenly- remembered verse, for a voyage into a worldof vision of our own, where we cease altogether to beaware of the external cause which first transported usthither.ATHERTON. That must always be true of imagination.But Platonism discards the visible instead of mountingby it. Considered morally, too, this asceticism sins sogrievously. It misuses the iron of the will, given us toforge implements withal for life's husbandry, to fashion ofit abolt for a voluntary prison. At Alexandria, doubtless,Sin was imperious in her shamelessness, at the theatreand at the mart, in the hall of judgment and in the houseof feasting, but there was suffering as well as sin amongthe crowds of that great city, with all their ignorance andcare and want, and to have done a something to lessenthe suffering would have prepared the way for lesseningthe sin.やややややややややややややややややややややややや やCHAPTER II.La philosophie n'est pas philosophie si elle ne touche à l'abîme;mais elle cesse d'être philosophie si elle y tombe.-COUSIN.GOWER. I hope you are ready,Atherton, to illumine my darkness concerning Neo-Platonism, by takingup that individual instance you were speaking of lastMonday.ATHERTON. I have something ready to inflict; so prepare to listen stoutly. (Reads. )Plato pronounces Love the child ofPoverty andPlentythe Alexandrian philosophy was the offspring of Reverence and Ambition. It combined an adoring homage tothe departed genius of the age of Pericles with apassionate,credulous craving after a supernatural elevation. Itsliterary tastes and religious wants were alike imperativeand irreconcilable. In obedience to the former, it disdained Christianity; impelled by the latter, it travestiedPlato. But for that proud servility which fettered it to aglorious past, it might have recognised in Christianity theonly satisfaction of its higher longings. Rejecting that,it could only establish a philosophic church on the foundation of Plato's school, and, forsaking while it professedPlotinus . 77toexpoundhim, embrace the hallucinations ofintuition andofecstasy, till it finally vanishes atAthens amid the incenseand the hocus-pocus of theurgic incantation. As it degenerates, it presses more audaciously forward through theveil of the unseen. It must see visions, dream dreams,work spells, and calldown deities, demi-gods, and dæmonsfrom their dwellings in the upper air. The Alexandrians were eclectics, because such reverence taught themto look back; mystics, because such ambition urged themto look up. They restore philosophy, after all its wearywanderings, to the place of its birth; and, in its secondchildhood, it is cradled in the arms of those old poeticfaiths of the past, from which, in the pride of its youth, itbroke away.The mental history of the founder best illustrates theorigin of the school. Plotinus, in A.D. 233, commencesthe study of philosophy in Alexandria, at the age oftwenty-eight. His mental powers are of the concentrativerather than the comprehensive order. Impatient of negation, he has commenced an earnest search after sometruth which, however abstract, shall yet be positive. Hepores over the Dialogues of Plato and the Metaphysics ofAristotle, day and night. To promote the growth of his' soul-wings,' as Plato counsels, he practises austerities hismaster would never have sanctioned. He attempts tolive what he learns to call the ' angelic life; ' the ' life ofthedisembodied in the body.' He reads with admirationthe life ofApollonius of Tyana, by Philostratus, which hasrecently appeared. He can probably credit most of themarvels recorded of that strange thaumaturgist, who,two hundred years ago, had appeared a revived Pytha78 TheMysticism ofthe Neo-Platonists. [B. III .goras, to dazzle nation after nation through which hepassed, with prophecy andmiracle; who had travelled tothe Indus and the Ganges, and brought back the supernatural powers of Magi and Gymnosophists, and who wassaid to have displayed to the world once more the variousknowledge, the majestic sanctity, and the superhumanattributes, of the sage of Crotona. This portraiture of aphilosophical hierophant-a union of the philosopher andthe priest in an inspired hero, fires the imagination ofPlotinus. In the New-Pythagoreanism of which Apollonius was a representative, Orientalism and Platonismwere alike embraced.1 Perhaps the thought occurs thusearly to Plotinus-could I travel eastward I might drinkmyself at those fountain-heads of tradition whencePythagoras and Plato drew so much of their wisdom.Certain it is, that, with this purpose, he accompanied,several years subsequently, the disastrous expedition ofGordian against the Parthians, and narrowly escapedwith life.At Alexandria, Plotinus doubtless hears from orientalsthere some fragments of the ancient eastern theosophydoctrines concerning the principle of evil, the gradualdevelopment of the Divine Essence, and creation by intermediate agencies, none of which he finds in his Plato.He cannot be altogether a stranger to the lofty theismwhich Philo marred, while he attempted to refine, by thehelp of his ' Attic Moses.' He observes a tendency onthe part of philosophy to fall back upon the sanctions ofreligion, and on the part of the religions of the day tomingle in a Deism or a Pantheism which might claim thesanctions of philosophy. The signs of a growing toleration or indifferentism meet him on every side. Rome hasC. 2.] Fusion ofReligions. 79long been a Pantheon for all nations, and gods andprovinces together have found in the capitol at once theirOlympus and their metropolis. He cannot walk thestreets of Alexandria without perceiving that the veryarchitecture tells of an alliance between the religious artofEgypt and of Greece. All, except Jews and Christians,join in the worship of Serapis. Was not the very substance of which the statue of that god was made, anamalgam?-fit symbol of the syncretism which paid himhomage. Once Serapis had guarded the shores of theEuxine, now he is the patron ofAlexandria, and in himthe attributes of Zeus and of Osiris, ofApis and ofPluto,are adored alike by East and West. Men are learning tooverlook the external differences of name and ritual, andto reduce all religions to one general sentiment of worship.For now more than fifty years, every educated man haslaughed, with Lucian's satire in his hand, at the gods ofthe popular superstition. A century before Lucian,Plutarch had shown that some of the doctrines of thebarbarians were not irreconcilable with the philosophy inwhich he gloried as a Greek. Plutarch had been followedbyApuleius, a practical eclectic, a learner in every school,an initiate in every temple, at once sceptical and credulous,asophist and a devotee.Plotinus looks around him, and inquires what philosophyis doing in the midst of influences such as these. Peripateticism exists but in slumber under the dry scholarshipof Adrastus and Alexander of Aphrodisium, the commentators of the last century. The NewAcademy andthe Stoics attract youth still, but they are neither of themaphilosophy so much as a system of ethics . Speculationhas given place to morals. Philosophy is taken up as a80 The Mysticism of the Neo- Platonists . [B. III.branch of literature, as an elegant recreation, as a themefor oratorical display. Plotinus is persuaded that philosophy should be worship-speculation, a search after God-no amusement, but a prayer. Scepticism is strong inproportion to the defect or weakness of everything positive around it. The influence of Ænesidemus, who, twocenturies ago, proclaimed universal doubt, is still felt inAlexandria. But his scepticism would break up thefoundations of morality. What is to be done? Plotinussees those who are true to speculation surrenderingethics, and those who hold to morality abandoning speculation.In his perplexity, a friend takes him to hear AmmoniusSaccas. He finds him a powerful, broad-shouldered man,as he might naturally be who not long before was to beseen any day in the sultry streets of Alexandria, a porter,wiping his brow under his burden. Ammonius is speakingof the reconciliation that might be effected between Platoand Aristotle. This eclecticism it is which has given himfame. At another time it might have brought on himonly derision; now there is an age ready to give theattempt an enthusiastic welcome.'What,' he cries, kindling with his theme, ' did Platoleave behind him, what Aristotle, when Greece and philosophy had waned together? The first, a chatteringcrew of sophists: the second, the lifeless dogmatism ofthe sensationalist. The self-styled followers of Plato werenot brave enough either to believe or to deny. The successors of the Stagyrite did little more than reiterate theirdenial of the Platonic doctrine of ideas. Between themmorality was sinking fast. Then an effort was made forits revival. The attempt at least was good. It sprangC. 2.] Eclecticism essays to revive Philosophy.81out of a just sense of a deep defect. Without morality,what is philosophy worth? But these ethics must rest onspeculation for their basis. The Epicureans and theStoics, I say, came forward to supply that moralwant.Each said, we will be practical, intelligible, utilitarian.One school, with its hard lesson of fate and self-denial;the other, with its easier doctrine of pleasure, more or lessrefined, were rivals in their profession of ability to teachmen how to live. In each there was a certain truth, butI will honour neither with the name of a philosophy.They have confined themselves to mere ethical application-they are willing, both of them, to let first principles lieunstirred. Can scepticism fail to take advantage of this?While they wrangle, both are disbelieved. But, sirs, canwe abide in scepticism?-it is death. You ask me whatI recommend? I say, travel back across the past. Outof the whole of that by-gone and yet undying world ofthought, construct a system greater than any of thesundered parts. Repudiate these partial scholars in thename of their masters. Leave them to their disputes,pass over their systems, already tottering for lack of afoundation, and be it yours to show how their teachersjoinhands far above them. In such a spirit of reverententhusiasm you may attain a higher unity, you mount inspeculation, and from that height ordain all noble actionsfor your lower life. So you become untrue neither to experience nor to reason, and the genius of eclecticism willcombine, yea, shall I say it, will surpass while it embraces,all the ancient triumphs of philosophy! ' 4Such was the teaching which attracted Longinus,Herennius, and Origen (not the Father). It makes anepoch in the life of Plotinus. He desires now no otherVOL. I. G82 The Mysticism ofthe Neo-Platonists. [B. III .instructor, and is preparing to become himself a leader inthe pathway Ammonius has pointed out. He is convincedthat Platonism, exalted into an enthusiastic illuminism,and gathering about itself all the scattered truth upon thefield of history,-Platonism, mystical and catholic, canalone preserve men from the abyss of scepticism. One ofthe old traditions of Finland relates how a mother oncefound her son torn into a thousand fragments at thebottom of the River of Death. She gathered the scatteredmembers to her bosom, and rocking to and fro, sang amagic song, which made him whole again, and restoredthe departed life. Such a spell the Alexandrian philosophy sought to work-thus to recover and re-unitethe relics of antique truth, dispersed and drowned bytime.Plotinus occupied himself only with the most abstractquestions concerning knowledge and being. Detail andmethod-all the stitching and clipping of eclecticism, hebequeathed as the handicraft of his successors . Hisfundamental principle is the old petitio principii ofidealism. Truth, according to him, is not the agreementof our apprehension of an external object with the objectitself-it is rather the agreement of the mind with itself.The objects we contemplate and that which contemplates,are identical for the philosopher. Both are thought; onlylike can know like; all truth is within us. By reducingthe soul to its most abstract simplicity, we subtilise it sothat it expands into the infinite. In such a state wetranscend our finite selves, and are one with the infinite;this is the privileged condition of ecstasy. These blissfulintervals, but too evanescent and too rare, were regardedas the reward of philosophic asceticism-the seasons ofC. 2.] Platonism and Neo-Platonism. 83refreshing, which were to make amends for all the stoicalausterities of the steep ascent towards the abstraction ofthe primal unity.Thus the Neo-Platonists became ascetics and enthusiasts; Plato was neither. Where Plato acknowledgesthe services of the earliest philosophers-the imperfectutterances of the world's first thoughts,-Neo-Platonism(in its later period, at least) undertakes to detect, not thesimilarity merely, but the identity between Pythagorasand Plato, and even to exhibit the Platonism of Orpheusand of Hermes. Where Plato is hesitant or obscure,Neo-Platonism inserts a meaning of its own, and is confident that such, and no other, was the master's mind.Where Plato indulges in a fancy, or hazards a bold assertion, Neo-Platonism, ignoring the doubts Plato may himself express elsewhere, spins it out into a theory, or bowsto it as an infallible revelation.5 Where Plato has thedoctrine of Reminiscence, Neo-Platonism has the doctrineof Ecstasy. In the Reminiscence of Plato, the ideas themind perceives are without it. Here there is no mysticism, only the mistake incidental to metaphysicians generally, ofgiving an actual existence to mere mental abstractions. In Ecstasy, the ideas perceived are within themind. The mystic, according to Plotinus, contemplatesthe divine perfections in himself; and, in the ecstaticstate, individuality (which is so much imperfection) ,memory, time, space, phenomenal contradictions andlogical distinctions, all vanish. It is not until the raptureis past, and the mind, held in this strange solution, is, asit were, precipitated on reality, that memory is again employed. Plotinus would say that Reminiscence couldimpart only inferior knowledge, because it implies sepaG284 The Mysticism of the Neo- Platonists . [B. III .ration between the subject and the object. Ecstasy issuperior-is absolute, being the realization of theiridentity. True to this doctrine of absorption, thepantheism of Plotinus teaches him to maintain, alike withthe Oriental mystic at one extreme of time, and with theHegelian at the other, that our individual existence is butphenomenal and transitory. Plotinus, accordingly, doesnot banish reason, he only subordinates it to ecstasywhere the Absolute is in question. It is not till the lastthat he calls in supernatural aid. The wizard king buildshis tower of speculation by the hands of human workmentill he reaches the top story, and then summons his geniito fashion the battlements of adamant, and crown themwith starry fire.GOWER. Thanks. These Neo-Platonists are evidentlyno mere dreamers. They are erudite and critical, theystudy and they reason, they are logicians as well as poets;they are not mystics till they have first been rationalists,and they have recourse at last to mysticism only to carrythem whither they find reason cannot mount.ATHERTON. Now, I have a letter by Plotinus. It iswithout a date, but from internal evidence must have beenwritten about A.D. 260.PLOTINUS TO FLACCUS.I applaud your devotion to philosophy; I rejoice tohear that your soul has set sail, like the returningUlysses, for its native land that glorious, that only realcountry-the world of unseen truth. To follow philo-C. 2.] Plotinus to Flaccus. 85sophy, the senatorRogatianus, one of the noblest of mydisciples, gave up the other day all but the whole of hispatrimony, set free his slaves, and surrendered all thehonours of his station.Tidings have reached us that Valerian has been defeated, and is now in the hands of Sapor. The threats ofFranks and Allemanni, of Goths and Persians, are aliketerrible by turns to our degenerate Rome. In days likethese, crowded with incessant calamities, the inducementsto a life of contemplation are more than ever strong. Evenmy quiet existence seems now to grow somewhatsensible of the advance of years. Age alone I am unableto debar from myretirement. I amweary already of thisprison-house, the body, and calmly await the day whenthe divine nature within me shall be set free frommatter.The Egyptian priests used to tell me that a singletouch with the wing of their holy bird could charm thecrocodile into torpor; it is not thus speedily, my dearfriend, that the pinions of your soul will have power tostill the untamed body. The creature will yield only towatchful, strenuous constancy of habit. Purify your soulfrom all undue hope and fear about earthly things,mortify the body, deny self,-affections as well as appetites, and the inner eye will begin to exercise its clear andsolemn vision.You ask me to tell you how we know, and what is ourcriterion of certainty. To write is always irksome to me.But for the continual solicitations of Porphyry, I shouldnot have left a line to survive me. For your ownsake and for your father's, my reluctance shall be overcome.86 The Mysticism ofthe Neo- Platonists. [B. III .External objects present us only with appearances .Concerning them, therefore, we may be said to possessopinion rather than knowledge. The distinctions in theactual world of appearance are of import only to ordinaryand practical men. Our question lies with the idealreality that exists behind appearance. How does themind perceive these ideas? Are they without us, and isthe reason, like sensation, occupied with objects externalto itself? What certainty could we then have, whatassurance that our perception was infallible? The objectperceived would be a something different from the mindperceiving it. We should have then an image instead ofreality. It would be monstrous to believe for a momentthat the mind was unable to perceive ideal truth exactlyas it is, and that we had not certainty and real knowledgeconcerning the world ofintelligence. It follows, therefore,that this region of truth is not to be investigated as athing external to us, and so only imperfectly known. It is within us. Here the objects we contemplate and thatwhich contemplates are identical,-both are thought. Thesubject cannot surely know an object different from itself.The world of ideas lies within our intelligence. Truth,therefore, is not the agreement of our apprehension of anexternal object with the object itself. It is the agreement of the mind with itself. Consciousness, therefore,is the sole basis of certainty. The mind is its own witness .Reason sees in itself that which is above itself as itssource; and again, that which is below itself as still itselfonce more.Knowledgehas three degrees Opinion, Science, Illumination. The means or instrument of the first is sense; ofthe second, dialectic; of the third, intuition. To the lastC. 2.] Plotinus on Ecstasy. 87I subordinate reason. It is absolute knowledge founded onthe identity of the mind knowing with the object known.7There is a raying out of all orders of existence, an external emanation from the ineffable One (πρόοδος). Thereis again a returning impulse, drawing all upwards andinwards towards the centre from whence all came (ἐπιστροφή). Love, as Plato in the Banquet beautifully says,is the child of Poverty and Plenty. In the amorousquest of the soul after the Good, lies the painful sense offall and deprivation. But that Love is blessing, is salvation, is our guardian genius; without it the centrifugallaw would overpower us, and sweep our souls out far fromtheir source toward the cold extremities of the Materialand the Manifold. The wise man recognises the idea ofthe Good within him. This he develops by withdrawalinto the Holy Place of his own soul. He who does notunderstand how the soul contains the Beautiful withinitself, seeks to realize beauty without, by laborious production. His aim should rather be to concentrate andsimplify, and so to expand his being; instead of going outinto the Manifold, to forsake it for the One, and so tofloat upwards towards the divine fount of being whosestream fows within him.You ask, how can we know the Infinite? I answer,not byreason. It is the office of reason to distinguish anddefine. The Infinite, therefore, cannot be ranked amongits objects . You can only apprehend the Infinite by afaculty superior to reason, by entering into a state in whichyou are your finite self no longer, in which the DivineEssence is communicated to you. This is Ecstasy. It isthe liberation of your mind from its finite consciousness . (Likeonly can apprehend like; when you thus cease to be88 The Mysticism ofthe Neo-Platonists. [B. III.finite, you become one with the Infinite. In the reduction of your soul to its simplest self (ἅπλωσις) , itsdivine essence, you realize this Union, this Identity(ἕνωσιν) .But this sublime condition is not of permanent duration. It is only now and then that we can enjoy thiselevation (mercifully made possible for us) above thelimits of the body and the world. I myself have realizedit but three times as yet, and Porphyry hitherto not once.All that tends to purify and elevate the mind will assistyou in this attainment, and facilitate the approach andthe recurrence of these happy intervals. There are, then,different roads by which this end may be reached. Thelove of beauty which exalts the poet; that devotion to theOne and that ascent of science which makes the ambitionof the philosopher; and that love and those prayers bywhich some devout and ardent soul tends in its moralpurity towards perfection. These are the great highwaysconducting to that height above the actual and the particular, where we stand in the immediate presence ofthe Infinite, who shines out as from the deeps of thesoul.1099999999999999999MCHAPTER III .Lume è lassù che visibile faceLo creatore a quella creaturaChe solo in lui vedere ha la sua pace. *DANTE.RS. ATHERTON. I confess I cannot understandwhat that state of mind can be which Plotinus callsecstasy in the letter you read us last night, and aboutwhich most of your mystical fraternity talk so mysteriously.KATE. I think I shall have myself mesmerised someday to form an idea.WILLOUGHBY. I suppose the mystic, by remaining formany hours (enfeebled, perhaps, by fast and vigil) , absolutely motionless, ceasing to think of anything-exceptthat he thinks he is successful in thinking of nothing, andstaring pertinaciously at vacancy, throws himself at lastinto a kind of trance. In this state he may perceive, evenwhen the eyes are closed, some luminous appearance, perhaps the result of pressure on the optic nerve-I am notanatomist enough to explain; and if his mind be stronglyimaginative, or labouring with the ground-swell of recent

• There is above a light which makes visible the Creator to that

creature who finds his peace only in the vision of Him.90 The Mysticism of the Neo- Platonists. [B. III.excitement, this light may shape itself into archetype,dæmon, or what not. In any case, the more distinct theobject seen, the more manifestly is it the projection of hisown mind-a Brocken-phantom, the enlarged shadow ofhimself moving on some shifting tapestry of mist.KATE. Like the woodman described by Coleridge asbeholding with such awe an appearance of the kind, whenheSees full before him gliding without treadAn image with a glory round its head,This shade he worships for its golden hues,And makes (not knowing) that which he pursues.ATHERTON. Such has been the god of many a mystic.He will soar above means, experience, history, externalrevelation, and ends by mistaking a hazy reflex of his ownimage for Deity.GOWER. But we must not forget that, according toPlotinus, all sense of personality is lost during ecstasy,and he would regard any light or form whatever (presented to what one may call his cerebral vision) as a signthat the trance was yet incomplete. He yearns to escapefrom everything that can be distinguished, bounded, ordepicted, into the illimitable inane.ATHERTON. Very true. And it is this extreme of negation and abstraction for which Plotinus is remarkable, thatmakes it alone worth our while to talk so much abouthim. His philosophy and that of his successors, mistakenfor Platonism, was to corrupt the Christian Church. Forhundreds of years there will be a succession of prelates,priests, or monks, in whose eyes the frigid refinements ofPlotinus will be practically, though not confessedly, regarded as representing God far more worthily than thec. 3.] Influence on the Church. 91grand simplicity and the forcible figurativeness of Scripture language. For the Christian's God will be substituted that sublime cypher devised by Plotinus-that blanksomething, of which you cannot say that it exists, for it isabove existence.Stop a moment-let me tell my beads, and try to countoff the doctrines we shall meet with again and again inthose forms of Christian mysticism where the Neo-Platonistelement prevails-the germs of all lie in Plotinus.There is, first of all, the principle of negation; that allso- called manifestations and revelations of God do in factveil him; that no affirmative can be predicated of him,because he is above all our positive conceptions; that allsymbols, figures, media, partial representations, must beutterly abandoned because, as finite, they fall infinitelyshort of the Infinite.Here we are sunk below humanity-our knowledgeconsists in ignorance-our vision in darkness.The next step raises us in an instant from this degradinglimitation up to Deity-' sets our feet in a large room, ' asthe later mystics phrased it-even in infinity, and identifies us for a time with God.Since the partial finite way of knowing God is so worthless, to know him truly we must escape from the finite,from all processes, all media, from the very gifts ofGodto God himself, and know him immediately, completely,in the infinite way-by receiving, or being received into,him directly.To attain this identity, in which, during a brief spaceof rapture at least, the subject and object, the knower andthe known, are one and the same, we must withdraw intoour inmost selves, into that simple oneness of our own92 The Mysticism ofthe Neo-Platonists. [в. 111.essence which by its very rarity is susceptible of blendingwith that supreme attenuation called the Divine Essence.So doing, we await in passivity the glory, the embrace ofUnion. Hence the inmost is the highest-introversion isascension, and introrsum ascendere the watchword of allmystics. God is found within, at once radiating from thedepths of the soul, and absorbing it as the husk of personality drops away.WILLOUGHBY. And so the means and faculties God hasgiven us for knowing him are to lie unused.ATHERTON. Certainly; night must fall on reason, imagination, memory-on our real powers that an imaginarypower may awake. This is what the mystics call theabsorption of the powers in God, leaving active within usnothing natural, in order that God may be substituted forourselves, and all operations within be supernatural, andeven divine.GOWER. Then mysticism is a spiritual art whereby thepossible is forsaken for the impossible-the knowable forthe unknowable.WILLOUGHBY. Or a contrivance, say, for reachingDivinity which realizes only torpor.GOWER. Asorry sight this misdirection and disappointment of spiritual aspiration. Does it not remind you ofthat ever-suggestive legend of Psyche-how she has tocarry the box of celestial beauty to Venus, and by theway covets some of this loveliness for herself. She liftsthe lid, and there steals out a soporific vapour, throwingher into a deep slumber on the edge of a dizzy precipice.There she lies entranced till Eros comes to waken and torescue her.ATHERTON. I should grow very tiresome if Iwere nowc. 3.] Plotinus-Schelling-Coleridge. 93to attempt to indicate the likeness and the differencebetweenancient and modern speculation on these questions,and where I think the error lies, and why. But you mustbear with me, Kate, if I hang some dry remarks on whatyou saidjust now.KATE. I am sure IATHERTON. You quoted Coleridge a minute since. Hefirst, and after him Carlyle, familiarised England with theGerman distinction between reason and understanding.In fact, what the Epicureans and the Stoics were toPlotinus in his day, that were Priestley and Paley toColeridge. The spiritualist is the sworn foe of your rationalist and pleasures-of-virtue man. Romance mustloathe utilitarianism, enthusiasm scorn expediency. Hencethe reaction which gives us Schelling as the Plotinus ofBerlin, and Coleridge as the Schelling of Highgate. Theunderstanding had been over-tasked-set to work unanimated and unaided by the conscience and the heart.The result was pitiable-lifeless orthodoxy and sneeringscepticism. Christianity was elaborately defended on itsexternal evidences; the internal evidence of its ownnature overlooked.What was needful at such a juncture? Surely thatboth should be employed in healthful alliance-the understanding and the conscience-the faculty which distinguishes and judges, and the faculty which presides overour moral nature, deciding about right and wrong. Theseare adequate to recognise the claims of Revelation. Theintellectual faculty can deal with the historic evidence,themoral can pronounce concerning the tendency of thebook, righteous or unrighteous. In those features of itunexplained and inexplicable to the understanding, if we.94 The Mysticism of the Neo- Platonists. [B. III.1repose on faith, we do so on grounds which the understanding shows to be sound. Hence the reception givento Christianity is altogether reasonable.But no such moderate ground as this would satisfy theardour which essayed reform; the understanding, becauseit could not do everything-could not be the whole mind,but only a part-because it was proved unequal to accomplish alone the work of all our faculties together, wassummarily cashiered. We must have for religion a new,a higher faculty. Instead of reinforcing the old power,a novel nomenclature is devised which seems to endowman with a loftier attribute. This faculty is the intuitionof Plotinus, the Intellectuelle Anschauung of Schelling;the Intuitive Reason, Source of Ideas and AbsoluteTruths, the Organ of Philosophy and Theology, asColeridge styles it. It is a direct beholding, which, according to Plotinus, rises in some moments of exaltationto ecstasy. It is, according to Schelling, a realization ofthe identity of subject and object in the individual, whichblends him with that identity of subject and object calledGod; so that, carried out of himself, he does, in a manner,think divine thoughts-views all things from their highestpoint of view-mind and matter from the centre of theiridentity. He becomes recipient, according to Emerson,of the Soul of the world. He loses, according to Coleridge, the particular in the universal reason; finds thatideas appear within him from an internal source suppliedbythe Logos or Eternal Word of God-an infallible utterance from the divine original of man's highest nature.WILLOUGHBY. One aim in all-to escape the surfacevarieties of our individual (or more properly dividual)being, and penetrate to the universal truth-the absoluteс. 3.] Inadequacy ofmere Intuition . 95certainty everywhere the same:-a shaft-sinking operation-a descent into our original selves-digging down, inone case from a garden, in another from a waste, herefrom the heart of a town, there from a meadow, but allthe miners are to find at the bottom a common groundthe primæval granite-the basis of the eternal truthpillars. This I take to be the object of the self-simplification Plotinus inculcates-to get beneath the finitesuperficial accretions of our nature.ATHERTON. And what comes of it after all? After denuding ourselves of all results of experience, conditioneddistinctions, &c., we are landed in a void, we find onlyhollow silence, if we may except a whisper or two, sayingthat ingratitude, treachery, fraud, and similar crimes, arevery wrong.GOWER. And even these dictates are those of our moralsense, not of an intellectual power of insight. For surelyto call conscience practical Reason, as Kant does, is onlyto confound our moral and intellectual nature together.ATHERTON. Very well, then. Seclude and simplifyyourself thoroughly, and you do not find data within youequal to your need-equal to show you what God is, hasdone, should do, &c.WILLOUGHBY. But all these intuitionalists profess toevolve from their depths very much more than those simplest ethical perceptions .ATHERTON. By carrying down with them into thosedepths the results of the understanding, of experience, ofexternal culture, and then bringing them up to light againas though they had newly emerged from the recesses ofthe Infinite. This intuitional metal, in its native state, ismere fluent, formless quicksilver; to make it definite and96 The Mysticism of the Neo- Platonists. [B. III.serviceable you must fix it by an alloy; but then, alas! itis pure Reason no longer, and, so far from being universaltruth, receives a countless variety of shapes, according tothe temperament, culture, or philosophic party, of the individual thinker. So that, in the end, the result is merelyadogmatical investiture of a man's own notions with asort of divine authority. You dispute with Schelling,andhe waves you away as aprofane and intuitionless laic.What is this but the sacerdotalism of the philosopher?The fanatical mystic who believes himself called on toenforce the fantasies of his special revelation upon othermen, does not more utterly contemn argument than doesthe theosophist, when he bids you kick your understanding back into its kennel, and hearken in reverent awe tohis intuitions .WILLOUGHBY. Telling you, too, that if your inwardwitness does not agree with his, you are, philosophicallyspeaking, in the gall of bitterness and the bond ofiniquity.ATHERTON. You are catching the approved style of expression so much in vogue with our modern religiousinfidelity. This is the artifice-to be scriptural in phrase,and anti- scriptural in sense: to parade the sacred symbolsof Christianity in the van of that motley army whichmarches to assail it.GOWER. The expedient reminds me of the device ofCambyses, who, when he drew out his forces against theEgyptians, placed a row of ibises in front of his line, andthe Egyptians, it is said, suffered defeat rather than discharge an arrow which might wound the birds they worshipped.WILLOUGHBY. To go back to Plotinus. That doctrinec. 3.] Necessitarian Ethics. 97of the Epistrophe the return of all intelligence by alaw of nature to the divine centre-must inevitably beassociated with the unhealthy morality always attendant on pantheism. It is an organic process godward,ending in loss of personal existence, no moral or spiritualelevation.GOWER. His abstract Unity has no character, only negation of all conceivable attributes-so will and charactercan have no place in his theory of assimilation to God.Self-culture is self-reduction. What a plan of the universe -all! intelligence magnetically drawn to the Centre,like the ships to the Mountain of the Loadstone in theArabian Nights-as they approach, the nails which holdthem together are withdrawn, they fall apart, and all thefabric is dissolved.WILLOUGHBY. It is curious to observe how rapidly themind gives way under the unnatural strain of this superessential abstraction, and indemnifies itself by imaginativeand fantastical excesses for the attempt to sojourn in anatmosphere so rare. At first, ecstasy is an indescribablestate-any form or voice would mar and materialize it.The vague boundlessness of this exaltation, in which thesoul swoons away, is not to be hinted at by the highest utterance of mortal speech. But a degenerate age or a lowerorder ofminddemands the detail and imagery of amoretangible marvel. The demand creates supply, and themystic, deceiver or deceived, or both, begins to furnishforth for himself and others a full itinerary of thoseregions inthe unseenworld which he has scanned or traversed in his moments of elevation. He describes thestarred baldrics and meteor-swords of the aerial panoply;tells what forlorn shapes have been seen standing darkVOL. I. H98 The Mysticism of the Neo-Platonists. [B. III.against a far depth of brightness, like stricken pines on asunset horizon; what angelic forms, in gracious companies,alight about the haunts of men, thwarting the evil andopening pathways for the good; what genii tend whatmortals, and under what astral influences they work wealor woe; what beings of the middle air crowd in embattledrows the mountain side, or fill some vast amphitheatre ofsilent and inaccessible snow-how some encamp in thevalley, under the pennons of the summer lightning, andothers find a tented field where the slow wind unrollsthe exhalations along the marsh, and builds a billowycanopy of vapours: all is largely told,-what etherealheraldry marshals with its blazon the thrones and dominions of the unseen realm; what giant powers andprincipalities darken with long shadow, or illumine withawinged wake of glory, the forms of following myriads,-their ranks and races, wars and destiny, as minutelyregistered as the annals of some neighbour province, asconfidently recounted as though the seer had nightlyslipped his bonds of flesh, and mingled in their council ortheir battle.ATHERTON. A true portraiture. Observe how thismysticism pretends to raise man above self into the universal, and issues in giving us only what is personal. Itpresents us, after all, only with the creations of the fancy,the phenomena of the sensibility peculiar to the individual,-that finite, personal idiosyncrasy which is so despised.Its philosophy of the universe subsides into a morbidpsychology. Man is persuaded that he is to traversethe realms of fire and air, where the intelligible essencesand archetypes of all things dwell; and, like the Knightof La Mancha, he never stirs in reality from the littlec. 3.] TheMystic sinks instead of rising. 99grass-plot of individual temperament on which his wondrous wooden horse stands still. This theosophy professes to make man divine, and it fails at last to keephim even rational. It prevents his becoming what hemight be, while it promises to make him what he nevercanbecome.H2CHAPTER IV.Stargaze. 'Tis drawn, I assure you, from the aphorisms of the oldChaldeans, Zoroaster the first and greatest magician, Mercurius Trismegistus, the later Ptolemy, and the everlasting prognosticator, oldErra Pater.-MASSINGER.WILLOUGHBY. Wehave now about done, I suppose, with the theosophic branch of the NeoPlatonist school;-with its latest leaders it degeneratesinto theurgic mysticism.KATE. I hope it is going to degenerate into somethingone can understand.GOWER. The great metaphysician, Plotinus, is off thestage, that is somecomfort for you, Miss Merivale. Magicis less wearisome than metaphysics.ATHERTON. The change is marked, indeed. Plotinus,wrapt in his proud abstraction, cared little for fame. Hislistening disciples were his world. Porphyry entered hisschool fresh from the study of Aristotle. At first thedaring opponent of the master, he soon became the mostdevoted ofhis scholars. Witha temperament more activeand practical than that of Plotinus, with more variousability and far more facility in adaptation, with an erudition equal to his fidelity, blameless inhis life, pre-eminentin the loftiness and purity of his ethics, he was well fittedto do all that could be done towards securing for the doctrines he had espoused that reputation and that widerPosition ofPorphyry.ΙΟΙinfluence to which Plotinus was so indifferent. His aimwas twofold. He engaged in a conflict hand to handwith two antagonists at once, by both of whom he waseventually vanquished. He commenced an assault onChristianity without, and he endeavoured to check theprogress of superstitious usage within the pale ofPaganism.But Christianity could not be repulsed, and heathendomwould not be reformed. Invain did he attempt to substitute a single philosophical religion which should be universal, for the manifold and popular Polytheism of the day.Christian truth repelled his attack on the one side, andidolatrous superstition carried his defences on the other.WILLOUGHBY. A more false position could scarcelyhave been assumed. Men like Porphyry constitutedthemselves the defenders of a Paganism which did butpartially acknowledge their advocacy. Often suspectedby the Emperors, they were still oftener maligned andpersecuted by the jealousy of the priests. They were theunaccredited champions of Paganism, for they sought torefine while they conserved it. They defended it, not aszealots, but as men of letters. They defended it becausethe old faith could boast of great names and great achievements in speculation, literature, and art, and because thenew appeared novel and barbarian in its origin, andhumiliating in its claims. They wrote, they lectured,they disputed, in favour of the temple and against thechurch, because they dreamed of the days of Periclesunder the yoke of the Empire; not because they worshipped idols, but because they worshipped Plato.MRS. ATHERTON. And must not that very attempt,noticed just now, to recognise all religions,have been asfatal to them as the causes you mention?J102 The Mysticism of the Neo-Platonists. [B. III.aATHERTON. Certainly. Mankind does not require arevelation to give them a religion, but to give them onewhich shall be altogether true. These Neo-Platonistswere confronted by a religion intolerant of all others.They attempted, by keeping open house in their eclecticPantheon, to excel where they thought their antagonistdeficient. They failed to see in that benign intoleranceof falsehood, which stood out as so strange a characteristicin the Christian faith, one of the credentials of its divineorigin. No theory of the universe manufactured by aschool can be gospel to man's soul. They forgot that lip-homagepaid to allreligions is the virtual denial ofeach. "GOWER. Strange position, indeed, maintaining as theircardinal doctrine the unity and immutability ofthe divinenature, and entering the lists as conservators of polytheism; teaching the most abstract and defending themost gross conceptions of deity; exclaiming against vice,and solicitous to preserve all the incentives to it whichswarm in every heathen mythology. Of a truth, no cleanthing could be brought out of that unclean,-the newcloth would not mend the old garment. Men know thatthey ought to worship; the question is, Whom? and How?WILLOUGHBY. Then, again, their attempt to combinereligion and philosophy robbed the last of its only principle, the first of its only power. The religions lost in theprocess what sanctity and authoritativeness they had tolose, while speculation abandoned all scientific precision,and deserted its sole consistent basis in the reason. Thisendeavour to philosophise superstition could only issue inthe paradoxical product of a philosophy without reasonand a superstition without faith. To make philosophysuperstitious was not difficult, and they did that; butc.4.] Heathendom cannot be rescued. 103they could not-do what they would make superstitionphilosophical.ATHERTON. Add, too, that Greek philosophy, which hadalways repelled the people, possessed no power to secludethemfrom the Christianity that sought them out. In vaindid it borrow from Christianity a new refinement, andreceivesome rays of light from the very foe which fronted itWILLOUGHBY.-As is very visible in the higher moraltone of Porphyry's Treatise on Abstinence.ATHERTON. The struggles of heathendom to escape itsdoom only the more display its weakness and the justiceof the sentence.GOWER. Like the man in the Gesta Romanorum, whocame to the gate where every humpbacked, one- eyed,scald-headed passenger had to pay a penny for each infirmity: they were going only to demand toll for hishunch, but he resisted, and in the struggle was discoveredto be amenable for every deformity and disease upon thetable. So, no doubt, it must always be with systems,states, men, and dogs, that won't know when they havehad their day. The scuffle makes sad work with thepatched clothes, false teeth, wig, and cosmetics.ATHERTON. Life is sweet.As to Porphyry it was doubtless his more practicaltemperament that led him to modify the doctrine ofPlotinus concerning ecstasy. With Porphyry the minddoes not lose, in that state of exaltation, its consciousnessof personality. He calls it a dream in which the soul,dead to the world, rises to an activity that partakes of thedivine. It is an elevation above reason, above action,above liberty, and yet no annihilation, but an ennoblingrestoration or transformation of the individual nature.2104 The Mysticism ofthe Neo- Platonists. [B. III.GOWER. One of Porphyry's notions about the spirits ofthe air, of which you told me in our walk yesterday, quitehaunted me afterwards. It contains agerm of poetry.KATE. By all means let us have it.once more.GOWER. Our philosopher believed in a certain order ofevil genii who took pleasure in hunting wild beasts,-dæmons, whom menworshipped by the title of Artemisand other names, falsely attributing their cruelty to thecalm and guiltless gods, who can never delight in blood.Some of these natures hunted another prey. They weresaid to chase souls that had escaped from the fetters of abody, and to force them to re-enter some fleshly prisonHow I wish we could see a design of this byDavid Scott! Imagine the soul that has just leaped outof the door of that dungeon of ignorance and pain, thebody, as Porphyry would term it, fluttering in its newfreedom in the sunshine among the tree-tops, over wildand town-all the fields of air its pleasure-ground for anexulting career on its upward way to join the journeyingintelligences in their cars above. But it sees afar off,high in mid-air, a troop of dark shapes; they seem toapproach, to grow out of the airy recesses of the distancethey come down the white precipices of the piled clouds,over the long slant of some vapour promontory-formsinvisible to man, and, with them, spectre-hounds, whosebaying spirits alone canhear. As they approach, the soulrecognises its enemies. In a moment it is flying away,away, and after it they sweep-pursuers and pursued,shapes so ethereal that the galleries of the ant are notshaken as hunters and quarry glide into the earth, and nota foam-bell is broken or brushed from the wave whenc. 4.] The chase of a Soul. 105they emerge upon the sea, and with many a winding anddouble mount the air. At last, hemmed in, the soul isforced-spite of that desperate sidelong dart which hadall but eluded them-down into a body, the frame of abeggar's babe or of a slave's; and, like some struggling bird, drawn with beating wings beneath the water,it sinks into the clay it must animate through many amiserable year to come.WILLOUGHBY. I wish you would paint it for us yourself.You might represent, close by that battle of the spirits, abird singing on a bough, alabourer looking down, withhis foot upon his spade, and peasants dancing in their' sunburnt mirth ' and jollity-wholly unconscious, interrupted neither in toil nor pleasure by the conflict close athand. It might read as a satire on the too common indifference of men to the spiritual realities which are aboutthem every hour.MRS. ATHERTON. The picture would be as mysteriousas an Emblem by Albert Durer.GOWER. It is that suggestiveness I so admire in theGermans. For the sake of it I can often pardon theirfantastic extravagances, their incongruous combinations,their frequent want ofgrace and symmetry.ATHERTON. So can I, when an author occupies a province in which such indirectness or irony, such irregularity, confusion, or paradox, are admissible. Take, as acomprehensive example, Jean Paul. But in philosophyit is abominable. There, where transparent order shouldpreside, to find that under the thick and spreadingverbiage meaning is often lacking, and, with all theboastful and fire-new nomenclature, if found, is old and106 The Mysticism ofthe Neo-Platonists. [B. III.common, that the language is commonlybut an array ofwhat one callsRich windows that exclude the light,And passages that lead to nothing;-This puts me out of all patience.GOWER. The fault you object to reminds me of someFlemish landscape-pieces I have seen; there are trees, sofull of grand life, they seem with their outstretched armsto menace the clouds, and as though, if they smote withtheir many hundred hands, they could beat away thestorm instead of being bowed byit; and underneath thesegreat ones of the forest, which should shadow nothing lessthan awoodland council of Titans or a group of recumbentgods, the painter places only a rustic with a cow or two,an old horse, a beggar, or some other most every-day offigures .MRS. ATHERTON. And you mean that the Germanwords are large-looking as the trees, and the ideas wornand ordinary as the figures? What will Mr. Willoughbysay to that?ATHERTON. I think Willoughby will agree with me thatit is high time we should go back to our theurgic mysticism and Iamblichus. Here is a letter of his:-IAMBLICHUS TO AGATHOCLES.I assure you, myfriend, that the efforts of Porphyry, ofwhom you appear disposed to think so highly, will bealtogether in vain. He is not the true philosopher youimagine. He grows cold and sceptical with years. Heshrinks with a timid incredulity from reaping in thatfield of supernatural attainment which theurgy has firstopened, and now continually enlarges and enriches.C.4.] Iamblichus-Theurgy. 107Theurgy, be sure of it, is the grand, I may say, the solepath to the exaltation we covet. It is the heaven-givenorganum, in the hands of the wise and holy, for obtaininghappiness, knowledge, power.The pomp of emperors becomes as nothing in comparison with the glory that surrounds the hierophant.The priest is a prophet full of deity. The subordinatepowers of the upper world are at his bidding, for it is notaman, but a god who speaks the words of power. Such aman lives no longer the life common to other men. Hehas exchanged the human life for the divine. His nature isthe instrument and vehicle of Deity, who fills and impelshim, (ὄργανον τοῖς ἐπιπνέουσι θεοῖς.) Men of this order donot employ, in the elevation they experience, the wakingsenses as do others (οὔτε κατ᾿ αἴσθησιν ἐνεργοῦσιν οὔτεἐγρηγόρασι) . They have no purpose of their own, nomastery over themselves. They speak wisdom they donot understand, and their faculties, absorbed in a divinepower, become the utterance of a superior will.Often, at the moment of inspiration, or when theafflatus has subsided, a fiery Appearance is seen, -theentering or departing Power. Those who are skilled inthis wisdom can tell by the character of this glory therank of the divinity who has seized for the time the reinsof the mystic's soul, and guides it as he will. Sometimesthe body of the man subject to this influence is violentlyagitated, sometimes it is rigid and motionless. In someinstances sweet music is heard, in others, discordant andfearful sounds. The person of the subject has beenknownto dilate and tower to a superhuman height; in othercases, it has been lifted up into the air. Frequently, notmerely the ordinary exercise of reason, but sensation and108 The Mysticism ofthe Neo-Platonists. [B. III.animal life would appear to have been suspended; and thesubject of the afflatus has not felt the application of fire,has been pierced with spits, cut with knives, and beensensible of no pain. Yea, often, the more the body andthe mindhave been alike enfeebled by vigil and by fasts,the more ignorant or mentally imbecile a youth may bewho is brought under this influence, the more freely andunmixedly will the divine power be made manifest. Soclearly are these wonders the work, not of human skill orwisdom, but of supernatural agency! Characteristics suchas these I have mentioned, are the marks of the true inspiration.Now, there are, O Agathocles, four great orders ofspiritual existence,-Gods, Dæmons, Heroes orDemi-gods,and Souls. You will naturally be desirous to learn howthe apparition of a God or a Dæmon is distinguishedfrom those of Angels, Principalities, or Souls. Know,then, that their appearance to man corresponds to theirnature, and that they always manifest themselves to thosewho invoke them in a manner consonant with their rankin the hierarchy of spiritual natures. The appearancesof Gods are uniform (μονοειδή), those of Dæmons various(ποικίλα). The Gods shine with a benign aspect. WhenaGod manifests himself, he frequently appears to hidesun or moon, and seems as he descends too vast for earthto contain. Archangels are at once awful and mild;Angels yet more gracious; Dæmons, terrible. Below thefour leading classes I have mentioned are placed themalignant Dæmons, the Anti-gods (ἀντιθέους) .Each spiritual order has gifts of its ownto bestow onthe initiated who evoke them. The Gods confer health ofbody, power and purity ofmind, and, in short, elevate andC.4.] The sacred Sleep. 109restore our natures to their proper principles. Angels andArchangels have at their command only subordinate bestowments. Dæmons, however, are hostile to theaspirant, afflict both body and mind, and hinder ourescape from the sensuous. Principalities, who govern thesublunary elements, confer temporal advantages. Thoseof a lower rank, who preside over matter (ὑλικά), displaytheir bounty in material gifts. Souls that are pure are,likeAngels, salutary intheir influence. Their appearanceencourages the soul in its upward efforts. Heroes stimulate to great actions. All these powers depend, in a descending chain, each species onthat immediately above it.Good Dæmons are seen surrounded by the emblems ofblessing, Dæmons who execute judgment appear with theinstruments of punishment.There is nothing unworthy of belief in what you havebeentold concerning the sacred sleep, and divination bydreams. I explain it thus:-The soul has a twofold life, a lower and a higher. Insleep that soul is freed from the constraint of the body,and enters, as one emancipated, on its divine life of intelligence. Then, as the noble faculty which beholds theobjects that truly are the objects in the world of intelligence-stirs within, and awakens to its power, who can besurprised that the mind, which contains initself the principles of all that happens, should, in this its state ofliberation, discern the future in those antecedent principleswhich will make that future what it is to be? The noblerpart of the soul is thus united by abstraction to highernatures, and becomes a participant in the wisdom andforeknowledge of the Gods.Recorded examples of this are numerous and well au108 The Mysticism of the Neo-Platonists . [B. 111.animal life would appear to have been suspended; and thesubject of the afflatus has not felt the application of fire,has been pierced with spits, cut with knives, and beensensible of no pain. Yea, often, the more the body andthe mind have been alike enfeebled by vigil and by fasts,the more ignorant or mentally imbecile a youth may bewho is brought under this influence, the more freely andunmixedly will the divine power be made manifest. Soclearly are these wonders the work, not of human skill orwisdom, but of supernatural agency! Characteristics suchas these I have mentioned, are the marks of the true inspiration.Now, there are, O Agathocles, four great orders ofspiritual existence,-Gods, Dæmons, Heroes orDemi-gods,and Souls. You will naturally be desirous to learn howthe apparition of a God or a Dæmon is distinguishedfrom those of Angels, Principalities, or Souls. Know,then, that their appearance to man corresponds to theirnature, and that they always manifest themselves to thosewho invoke them in a manner consonant with their rankin the hierarchy of spiritual natures. The appearancesof Gods are uniform (μονοειδή), those of Dæmons various(ποικίλα) . The Gods shine with a benign aspect. WhenaGod manifests himself, he frequently appears to hidesun or moon, and seems as he descends too vast for earthto contain. Archangels are at once awful and mild;Angels yet more gracious; Dæmons, terrible. Below thefour leading classes I have mentioned are placed themalignant Dæmons, the Anti-gods (ἀντιθέους) .Each spiritual order has gifts of its own to bestow onthe initiated who evoke them. The Gods confer health ofbody, power and purity ofmind, and, in short, elevate andC. 4.] The sacred Sleep. 109restore our natures to their proper principles. Angels andArchangels have at their command only subordinate bestowments. Dæmons, however, are hostile to theaspirant, afflict both body and mind, and hinder ourescape from the sensuous. Principalities, who govern thesublunary elements, confer temporal advantages. Thoseof a lower rank, who preside over matter (ὑλικά) , displaytheir bounty in material gifts. Souls that are pure are,likeAngels, salutary in their influence. Their appearanceencourages the soul in its upward efforts. Heroes stimulate to great actions. All these powers depend, in a descending chain, each species onthat immediately above it.Good Dæmons are seen surrounded by the emblems ofblessing, Dæmons who execute judgment appear with theinstruments of punishment.There is nothing unworthy of belief in what you havebeentold concerning the sacred sleep, and divination bydreams. I explain it thus:-The soul has a twofold life, a lower and a higher. Insleep that soul is freed from the constraint of the body,and enters, as one emancipated, on its divine life of intelligence. Then, as the noble faculty which beholds theobjects that truly are the objects in the world of intelligence-stirs within, and awakens to its power, who can besurprised that the mind, which contains in itself the principles of all that happens, should, in this its state ofliberation, discern the future in those antecedent principleswhich will make that future what it is to be? The noblerpart of the soul is thus united by abstraction to highernatures, and becomes a participant in the wisdom andforeknowledge of the Gods.Recorded examples of this are numerous and well au110 TheMysticism of the Neo-Platonists. [B. III.thenticated; instances occur, too, every day. Numbersof sick, by sleeping in the temple of Esculapius, havehad their cure revealed to them in dreams vouchsafed bythe god. Would not Alexander's army have perishedbut for adream in which Dionysus pointed out the meansof safety? Was not the siege of Aphutis raised througha dream sent by Jupiter Ammon to Lysander? Thenight-time of the body is the day-time of the soul.What I have now said-with little method, I confesssets before you but a portion of the prerogatives in whichthe initiated glory. There is much behind for whichwords are too poor. I have written enough, I am sure, tokindle your ambition, to bid you banish doubt, and persevere in the aspirations which so possessed you when I sawyou last. Farewell.GOWER. That explanation of prophetic dreams and thetemple sleep is very curious and characteristic. No doubtthe common phenomena of mesmerism may have beenamong the sacred secrets preserved by the priests ofEgypt and ofGreece.KATE. The preference for young and weakly persons,who would possess an organization more susceptible ofsuch influences, makes it look very likely.ATHERTON. Observe how completely the theurgicelement, with Iamblichus, supersedes the theosophic. Inthe process of time the philosophical principles on whichthe system ofPlotinus rested are virtually surrendered,little by little, while divination and evocations are practised with increasing credulity, and made the foundationof the most arrogant pretensions. Plotinus declared thepossibility of an absolute identification of the divine withc. 4.] Encroachments of Superstition .the human nature.IIIHere was the broadest basis formysticism possible. Porphyry retired from this position,took up narrower ground, and qualified the great mysticalprinciple of his master. He contended that in the unionwhich takes place in ecstasy, we still retain the consciousness of personality. Iamblichus, the most superstitiousof all in practice, diminished the real principle of mysticism still farther in theory. He denied that man has afaculty inaccessible to passion, and eternally active.WILLOUGHBY. And so the metaphysics and the marvelsof mysticism stand in an inverse ratio to each other. Butit is not unnatural that as the mystic, from one cause oranother, gives up those exaggerated notions of the powersof man and those mistaken views of the relationshipbetween man and God, which went together to make up amystical system of philosophy, he should endeavour to indemnify himself by the evocations of theurgy, so as tosecure, if possible, through a supernatural channel, whatspeculation had unsuccessfully attempted.ATHERTON. True; but in this case I should invert theorder, and say that as the promise of theurgy exercisedan attraction of growing strength on an order of mindless fitted for speculation, such temperaments wouldreadily drop the speculative principle of mysticism in theireagerness to grasp the illusive prize-apparently so practical-which a commerce with superior natures held out.WILLOUGHBY. And so the intellectual ambition and thepoetical spirit, so lofty in Plotinus, subside, among thefollowers of Iamblichus, into the doggrel of the necromancer's charm.GOWER. Much such a descent as the glory of Virgil hassuffered, whose tomb at Pausilipo is now regarded by the112 The Mysticism ofthe Neo-Platonists. [B. III.1populace of degenerate Naples less with the reverencedue to the poet than with the awe which arises from thelegendary repute of the mediæval magician.ATHERTON. So the idealism of strong minds becomessuperstition in the weak. In the very shrine where culturepaid its homage to art or science, feebleness and ignorance,in an age of decline, set up the image-worship of themerely marvellous.MRS. ATHERTON. I think you mentioned only one otherof these worthies.ATHERTON. Proclus. He is the last great name amongthe Neo- Platonists. He was the most eclectic of them all,perhaps because the most learned and the most systematic. He elaborated the trinity of Plotinus into a succession of impalpable Triads, and surpassed Iamblichus inhis devotion to the practice of theurgy. Proclus wascontent to develop the school in that direction whichIamblichus (successful from his very faults)-had already given it. With Proclus, theurgy was the art whichgives man the magical passwords that carry him throughbarrier after barrier, dividing species from species of theupper existences, till, at the summit of the hierarchy, hearrives at the highest. According to him, God is theNon-Being who is above all being. He is apprehendedonly by negation. When we are raised out of our weakness, and on a level with God, it seems as though reasonwere silenced, for then we are above reason. We becomeintoxicated with God, we are inspired as by the nectar ofOlympus. He teaches philosophy as the best preparationfor Quietism. For the scientific enquirer, toiling in hisresearch, Proclus has a God to tell of, supreme, almighty,the world-maker and governor of Plato. For him whoc. 4.] Result-a Blank. 113has passed through this labour, a God known only byecstasy-a God who is the repose he gives a God ofwhomthe more you deny the more do you affirm.WILLOUGHBY. And this is all! After years of austerity and toil, Proclus the scholar, stored with theopinions of the past, surrounded by the admiration of thepresent-the astronomer, the geometrician, the philosopher, learned in the lore of symbols and of oracles, inthe rapt utterances of Orpheus and of Zoroaster-an adeptin the ritual of invocations among every people in theworld-he, at the close, pronounces Quietism the consummation of the whole, and an unreasoning contemplation,an ecstasy which casts off as an incumbrance all theknowledge so painfully acquired, the bourne of all thejourney.MRS. ATHERTON. As though it were the highest gloryof man, forgetting all that his enquiry has achieved, hidden away from the world,-to gaze at vacancy, inactiveand infantine;-to be like some peasant's child left in itscradle for a while in the furrow of a field, shut in by thelittle mound of earth on either side, and having but theblue æther above, dazzling and void, at which to look upwith smiles of witless wonder.1VOL. I. I

BOOK THE FOURTH.MYSTICISM IN THE GREEK CHURCH.12

CHAPTER I.Questi ordini di su tutti s'ammiranoE di giù vincon si che verso IddioTutti tirati sono e tutti tirano.EDionisio con tanto disioAcontemplar questi ordini si mise,Che li nomò e distinse com' io. *DANTE.KATE. I have beenlooking at the pictures in Mrs. Jameson's Sacred and Legendary Art, of thosestrange creatures, the hermit saints-the Fathers of thedesert. Only see this one, what amane and claws! Thetwo lions digging the grave there are own brothers to theholy men themselves.ATHERTON. Yet they claimed powers as much abovehumanity as, to look at them, you would think them beneath it.GOWER. Religious Nebuchadnezzars.WILLOUGHBY. No shavelings, at any rate, like thesmooth-faced sanctities of the later calendar.

• All these orders gaze admiring upward, and exert an influence

downward (each on that immediately beneath it), so that they all together reciprocally draw and are drawn toward God. Dionysius gavehimself with such zeal to the contemplation of them that he namedand distinguished them as I have done.118 Mysticism in the Greek Church. [B. IV.1ATHERTON. You will find among these anchorites almostall the wonder-working pretensions of mediæval mysticismin full development, thus early;-the discernment ofspirits, gift of prophecy, miraculous powers of variouskinds, ecstasy, exorcism, &c. &c. I should take St. Antonyas a fair specimen of the whole class.¹MRS. ATHERTON. Look, here is his picture; there hestands, with crutch and bell and pig.ATHERTON. The bell denotes his power over evil spirits,and the pig the vanquished dæmon of sensuality. In hislife, by Athanasius, there is a full account of his battle withmany dæmons in the shape of lions, bulls, and bears. Hepassed twenty years in an old castle which he found fullofserpents. The power of the saint expelled those unpleasant aborigines. That nose, you see there, was supposed to possess the faculty of detecting by its miraculouskeenness of scent the proximity of an evil spirit. Thereis an odour of iniquity, you must know, as well as an odourof sanctity. This disposition to literalize metaphors gavecurrency to the monkish stories of after times concerningthe refreshing fragrance found to arise from the remainsof disinterred saints. In fact, the materialization of thespiritual, or what passes for such, is the characteristicprinciple of the theurgic mysticism within the RomanCatholic Church. St. Antony, on one occasion, sees hisown soul, separated from the body, carried through theair.GOWER. A striking instance, I should say, of the objectivity of the subject.ATHERTON. One of his visions is not without grandeur.The brethren had been questioning him one day concerning the state of departed spirits. The following night heC. I.] Antony-Macarius. 119heard a voice saying, ' Antony, get up; go out and look! 'He obeyed, and saw a gigantic figure, whose head was inthe clouds, and whose outstretched arms extended faracross the sky. Many souls were fluttering in the air, andendeavouring, as they found opportunity, to fly upwardpast this dreadful being. Numbers of them he seized inthe attempt, and dashed back upon the earth. Someescaped him and exulted above, while he raged at theirsuccess . Thus sorrowing and rejoicing were mingled together, as some were defeated and others triumphant.This, he was given to understand, was the rise and fall ofsouls.WILLOUGHBY. That picture would be really Dantesque,if only a little more definite. Macarius is another greatname, too, among these Christian ascetics and theurgiststhe one who retired to the deserts of Nitria in the fourthcentury.ATHERTON. He is not only famous for his measure ofthe supernatural powers ascribed to his brethren, but hishomilies have been appealed to by modern theopathetic ,mystics as an authority for Quietism. He teaches perfectionist doctrine, certainly, but I do not think hiswords will bear the construction Poiret and others wouldgive them. He was at least innocent ofthe sainte indifférence .MRS. ATHERTON. You said we were to discuss Dionysiusthe Areopagite this evening.KATE. Pray introduce me first. I know nothing abouthim.ATHERTON. No one does know who really wrote thebooks which passed under that name. It is generally admitted that the forgery could not have been committed120 Mysticism in the Greek Church. [B. IV.1earlier than the middle of the fifth century, probablysomewhat later. So all I can tell you is, that somewhereor other (it is not unlikely at Constantinople, but there isno certainty) , about the time when Theodoric was masterof Italy-when the Vandal swarms had not yet been expelled from northern Africa while Constantinople was inuproar between the greens and the blues, and rival ecclesiastics headed city riots with a rabble of monks, artizans,and bandit soldiery at their heels-while orthodoxy wasgrappling with the Monophysite and Eutychian heresieson either hand, and the religious world was rocking stillwith the groundswell that followed those stormy synods inwhich Palestine and Alexandria, Asia and Constantinople,from opposite quarters, gathered their strength againsteach other-a monk or priest was busy, in his quiet solitude, with the fabrication of sundry treatises and letterswhich were to find their way into the Church under theall-but apostolic auspices of that convert made by theApostle of the Gentiles when he spoke on Mars Hill. Thewritings would seem to have been first appealed to asv genuine in the year 533. As heretics cited them, theirauthority was disputed at the outset; but being foundfavourable to the growing claims of the hierarchy, andlikely to be useful, they were soon recognised and employed accordingly.3WILLOUGHBY. Proclus could not have been long dead,and his reputation must have been still at its height, whenthis anonymous-let us call him Dionysius at once-waswriting his Platonized theology.ATHERTON. With the divines of Byzantium Proclus represented the grand old world of Greek thought. Eventhose who wrote against him as aheathen betray the influ-C. I.] 121 The Pseudo- Dionysius.ence he exercised on their doctrines. The object of Dionysius evidently was to accommodate the theosophy ofProclus to Christianity. Another aim, not less conspicuous, was to strengthen all the pretensions of the priesthood, and to invest with a new traditionary sanction theascetic virtues of the cloister.CHAPTER II.They that pretend to these heights call them the secrets of the kingdom; but they are such which no man can describe; such which Godhath not revealed in the publication of the Gospel; such for the acquiring of which there are no means prescribed, and to which no manis obliged, and which are not in any man's power to obtain; nor suchwhich it is lawful to pray for or desire; nor concerning which we shallever be called to account.-JEREMY TAYLOR.ἹHAVE here, ' said Atherton on the next evening,' some notes on the doctrine of this pretended Areopagite-a short summary; shall I read it? ''By all means. 'So the following abstract was listened to-and withcreditable patience.¹(1.) All things have emanated from God, and the endof all is return to God. Such return-deification, hecalls it is the consummation of the creature, that Godmay finally be all in all. Aprocess of evolution, a centrifugal movement in the Divine Nature, is substituted inreality for creation. The antithesis of this is the centripetal process, or movement of involution, which draws allexistence towards the point of the Divine centre. Thedegree of real existence possessed by any being is theamount of God in that being for God is the existence inall things. Yet He himself cannot be said to exist, for heis above existence. The more or less of God which theThe Hierarchies. 123various creatures possess is determined by the proximityof their order to the centre.(2.) The chain of being in the upper and invisible world,through which the Divine Power diffuses itself in successive gradations, he calls the Celestial Hierarchy. TheEcclesiastical Hierarchy is a corresponding series in thevisible world. The orders of Angelic natures and ofpriestly functionaries correspond to each other. Thehighest rank of the former receive illumination immediately from God. The lowest of the heavenly impartsdivine light to the highest of the earthly hierarchy. Eachorder strives perpetually to approximate to that immediately above itself, from which it receives the transmittedinfluence; so that all, as Dante describes it, draw and aredrawn, and tend in common towards the centre-God.The three triads of angelic existences, to whom answerthe ranks of the terrestrial hierarchy, betray the influenceof Proclus, whose hierarchy of ideas corresponds, in asimilar manner, to his hierarchy of hypostases .GOWER. The system reminds one of those old pictureswhich are divided into two compartments, the upper occupied by angels and cherubs on the clouds, and the lowerby humanbeings on the earth, gazing devoutly upward attheir celestial benefactors.ATHERTON. The work of Christ is thrown into the background to make room for the Church. The Saviouranswers, with Dionysius, rather to the Logos of thePlatonist than to the Son of God revealed in Scripture.He is allowed to be, as incarnate, the founder of theEcclesiastical Hierarchy; but, as such, he is removedfrommen by the long chain of priestly orders, and is less theRedeemer, than remotely the Illuminator, of the species .124 Mysticism in the Greek Church. [B. IV.1Purification, illumination, perfection,-the three greatstages of ascent to God (which play so important a partin almost every succeeding attempt to systematise mysticism) aremystically represented by the three sacraments,-Baptism, the Eucharist, and Unction. The Church is thegreat Mystagogue: its liturgy and offices a profound andelaborate system of symbolism.(3.) The Greek theory, with its inadequate conceptionof the nature of sin, compels Dionysius virtually todeny the existence of evil. Everything that exists isgood, the more existence the more goodness, so that evilis a coming short of existence. He hunts sin boldly fromplace to place throughout the universe, and drives it atlast into the obscurity of the limbo he contrives for it,where it lies among things unreal.All that exists he regards as a symbolical manifestationof the super-existent. What we call creation is thedivine allegory. In nature, in Scripture, in tradition,God is revealed only in figure. This sacred imageryshould be studied, but in such study we are still far fromany adequate cognizance of the Divine Nature. God isabove all negation and affirmation: in Him such contraries are at once identified and transcended. But bynegation we approach most nearly to a true apprehensionof what He is .Negation and affirmation, accordingly, constitute thetwo opposed and yet simultaneous methods he lays downfor the knowledge of the Infinite. These two paths, theVia Negativa (or Apophatica) and the Via Affirmativa (orCataphatica) constitute the foundation of his mysticism.They are distinguished and elaborated in every part ofhis writings. The positive is the descending process. InC. 2.] The Climax of Negation. 125the path downward from God, through inferior existences,the Divine Being may be said to have many names;-thenegative method is one of ascent; in that, God is regardedas nameless, the inscrutable Anonymous. The symbolicalor visible is thus opposed, in the Platonist style, to themystical or ideal. To assert anything concerning a Godwho is above all affirmation is to speak in figure-to veilhim. The more you deny concerning Him, the more ofsuch veils do you remove. He compares the negativemethod of speaking concerning the Supreme to the operation of the sculptor, who strikes off fragment after fragment of the marble, and progresses by diminution.(4.) Our highest knowledge of God, therefore, is saidto consist in mystic ignorance. In omni-nescience weapproach Omniscience. This Path of Negation is thehighway of mysticism. It is by refraining from anyexercise of the intellect or of the imagination-by selfsimplification, by withdrawal into the inmost, the divineessence of our nature-that we surpass the ordinary condition of humanity, and are united in ecstasy with God.Dionysius does not insist so much on Union as the latermystics, but he believes, at all events, that the eminentsaint may attain on earth an indescribable condition ofsoul- an elevation far transcending the reach of ournatural faculties-an approach towards the beatific visionof those who are supposed to gaze directly on the DivineEssence in heaven. His disciple is perpetually exhortedto aspire to this climax of abstraction-above sight, andthought, and feeling, as to the highest aim ofman.WILLOUGHBY. What contradictions are here! Withone breath he extols ineffable ignorance as the onlywisdom; with the next he pretends to elucidate the1126 Mysticism in the Greek Church. [B. IV.Trinity, and reads you off a muster-roll of the heavenlyhierarchies.GOWER. And are not these, supplemented by thehierarchy of ecclesiastics, his real objects of worship?No man could make an actual God of that super-essentialultimatum, that blank Next-to-Nothingness which thelast Neo- Platonists imagined as their Supreme. Procluscould not; Dionysius could not. What then? Areactioncomes, which, after refining polytheism to an impalpableunity, restores men to polytheism once more. Up mountsspeculation, rocket-like; men watch it, a single soaringstar with its train of fire, and, at the height, it breaks intoa scattering shower of many-coloured sparks. From thatAbstraction of which nothing can be predicated, nothingcan be expected. The figment above being is abovebenignity. So the objects of invocation are gods, demigods, dæmons, heroes; or, when baptized, cherubim,seraphim, thrones, dominions, powers, archangels, angels,saints; in either case, whether at Athens or at Constantinople, the excessive subtilisation of the One contributes toward the worship of the Manifold.ATHERTON. The theology of the Neo-Platonists wasalways in the first instance a mere matter of logic. It sohappened that they confounded Universals with causes.The miserable consequence is clear. The Highest becomeswith them, as he is with Dionysius, merely the most comprehensive, the universal idea, which includes the world,as genus includes species.2MRS. ATHERTON. The divinity of this old Father mustbe a bleak affair indeed-Christianity frozen out.GOWER. I picture him to myself as entering with hisphilosophy into the theological structure of that day, likeC. 2.] Tumid and tedious Style. 127Winter into the cathedral of the woods (which an autumnof decline has begun to harm already);-what life yetlingers, he takes away, he untwines the garlands fromthe pillars of the trees, extinguishes the many-twinklinglights the sunshine hung wavering in the foliage, silencesall sounds of singing, and fills the darkened aisles anddome with a coldly-descending mist, whose silence is extolled as above the power of utterance,-its blinding, chillobscureness lauded as clearer than the intelligence andwarmerthan the fervour of a simple and scriptural devotion.ATHERTON. You have described my experience inreading him, though I must say he suggested nothing tome about your cathedral of the woods, &c. His verboseand turgid style, too, is destitute of all genuine feeling.3He piles epithet on epithet, throws superlative on superlative, hyperbole on hyperbole, and it is but log upon log,-he puts no fire under, neither does any come from elsewhere. He quotes Scripture-as might be expected-inthe worst style, both of the schoolman and the mystic.Fragments are torn from their connexion, and carriedaway to suffer the most arbitrary interpretation, and strewhis pages that they may appear to illustrate or justify histheory.GOWER. How forlorn do those texts of Scripture lookthat you discern scattered over the works of such writers,so manifestly transported from a region of vitality andwarmth to an expanse of barrenness. They make thecontext look still more sterile, and while they say theremust be life somewhere, seem to affirm, no less emphatically, that it is not in the neighbourhood about them.They remind me of those leaves from the chestnut andthe birch I once observed upon a glacier. There they128 Mysticism in the Greek Church. [B. IV.th /lay, foreign manifestly to the treeless world in which theywere found; the ice appeared to have shrunk from them,and they from the ice; each isolated leaf had made itselfa cup-like cavity, a tiny open sarcophagus of crystal, inwhich it had lain, perhaps for several winters. Doubtless, a tempest, which had been vexing some pleasantvalley far down beneath, and tearing at its trees, musthave whirled them up thither. Yet the very presence ofthe captives reproached the poverty of the Snow-Kingwho detained them, testifying as they did to a genialclime elsewhere, whose products that ice-world could nomore put forth, than can such frozen speculations as thisof Dionysius, the ripening ' fruits of the Spirit. 'WILLOUGHBY. His lurking fatalism and his pantheismwere forgiven him, no doubt, on consideration of hisservices to priestly assumption. He descends from hismost cloudy abstraction to assert the mysterious significance and divine potency of all the minutiæ of the ecclesiastical apparatus and the sacerdotal etiquette. What areputation these writings had throughout the middle age!ATHERTON. Dionysius is the mystical hero of mysticism. You find traces of him everywhere. Go almostwhere you will through the writings of the mediævalmystics, into their depths of nihilism, up their heights ofrapture or of speculation, through their over-growth offancy, you find his authority cited, his words employed,his opinions more or less fully transmitted, somewhat asthe traveller in the Pyrenees discerns the fame of theheroic Roland still preserved in the names and in thelegends of the rock, the valley, or the flower. Passagesfrom the Areopagite were culled, as their warrant andtheir insignia, by the priestly ambassadors of mysticism,C. 2.] Influence of Dionysius. 129with as much care and reverence as the sacred verbenæthat grew within the enclosure of the Capitoline by theFeciales ofRome.MRS. ATHERTON. ' Oh, sweet Fancy, let her loose, ' asKeats says. I think myhusband has been learning in Mr.Gower's school. How far he went to fetch that simile!GOWER. Perhaps he has my excuse in this case, that hecould not help it .WILLOUGHBY. Or he may at once boldly put in theplea of Sterne, who in one place lays claim to the gratitude ofhis readers for having voyaged to fetch a metaphorall the way to the Guinea coast and back.ATHERTON. It contributed greatly to the influence ofthe Areopagite that he became confounded with theDionysius, or St. Denys, who was adopted as the patronsaint of France.KATE. Asingular fortune, indeed: so that he was twoother people besides himself;-like Mrs. Malaprop's Cerberus, three gentlemen at once.GOWER. I think we have spent time enough upon him.Grievously do I pity the miserable monks his commentators, whose minds, submerged in the mare tenebrosum ofthe cloister, had to pass a term of years in the mazyarborescence of his verbiage,-like so many insects withintheir cells in the branches of a great coral.4ATHERTON. Don't throw away so much good compassion.Idare say it kept them out of mischief.WILLOUGHBY. I cannot get that wretched abstractionout of my head which the Neo-Platonists call deity. Howsuch a notion must have dislocated all their ethics fromhead to foot! The merest anthropomorphism had beenbetter;-yes, Homer and Hesiod are truer, after all.VOL. I. K130 Mysticism in the Greek Church. [B. IV.ATHERTON. I grant the gravity of the mischief. Butwe must not be too hard on this ecclesiastical NeoPlatonism. It does but follow Aristotle here. You remember he considers the possession of virtues as quite outof the question in the case of the gods.GOWER. Is it possible? Why, that is as though a manshould lame himself to run the faster. Here is a searchafter God, in which, at starting, all moral qualities areremoved from him; so that the testimony of consciencecannot count for anything;-the inward directory issealed; the clue burnt. Truly the world by wisdom knewnot God!WILLOUGHBY. This unquestionably is the fatal error ofGreek speculation-the subordination of morals to the intellectual refinements of an ultra-human spiritualism.Even with Numenius you have to go down the scale to asubordinate god or hypostasis before you arrive at a deitywho condescends to be good.GOWER. How much ' salt' there must still have been inthe mediæval Christianity to survive, as far as it did, thereception of these old ethical mistakes into the very heartof its doctrine!ATHERTON. Aristotle reasons thus: how can the godsexhibit fortitude, who have nothing to fear-justice andhonesty, without a business-temperance, without passions?Such insignificant things as moral actions are beneaththem. They do not toil, as men. They do not sleep, likeEndymion, ' on the Latmian hill.' What remains?They lead a life of contemplation;-in contemplativeenergy lies their blessedness. So the contemplative sagewho energises directly toward the central Mind-the intellectual source and ultimatum, is the true imitator of thedivine perfections.c. 2.] Human Virtue and superhuman. 131GOWER. Transfer this principle to Christianity, and themonk becomes immediately the highest style of man.WILLOUGHBY. And you have a double morality at once:heroic or superhuman virtues, the graces ofcontemplationfor the saintly few,-glorious in proportion to their uselessness; and ordinary virtues for the many, social, serviceable, and secondary.ATHERTON. Not that the schoolman would release hissaint altogether from the obligations of ordinary morality;but he would say, this ordinary morality does not fit thecontemplatist for heaven-it is but a preliminary exercise-ameans to an end, and that end, the transcendence ofeverything creaturely, a superhuman exaltation, the ceasing from his labours, and swooning as it were into thedivine repose.WILLOUGHBY. Then I must put in a word for ourmystics. It is not they who corrupted Christian morals bydevising this divorce between the virtues of daily life andcertain other virtues which are unhuman, anti-terrestrial,hypercreaturely-forgive the word-they drive us hard forlanguage. They found the separation already accomplished; they only tilled with ardour the plot of groundfreely allotted them by the Church.ATHERTON. Just so; in this doctrine of moral dualism-the prolific mother of mystics-Aquinas is as far gone asBernard.GOWER. The mention of Bernard's name makes oneimpatient to get away from the Greek Church, westward.ATHERTON. Wemay say farewell to Byzantium now.That Greek Church never grew beyond what it was in theeighth and ninth centuries.GOWER. Ihave always imagined it adwarf, watching aK2132 Mysticism in the Greek Church. [B. IV.Nibelungen hoard, which after all never enriches anybody.Nothing but that tedious counting, and keeping tidy, andstanding sentinel, for ages.ATHERTON. See what good a little fighting does. TheGreek Church had its scholastic element-witness John ofDamascus; it had its mystical-as we have seen; butneither the one nor the other was ever developed to suchvigour as to assert itself against its rival, and struggle formastery. In the West the two principles have their battles,their armistices, their reconciliations, and both are thebetter. In the East they are coupled amicably in the leashofantiquity, and dare not so much as snarl.WILLOUGHBY. I suppose the mysticism of the GreekChurch was more objective, as the Germans would say,-dependent on its sacramental media and long trains ofangelic and human functionaries, handing down illumination; that ofthe West, subjective.ATHERTON. That will be generally true. The easternmysticism creeps under the sacerdotal vestments, is neverknown to quit the precincts of church and cloister, clingsclose to the dalmatica, and lives on whiffs of frankincense.The western is often to be found far from candle, book,and bell, venturing to worship without a priest.In short, as Gower would antithetically say, the mysticof the East is always a slave, the mystic of the West oftena rebel; Symbolism is the badge of the one, Individualismthe watchword of the other.GOWER. How spiteful you are to-night, Atherton. Ipropose that we break up, and hearnothing more you mayhave to say.BOOK THE FIFTH.MYSTICISM IN THE LATIN CHURCH.

TCHAPTER I.Look up, my Ethel!When on the glances of the upturned eyeThe plumed thoughts take travel, and ascendThrough the unfathomable purple mansions,Threading the golden fires, and ever climbingAs if' twere homewards winging-at such timeThe native soul, distrammelled of dim earth,Doth know herself immortal, and sits lightUponher temporal perch.HE winter hadVIOLENZIA.now broken up his encampment, andwas already in full retreat. With the approach ofspring the mystical conversations of our friends entered onthe period of the Middle Ages. The lengthening morningsfound Atherton early at his desk, sipping a solitary andpreliminary cup of coffee, and reading or writing. Willoughby felt his invention quickened by the season, and anew elasticity pervade him. His romance advanced withfewer hindrances from that cross-grained dissatisfactionwhich used so frequently to disfigure his manuscript withthe thorny scratches and interlineations of an insatiablecorrection.Gower, too, could enter once more on the enjoyment of136 Mysticism in the Latin Church. [B. V.his favourite walk before breakfast. In wandering throughthe dewy meadows, in ' the slanting sunlight of the dawn, 'he felt, as we all must, that there is truth in what thechorus of mystics have ever said or sung about the inadequacy of words to express the surmise and aspirationof the soul. In a morning solitude there seems to lieabout our fields of thought an aerial wealth too plenteousto be completely gathered into the granary of language.Owho would mar the season with dull speech,That must tie up our visionary meaningsAnd subtle individual apprehensionsInto the common tongue of every man?And of the swift and scarce detected visitantsOf our illusive thoughts seek to make prisoners,And only grasp their garments.It is one of the pleasant pastimes of the spring to watchday by day the various ways in which the trees express,by a physiognomy and gesture of their own, their expectation of the summer. Look at those young and delicateones, alive with impatience to the tip of every one of thethousand sprays that tremble distinct against the sky,swaying uneasily to and fro in the sharp morning breeze.They seem longing to slip their rooted hold upon theearth, and float away to embrace their bridegroom sun inthe air. And see those veterans-what a gnarled, imperturbable gravity in those elder citizens of park or wood;they are used to it; let the daybring new weatherstainsor new buds, they can bide their time. And are they notalready wrapped, many of them, in hood and habit ofdark glossy ivy-woodland senatorial fur-they can affordto wait. Here, look, close beside us, the eyes of the budsare even now peeping through the black lattice of theboughs, and those amber-coloured clouds overhead areC. I.] Neo-Platonism-how incorporated. 137looking them promises of kindly showers as they sail by.What is that sparkling onyonderhill? Only the windowsof a house with eastern aspect: the sun lights his beaconfire regularly there, to signal to his children down in thehollow that he is coming, though they cannot see him yet,andwill roll away the cloud from the valley mouth, andmake the place of their night-sepulchre glorious with hisshining raiment.Amidst these delights of nature, and the occupation ofhis art, Gower thought sometimes of the mystics whoenjoyed such things so little. He had even promised towrite a short paper on the mystical schoolmen of St.Victor, Hugo and Richard, and was himself surprised tofind how soon he warmed to the subject with what zesthe sought for glimpses of cloister-life in the twelfth andthirteenth centuries.When next our friends met in the library, Gower expressed his hearty and unceremonious satisfaction at theirhaving done, as he hoped, with that ' old bore, ' DionysiusAreopagita. By none was the sentiment echoed withmore fervour than by Atherton, whose conscience perhapssmote him for some dry reading he had inflicted on hisauditors. But he made no apology, that Gower mightnot think he took his remark to himself, and return him acompliment.WILLOUGHBY. To see how this world goes round!Only think of Proclus having his revenge after all, heand his fellows ruling from their urns when dead theChristianity which banished them while living.ATHERTON. Not altogether satisfactory, either, couldhe have looked in upon the world, and seen the use to138 Mysticism in the Latin Church. [B. v.which they put him. It was true that, under the nameofDionysius, his ideas were reverenced and expounded bygenerations of dreaming monks, that under that namehe contributed largely to those influences which keptstagnant the religious world of the East for some ninehundred years. But it was also true that his thoughtswere thus conserved only to serve the purpose of hisancient enemies; so that he assisted to confer omnipotence on those Christian priests whom he had curseddaily in his heart while lecturing, sacrificing, and conjuringat Athens .GOWER. Again I say, let us turn from the stereotypedGreek Church to the West, I want to hear about St.Bernard.ATHERTON. Presently. Let us try and apprehendclearly the way in which Neo-Platonism influencedmediæval Europe.WILLOUGHBY. Atrifling preliminary! Atherton meansus to stay here all night. You may as well resign yourself, Gower.ATHERTON. Never fear; I only want to look about me,and see where we are just now. Suppose ourselves sentback to the Middle Age-what will be our notion ofPlatonism? We can't read a line of Greek. We seePlato only through Plotinus, conserved by Augustine,handed down by Apuleius and Boethius. We reverenceAristotle, but we care only for his dialectics. We onlyassimilate from antiquity what seems to fall within theprovince of the Church. Plato appears to us surroundedby that religious halo with which Neo- Platonism investedphilosophy when it grew so devotional. We take Augustine's word for it that Plotinus really enunciated theC. 1.] A bolder spirit in the West. 139long-hidden esoteric doctrine of Plato. The reverent,ascetic, ecstatic Platonism of Alexandria seems to us solike Christianity, that we are almost ready to believe Platoa sort of harbinger for Christ. We are devoted Realists;and Realism and Asceticism make the common ground ofPlatonist and Christian. If scholastic in our tendencies,Aristotle may be oftener on our lips; if mystical, Plato;but we overlook their differences. We believe, on NeoPlatonist authority, that the two great ones were not theadversaries whichhad been supposed. Aristotle is in theforecourt, and through study of him we pass into thatinner shrine where the rapt Plato (all but a monk in oureyes) is supposed to exemplify the contemplative life.Dionysius in the East, then, is soporific. Mysticism, there,has nothing to do save drowsily to label all the Churchgear with symbolic meanings of wondrous smallness .Dionysius in the West has come into a young worldwhere vigorous minds have been long accustomed to dobattle on the grandest questions; grace and free-will-howthey work together; sin and redemption-what theyreally are; faith and reason-what may be their limits .Gower. Compare those great controversies with thatmiserable Monophysite and Monothelite dispute for whichone can never get up an interest. How much we owestill to that large-souled Augustine.¹ATHERTON. Well, for this very reason, they mightworship Dionysius as a patron saint to their hearts' content at St. Denis, but he could never be in France themaster mystagogue they made him at Byzantium. Hisname, and some elements in his system, became indeed anauthority and rallying point for the mystical tendency ofthe West, but the system as a whole was never appro140 Mysticism in the Latin Church. [B. v.priated. He was reverentially dismembered, and so mixedup with doctrines and questions foreign to him, by adifferent order of minds, with another culture, and oftenwith another purpose, that I would defy his ghost torecognise his ownlegacy to the Church.GOWER. Good Hugo of St. Victor, in his Commentaryon the Hierarchies, does certainly wonderfully softendown the pantheism of his original. Dionysius comesout from under his hands almost rational, quite a decentChristian .ATHERTON. And before Hugo, if you remember, JohnScotus Erigena translated him, and elaborated on hisbasis a daring system of his own, pantheistic I fear, buta marvel of intellectual power-at least two or threecenturies in advance of his age. And these ideas ofErigena's, apparently forgotten, filter through, and reappear once more at Paris in the free-thinking philosophyof such men as David of Dinant and Amalric of Bena.2WILLOUGHBY. Strange enough: so that, could Dionysius have returned to the world in the thirteenth century,he, the worshipper of the priesthood, would have foundsundry of his own principles in a new livery, doingservice in the ranks of the laity against the clergy, andstrengthening the hands of that succession of heretics solong a thorn in the side of the corrupt hierarchy ofFrance.ATHERTON. In Germany, a century later, many of themystics put Platonist doctrine to a similar use. In fact,I think we may say generally that the Neo-Platonistelement, which acted as a mortal opiate in the East, became a vivifying principle in the West. There theAlexandrian doctrine of Emanation was abandoned, itsC. 1.] Services ofPlatonism. 141pantheism nullified or rejected, but its allegorical interpretation, its exaltation, true or false, of the spirit abovethe letter, all this was retained, and Platonism andmysticism together created a party in the Church thesworn foes of mere scholastic quibbling, of an arid andlifeless orthodoxy, and at last of the more glaring abuseswhich had grown up with ecclesiastical pretension.GOWER. NOw for Bernard. I see the name there onthat open page ofyour note-book. Readaway-no excuses.ATHERTON. Some old notes. But before I read them,look at this rough plan of the valley of Clairvaux, with itsfamous abbey. I made it after reading the DescriptioMonasterii Clara- Vallensis, inserted in the Benedictineedition of Bernard's works. It will assist us to realizethe locality in which this great church-father of thetwelfth century passed most of his days. It was oncecalled the Valley of Wormwood-was the ill-omenedcovert of banditti; Bernard and his monks come clearingand chanting, praying and planting; and lo! the absinthial reputation vanishes-the valley smiles-is called,and made, Clairvaux, or Brightdale.KATE. Transformed, in short, into ' a serious paradise,'as Mr. Thackeray would say.ATHERTON. Yes, you puss. Here, you see, I havemarked two ranges of hills which, parting company,enclose the broad sweep of our Brightdale, or Fairvalley.Where the hills are nearest together you see the oneeminence covered with vines, the other with fruit trees;and on the sides and tops dusky groups of monks havehadmany ahard day's work, getting rid of brambles andunderwood, chopping and binding faggots, and preparingeither slope to yield them wherewithal to drink, from the142 Mysticism in the Latin Church. [B. v.right hand, and to eat, from the left. Not far from thisentrance to the valley stands the huge pile of the abbeyitself, with its towers and crosses, its loop-hole windowsand numerous outbuildings. That is the river Aube (Alba)running down between the heights; here, you see, is awinding channel the monks have dug, that a branch of itmay flow in under the convent walls. Good river! howhard it works for them. No sooner under the archwaythan it turns the great wheel that grinds their corn, fillstheir caldarium, toils in the tannery, sets the fulling-millagoing. Hark to the hollow booming sound, and theregular tramp, tramp of those giant wooden feet; andthere, at last, out rushes the stream at the other side ofthe building, all in a fume, as if it had been ground itselfinto so much snowy foam. On this other side, you see itcross, and join the main course of its river again. Proceeding now along the valley, with your back to themonastery, you pass through the groves of the orchard,watered by crossing runnels from the river, overlooked bythe infirmary windows-a delightful spot for contemplativeinvalids. Then you enter the great meadow-what a busyscene inhay-making time, all the monks out there, helpedby the additional hands of donati and conductitii, and thecountry folk from all the region round about, they havebeen working since sunrise, and will work till vespers;when the belfry sounds for prayers at the fourth hourafter sunrise, they will sing their psalms in the open air tosave time, and doubtless dine there too-a monastic picnic. On one side of the meadow is a small lake, wellstored with fish. See some of the brethren angling on itsbank, where those osiers have been planted to preservethe margin; and two others have put off in a boat andC. I.] Bernard at Clairvaux. 143are throwing their net, with edifying talk at whilesperhaps, on the parallel simplicity of fish and sinners .At the extremity of the meadow are two large farmhouses, one on each side the river; you might mistakethem for monasteries from their size and structure, butfor the ploughs and yokes of oxen you see about.MRS. ATHERTON. Thank you; so much for the place;and the man-his personal appearance-is anything knownabout that?ATHERTON. You must imagine him somewhat above themiddle height, very thin, with a clear, transparent, redand-white complexion; always retaining some colour onhishollow cheeks; his hair light; his beard inclining to red-in his later years, mixed with white; his whole aspectnoble and persuasive, and when he speaks under excitement losing every trace of physical feebleness in the loftytransformation of a benign enthusiasm.3Now I shall trouble you with some of my remarks, onhis mysticism principally. You will conceive what aworld of business he must have had upon his shoulders,even when at home at Clairvaux, and acting as simpleabbot;-so much detail to attend to, so many difficultiesto smooth, and quarrels to settle, and people to advise, inconnexion with his own numerous charge and throughoutall the surrounding neighbourhood; while to all this wasadded the care of so many infant monasteries, springingup at the rate of about four a year, in every part ofEurope, founded on the pattern of Clairvaux, and looking to him for counsel and for men. I scarcely need remindyou how struggling Christendom sent incessant monks andpriests, couriers and men-at-arms, to knock and blow hornat the gate of Clairvaux Abbey; for Bernard, and none144 Mysticism in the Latin Church. [B. V.but he, must come out and fight that audacious Abelard;Bernard must decide between rival Popes, and cross theAlps time after time to quiet tossing Italy; Bernard aloneis the hope of fugitive Pope and trembling Church; heonly canwinback turbulent nobles, alienated people, recreant priests, whenArnold of Brescia is in arms at Rome,and when Catharists, Petrobrusians, Waldenses, and heretics of every shade, threaten the hierarchy on eitherside the Alps; and at the preaching of Bernard the Christian world pours out to meet the disaster of a new crusade.GOWER. And accomplishing a work like this with thatemaciated, wretchedly dyspeptic frame of his! -first ofall exerting his extraordinary will to the utmost to unbuildhis body; and then putting forth the same self- controul tomake the ruins do the work of a sound structure.ATHERTON. Could we have seen him at home at Clairvaux, after one of those famous Italian journeys, no look orwordwouldhave betrayed a taint of spiritual pride, thoughevery rank in church and state united to do him honourthough great cities would have made him almost by forcetheir spiritual king-though the blessings of the peopleand the plaudits of the council followed the steps of thepeace-maker-and though, in the belief of all, a dazzlingchain of miracles had made his pathway glorious. Weshould have found him in the kitchen, rebuking by hisexample some monk who grumbled at having to wash thepots and pans; on the hill-side, cutting his tale and bearing his burthen with the meanest novice; or seen himoiling his own boots, as they say the arch-tempter did oneday; we should have interrupted him in the midst of histender counsel to some distressed soul of his cloisteredflock, or just as he had sat down to write a sermon on aC. I.] Influences qualifying his Mysticism. 145passage in Canticles against the next church-festival. Butnow to my notes. (Atherton reads. )In considering the religious position of Bernard, I find itnot at all remarkable that he should have been a mystic,-very remarkable that he should not have been much morethe mystic than he was. This moderation may be attributed partly to his constant habit of searching the Scriptures-studying them devotionally for himself, unencumbered with the commentaries reverenced by tradition.5Rigid exemplar and zealous propagator of monasticism ashe was, these hours with the Bible proved a corrective notunblessed, and imparted even to the devotion of the cloistera healthier tone. Add to this his excellent natural judgment, and the combination, in his case, of the active withthe contemplative life . He knew the world and men; hestood with his fellows in the breach, and the shock of conflict spoiled him for a dreamer. The distractions overwhich he expended so much complaint were his bestfriends. They were a hindrance in the way to the monastic ideal of virtue-a help toward the Christian. Theyprevented his attaining that pitch of uselessness to whichthe conventual life aspires, and brought him down a littlenearer to the meaner level of apostolic labour. They madehim the worse monk, and by so much the better man.With Bernard the monastic life is the one thing needful.He began life by drawing after him into the convent allhis kindred; sweeping them one by one from the highseas of the world with the irresistible vortex of his ownreligious fervour. His incessant cry for Europe is-Bettermonasteries, and more of them. Let these ecclesiasticalVOL. I. L146 Mysticism in the Latin Church. [B. V.castles multiply; let them cover and command the land,well garrisoned with men of God, and then, despite allheresy and schism, theocracy will flourish, the earth shallyield her increase, and all people praise the Lord. Whoso wise as Bernard to win souls for Christ-that is to say,recruits for the cloister? With what eloquence he paintsthe raptures of contemplation, the vanity and sin of earthlyambition or of earthly love! Wherever in his travels Bernard may have preached, there, presently, exultant monksmust open wide their doors to admit new converts. Wherever he goes he bereaves mothers of their children, theaged of their last solace and last support; praising thosethe most who leave most misery behind them. Howsternly does he rebuke those Rachels who mourn and willnot be comforted for children dead to them for ever! Whatvitriol does he pour into the wounds when he asks if theywill drag their son down to perdition with themselves byresisting the vocation of heaven; whether it was notenough that they brought him forth sinful to a world ofsin, and will they now, in their insane affection, cast himinto the fires of hell? Yet Bernard is not hard-heartedby nature. He can pity this disgraceful weakness of theflesh. He makes such amends as superstition may. Iwill be a father to him, he says. Alas! cold comfort. You,their hearts will answer, whose flocks are countless, wouldnothing content you but our ewe lamb? Perhaps somecloister will be, for them too, the last resource of theirdesolation. They will fly for ease in their pain to the system which caused it. Bernard hopes so. So inhumanis the humanity of asceticism; cruel its tender mercies;thus does it depopulate the world of its best in order toimprove it.C. 1.] The object of his Life. 147To measure, then, the greatness of Bernard, let meclearly apprehend the main purpose of his life. It waseven this convent-founding, convent-ruling business. Thisis his proper praise, that, though devoted body and soul,to a system so false, he himself should have retained andpractised so much of truth.The task of history is a process of selection. The fartherwe recede from a period, the more do we eliminate of whatinterests us no longer. A few leading events stand clearlyout as characteristic of the time, and about them all ourdetails are clustered. But when dealing with an individual,or with the private life of any age, the method must bereversed, and we must encumber ourselves again with all thecast-off baggage that strews the wayside of time's march.So with Bernard. TheAbelard controversy, the schism,the quarrels of pope and emperor, the crusade, are seenby us-who know what happened afterwards-in their trueimportance. These facts make the epoch, and throw allelse into shade. But we could not so have viewed theminthe press and confusion of the times that saw themborn. Bernard and his monks were not always thinkingof Abelard or Anaclet, of Arnold of Brescia, Roger ofSicily, or Lothaire. In the great conflicts which thesenames recal to our minds, Bernard bore his manful partas ameans to an end. Many a sleepless night must theyhave cost him, many a journey full of anxiety and hardship, many an agonizing prayer, on the eve of a crisiscalling for all his skill and all his courage. But these weredifficulties which he was summoned to encounter on hisroad to the great object of his life-the establishment ofecclesiastical supremacy by means of the conventual institute. The quarrels within the Church, and between theL2148 Mysticism in the Latin Church. [B. v.Church and the State, must be in some sort settled beforehis panacea could be applied to the sick body of the time.In the midst of such controversies a host of minor matterswould demand his care,-to him ofscarcely less moment, tous indifferent. There would be the drawing out of conventcharters and convent rules, the securing of land, ofmoney,ofarmedprotection for the rapidly increasing family ofmonasteries; election of abbots and of bishops; guidance ofthe same in perplexity; holding of synods and councils,with the business thereto pertaining; delinquencies andspiritual distresses of individuals; jealous squabbles to besoothed between his Cistercian order and them of Clugny;suppression of clerical luxury and repression of lay encroachment, &c. &c. Thus the year 1118 would be memorable to Bernard and his monks, not so much because in itGelasius ascended the chair of St. Peter, and the EmperorHenry gave him a rival, or even because then the order ofKnights Templars took its rise, so much as from their joyand labour about the founding of two new monasteries,一because that year saw the establishment of the firstdaughter of Clairvaux, the Abbey of Fontaines, in thediocese of Chalons; and of a sister, Fontenay, beside theYonne; the one a growth northward, among the dullplains of Champagne, with their lazy streams and monotonous poplars; the other a southern colony, among theluscious slopes of vine-clad Burgundy.7Bernard had his wish. He made Clairvaux the cynosureof all contemplative eyes. For any one who could existat all as a monk, with any satisfaction to himself, that wasthe place above all others. Brother Godfrey, sent out tobe first abbot of Fontenay, as soon as he has set allthings in order there, returns, only too gladly, from thatC. I.] His success. 149rich and lovely region, to re-enter his old cell, to walkaround, delightedly revisiting the well-remembered spotsamong the trees or by the waterside, marking how thefields and gardens have come on, and relating to the eagerbrethren (for even Bernard's monks have curiosity) all thatbefel him in his work. He would sooner be third priorat Clairvaux than abbot of Fontenay. So, too, with brotherHumbert, commissioned in like manner to regulate IgnyAbbey (fourth daughter of Clairvaux) . He soon comesback, weary of the labour and sick for home, to look on theAube once more, to hear the old mills go drumming anddroning, with that monotony of muffled sound-the associate of his pious reveries-often heard in his dreams whenfar away; to set his feet on the very same flagstone in thechoir where he used to stand, and to be happy. But Bernard, though away in Italy, toiling in the matter of theschism, gets to hear of his return, and finds time to sendhim across the Alps a letter of rebuke for this criminalself-pleasing, whose terrible sharpness must have darkenedthe poor man's meditations for many a day.Bernard had farther the satisfaction of improving andextending monasticism to the utmost; of sewing together,with tolerable success, the rended vesture of the papacy;of suppressing a more popular and more scriptural Christianity, for the benefit of his despotic order; of quenchingfor a time, by the extinction of Abelard, the spirit of freeinquiry; and ofseeing his ascetic and superhuman ideal ofreligion everywhere accepted as the genuine type ofChristian virtue.At the same time the principles advocated by Bernardwere deprived, in his hands, of their most noxious elements. His sincere piety, his large heart, his excellent150 Mysticism in the Latin Church. [B. V.judgment, always qualify, and seem sometimes to redeem,his errors. But the well-earned glory and the influence ofa name achieved by an ardour and a toil almost passinghumanmeasure, were thrown into the wrong scale. Themischiefs latent in the teaching of Bernard becomeruinously apparent in those who entered into his labours .His successes proved eventually the disasters of Christendom. One of the best of men made plain the way forsome of the worst. Bernard, while a covert for thefugitive pontiff, hunted out by insurgent people or bywrathful emperor, would yet impose some rational limitations on the papal authority. But the chair upheld byBernard was to be filled by an Innocent III. , whosemerciless arrogance should know no bounds. Bernardpleaded nobly for the Jews, decimated in the crusadingfury.10 Yet the atrocities of Dominic were but the enkindling of fuel which Bernard had amassed. Disciple oftradition as he was, he would allow the intellect its range;zealous as he might be for monastic rule, the spontaneousinner life of devotion was with him the end-all else themeans. Ere long, the end was completely forgotten inthe means. In succeeding centuries, the Church of Romeretained what life it could by repeating incessantly theremedy of Bernard. As corruption grew flagrant, neworders were devised. Bernard saw not, nor those whofollowed in his steps, that the evil lay, not in the defect orabuse of vows and rules, but in the introduction of vowsand rules at all, that these unnatural restraints mustalways produce unnatural excesses .What is true concerning the kind of religious impulseimparted to Europe by the great endeavour of Bernard'slife is no less so as regards the character of his mysticism.C. 1. ] Undue limitation of Reason. 151In the theology of Bernard reasonhas a place, but notthe right one. His error in this respect is the primarysource of that mystical bias so conspicuous inhis religiousteaching. Like Anselm, he bids you believe first, andunderstand, if possible, afterwards. He is not preparedto admit the great truth that if Reason yields to Faith, andassigns itself anywhere a limit, it must be on groundssatisfactory to Reason. To any measure of Anselm's remarkable speculative ability, Bernard could lay no claim.He was at home only in the province of practical religion.But to inquiries and reasonings such as those in whichAnselm delighted, he was ready to award, not blame, butadmiration. Faith, with Bernard, receives the treasureof divine truth, as it were, wrapped up (involutum); Understanding may afterwards cautiously unfold the envelope,and peep at the prize, but may never examine the contents first, to determine whether it shall be received ornot. " If the chase be so dear to that mighty hunter,Intellect, he shall have his sport, on certain conditions.Let him admit that the Church has caught and killed thequarry of truth, and brought it to his door. That granted,he may, if he will, cry boot and saddle, ride out to seewhere the game broke cover, or gallop with hounds, andhalloo over hill and dale, pursuing an imaginary object,and learning how truth might have been run down. Great,accordingly, was Bernard's horror when he beheld Abelardthrowing open to discussion the dogmas of the Church;when he saw the alacrity with which such questions weretaken up all over France, and learnt that not the scholarsof Paris merely, but an ignorant and stripling laity werediscussing every day, at street corners, in hall, in cottage,the mysteries of the Trinity and the Immaculate Concep152 Mysticism in the Latin Church. [B. v.tion. Faith, he cried, believes; does not discuss;Abelard holds God in suspicion, and will not believe evenHim, without reason given.12 At the same time, thecredo ut intelligam of Bernard is no indolent or con- .strained reception of a formula. Faith is the divine persuasion of the pure in heart and life. Bernard wouldgrant that different minds will apprehend the same truthin different aspects; that an absolute uniformity is impossible. But when faith is made to depend so entirelyon the state of the heart, such concessions are soon withdrawn. A difference in opinion from the acknowledgedstandard of piety is regarded as the sure sign of a depraved heart. A divine illumination as to doctrine isassumed for those whose practical holiness caused themto shine as lights in the Church. 13Thus, on the elementary question of faith, the mysticaltendency of Bernard is apparent; the subjective andeven the merely emotional element assumes undue prominence; and a way is opened for the error incident to allmysticism-the unwarrantable identification of our ownthoughts with the mind of God. But if, in his startingpoint, Bernard be a mystic, much more so is he in thegoal he strains every power to reach.The design of Christianity is, in his idea, not to sanctifyand elevate all our powers, to raise us to our truest manhood, accomplishing in every excellence all our facultiesboth of mind and body, but to teach us to nullify ourcorporeal part, to seclude ourselves, by abstraction, fromits demands, and to raise us, while on earth, to a superhuman exaltation above the flesh, a vision and a gloryapproaching that of the angelic state. Thus he commences his analysis of meditation by describing theC. 1.] Contemplative Abstraction . 153felicity of angels. They have not to study the Creator inhis works, slowly ascending by the media of sense. Theybehold all things in the Word-more perfect there, byfar, than in themselves. Their knowledge is immediatea direct intuition of the primal ideas of things in themind of the Creator. To such measure of this immediateintuition as mortals may attain he exhorts the devoutmind to aspire. They do well who piously employ theirsenses among the things of sense for the divine glory andthe good of others. Happier yet are they who, with atrue philosophy, survey and explore things visible, thatthey may rise through them to a knowledge of the Invisible. But most of all does he extol the state of thosewho, not by gradual stages of ascent, but by a suddenrapture, are elevated at times, like St. Paul, to the immediate vision of heavenly things. Such favoured ones areadepts in the third and highest species of meditation.Totally withdrawn into themselves, they are not only,like other good men, dead to the body and the world, andraised above the grosser hindrances of sense, but evenbeyond those images and similitudes drawn from visibleobjects which colour and obscure our ordinary conceptionsof spiritual truths.14But if, so far, Bernard betrays the mystic, in this ambition to transcend humanity and to anticipate the sight andfruition of the celestial state, let him have full credit forthe moderation which preserved him from going farther.Compared with that of many subsequent mystics, themysticism of Bernard is sobriety itself. From the practical vice of mysticism in his Church, its tendency tosupersede by extraordinary attainments the humbler andmore arduous Christian virtues-Bernard was as free as154 Mysticism in the Latin Church. [B. V.any one could be in those times. Against the self-indulgence which would sacrifice every active, external obligation to a life of contemplative sloth he protested all hisdays, by word and by example. He is equally removedfrom the pantheistic extreme of Eckart and the imaginative extravagances of St. Theresa. His doctrine of Unionwith God does not surrender our personality or substituteGod for the soul in man. When he has occasion to speak,with much hesitation and genuine humility, of the highestpoint of his own experience, he has no wonderful visionsto relate. The visit of the Saviour to his soul was unattended by visible glory, by voices, tastes, or odours; itvindicated its reality only by the joy which possessed him,and the new facility with which he brought forth thepractical fruits of the Spirit.15 He prays God for peaceand joy and charity to all men, and leaves other exaltations of devotion to apostles and apostolic men,-' thehighhills to the harts and the climbing goats.' The fourthand highest stage of love in his scale, that transformation and utter self-loss in which we love ourselves only forthe sake of God, he believes unattainable in this life ,-certainly beyond his own reach. To the mystical death,self- annihilation, and holy indifference of the Quietists, he .is altogether a stranger.16It is worth while at least to skim and dip among hissermons on the Canticles. The Song of Solomon is atrying book for a man like Bernard, and those expositions do contain much sad stuff, interspersed, however,with many fine reaches of thought and passages of consummate eloquence. Mystical interpretation runs riot.Everything is symbolized. Metaphors are elaborated intoallegories, similitudes broken up into divers branches, andC. I.] The Song ofSolomon. 155about each ramification a new set of fancies clustered .The sensuous imagery borrowed from love and wine-thekisses, bedchambers, and winecellars of the soul, remindus at every page of that luscious poetry in which thePersian Sufis are said to veil the aspirations of the spiritof man after its Maker. Yet, with all the faults of a tasteso vicious there is no affectation, no sentimentality, nothingintentionally profane. It was with Bernard a duty and adelight to draw as much meaning as possible from thesacred text, by the aid of an inexhaustible fancy and aninventive ingenuity in that way, which only Swedenborghas surpassed. Even in his letters on comparativelyordinary topics, he always gives a certain largeness to hissubject by his lofty, imaginative style of handling it. Heseldom confines himself to the simple point in hand, butstarts off to fetch for it adornments, illustrations, or sanctions from quarters the most remote, or heights the mostawful. Always in earnest, yet always the rhetorician, heseems to write as though viewing, not the subject itself,but some vast reflection of it projected on the sky. Inthose sermons on Solomon's Song, it is generally ratherthe glowing and unseemly diction, than the thought, wehave to blame. With such allowance, it is not difficultto discern, under that luxuriance of flowers and weeds,many a sentiment true and dear to the Christian heart inevery age.Bernard appears to have believed himself invested onsome occasions with miraculous powers. So far he has aplace in the province of theurgic mysticism. Perhaps theworst thing of this sort to be laid to his charge is his goingso far as he did towards endorsing the presumptuousravings of the crazy old Abbess Hildegard.17CHAPTER II .Licht und Farbe.Wohne, du ewiglich Eines, dort bei dem ewiglich Einen!Farbe, du wechselnde, komm' freundlich zum Menschen herab! *0SCHILLER.N the next evening of meeting, Gower commenced asfollows his promised paper on Hugo and Richard ofSt. Victor.Hugo of St. Victor.The celebrated School of St. Victor (so called from anancient chapel in the suburbs of Paris) was founded byWilliam of Champeaux at the commencement of thetwelfth century. This veteran dialectician assumed therethe habit of the regular canons ofAugustine, and after aninterval, began to lecture once more to the students whoflocked to his retirement. In 1114, king and pope combined to elevate the priory to an abbacy. Bishops andnobles enriched it with their gifts. The canons enjoyed

• Light and Colour.-Light, thou eternally one, dwell above by the

great One Eternal; Colour, thou changeful, in love come to Humanitydown!Hugo of St. Victor. 157the highest repute for sanctity andlearning in that goldenage of the canonical institute. St. Victor colonized Italy ,England, Scotland, and Lower Saxony, with establishments which regarded as their parent the mighty pile ofbuilding on the outskirts of Paris. Within a hundredyears from its foundation it numbered as its offspringthirty abbeys and more than eighty priories.Hugo of St. Victor was born in 1097, of a noble Saxonfamily. His boyhood was passed at the convent ofHamersleben. There he gave promise of his futureeminence. His thirst after information of every kindwas insatiable. The youth might often have been seenwalking alone in the convent garden, speaking and gesticulating, imagining himself advocate, preacher, or disputant.Every evening he kept rigid account of his gains in knowledge during the day. The floor of his room was coveredwith geometrical figures traced in charcoal. Many awinter's night, he says, he was waking between vigils inanxious study of a horoscope. Many a rude experimentin musical science did he try with strings stretched acrossa board. Even while a novice, he began to write. Attracted by the reputation of the abbey of St. Victor, heenrolled his name among the regular canons there. Notlong after his arrival, the emissaries of an archdeacon,worsted in a suit with the chapter, murdered the prior,Thomas. Hugo was elected to succeed him in the officeof instructor. He taught philosophy, rhetoric, and theology. He seldom quitted the precincts of the convent,and never aspired to farther preferment. He closed apeaceful and honoured life at the age of forty- four, leavingbehind him those ponderous tomes of divinity to whichAquinas and Vincent of Beauvais acknowledge their obli158 Mysticism in the Latin Church. [B. V.gations, and which gained for their author the name of asecond Augustine.¹Hitherto mysticism, in the person of Bernard, hasrepudiated scholasticism. In Hugo, and his successorRichard, the foes are reconciled. Bonaventura in thethirteenth, and Gerson in the fifteenth century, are greatnames in the same province. Indeed, throughout themiddle ages, almost everything that merits the title ofmystical theology is characterized by some such endeavourto unite the contemplation of the mystic with the dialecticsof the schoolman. There was good in the attempt.Mysticism lost much of its vagueness, and scholasticismmuch of its frigidity.Hugo was well fitted by temperament to mediate between the extreme tendencies of his time. Utterly destitute of that daring originality which placed Erigena atleast two centuries in advance of his age, his very gentleness and caution would alone have rendered him moremoderate in his views and more catholic in sympathy thanthe intense and vehement Bernard. Hugo, far from proscribing science and denouncing speculation, called in theaid of the logical gymnastics of his day to discipline themind for the adventurous enterprise of the mystic. If heregarded with dislike the idle word- warfare of scholasticingenuity, he was quite as little disposed to bid commonsense a perpetual farewell among the cloudiest realms ofmysticism. His style is clear, his spirit kindly, his judgment generally impartial. It is refreshing in those daysof ecclesiastical domination to meet with at least a singlemind to whom that Romanist ideal-an absolute uniformity in religious opinion-appeared both impossibleand undesirable.2C. 2.] Mysticism and Scholasticism combined. 159Afew words may present the characteristic outlines ofhis mysticism. It avails itself of the aid of speculation toacquire a scientific form-in due subjection, of course, tothe authority of the Church. It will ground its claim ona surer tenure than mere religious emotion or visionaryreverie. Hugo, with all his contemporaries, reverencedthe Pseudo-Dionysius. His more devout and practicalspirit laboured at a huge commentary on the HeavenlyHierarchy, like a good angel, condemned for some sin toservitude under a paynim giant. In the hands of his /commentator, Dionysius becomes more scriptural andhuman-for the cloister, even edifying, but remains asuninteresting as ever.Hugo makes a threefold division of our faculties. First,and lowest, Cogitatio. A stage higher stands Meditatio:by this he means reflection, investigation. Third, andhighest, ranges Contemplatio: in this state the mindpossesses in light the truth which, in the preceding, itdesired and groped after in twilight.3He compares this spiritual process to the application offire to green wood. It kindles with difficulty; clouds ofsmoke arise; a flame is seen at intervals, flashing out hereand there; as the fire gains strength, it surrounds, itpierces the fuel; presently it leaps and roars in triumphthe nature of the wood is being transformed into thenature of fire. Then, the struggle over, the cracklingceases, the smoke is gone, there is left a tranquil, friendlybrightness, for the master-element has subdued all intoitself. So, says Hugo, do sin and grace contend; and thesmoke of trouble and anguish hangs over the strife. Butwhen grace grows stronger, and the soul's eye clearer, andtruth pervades and swallows up the kindling, aspiring160 Mysticism in the Latin Church. [B. V.nature, then comes holy calm, and love is all in all. SaveGod in the heart, nothing of self is left.4Looking through this and other metaphors as best wemay, we discover that Contemplation has two provinces-alower and a higher. The lower degree of contemplation,which ranks next above Meditation, is termed Speculation.It is distinct from Contemplation proper, in its strictestsignification. The attribute of Meditation is Care. Thebrow is heavy with inquiring thought, for the darkness ismingled with the light. The attribute of Speculation isAdmiration-Wonder. In it the soul ascends, as it were,awatch- tower (specula), and surveys everything earthly.On this stage stood the Preacher when he beheld thesorrow and the glory of the world, and pronounced allthings human Vanity. To this elevation, whence he philosophises concerning all finite things, man is raised bythe faith, the feeling, and the ascetic practice of religion.Speculative illumination is the reward of devotion. Butat the loftiest elevation man beholds all things in God.Contemplation, in its narrower and highest sense, is immediate intuition of the Infinite. The attribute of this stageis Blessedness.As amystic, Hugo cannot be satisfied with that mediateand approximate apprehension of the Divine Nature whichhere on earth should amply satisfy all who listen to Scripture and to Reason. Augustine had told him of a certainspiritual sense, or eye of the soul. This he makes theorgan of his mysticism. Admitting the incomprehensibility of the Supreme, yet chafing as he does at thelimitations of our finite nature, Faith-which is here thenatural resource of Reason-fails to content him. Heleaps to the conclusion that there must be some imme-c. 2.] The Eye of Contemplation.161diate intuition of Deity by means of a separate facultyvouchsafed for the purpose.You have sometimes seen from a hill-side a valley, overthe undulating floor of which there has been laid out aheavy mantle of mist. The spires of the churches riseabove it-you seem to catch the glistening of a roof or ofa vane-here and there a higher house, a little eminence,or some tree-tops, are seen, islanded in the white vapour,but the lower and connecting objects, the linking lines ofthe roads, the plan and foundation of the whole, are completely hidden. Hugo felt that, with all our culture, yea,with Aristotle to boot, revealed truth was seen by ussomewhat thus imperfectly. No doubt certain great factsand truths stand out clear and prominent, but there is agreat deal at their basis, connecting them, attached tothem, which is impervious to our ordinary faculties. Weare, in fact, so lamentably far from knowing all aboutthem. Is there not some power of vision to be attainedwhich may pierce these clouds, lay bare to us these relationships, nay, even more, be to us like the faculty conferred by Asmodeus, and render the very roofs transparent, so that from topstone to foundation, within andwithout, we may gaze our fill? And if to realize thiswholly be too much for sinful creatures, yet may not thewise and good approach such vision, and attain as themeed of their faith, even here, a superhuman elevation,and in a glance at least at the Heavenly Truth unveiled,escape the trammels ofthe finite?Such probably was the spirit of the question whichpossessed, with a ceaseless importunity, the minds ofmen,ambitious alike to define with the schoolman and to gazewith the seer. Hugo answers that the Eye of ContemplaVOL. I. M162 Mysticism in the Latin Church. [B. v.tion-closed by sin, but opened more or less by gracefurnishes the power thus desiderated. But at this, hishighest point, he grasps a shadow instead of the substance.Something withinthe mind is mistaken for a manifestationfrom without. A mental creation is substituted for thatDivine Existence which his rapture seems to reveal. Heasserts, however, that this Eye beholds what the eye ofsense and the eye of reason cannot see, what is bothwithin us and above us-God. Within us, he cries, isboth what we must flee and whither we must flee. Thehighest and the inmost are, so far, identical. Thusdo the pure in heart see God. In such moments thesoul is transported beyond sense and reason, to a statesimilar to that enjoyed by angelic natures. The contemplative life is prefigured by the ark in the deluge.Without are waves, and the dove can find no rest. Asthe holy ship narrowed toward the summit, so doth thislife of seclusion ascend from the manifold and changefulto the Divine Immutable Unity.The simplification of the soul he inculcates is somewhatanalogous to the Haplosis of the Neo-Platonists. All sensuous images are to be discarded; we must concentrateourselves upon the inmost source, the nude essence of ourbeing. He is careful, accordingly, to guard against thedelusions of the imagination." He cautions his readerslest they mistake a mere visionary phantasm-some shapeof imaginary glory, for a supernatural manifestation ofthe Divine Nature to the soul. His mysticism is intellectual, not sensuous. Too practical for a sentimentalQuietism or any of its attendant effeminacies, and, at thesame time, too orthodox to verge onpantheism, his mystical doctrine displays less than the usual proportion ofC. 2.] Richard of St. Victor. 163extravagance, and the ardent eloquence of his ' Praise ofLove' may find an echo in every Christian heart.Richard of St. Victor.Now, let us pass on to Richard of St. Victor. He wasa native of Scotland, first the pupil and afterwards thesuccessor of Hugo. Richard was a man whose fearlessintegrity and energetic character made themselves felt atSt. Victor not less than the intellectual subtilty and flowingrhetoric which distinguished his prelections. He had farmore of the practical reformer in him than the quietHugo. Loud and indignant are his rebukes of the emptydisputation of the mere schoolman, of the avarice andambition of the prelate. His soul is grieved that thereshould be men who blush more for a false quantity thanfor a sin, and stand more in awe of Priscian than ofChrist. Alas! he exclaims, how many come to thecloister to seek Christ, and find lying in that sepulchreonly the linen clothes of your formalism! How manymask their cowardice under the name of love, and letevery abuse run riot on the plea of peace! How manyothers call their hatred of individuals hatred of iniquity,and think to be righteous cheaply by mere outcry againstother men's sins! Complaints like these are not withouttheir application nearer home.His zeal did not confine itself to words. In the year1162 he was made prior. Ervisius the abbot was a manof worldly spirit, though his reputation had been highwhen he entered on his office. He gradually relaxed alldiscipline, persecuted the God-fearing brethren, andfavoured flatterers and spies; he was a very Dives inм2164 Mysticism in the Latin Church. [B. v.sumptuousness, and the fair name of St. Victor sufferedno small peril at his hands. The usual evils of brokenmonastic rule were doubtless there, though little is specified-canons going in and out, whither they would,without inquiry, accounts in confusion, sacristy neglected,weeds literally and spiritually growing in holy places,wine-bibbing and scandal carried on at a lamentable rate,sleepy lethargy and noisy brawl, the more shamefulbecause unpunished. Ervisius was good at excuses, andof course good for nothing else. If complaints were madeto him, it was always that cellarer, that pittanciar, orthat refectorarius-never his fault. These abuses mustsoon draw attention from without. Richard and thebetter sort are glad. The pope writes to the king aboutthe sad accounts he hears. Bishops bestir themselves.Orders come from Rome forbidding the abbot to take anystep without the consent of the majority of the chapter.Richard's position is delicate, between his vow of obedienceto his superior and the good of the convent. But he playshis part like a man. An archbishop is sent to St. Victorto hold a commission of inquiry. All is curiosity andbustle, alarm and hope among the canons, innocent andguilty. At last, Ervisius, after giving them much trouble,is induced to resign. They choose an able successor,harmony and order gradually return, and Richard, havingseen the abbey prosperous once more, dies in the followingyear.10In the writings of Richard, as compared with those ofHugo, I find that what belongs to the schoolman has received a more elaborate and complex development, whilewhat belongs to the mystic has also attained an amplerand more prolific growth. All the art of the scholastic isC. 2.] Schoolman and Mystic. 165there the endless ramification and subdivision of minutedistinctions; all the intellectual fortification of the timethe redoubts, ravelins, counterscarps, and bastions of dry,stern logic; and among these, within their lines and atlast above them all, is seen an almost oriental luxurianceof fancy and of rhetoric-palm and pomegranate, sycamore and cypress, solemn cedar shadows, the gloom in theabysses of the soul,-luscious fruit and fragrant flowers,the triumphs of its ecstasy, all blissful with the bloom andodours of the upper Paradise. He is a master alike in theserviceable science of self-scrutiny, and in the imaginaryone of self-transcendence. His works afford a notableexample of that fantastic use of Scripture prevalentthroughout the Middle Age. His psychology, his metaphysics, his theology, are all extracted from the most unlikely quarters in the Bible by allegorical interpretation.Every logical abstraction is attached to some personage orobject in the Old Testament history, as its authority andtype. Rachel and Leah are Reason and Affection. Bilhahand Zilpah are Imagination and Sense. His divinity isembroidered on the garments of Aaron, engraven on thesides of the ark, hung on the pins and rings of the tabernacle. His definitions and his fancies build in the eavesof Solomon's temple, and make their ' pendent bed andprocreant cradle ' in the carved work of the holy place.To follow the thread of his religious philosophy, you haveto pursuehis agile and discursive thoughts, as the sparrowhawk the sparrow, between the capitals, among the cedarrafters, over the gilded roof, from court to court, columnto column, and sometimes after all the chase is vain, forthey have escaped into the bosom of a cloud.11 On a basis similar to that of Hugo, Richard erects six166 Mysticism in the Latin Church. [B. V.stages of Contemplation. The two first grades fall withinthe province of Imagination; the two next belong toReason; the two highest to Intelligence. The objects ofthe first two are Sensibilia; of the second pair, Intelligibilia (truths concerning what is invisible, but accessible toreason); of the third, Intellectibilia (unseen truth abovereason.) These, again, have their subdivisions, into whichwe need not enter.12 Within the depths of thine ownsoul, he would say, thou wilt find a threefold heaven-theimaginational, the rational, and the intellectual. Thethird heaven is open only to the Eye of Intelligence-thatEye whose vision is clarified by divine grace and by a holylife. This Eye enjoys the immediate discernment of unseen truth, as the eye ofthe body beholds sensible objects.His use of the word Intelligence is not always uniform.It would seem that this divinely- illumined eye of the mindis to search first into the deeps of our own nature(inferiora invisibilia nostra) , and then upward into theheights of the divine (superiora invisibilia divina).13For the highest degrees of Contemplation penitenceavails more than science; sighs obtain what is impossibleto reason. This exalted intuition begins on earth, and isconsummated in heaven. Some, by divine assistance,reach it as the goal of long and arduous effort. Othersawait it, and are at times rapt away unawares into theheaven of heavens. Some good men have been ever unable to attain the highest stage; few are fully winged withall the six pinions of Contemplation. In the ecstasy hedescribes, there is supposed to be a dividing asunder of thesoul and the spirit as by the sword of the Spirit of God.The body sleeps, and the soul and all the visible world isC. 2.] Ecstasy. 167shut away. The spirit is joined to the Lord, and one withHim,-transcends itself and all the limitations of humanthought. In such a moment it is conscious of no division,of no change; all contraries are absorbed, the part doesnot appear less than the whole, nor is the whole greaterthan a part; the universal is seen as particular, the particular as universal; we forget both all that is without andall that is within ourselves; all is one and one is all; andwhen the rapture is past the spirit returns from itstrance with a dim and dizzy memory of unutterableglory.14This account presents in some parts the very languagein which Schelling and his disciples are accustomed todescribe the privilege of Intellectual Intuition.ATHERTON. I move thanks to Gower.WILLOUGHBY. Which I second. It has been strangeenough to see our painter turn bookworm, and oscillating,for the last fortnight or more, between the forest sunsetonhis easel and Atherton's old black-letter copy ofRichardof St. Victor.GOWER. The change was very pleasant. As grateful, Ishould think, as the actual alternation such men as Hugoand Richard must have enjoyed when they betook themselves, after the lassitude that followed an ecstasy, to ascholastic argumentation; or again refreshed themselves ,after the dryness ofthat, by an imaginative flight into theregion of allegory, or by some contemplative reverie whichcarried them far enough beyond the confines of logic. Themonastic fancy found this interchange symbolized in the168 Mysticism in the Latin Church. [B. V.upward and downward motion of the holy bell. Is it notin Longfellow's Golden Legend that a friar saysAnd the upward and downward motions showThat we touch upon matters high and low;And the constant change and transmutationOf action and of contemplation;Downward, the Scripture brought from on high,Upward, exalted again to the sky;Downward, the literal interpretation,Upward, the Vision and Mystery!WILLOUGHBY. Much as a miracle-play must have beenvery refreshing after a public disputation, or as the mostoverwrought and most distinguished members of the legalprofession are said to devour with most voracity every goodnovel they can catch.ATHERTON. It is remarkable to see the mystical interpreters of that day committing the two opposite mistakes,now of regarding what is symbolical in Scripture as literal,and again of treating what is literal as symbolical.GOWER. Somewhat like the early travellers, who mistook the hybrid figures of the hieroglyphic sculptures theysaw for representations of living animals existing somewhere up the country, and then, at other times, fanciedthey found some profound significance in a simple tradition or an ordinary usage dictated by the climate.WILLOUGHBY. Yet there lies a great truth in the counselthey give us to rise above all sensuous images in our contemplation of the Divine Nature.ATHERTON. No doubt. God is a Spirit. The InfiniteMind must not be represented to our thought through themedium of any material image, as though in that we hadall the truth. We must not confound the medium withthe object. But the object is in fact inaccessible withoutC. 2.] The Truth at the root of Mysticism. 169amedium. The Divine Nature is resolved into a mereblank diffusion when regarded as apart from a DivineCharacter. We are practically without a God in the presence of such an abstraction. To enable us to realize personality and character there must be a medium, a representation, some analogy drawn from relationships or objectswith which we are acquainted.The fault I find with these mystics is, thatthey encouragethe imagination to run riot in provinces where it is notneeded, and prohibit its exercise where it would render thegreatest service. Orthodox as they were in their day, theyyet attempt to gaze on the Divine Nature in its absoluteness and abstraction, apart from the manifestation of it toour intellect, our heart, and our imagination, which ismade in the incarnate Christ Jesus. God has suppliedthem with this help to their apprehension of Him, but theyhope by His help to dispense with it. They neglect thepossible and practical in striving after a dazzling impossibility which allures their spiritual ambition. This is anatural consequence of that extravagance of spiritualitywhich tells man that his highest aim is to escape from hishuman nature-not to work under the conditions of hisfinite being, but to violate and escape them as far as possible in quest of a superhuman elevation. We poor mortals, as Schiller says, must have colour. The attempt toevade this law always ends in substituting the mind'screation for the mind's Creator.WILLOUGHBY. I cannot say that I clearly understandwhat this much- extolled introspection of theirs is supposedto reveal to them.ATHERTON. Neither, very probably, did they. Butthough an exact localization may be impossible, I think170 Mysticism in the Latin Church. [B. V.we can say whereabout they are in their opinion on thispoint. Their position is intermediate. They stand between the truth which assigns to an internal witness andan external revelation their just relative position, and thatextreme of error which would deny the need or possibilityof any external revelation whatever. They do not ignoreeither factor; they unduly increase one of them.WILLOUGHBY. Good. Will you have the kindness firstto give me the truth as you hold it? Then we shall havethe terminus a quo.ATHERTON. There is what has been variously termedan experimental or moral evidence for Christianity, whichcomes from within. If any one reverently searches theScriptures, desiring sincerely to know and do the will ofGod as there revealed, he has the promise of Divineassistance. He will find, in the evil of his own heart, areality answering to the statements of the Bible. He willfind, in repentance and in faith, in growing love and hope,that very change taking place within which is describedin the book without. His nature is being gradually broughtinto harmony with the truth there set forth. He has experienced the truth of the Saviour's words, ' If any manwill do his will, he shall know of the doctrine whether itbe of God.'But in this experimental evidence there is nothing mystical. It does not at all supersede or infringe on the evidence of testimony,-the convincing argument fromwithout, which may at first have made the man feel it hisduty to study a book supported by a claim so strong.Neither does he cease to use his reason, when lookingwithin, any more than when listening to witness fromwithout. In self-observation, if in any exercise, reasonC. 2.] The inner Light and the outer. 171must be vigilant. Neither is such inward evidence amiraculous experience peculiar to himself. It is commonto multitudes. It is open to all who will take the samecourse he has done. He does not reach it by a facultywhich transcends his human nature, and leaves in the distance every power which has been hitherto in such wholesome exercise. There is here no special revelation, distinctfrom and supplementary to the general. Such a privilegewould render an appeal from himself to others impossible.It would entrench each Christian in his individuality apartfrom the rest. It would give to conscientious differencesonminor points the authority of so many conflicting inspirations . It would issue in the ultimate disintegrationof the Christian body.The error of the mystics we are now considering consistsin an exaggeration of the truth concerning experimentalevidence. They seem to say that the Spirit will manifestto the devout mind verities within itself which are, as itwere, the essence and original of the truths which theChurch without has been accustomed to teach; so that,supposing a man to have rightly used the external revelation, and at a certain point to suspend all reference to it,and to be completely secluded from all external influences,there would then be manifest to him, in God, the Ideasthemselves which have been developed in time into aBibleand a historical Christianity. The soul, on this Platonistprinciple, enjoys a commerce once more with the World ofIntelligence in the depth of the Divine Nature. She recovers her wings. The obliterations on the tablet of Reminiscence are supplied. A theosophist like Paracelsuswould declare that the whole universe is laid up potentiallyin the mind of man-the microcosm answering to the172 Mysticism in the Latin Church. [B. V.macrocosm. In a similar way these mystics would haveus believe that there is in man a microdogma within,answering to the macrodogma of the Church without.Accordingly they deem it not difficult to discover aChristology in psychology, a Trinity in metaphysics.Hence, too, this erroneous assertion that if the heathenhad only known themselves, they would have known God.GOWER. If some of our modern advocates of the theoryof Insight be right, they ought to have succeeded in both.ATHERTON. That ' Know thyself" was a precept whichhad its worth in the sense Socrates gave it. In the senseof Plotinus it was a delusion. Applied to morals,-regarded as equivalent to a call to obey conscience, it mightrenden service. And yet varying and imperfect consciences-conflicting inner laws, could give men as aninference no immutable and perfect Lawgiver. Understood as equivalent to saying that the mind is in itself anall- sufficient and infallible repertory of spiritual truth,history in every page refutes it. The monstrosities ofidolatry, the disputes of philosophical schools, the aspirations among the best of the sages of antiquity after adivine teaching of some sort all these facts are fatal tothe notion. It is one thing to be able in some degree toappreciate the excellence of revealed truth, and quiteanother to be competent to discover it for ourselves.Lactantius was right when he exclaimed, as he surveyedthe sad and wasteful follies of heathendom, O quamdifficilis est ignorantibus veritas, et quamfacilis scientibus!WILLOUGHBY. I must say I can scarcely conceive itpossible to exclude from the mind every trace and resultofwhat is external, and to gaze down into the depths ofour simple self-consciousness as the mystic bids us do.C. 2.] The Faculty of Intuition . 173It is like forming a moral estimate of a man exclusive ofthe slightest reference to his character.GOWER. I think that as the result of such a process,we should find only what we bring. Assuredly this mustcontinually have been the case with our friends Hugo andRichard. The method reminds me of a trick I have heardof as sometimes played on the proprietor of a supposedcoal-mine in which no coal could be found, with a view toinduce him to continue his profitless speculation. Geologists, learned theoretical men, protest that there can beno coal on that estate-there is none in that part ofEngland. But the practical man puts some lumps slylyin his pocket, goes down with them, and brings them upin triumph, as fresh from the depths of the earth.ATHERTON. Some German writers, even of the bettersort, have committed a similar mistake in their treatmentof the life of Christ. First they set to work to constructthe idea of Christ (out of the depths of their consciousness,I suppose) , then they study and compare the gospels tofind that idea realized. They think they have establishedthe claim ofthe Evangelists when they can show that theyhave found their idea developed in the biography theygive us. As though the German mind could have hadany idea of Christ at all within its profundities, but for thefishermen in the first instance .GOWER. This said Eye of Intelligence appears to me apure fiction. What am I to make of a faculty which isabove, and independent of, memory, reason, feeling, imagination, without cognizance of those external influences(which at least contribute to make us what we are), andwithout organs, instruments, or means of any kind fordoing any sort of work whatever. Surely this complete174 Mysticism in the Latin Church. [B. V.>and perpetual separation between intuition and everythingelse within and without us, is a most unphilosophicaldichotomy of the mind of man.ATHERTON. Equally so, whether it be regarded asnatural to man or as a supernatural gift. Our intuitions,however rapid, must rest on the belief of some fact, therecognition of some relationship or sense of fitness, whichrests again on ajudgment, right or wrong.WILLOUGHBY. Andin such judgment the world withoutmust have large share.GOWER. Forthe existence of such a separate faculty as aspiritual gift we have only the word of Hugo and hisbrethren. The faith of Scripture, instead of being cut offfrom the other powers of the mind, is sustained by them,and strengthens as we exercise them.ATHERTON. President Edwards, in his Treatise on theAffections, appears to me to approach the error of thosemystics, in endeavouring to make it appear that regeneration imparts a new power, rather than a new disposition,to the mind. Such a doctrine cuts off the commonground between the individual Christian and other men.According to the Victorines it would seem to be theglory of Christianity that it enables man, at intervals atleast, to denude himself of reason. To me its triumphappears to consist in this, that it makes him, for the firsttime, truly reasonable, who before acted unreasonablybecause of a perverted will.BOOK THE SIXTH.GERMAN MYSTICISM IN THE FOURTEENTHCENTURY.

CHAPTER I.Ipray thee, peace; I will be flesh and blood;For there was never yet philosopher,That could endure the toothache patiently;However they have writ the style of gods ,Andmade a pish at chance and sufferance.MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.It is more healthful and nutritive to dig the earth, and to eat of herfruits, than to stare upon the greatest glories of the heavens, and liveuponthe beams of the sun: so unsatisfying a thing is rapture andtransportation to the soul; it often distracts the faculties, but seldomdoes advantage piety, and is full of danger in the greatest of its lustre.-JEREMY TAYLOR.THEapproach ofsummer separated the members of the Ashfield circle for a time. Atherton purposed spendinga few weeks in Germany, and Willoughby consented toaccompany him. They were to visit once more Bonn,Heidelberg, and Frankfort, then to make Strasburg theirhead quarters, and thence to ramble about Alsace.As soon as Atherton had left them, Mrs. Atherton andKate Merivale set out for the West of England, to visittheir friends Mr. and Mrs. Lowestoffe. Gower projecteda sketching excursion along the banks of the Wye. Heknew the Lowestoffes, and gladly bound himself by theVOL. I. N178 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.promise they exacted, that he would make SummerfordHouse his home for a day or two now and then, in thecourse of his wanderings. The beauty of the grounds andneighbourhood would have rendered such visits eminentlydelightful, even had the hospitable host and hostess beenless accomplished admirers of art, or had Gower found noirresistible attraction in one of their guests.The days at Summerford glided by in the enjoyment ofthose innumerable minor satisfactions which, far more thanhighly pleasurable excitements, make up the happiness ofexistence. If you doubt it, consult Abraham Tucker onthe matter. To many persons, life at the Lowestoffes 'would have been intolerably dull. There were fewvisitors. The family seldom emerged from their retirement to visit the neighbouring city. Their amusementsand their occupations, though varied, were confined withinlimits which some would find lamentably narrow. Lowestoffe himself was an early man and a punctual. It costhim something to smile a courteous forgiveness when evena favourite guest transgressed any of the family regulations on which his comfort so much depended. Hishorses and dogs, his grounds and his flowers, everythingabout him and all dependent upon him, were methodicallycared for, inspected, or commanded by himself in person.In one respect only was there irregularity, no servant,labourer, or workman could be sure of any moment inwhich the master might not suddenly appear to see thatall went rightly. Though scrupulously just, and of agenerous nature, Lowestoffe was only too subject to anervous dread of being defrauded by those he employed,and used often to declare that men were ruined, not somuch by what they spent themselves, as by what theyC. I.] Lowestoffe. 179allowed others to spend for them. In his early days hehad contented himself with the mere necessaries of hisposition in life,to discharge the debts which he inherited.Hewould actually have gone into business (to the horrorof his aristocratic friends, but with the applause of everyimpartial conscience), had there been no other way wherebyto emancipate his property and honour. All declared hewould have made a fortune if he had. A few years ofself-denial, and a few more of frugality and industriousvigilance, realized the full accomplishment of his mostcherished desire. His care and activity enabled him todeal very liberally wherever his confidence was at lastbestowed, and to expend in discriminating charity alarge annual sum. He was a connoisseur and a liberalpatron of art, but no solicitation could induce him to purchase an old master. He knew well how skilfully imitations of antiquity are prepared, and had he bought a reputed Titian or Correggio, he would have fidgeted himselfinto a fever in a fortnight, by ruminating on the probabilities of deception. He spent his money far more wiselyon choice pieces by living artists. When the morning wasover, the afternoon and evening found him a cheerful andfascinating companion. His cares were thrown off, andhe was restless and anxious no longer about little things.Literature and art, even mere frolic, play with a child, oragame of any kind, were welcome. Gower whispered anantithesis one day, to the effect that Lowestoffe gave onehalf the day to childish wisdom and the other to wisechildishness .We have mentioned what was not to be found atSummerford. What the two sisters did find there wasamply sufficient for enjoyment. There was a long avenueN2180 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.winding up to the house, so beset with ancient trees, thatit seemed a passage through the heart of a wood. Thelawn on which it opened was dotted with islands andrings of flower-bed,-perfect magic circles ofhorticulture,one all blue, another red, another yellow. There was thehouse itself, with its old- fashioned terraces, urns, andbalustrades, and behind it-oh, joy-a rookery! Aconservatory shot out its transparent glittering wing on oneside of the edifice. At the foot of a slope of grassdescending from the flower-palace lay apool, shut in by amound and by fragments of rock overgrown with flowers,and arched above by trees. On the surface spread thelevel leaves of the water-lilies, with the sparkling bubbleshere and there upon their edges, and everywhere theshadowed water was alive with fish, that might be seendarting, like little ruddy flames, in and out among thearrowy sheaves of reeds. Then farther away there wereold irregular walks, richly furred with moss, wanderingunder trees through which the sunbeams shot, nowmaking some glossy evergreen far in among the stems andunderwood shine with a startling brightness (so that thepasser-by turned to see if there were not running waterthere, and fancied Undine had been at her tricks again),-now rendering translucent some plume of fern, nowkindling some rugged edge of fir, and again glisteningon some old tree-trunk, mailed with its circular plates ofwhite lichen. These wood-pathways-often broken intonatural steps by the roots of the trees which ran acrosstheir course-led up a steep hill. From the summit wereseen, in front, opposite heights, thickly covered withfoliage, through which it was onlyhere and there that ajutting point of rock could show itself to be reddened byC. 1.] Summerford. 181the setting sun. Beneath, at a great depth, a shallowbrook idled on its pebbles, and you looked down on theheads of those who crossed its rustic bridge. On the onehand, there stretched away to the horizon a gentle sweepof hills, crossed and re-crossed with hedgerows andspeckled with trees and sheep, and, on the other, lay thesea, in the haze of a sultry day, seen like a grey tablet ofmarble veined with cloud- shadows.All this without doors, and books, pictures, prints,drawing, chess, chat, so choice and plentiful within, madeSummerford ' a dainty place'-Attempred goodly well for health and for delight.Meanwhile Atherton in Germany was reviving oldacquaintanceships and forming new, studying the historicrelics of old Strasburg under the shadow of its loftyminster, and relieving his research by rides and walks,now with student and now with professor. Early inAugust he and Willoughby returned to England, and repaired straightway to Summerford. There, accordingly,the mystical circuit was complete once more. In aday ortwo the discovery was made, through some mysterioushints dropped by Willoughby, that Atherton had broughthome a treasure from the Rhine. Cross-examinationelicited the fact that the said treasure was a manuscript.Something to do with mysticism? Partly so. Then wemust hear it. Atherton consented without pretendingreluctance. The document purported to be his translationof a narrative discovered among the Strasburg archives,written by one Adolf Arnstein, an armourer of that city,-a personage who appears to have lived in the fourteenthcentury, and kept some record of what he saw and heard.182 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.So the manuscript was read at intervals, in shortportions, sometimes to the little circle grouped on thegrass under the trees, sometimes as they sat in the house,with open windows, to let in the evening song of the birds.Atherton commenced his first reading as follows: -THE CHRONICLE OF ADOLF ARNSTEIN OF STRASBURG.This book was begun in the year after the birth of ourLord, one thousand three hundred and twenty. Whosoeverreadeth this book, let him prayfor the soul ofAdolfArnstein,a poor sinful man, who wrote it. And to all who read thesame, or hear it read, may God grant everlasting life .Amen.1320. September. St. Matthew's Day. Three daysago I was surprised by a visit from Hermann of Fritzlar,¹who has travelled hither from Hesse to hear MasterEckart preach. How he reminded me of what seem oldtimes to me now-ay, old times, though I am but twentythis day-of the days when my honoured father lived andIwas a merry boy of fifteen, little thinking that I shouldso soon be left alone to play the man as I best might.Hermann is the cause of my writing this . We weretalking together yesterday in this room, while the workmen were hammering in the yard below, and the greatforge-bellows were groaning away as usual. I told himhow I envied his wonderful memory. He replied by reminding me that I could write and he could not. ' Ah,'said I, ' but your mind is full of things worth writingdown. You scarcely hear or read a legend, a hymn, or agodly sermon, but it is presently your own, and after itC. I.] Adolf and Hermann. 183has lain working in your brain for some time, you produceit again, and say or sing it after away you have, so thatit is quite delightful to hear. '[The night before last I had taken him down into theworkshop, and told the men to stop their clatter for awhile ,and hear something to do them good-none of your Latinmumbling, but a godly history in their mother- tongue.And then did my friend tell them the Legend of SaintDorothea, with such a simple tenderness that my roughfellows stood like statues till he had done. I saw a tearrun down Hans' sooty face, making a white channel overhis cheek. He would have it afterwards that some dusthad blown into his eye.]' My good friend,' said Hermann, ' I am a dozen yearsat least older than you; let me counsel you not to setlight by your gift, and let it lie unused. Had I that samescrivening art at my service, I should write me a booksetting forth what I heard and observed while it was freshin my mind. I know many good men who would holdsuch a book, written by a God-fearing man, as greattreasure. They would keep it with care and hand itdown to those who came after them, so that the writerthereof should be thought on when his hand was cold. Ihave it in my thoughts to dictate one day or other tosome cunning scribe, some of the legends I so love.Haply theymay not be the worse for their passage throughthe mind of a plain man with a loving heart, who hascarried them about with him whithersoever he went,lived in them and grown one with them. But you can domuch more if you list. I know, moreover, that you, Adolf,are not the manto turnaway from your father's old friendsbecause the great ones despise and daily vex them. '184 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.This evening I do herewith begin to act on the resolution his words awakened. I am but a layman, and so ishe, but for that matter I have hearkened to teachers whotell me that the layman may be nearer to heaven than theclerk, and that all such outer differences are of small account in the eye of God.My father was an armourer and president of the guild.All looked up to him as the most fearless and far-seeing ofour counsellors. He taught us how to watch and to resistthe encroachments of the bishop and the nobles. We haveto thank his wisdom mainly that our position has been nota little strengthened of late. Still, how much wrong havewe oftentimes to suffer from the senate and their presidents! Strasburg prospers -marvellously, consideringthe dreadful pestilence seven years back; but there ismuch to amend, Heaven knows! My father fell on ajourney to Spires, in an affray with Von Otterbach and hisblack band. He could use well the weapons he made, andwounded Von Otterbach well nigh to the death before hewas overpowered by numbers. The Rhenish League wasstrong enough, and for once bold enough, to avenge himwell. That castle of Otterbach, which every traveller andmerchant trembled to pass, stands now ruinous andempty.I, alas! was away the while, on my apprentice- travels .The old evil is but little abated, though our union has, Idoubt not, prevented many of the worst mischiefs of thefist-law. Every rock along the Rhine is castled. Theyespy us approaching from far off, and at every turn havewe to wrangle, and now and then, if strong enough, tofight, with these vultures about their robber-toll. Rightthankful am I that my father died a man's death, fighting,c. 1.] Business and Heresy. 185-that I have not to imagine his fate as like that of some,who, falling alive into their hands, have been horribly tortured, and let down by a windlass, with dislocated limbs,into the loathsome dog-hole of a keep, to writhe and dieby inches in putrid filth anddarkness. Yet our very perilsgive to our calling an enterprise and an excitement itwould otherwise lack. The merchant has his chivalry aswell as the knight. Moreover, as rich old Gersdorf says,risk and profit run together-though, as to money, I haveas much already as I care for. We thrive, despite restrictions and extortions innumerable, legal and illegal. Mybrother Otto sends me word from Bohemia that he prospers. The Bohemian throats can never have enough ofour wines, and we are good customers for their metal.Otto was always a rover. He talks of journeying to theEast. It seems but yesterday that he and I were boystogether, taking our reading and writing lessons from thatpoor old Waldensian whom my father sheltered in ourhouse. How we all loved him! I never saw my fatherso troubled at anything as at his death. Our house hasbeen ever since a refuge for such persecuted wanderers.The wrath of Popes, prelates, and inquisitors hath beenespecially kindled of late years against sundry communities, sects, and residues of sects, which are known by thename of Beghards, Beguines, Lollards, Kathari, Fratricelli, Brethren of the Free Spirit, &c. Councils, they tellme, have been held at Cologne, Mayence, and Narbonne,to suppress the Beghards. Yet their numerous communities in the Netherlands and the Rhineland are a blessingto the poor folk, to whom the hierarchy are a curse. Theclergy are jealous of them. They live single, they workwith their hands, they nurse the sick, they lay out the186 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.dead, they lead a well-ordered and godly life in their Beguinasia, under the Magister or Magistra; but they arebound by no vows, fettered by no harassing minutiæ ofausterity, and think the liberty of the Spirit better thanmonkish servitude. Some of them have fallen into thenotions of those enthusiastic Franciscans who think theend of the world at hand, and that we live in, or near, thedays of Antichrist. And no wonder, when the spiritualheads of Christendom are so unchristian. There are somesturdy beggars who wander about the country availingthemselves of the name of Beghard to lead an idle life.These I excuse not. They say some of these Beghardsclaim the rank of apostles-that they have subterraneanrooms, where both sexes meet to hear blasphemouspreachers announce their equality with God. Yea, worsecharges than these even of grossest lewdness-do theybring. I know many of them, both here and at Cologne,but nothing of this sort have I seen, or credibly heard of.They are the enemies of clerical pomp and usurpation, andsome, I fear, hold strange fantastical notions, coming Iknow not whence. But the churchmen themselves are atfault, and answerable for it all. They leave the artizansand labourers in besotted ignorance, and when they doget a solitary religious idea that comes home to them, tento one but it presently confounds or overthrows what littlesense they have. Many deeply religious minds among us,both of laity and clergy, are at heart as indignant at thecrimes of the hierarchy as can be the wildest mob-leadingfanatic who here and there appears for a moment, haranguing the populace, denouncing the denouncers, andbidding men fight sin with sin. We who sigh for reform,who must have more spiritual freedom, have our secret11C. 1.] Minstrelsy. 187communications, our meetings now and then for counsel,our signs and counter-signs. Folks call the Rhinelandthe Parson's Walk-so full is it of the clergy, so enjoyedand lorded over by them. Verily, it is at least as full ofthose hidden ones, who, in various wise which they callheresy, do worship God without man coming in between.The tide of the time is with us. Our once famous Godfrey of Strasburg is forgotten. Wolfram von Eschenbachis the universal model. His Parzival and Titurel live onthe lips of the manyrhymesters and minstrels who wanderfrom town to town now, as once they did from court tocourt and castle to castle. It is the religiousness and thelearning of Wolfram that finds favour for him and countless imitators. This is the good sign Imean. Our singershave turned preachers. They are practical, after theirfashion. They are a Book of Proverbs, and give us maxims, riddles, doctrines, science, in their verses. Ifthey sing of chivalry, it is to satirize chivalry-suchknighthood as now we have. They are spreading anddescending towards the people. Men may have theirsongs of chivalry in Spain, where, under the blessed St.Iago, good knights and true have a real crusade againstthose heathen hounds the Moors, whom God confound.But here each petty lord in his castle has nothing to dobut quarrel with his neighbour and oppress all weakerthan himself. What to such men, robbing, drinking,devouring their living with harlots, are Arthur and theRound Table, or Oliver and Roland? So the singerscome to us. In good sooth, the old virtues of knighthood-its truth and honour, its chastity and courage are foundfar more among the citizens than with the nobles. Werelish the sage precepts and quaint abstruseness of Reimar188 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.ofZweter, though he be somewhat ofa pedant. AlbertusMagnus is the hero with him, instead of Charlemagne.His learning is a marvel, and he draws all morality byallegory out of the Seven Sciences in most wondrous wise.Frauenlob himself (alas! I heard last year that he wasdead) could not praise fair ladies more fairly. He assails,in the boldest fashion, the Pope and Rome, and theirdaughters Cologne and Mayence. The last time he wasover here from Bohemia, we laughed nigh to bursting athis caricature of a tournament, and applauded till therafters rang again when he said that not birth, but virtue,made true nobleness. Then our ballads and popular fablesare full of satire on the vices of ecclesiastics. All thistends to keep men awake to the abuses of the day, and todeepen their desire for reform. We shall need all thestrength we can gather, political and religious, if in thecoming struggle the name of German is not to be a shame.Our Holy Father promises to indemnify himself for thehumiliationhe suffers at Avignon by heaping insults uponGermany. If Louis of Bavaria conquers Frederick, Ishould not wonder if we Strasburgers wake up somemorning and find ourselves excommunicate. All truehearts must be stirring-we shall have cowards and sluggards enow on all hands.Last month the Emperor Louis was here with his armyfor a few days. Our bishop Ochsenstein and the Zornfamily espouse the cause of his rival Frederick the Fair.Louis has on his side, however, the best of us-the familyof the Müllenheim, the chief burghers, and the peoplegenerally. Every true German heart, every hater offoreign domination, must be with him. Many a skirmishhas there been in our streets between the retainers of theC. 1.] Master Eckart. 189two great houses of Zorn and Müllenheim, and now theirenmity is even more bitter than heretofore. The senatereceived Louis with royal honours. When Frederick washere five years ago, we would only entertain him as aguest. The clergy and most of the nobles hailed him asEmperor. Now, when Louis came, it was their turn tostand aloof. There were few of them in the cathedral theother day, when he graciously confirmed our privileges .The bishop issued orders to put a stop to the performanceof all church offices while Louis was here; whereupon,either from prudence or consideration for our souls, heshortened his visit.41320. September. St. Maurice's Day.-Along conversation with Hermann to-day. He has heard Eckart repeatedly, and, as I looked for, is both startled and perplexed. Of a truth it is small marvel that such preachingas his stirred up all Cologne, gathered crowds of wonderinghearers, made him fast friends and deadly enemies, androused the wrath of the heretic-hunting archbishop. Hermann brought me home some of the things this famousdoctor said which most struck him. I wrote them downfrom his lips, and place them here.'Hewho is at all times alone is worthy of God. Hewho is at all times at home, to him is God present. Hewho standeth at all times in a present Now, in him dothGod the Father bring forth his Son without ceasing.5'He who finds one thing otherwise than another-towhom God is dearer in one thing than another, that manis carnal, and still afar off and a child. But he to whomGod is alike in all things hath become a man.6'All that is in the Godhead is one. Thereof can we saynothing. It is above all names, above all nature. The1190 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.essence of all creatures is eternally a divine life in Deity. 'Godworks. So doth not the Godhead. Therein are theydistinguished,-in working and not working. The end ofall things is the hidden darkness of the eternal Godhead,unknown and never to be known.7' I declare, by good truth and truth everlasting, that inevery man who hath utterly abandoned self, God mustcommunicate Himself according to all His power, so completely that he retains nothing in His life, in His essence,in His Nature, and in His Godhead-He must communicate all to the bringing forth of fruit.6When the Will is so united that it becometh a One inoneness, then doth the Heavenly Father produce his onlybegotten Son in Himself and in me. Wherefore in Himself and in me? I am one with Him-He cannot excludeme. In the self-same operation doth the Holy Ghost receive his existence, and proceeds from me as from God.Wherefore? I am in God, and if the Holy Ghost deriveth not his beingfrom me, He deriveth it not from God.I am in nowise excluded.ºThere is something in the soul which is above the soul,divine, simple, an absolute Nothing, rather unnamed thannamed, unknown than known. So long as thou lookest onthyself as a Something, so long thou knowest as little whatthis is as my mouth knows what colour is, or as my eyeknows what taste is . Of this I am wont to speak in mysermons, and sometimes I have called it a Power, sometimes an uncreated Light, sometimes a divine Spark. Itis absolute and free from all names and forms, as God isfree and absolute in Himself. It is higher than knowledge, higher than love, higher than grace. For in allthese there is still distinction. In this power doth blossomC. I.] From the known God to the unknown. 191and flourish God, with all His Godhead, and the Spiritflourisheth in God. In this power doth the Father bringforth His only-begotten Son, as essentially as in Himself,and in this light ariseth the Holy Ghost. This Sparkrejects all creatures, and will have only God, simply as heis in himself. It rests satisfied neither with the Father,nor the Son, nor the Holy Ghost, nor with the threePersons, as far as each exists in its respective attributes .I will say what will sound more marvellous yet. ThisLight is satisfied only with the super-essential Essence.It is bent on entering into the simple Ground, the stillWaste, wherein is no distinction, neither Father, Son,nor Holy Ghost, into the Unity where no man dwelleth.There is it satisfied in the light, there it is one; then isit in itself, as this Ground is a simple stillness in itself,immoveable; and yet by this Immobility are all thingsmoved.10'God in himself was not God-in the creature only hathHe become God. I ask to be rid of God that is, thatGod, by his grace, would bring me into the Essence-thatEssence which is above God and above distinction. Iwould enter into that eternal Unity which was mine beforeall time, when I was what I would, and would what Iwas;-into a state above all addition or diminution;-intothe Immobility whereby all is moved.11'Folks say to me often- Pray God for me. ' Then Ithink with myself, ' Why go ye out? Why abide ye notin your own selves, and take hold on your own possession?Ye have all truth essentially within you?' 12' God and I are one in knowing. God's Essence is Hisknowing, and God's knowing makes me to know Him.Therefore is His knowing my knowing. The eye whereby"192 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.Isee God is the same eye whereby He seeth me. Mineeye and the eye of God are one eye, one vision, one knowledge, and one love. 13' If any man hath understood this sermon, it is well forhim. Had not a soul of you been here, I must have spokenthe very same words. He who hath not understood it,let him not trouble his heart therewith, for as long as aman is not himself like unto this truth, so long will henever understand it, seeing that it is no truth of reflection.to be thought out, but is come directly out of the heart ofGod without medium.'14Of all this I can understand scarcely anything. Theperpetual incarnation ofGod in good Christians, the nameless Nothing, the self-unfolding and self-infolding of God(I know not what words to use) are things too high for mygrosser apprehension. Ishalllet the sayings lie here; someone else who reads may comprehend them. I am contentto be a child in such matters. I look with awe and admiration on men who have attained while yet in the fleshheights of wisdom which will be, perhaps to all eternity,beyond the reach of such as I am.1320. October. St. Francis' Day.-Went withHermannthis morning to hear mass. Master Eckart preached again.Dr. Tauler in the church. How every one loves that man!As several of his brethren made their way to their places,I saw the people frown on some of them, and laugh andleer to each other as two or three of them passed. Theyhad reason, I know, to hate and to despise certain amongthem. But to Tauler all bowed, and many voices blessedhim. He has a kind heart to feel for us, the commonalty.He and his sermons are one and the same. He means allhe says, and we can understand much, at least, of what heC. I.]means.Disinterested Love. 193There is a cold grandeur about Master EckartHe seems above emotion: his very face, all intellect, saysit is a weakness to feel. At him we wonder; with MasterTauler we weep. How reverently did Tauler listen, as ason to a father, to the words of the great Doctor. Nodoubt he understood every syllable. He is and shall bemy sole confessor. I will question him, some day, concerning these lofty doctrines whereby it would seem thatthe poorest beggar may outpass inwisdom and inblessedness all the Popes of Christendom.MasterEckart said to-day:-' Some people are for seeingGodwith their eyes, as they can see a cow, and would loveGodas they love a cow (which thou lovest for the milk andfor the cheese, and for thine own profit). Thus do allthose who love God for the sake of outward riches or ofinward comfort; they do not love aright, but seek onlythemselves and their own advantage.15' God is a pure good in himself, and therefore will hedwell nowhere save in a pure soul. There He may pourHimself out; into that He can wholly flow. What isPurity? It is that man should have turned himself awayfrom all creatures, and have set his heart so entirely onthe pure good, that no creature is to him a comfort, thathe has no desire for aught creaturely, save as far as hemayapprehend therein the pure good which is God. Andas little as the bright eye can endure aught foreign in it,so little can the pure soul bear anything in it, any stain,aught between it and God. To it all creatures are puretoenjoy, for it enjoyeth all creatures in God, and God inall creatures. Yea, so pure is that soul that she seeththrough herself, she needeth not to seek God afar off, shefinds Him in herself, when, in her natural purity, she hathVOL. I. 0194 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.flowed out into the supernatural of the pure Godhead.And thus is she in God and God in her, and whatshe doeth that she doeth in God and God doth it inher.16'Thenshall amanbe truly poorwhenhe is as free fromhis creature will as he was before hewas born. AndI sayto you, by the eternal truth, that so long as ye desire tofulfil the will ofGod, and have any desire after eternityand God, so long are ye not truly poor. He alone hathtrue spiritual poverty who wills nothing, knows nothing,desires nothing.17'For us, to follow truly what God willeth, is to followthat whereto we are most inclined,-whereto we feel mostfrequent inward exhortation and strongest attraction. Theinner voice is the voice of God.'18After the service, Hermann left me to go and see a sickfriend. I mingled with the crowd. There was a knot ofpeople gathered before All-Saints, discussing what theyhad heard. A portly, capon-lined burgomaster declaredhe had first been hungry, then sleepy, and that was allhe knew. He had verily, as a wag presently told him,obeyed the master, and lost consciousness of all externalthings. Whereat the jolly citizen was so tickled that hetook the joker home to dine with him, promising mountainsofpickled pork, a whole Black Forest of sauer kraut, andboundless beakers of hippocras.An innocent novice from the country (looking fresh as anew-caught trout) began to say, ' Well, it doth seem tome that though Doctor Eckart received his Doctorate fromRome, at the hands of our Holy Father, though he hathstudied and taught at Paris, though he hath been Provincial of our order in Saxony, and Vicar-General in Bo-.C. 1.] The strange Doctrines discussed. 195hemia-where he played the cat with the mice, I can tellyou-yet that some things he said were '' Hold your tongue for ajackass,' quoth a seniorbrother,who liked not, methinks, to hear a whisper against theorthodoxy of the order, by whomsoever or against whomsoever uttered.'He is a blasphemer,' said a friar. ' Good people, didnot you hear him say that what burned in hell was theNothing. 19 Then nothing burns; ergo, there is no hell. '6' I don't think he believes in God at all,' cried one:-'Didhe not say something about caring no more for Godthan for a stone?''Ay, but,' urged the friar, ' no hell, and so no purgatory-think of that. Why, he has swept the universe asclean of the devil as a housewife's platter at a christening. 'Some one in the crowd shouted out, ' That fellow caresnot what becomes of God, but he can't give up his devil. 'Whereon the friar grew very red in the face, as we alllaughed, but could not bethink him of any answer, andwent capped with the name of Brother Brimstone everafter.What was that he said,' asked a slip-shod, sottishlooking tailor, ' about doing what you like, and that iswhat God likes? ''Friends,' cries next a rainbow - coloured, dandifiedpuppy, a secretary of the bishop's, stroking the down of awould-be moustache, evidently as yet only in a state ofBecoming ( Werden) -I would fain have moderatelykicked him,' My friends ' (smiling with a patronizing blandness atthe tailor) ' you are right; the public morals are in danger.Evil men and seducers wax worse and worse. But the02196 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.Holy Church will protect her children. We have heardpestilent heresy this day. To hear that man talk, youwould fancy he thought there was as much divinity in hislittle finger as in the whole body of the Virgin Mother ofGod'.Whereupon up starts a little manwhom I knew for oneof the brethren of the Free Spirit-takes his place on astone that lay in the mud of the middle of the street, andbegins- Good people, did you not hear the Doctor saythat those who cannot understandhis doctrine are to hold bythe common faith? Didnot SaintPeter say oftheEpistles ofthe blessed Saint Paul that there were some things thereinhard to be understood, which the ignorant would wrest totheir own destruction? I'll tell you the ignorance hemeans and the knowledge he means. Friend Crispinthere, whom you carried home drunk in a barrow lastnight, and Master Secretary here, who transgresses in likewise andworse in adaintier style, and hath, by the way,as much perfumery about him as though the scent thereof,rising towards heaven, were so much incense for the takingaway of his many sins-they are a couple of St. Paul'signoramuses. The knowledge St. Paul means is thethoughtful love of doing the right thing for the love ofChrist. But the Pope himself may be one ofthese witlessones, if the love of sin be stronger in him than the love ofholiness. The preaching of all the twelveApostles wouldbe turned to mischief and to licence by such as you, youfeather-brained, civet-tanned puppet of a man, you adulterous, quill-driving hypocrite. '' Seize him,' shouts my Secretary, and darted forward;but an apprentice put out his foot, and over he rolled intothe mire, grievously ruffling and besmutching all his gayC. I.] The Scholar and the Beggar. 197feathers, while the little man mingled with the laughingpeople, and made his escape. I hope he is out of Strasburg, or hemay be secluded in adarkness and a solitudeanything but divine. He was a trifle free of tongue,assuredly; I suppose that makes a part of the freedom ofthe Spirit with him. He had right, however, beyondquestion.The confusion created by this incident had scarcelyceased, when I saw advancing towards us the stately formof Master Eckart himself. He looked with a calm gravityabout upon us, as he paused in the midst seemed to understand at once of what sort our talk had been, and appeared about to speak. There was a cry for silence-' Hear the Doctor! hear him!' Whereon he spoke asfollows:-' There was once alearned man who longed and prayedfull eight years that God would show him some one toteach him the way of truth. And on a time, as he was inagreat longing, there came unto him a voice from heaven,and said, ' Go to the front of the church, there wilt thoufind amanthat shall show thee the way to blessedness. 'So thither he went, and found there a poor manwhosefeet were torn and covered with dust and dirt, and all hisapparel scarce three hellers worth. He greeted him, saying, ' Godgive thee good morrow. ' Thereat made he answer,' I never had an ill morrow. ' Again said he, ' God prosperthee.' The other answered, ' Never had I aught butprosperity.''Heaven save thee,' said the scholar, ' how answerestthou me so?'' I was never other than saved.''Explain to me this, for I understand not.'198 GermanMysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.'Willingly, ' quoth the poor man. 'Thou wishest megood morrow. I never had an ill morrow, for, am I anhungered, I praiseGod; am I freezing, doth it hail, snow,rain, is it fair weather or foul, I praise God; and thereforehad I never ill morrow. Thou didst say, God prosper thee.I have been never unprosperous, for I know how to livewith God; I know that what he doth is best, and whatGod giveth or ordaineth for me, be it pain or pleasure, thatI take cheerfully from Him as the best of all, and so Ihad never adversity. Thou wishest God to bless me. Iwasnever unblessed, for I desire to be only in the will of God,and Ihave so given up my will to the will of God, thatwhat God willeth I will. ''But if God were to cast thee into hell,' said thescholar, ' what wouldst thou do then? '' Cast me into hell? His goodness holds him backtherefrom. Yet if he did, I should have two arms to embrace him withal. One arm is true Humility, and therewith am I one with his holy humanity. And with theright arm of Love, that joineth his holy Godhead, I wouldembrace him, so He must come with me into hell likewise.Andeven so, I would sooner be in hell, and have God,than in heaven, and not have Him. 'Then understood this Master that true Abandonment,with utter Abasement, was the nearest way to God.Moreover the Master asked: ' From whence comestthou?'' From God.'Where hast thou found God? 'Where I abandoned all creatures. I am a king.My kingdom is my soul. All my powers, within andC. I.] Mystical Rhymes. 199without, do homage to my soul. This kingdom is greaterthan any kingdom on the earth. '• What hath brought thee to this perfection?'' My silence, my heavenward thoughts, my union withGod. For I could rest in nothing less than God. NowIhave found God, and have everlasting rest and joy inHim.'20With that Master Eckart ceased, and went on his wayagain, leaving us in wonderment; and I watched him, asfar as I could see along the winding street, walking onunder the overhanging gables, with his steady step andabstract air, and his silver locks fluttering out in the windfrom under his doctor's hat. When I looked round, Ifound myself almost alone. He is a holy man, let whatwill be said about heresy.I set down here a new hymn Hermannsang me-sweet,as he sang it with a ringing repetition that chimes rightpleasantly, and makes amends for some lack of meaningin the words.21Oh be glad, thou Zion's daughter,Joyous news to thee are sent;Thou shalt sing a strain of sweetness,Sing it to thy heart's content.Now the friend of God thou art ,Therefore shalt thoujoy at heart,Therefore know no sorrow- smart.Lo! ' tis ju -ju-jubilation,Meditation;Ju-ju-ju -ju-jubilation,Contemplation;Ju -ju-ju -jubilation;Ju-ju-ju-jubilation,Speculation;Ju-ju-ju-jubilation,Conciliation!200 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.Meditation, that is goodly,When a man on God will muse;Jubilation worketh wonder,'Tis the harp the soul doth use.Speculation, that is sheen,Contemplation crowns, I ween,Concord leads, the dance's queen,Lo! ju-ju-juConciliation!'Tis jubilationAtthe sweets of contemplation!Have been haunted by this ju-ju, in-doors and out,whatever I have been doing for the last three days, and Ihear it in every stroke upon the anvil.1320. Second week in October.-A ride over to Fegersheim about Sir Rudolf's new bascinet with the beakedventaille. As I reached the castle the ladies were justcoming out for hawking, with a brave company of knightsand squires. They were fair to see, with their copes andkirtles blue and white, and those fanciful new-fashionedcrowns on their heads, all glittering with gold and jewels.Sir Rudolf stayed for me awhile and then followed them.On my way back, rested at noon at a little hostelry,where I sat before the door at a table, chatting with minehost. There ride up a priest and monk with attendants.Holy Mary, what dresses! The monk with bells on hishorse's bridle, his hood fastened with a great golden pin,wrought at the head into a true-love knot, his hair growing long so as to hide his tonsure, his shoes embroideredand cut lattice-wise.22 There was the priest with broadgold girdle, gown of green and red, slashed after thenewest mode, and a long sword and dagger, very trulymilitant. I marvelled at the variety and unction of theoaths they had at their service. The advantage of a theological training was very manifest therein.C. I.] Mysticism run to seed. 201Scarcely were these worthies, with bag and baggage,well ontheir way again when I espied, walking towardsthe inn, a giant of a man-some three inches higher thanI am (a sight I have not often seen) miserably attired,dusty and travel-worn. When he came to where I washe threw down his staff and bundle, cast his huge limbsalong the bench, gave a careless, surly glance at me, and,throwing back his shaggy head of black hair, seemedabout to sleep. Having pity on his weariness I said, ' Artthirsty, friend? the sun hath power to-day.' Thereuponhe partly raised himself, looked fixedly at me, and thendrank off the tankard Ipushed towards him, grunting outa something which methought was meant for thanks.Being now curious, I asked him straight, ' Where hecame from? 'He. I never came from anywhere.I. What are you?He. I am not.I. What will you?He. I will not.I. This is passing strange. Tell me your name.He. Men call me the Nameless Wild.I. Not far off the mark either; you talk wildly enough.Where do you come from? whither are you bound?He. I dwell in absolute Freedom.I. What is that?He. When a man lives as he list, without distinction,(Otherness, Anderheit) , without before or after. Theman who hath in his Eternal Nothing become nothingknows nought of distinctions.I. But to violate distinction is to violate order, and tobreak that is to be a slave. That is not the freedom in-202 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.deed, which the truth gives. He that committeth sin isthe servant of sin. No man can be so utterly self-annihilated and lost in God,-can be such a very nothing thatthere remains no remnant of the original difference between creature and Creator. My soul and body are one,are not separate; but they are distinct. So is it with thesoul united to God. Mark the difference, friend, I prithee, between separation and distinction. (Geschiedenheitund Unterschiedenheit.)He. The teacher saith that the saintly man is God'sson, and what Christ doth, that doth he.I. He saith that such man followeth Christ in righte- ousness. But our personality must ever abide. Christ isson of God by nature, we by grace. Your pride blindsyou. You are enlightened with a false light, comingwhence I know not. You try and ' break through' to theOneness, and you break through reason and reverence.He replied by telling me that I was in thick darkness,and the boy coming with my horse, I left him.23As I rode homeward I thought on the contrast I hadseen. This man who came last is the natural consequenton the two who preceded him. So doth ahypocritical,ghostly tyranny produce lawlessness. I have seen thePriest and the Levite, and methinks one of the thieves,-where is our good Samaritan? I know not which extreme is the worst. One is selfish absoluteness, the otherabsolute selfishness. Oh, for men among us who shallbattle with each in the strength of a truth above themboth! Poor Alsace!Here Atherton laid aside his manuscript, and conversation commenced.အာာာာာာာာာာာာာာCHAPTER II.For as though there were metempsychosis, and the soul of one manpassed into another; opinions do find, after certain revolutions, menand minds like those that first begat them.-SIR THOMAS BROWNE.WILLOUGHBY. What struck me most as novel in the mysticism of this strange Master Eckart was thestress he laid on our own consciousness of being the sonsof God. Neither the ecclesiastical nor the scholastic gradations and preparatives for mysticism, so important withhis predecessors, seem of much moment with him in comparison with the attainment, per saltum, as it were, ofthis blessed certainty. Perhaps the secret of his reactionagainst the orthodoxy of his day lay here. He craves afirm resting-place for his soul. The Church cannotsatisfy the want. He will supply it for himself, and, todo so, builds together into a sort of system certain currentnotions that suit his purpose, some new and others old,some in tolerable harmony with Christianity, others morehostile to it than he was altogether aware. These pantheistic metaphysics may have seemed to him his resourceand justification-may have been the product of the brainlabouring to assure the heart.ATHERTON. A very plausible conjecture. Amalric ofBena, who had been famous as a teacher in Paris nearly a204 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.hundred years before Eckart went to study there, maintained that a personal conviction of our union to Christwas necessary to salvation. He was condemned for thedoctrine, but it survived.WILLOUGHBY. Thank you. That fact supports me.Might not Eckart have desired to assert for our inwardreligious life a worthier and more independent place, asopposed to the despotic externalism of the time-to makeour access to Christ more immediate, and less subject tothe precarious mercies of the Church?ATHERTON. A grand aim, if so; but to reach it he unfortunately absorbs the objective in the subjective elementof religion-rebounds from servility to arrogance, andmakes humanity amanifestation of the Divine Essence.GOWER. In order to understand his position, the question to be first asked appears to me to be this. If Eckartgoes to the Church, and says, ' How can I be assured thatIamin a state of salvation?' what answer will the HolyMother give him? Canyou tell me, Atherton?ATHERTON. She confounds justification and sanctification together, you will remember. So she will answer,' My son, as a Christian of the ordinary sort, you cannothave any such certainty-indeed, you are much betterwithout it. You may conjecture that you are reconciledto God by looking inward on your feelings, by assuringyourself that at least you are not living in any mortal sin.If, indeed, you were appointed to do some great thingsfor my glory, you might find yourself among the happyfew who are made certain of their state of grace by aspecial and extra revelation, to hearten them for theirachievements.GOWER. Shameful! The Church then admits the high,c. 2.] TheDesire after Assurance. 205invigorating influence of such certainty, but denies it tothose who, amid secular care and toil, require it most.WILLOUGHBY. While discussing Eckart, we havelighted on a doctrine which must have produced more mysticism than almost any other you can name. On receiving such reply, how many ardent natures will strainafter visions and miraculous manifestations, wrestling forsome token of their safety!GOWER. And how many will be the prey of morbidintrospections, now catching the exultant thrill of confidence, and presently thrown headlong into some despairingabyss.ATHERTON. As for the mass of the people, they will beenslaved for ever by such teaching, trying to assure themselves by plenty ofsacraments, believing these the causesof grace, and hanging for their spiritual all on the dispensers thereof.WILLOUGHBY. Then, to apply the result of yourquestion, Gower, to Eckart,-as he has in him nothingservile, and nothing visionary, he resolves to graspcertainty with his own hand-wraps about him relics ofthe old Greek pallium, and retires to his extreme ofmajestic isolation.GOWER. Pity that he could not find the scripturalVia Media-that common truth which, while it meets thedeepest wants of the individual, yet links him inwholesome fellowship with others-that pure outer light whichnurtures and directs the inner.WILLOUGHBY. No easy way to find in days whenPlato was installed high priest, and the whole biblicalregion ajungle of luxuriant allegoric conceits or thornyscholastic formulas.206 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.GOWER. This daring Eckart reminds me of that heroicleader in Beaumont and Fletcher's Bonduca. I think Ihear him cry with Caratach,Cease your fretful prayers,Your whinings, and your tame petitions;

• The gods love courage armed with confidence,

Andprayers fit to pull them down: weak tearsAnd troubled hearts, the dull twins of cold spirits,They sit and smile at. Hear how I salute 'em.LOWESTOFFE. Did you not say yesterday, Atherton,that Eckart's system had received high praise fromHegel?ATHERTON. Oh yes, he calls it ' a genuine and profoundphilosophy. ' Indeed the points of resemblance are verystriking; and, setting aside for the moment some redeeming expressions and the more religious spirit of the man,Eckart's theosophy is a remarkable anticipation ofmodernGerman idealism . That abstract ground of GodheadEckart talks about, answers exactly to Hegel's LogischeIdee. The Trinity of process, the incarnation ever renewing itself in men, the resolution of redemption almost toa divine self-development, constitute strong features offamily likeness between the Dominican and both Hegeland Fichte.¹GOWER. One may fancy that while Hegel was teachingat Heidelberg it must have fared with poor Eckart as withthe dead huntsman in the Danish ballad, while a usurperwas hunting with his hounds over his patrimony,-With my dogs so good ,He hunteth the wild deer in the wood;And with every deer he slays on the mould,He wakens me up in the grave so cold.ATHERTON. Nay, if we come to fancying, let us call inc. 2.] Eckart and Hegel. 207Pythagoras at once, and say that the soul of Eckart trans--migrated into Hegel.GOWER. With all my heart. The Portuguese have asuperstition according to which the soul of a man whohas died, leaving some duty unfulfilled or promised workunfinished, is frequently known to enter into anotherperson, and dislodging for a time the rightful soul-occupant, impel him unconsciously to complete what waslacking. On a dreamy summer day like this, we canimagine Hegel in like manner possessed by Eckart inorder to systematize his half developed ideas .WILLOUGHBY. It is certainly very curious to mark thepathway of these pantheistic notions through successiveages. Seriously, I did not know till lately how venerablyantique were the discoveries of absolute idealism.LOWESTOFFE. I confess that the being one in oneness,the nothing, the soul beyond the soul, the participationin the all-moving Immobility of which Eckart speaks, areto me utterly unintelligible.6GOWER. Do not trouble yourself. No one will ever beable to get beyond the words themselves, any more thanBardolph could with the phrase which so tickled the earof Justice Shallow. Accommodated; that is, when aman is, as they say, accommodated: or, when aman is,-being, whereby, he may be thought to be accommodated; which is an excellent thing. 'ATHERTON. Yet, to do Eckart justice, he has his qualifications andhis distinctions in virtue of which he imagineshimself still within the pale of orthodoxy, and he stronglyrepudiates the Antinomian consequences to which hisdoctrines were represented as tending.GOWER. Ay, it is just in this way that the mischief is1208 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI,done. These distinctions many a follower of his couldnot or would not understand, and so his high philosophyproduced inpractice far oftener such men as the NamelessWild than characters resembling the more pure and loftyideal he drew himself in his discourse to the good peopleof Strasburg. These philosophical edge-tools are fullperilous. ModernGermany is replete with examples ofthat fatal facility in the common mind for a practicalapplication of philosophic paradox which our friend Adolflamented at Fegersheim. When a philosophy whichweakens the embankments that keep licence out has oncebeen popularized, the philosopher cannot stop the inundation by shouting from his study-window. De Wette.himself, at last became aware of this, and regretted it invain. Such speculation resembles the magic sword of SirElidure-its mysterious virtue sometimes filled even itsowner with a furor that hurried him to an indiscriminateslaughter, but wielded by any other hand its thirst couldbe satisfied only with the blood of every one around, andat last with the life of him who held it.LOWESTOFFE. Still there is far more excuse for Eckartthan for our nineteenth century pantheists. Even thedesperation of some of those poor ignorant creatures, whoexaggerated Eckart's paradoxes till they grew a plea forutter lawlessness, is not so annatural, however lamentable. Who can wonder that some should have overwrought the doctrine of Christ in us and neglected that ofChrist for us, when the opus operatum was in its glory,ghostly comfort bought and sold, and Christ our sacrificepageanted about in the mass, as Milton says, a fearfulidol? Or that the untaught many, catching the firstthought of spiritual freedom from some mystic, shouldC. 2.] Mysticismferments among the People. 209have been intoxicated instantly. The laity, forbidden solong to be Christians on their own account, rise up hereand there, crying, ' We will be not Christians merely, butso many Christs. ' They have been denied what is due toman, they will dreadfully indemnify themselves by seizingwhat is due to God. Has not the letter been slaying themby inches all their days? The spirit shall give themlife!GOWER. Like the peasant in the apologue;-religionhas been so long doled out to them in a few pitiful dropsof holy water, till in their impatience they must have awhole Ganges-flood poured into their grounds, obliterating,with a vengeance, ' all distinctions,' and drowning everylogical and social landmark under the cold grey levelthe blank neutral-tint of a stoical indifference whichannihilates all order and all law.ATHERTON. By a strange contradiction, Eckart employsRevelation at one moment only to escape it the next-anduses its beacon- lights to steerfrom, not to the haven. Hepays homage to its authority, he consults its record, butpresently leaves it far behind to lose himself in the un- ,revealed Godhead-floats away on his ' sail-broad vans 'of speculation through the vast vacuity in search ofIllimitable ocean, without bound,adarkWithout dimension, where length, breadth, and height,And time and place are lost.When there, he finds his cloudy seat soon fail him; he returns once more to the realities of revelation, only to forsake this lower ground again when he has renewed hisstrength. This oscillation betrays a fatal contradiction .To shut behind us the gate on this inferior worldVOL. I. P210 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.is not necessarily to open the everlasting doors of theupper one.GOWER. I very much admire the absolute resignation ofthat devout mendicant described by Eckart. He is aQuietist of the very best sort-his life a ' Thy will bedone. ' He is a Fénélon in rags .ATHERTON. After all, make what allowance we will,-giving Eckart all the benefit due from the fact that hislife was pure, that he stood in no avowed antagonism toChristian doctrine or institute, that devout men likeTauler and Suso valued his teaching so highly, still, hestands confessed a pantheist; no charity can explain thataway.GOWER. I am afraid not. What else can we call himwhen he identifies himself and all Christian men with theSon, as we have heard, makes himself essential to God,will share with Him in the evolution of the Holy Ghost,and, forbidding you to regard yourself as a somethingdistinct from God, exhorts you (if youwould be a justifiedperson and child of God indeed) to merge the ground ofyour own nature in the divine, so that your knowledge ofGod and his of you are the same thing,-i.e., you and Heone and the same? But can you conjecture, Atherton, bywhat process he arrived at such a pass?ATHERTON. Perhaps in this way:-John Scotus Erigena(with whose writings Eckart could scarcely have failed tomake acquaintance at Paris) asserts the identity ofBeingand Willing, of the Velle and the Esse in God; also theidentity of Being and Knowing. Applying this latterproposition to the relationship between God and man, hecomes logically enough to this conclusion,- Man, essentially considered, may be defined as God's knowledge ofC. 2.] Pantheism-old and new. 211him; that is, man reduced to his ultimate-his ground, orsimple subsistence is a divine Thought. But, on thesame principle, the thoughts of God are, of course, God.Hence Eckart's doctrine-the ground of your being lies inGod. Reduce yourself to that simplicity, that root, andyou are in God. There is no longer any distinctionbetween your spirit and the divine, you have escapedpersonality and finite limitation. Your particular, creature self, as a something separate and dependent onGod,is gone. So also, obviously, your creaturely will. Henceforth, therefore, what seems an inclination of yours is infact the divine good pleasure. You are free from law.You are above means. The very will to do the will ofGod is resolved into that will itself. This is the Apathy,the Negation, the Poverty, he commends.With Eckart personally this self-reduction and deification is connected with a rigorous asceticism and exemplary moral excellence. Yet it is easy to see that itmay be a merely intellectual process, consisting in a man'sthinking that he is thinking himself away from his personality. He declares the appearance of the Son necessaryto enable us to realize our sonship; and yet his languageimplies that this realization is the perpetual incarnation ofthat Son-does, as it were, constitute him. Christians areaccordingly not less the sons of God by grace than isChrist by nature. Believe yourself divine, and the Sonis brought forth in you. The Saviour and the saved aredissolved together in the blank absolute Substance.WILLOUGHBY. So then, Eckart would say,- To realizehimself, God must have Christians; ' and Hegel,- Torealize himself, He must have philosophers . 'ATHERTON. Miserable inversion! This result ofP2212 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.Eckart's speculation was expressed with the most impiousenormity by Angelus Silesius, in the seventeenth century.In virtue of the necessity God is under (according to thistheory) of communicating himself, bon gré, mal gré, towhomsoever will refine himself down to his ' Nothing,' hereduces the Almighty to dependence, and changes placeswithHim upon the eternal throne on the strength of hisself- transcending humility!0CHAPTER III .With that about I tourned my hedde,And sawe anone the fifth routThat to this lady ganlout,And doune on knees, anone, to fall,And to her tho besoughten all ,To hiden hir good workes eke,And said, they yeve not a lekeFor no fame, ne soch renoun,For they for contemplacioun,AndGoddes love had it wrought,Neof fame would they nought.CHAUCER: THE HOUSE OF FAME.N the next occasion when our little Summerford circlewas ready to hear some more of Arnstein's Chronicle,they were informed by Atherton that four years of themanuscript were missing,-that such intervals were onlytoo frequent, in fact, the document was little more thana collection of fragments.' The next entry I find,' said he, ' is in 1324, and thegood armourer, in much excitement, begins with an exclamation.1324. July. St. Kylian's Day.-What a day this hasbeen! Strasburg, and all the states which adhere to214 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.4Louis, are placed under the bann. The bells were ringingmerrily at early morning; now, the Interdict is proclaimed,and every tongue of them is silent. As the news flewround, every workman quitted his work. The busy stallsset out on either side of the streets were left empty. Thetools and the wares lay unlooked at and untouched. Thebishop and the clergy of his party, and most of theDominicans, keep out of sight. My men are furious. Ihave been all day from house to house, and group togroup, telling the people to keep a good heart. We shallhave a sad time of it, I see. It is so hard for the poorcreatures to shake off a fear in which they have beencradled.The clergy and the monks will pour out of Strasburg,as out of a Sodom, in shoals. Amere handful will staybehind, not nearly enough to christen those who will beborn and to shrive those who will die in this populouscity. They may name their price; the greedy of gainmay make their fortunes. The miserable poor will die,numbers of them, in horror, unable to purchase absolution. And then, out of the few priests who do remain,scarcely any will have the courage to disobey the pope,and, despite the Interdict, say mass.'Tis an anxious time for either party. Louis has mostof the states on his side, and the common voice, in all thetowns of the Rhineland-(in the princely Cologne most ofall) is, I hear, loud in his favour. The Minorites will bewith him, and all of that sort among the friars, who havelittle favour to lose with his Holiness. But France is withthe Pope against him; Duke Leopold is adoughty adversary; John of Bohemia restless and fickle, and no doubtthePope will set on the Polacks and pagan Lithuaniansc. 3.] Lou's and Frederick. 215to waste most horribly all the north and eastern frontiers .Since the victory of Mühldorf, Frederick has lain inprison. That battle is the grievance. The enemies ofthe Emperor are more full of rancour than ever. Yet,with all the mischief it may bring in the present, whatlover of the Fatherland can sorrow therefor? Gallantlittle Schweppermann, with his lame foot and grey hair,and his glorious two eggs, long may he live to do othersuch deeds! Louis holds a high spirit at present, andgoes about under the bann with a brave heart. But it isonly the outset as yet. I much fear me he may lack thestaunchness to go through as he has begun. There is storeof thunder behind at Avignon. Methinks he hankers, likeachild, mainly after the lance and sword and crown ofCharlemagne, to dress him out perfectly withal King oftheRomans, and seeth not the full bearing of the very warhewages.We shall not be idle. It is already proposed to send offtroops to the aid of Louis. I have half a mind to go myself; but home can ill spare me now, and I render theEmperor more service by such little influence as I havein Strasburg. To-morrow, to consult about the leagues tobe formed with neighbouring towns and with the Swissburghers, to uphold the good cause together. *

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1326. March. St. Gregory's Day.-Duke Leopold diedhere yesterday, at the Ochsenstein Palace. After ravagingthe suburbs of Spires, he came hither in a raging fever tobreathe his last. The bishop told him he must pardon theLandgrave of Lower Alsace from the bottom of his heart.They say he struggled long and wrathfully against thecondition, till, finding the bishop firm in refusing absolution216 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.on other terms, he gave way. But, just as he was aboutto receive the host, a fit of vomiting came on, wherein hepresently expired, without the sacrament after all.Frederick has been now at liberty some months. Louisvisited him in his prison. To think of their having beentogether all their boyhood, and loving each other so, tomeet thus! Frederick the Handsome, haggard with athree years' imprisonment-his beard down to his waist;and Louis, successful and miserable. They say Frederickcut off his beard at first, and sent it, by way of memorial,to John of Bohemia, and that when he went back to hiscastle he found his young wife had wept herself blindduring his captivity. He swore on the holy wafer to re- nounce his claim to the empire. The Pope released himfrom his oath soon after, but he keeps his word like knight,not like priest, and holds to it yet. It is whispered thatthey have agreed to share the throne. But that can neverbe brought to pass.Heard to-day, by a merchant, of Hermann. He istravelling through Spain. I miss him much. Before heleft Strasburg he was full of Eckart's doctrine, out of allmeasure admiring the wonderful man, and hoarding everyword that dropped from his lips. Eckart is now sick atCologne, among his sorrowing disciples. Grieved to hearthat the leeches say he hath not long to live.Along conversation with Henry of Nördlingen. Hehas journeyed hither, cast down and needy, to ask counselof Tauler. Verily he needs counsel, but hath not strengthofmind to take it when given. Tauler says Henry hasmany friends among the excellent of the earth; all lovehim, and he is full of love, but sure a pitiful sight tosee. His heart is with us. He mourns over the troublec. 3.] Henry ofNördlingen. 217of the time. He weeps for the poor folk, living anddying without the sacraments. But the Interdict crusheshis soul. Now he has all but gathered heart to do asTauler doth-preach and labour on, unmoved by all thisuproar, but anon his courage is gone, and he falls backinto his fear again as soon as he is left alone. He sits andpores over those letters of spiritual consolation which Margaret Ebner has written to him. He says sometimes shealone retains him on the earth. Verily I fear me that,priest as he is, some hopeless earthly love mingles with his friendship for that saintly woman. He has had to fleefrom his home for refusing to perform service. Strasburg,in that case, canbe no abiding place for him. I see nothing before him but a wretched wandering, perhaps foryears. I cannot get him to discern the malice of PopeJohn, rather than the wrath of heaven, in the curse thatwithers us. Igave him full account of what the Pope'scourt at Avignon truly is, as I gathered from a trusty eyewitness, late come from thence, whom I questioned longthe other day. I told him that gold was the one truegod there-our German wealth, wrung out from us, andsquandered on French courtiers, players, buffoons, andcourtezans-Christ sold daily for it-the palace full ofcardinals and prelates, grey-haired debauchees and filthymockers, to a man-accounting chastity a scandal, and thesoul's immortality and coming judgment an old wife'sfable; yea, simony, adultery, murder, incest, so frequentand unashamed, that the Frenchmen themselves do saythe Pope's coming hath corrupted them. I asked him ifthese were the hands to take up God's instruments ofwrath to bruise with them his creatures? But all in vain.There is an awfulness in the very name of Pope which218 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.blinds reason and strikes manhood down, inhim, as inthousands more.

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A.D. 1332. Fourth week after Easter.-But now awakedfrom the first sleep I have had for the last three days andnights. I set down in a word or two what hath happened,then out to action again. Last Wednesday, at the greatfestival, the nobles, knights, and senators, with a braveshow of fair ladies, banqueted at the grand house in theBrandgasse. Within, far into the night, minstrelsy anddancing; without, the street blocked up with a crowd ofserving men and grooms with horses, torch-bearers, andlookers-on of all sorts -when, suddenly, the musicstopped-they heard shouts and the clash of swords andshrill screams. There had been a quarrel between a Zornand a Müllenheim-they drew-Von Hunefeld was killedon the spot, another of the Zorns avenged him by cuttingdown Wasselenheim; the conflict became general, in hall,in the antechambers, down the great staircase, out on thesteps, the retainers took part on either side, and the frayended in the flight of the Zorns, who left six slain in thehouse and in the street. Two were killed on the side ofthe Müllenheims. All who fell were of high rank, andseveral of either faction are severely wounded. Theydraw off to their quarters, each breathing vengeance, preparing for another conflict at daybreak. All the rest ofthe night the Landvogt and Gotzo von Grosstein wereriding to and fro to pacify them to no purpose. Eachparty declared theywould send for the knights andgentryof their side from the country round about. I was withBurckard Zwinger when we heard this. ' Now,' saidI, ' or all is lost. Off, and harangue the people. I willc. 3.] Insurrection. 219more.get the best of the burghers together.' We parted. Allthe city was astir. As I made my way from house tohouse, I sent the people I met off to the market place tohear Zwinger. I could hear their shouts, summonsenough now, without any other. When I got back to theRoland's pillar, I found that his plain, home-thrust speechhad wrought the multitude to what we would, and noSnatches of it flew from mouth to mouth, likesparks of fire, he had struck well while the iron washot. To the Stadtmeister!' was the cry. ' The keys!The seal! The standard! We will have our standard.Let the citizens defend their own!' Most of the burgherswere of one mind with Zwinger, and we went in a body(the crowd shouting behind us, a roaring sea of heads,and the bell on the townhouse ringing as never before)to demand the keys of young Sieck. He yielded all withtrembling. By daybreak we had dispersed; the severalcorporations repaired armed to their quarters; the gateswere shut; the bridges guarded; the walls manned. Allwas in our hands. So far safe. The nobles , knights, andgentry of the neighbourhood came up in the morning instraggling groups, approaching the city from variousquarters, with as many of their men as could be hastilygathered, but drew off again when they saw our postureof defence. It was truly no time for them. This promptitude has saved Strasburg from being a field of battle inevery street for counts and men at arms, who despise andhate the citizens-whose victory, on whatever side, wouldhave been assured pillage and rapine, and, in the end, theloss of our privilege to deal solely for ourselves in ourown affairs. Well done, good Zwinger, thou prince ofbakers, with thy true warm heart, and cool head, and ready220 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.tongue! To our praise be it said, no deed of violence wasdone; there was no blood-thirstiness, no spoiling, but asteady purpose in the vast crowd that, hap what would,no strangers should comein to brawl and rob in Strasburg.While the gates have been closed and the Town Hallguarded, we have been deliberating on a new senate.Four new Stadtmeisters elected. Zwinger made Amtmeister. The magistracy taken out of the exclusivehands of the great families and open to the citizensgenerally, gentlemen, burghers, and artizans, side byside. The workmen no longer to be slaves to the capriceof the gentry. The nobles are disarmed for a time, tohelp them settle their quarrel more quickly. I go therounds with the horse patrol every night. The gates arenever to be opened except when the great bell has rungto give permission. We sit in the Town Hall with ourswords. I took my place there this morning, armed tothe teeth, and verily my Margarita seemed proud enoughwhen she sent me forth, with a kiss, to my new dignity,clad in good steel instead of senatorial finery. We haveevery prospect of peace and prosperousness. The noblessee our strength, and must relinquish with as good agrace as they may a power they have usurped. Themain part of the old laws will abide as before. All isperfectly quiet. There has been no mere vengeance orneedless rigour. I hear nothing worse than banishmentwill be inflicted upon any-that only on a few. Thebishop's claws will be kept shorter. * *

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1338. August. St. Bartholomew's Day. Now is therent between clerk and layman, pope and emperor, widereven than heretofore. Last month was held the electoralc. 3.] ThePope defied.221diet at Rhense. The electors, by far the greater part,with Louis; and their bold doings now apparent. Yesterday was issued, at Frankfort, a manifesto of theEmperor's, wherein Benedict, he and all his curses, areset at nought, and the mailed glove manfully hurled inhis teeth. Thereby he declares, that whomsoever theelectors choose they will have acknowledged rightfulemperor, whether the pope bless or bann, and all whogainsay this are traitors;-that the emperor is not, andwill not be, in anywise dependent on the pope. All goodsubjects are called on to disregard the Interdict, and suchtowns or states as obey the same are to forfeit theircharters.7It was indeed high time to speak out. Louis, losingheart, tried negotiation, and made unworthy concessionsto the pope, whereon he (impatient, they say, to get backto Italy) would have come to an agreement, but theFrench cardinals took care to cross and undo all. Theemperor even applied to Philip personally-asking theKing of France, forsooth, to suffer him to be king ofthe Romans -then, finding that vain, is leagued withthe English king, and war declared against France. Thissounds bravely. Shame on the electors if they hold notto their promise now.As to our Strasburg, we stand by the emperor, as ofold, despite our bishop Berthold, who, with sword insteadof crook, has done battle with the partizans of Louis fornow some years, gathering help from all parts among thenobles and the gentry, burning villages, besieging andbeing besieged, spoiling and being spoiled; moreover,between whiles, thinking to win himself the name of azealous pastor by issuing decrees against long hair growing222 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.on clerks' heads, and enforcing fiercely all the late bullsagainst the followers of Eckart, the Begards, and others.Last year he tasted six weeks' imprisonment, having quarrelled with the heads of the chapter. Rudolph vonHohenstein and others of the opposite party, surroundedone night the house ofthe Provost of Haselach, where helay, and carried him off in his shirt to the Castle ofVendenti; and smartly did they make him pay before he cameout. We have full authority to declare war against him,if he refuses now to submit to Louis, as I think not likely,seeing how matters go at present. He had the conscienceto expect that we magistrates would meddle in his disputeand take his part. Even the senators, who adheremainly to the Zorn family, were against him, and methinksafter all he has done to harass and injure us, we did in asort return good for evil in being merely lookers- on.Tauler is away on a visit to Basle, where the state ofparties is precisely similar to our own, the citizens there,as in Friburg, joining our league for Louis and forGermany; and the bishop against them, tooth and nail.9My eldest boy (God bless him, he is fifteen this day, andalad for a father to be proud of) hath accompanied theDoctor thither, having charge of sundry matters of business for me there. Had word from him last week. Theyhave somehow procured ayear's remission of the Interdictfor Basle. He says Suso came to see Tauler, and thatthey had long talk together for two days. Henry ofNördlingen is there likewise, and now that the pope hathkennelled his barking curse for a twelvemonth, preaches,to the thronging of the churches wherever he goes.A.D. 1339. January. The new year opens gloomily.Without loss of time, fresh-forged anathemas are come,c. 3.] Soul- starving and Body- starving. 223and coming, against the outspoken emperor and thistroublesome Germany. Some of the preachers, and thebare-footed friars especially, have yet remained to saymass and perform the offices; now, even these are leavingthe city. Some cloisters have stood for now two or threeyears quite empty. Many churches are deserted altogether, and the doors nailed up. The magistracy haveissued orders to compel the performance of service. Theclerks are fairly on the anvil; the civil hammer battersthem on the one side, and the ecclesiastical upon the other,with alternate strokes .Bitter wind and sleet this morning. Saw three Dominicans creeping back into the town, who had left it amonth ago, refusing to say mass. Poor wretches, howstarved and woe-begone they looked, after miserablewanderings about the country in the snow, winter showingthem scant courtesy, and sure I am the boors less; andnow coming back to a deserted convent and to a citywhere men's faces are towards them as a flint. Straight,as I saw them, there came into my mind that goodly exhortation of Dr. Tauler's, that we should show mercy, asdoth God, unto all, enemies and friends alike, for he thatloveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can helove God, whom he hath not seen? 10 Ran after them,called them in, thawed them, fed them, comforted themwith kind words and good ale by the great fire, thenargued with them. They thought it a cruel thing thatthey must starve because pope and emperor are at feud.' And is it not,' urged I, ' a crueller that thousands of innocent poor folk should live without sacrament, neverhear a mass, perhaps die unshriven, for the very samereason? Is not God's law higher than the pope's,-do6224 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.to others as ye would they should do unto you? Couldyou look for other treatment at the hands of our magistrates, and expect to be countenanced and sustained bythem in administering the malediction of their enemies?'Thought it most courteous, however, to ply them morepressingly with food than with arguments.While they were there, in comes my little Otto, openshis eyes wide with wonder to see them, and presentlybreaks out with the words, now on the tongue of everyStrasburger, a rhyming version of the decree: -They shall still their masses sing,Or out of the city we'll make them spring.11Told him he should not sing that just then, and, when hewas out of the room, bade them mark by that straw whichway the wind blew.I record here a vision vouchsafed to that eminent saintthe abbess Christina Ebner, of Engelthal, near Nürnberg.She beheld the Romish Church in the likeness of a greatminster, fair to see, but with doors closed by reason ofthe bann. Priestly voices, solemn and sweet, were heardto chant within; and, without, stood a multitude waitingand hearkening, but no man dared enter. Then camethere to the nun one in the habit of a preacher, and toldher that he would give her words to speak to comfort thepoor folk withal that stood outside, and that man wasthe Lord Christ .And verily, in some sort, so hath God done, having pityupon us, for through all Rhineland hath he moved godlymen, both clerks and laity, to draw nearer the one to theother, forming together what we call the association ofthe Friends of God, for the better tending of the inward 4c. 3.] The Friends of God. 225life in these troublous times, for wrestling with the Almighty on behalf of his suffering Christendom, and for thesuccour of the poor people, by preaching and counsel andsacrament, that are now as sheep without a shepherd, andperishing for lack of spiritual bread.12 Tauler is of theforemost among them, and with his brethren, Egenolph ofEhenheim and Dietrich of Colmar, labours without ceasing,having now the wider field and heavier toil, as so few areleft in Strasburg who will perform any church service forlove or money. Ah! well might the Abbess Christina sayofhim that the Spirit of God dwelt within him as a sweetharping. He has travelled much of late, and wherever hegoes spreads blessing and consolation; the people flock tohearhim; the hands of the Friends of God are strengthened; and a savour of heavenly love and wisdom is leftbehind. His good name hath journeyed, they say, evenbeyond the Alps, and into the Low Countries. Neitherare there wanting many like-minded, though none equaltohim. He found at Cologne Henry of Löwen, Henry,and Franke, and John of Sterngasse,13 brother Dominicansall of them, preaching constantly, with much of his ownfervour, if with a doctrine more like that of Eckart. InSwitzerland there is Suso, and I hear much of one Ruysbroek, in the Netherlands, a man younger than Tauler,and a notable master in the divine art of contemplation.Among the Friends of God are numbers both of menandwomen of every rank, abbots and farmers, knights andnuns, monks and artizans. There is Conrad, Abbot ofKaisersheim: there are the nuns of Unterlinden andKlingenthal, at Colmar and Basle, as well as the holysisters ofEngelthal; the knights of Rheinfeld, Pfaffenheim,and Landsberg; our rich merchant here, Rulman MersVOL . I. Q226 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.win, and one, unworthy of so good a name, that holds thispen. Ourlaw is that universal love commanded by Christ,and not to be gainsaid by his vicar. Some have joinedthemselves to us for awhile, and gone out from us becausethey were not of us; for we teach no easy road to heavenfor the pleasing of the flesh. Many call us sectaries, Beghards, brethren of the Free Spirit, or of the New Spirit,and what not. They might call us by worse names, butwe are none of these. The prophecies of some among us,concerning judgments to be looked for at the hands ofGod, and the faithful warnings of others, have made manyangry. Yet are not such things needed, when, as Dr.Tauler saith, the princes and prelates are, too many ofthem, worse than Jews and infidels, and mere horses forthe devil's riding.14 So far from wishing evil, we mournas no others over the present woe, and the Friends of Godare, saith Dr. Tauler again, pillars of Christendom, andholders off for awhile of the gathered cloud of wrath. Beyond all question, if all would be active as they are activein works of love to their fellows, the face of the timeswould brighten presently, and the world come into sunshine.It was but yesterday that in his sermon Tauler repeatedthe saying of one-an eminent Friend of God-' I cannotpass my neighbour by without wishing for him in myheart more of the blessedness of heaven than for myself; '-' and that,' said the good Doctor, ' I call true love.'Sure I am that such men stand between the living andthe dead.151339. March. - Much encouraged on hearing Dr.Tauler's sermon on ' Whose is the image and superscriptionP'16 It was the last part that gladdened me morec. 3.] Tauler on the Image of God. 227especially, when he was enforcing watchfulness and selfexamination, and yet showed that the command might beobeyed by men such as I am, in the midst of a worldlycalling. Many, said he, complain that they are so busiedwith outward things as to have no time to look inward.But let such, for every six steps they have to take outwardin their daily duty, take one step inward, and observe theirhearts, and their business will be to them no stumblingblock. Many are cloistered in body while thought anddesire wander to and fro over the earth. But many othersdo, even amid the noise and stir of the market-place andthe shop, keep such watch over their hearts, and set suchward on their senses, that they go unharmed, and theirinner peace abides unbroken. Such men are much moretruly to be called monks than those who, within aconventwall, have thought and senses so distraught that they canscarce say a single Paternoster with true devotion.He said that God impressed his image and superscription on our souls when he created us in his image. Alltrue Christians should constantly retire into themselves,and examine throughout their souls wherein this image ofthe Holy Trinity lieth, and clear away therefrom suchimages and thoughts as are not of God's impressing, allthat is merely earthly in love and care, all that hath notGod purely for its object. It must be in separatenessfrom the world, withdrawal from all trust and satisfactionin what is creaturely, that we present God the image hehath engraven, clear and free from rust. This image andsuperscription lies in the inmost inmost of the soul,whither God only cometh, and neither men nor angels,and where he delights to dwell. He will share it with noother, He hath said, ' My delight is in the sons of men.'Q2228 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.Thus is the inmost of our soul united to the inmost of thevery Godhead, where the eternal Father doth ever speakand bring forth his eternal essential Word, his only-begotten Son, equal inhonour, power, andworthiness, as saiththe Apostle- He is the brightness ofhis glory and the express image of his person. ' By him hath the Fathermadeall things . As all things have their beginning and sourcefrom the Godhead, by the birth of the eternal Word outof the Father, so do all creatures in their essence subsistby the same birth of the Son out of the Father, and therefore shall they all return in the same way to their source,to wit, through the Son to the Father. From this eternalbirth of the Son ariseth the love of God the Father to hisdivine Son, and that of the Son to his divine Father, whichlove is the Holy Ghost-an eternal and divine Bond,uniting the Father and the Son in everlasting Love. Thesethree are essentially one-one single pure essential unity,as even the heathen philosophers bear witness. Therefore, saith Aristotle, ' There is but one Lord who ordaineth .all things. 'He, therefore, that would be truly united to God mustdedicate the penny of his soul, with all its faculties, toGodalone, and join it unto Him. For if the highest andmost glorious Unity, which is God Himself, is to be unitedto the soul, it must be through oneness (Einigkeit). Nowwhen the soul hath utterly forsakenitself andall creatures,and made itself free from all manifoldness, then the soleUnity, which is God, answers truly to the oneness of thesoul, for then is there nothing in the soul beside God.Therefore between such a soul and God (if aman be soprepared that his soul hangs on nothing but God himself)there is so great a oneness that they become one, as theAc. 3.] Tauler and Eckart. 229Apostle saith, ' He that is joined to the Lord is onespirit.'But there are some who will fly before they have wings,and pluck the apples before they are ripe, and, at the veryoutset of the Divine life, be so puffed up that it contentsthem not to enter in at the door and contemplate Christ'shumanity, but they will apprehend his highness and incomprehensible Deity only. So did once a priest, andfell grievously, and bitterly mourned his folly, and had tosay, ' Ah, most Merciful! had I followed truly the patternof thy holy humanity, it had not been thus with me!'Beware of such perilous presumption-your safe courseis to perfect yourselves first in following the lowly life ofChrist, and in earnest study of the shameful cross.Methinks this is true counsel and better, for our sort atleast, than Master Eckart's exhortation to break throughinto the essence, and to exchange God made manifest forthe absolute and inscrutable Godhead.1339. March 20.-Finished to-day a complete suit ofarmour for young Franz Müllenheim. The aristocraticfamilies bear the change of government more goodhumouredly than I looked for. Their influence is stillgreat, and they can afford to make a virtue of necessity.Most of them now, too, are on the right side.Agreat improvement-locking our doors at night.17This is the first time I have thought to record it, thoughthe custom has been introduced these nine years. Before,there was not a lock to a house-door in Strasburg, and ifyou wanted to shut it, on ever so great a need, you had toworkwith spade and shovel to remove a whole mountainof dirt collected about the threshold. Several newroads, too, made of late by the merchant-league of theRhineland.

ॐCHAPTER IV.If you would be pleased to make acquaintance with a solid theologyof the good old sort in the German tongue, get John Tauler's sermons;for neither in Latin nor in our own language have I ever seen a theology more sound or more in harmony with the Gospel.-LUTHER (toSpalatin).Die Sehnsucht und der Traüme WebenSie sind der weichen Seele süss,Doch edler ist ein starkes StrebenUnd macht den schönen Traum gewiss. *UHLAND.0N another evening, after Kate had played a plaintiveair on the piano as an overture; when Atherton hadpraised it as expressive of the upward fluttering struggleof the Psyche of Mysticism, and Gower had quoted JeanPaul's fancy, where he says that sweet sounds are theblue waves that hide the sea-monsters which lurk in thedeeps of life-Adolf's journal was continued, as follows: -1339. December. St. Barbara's Day.-Three days ago,at the close of his sermon, Doctor Tauler said he wouldpreach to-day on the highest perfection attainable in thislife. Went to hear him. The cloister-chapel crowdedlong before the time. He began by telling us that he

• To long and weave a woof of dreams is sweet unto the feeble

soul, but nobler is stout- hearted striving, and makes the dream reality.Tauler disappears . 231had much to say, and so would not to-day preach fromthe gospel according to his wont, and moreover would notput much Latin into his sermon, but would make good allhe taught with Holy Writ. Then he went on to preachon the necessity of dying utterly to the world and to ourownwill, and to yield ourselves up, ' dying-wise,' into thehands of God. He gave further four-and-twenty marks,whereby we may discern who are the true, righteous,illuminated, contemplative men of God.¹Observed close under the pulpit a stranger (byhis dress,from the Oberland) who did diligently write down, fromtime to time, what the Doctor said-a man of notablepresence, in the prime of life, with large piercing eyesunder shaggy brows, eagle nose, thoughtful head-altogether so royal aman as I never before saw. He mingledwith the crowd after sermon, and I could not learn whohewas. Several others, as curious, and no wiser thanmyself. This mysterious personage may perhaps be oneof the Friends of God, who are numerous in the Oberland.Methought he wished to escape notice. Perhaps he is aWaldensian, and dreads the evil eye of the inquisitor.1340. January. Eve of St. Agnes. Strange; nothinghas been seen of the Doctor for this whole month. Hispenitents are calling continually at the convent, craving admittance to their confessor, but he will see no one. Heis not ill, they say, and takes his part in the conventservices with the rest, but never stirs beyond the walls.None of his many friends can tell us what is the matter.1340. July. St. Alexius' Day. All things much asaforetime, that is, ill enough. Business slack generally,but our hammers going. The worst is this loss of Tauler,our comfort in our trouble. Many reports, no certainty.232 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.Some say he has committed some crime, and sits now inthe convent prison. This I everywhere contradict.Others will have it that he is gone mad. Many of hisformer friends are now turned against him, and hisenemies make them merry. Went again to the conventto get what news I could. Enquired of the porter whythe Doctor had shut himself up. He replied, ' Indeed,sir, and I cannot know.' Methought a wonderful closeanswer for a porter. Went into the locutory. In thepassage the cook ran by me, having just received twentyfive cuffs on the head for leaving the vessels and linendirty on Saturday night. Much laughter thereat. Severalmonks in the locutory, among them brother Bernard, thecellarer, an acquaintance of mine-a bustling, shrewdlittle man, provider of the monastic prog* to generalsatisfaction, talking often of pittances and profound inbeeves, a brave blade, and seen swaggering now andthen on holidays with sword at his side, affecting, morethan beseems, secular gallantry. Said, when I asked himconcerning Tauler, ' Oh, poor fellow, the devil's clawinghim a bit, that's all.' Another said, ' We always knew itwould be this way. Athird, ' I said so from the firstspiritual pride, Lucifer's sin, Lucifer's sin!' Looked atthe rascal's paunch-thought he ran little danger of suchsin from any over-mortifying of the flesh. His flesh oughtto have mortified him, the brazen-face. Spake up forTauler as I could, but saw that he was the jest of hisbrethren-having doubtless to bear cruelty and mockingalong with some melancholy inward fight of afflictionsand came awayhome with aheavyheart. Could not get

• Atherton defends this word by the usage of Thomas Fuller.

C. 4.] Atwo years' Silence. 233speech with the abbot, who was busy looking to themonk's beds, that they were not too soft.1342. New Year's Day.-Public notice given, that inthree days Tauler will preach once more. The news makesgreat talk. My heart sings jubilate thereat. I look backon two weary years that he has now been hidden fromthose who so need him. I have confessed to no one thewhile-somehow, could not to any other-yet I fear mesuch neglect is a sin. Those like-minded with Taulerhave been busy among us in their work of love, but themaster-spirit is sorely missed, notwithstanding. OneLudolph of Saxony, who was a Dominican, and has comeover hither from Cologne lately, to be prior of the newCarthusian convent, has been a great blessing unto us.He speaks out boldly against abuses, and persuades mentenderly to follow Christ carrying the cross .Bishop Berthold quieter of late; finds it prudent to keepon better terms at present with the emperor.Little Hans a month old to-day. Ahousehold of nowfive children. Henry of great service to me. Thinksometimes of leaving the business with him almost altogether, if only to have him near. Margarita not againill since the first times of the interdict. Agreat mercy!Getting richer yet, and tremble sometimes lest it shouldensnare my soul, therefore, I disencumber myself at intervals of considerable sums for sick and poor folk. Mustbear in mind Tauler's counsel to use and enjoy everythingintending God therein. Find my affections go forthmuch-I hope not too much-towards this last babe. Hethrives well; verily, no child could be more unlike theblessed St. Nicholas, of whom I have heard a friar saythat, when hanging on his mother's breast, he fasted234 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VICWednesdays and Fridays, and could not be brought tosuck more than once aday. But if I stay to number upmyblessings, I shall have a list longer than the curse-rollof the Pope. God give me an unworldly, thankful,watchful spirit!1342. January 6.-Alas! that I should have to writewhat now I must! I forced a way into the crowdedchurch-every part filled with people, wedged in below sothat they could not move, clustered like bees where theyhad climbed above into every available place, and a densemass in the porch besides. The Doctor came, lookingwoefully ill, changed as I scarce ever saw aman, to live.He mounted the lectorium, held his cap before his eyes,and said:' Omerciful and eternal God, if it be thy will, give meso to speak that thy divine name may be praised andhonoured, and these men bettered thereby. 'With that he began to weep. We waited, breathless.Still he wept, and could speak no word, his sobs audiblein the stillness, and the tears making their way throughhis fingers as he hid his face in his hands. This continuedtill the people grew restless. Longer yet, with moremanifest discontent. Atlast a voice cried out from amongthe people (I think it was that roughspoken Carvel, thebutcher), ' Now then, Sir, how long are we to stop here?It is getting late, if you don't mean to preach, let us gohome.'I saw that Tauler was struggling to collect himselfbyprayer, but his emotion became only the more uncontrollable, and at last he said, with a broken voice,-Dear brethren, I am sorry from my heart to have keptyou so long, but at this time I cannot possibly speak toC. 4.] ' The Reproach of the Foolish. ' 235you. PrayGod for me that he would help me, and Imaydo better at another time.'So we went away, and the report thereof was presentlyall over Strasburg. The snow-ball had plenty of handsto roll it, and lost nothing by the way. The people,numbers of them, seemed to me with a wicked glee todelight in showing how the learned Doctor had made afool of himself. Those who had counted him mad beforereckoned themselves now little short of prophets. Manysuch whom I met in the streets looked and spoke withsuch a hateful triumph of the matter as well nigh put mebeside myself. Not so long ago, no one could satisfythem but Tauler; not the name of the most popular ofsaints oftener on their lips; the very ground he trod onwas blessed; a kindly word from his lips food for daysand now the hands stretched out almost in adoration,throw mire on the fallen idol, and not a 'prentice ladbehind his stall but hugs himself in his superior sanity.Had he been a hunter after popularity, what a judgment!Verily that man has the folly of a thousand fools wholives for the applause of the multitude. But I know howTauler's heart bled for them.Friar Bernard came over this evening. He says thesuperiors are wroth beyond measure with Tauler for thescandal he has brought upon the order, and will forbidhim to preach more. Entertained my jovial guager ofmonks' bellies with the best cheer I had he has a goodheart after all, and is unfeignedly sorry for Tauler's disgrace. Says he thinks the Doctor has fasted and donepenance beyond his strength, that the sudden coming outfrom his cell to preach to such numbers was too much forhis weakness, that he will get over it and be himself236 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.again, andmuch more, to the hope whereof he pledgedme in another glass, and left me not a little comforted.1342. January. St. Vincent's Day.-Saw Bernardagain, who gives me the good news that Dr. Taulerobtained permission from the prior to deliver a Latinaddress in the school, and did acquit himself to suchadmiration, that he is to be allowed to preach in publicwhen he will.1342. January 23.-Tauler preached to-day in thechapel of the nunnery of St. Agatha, on ' Behold the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him. ' Awondrous discourse-a torrent that seems to make medizzy yet. As he was describing, more like an angel thanaman, the joy of the bride at the approach of the bridegroom, aman cried out, ' It is true!' and fell senseless onthe floor. As they were about him to bring him to himself, awoman among them shrieked, ' Oh, stop, sir, stop!or he will die in our arms! ' Whereat he said calmly,and with his face lighted up as though he saw the heavensopened, ' Ah, dear children, and if the bridegroom willcall home the bride, shall we not willingly suffer him?But nevertheless I will make an end. ' Then after sermonhe read mass again, and, as I came out, I saw the peoplegathered about several persons in the court who lay onthe ground, as though dead, such had been the power ofhis words.1342. February. St. Blasius' Day.-Now Tauler iscontinually preaching, not only in the church of his convent, but in those of various monasteries and nunneries,in theBeguinasia, and inthe cells whereinlittle companiesofpious womenhave gathered themselves together tohidefrom the dangers ofthe world. He never cited so muchc. 4.] Restoration-and more. 237Latin as some, now less than heretofore. More alive thanever, it would seem, to our wants, he addresses himselfmightily to heart and conscience, which he can bind up orsmite at will. His love and care, for the laity most of all,is amarvel; he lives for us, and yet appears to hold himself no greater than the least. Before, there was nonelike him, now we feel that in heavenliness of nature hehas gone beyond his former self. So earnestly does heexhort to active love to man, as well as to perfect resignation to God, that already a new spirit seems to pervademany, and they begin to care for others, as he tells us thefirst Christians did. He tells them mere prayers, andmass, and alms, and penance, will help them nothing unlessthe Holy Spirit breathes life into them. He says thepriests are not of necessity better men because they oftenertaste the Lord's body, that outward things such as thoseprofit nothing alone, and that those who love their fellowsmost are the truest instructors, and teach more wisely thanall the schools.1344. March.-Tauler hath of late, besides preaching constantly as ever, begun to send forth from time totime sundry small books, full of consolation and godlycounsel for these days. Copies of them are fast multiplied, and people gather to hear them read at each other'shouses. This is a new thing, and works powerfully.The greatest stir has been made by two letters issuedby Tauler, Ludolph the Carthusian, and others, and sentout, not only through Strasburg, but all the region roundabout. The bishop is very angry thereat; though, before, he had come several times to hear Tauler, and hadprofessed no small admiration ofhim. One of these lettersis to comfort the people, and exhorts all priests to admi238 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.nister the sacraments to all who shall desire, the bannnotwithstanding. ' For,' it saith, ' ye are bound to visitand console the sick, remembering the bitter pain anddeath of Christ, whohath made satisfaction, not for yoursins only, but also for those of the whole world, who dothrepresent us all before God, so that if one falleth inno- .cently under the bann, no Pope can shut him out of heaven.Ye should, therefore, give absolution to such as wishtherefor-giving heed rather to the bidding of Christ andhis Apostles than to the bann, which is issued only out ofmalice and avarice. 'Thus truly have these good men done, and many withthem, so that numbers have died in peace, fearing thebann not a whit, whereas before, many thousands, unshriven, gave up the ghost in the horrors of despair.The other letter is addressed to the learned and greatones among the clergy. It saith that there are two swords-a spiritual, which is God's word, and the temporal, thesecular power:-that these two are to be kept distinct;both are from God, and ought not to be contrary the oneto the other. The spiritual power should fulfil its properduty and uphold the temporal, while that again shouldprotect the good and be a terror to evil-doers. If temporal princes sin, such as are spiritual should exhort them,in love and humility, to amend their ways. It is againstthe law of Christ that the shepherds, when one of thesefalls beneath their displeasure, should for that reason presume to damn a whole country, with all its cities, towns,and villages, where dwell the poor innocent folk who areno partakers in the sin. It cannot be proved from Scripture that all those who will not kiss the Pope's foot, orreceive a certain article of faith, or who hold by anc. 4.] Mysticism resists the Pope. 239emperor duly elected and well fulfilling his office, and dohim service as set over themby God, do therein sin againstthe Church and are heretics. God will not demand ofvassals an account of the sins of their lords, and neithershould subjects, bound to obey the emperor as the highesttemporal power, be given over to damnation as thoughanswerable for the faults of their rulers. Therefore allwho hold the true Christian faith, and sin only against theperson of the Pope, are no heretics. Those, rather, arereal heretics who obstinately refuse to repent and forsaketheir sins; for let a man have been what he may, if hewill so do, he cannot be cast out of the Church. ThroughChrist, the truly penitent thief, murderer, traitor, adulterer, all may have forgiveness. Such as God beholdethunder an unrighteous bann, he will turn for them thecurse into a blessing. Christ himself did not resist thetemporal power, but said, My kingdom is not of thisworld. Our souls belong unto God, our body and goodsto Cæsar. If the emperor sins, he must give account toGod therefor-not to a poor mortal man.CHAPTER V.The meanes, therefore, which unto us is lentHim to behold, is on his workes to looke,Which he hath made in beauty excellent,And in the same, as in a brasen booke,To read enregistred in every nookeHis goodnesse, which his beautie doth declare;For all that's good is beautifull and faire.Thence gathering plumes of perfect speculation,To impe the wings of thy high-flying mynd,Mount up aloft through heavenly contemplation,From this darke world, whose damps the soule do blynd,And, like the native brood of eagles kynd,On that bright Sunne of Glorie fixe thine eyes,Clearedfrom grosse mists of fraile infirmities .SPENSER. HYMNE OF HEAVENLY BEAUTIE.WILLOUGHBY. I did not thinkAtherton had so much artifice in him. He broke off his last readingfrom Arnstein's Chronicle with a mystery unexplained,quite in the most approvedfeuilleton style.GOWER. You have excited the curiosity of the ladiesmost painfully, I assure you. I believe I am empoweredto say that they cannot listen to any more of the armourer's journal until you have accounted for Tauler'ssingular disappearance.KATE. One word for us and two for yourself, Mr.Gower.c. 5.] The mysterious Layman. 241ATHERTON. Ungrateful public! You all know I haven'ta particle of invention in my nature. It is just because Iam not a novelist that I have not been able to explaineverything. Arnstein is, like me, a matter-of-fact personage, and could not be in two places at once.However, to relieve you, I am ready to acknowledgethat I am in possession of information about these incidents quite independent of the irregular entries in hisrecord. There is no secret; it is all matter of soberhistory. The facts are theseOne day there came a stranger to Tauler, desiring toconfess to him. It was the remarkable man who had soattracted the attention of Adolf in the church. He wascalled Nicholas of Basle, and was well known in the Oberland as an eminent ' Friend of God. ' He was one of thosemen so characteristic of that period-a layman exercisinga wider spiritual influence than many a bishop. He wasperhaps a Waldensian, holding the opinions of that sect,with a considerable infusion of visionary mysticism. TheWaldenses, and the Friends of God, were drawn nearer toeach other by opposition, and the disorders of the time,as well as by the more liberal opinions they held incommon, and it is not always easy to distinguish them.After confession, the layman requested, much to theDoctor's surprise, that he would preach a sermon on thehighest spiritual attainment a man may reach in time.Tauler yielded at length to his importunity, and fulfilledhis promise. Nicholas brought his notes of the sermon toTauler, and in the course of their conversation, disclosedthe object of his visit. He had travelled those thirtymiles he said, not merely to listen to the doctor, of whomhe had heard so much, but, by God's help, to give himVOL. I. R242 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.some counsel that should do him good. He told himplainly that the sermon, though excellent in its way, couldteach him nothing-the Great Teacher could impart tohim more knowledge in an hour than Tauler and all hisbrethren, preaching till the day of doom. Tauler wasfirst astonished, then indignant, to hear a mere laymanaddress him in such language. Nicholas appealed to thatvery anger as a proof that the self- confidence of thePharisee was not yet cleansed away, that the preachertrusted with unbecoming pride in his mastership andgreat learning.You must remember the vast distance which at that dayseparated the clerk from the layman, to give to the candour and humility of Tauler its due value. The truthflashed across his mind. Deeply affected, he embracedthe layman, saying, ' Thou hast been the first to tell meof my fault. Stay with me here. Henceforth I will liveafter thy counsel; thou shalt be my spiritual father, andIthy sinful son. 'Nicholas acceded to his request, and gave him, to beginwith, a kind of spiritual ABC,-a list of moral rules,commencing in succession with the letters of the alphabet,which he was to commit to memory and to practise, together with sundry bodily austerities, for five weeks, inhonour of the five wounds of Christ. But the disciplinewhich followed was yet more severe. Tauler was directedto abstain from hearing confession, from study and frompreaching, and to shut himself up in his cell, that, in solitary contemplation of the sufferings and death of Christ,he might attain true humility and complete renewal. Theanticipated consequences ensued. His friends and penitents forsook him; he became the by-word of the cloister;c. 5.] Spiritual Desolation. 423his painful penances brought on a lingering sickness.Borne down by mental and bodily sufferings together, heapplied to his friend for relief. The layman told him thathe was going on well-it would be better with him erelong-he might remit his severer self-inflictions, and shouldrecruit the body by a more generous diet.Nicholas was now called away by important business, hesaid, and Tauler was left to himself. His parting adviceto his spiritual scholar was, that if he came to want, heshould pawn his books, but sell them on no account, forthe day would come when he would need them once more.Tauler continued in this trying seclusion for nearly twoyears, contemned by the world without as one beside himself, oppressed within by distress of mind and feebleness of body. It had been forbidden him to desire, evenwhen thus brought low, any special communication fromGod that might gladden him with rapture or consolation.Such a request would spring from self and pride. He wasthere to learn an utter self-abandonment to submit himself without will or choice to the good pleasure of God-tobe tried with this or any other affliction, if need were, tillthe judgment day.Now it came to pass, when he had become so ill that hecould not attend mass or take his place in the choir as hehad been wont, that, as he lay on his sickbed, he meditated once more on the sufferings and love of our Lord andSaviour, and thought on his own life, what apoor thing ithad been, and how ungrateful. With that he fell into amarvellous great sorrow, says the history, for all his losttime and all his sins, and spake, with heart and mouth,these words:-6O merciful God, have mercy upon me, a poor sinner;B2244 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI .have mercy in thine infinite compassion, for I am notworthy to live on the face of the earth. 'Then as he sat up waking inhis sickness and sorrow, heheard a voice saying, ' Stand fast in thy peace, trust God,remember that He was once on the earth in human nature,healing sick bodies and sick souls.' When he heard thesewords he fell back fainting, and knew no more. On comingto himself, he found that both his inward and outwardpowers had received new life. Much that had before beenstrange now seemed clear. He sent for his friend, whoheard with joy what he had to tell.' Now, ' said Nicholas, ' thou hast been for the first timemoved by the Highest, and art a partaker of the grace ofGod, and knowest that though the letter killeth, the Spiritgiveth life. Now wilt thou understand the Scripture asnever before-perceive its harmony and preciousness, andbe well able to show thy fellow Christians the way toeternal life. Now one of thy sermons will bring morefruit than a hundred aforetime, coming, as it will, from asimple, humbled, loving heart; and much as the peoplehave set thee at nought, they will now far more love andprize thee. But a man with treasure must guard againstthe thieves. See to it that thou hold fast thy humility, bywhich thou wilt best keep thy riches. Now thou needestmy teaching no longer, having found the right Master,whose instrument I am, and who sent me hither. Now,in all godly love, thou shalt teach me in turn. 'Tauler had pledged his books for thirty gulden. Thelaymanwent immediately and redeemed them at his owncost, and by his advice Tauler caused it to be announcedthat in three days he would preach once more. You havealready heard how our good friend Adolf records the unc. 5.] The Man and the Doctor. 245happy result of this first attempt. Tauler went with histrouble to Nicholas, who comforted him by the assurancethat such farther trial was but a sign of the careful lovewhich carried on the work within. There must have beensome remnant of self-seeking which was still to be purgedaway. He advised him to wait awhile, and then apply forpermission to deliver a Latin address to the brethren inthe school. This he at last received, and a better sermonthey never heard. So the next preacher, at the close ofhis discourse, made the following announcement to thecongregation: ' I am requested to give notice that DoctorTauler will preach here to-morrow. If he succeeds nobetter than before, the blame must rest with himself. Butthis I can say, that he has read us in the school a prelection such as we have not heard for many a day; how hewill acquit himself now, I know not, God knoweth. 'Then followed the overpowering discourse, of whoseeffects you have heard; and from this time forward commenced a new æra in Tauler's public life. For full eightyears he laboured unremittingly, with an earnestness anda practical effect far surpassing his former efforts, and insuch esteem with all classes that his fellow- citizens wouldseem to have thought no step should be taken in spiritualmatters, scarcely in temporal, without first seeking counselof Tauler.LOWESTOFFE. Amost singular story . But how have allthese minute circumstances come down to us?ATHERTON. When Tauler was on his death-bed he sentfor Nicholas, and gave him amanuscript, in which he hadwritten down their conversations, with some account ofhis own life and God's dealings towards him, His unworthyservant, requesting him to make thereof a little book. The246 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.layman promised to do so. 'But see to it,' continued theDoctor, ' that you conceal our names. You can easilywrite ' The Man and the Doctor'-for the life and wordsand works which God hath wrought through me, an unworthy, sinful man, are not mine, but belong unto Almighty God for ever. So let it be, for the edifying of our fellowmen; but take the writing with thee into thy country,and let no man see it while I live. ' This narrative hasbeen preserved, and there is no difficulty in discerning inthe Doctor and the man, Tauler and Nicholas of Basle.¹You will now let me resume my reading, I suppose.Chronicle ofAdolfArnstein, continued.1344. Eve of St. Dionysius. I here set down passagesfrom sermons I have at sundry times heard Doctor Taulerpreach. I have made it my wont to go straight home assoon as the service has been ended, and write what Icould best remember. The goodly sayings which followare copied from those imperfect records, and placed herefor my edification and that of my children and othersafter me.From a sermon on Christ's teaching the multitudeout of the ship. -The soul of the believing man,wherein Christ is , doth find its representation inthat ship. Speaking of the perpetual peace suchsouls may have, despite what storm and commotionsoever, he added (not a little to my comfort), ' Butsome of you have not felt all this; be not ye dismayed. There are poor fishers as well as rich; yea,more poor than rich. Hold this as unchangeably sure,that the trials and struggle of no man are of small account.c. 5.] The return of the Soul to God. 247If a man be but in right earnest, longeth to be a truelover of God, and perseveres therein, and loves those heknows or deems to be such,-doth heartily address himself to live fairly after Job's pattern, and intend God unfeignedly in his doing or not doing, such a man willassuredly enter into God's peace, though he should tarryfor it till his dying day. Even those true friends andlovers of God who enjoy so glorious a peace have disquietand trouble of their own in that they cannot be towardstheir faithful God all they would, and in that even whatGodgiveth is less large than their desires. '' In the highest stage of divine comfort is that peacewhich is said to pass all understanding. When thatnoblest part of the soul to which no name can be given iscompletely turned to God and set on Him, it takes withit all those faculties in man to which we can give names.This conversion involves both that in God which is Nameless and that in the consciousness of man which can benamed. These are they whom St. Dionysius calls godlyminded men. As Paul saith, That ye may be rooted andgrounded in love; and understand with all saints what isthe breadth, and length, and height, and depth. ' For theheight and depth which are revealed in such men can beapprehended by no human sense or reason; they reachbeyond all sense out into a deep abyss. This great good,light, and comfort, is inwardly revealed only to those whoare outwardly sanctified and inwardly illuminated, andwho know how to dwell inwardly within themselves. Tosuch, heaven and earth and all creatures are as an absoluteNothing, for they themselves are a heaven of God, inasmuch as God dwelleth and rests in them. ''God draweth these men in such wise into Himself,1248 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.that they become altogether pleasing unto Him, and allthat is in them becomes, in a super-essential way, so pervaded and transformed, that God himself doeth andworketh all their works. Wherefore, clearly, such personsare called with right-Godlike ( Gottformige) . For if wecould see such minds as they truly are, they would appearto us like God, being so, however, not by nature, but bygrace. For God lives, forms, ordaineth, and doeth inthem all his works, and doth use Himself in them. '' It fares with such men as with Peter, when, at themiraculous draught of fishes, he exclaimed, ' Depart fromme, for I am a sinful man, O Lord! ' See! he can findno words, no way of utterance, for that within. So is it ,Isay, with such men they find themselves empty of fitwords and works. And that is the first mode. The otheris that they fall utterly into their own groundless Nothing(in ihr grundloses Nichts) , and become so small andutterly nothing in God as quite to forget all gifts theyhave received before, and do, as it were, pour themselvesback again absolutely into God (whose they properly are)as though such bestowments had never been theirs. Yea,they are withal as barely nothing as though they hadnever been. So sinks the created Nothing in the Uncreated, incomprehensibly, unspeakably. Herein is truewhat is said in the Psalter, ' Deep calleth unto deep. ' Forthe uncreated Deep calls the created, and these two deepsbecome entirely one. Then hath the created spirit lostitself in the spirit of God, yea, is drowned in the bottomless sea of Godhead. But how well it is with such a manpasseth all understanding to comprehend. Such a manbecomes, thirdly, essential, virtuous, godly; in his walk,loving and kindly, condescending and friendly towards all11c. 5.] Regeneration . 249men, so that no man can detect in him any fault or transgression, any vice or crime. Moreover, he is believingand trustful towards all men, hath mercy and sympathyfor every man without distinction; is not austere andstern, but friendly, gentle, and good, and it is not possiblethat such men should ever be separated from God. Untosuch perfectness may all we be graciously helped of God our Saviour, unto whom be praise for ever. Amen.'2A'The ground or centre of the soul is so high and gloriousa thing, that it cannot properly be named, even as noadequate name can be found for the Infinite and AlmightyGod. In this ground lies the image of the Holy Trinity . 'Its kindred and likeness with God is such as no tonguecan utter. Could a man perceive and realize how Goddwelleth in this ground, such knowledge would be straightway the blessedness of salvation. The apostle saith, ' berenewed in the spirit of your mind ( Gemüthes) . ' Whenthe mindis rightly directed, it tendeth towards this groundwhose image is far beyond its powers. In this mind weare to be renewed, by a perpetual bringing of ourselvesinto this ground, truly loving and intending God immediately. This is not impossible for the mind itself, though ,our inferior powers are unequal to such unceasing unionwith God. This renewal must take place also in thespirit. For God is a spirit, and our created spirit must .be united to and lost in the uncreated, even as it existedin God before its creation. Every moment in which thesoul so re-enters into God, a complete restoration takesplace. If it be done a thousand times in a day, there is,each time, a true regeneration: as the Psalmist saith,'This day have Ibegotten thee. ' This is when the inmostof the spirit is sunk and dissolved in the inmost of the250 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.Divine Nature, and thus new-made and transformed. Godpours himself out thus into our spirit, as the sun rays ,forth its natural light into the air, and fills it with sunshine, so that no eye can tell the difference between thesunshine and the air. If the union of the sun and aircannot be distinguished, how far less this divine union ofthe created and the uncreated Spirit! Our spirit is received and utterly swallowed up in the abyss which is its source. Then the spirit transcends itself and all itspowers, and mounts higher and higher towards the DivineDark, even as an eagle towards the sun. '' Yet let no man in his littleness and nothingness thinkof himself to approach that surpassing darkness, ratherlet him draw nigh to the darkness of his ignorance ofGod, let him simply yield himself to God, ask nothing,desire nothing, love and mean only God, yea, and suchan unknown God. Let him lovingly cast all his thoughtsand cares, and his sins too, as it were, on that unknownWill. Beyond this unknown will of God he must desireand purpose nothing, neither way, nor rest, nor work,neither this nor that, but wholly subject and offer himselfup to this unknown will. Moreover, if a man, while busyin this lofty inward work, were called by some duty inthe Providence of God to cease therefrom and cook abroth for some sick person, or any other such service, heshould do so willingly and with great joy. This I say thatif it happened to me that I had to forsake such work andgo out to preach or aught else, I should go cheerfully,believing not only that God would be with me, but thathe would vouchsafe me it may be even greater grace andblessing in that external work undertaken out of true lovec. 5.] Humility. 251in the service of my neighbour than I should perhapsreceive in myseason of loftiest contemplation.''The truly enlightened man-alas! that they should beso few-scarce two or three among a thousand-sinkshimself the deeper in his Ground the more he recogniseshis honour and his blessedness, and of all his gifts ascribesnot even the least unto himself. Our righteousness andholiness, as the prophet saith, is but filthiness . Thereforemust we build, not on our righteousness, but on the ,righteousness of God, and trust, not in our own words,works, or ways, but alone in God. May this God give usall power and grace to lose ourselves wholly in him, thatwe may be renewed in truth, and found to his praise andglory. Amen. ' 3Speaking of the publican in the temple, he put up aprayer that God would give him such an insight as thatmanhad into his own Nothing and unworthiness;-' That, 'said he, ' is the highest and most profitable path a mancan tread. For that way brings God continually andimmediately into man. Where God appears in his mercy,there is he manifest also with all his nature withHimself. ' 4I understand the Doctor as teaching three states orconditions wherein man may stand; that of nature, bythe unaided light of reason, which in its inmost tendsGodward, did not the flesh hinder; that of grace; and ahigher stage yet, above grace, where means and mediumare as it were superseded, and God works immediatelywithin the transformed soul. For what God doeth thatHe is . Yet that in this higher state, as in the second,man hath no merit; he is nothing and God all. In the252 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.course of this same sermon he described humility as indispensable to such perfectness, since the loftiest treessend their roots down deepest. He said that we shouldnot distress ourselves if we had not detailed to our confessor all the short-coming and sin of our hearts, butconfess to God and ask his mercy. No ecclesiasticalabsolution can help us unless we are contrite for our sinbefore God. We are not to keep away from the Lord'sbody because we feel so deeply our unworthiness to partake of the sacrament, seeing that they who are wholeneed not a physician, but they that are sick.5There are some who can talk much and eloquently ofthe incarnation and bitter sufferings of Christ, who dowith tears apostrophise him from head to foot as theypresent him to their imagination. Yet is there often inthis more of sense and self-pleasing than of true love toGod. They look more to the means than to the end. Formy part, I would rather there were less of such excitement and transport, less of mere sweet emotion, so that aman were diligent and right manful in working and invirtue, for in such exercise do we learn best to know ourselves. These raptures are not the highest order ofdevotion, though would that many a dull heart had moreof such sensibility! There are, as St. Bernard hathsaid, three kinds of love, the sweet, the wise, and thestrong. The first is as a gilded image of wood, the secondas a gilded image of silver, the third an image of puregold. One to whom God hath vouchsafed such sweetnessshould receive it with lowliness and thankfulness, discerningtherein his weakness and imperfection, in that God has toallure and entice him as a little child. He should notrest at this point, but press on, through images, above allc. 5.] Wise Cautions. 253image and figure; through the outward exercise of thesenses to the inward ground of his soul, where properlythe kingdom of God is. There are many altogether athome amid sensuous imagery, and having great joy therein, whose inner ground is as fast shut to them as amountain of iron through which there is no way. '' Dionysius writeth how God doth far and superessentially surpass all images, modes, forms, or names thatcan be applied to him. The true fulness of divine enlightenment is known herein that it is an essential illumination, not taking place by means of images or in thepowers of the soul, but rather in the ground itself of thesoul, when a man is utterly sunk in his own Nothing.This I say against the ' free spirits,' who persuade themselves that by means of certain appearances and glancesof revelation they have discerned the truth, and pleasethemselves with their own exaltation, knowledge, andwisdom; going about in a false emptiness (Ledigkeit) oftheir own; and speaking to others as though they werenot yet advanced beyond the use of forms and images;bringing, with their frivolous presumption, no small dishonour upon God. But know ye, Christians beloved, thatno truly pious and God-fearing man gives himself out ashaving risen above all things, for things in themselvesutterly insignificant and mean are yet, in the truth,right and good; and though any one may be in realityelevated above such lesser matters, yet doth he loveand honour them not less than heretofore; for thetruly pious account themselves less than all things, andboast not that they have surpassed or are lifted abovethem.'6' O, dear child, in the midst of all these enmities and1254 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.dangers, sink thou into thy ground and thy Nothingness,and let the tower with all its bells fall on thee, yea, let allthe devils in hell storm out upon thee, let heaven andearth with all their creatures assail thee, all shall butmarvellously serve thee-sink thou only into thy Nothingness, and the better part is thine! ' 7'Yet some will ask what remains after a man hath thuslost himself in God? I answer, nothing but a fathomlessannihilation of himself, an absolute ignoring of all reference to himself personally, of all aims of his own in will and heart, in way, in purpose, or in use. For in this selfloss man sinks so deep into the ground that if he could,out of pure love and lowliness, sink himself deeper yet,and become absolutely nothing, he would do so rightgladly. For such a self-annihilation hath been brought topass within him that he thinketh himself unworthy to beaman, unfit to enter God's house and temple, and to lookupon a crucifix painted on the wall; yea, such a mandeemeth himself not so good by far as the very worst.Nevertheless, as far as regards the sufferings and death ofthe Lord-the birth and incarnation of the Son of Godhis holy and perfect life that he lived on earth amongsinful men, all this such a man did never before so heartilyand strongly love as now he doth; yea, now his care ishowhe may order his life right Christianly, and fashionit anew, and out of fervent love toward his Lord andSaviour, exercise himself without ceasing in all good ,work and virtue.'8There are those who thoughtlessly maim and torturetheir miserable flesh, and yet leave untouched the inclinations which are the root of evil in their hearts. Ah,my friend, what hath thy poor body done to thee, thatC. 5.]Tauler's Doctrine-its excellence. 255thou shouldst so torment it? Oh folly! mortify and slaythy sins, not thine own flesh and blood.'9WILLOUGHBY. My dear Atherton, this is grand doctrine. May I never be farther from the kingdom of heaventhan such a mystic. Surely Luther's praise is just. Compare such theology as this with the common creed andpractice of that day. The faults are nearly all those of thetime the excellence his own.ATHERTON. It is wonderful to see how little harm hisPlatonism can do to a man so profoundly reverent, so fervent in his love to Christ. How often he seems to treadthe verge of Eckart's pantheistic abyss, but never fallsinto it! His heart is true; he walks uprightly, and so,surely. That conception of sin as selfishness-that doctrine of self- abandonment, death in ourselves and life inGod-these are convictions with him so deep and blessed-so far beyond all Greek philosophy-so fatal to the intellectual arrogance of pantheism, that they bear him safethrough every peril .GOWER. His sermons cannot fail to do one good-readwith the heart and imagination. But if you coldly criticise, and can make no allowance for the allegories andmetaphors and vehement language of the mystic, you mayshut the book at once.ATHERTON. And shut out blessing from your soul. Itis not difficult to see, however, where Tauler's danger lies .There is an excess of negation in his divinity. He will ,ignore, deny, annihilate almost everything you can name,-bid you be knowledgeless, desireless, motionless, willenjoin submission to the unknown God (when it is our256 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.Hetriumph in Christ that we submit to the Revealed andKnown)-and, in short, leaves scarcely anything positivesave the mysterious lapse of the soul's Ground, or Spark,into the Perfect, the Essential One. (He seems sometimesto make our very personality a sin, as though the limitations of our finite being were an element in our guilt. Theseparation of a particular faculty or higher power of thesoul which unites with God, while the inferior powers areeither absorbed or occupied in the lower sphere, this isthe great metaphysical mistake which lies at the root ofso many forms of mysticism. With Tauler the work of> grace consists too much of extremes-it dehumanizes inorder to deify. )WILLOUGHBY. But that, remember, is no fault ofTauler's especially. He does but follow here the ascetic,superhuman aspiration of a Church which, trying to raisesome above humanity, sinks myriads below it.ATHERTON. Granted. That error does not lessen mylove and admiration for the man.GOWER. Your extracts show, too, that the Nothingnesstowards which he calls men to strive is no indolent Quietism,nor, as with Eckart, a kind of metaphysical postulate, butin fact a profound spiritual self-abasement and the dailyworking out of a self-sacrificing Christ-like character.ATHERTON. Blessed are his contradictions and inconsistencies! Logic cannot always reconcile Tauler withhimself-our hearts do.10WILLOUGHBY. Never surely was a theory so negativecombined with an action more fervently intense-a positiveness more benign.GOWER. In his life we understand him, that is at oncec. 5.] Prepares the Wayfor the Reformation. 257the explanation and vindication of what his mysticismmeans.ATHERTON. Few, however, of his fellow-mystics rose,so far as Tauler, above the peculiar dangers of mysticism.Even the good layman, Nicholas of Basle, was a man ofvision, and assumed a kind of prophecy. Tauler and theTheologia Germanica stand almost alone in rejecting thesensuous element of mysticism-its apparitions, its voices,its celestial phantasmagoria. With many of his friendsmysticism became secluded, effeminate, visionary, becauseuncorrected, as in his case, by benevolent action, by devoted conflict against priestly wrong.KATE. Tauler, then, was aProtestant in spirit-a genuineforerunner of the Reformation?ATHERTON. Unquestionably.MRS. ATHERTON. But what could the common peoplemake of this high ideal he sets before them? Could theybe brought heartily to care about that kind of ultra-humanperfectness? Beautiful it must have been to hear thiseloquent man describe the divine passion of the soul,howLove took up the harp of life and smote on all the chords with might,Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, passed in music out of sight,-but bewildering, rather?ATHERTON. I am afraid so. Yet there was much theyevidently did understand and relish.GOWER. In fact the Reformers were wanted, with theirBible, with their simpler, homelier teaching-so muchless ascetic, so much more human-and with their writtenword, interpreted more soundly; coming, not to extinguishVOL. I. S1258 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.that inner light, but to enclose, as in a glass, the preciousflame, otherwise fitfully blown about by the gusts of circumstance and feeling.WILLOUGHBY. But none the less let us praise the manwho lived so nobly by the light he had-who made humanworks as nothing, that God might be all-who took theheavenly kingdom from the hands of the priest, and proclaimed it in the heart of every spiritual worshipper.GOWER. Though Tauler adopts at times the languageof Eckart, no one can fail to discern a very differentspirit. How much more profound his apprehension ofsin-his sense of need; how much more prominent Christ, <rescuing and purifying the stricken soul. Tauler laysman in the dust, and keeps him there. Eckart suffershim to expand from Nothing to Infinity. Summarily, Iwould put the difference thus:-With Eckart the languageof Christianity becomes the metaphorical expression forpantheism; with Tauler, phraseology approaching pantheism is the metaphorical expression of a most trulyChristian conviction. If the former sins even more inthe spirit than in the letter, in the case of the latter the sinsof the letter are redeemed by the excellence of the spirit.CHAPTER VI.Alas poor country;Almost afraid to know itself! It cannotBe called our mother, but our grave. Where nothing,But who knows nothing, is once seen to smile;Where sighs, and groans, and shrieks that rend the air,Are made, not mark'd; where violent sorrow seemsAmodern ecstasy; the dead man's knellIs there scarce asked, for who; and good men's livesExpire before the flowers in their caps,Dying or ere they sicken.MACBETH.ITwas about aweekafter the conversation recorded in the last chapter that Willoughby and Gower met oneday, about noon, at Lowestoffe's lodge gate, the one returning from a piscatory expedition of six hours with fish,the other from a pictorial ramble of four days, withsketches . Willoughby had to tell of the escapades oftricksy trout, and of the hopes and fears which were suspended on his line. But not aword, of course, had he tosay of the other thoughts which busied him the while,-how his romance was in his head, as he carried those credentials of idleness, the fishing-tackle, and how, while hewas angling for fish, he was devising the fashion in whichBlanche should throw the fly for Florian. Gower hadS2260 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.Jseen such glades and uplands-such wondrous effects oflight and shadow-he, too, had had his adventures, andcould show his trophies.Dinner was succeeded by that comparatively somnolentperiodwhich preceded the early tea so dear to Lowestoffe.Atherton found that a book of Schubert's, which had interested him in the morning, was, in the afternoon, only aconducting-rod to lure down the subtile influence of sleep.Lowestoffe, lulled by the buzzing flies, dropped off into anarm- chair doze, without apology or disguise. He had beenearly up, and had been riding about all day on a newchestnut mare. Violently had he objurgated that wretchof a groom for giving her too many beans, therebyrendering her in danger of flying at the heels; and whatwas worse, the monster had put on a gag snaffle with themartingale, and narrowly escaped getting her into mischief. But the flying storm had long since swept away.Before tea, Lowestoffe was in his good-humoured, irrational humour; after tea he would be in his goodhumoured rational one. As for Gower and Kate, theyhad quietly withdrawn together to see a water-lily thathad just blown, and were not heard oftill tea-time.After tea, when certain sleepy people had again becomeresponsible creatures, conversation began.GOWER. Don't you think Atherton has a very manuscriptural air to-night?KATE. There is a certain aspect of repletion about him.MRS. ATHERTON. We must bleed him, or the consequences may be serious. What's this? ( Pulls a paperout of his pocket.)KATE. And this! ( Pulls out another .)WILLOUGHBY. He seems better now.c. 6.] Art and History. 261ATHERTON (abstractedly.) I was thinking of the difference between Gower's studies and mine for the lastfew days. I have been reading a dark, miserable chapterin the history of man. He has been the chronicler ofpleasant passages in the history of rocks and trees,-hisgreat epochs, asmile of sunshine or sudden chill of shadow,-the worst disasters, a dull neutral-tint kind of day, or aheavy rain,-his most impracticable subjects, beauties toobright or evanescent to be caught. It is sad to think howevery subject of our study deepens in sorrow as it rises indignity.WILLOUGHBY. And yet it is only by the manfulstruggles of past generations through calamity and againstwrong, that we have bequeathed to us the leisure, theliberty, and the knowledge essential to the highest enjoyment of nature. Atherton, in fact, studies the chequeredand intricate causes which issue in the taste of Gower asone of their effects. I should think it must be no smallgain for an artist to be placed beyond the mediæval ideawhich set the Inferno in the centre of the earth, andimagined, far below the roots of the mountains and thechannels of the sea, eternal flames as the kernel of theworld.GOWER. I have sometimes endeavoured, while lying onthe grass, to realise in my own way the conception of theworld by the light-hearted Greeks as an animal, or as arobe or peplus. I have imagined the clouds the floatingbreath of the great creature, rising against the crystalsphere of the sky, under which it lies as in an enchanter'sglass; the seas, some delicate surfaces of the hugeorganism, that run wrinkled into a quick shiver at thecold touch of wind; the forests, a fell of hair which is262 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.ruffled by the chafing hand of the tempest. Then, whenIlook at the earth in the other aspect, as a variegatedwoven robe, I see it threaded silverly with branchingrivers, spangled with eyes of lakes; where the sleekmeadows lie, it is rich with piled velvet, and where thewoods are, tufted with emerald feathers. But now I wantto hear something more about our Strasburg people.ATHERTON. Bad news. There is a great hiatus inArnstein's journal, which history fills up with pestilenceand bloodshed. I have drawn up a few notes of thisinterval which must serve you as an outline. (Reads. )In the year 1348 that terrible contagion, known as theBlack Death, which journeyed from the East to devastatethe whole of Europe, appeared at Strasburg.¹ Everywhere famine, floods, the inversion of the seasons, strangeappearances in the sky, had been its precursors. In theMediterranean Sea, as afterwards in the Baltic, ships weredescried drifting masterless, filled only by plague-strickencorpses. Every man dreaded, not merely the touch andthe breath of his neighbour, but his very eye, so subtileand so swift seemed the infection. In many parts ofFrance it was computed that only two out of every twentyinhabitants were left alive. In Strasburg sixteen thousandperished; in Avignon sixty thousand. In Paris, at onetime, four or five hundred were dying in aday. In thatcity, in the midst of a demoralization and a selfish horrorlike that Thucydides has painted, the Sisters of Mercywere seen tending the sufferers who crowded the HôtelDieu; and, as death thinned their martyr-ranks, numbersmore were ready to fill the same office of perilous comc. 6.] The Black Death. 263passion. Pausanias says that in Athens alone out of allGreece there was raised an altar to mercy. But it wasan altar almost without a ministry. Heathendom, at itsbest, might glory in the shrine; Christianity, at its worst,could furnish the priesthood.In Strasburg Tauler laboured fearlessly, with Thomasand Ludolph, among the panic-stricken people-doublycursed by the Interdict and by the plague. Great fires ofvine-wood, wormwood, and laurel were kept burning inthe squares and market places to purify the air, lightingup the carved work of the deserted town-hall, and flickering aslant the overhanging gables of the narrow crookedstreets and the empty tradesmen's stalls. The villagewas ravaged as fatally as the town. The herds grew wildin the fields of the dead peasants, or died strangelythemselves-victims, apparently, to the universal blight oflife . The charlatans of the day drove for awhile a goldentraffic with quintessences and distillations, filthy andfantastic medicines, fumigation of shirts and kerchiefs,charms and invocations, only at last to perish in theirturn. Even the monks had lost their love for gold, sinceevery gift was deadly. In vain did trembling men carrytheir hoards to the monastery or the church. Every gatewas barred, and the wealthy might be seen tossingtheir bags of bezants over the convent walls. In theoutskirts of towns and cities, huge pits were opened,whose mouths were daily filled with hideous heaps ofdead. The pope found it necessary to consecrate theriver Rhone, and hundreds of corpses were cast out atAvignon, from the quays and pleasant gardens by thewater-side, to be swept by the rapid stream under thesilent bridges, past the forgotten ships and forsaken264 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.fields and mourning towns, livid and wasting, out intothe sea.In a frenzy of terror and revenge the people fell uponthe miserable Jews. They were accused of poisoning thewells, and every heart was steeled against them. Fearseemed to render all classes more ferocious, and the manwho might sicken and die tomorrow found a wretchedcompensation in inflicting death to-day on the imaginedauthors of his danger. Toledo was supposed to be thecentre of an atrocious scheme by which the Jews were todepopulate Christendom. At Chillon several Jews, someafter torture and some in terror of it, confessed that theyhad received poison for that purpose. It was a black andred powder, made partly from a basilisk, and sent in themummy of an egg. The deposition of the Jews arrestedat Neustadt was sent by the castellan of Chillon to Strasburg. Bishops, nobles, and chief citizens held a diet atBinnefeld in Alsace, to concert measures of persecution.The deputies of Strasburg, to their honour be it spoken,declared that nothing had been proved against the Jews.Their bishop was the most pitiless advocate of massacre.The result was a league of priests, lords, and people, toslay or banish every Jew. In some places the senatorsand burgomasters were disposed to mercy or to justice.The pope and the emperor raised their voices, alike invain, in behalf of the victims. Some Christians, who hadsought from pity or from avarice to save them, perishedin the same flames. The noble of whom they boughtprotection was stigmatised as a Jew-master, execrated bythe populace, at the mercy of his enemies. No powercould stem the torrent. The people had tasted blood;the priest had no mercy for the murderers of the Lord;с. б. ] The Flagellants. 265the baron had debts easily discharged by the death of hiscreditor. At Strasburg a monster scaffold was erected inthe Jewish burial ground, and two thousand were burntalive. At Basle all the Jews were burnt together in awooden edifice erected for the purpose. At Spires theyset their quarter in flames, and perished by their ownhands. Aguard kept out the populace while men commissioned by the senate hunted for treasure among thesmoking ruins. The corrupting bodies of those slain inthe streets were put up in empty wine casks, and trundledinto the Rhine. When the rage for slaughter had subsided, hands, red with Hebrew blood, were piously employed in building belfries and repairing churches withJewish tombstones and the materials of Jewish houses.The gloomy spirit of the time found fit expression in thefanaticism of the Flagellants. Similar troops of devoteeshad in the preceding century carried throughout Italy themania of the scourge; but never before had the frenzy ofpenance been so violent or so contagious. It was in thesummer of 1349 that they appeared in Strasburg. All thebells rang out as two hundred of them, following two andtwo many costly banners and tapers, entered the city,singing strange hymns. The citizens vied with each otherin opening to them their doors and seating them at theirtables. More than a thousand joined their ranks. Whoever entered their number was bound to continue amongthem thirty-four days, must have fourpence of his ownfor each day, might enter no house unasked, might speakwith no woman. The lash of the master awaited everyinfraction of their rule. The movement partook of thepopular, anti-hierarchical spirit of the day. The priest orfriar could hold no rank, as such, among the Flagellants.266 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.The mastership was inaccessible to him, and he was precluded from the secret council. The scourging took placetwice a day. Every morning and evening they repairedin procession to the place of flagellation outside the city.There they stripped themselves, retaining only a pair oflinen drawers. They lay down in a large circle, indicatingby their posture the particular sin of which each penitentwas principally guilty. The perjured lay on his side, andheld up three fingers; the adulterer on his face. Themaster then passed round, applying his lash to each insuccession, chanting the rhymeStand up in virtue of holy pain,And guard thee well from guilt again.One after the other, they rose and followed him, singingand scourging themselves with whips in which were greatknots and nails. The ceremony closed with the reading ofaletter, said to have been brought by an angel from heaven,enjoining their practice, after which they returned homein order as they came. The people crowded from far andnear to witness the piteous expiation, and to watch withprayers and tears the flowing blood which was to minglewith that of Christ. The pretended letter was reverencedas another gospel, and the Flagellant was already believedbefore the priest. The clergy grew anxious as they sawthe enthusiasm spreading on every side. But the unnatural furor could not last; its own extravagance preparedits downfall. An attempt made by some Flagellants inStrasburg to bring adead child to life was fatal to their ,credit. The Emperor, the Pope, and the prelates tookmeasures against them simultaneously, in Germany, inFrance, in Sicily, and in the East. The pilgrimage ofc. 6.] Tauler before the Emperor. 267the scourge was to have lasted four-and-thirty years. Sixmonths sufficed to disgust men with the folly, to see theirangelic letter laughed to scorn, their processions denounced,their order scattered.Meanwhile the enemies of Tauler were not idle. LouisofBavaria was dead. The new Emperor Charles IV. wasof the papal party, and called the Parsons' Kaiser, but aman of vigour and enlightenment; so weary Germany,broken by so many calamities, was generally inclined toacknowledge his claim. About the year 1348 he visitedStrasburg, and the clergy brought Tauler and his twofriends before him. They were to answer for their hardwords against priests and princes . Charles listened attentively to the statement of their principles, and to theirspirited defence of what they had said and done. At lasthe said (conceive the dismay of the prelates!) that, after all,' he was very much of their mind.' But the ecclesiasticsdid not rest till they had procured a condemnatory sentence. The accused were commanded to publish a recantation, and to promise to refrain for the future from suchcontumacious language concerning the Church and theInterdict, on pain of excommunication. It is said that, inspite of this decision, they did but speak and write themore in the same spirit. This, however, is not certain.It is known that Tauler shortly afterwards left his nativecity, and fixed his residence in Cologne, where he mostlyspent the remainder of his life, actively engaged as apreacher in endeavouring to promote a deeper spirituality,and in combating the enthusiasm of the pantheistic Beghards who abounded in that city.³268 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.Chronicle ofAdolfArnstein, continued.STRASBURG. 1354. January.-Inthe comparative leisureof the winter time, I set down in order (from such fragmentary notes as I then made) records of a journey undertaken last year to Flanders.When I left Strasburg, to sail down the Rhine, our cityhad enjoyed at last nearly two years' prosperity. Wecould scarcely believe the respite real. First of all, afterso many troubles and dissensions, the Black Death hadlaid us waste. Then came the Flagellants, turning allthings upside down-the irresistible infection of their fury-the thirst for blood they stirred up everywhere-theslaughter of the miserable Jews. Then we had the Emperor among us, demanding unrighteous imposts. Ourold spirit rose. For two years and a half our chains andguard-ships barred the passage of the Rhine. We wouldendure any extremity rather than submit, and our firmnesswon the day. Now, for the last three years, the pestilence and its horrors over; blockaded business free again;-our little world has been gambolling like children letloose from school. Never such rapid and fruitful buyingand selling, such marrying and giving in marriage, suchfeasting, pageantry, and merriment, among high and lowalike. All the year is May for the morris-dancers. Noone remembers now the scourge or the torch.The clergy might have learnt a lessonfrom the outbreakofthe Flagellants. It should have shown them how hatefultheir vices and their pride had made them to the people.But the universal levity now pardons clerical crime andfolly as it does every other. The odious exaggerationс. б.] Rulman Merswin. 269of the Flagellants has given men a pretext for licence, andruined the hopes of reform. The cause of emperor againstpope exists no longer. In the hour of conflict and ofsorrow, men hailed the help and listened to the teachingof the Friends of God. Tauler himself, were he amongus, would find it another Strasburg.Landed at Cologne, I hastened to the cloister of St.Gertrude to find Dr. Tauler. With what delight did Isee him once more! I thought him looking much older,and, indeed, he said he thought the same of me. Thetime has been long but a stepmother to merry faces andruddy cheeks . He told me that he had met with greatkindness in this city, which he had always loved. Hisfriends were numerous; his preaching, he hoped notwithout fruit, and he had succeeded in reforming muchthat had been amiss. I had manymessages for him fromhis old friends in Strasburg, and he had so many questionsto ask, he knew not where to begin.He inquired particularly after Rulman Merswin. Thisrich merchant had withdrawn from the world (with theconsent of his wife) and devoted himself altogether to thecontemplative life, a short time previous to the coming ofthe Black Death. His austerities had been almost fatal.Tauler's last counsel to him was to lessen their severity.I saw him before I left, and he desired me to tell Taulerthat the Layman had visited him more than once, andwasnow his spiritual guide. I informed the Doctor, moreover, that during the last year Merswin had been privatelybusied in writing a book, to be called The Nine Rocks, ofwhich he did me the honour of reading to me a part.7The Doctor asking what I thought, I said it seemed to bethe work of a powerful and sombre imagination, excited270 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.by the sufferings he had inflicted on himself, yet containing many solemn and most just rebukes of the vicesprevalent. Tauler said that such excessive mortificationin all classes, and especially among the clergy, oftenweakened, instead of exalting the intellect. He fearedthat the good Rulmanwould always lean too much onvisions, voices, ecstasies, and the like, and never rise tothe higher calm of unsensuous, imageless contemplation.The second time I visited Tauler, I found him reading-he told me for the fourth time-a book called TheSpiritual Nuptials, by John Ruysbroek. The Doctorpraised it highly, and as I questioned him about it, offeredto lend it me to read. I had heard of Ruysbroek as amaster in spiritual mysteries, often holding intercourseby letter with the Friends of God in Cologne, Alsace, andeven in the Oberland. I took the book home to my inn,and shut myself up to read it. Many parts of it I copiedout. Not a few things in it I found hard to be understood, and consulting with the Doctor about them, he toldme he purposed setting out in a few days to visit theauthor. Should I like to accompany him? I said ' Yes,with all my heart. ' So we left Cologne to travel to theconvent of Grünthal, in the heart of the forest of Soigne,not far from Louvain, whither the holy man, now sixtyyears of age, had of late retired.9From Cologne we journeyed direct to Aix-la-Chapelle.There we saw the chair in which the emperors sit whenthey are crowned. Its sides are of ivory, and the bottomis made of a piece of wood from Noah's Ark. Tasted thewater in the famous hot springs there. It is saltish; thephysicians say of singular virtue, whether taken inwardlyor outwardly. Saw near the town a water which is luke-с. 6.] AJourney through Flanders. 271warm, by reason of one of the hot springs which passesunder it. There are bred in it fine fish, they say, whichmust be put in cold water two months before they areeaten.From Aix-la -Chapelle we went to Maestricht, and thencethrough Tirlemont, to Louvain. This last is awealthy city,with a fine town-hall. The Flemings seem very fond ofbells, which are always chiming, and the great multitudeof storks was a strange thing to me; they make their nestson the tops of the chimneys. The country round is veryfertile, and the great guilds exceeding prosperous. Thesmall handicrafts have more power there than with us atStrasburg. At Ypres, I hear, they lately mustered fivethousand strong in the market-place, and headed by theirdeacons, engaged and routed the knights and men- at- armswho wished to hold the town against the men of Ghent.10They are very brave and determined, and keep bettertogether, as it seems to me, than our folk. I found nosmall excitement in the city, on account of the war thencarrying on between the men of Ghent and their allies, onthe one side, and the Earl of Flanders on the other. Itbegan with the old rivalry between Ghent and Brugessome dispute about a canal from the Lys. The realstruggle is between lords and commons. What BishopBerthold and his party have been to us, that is the Countde Male to these Flemings. The popular side has lost abrave leader in John Lyon. He revived the White Hoods,and stirred up all Flanders against the earl. But two atleast of the new captains, John Boule and Peter du Bois,bid fair to fill his place. When I was at Louvain, thetroops of the earl were besieged in Oudenarde by upwardsof a hundred thousand men, gathered out of all the prin272 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.cipal towns, well provisioned and appointed. The besiegerswere very strong in cross-bow men, and had with themsome great guns, which did no small damage. Many hotassaults were made, both by land and water, and on bothsides many brave men slain (Heaven rest their souls!)for the Flemings were no whit behind the knights in foolhardiness. When I left Brabant, report said that a peacewas, or soon would be concluded, to be ratified, accordingto their wont there, by enormous dinners. Certain it isthat neither Oudenarde nor Dendermonde were carriedafter all.11They still talked at Louvain about that flower ofchivalry, Edward III. of England, who was there for aseason some few years back. 12 His princely entertainments to lords and ladies left the country full of goldentraditions about him. The islanders won all hearts bytheir unparalleled magnificence and generosity. Theysay the English king called James von Artaveld-brewerofmetheglin as he was his cousin, and was passing wrothwhen he heard of his murder. Yet methinks he caresbut little after all for the Flemish weavers, save as theymay help him and his knights against France. Nevertheless, the weaker France, the better for Germany. I thinkI understand why our emperor Charles so flatters thepope. If his Holiness could confide in Germany hewould fain break with France. Be this as it may, not aword now is heard about the claims of the empire. TheGhibelline cause finds no leader. The spirit of theHohenstaufen lives only in the rhymes of the minstrel.No doubt times are changed. There may be policy inthis submission, but I love it not. The Doctor interpreted to me the other day the emperor's Latin motto,c. 6.] On the Way to Grünthal. 273which set me thinking. It means the best use you canmake of your own wits is to turn to good account thefollies of other people.13 So cardinals and envoys ridingto and fro, plotting and treaty-making, will manageChristendom now, not strong arms and sword- strokes .Whether, in the end, this change will lead to better or toworse, it baffles my poor brain to decide.We set out from Louvain for Grünthal, quite a troopof us. There was a noble widow- lady, with her attendants,whowas going to crave ghostly counsel from the prior.She had lost her husband by the plague three years since,and appeared still overwhelmed with grief, speaking to noone, and never suffering her face to be seen. Her women,when not near her, were merry enough with the followersof a young Frenchman of family who carried letters toRuysbroek from his uncle, an abbot in Paris. We hadwith us besides two Minorite friars from Guelders. Thehead dresses of the women were fit for giantesses, risingup like a great horn, with long ribbons fluttering from thetop. One of them had a little dagger in her girdle, andmanaged a spirited horse to admiration. The Frenchman, with whom I had much talk, was an arrant dandy,yet a shrewd fellow withal. He jingled like a jester withhis many silver bells, his hair was tied behind in a tail,the points of his shoes turned up, his parti-coloureddoublet cut short round (a new fashion, adopted forgreater swiftness in flying from an enemy) , and his beard,long and bushy, trimmed with a sort of studied negligence. He gave me a melancholy account of the state ofFrance, divided within, overrun by the English invaders,nobles plundering and burning-here to-day and there tomorrow, without pity, law, or loyalty; knights destroying,VOL. I. T274 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.not helping the weak: troops of robbers surprisingcastles and even taking towns; and the wretchedpeasantry fain often to hide themselves and their cattle forweeks and months in great caves hollowed out underneaththe ground.One of the friars told me a story current about PriorRuysbroek, how, one day, he was absent longer thanusual in the forest, whither he was accustomed to retirefor meditation, and as some of the brethren went to seekhim they saw a tree at a distance which appeared surrounded by a fiery glory. The holy man was sitting atits foot, lost in contemplation! The Saviour and ourBlessed Ladyherself are said to have appeared to him morethan once.14We reached Grünthal-a great building of exceedingplainness-soon after nightfall. Found there visitorsfrom Brussels, so that, between us, nearly all the guestchambers were filled. The good Ruysbroek has been therebut a year, yet if he is always to be thus sought unto,methinks he is as far from his longed-for seclusion asever.15We remained three weeks at Grünthal, for whenevertheDoctor would be going, the good Prior so besought himto tarry longer that he could not in courtesy say him nay.OftenRuysbroek and Tauler would spend all the summermorning in the forest, now walking, now sitting under thetrees, talking of the concerns of the soul, or of the fearsand hopes awakened by these doubtful times. I was permitted repeatedly to accompany them, and afterwardswrote down some of the more remarkable things Iheardsaid. These two saintly men, prepared to love each otheras brothers in a common experience, seemed at once toс. б.] Ruysbroek on the Trinity. 275grow together into a friendship as strong as though manyyears had been employed in the building thereof. Neitherof them vain, neither jealous, each was for humbling himself beneath the other, and seemed desirous rather to hearand learn than to talk about himself.Speaking about the Son of God and the soul of man,Ruysbroek said ' I believe that the Son is the Image ofthe Father, that in the Son have dwelt from all eternity,foreknown and contemplated by the Father, the prototypes of all mankind. We existed in the Son before wewere born-He is the creative ground of all creaturesthe eternal cause and principle of their life. The highestessence of our being rests therefore in God,-exists in hisimage in the Son. After our creation in time, our soulsare endowed with these properties, which are in effectone; the first, the Imageless Nudity, (die bildlose Nacktheit)-by means of this we receive and are united to the 'Father; the second, the Higher Reason of the Soul(die höhere Vernunft der Seele) , the mirror of brightness,by which we receive the Son; the third, the Spark of theSoul (Funken der Seele) by which we receive the love ofGod the Holy Ghost. These three faculties are in us allthe ground of our spiritual life, but in sinners they areobscured and buried under their transgressions.166The office of the Son in time was to die for us, fulfil thelaw, and give us a divine pattern of humility, love, and .patience. He is the fountain whence flows to us all needed blessing, and with him works the Holy Spirit .What the Son did he did for all-is Light-bringer for allmankind, for the Catholic Church especially, but also forevery devoutly-disposed mind. Grace is common, andwhoever desires it has it. Without it no natural powers 4T2276 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.or merits can save us. The will is free by nature, itbecomes by grace more free; yea, a king, lord of every ,lower power, crowned with Love, clad in the might of theHoly Ghost. There is a natural will towards good (Synderesis) implanted in us all, but damped by sin. We canwill to follow this better impulse, and of ourselves desirethe help of divine grace, without which we can never overcome sin and rise above ourselves. Everything dependson will. Aman must will right strongly. Will to havehumility and love, and they are thine. If any man iswithout the spirit of God, it is his own fault, for not seeking that without which he cannot please Him. "1' True penitence is of the heart; bodily suffering is notessential. No one is to think he is shut out from Christbecause he cannot bear the torturing penance some endure.We must never be satisfied with any performance, anyvirtue-only in the abyss, the Nothingness of Humility,do we rise beyond all heavens. True desire after Godis not kept back by the sense of defect. The longing soulknows only this, that it is bent on God. Swallowed up inaspiration, it can take heed of nothing more.' 18 (A veryweighty saying this, methinks, and helpful .)Speaking of the inner life, and the union of the soulwith God, Ruysbroek said-' God dwells in the highest part of the soul. He whoascends this height has all things under his feet. We areunited to God when, in the practice of the virtues, we denyand forsake ourselves, loving and following God above allcreatures. We cannot compel God by our love to love us,but he cannot sanctify us unless we freely contribute oureffort. There is a reciprocal desire on our part and thatofGod. The free inspiration of God is the spring of allс. 6.] Abstraction-Union. 277our spiritual life . Thence flows into us knowledge-aninner revelation which preserves our spirit open, and,lifting us above all images and all disturbance, brings usto an inward silence. Here the divine inspiration is asecret whispering in the inner ear. God dwells in theheart pure and free from every image. Then first, whenwe withdraw into the simplicitas of our heart, do we behold the immeasurable glory of God, and our intellect isas clear from all considerations ofdistinction and figurativeapprehensions, as though we had never seen or heard ofsuch things . Then the riches of God are open to us. Ourspirit becomes desireless, as though there were nothing on ,earth or in heaven of which we stood in need. Then weare alone with God, God and we-nothing else. Then we ,rise above all multiplicity and distinction into the simplenakedness of our essence, and in it become conscious ofthe infinite wisdom of the Divine Essence, whose inexhaustible depths are as a vast waste, into which no corporeal and no spiritual image can intrude. Our created isabsorbed in our uncreated life, and we are as it weretransformed into God. Lost in the abyss of our eternalblessedness, we perceive no distinction between ourselvesand God. As soon as we begin to reflect and to considerwhat that is we feel, we become aware of such distinction,and fall back to the level of reason.'19Here Tauler asked whether such language was not liableto abuse by the heretics who confound man and God? Hereferred to a passage in the Spiritual Nuptials, in whichRuysbroek said that we became identical, in this union,with the glory by which we were illumined.20Ruysbroek answered, that he had designed to qualifyduly all such expressions. But you know, Doctor,' con-278 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.tinued he, ' I have not your learning, and cannot at all times say so accurately as I would what I mean. Out ofthe mouth of babes and sucklings!-I would say that insuch a state all our powers are in repose, not that they areannihilated . If so, we should lose our existence as creatures. We are one with God, but yet always creature existences distinct from God. I do humbly believe, let myenemies say what they may, that I wrote no word of thatbook save at the impulse of the Holy Ghost, and with apeculiar and most blessed presence to my soul of the HolyTrinity. But what shall I call this blessedness? It includespeace, inward silence, affectionate hanging on the sourceof our joy, sleep in God, contemplation of the heaven ofdarkness, far above reason.' 21The conversation then turned on the heresies of thetime, the corruptions of the Church and of the State, andother practical matters more within my compass. Ruysbroek said that the great sin and error of these hereticslay in their aspiring to union with God by a summary andarrogant method of their own. They persuaded themselves that, merely by ceasing to think and distinguish,they could withdraw themselves into the essence of theirnature, and so, without the help of grace or the practiceof virtue, attain by bare nature the rest and blessednessof absolute simplicity and superiority to all modes andimages.' Verily,' quoth Tauler, ' though they give themselvesout for the wisest and the holiest, it is only themselves,not God, they enjoy. Yet mischievous as they are, oftenas I have preached against them, I never have taken, norshall I take, any part in their persecution.' 22с. 6.] Heretical Mystics. 279' I have had plentiful opportunity,' continued Ruysbroek, ' for observing these men. I would divide theminto four classes.23 First of all there are those whose doctrine sins especially against the Holy Ghost. They saythe essential Godhead works not, but the Holy Ghost doth:that they belong to that Divine Essence, and will rest inlike manner:-that they are, therefore, above the Spirit ofGod. They hold that, after time, all things will be God,one absolute Quiescence, without distinction and withoutchange. So they will neither know nor act, neither thinknor thank, but be free from all desire, all obligation. Thisthey call Poverty of Spirit. I say it is a devilish poverty,and such souls must be poor as hell in divine love andknowledge.The second class say, with like blasphemy, ' Weare divine by nature. There is one God, and we are identical with him. We with him have created all things; ifwe had not chosen, we had not been born. It was ourown choice to exist as we do. God can do nothing withoutus, and we give him therefore no preference, pay him no homage. Honour to him is honour to us. What we arewe would be, what we would be we are; with God we havecreated ourselves and all things; heaven and earth hangon our will. ' This insane spiritual pride is flatly contraryto all catholic doctrine.'The third class sin not less against the Son. They say,we are as much incarnate as Christ was, and, in the samesense, divine sons of God. Had he lived long enough, hewould have attained to the same contemplative quiet weenjoy. Retired into our inmost selves, we find ourselvesthe same Wisdom of God which Christ is . When he is280 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.honoured, we are honoured, for we are identical withhim.'Thefourth class declare that neither God nor themselves,heaven or hell, action or rest, good or evil, have any realexistence. They deny God and the work of Christ, Scripture, sacraments,-everything. God is nothing; they arenothing; the universe is nothing.' Some hold doctrines such as these in secret, and conform outwardly, for fear. Others make them the pretextfor every kind of vice and insolent insubordination. Of atruth we should cross ourselves when we but speak ofthem, as in the neighbourhood of spirits from the pit. '' And what hope,' said Tauler, ' of better things, whilethe Church is crowded with hirelings, and, with lust andbravery, everywhere leads on the world in sin? 'What hope, indeed! ' mournfully responded Ruysbroek.' The grace of the sacraments is shamefully bought andsold. Rich transgressors may live as they list. Thewealthy usurer is buried before the altar, the bells ring,the priest declares him blessed. I declare that if he diedin unrighteousness, not all the priests in Christendom, notall his hoards lavished to feed the poor, could save himfrom perdition. See, too, the monks, mendicants andall, what riches! what sumptuous fare! what licence, inviolation of every vow! what odious distinctions! Some have four or five garments, another scarcely one. Somerevel with the prior, the guardian, and the lector in therefectory, at a place of their own. Others must be content with herring and cabbage, washed down with sourbeer. Little by little the habit is changed, black becomesbrown, grey is exchanged for blue, the white must be ofthe finest stuff, the shape of the newest cut.'с. б.] Ecclesiastical Corruption. 281'This,' said Tauler, ' is what I so much admire in yourlittle community here. You have practically abolishedthose mischievous distinctions, the cause of so much bitterness in our religious houses. Every one has his place, butno one is degraded. You yourself will perform the meanestoffices, as the other morning, when Arnstein found yousweeping the lectorium. Yours is the true canonical lifethe life of a family. Every one is ready to do kind officesfor his brethren, and your own example teaches daily forgetfulness of self. 'Ruysbroek looked uneasy under these praises, and theyspoke again of the prevalent evils in the Church.24' How many nuns have I seen, ' said Ruysbroek, ' daintilyattired, with silver bells to their girdles, whose prison wasthe cloister and their paradise the world! A retinue offorty reiters is a moderate attendance for a prelate out ona visitation. I have known some priests who engagedthemselves as business agents to laymen; others who haveentered the service of ladies of rank, and walked behindthem as footmen into church. Acriminal has but to paymoney down, and he may serve the devil for another year.Atrim reckoning, and satisfaction for all parties! Thebishop gets the gold, the devil gets the soul, and the miserable fool the moment's pleasure of his lust. ' 25When, one day, they were conversing on future rewardsand punishments, I remember hearing Ruysbroek say-' I trust I am ready for all God sends me, life or death, or ,even hell-pains themselves.' An attainment of virtue inconceivable to me.26At Grünthal I saw much of a lay brother named JohnAffliginiensis, the cook of the community.27 He accompanied Ruysbroek thither. Though wholly unlettered, he282 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.serves daily as a goodly ensample of the active and contemplative life united. It is his calling to see to the dinnersof the brethren; he is scarce less helpful to their devotions. That he is a good plain cook I can bear witness,and to the edifying character of the discourses he sometimes delivers to the canons, all testify. He scarcely sleepsat all, goes meanly clad, and eats the veriest refuse of theconvent fare. He is one of the meekest and most humbleof men-has had his sore fights of temptation, fierce inward purgations, and also his favoured hours and secretrevelations. Ruysbroek loves him like a brother. Theesteem in which he is held, and the liberty of speechallowed him, is characteristic of the simple and brotherlyspirit which dwells among these worthy canons. Grünthalis not, like so many religious houses, a petty image of thepettiest follies of the world. There they do seem to havewithdrawn in spirit from the strife and pompof secular life.Gladly would I spend my last years among the beechesand the oaks that shut in their holy peace. But whileImay I must be doing; had my call been to the contemplative life I should have been moulded in another fashion.On our journey back from Louvain I had rare entertainment. We had scarcely passed out beyond the gates,when Tauler rode forward, indeep discourse with an ecclesiastic of the party. Ahasty glance at our fellow- travellers, as we mustered at the door of the hostelry, had notled me to look for any company likely to eke out a day'stravel with aught that was pleasant or of profit. But Iwas mistaken. I espied, ere long, a neat, merry-lookinglittle man, in a minstrel's habit, with a gittern slung at hisback. To him I joined myself, and he, pleased evidentlywith the notice I took of him, sang me songs and told meс. б.] Muscatblut. 283stories all the way. He said his name was Muscatblut,and I was not sorry to be able to gratify him by answeringthat his fame had already reached my ears.28 He hadstore of songs, with short and long lines curiously interwoven in a way of his own, a very difficult measure towrite, as he assured me the very triumph of his art.These love-lays he interspersed with riddles and rhymingproverbs, with quaint allegories, satires on clerks andmonks, and stories about husbands and wives, making allwithin hearing roll in their saddles with laughter. Hehad likewise certain coarse songs, half amatory, half devotional, tagged with bits of slang and bits of Latin, aboutthe wooing of our Lady. I told him, to his surprise, tostop; it was flat blasphemy. He said the voluptuous passages of his lay were after Frauenlob's best manner, andas to the sacred personages, by St. Bartholomew! manya holy clerk had praised that part most of all, calling it adeep allegory, most edifying to the advanced believer.At Cologne I parted from the Doctor with many embraces. On myway back to Strasburg I took boat up theMayne to Frankfurt, whither business called me. Wepassed a little woody island in the midst of the river,which was pointed out to me as the residence of the leprousbarefooted friar, whose songs and airs are so popularthroughout the Rhineland. I looked with reverence atthe melancholy spot. There he dwells alone, shut outfrom mankind, yet delighting and touching every heart.His songs are sweet as the old knightly lays of love, fullof courtly grace and tenderness, andyet they are songs forthe people from one truly of themselves. The burgher hashis minstrelsy now, as well as the noble. This at least isagood sign.ΟCHAPTER VII.Unde planctus et lamentum?Quid mentem non erigis?Quid revolvis monumentum?Tecum est quem diligis;Jesum quæris, et inventumHabes, nec intelligis .Unde gemis, unde ploras?Verum habes gaudium.In te latet quod ignorasDoloris solatium.Intus habes, quæris forasLanguoris remedium. *HYMN OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.Vivo sin vivir in mi,Ytan alta vida esperoQue muero porque no muero.tST. THERESA.N the next evening Atherton resumed his reading asfollows:-

• Why smite thy breast and lament? why not lift up thy soul? why

meditate for ever on the sign? He thou lovest is within thee. Thouseekest Jesus-thou hast him; he is found, and thou perceivest it not.Why these groans, this weeping? The true joy is thine; hiddenwithin thee, though thou knowest it not, lies the solace of thineanguish; thou hast within, thou seekest without, the cure for thylanguishing soul.live, but with no life of mine, and long towards a life so highI die because I do not die.Suso savedfrom Drowning.Chronicle ofAdolfArnstein, continued.2851354. March. St. Brigitta's Day. A fortnight agothis day, there came to me, to buy as goodly a battle- axeas could be made, young Sir Ulric-the same who, at thetourney the other day, graced his new-won spurs by suchgallant feats of arms. We fell into talk about the greatfloods which have everywhere wrought of late such loss oflife, and cattle, and husbandry. He said he had but theday before saved the life of a monk who, with his companion, had been carried beyond his depth by the force ofthe water, as they were wading across the fields .' The one most in danger,' said Ulric, ' had a big bookin his bosom. As he flounders about, out tumbles thebook; he lets go his staff, and makes after it; and sousehe goes, over head and ears in a twinkling. The otherstands stock still, and bawls out to me for help. I, justsworn to succour the distressed and be true to the Church,spur Roland, plunge in, and lift out the draggled,streaming father by the hood, half throttled and halfdrowned, but clutching the book in his frozen fingers asthough it were a standard or a fair lady's token. I layhim before me across my horse; his fellow catches hold ofmy stirrup, and we land on the rising ground. When mymonk had somewhat come to himself, he pours as manyblessings on my head as there were drops running fromhis habit; not, he said, for saving his poor life merely, butthat the book was safe. He had just finished writing itthere was not another copy in the world-the devil had anespecial spite against it-no doubt the fiend had raised thewaters to destroy the seed which fed men's souls as well286 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.as the grain which nourished their bodies; but the faithfulGod had sent me, like his angel, just in time for rescue.I saw them in safety, and he promised to remember me inhis orisons . His name, I think he said, was Seusse orSuso.'1So Suso is in Strasburg, thought I, the man I havelong wished to see. I lost no time in inquiring after himat the Dominican convent. There I found, with no smallsatisfaction, that he was none the worse for his mishap;saw him several times, and persuaded him, at last, tohonour for a few days my unworthy roof. He has beenwith us for a week, but must pursue his journey to- morrow. On my part, I could tell him news aboutRuysbroek, and Tauler, and some of his old friends atCologne. On his, he has won the love of all the household by his gentle, affectionate nature, blessed us by hisprayers, and edified every heart by his godly conversation.My good wife would love him, if for nothing else, becausehe so loves the little ones. They love him because healways goes with them to feed the old falcon, and to throwout crumbs for the sparrows, because he joins them inpetting Argus, and talks so sweetly about the Virgin andChild, and the lilies and violets and roses, and the angelswith gold-bright wings that live in heaven. Those threetall fellows, my boys, fonder of sword-play, wrestling, andcamping the bar, than of churchmen or churchgoing, willlisten to him by the hour, while he tells of his visions, hisjourneys, his dangers, and his deliverances. RulmanMerswin also came over and spent two evenings with us.He talked much with Suso about Master Eckart. Susowas full of reminiscences and anecdotes about him. Inhis youthful days he had been his disciple at Cologne.c. 7.] Spiritual Distress. 287' At one time, ' said Suso, ' I was for ten years in thedeepest spiritual gloom. I could not realize the mysteriesof the faith. A decree seemed to have gone forthagainst me, and I thought I was lost. My cries, mytears, my penance,-all were vain. I bethought me atlast of consulting my old teacher, left my cell, saileddown the Rhine, and at Cologne the Lord gave to thewords of the master such power that the prison-doorswere opened, and I stepped out into the sunshine oncemore. Neither did his counsel cease with life. I sawhim in a vision, not long after his death. He told methat his place was in the ineffable glory, and that his soulwas divinely transformed in God. I asked him, likewise,several questions about heavenly things, which he graciously answered, strengthening me not a little in thearduous course of the inner life of self- annihilation. Ihave marvelled often that any, having tasted of the noblewine of his doctrine, should desire any of my poorvintage.'2In talking with the brethren at the convent, while Susowas their guest, I heard many things related concerninghim altogether new to me. I was aware that he had beengreatly sought after as a preacher in German throughoutthe Rhineland, and stood high in the esteem of holy menas awise and tender-hearted guide of souls. That he wasan especial friend of the Friends of God wherever hefound them, I knew. When at Cologne I heard Taulerpraise a book of his which he had in his possession, calledthe Horologe of Wisdom. Something of the fame ofhis .austerities, conflicts, and revelations,hadcome to myears,but the half had not been told me.It seems that his life, from his eighteenth to his fortieth288 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.year, was one long self-torture. The Everlasting Wisdom(who is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her, moreprecious than rubies, and with whom are durable richesand righteousness) manifested herself to him. This washis call to the spiritual life . He seemed to behold her-amaiden, bright as the sun,-her crown, eternity;-herraiment blessedness; -her words, sweetness; unknown,and yet well known; near, and yet afar off; smiling onhim, and saying, ' My son, give me thine heart! ' Fromthat time forth he dedicated his life to her service. Hecalled himself the servant of the Eternal Wisdom, armedhis soul as her knight, wooed her as his heart's queen,bore without a murmur the lover's pangs of coyness,doubt, and distance, with all the hidden martyrdom ofspiritual passion.But the rose of his love, as he is wont to term it, hadfearful thorns. I heard with a shudder of what he underwent that he might crush to death his naturally active,buoyant, impulsive temperament. Day and night he worea close- fitting shirt in which were a hundred and fiftysharp nails, the points turned inward on the flesh. Inthis he lay writhing, like a mangled worm; and lest in hissleep he should find some easier posture, or relieve withhis hands in any way the smart and sting that, like a nestof vipers, gnawed him everywhere, he had leather glovesmade, covered with sharp blades, so that every touchmight make a wound. Time after time were the old scarsopened into new gashes. His body appeared like that ofone who has escaped, half dead, from the furious clutchesof a bear. This lasted sixteen years, till a vision bade him .cease.Never satisfied with suffering, he devised a new kind ofc. 7.] Austerities. 289discipline. He fashioned a wooden cross, with thirty nailswhose points stood out beyond the wood, and this he worebetween his shoulders underneath his garments, till hisback was one loathly sore. To the thirty nails he addedafterwards seven more, in honour of the sorrows of theMother of God. When he would administer the discipline,he struck a blow on this cross with his fist, driving thepoints into his wounded flesh. He made himself, moreover, a scourge, one of the iron tags of which was bent likea fisher's hook, and with this he lashed himself till it brokein his hand. For many years he lay at nights in a miserable hole he called his cell, with an old door for his bed,and in the depth of winter thought it sin to approach thestove for warmth. His convent lay on a little island wherethe Rhine flows out of the Lake of Constance. He couldsee the sparkling water on every side. His wounds filledhim with feverish thirst; yet he would often pass the wholeday without suffering a drop to moisten his lips . His recompence was the vision in which, at one time, the HolyChild brought him a vessel ofspring-water; and, at another,Our Blessed Lady gave him to drink from her own heart.Such, they tell me, was his life till his fortieth year, whenit was signified to him that he should remit these terribleexercises. He is now, I believe, little more than fiftyyears old-the mere wreck of a man to look at; but withsuch life and energy of spirit that, now he hath begun tolive more like other people, he may have a good thirtyyears before him still.I questioned him about his book called the Horologe ofWisdom, or Book of the Eternal Wisdom, for it hath goneabroad under both names. He said it was finished in theyear 1340, since which time he hath written sundry otherVOL . I. U290 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.pieces. He declared to me that he wrote that treatise onlyin his most favoured moments, himself ignorant and passive, but under the immediate impulse and illumination ofthe Divine Wisdom. He afterwards carefully examinedall he had written, to be sure that there was nothing inhis pages other than the holy Fathers had taught, and theChurch received. Methought, if he was sure of his inspiration, he might have spared himself this pains, unlessthe Holy Spirit could in some sort gainsay his ownwords.He is strongly moved by music, but what must havebeen his rapture to hear the hymns of the heavenly hostHe has seen himself surrounded by the choir of seraphimand cherubim. He has heard a voice of thrilling sweetnesslead the response, ' Arise and shine, Jerusalem, ' and haswept in his cell with joy to hear from angel's lips, at earlydawn, the soaring words ' Mary, the morning-star, is risento-day.' Many a time has he seen a heavenly companysent down to comfort him. They have taken him by thehand, and he has joined in spirit in their dance,-thatcelestial dance, which is a blissful undulation to and froin the depths of the divine glory. One day, when thussurrounded in vision, he asked a shining prince of heaven toshow him the mode in which God had his secret dwellingin his soul . Then answered the angel, ' Take a gladsomelook into thine inmost, and see how God in thy loving soulplayeth his play oflove.' Straightway (said Suso to me)I looked, and behold the body about my heart was clear ascrystal, and I saw the Eternal Wisdom calmly sitting inmyheart in lovely wise; and, close by that form of beauty,my soul, leaning onGod, embraced by his arm, pressedto his heart, full of heavenly longing, transported, intoxicated with love!?c. 7.] The Soul's May. 291Wewere talking one evening of May-day eve, and asking Suso wherein their custom of celebrating that festivaldiffered from our own. He said that in Suabia the youthswent out, much in our fashion, singing songs before thehouses of the maidens they loved, and craving from themgarlands in honour of the May. He told us how he, inlike manner, besought Our Lady with prayers and tearsthat he might have a garland from her Son, the EternalWisdom. It was his wont, he said, to set up a spiritualMay- pole-the holy cross, that May-bough of the soul,blossoming with grace and beauty. Before this,' he continued, I performed six venias, * and sang the hymn, ' Hail,holy cross! ' thereafter praising God somewhat thus: -' Hail! heavenly May of the Eternal Wisdom, whosefruit is everlasting joy. First, to honour thee, I bringthee, to-day, for every red rose a heart's love; then, forevery little violet a lowly inclination; next, for everytender lily, a pure embrace; for every bright flower everborn or to be born of May, on heath or grassplot, woodor field, tree or meadow, my heart doth bring thee a spiritual kiss; for every happy song of birds that ever sangin the kindly May, my soul would give thee praises inexhaustible; for every grace that ever graced the May, myheart would raise thee a spiritual song, and pray thee, Othou blest soul's May! to help me so to glorify thee in mylittle time below, that I may taste thy living fruit for evermore above! ' 8The beginning of a new stage of trial was made knownto him by the appearance, in a vision, of an angel, bringinghim the attire and the shoes of a knight. With these he

• Reverences or prostrations.

U2292 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.was to gird himself for new and yet more terrible conflicts .Concerning his own austerities he never speaks, nor doeshe show to any one the letters of the name of Jesus, whichhe is said to have cut with a style upon his bosom. Butof the sufferings which came upon him from without hetalks freely. At one time, when in Flanders, he wasbrought before the chapter on a charge of heresy; but hisenemies gained not their wicked end. He was in greatestdanger of his life shortly before the coming of the plague,when the fearful rumour was abroad about the poisoningof the wells . He himself told me the story, as follows:-' Iwas once despatched on a journey in the service ofthe convent, and they gave me as my companion a halfwitted lay-brother. We had not been many days on theroad, when, one morning, having early left our quartersfor the night, we arrived, after a long, hungry walkthrough the rain, at a village on the banks of the Rhine.It happened to be the fair-time. The street was full ofbooths and stalls, horses and cattle, country folk, players,pedlers, and idle roystering soldiers. Myfellow-traveller,Peter, catches sight of a sign, and turns in straightway towarm himself at the fire, telling me I can go on, do whatI have to do, and I shall find him there. As Ilearnt after,he sits himself down to table with a ruffianly set of droversand traders that had come to the fair, who first of all makehim half-drunk, and then seize him, and swear he hasstolen a cheese. At this moment there come in four orfive troopers, hardened fellows, ripe for any outrage, whofall on him also, crying, ' The scoundrel monk is apoisoner.' The clamour soon gathers a crowd.' When Peter sees matters at this pass, he piteously criesout to them to loose him, and stand still and listen: hec. 7.] Suso pursued as a Poisoner. 293will confess everything. With that they let go their hold,and he, standing trembling in the midst of them, begins:' Look at me, sirs, you see I am a fool; they call mesilly, and nobody cares for what I say: but my companion,he is a wise man, so our Order has given him the poisonbag, and he is to poison all the springs between here andAlsace. He is gone now to throw some into the springhere, to kill every one that is come to the fair. That iswhyI stayed here, andwould not go with him. Youmaybe sure that what I say is true, for you will see him whenhe comes with a great wallet full of bags of poison andgold pieces , which he and the Order have received fromthe Jews for this murderous business .'' At these words they all shouted, ' After the murderer!Stop him! Stop him! ' One seized a spear, another anaxe, others the first tool or weapon they could lay handson, and all hurried furiously from house to house, andstreet to street, breaking open doors, ransacking closets,stabbing the beds and thrusting in the straw with theirswords, till the whole fair was in an uproar. Some friendsof mine, who heard my name mentioned, assured them ofmy innocence of such an abominable crime, but to nopurpose. At last, when they could nowhere find me, theycarried Peter off to the bailiff, who shut him up in theprison.When I came back to the inn, knowing nothing of allthis, the host told me what had befallen Peter, and howthis evil rumour had stirred up the whole fair against me.I hastened off to the bailiff to beg Peter's release. Herefused. I spent nearly the whole day in trying to prevail with him, and in going about in vain to get bail. Atlast, about vesper time, with a heavy sum of gulden I294 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.opened the heart of the bailiff and the doors of thejail.Then mygreatest troubles began. As Ipassed throughthe village, hoping to escape unknown, I was recognisedby some of the mob, and in a moment they were swarmingabout me. ' Down with the poisoner! ' they cried. ' Hisgold shall not serve him with us as it did with the bailiff. 'I ran a little way, but they closed me in again, somesaying, ' Drown him in the Rhine; ' others answering,' No, burn him! he'll poison the whole river if you throwhim in. ' Then I saw (methinks I see him now) a giganticpeasant in a russet jerkin, forcing his way through thecrowd, with a pike in his hand. Seizing me by the throatwith one hand, and flourishing the pike in the other, heshouted, ' Hear me, all of you. Let me spit him with mylong pike, like a poisonous toad, and then plant it in thisstout hedge here, and let the caitiff howl and twist in theair till his soul goes home to the devil. Then every onethat goes by will see his withered carcass, rotting andwasting, and sink him deeper down in hell with curses.Come on, it serves him right. '' My brain swam round. I closed my eyes . I expectedthe next instant to feel the iron. By some merciful interposition, the wretch was not suffered to execute hispurpose. I thought I saw some of the better sort lookingonwith horror- stricken faces, but they dared not interfere.The women shrieked and wrung their hands. I made myway from one to another of those who seemed least pitiless, beseeching them to save me. Heaven must haveheard my cries, though man did not. They stood roundwatching me, disputing with horrid oaths among themselves what they should do. At length-as I had sunk onc. 7.] Deliverance. 295myknees under the hedge, praying for deliverance-I sawapriest, more like an angel than a man, mightily thrustingthem from side to side, and when he reached me, layinghis hand on my arm, he looked round on the ring of savagefaces, and threatened them with the hottest curses of theChurch if theyharmed ahair upon the head of her servant;outvoiced their angry cries with loud rebukes of theircowardice, cruelty, and sacrilege, and led me out safelythrough them all. He brought me to his house, madefast the doors, refreshed and sheltered me for the night,and by the earliest dawn I was away and safe upon myjourney, while that abode of the wicked was sunk in itsdrunken sleep. I keep the anniversary of that dreadfulday, and never shall I cease to praise the goodness whichanswered my prayer in the hour of need, and delivered meas a bird from the snare of the fowler.10' On one other occasion only,' continued Suso, ' did Itaste so nearly the bitterness of death. 'We begged him to tell us the adventure, and so he did,somewhat thus-' Iwas once on my way home from Flanders, travelling upthe Rhine. A great feebleness and sickness had beenuponme for some days, so that I could not walk fast, andmy companion, young and active, had gone on about twomiles ahead. I entered an old forest whose trees overhung the steep river bank. It was evening, and it seemedto grow dark in a moment as I entered the chilling shadowof a wood, in which many a defenceless passenger hadbeen robbed and slain. I had gone on deeper and deeperinto the growing gloom, the wind among the pinessounding like a hungry sea. The fall of my own footsteps seemed like the tread of one coming after me. I stood296 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.still and hearkened. It was no one; when suddenly Isaw, not far off among the trees, two persons, aman and awoman, talking together and watching me. Itrembledin every limb, but I made the sign of the cross, and passedon. Soon I heard quick footsteps behind me. I turnedit was the woman. She was young and fair to look on.She asked my name, and when she learnt it, said sheknew and reverenced me greatly, told me how that robberwith whom I saw her had forced her to become his wife,and prayed me there and then to hear her confession.' When I had shriven her, think how my fear washeightened to see her go back and talk long and earnestlywith the robber, whose brow grew dark, as he left herwithout a word, and advanced gloomily towards where Istood. It was a narrow pathway; on one side the forest,on the other the precipice, sheer down to the rapid river.Alas, thought I, as my heart sank within me, now I amlost. I have not strength to flee: no one will hear a cryfor help: he will slay me, and hide the body in the wood.All was still. I listened in vain for the sound of a boat,a voice, or even the bark of a dog. I only heard the feetof the outlaw and the violent beating of my own heart.But, lo! when he approached me, he bowed his knee, andbegan to confess. Blessed Mary, what a black catalogue!While he spake I heard, motionless, every word of thehorrible recital, and yet I was all the time listening forrescue, watching his face, and minutely noting everylittle thing about his person. I remember the verygraining of the wood of his lance which he laid aside onthe grass when he knelt to me the long knife in hisbelt-his frayed black doublet-his rough red hair, growingclose down to his shaggy eyebrows-two great teeth thatc. 7.] Suso and the Robber. 297stood out like tusks and his hands clasped, covered withwarts, and just the colour of the roots of the tree bywhich I stood. Even during those fearful moments, I cancall to mind distinctly how I marked a little shining insectthat was struggling among the blades of grass, climbingover a knot of wood, and that got upon a fir-cone and felloff upon its back.' After revealing to me crimes that made my blood runcold, he went on to say, ' I was once in this forest, justabout this hour of the day, on the look-out for booty as Iwas this evening, when I met a priest, to whom I confessedmyself. He was standing just where you are now, andwhen my shrift was ended, I drew out this knife, stabbedhim to the heart, and rolled his body down there into theRhine. ' When I heard this, the cold sweat burst outupon my face; I staggered back giddy, almost senseless,against the tree. Seeing this, the woman ran up, andcaught me in her arms, saying, ' Good sir, fear nothing,he will not kill you.' Whereat the murderer said, ' I haveheard much good of you, and that shall save your life today. Pray for me, good father, that, through you, amiserable sinner may find mercy in his last hour. ' At thisI breathed again, and promised to do as he would have me. Then we walked on some way together, till theyparted from me, and I reached the skirts of the wood,where sat my companion waiting. I could just staggerup to him, and then fell down at his side, shivering like aman with the ague. After some time I arose, and wewent on our way. But I failed not, with strong inward groaning, to plead with the Lord for the pooroutlaw, that he might find grace and escape damnation.And, in sooth, I had so strong an assurance vouchsafed298 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.to me of God, that I could not doubt of his final salvation. 'With stories such as these of what befel himself, andmany others, whom he knew in Suabia and the Oberland,or met with on his journeys, the holy man whiled away ourwindy March nights by the ingle. Very edifying it wasto hear him and Rulman Merswin talk together about thehigher experiences of the inward life.Concerning the stages thereof, Suso said that the firstconsisted in turning away from the world and the lustsof the flesh to God: the second, in patient endurance ofall that is contrary to flesh and blood, whether inflicted ofGod or man: the third, in imitating the sufferings ofChrist, and forming ourselves after his sweet doctrine,gracious walk, and pure life. After this, the soul mustwithdraw itself into a profound stillness, as if the manwere dead, willing and purposing nought but the glory ofChrist and our heavenly Father, and with a right lowlydemeanour toward friend and foe. Then the spirit, thusadvanced in holy exercise, arriveth at freedom from theoutward senses, before so importunate; and its higherpowers lose themselves in a supernatural sensibility.'Here the spirit parts with its natural properties, presseswithin the circle which represents the eternal Godhead,and reaches spiritual perfection. It is made free by theSon in the Son.' This I call, ' he said, ' the transit of the soul,-it passesbeyond time and space, and is, with an amorous inwardintuition, dissolved in God. This entrance of the soulbanishes all forms, images, and multiplicity; it is ignorantof itself and of all things; it hovers, reduced to its essence,in the abyss of the Trinity. At this elevation there is noc. 7.] The Monks of Mount Athos. 299effort, no struggle; the beginning and the end are one.11Here the Divine Nature doth, as it were, embrace, and inwardly kiss through and through, the soul; that they maybe for ever one. 12 He who is thus received into the Eternal Nothing is in the Everlasting Now, and hath neitherbefore nor after. Rightly hath St. Dionysius said thatGod is Non-being-that is, above all our notions of being.13Wehave to employ images and similitudes, as I must doin seeking to set forth these truths, but know that all suchfigures are as far below the reality as a blackamoor is unlike the sun.14 In this absorption whereof I speak, thesoul is still a creature, but, at the time, hath no thoughtwhether it be creature or no.'15Suso repeated several times this saying-' Aman of trueself- abandonment must be unbuilt from the creature, inbuilt with Christ, and over- built into the Godhead.'16We bid adieu with much regret to this excellent man,and his visit will abide long in our memory. We drewfrom him a half promise that he would come to see us yetagain.May, 1354.-Oh, most happy May! My brother Ottohath returned, after trading to and fro so long in foreignparts. He is well and wealthy, and will venture forth nomore. What store of marvellous tales hath he about theEast! What hairs'-breadth escapes to relate, and whatprecious and curious things to show! Verily, were I towrite down here all he hath to tell of, I might be writingall mydays.Only one thing will I note, while I think of it. Hevisited Mount Athos, now fourteen years ago: he described to me the beauty of the mountain, with its richolives and lovely gardens, and the whole neighbourhood300 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B.VI.studded with white convents and hermitages of holy men.Some of the monasteries were on rocks so steep that hehad to be drawn up by a rope in a basket to enter them.The shrines were wondrous rich with gold and silver andprecious stones. But nowhere, he said, was he more martyred by fleas. When he was there, a new doctrine orpractice, which had sprung up among the monks (taught,it is said, by a certain Abbot Simeon) , was making nosmall stir. There was to be a synod held about it at thattime in Constantinople. It seems that some of the monks(called, if I mistake not, Hesychasts) held that if a manshut himself up in a corner of his cell, with his chin uponhis breast, turning his thoughts inward, gazing towardshis navel, and centering all the strength of his mind onthe region of the heart; and, not discouraged by at firstperceiving only darkness, held out at this strange in- looking for several days and nights, he would at length beholda divine glory, and see himself luminous with the verylight which was manifested on Mount Tabor. They call ,these devotees Navel-contemplators . A sorry business!All the monks, for lack of aught else to do, were by theears about it, either trying the same or reviling it.17Methought if our heretics have their extravagances andutmost reaches of mystical folly here, there are some worsestill among those lazy Greeks. *

• * * * *

KATE. And is that the end of Arnstein's journal?ATHERTON. No more has come down to posterity.MRS. ATHERTON. That last piece of news from MountAthos seems quite familiar to me. Ihave just been reading Curzon's Monasteries of the Levant, and thanks tohim, I can imagine the scenery of the mountain and itsc. 7.] 301 Cabasilas.neighbourhood: the Byzantine convents, with their manylittle windows rounded at the top, the whole structure fullof arches and domes, the little farms interspersed, withtheir white square towers and cottages of stone at thefoot, the forests of gigantic plane trees, with an underwood of aromatic evergreens, flowers like those in theconservatory everywhere growing wild, waterfalls at thehead of every valley, dashing down over marble rocks,-and the bells, heard tinkling every now and then, to callthe monks to prayer.WILLOUGHBY. The crass stupidity of those Omphalopsychi shows how little mere natural beauty can contributeto refine and cultivate, at any rate when the pupils areascetics. The contemporary mysticism of the East looksmean enough beside the speculation, the poetry, and theaction of the German mystics of the fourteenth century.It is but the motionless abstraction of the Indian Yogiover again.ATHERTON. Yet you will be unjust to the GreekChurch (which has little enough to boast of) if you reckonthis gross materialist Quietism as the only specimen ofmysticism she has to show during this period. There wasa certain Cabasilas, Archbishop of Thessalonica, 18 a contemporary of our German friends, an active man in thepolitical and religious movements of the time, whosewritings exhibit very fairly the better characteristics ofByzantine mysticism. His earnest practical devotionrests on the basis of the traditional sacerdotalism, but hestands between the extremes of the objective and thesubjective mysticism, though naturally somewhat nearerto the former. He presents, however, nothing original todetain us;-so let us away to supper.CHAPTER VIII.Di Meistere sprechen von zwein antlitzen der sêle. Daz eine antlitzeist gekart in dise werlt. Daz ander antlitze ist gekart di richte ingot. In diseme antlitze lûchtet und brennet got êwiclîchen, dermensche wizzes oder enwizzes nicht. *-HERMANN VON FRITZLAR.KATE. I should like to know what became of ourmysterious ' Layman,' Nicholas ofBasle.ATHERTON. He lived on many years, the hiddenubiquitous master- spirit of the Friends of God; expendinghis wealth in restless rapid travels to and fro, and in aidingthe adherents of the good cause; suddenly appearing,now in the north and now in the south, to encourage andexhort, to seek out new disciples and to confirm the old;and again vanishing as suddenly, concealing his abodeeven from his spiritual children, while sending themfrequent tracts and letters by his trusty messengerRuprecht; growing ever more sad and earnest underrepeated visions of judgment overhanging Christendom;studying the Scriptures (which had opened his eyes to somuch of Romanist error) somewhat after the old Covenanter fashion, with an indiscriminate application of Old

• The Masters speak of two faces the soul hath. The one face is

turned towards this world. The other face is turned direct towardGod. In this latter face shineth and gloweth God eternally, whetherman is ware or unaware thereof.The Fate of Nicholas. 3°3Testament history, and a firm belief that his revelationswere such as prophets and apostles enjoyed,-till, at last,at the close of the century, he was overtaken at Viennaby the foe he had so often baffled, and the Inquisitionyet more ennobled a noble life by the fiery gift ofmartyrdom.¹GOWER. I can well imagine what a basilisk eye theInquisition must have kept on these lay-priests-theseindefatigable writers and preachers to the people in theforbidden vernacular-these Friends of God, Beghards,and Waldenses; and on those audacious Ishmaels, the 'Brethren of the Free Spirit, most of all. I fancy I see it,lurking always on the edge of any light, watching andwatching, as they say the Indian lizard does, crouched inthe shadow just outside the circle of light a lamp makesupon the ceiling, to snatch up with its arrowy tongue themoths which fly toward the fascinating brightness.WILLOUGHBY. And do not let us forget that even thosepantheistic Brethren of the Free Spirit, with all theircoarseness and violence of exaggeration, held at least some little truth, and might plead a large excuse. Ifsome of them broke blindly through all restraint, theymade at any rate a breach in priestcraft better used bybetter men.-GOWER.-Just as the track where buffaloes have madetheir huge crashing way through the forest, has oftenguided the hunter of the backwoods .ATHERTON. We must not think that the efforts of suchaman as Nicholas were fruitless, whatever the apparentsuccess of his persecutors.-GOWER.-Though history has paid him too little attention, and though the Inquisitionpaid him too much. How304 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.I love to find examples of that consoling truth that nowell-meant effort for God and man can ever really diethat the relics of vanished, vanquished endeavours aregathered up and conserved, and by the spiritual chemistryof Providence transformed into a new life in a new age, sothat the dead rise, and mortality puts on immortality.The lessons such men scattered, though they might seemto perish, perpetuated a hidden life till Luther's time;-like the dead leaves about the winter tree, they preservedthe roots from the teeth of the frost, and covered a vitalitywithin, which was soon to blossom on every bough in thesunshine of the Reformation.ATHERTON. Our fourteenth century, so full ofmysticismboth in East and West, has some other mystical productsto show, principally of the visionary, theurgic species .There is St. Brigitta, a widow of rank, leaving her Swedishpine- forests to visit Palestine, and after honouring with apilgrimage every shrine and relic in southern Europe,fixing her residence at Rome, to the great pecuniary advantage of the faithful there. She writes a discourse onthe Blessed Virgin at the dictation of an angel, who visitedher punctually for the purpose; indites bombastic invocations to the eyes, ears, hair, chin, &c. of the Saviour; andditto to ditto of the Virgin; and, what was not quite sobad, gives to the world a series of revelations and prophecies, in which the vices of popes and prelates arelashed unsparingly, and threatened with speedy judgment.2WILLOUGHBY. It would be interesting to trace thisseries of reformatory prophets, male and female. Fromthe twelfth to the close of the fifteenth century there is asuccession of them, called forth by the hideousness of1c. 8.] Angela de Foligni. 305ecclesiastical corruption-Hildegard, Joachim, Brigitta,Savonarola.GOWER. Do not forget Dante.ATHERTON. You hear them all executing variations,plaintive or indignant, menacing or despairing, on the oldand never antiquated themeCuria Romana non petit ovem sine lanâ,Dantes exaudit, non dantibus ostia claudit.GOWER. And, to silence these complaints, the Churchfound inquisitors and censors of service, but most of allher pattern children-those enthusiasts whose painfullabours were employed to quiet the croaking, much as thelord in old feudal times would often exercise his right ofcompelling a vassal to spend a night or two in beating thewaters of the ponds, to stop the frog-chorus there, andprocure his master an easy sleep. Obedient enthusiasmtoils all night that cardinals may snore.ATHERTON. Angela de Foligni, who made herself miserable-I must say something the converse of flourishedabout the beginning of the fourteenth century, was a finemodel pupil of this sort, a genuine daughter of St. Francis.Her mother, her husband, her children dead, she is aloneand sorrowful. She betakes herself to violent devotionfalls ill-suffers incessant anguish from a complication ofdisorders-has rapturous consolations and terrific temptations-is dashed in a moment from a seat of glory abovethe empyrean to a depth so low that the floor of hell mightbe its zenith. She tells us how, on her way to Assisi, theSaviour addressed her, called her his love, his sweet, hisjoy; and manifested himself within her soul as he hadnever done to evangelist or apostle. On one occasion, herVOL. I. X306 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.face shone with a divine glory, her eyes were as flaminglamps; on another, a star proceeded from her side, brokeinto a thousand beautiful colours, andglided upwards intothe sky.³WILLOUGHBY. A notable example of mystical pyrotechny.ATHERTON. Her etherialised olfactories were gratifiedby odours of indescribable fragrance; and, to her exaltedtaste, the consecrated wafer became almost insupportablydelicious. Visions and ecstasies by scores are narratedfrom her lips in the wretched Latin of Arnold the Minorite. All is naught! The flattest and most insipidreading in the world-from first to last a repetition of theold stock phrase, ' feelings more readily imagined thandescribed.' She concludes every account by saying, ' Nowords candescribe what I enjoyed;' and each rapture isdeclared to surpass inbliss all the preceding.LOWESTOFFE. Enough! enough!ATHERTON. Catharine of SienaWILLOUGHBY. No more, pray.ATHERTON. Only this one. Catharine of Siena closesthe century. She is a specimen, somewhat less wretched,of this delirious mysticism. Her visions began when shewas six years old, and a solemn betrothal to our Lord wascelebrated, with ring and vow, not very long after. Shetravelled through the cities and hamlets of Italy, teaching,warning, expostulating, and proclaiming to assembledcrowds the wonders she had seen in heaven andhell duringthat trance in which all had thought her dead. Shejourneyed from Florence to Avignon, and back to Florenceagain, to reconcile the Pope and Italy; she thrust herselfbetween the spears of Guelph and Ghibelline-a wholec. 8.] Enthusiasm abused by Priestcraft. 307Mediæval Peace-Society in her woman's heart-and whenshe sank at last, saw all her labour swept away, as thestormy waters ofthe Great Schism closed over her head.4GOWER. What acondemning comment on the pretendedtender mercies of the Church are those narratives whichRome delights to parade of the sufferings, mental andbodily, which her devotees were instructed to inflict uponthemselves! I am reminded of the thirsting mule, whichhas, in some countries, to strike with its hoof among thespines of the cactus, and drink, with lamed foot andbleeding lips, the few drops ofmilkwhich ooze from the brokenthorns. Affectionate suffering natures came to Rome forcomfort; but her scanty kindness is only to be drawnwithanguish from the cruel sharpness of asceticism. Theworldly, the audacious, escape easily; but these pliant,excitable temperaments, so anxiously in earnest, may bemade useful. The more dangerous, frightful, or unnaturaltheir performances, the more profit for their keepers.Men and women are trained by torturing processes todeny their nature, and then they are exhibited to bringgrist to the mill-like birds and beasts forced to posturesand services against the laws of their being-like thosewhomust perform perilous feats on ropes or with lions,nightly hazarding their lives to fill the pockets of a manager. The self-devotion of which Rome boasts so muchis a self-devotion she has always thus made the most of forherself. Calculating men, who have thought only of theinterest of the priesthood, have known well how best tostimulate and to display the spasmodic movements of abrainsick disinterestedness. I have not the shadow of adoubt that, once and again, some priest might have beenseen, with cold grey eye, endeavouring to do a stroke ofX2308 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.diplomacy by means of the enthusiastic Catharine, makingthe fancied ambassadress of heaven in reality the tool ofa schemer. Such unquestionable virtues as these visionaries may some of them have possessed, cannot be fairlyset down to the credit of the Church, which has used themall for mercenary or ambitious purposes, and infectedthem everywhere with a morbid character. Some of thesemystics, floating down the great ecclesiastical current ofthe Middle Age, appear to me like the trees carried awayby the inundation of some mighty tropical river. Theydrift along the stream, passive, lifeless, broken; yet theyare covered with gay verdure, the aquatic plants hang andtwine about the sodden timber and the draggled leaves,the trunk is a sailing garden of flowers. But the adornment is not that of nature-it is the decoration of anotherand a strange element; the roots are in the air; theboughs, which should be full of birds, are in the flood,covered by its alien products, swimming side by side withthe alligator. So has this priestcraft swept its victimsfrom their natural place and independent growth, to clothethem, in their helplessness, with a false spiritual adornment, neither scriptural nor human, but ecclesiasticalthe native product ofthat overwhelming superstition whichhas subverted and enslaved their nature. The Church ofRome takes care that while simple souls think they arecultivating Christian graces, they shall be forging theirown chains; that their attempts to honour God shallalways dishonour, because they disenfranchise themselves .To be humble, to be obedient, to be charitable, under suchdirection, is to be contentedly ignorant, pitiably abject,and notoriously swindled.ATHERTON. Strong language, Lionel,-yet not unjustc. 8.] The German Theology. 309to the spirit of the Romanist system. The charity whichpities the oppressed is bound to denounce the oppressor.WILLOUGHBY. Rem acu tetigisti. If you call priestcraft by smooth names, your spurious charity to the tyrantis uncharitableness to the slave. It is sickening to hearthe unctuous talk with which now-a-days ultra-liberalismwill sometimes stretch out ahand to spiritual tyranny.ATHERTON. Not surprising. It is just like the sentimental sympathy got up for some notorious criminal,which forgets the outrage to society and the sufferings ofthe innocent, in concern for the interesting offender.And now let us bid adieu to that fourteenth centurywhich has occupied us so long. I shall only afflict youwith one more paper,-to-morrow, Lowestoffe, if we don'tgo to Hawksfell. Some notes I have drawn up on thecontemporary Persian mysticism.WILLOUGHBY. Stay-do not let us forget that littlebook, so much read in the fifteenth century, and praisedand edited by Luther,-the German Theology. I haveread it with great interest. It seems to me to stand aloneas an attempt to systematise the speculative element inthe more orthodox mysticism of the age.ATHERTON. We may call it a summary of Tauler's doctrine, without his fancy and vehement appeal; it is atreatise philosophic in its calmness, deservedly popularfor its homely, idiomatic diction. What we were sayingabout Tauler applies substantially to the Theologia Germanica.MRS. ATHERTON. I have been waiting to hear something about Thomas à Kempis, certainly the best knownof all your mystics.ATHERTON. Right. Who could forget the comforter310 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.of the fifteenth century? It is curious to compare thethird book of his Imitation of Christ, with its dialoguebetween Christ and the disciple, and Suso's conversation,in his Book ofthe Eternal Wisdom, between Wisdom andthe Servant.GOWER. There is less genius, less abandon, if one mayso say, about Thomas.ATHERTON. Decidedly. That original and daring spiritwhich carried mysticism to such a height in the fourteenthcentury, could not survive in the fifteenth,-an age tendingtowards consolidation and equilibrium, bent on the softeningdown of extremes. Suso, a poet as much as an ascetic, iscontinually quitting his cell to admire nature and to mix with men. He mingles speculation borrowed from hismaster, Eckart, with the luxuriant play of his own inexhaustible fancy. Thomas à Kempis is exclusively theascetic. His mysticism ranges in a narrower sphere.Hence, to a great extent, his wider influence. He abjureseverything that belongs to the thought of the philosopheror the fine feeling of the artist. He appeals neither to theintellect nor to the imagination-simply to the heart. Hecould be understood without learning, appreciated withouttaste, and so thousands, in castle and in cloister, prayedand wept over his earnest page. ' See! ' said he, ' this lifeis filled with crosses.' And multitudes, in misery, or fearofmisery, made answer, ' It is true.'-' Then,' urged thecomforter, ' be thyself crucified to it, and it cannot harmthee. Cease to have any care, any aim, any hope or fear,save Christ. Yield thyself, utterly passive and dead tothis life, into his hands who is Lord of a better.' Thenthe sufferers dried their tears, and strove hard to forgettime and self in contemplating Christ.Nc. 8.] Gerson. 311GOWER. And, let us hope, not always quite in vain.ATHERTON. I have one more name yet upon my list,with which the mediæval mysticism reaches its conclusion.It is the great Frenchman, Chancellor Gerson. His figurestands out prominently among the confusions of the time,half-way between the old age and the new. Up to acertainpoint, he is a reformer; beyond it, the enemy ofreform. He is active in the deposition of John XXII. ,yet he does not hesitate to burn John Huss. He lookson, with a smile of satisfaction, when the royal secretariesstab with their penknives the papal bulls, and the rectortears the insolent parchment into shreds. He sees, halfwith pity and half with triumph, the emissaries of thePope, crowned in mockery with paper tiaras, and hungwith insulting scrolls, dragged through the streets in ascavenger's tumbril, to be pilloried by angry Paris. Buthe stands aloof in disdain when the University, desertedby the Parliament, fraternizes with the mob to enforcereform, when threadbare students come down from theirgarrets in the Pays Latin to join the burly butchers ofSt. Jaques la Boucherie, when grave doctors shake handswith ox-fellers, and Franciscans and White-hoods shouttogether for the charter.WILLOUGHBY. And very wrong he was, too, for thosebutchers, rough as they were, were right in the main,-honest, energetic fellows, with good heads on theirshoulders. Could they but have raised money, they wouldhave saved France. But Gerson would rather be plundered than pay their tax, and had to hurry down forhiding to the vaults ofNotre Dame. Iremember the story.And when the princes came back to power, the moderateswere pillaged like the rest, and serve them right.312 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.ATHERTON. Yes, the reform demanded was just andmoderate, and even the rioters lost none of their respectfor royalty, feeling still in their rude hearts no little ofthat chivalrous loyalty which animated Gerson himselfwhen he bent low before the poor idiot king, and withoriental reverence exclaimed, ' O King, live for ever!'Gerson was a radical in the Church and a conservative inthe State-the antagonist of the political republicanism,the champion of the ecclesiastical. His sanguine hopes ofpeace for his country and of reform for his Church, werealike doomed to disappointment.His great work on the theory and practice of mysticismwas composed during the stormy period of his public life.Imagine how happily he forgot popes and councils,Cabochiens and Armagnacs, during those brief intervalsof quiet which he devoted to the elaboration of apsychologythat shouldgive to mysticism a scientific basis. Nominalistas he was, and fully conscious of the defects of scholasticism, then tottering to its fall, he differs little in his results from Richard of St. Victor. He closes the series ofthose who have combined mysticism with scholasticism,and furnishes in himself a summary and critical resumé ofall that had previously been accomplished in this direction. He was desirous at once of making mysticismdefinite and intelligible, and of rendering the study oftheology as a science more practical, devolit, and scriptural. Hence his opposition to the extravagance ofRuysbroek on the one side, and to the frigid disputationof the schools on the other. He essays to define and investigate the nature of ecstasy and rapture. He even introduces into mysticism that reflection which its veryprinciple repudiates. He recommends an inductive pro-c. 8.] Gerson on Mystical Theology. 313cess, which is to arrange and compare the phenomena ofmysticism as manifest in the history of saintly men, andthence to determine the true and legitimate mystical experience, as opposed to the heterodox and the fantastic. Hemaintains that man rises to the height of abstract contemplation, neither by the intellectual machinery of Realism,nor by the flights of Imagination. If he attemptsthefirst, he becomes a heretic; if the second, a visionary.The indispensable requisite is what he calls ' rapturouslove.' Yet even this is knowledge in the truest sense,and quite compatible with a rational, though impassioned .self- consciousness. His doctrine of union is so temperateandguarded as almost to exclude him from the genuinemystical fellowship. He has no visions or exaltations ofhis own to tell of. Resembling Richard in this respect, towhom he is so much indebted, he elaborates a system,erects a tabernacle, and leaves it to others to penetrate tothe inmost sanctuary. Like Bernard, he thinks thosearduous and dazzling heights of devotion are for ' theharts and climbing goats,' not for active practical mensuch as the Chancellor. Above all, urges this reformerboth of the schoolmen and the mystics, clear your mind.of phantasms-do not mistake the creations of your ownimagination for objective spiritual realities. In otherwords, ' Be a mystic, but do not be what nine mystics outofevery tenalways have been. 'But now let us have a walk in the garden.Thither all repaired. They entered the conservatory tolook at the flowers .6Which will you have, Mr. Atherton,' asked Kate, ' to314 German Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. [B. VI.represent your mystics? These stiff, apathetic cactuses andaloes, that seem to know no changes of summer andwinter, or these light stemless blossoms, that send outtheir delicate roots into the air?'Those Aroideæ, do you mean?' replied Atherton. ' Ithink we must divide them, andlet some mystics have thoseimpassive plants of iron for their device, while others shallwear the silken filaments of these aërial flowers that aresuch pets of yours. 'As they came out, the sun was setting in unusualsplendour, and they stood in the porch to admire it.' I was watching it an hour ago,' said Gower. Thenthe western sky was crossed by gleaming lines of silver,with broken streaks of grey and purple between. It wasthe funeral pyre not yet kindled, glittering with royalrobe and arms of steel, belonging to the sun-god. Now,see, he has descended, and lies upon it-the torch is applied, the glow of the great burning reaches over to thevery east. The clouds, to the zenith, are wreaths ofsmoke, their volumes ruddily touched beneath by theflame on the horizon, and those about the sun are likeignited beams in a great conflagration, now falling in andlost in the radiance, now sending out fresh shapes offlashing fire: that is not to be painted!LOWESTOFFE (starting) . The swan, I declare! Howcan he have got out? That scoundrel, John!ATHERTON. Never mind. I know what he comes for.He is a messenger from Lethe, to tell us not to forget goodTauler.LOWESTOFFE. Lethe! Nonsense.MRS. ATHERTON. My love; how canyou?ATHERTON. The creature reminded me of an allegoricalc. 8.] The Swans of Lethe. 315fancy recorded by Bacon, that is all. At the end of thethread of every man's life there is a little medal containing his name. Time waits upon the shears, and as soon asthe thread is cut, catches the medals, and carries them tothe river of Lethe. About the bank there are many birdsflying up and down, that will get the medals and carrythem in their beak a little while, and then let them fallinto the river. Only there are a few swans, which, ifthey get a name, will carry it to a temple, where it isconsecrated. Let the name of Tauler find a swan!

BOOK THE SEVEΝΤΗ.PERSIAN MYSTICISM IN THE MIDDLE AGE.

CHAPTER I.Also, there is in GodWhich being seen would end us with a shockOfpleasure. It may be that we should dieAsmenhave died ofjoy, all mortal powersSummed up and finished in a single tasteOf superhuman bliss; or, it may beThat our great latent love, leaping at onceAthousand years in stature-like a stoneDropped to the central fires, and at a touchLoosed into vapour-should break up the termsOfseparate being, and as a swift rack,Dissolving into heaven, we should go backToGod.YENDYS.THE next daywas fine, aswell it might beaftersuch asunset; to Hawksfell all the party went, and therewas no reading. But on the following (sunnier yet, if possible) they assembled immediately after breakfast in thesummer-house, Lowestoffe not excepted, for even he grewinactive with the heat, and declared himself content to lieon the grass by the hour. Atherton congratulated hishearers that they would not for some time be troubledwithmore lucubrations of his not till they came, induecourse, to Madame Guyon. For Willoughby was to takeup Jacob Behmen, and Gower, who possessed (as the fruit320 Persian Mysticism in the Middle Age. [B. VII .of an artist's tour) some acquaintance with Spanish, St.Theresa. Then, unrolling his manuscript, he began.THE SUFIS, OR MYSTICAL POETRY IN THE EASTAND WEST.Among all the religions of civilized man, it would bedifficult to find one more unfriendly to the growth ofmysticism than that of Mohammed. Yet in no religion hasmysticism spread more widely or raised its head withgreater pride. The cold rationalism of the Koran, its ritualminutiæ, its formal self-righteousness, its prohibition ofthe monastic order,-all combined to warn the mystic fromthe religious domain of the Crescent. But stronger thanMohammedan orthodoxy or the dying commands of theProphet were the wants of the human heart and the spiritof an eastern people. The generation which laid Mohammed in the holy earth of Medina saw monastic institutionsarise and multiply on every side. Mystical interpretationcouldwith ease elude the less favourable passages of theKoran, and turn others into a warrant. With a singletouch of this dexterous pencil, the mystic could make theProphet's portraiture all he desired, and turn the frowninto a smile. The fatalism of the creed of Islam wouldfurnish a natural basis for the holy indifference ofQuietism .Each succeeding century of the Hegira was found moreabundant than the last in a class of men who revoltedagainst the letter in the name of the spirit, and who aspiredto a converse and a unity with God such as the Korandeemed unattainable on this side heaven. The names ofthe saints and martyrs, the poets and philosophers, ofC. 1.] Sufism. 321mysticism, are among the brightest inthe hagiography andthe literature of the Mohammedan world. The achievements of the former class are adorned with legendary extravagances such as those with which the Prophet delightedto invest himself. The philosophy of the latter (whethersung or said) was not a little aided, in its contest withrigid orthodoxy, by the Grecian learning of that Alexandria which fell, in the first outbreak of Moslem zeal,before the hosts of Amrou. In later times (under thenames of Plato and of Aristotle) mysticism and method didbattle with each other, in the East as in the West,-atShiraz, at Bagdad, or at Cordova, even as in the Universityof Paris or the academies of Italy.The term Sufism appears to be a general designation forthe mystical asceticism of the Mohammedan faith. TheSufis cannot be said to constitute a distinct sect, or toembrace any particular philosophical system. Their varieties are endless; their only common characteristics aclaim of some sort to a superhuman commerce with theSupreme,-mystical rapture, mystical union, mysticalidentity, or theurgic powers;-and a life of ascetic observance. The name is given to mystics of every shade,from the sage to the quack, from poets like Saadi or philosophers like Algazzali, to the mendicant dervise or thecrazy fanatic.Persia has been for several centuries the great seat ofSufism. For two hundred years (during the sixteenthand seventeenth centuries of our era) the descendantsof a Sufi occupied the throne,-governing, however, asmay be supposed, not like mystics, but as men of theworld. It is with Sufism as exhibited principally by theVOL. I. Y322 Persian Mysticism in the Middle Age. [B. VII .Sufi poets of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, thatIpropose now to occupyyour attention.It will be found worth our while, as we proceed, to compare the mystical poetry of the East and West. Orientalmysticism has become famous by its poets; and intopoetry it has thrown all its force and fire. The mysticismof the West has produced prophecies and interpretationsof prophecy; soliloquies, sermons, and treatises of divinity;-it has found solace in autobiography, and breathedout its sorrow in hymns;-it has essayed, in earnestprose, to revive and to reform the sleeping Church;-butit has never elaborated great poems. In none of thelanguages of Europe has mysticism achieved the successwhich crowned it in Persia, and prevailed to raise andrule the poetic culture of a nation. Yet the occidentalmysticism has not been wholly lacking in poets of its ownorder. The seventeenth century can furnish one, and thenineteenth another,-Angelus Silesius and Ralph WaldoEmerson.The latest research has succeeded only in deciding whoAngelus Silesius was not. Some Roman Catholic priestor monk, assuming the name of Angelus, did, in the seventeenth century, send forth sundry hymns and religiouspoems, among others, one most euphuistically entitledThe Cherubic Wanderer. The author of this book hasbeen generally identified, on grounds altogether inadequate, with a contemporary named John Scheffler,-arenegade from Jacob Behmen to the Pope. Suffice it tosay that no two men could be more unlike than thevirulent fagotty-minded pervert Scheffler, and the contemplative pantheistic Angelus-be he who he may.2The Cherubic Wanderer is a collection of religiousC. I.] The Cherubic Wanderer. 323epigrams or rhyming sentences, most of them smart andpithy enough as to expression, not a few as destitute ofsense as they all are of poetry. The Wanderer travelleda little way into the eighteenth century, and then, lightingupon one of those oblivious arbours so fatal to pilgrims,sat down, and slept long. A few years ago some Romanticist littérateurs of Germany woke him up, and announcedto the world, with much sounding of brass and tinkling ofcymbals, that they had resuscitated a paragon of saintship and philosophy.The Silesian's book reiterates the customary utterancesof mysticism. But a harsher tone is audible, and thedoctrines with which we are familiar appear in a morestartling and paradoxical form. The more dangerouselements are intensified. Pantheism is latent no longer.Angelus loves to play at a kind of intellectual seesawwith the terms Finite and Infinite, and their subject orkindred words. Now mounts one side, now the other, ofthe restless antithesis. Each factor is made to share withits rival every attribute of height or lowness. His favourite style of talking may run as follows: -' I cannotdo without God, nor he without me; he is as small as I,and I as great as he:-let time be to thee as eternity, andeternity as time; the All as nothing, and nothing as theAll; then thou hast solved life's problem, and art onewith God, above limit and distinction. ' We matter-of-factfolk feel irresistibly inclined to parody such an oracle,and say,-' Let whole and part, black and white, be convertible terms;-let thy head be to thee as thy heels, andthy heels as thy head; and thou hast transcended theconditions of vulgar men, and lapsed to Limbo irretrievably. ' Silesius, as a good churchman, repudiates, ofY 2324 Persian Mysticism in the Middle Age. [B. VII.course, the charge of pantheism. He declares that thedissolution in Deity he contemplates does not necessitatethe loss of personality, or confound the Maker and themade. His distinction is distinguishable ' as water is inwater.' He appeals to the strong language he hunts outfrom Bernard, Tauler, and Ruysbroek. But the coldblooded epigram cannot claim the allowance due to thefervid sermon or the often rhapsodical volume of devotion. Extravagant as the Sufi, he cannot plead like hima spiritual intoxication. Crystals and torrents must haveseparate laws. And which, moreover, of the mysticalmasters to whom Angelus refers us would have inditedsuch presumptuous doggrel as this?God in my nature is involved,As I in the divine;Ihelp to make his being up,As much as he does mine.As much as I to God owes God to meHis blissfulness and self-sufficiency.I am as rich as God, no grain of dustThat is not mine too, share with me he must.More than his love unto himself,God's love to me hath been;Ifmore than self I too love him,We twain are quits, I ween.3On the other hand, there are many terse and happycouplets and quatrains in the Wanderer, which expressthe better spirit of mysticism. Angelus insists constantlyon the vanity of mere externals,-the necessity of a Christformed within, as opposed to a dead, unsanctifying faith,-the death of self- will, as the seat of all sin,-the reality ofthe hell or heaven already wrought in time by sin or holiThese were the maxims and ejaculations which reli- ness.C. I.] Emerson. 325gious minds, mystically inclined, found so edifying . Thearrogant egotheism of some passages they took in anothersense, or deemed the sense beyond them. Moreover, thehigh- flown devotion affected by Rome has always familiarized her children with expressions which (as ThomasFuller has it) ' do knock at the door of blasphemy, thoughnot always with intent to enter in thereat. 'The second representative of the West, who must assisttowards our comparative estimate of pantheistic mysticismin its poetical form, is Mr. Emerson, the American essayist.Whether in prose or verse he is chief singer of his time atthe high court of Mysticism. He belongs more to theEast than to the West-true brother of those Sufis withwhose doctrine he has so much in common. Luxuriant infancy, impulsive, dogmatic, darkly oracular, he does notreason. His majestic monologue may not be interruptedby a question. His inspiration disdains argument. Hedelights to lavish his varied and brilliant resources uponsome defiant paradox-and never more than when thatparadox is engaged in behalf of an optimism extremeenough to provoke another Voltaire to write another Candide. He displays in its perfection the fantastic incoherence of the ' God- intoxicated' man.In comparing Emerson with the Sufis, it may be as wellto state that he does not believe in Mohammed and receivethe Koran in a manner which would satisfy an orthodoxMussulman. Yet he does so (if words have meaning)much after the same fashion in which he believes in Christand receives the Bible. Mohammed and Jesus are both,to him, extraordinary religious geniuses-the Bible andthe Koran both antiquated books. He looks with sereneindifference on all the forms of positive religion. He would326 Persian Mysticism in the Middle Age. [B. VII .agree perfectly with those Sufis who proclaimed the difference between the Church and the Mosque of littlemoment. The distance between the Crescent and theCross is, with him, one of degree-their dispute rather aquestion of individual or national taste than a controversybetween a religion with evidence and a religion without.In the nineteenth century, and in America, the doctrineof emanation and the ascetic practice of the East can findno place. But the pantheism of Germany is less elevatedthan that of Persia, in proportion as it is more developed.The tendency of the former is to assign reality only toGod; the tendency of the latter is to assign reality only to the mind ofman. The Sufi strove to lose humanity inDeity; Emerson dissolves Deity in humanity. The orientals are nearer to theism, and the moderns farther fromit, than they sometimes seem. That primal Unity whichthe Sufi, like the Neo-Platonist, posits at the summit ofall things, to ray forth the world of Appearance, maypossibly retain some vestige of personality. But the OverSoul of Emerson, whose organs of respiration are men ofgenius, can acquire personality only in the individual man.The Persian aspired to reach a divinity above him by selfconquest; the American seeks to realize a divinity withinhim by self- will. Self-annihilation is the watchword of theone; self- assertion that of the other.CHAPTER II .Und so lang du das nicht hastDieses: Stirb und werde!Bist du nur ein trüber GastAuf der dunkeln Erde. *GOETHE.'TET us proceed, then,' resumed Atherton, smoothing his manuscript, ' on our Persian expedition. Dr.Tholuck, with his German translation, shall act as interpreter, and we may pause now and then on our way tolisten to the deliverances of the two men of vision whoaccompany us from Breslau and from Boston. 'The first century of the Hegira has scarcely expiredwhen a mysticism, strikingly similar to that of MadameGuyon, is seen to arise spontaneously in the devout ardoursof a female saint named Rabia.¹ There is the same straining after indifference and self- abnegation-after a loveabsolutely disinterested-after a devotion beyond languageand above means.By the sick-bed of Rabia stood two holy men. One ofthem said, ' The prayers of that man are not sincere whorefuses to bear the chastening strokes of the Lord. ' The

• And if thy heart know nought of this- Die that thou mayest be

born; then walkest thou the darksome earth a sojourner forlorn.328 Persian Mysticism in the Middle Age. [B. VII.other went beyond him, saying, ' He is not sincere whodoes not rejoice in them.' Rabia, detecting something ofself in that very joy, surpassed them both as she added,' He is not sincere who does not, beholding his Lord, become totally unconscious of them. The MohammedanLives of the Saints records that, on another occasion, whenquestioned concerning the cause of a severe illness, shereplied, ' I suffered myself to think on the delights ofParadise, and therefore my Lord hath punished me. ' Shewas heard to exclaim, ' What is the Kaaba to me? I needGod only. She declared herself the spouse of Heaven,-described her will and personality as lost in God. Whenasked how she had reached this state, she made the veryanswer we have heard a German mystic render, ' I attainedit when everything which I had found I lost again in God. 'When questioned as to the mode, she replied, ' Thou,Hassan, hast found Him by reason and through means;I immediately, without mode or means.'The seeds of Sufism are here. This mystical elementwas fostered to a rapid growth through succeeding centuries, in the East as in the West, by the natural reactionof religious fervour against Mohammedan polemics andMohammedan scholasticism .In the ninth century of our era, Sufism appears dividedbetween two distinguished leaders, Bustami and Juneid.The former was notorious chiefly for the extravagance ofhis mystical insanity. The men of genius who afterwardsmade the name of Sufism honourable, and the languageof its aspiration classical, shrank from such coarse excess.It was not enough for Bustami to declare that the recognition of our personal existence was an idolatry theworst of crimes. It was not enough for him to maintainc. 2.] Bustami-the Messalians-Emerson. 329that when man adores God, God adores himself. Heclaimed such an absorption in his pantheistic deity asidentified him with all the power, the wisdom, and thegoodness of the universe. He would say, ' I am a seawithout bottom, without beginning, without end. I amthe throne of God, the word of God. I am Gabriel,Michael, Israfil; I am Abraham, Moses, Jesus. 'If Epiphanius is to be believed, the Messalians were asect chargeable with the very same folly. If asked, hesays, concerning a patriarch, a prophet, an angel, orChrist, they would reply, ' I am that patriarch, that prophet, that angel; I am Christ. 'A reference to Emerson's Essay on History renderssuch professions perfectly credible. Bustami and theMessalians could not have made them in the literal,but (by anticipation) in the Emersonian sense. They believed, with him, that there is one mind common to allindividual men. ' They find in him their interpreter,when he says, ' Who hath access to this universal mind isa party to all that is or can be done, for this is the onlysovereign agent. ' Emerson couches their creed in modernrhymes, as he sings exultant,-I am owner of the sphere,Of the seven stars and the solar year,Of Cæsar's hand and Plato's brain,Of Lord Christ's heart, and Shakspeare's strain .In the spirit of the same philosophy, Angelus Silesiushints at the possibility of such an empire. He remindshis readers that there is no greatness which makes theglory of the past that may not be realized by themselves inthe present. Thus he asksDost prize alone King Solomon as wisest of the wise?Thou also canst be Solomon, and all his wisdom thine.2330 Persian Mysticism in the Middle Age. [B. VII .Butwhat is only potential with him is claimed as actualby mystical brethren bolder yet than he.The first endeavour of the Sufi (as of so many Christianmystics) is to achieve that simplifying, purifying processwhich shall remove from the mind everything earthly andhuman-all its creaturely accidents, and reduce it to thatabstract essence which mirrors Deity, and is itself ultimately divine. An apologue in the Mesnevi of JelaleddinRumi (a Sufi poet who wrote in the first half of our thirteenth century) teaches this doctrine quite in the orientalmanner.The Greeks and the Chinese dispute before a certainsultan as to which of the two nations is the more skilfulin the art of decoration. The sultan assigns to the rivalpainters two structures, facing each other, on which theyshall exercise their best ability, and determine the questionofprecedence by the issue:-The Chinese ask him for a thousand colours.All that they ask he gives right royally;And every morning from his treasure-houseAhundred sorts are largely dealt them out.The Greeks despise all colour as a stainEffacing every hue with nicest care.Brighter and brighter shines their polished front,More dazzling, soon, than gleams the floor of heaven.This hueless sheen is worth a thousand dyes,-This is the moon-they but her cloudy veil;All that the cloud is bright or golden withIs but the lending of the moon or sun.And now, at length, are China's artists ready.The cymbals clang-the sultan hastens thither,And sees enrapt the glorious gorgeousnessSmit nigh to swooning by those beamy splendours.--Then, to the Grecian palace opposite.Just as the Greeks have put their curtain back,Down glides a sunbeam through the rifted clouds,C. 2.] Mystical Night.And, lo, the colours of that rainbow houseShine, all reflected on those glassy wallsThat face them, rivalling: the sun hath painted,331With lovelier blending, on that stony mirrorThe colours spread by man so artfully.Know then, O friend! such Greeks the Sufis are,Owning nor book nor master; and on earthHaving one sole and simple task,-to makeTheir hearts a stainless mirror for their God.Is thy heart clear and argent as the moon?Then imaged there may rest, innumerous,The forms and hues of heaven.3So, too, says Angelus Silesius,-Away with accidents and false appearance,Thou must be essence all, and colourless.And again,-Man! wouldst thou look on God, in heaven or while yet here,Thy heart must first of all become a mirror clear.4Jelaleddin Rumi describes the emancipation of the soulfrom intellectual distinctions-the laws of finite thought,the fluctuations of hope and fear, the consciousness ofpersonality, under the image of night. This has been thefavourite and appropriate symbol of all the family ofmystics, from Dionysius, with his ' Divine Darkness, ' toJohn of the Cross, in his De Nocte Obscurâ, and on toNovalis, in his Hymnen an der Nacht. In the followingvigorous passage, Night is equivalent to the state of selfabandonment and self-transcendence:-Every night God frees the host of spiritsMakes them clear as tablets smooth and spotlessFrees them every night from fleshly prison.Then the soul is neither slave nor master,Nothing knows the bondman of his bondage,Nothing knows the lord of all his lordship,Gone from such a night is eating sorrow332 Persian Mysticism in the Middle Age. [ B. VII .Gone the thoughts that question good and evilThen, without distraction or division,In the One the spirit sinks and slumbers.Silesius has the same thought, cold and dry, after thepoetic Persian, yet in words that would furnish no inaptmotto to express in a sentence this species of mysticism:-Ne'er sees man in this life, the Light above all light,As when he yields him up to darkness and to night.5The ascetic Sufi bids the mystical aspirant close thesenses against every external impression for the worldsof sense and of contemplation reciprocally exclude eachother. We have seen how the Hindoos and the Hesychasts endeavoured literally to obey this counsel, reiteratedso often by so many mystagogues: -Put wool within the ear of flesh, for thatMakes deaf the inner hearing, as with wool;If that can hear, the spirit's ear is deaf.Let sense make blind no more the spirit's eye.Be without ear, without a sense or thought.Hark only to the voice, Home, wanderer, home! 'It is quite in accordance with such precepts that thejudging faculty should be abandoned by the Sufi for theintuitive, and the understanding sacrificed to the feeling.According to the Koran, Mohammed once soared heavenwards, to such a height that Gabriel could not overtakehim, and far off below, appeared to the Prophet no largerthan a sparrow. Jelaleddin compares the heart, the divineprinciple in man (the spirit, in his psychology), to Mohammed, and the understanding to Gabriel. Names andwords, he says, are but ' nets and shackles.' With justice,in one sense, he bids men pass from the sign to the thingsıgnified, and asks,-C. 2.] Letter and Spirit. 333Didst ever pluck a rose from R and O and S?Names thou mayst know: go, seek the truth they name;Search not the brook, but heaven, to find the moon.The senses and the lower powers, nourished byforms ,belong to earth, and constitute the mere foster-mother ofour nature. The intuitive faculty is a ray of Deity, andbeholds Essence. The soul which follows its divine parentis therefore a wonder, and often a scandal to that whichrecognises only the earthly. Jelaleddin compares therapturous plunge of the soul into its divine and nativeelement to the hastening of the ducklings into the water,to the terror of the hen that hatched them.6While exulting in a devotion above all means and modes,we find the Sufi (in nearly every stage of his ascensionsave the last) yielding implicit obedience to some humanguide of his own choice. The Persian Pir was to himwhat the Director was to the Quietist or semi-Quietist ofFrance; what the experienced Friend of God was to themystic of Cologne or Strasburg; what Nicholas of Baslewas so long to Tauler. That a voluntary submission tosuch authoritywas yielded is certain. Yet we find scarcelyan allusion to these spiritual guides among the chief bardsof Sufism. Each singer claims or seeks a knowledgeof God which is immediate, and beyond the need of atleast the orthodox and customary aids and methods.Thus Rumi saysHe needs a guide no longer who hath foundThe way already leading to the Friend.Who stands already on heaven's topmost domeNeeds notto search for ladders. He that lies,Folded in favour on the sultan's breast,Needs not the letter or the messenger.So Emerson,-334 Persian Mysticism in the Middle Age. [B. VII ......'The relations of the soul to the divine spirit are sopure that it is profane to seek to interpose helps.Whenever a mind is simple, and receives a divine wisdom,then old things pass away,-means, teachers, texts, 1temples, fall; it lives now and absorbs past and futureinto the present hour.'7Hence, in both cases, the indifference before noticed toall the various forms of positive religion. The Persiandescribes all religions as the same liquor in differentglasses-all are poured by God into one mighty beaker.The self-abandonment and self-annihilation of the Sufisrests on the basis of their pantheism. Personal existenceis with them the great illusion ofthis world of appearanceto cling to it is to be blind and guilty. Mahmud (a Sufiof the fourteenth century) says, in the Gulschen Ras,-All sects but multiply the I and Thou;This I and Thou belong to partial being;When I and Thou and several being vanish,Then Mosque and Church shall bind thee never more.Our individual life is but a phantom:Make clear thine eye, and see Reality!Again, (though here the sense may be moral ratherthan philosophic, and selfishness, not personality, abjured)-Go, soul! with Moses to the wilderness,Andhear with him that grand ' I am the Lord! 'While, like a mountain that shuts out the sun,Thine I lifts up its head, thou shalt not see Me.The lightning strikes the mountain into ruins,And o'er the levelled dust the glory leaps!Jelaleddin says of the Sufi in his self-abnegation,-His love of God doth, like a flame of hell,Even in a moment swallow love of self.C. 2.] A noble Self-Abandonment. 335Mahmud, to express the same thought, employs theimage used by Thomas à Kempis: -The path from Me to God is truly found,When pure that Me from Self as clearest flame from smoke.Angelus Silesius bids men lose, in utter Nihilism, allsense ofany existence separate from theDivine Substancethe Absolute:-While aught thou art or know'st or lov'st or hast,Not yet, believe me, is thy burthen gone.Who is as though he were not-ne'er had beenThat man, oh joy! is made God absolute.Self is surpassed by self- annihilation;The nearer nothing, so much more divine.8Thus individuality must be ignored to the utmost; bymystical death we begin to live; and in this pervertedsense he that loseth his life shall find it. Hence, by anatural consequence, the straining after a sublime apathyalmost as senseless as the last abstraction of the Buddhist.The absolutely disinterested love, to which the Sufi aspires,assumes, however, an aspect of grandeur as opposed tothe sensuous hopes and fears of Mohammed's heaven andhell. Rumi thus describes the blessedness of those whosewill is lost in the will of God:-They deem it crime to flee from Destiny,For Destiny to them brings only sweetness.Welcome is all that ever can befal them,For were it fire it turns to living waters.The poison melts to sugar on their lip;The mire they tread is lustrous diamond,And weal and woe alike, whatever comes.They and their kingdom lie in God's divineness .To pray, ' O Lord, turn back this trouble from me,'They count an insult to the hand that sent it.

336 Persian Mysticism in the Middle Age. [ B. VII .Faithful they are, but not for Paradise;God's will the only crowning of their faith:And not for seething hell flee they from sin,But that their will must serve the Will Divine.It is not struggle, 'tis not discipline,Wins them a will so restful and so blest;-It is that God from his heart-fountain everFills up their jubilant souls.So, again, Angelus Silesius, sometimes pushing hisnegation to unconscious caricature:-True hero he that would as readilyBe left without God as enjoy him near.Self-loss finds God-to let God also go,That is the real, most rare abandonment.Man! whilst thou thankest God for this or that,Yet art thou slave to finite feebleness.Not fully God's is he who cannot live,Even in hell, and find in hell no hell.Nought so divine as to let nothing move thee,Here or hereafter (couldst thou only reach it) .Who loves without emotion, and without knowledge knows,Ofhim full fitly say we he is more God than man.Compare Emerson, discoursing of Intuition and theheight to which it raises men:-It asks nothing.We are then in'Fear and hope are alike beneath it.There is somewhat low even in hope.vision. There is nothing that can be called gratitude norproperly joy. The soul is raised over passion,' &c. So,again: ' Prayer as a means to effect a private end is theft and meanness. It supposes dualism in nature and consciousness . As soon as the man is at one with God hewill not beg. He will then see prayer in all action.This elevation above petition and above desire towardswhich many a Sufi toiled, watching, fasting, solitary,C. 2.] Time and Space transcended. 337through the ' seven valleys ' of mystic discipline, is cheaply .accomplished now-a-days by mere nonchalance, and is hitoff by a flourish of the pen. It is the easy boast of anyone who finds prayer distasteful and scoffs at psalmsinging-who chooses to dub his money-getting with thetitle of worship, and fancies that to follow instinct is tofollow God. The most painful self-negation and the mostfacile self- indulgence meet at the same point and claimthe same pre-eminence.The eastern mystic ignores humanity to attain divinity.The ascent and the descent are proportionate, and theprivileges of nothingness are infinite. We must accompany the Sufi to his highest point of deification, and inthat transcendental region leave him. His escape fromthe finite limitations of time and space is thus described,-On earth thou seest his outward, but his spiritMakes heaven its tent and all infinity.Space and Duration boundless do him service,As Eden's rivers dwell and serve in Eden.Again, Said, the servant, thus recounts one morningto Mohammed the ecstasy he has enjoyed:-My tongue clave fever-dry, my blood ran fire,My nights were sleepless with consuming love,Till night and day sped past-as flies a lanceGrazing a buckler's rim; a hundred faithsSeemed then as one; a hundred thousand yearsNo longer than a moment. In that hourAll past eternity and all to comeWas gathered up in one stupendous Now,Let understanding marvel as it may.Where men see clouds, on the ninth heaven I gaze,And see the throne ofGod. All heaven and hellAre bare to me and all men's destinies.The heavens and earth, they vanish at my glance;The dead rise at my look. I tear the veilVOL. I. Z338 Persian Mysticism in the Middle Age. [B. VII .From all the worlds, and in the hall of heavenI set me central, radiant as the sun.Then spake the Prophet:-' Friend, thy steed is warm;Spur him no more. The mirror in thy breastDid slip itsfleshly case, now put it upHide it once more, or thou wilt come to harm.'This magniloquence of Said's is but the vehementpoetic expression for the ' absolute intuition' of modernGermany-that identity of subject and object in which alllimitations and distinctions vanish, and are absorbed in anindescribable transcendental intoxication. If the principlebe true at all, its most lofty and unqualified utterance mustbe the best, and what seems to common-sense thethorough-going madness of the fiery Persian is preferableto the colder and less consistent language of the modernTeutonic mysticism. Quite in the spirit of the foregoing extracts, Emerson laments that we do not oftenerrealize this identity, and transcend time and space as weought.-6We live in succession, in division, in parts, in particles.Meantime within man is the soul of the whole, the wisesilence, the universal beauty, to which every part andparticle is equally related,-the eternal ONE. And thisdeep power in which we exist, and whose beatitude is allaccessible to us, is not only self-sufficing and perfect everyhour, but the act of seeing and the thing seen, the seerand the spectacle, the subject, and the object are one.'Andagain:-' Time and space are but inverse measures ofthe force of the soul. Aman is capable of abolishing themboth. The spirit sports with timeCan crowd eternity into an hourOr stretch an hour to eternity. 'C. 2.] The Sufi as Vehicles of Divinity.So Angelus Silesius: -Rise above Space and Time, and thou canst beAt any moment in Eternity.10339The following passage from Jelaleddin exhibits the kindof identity with God claimed by the more extravagant devotees of Sufism: -Are we fools, we're God's captivity;Are we wise, we are his promenade;Are we sleeping, we are drunk with God;Are we waking, then we are his heralds;Are we weeping, then his clouds of wrath;Are we laughing, flashes of his love.Some among them carried their presumption to a practical extreme which did away with all distinction betweengood and evil. They declared the sins of the Sufi dearerto God than the obedience of other men, and his impietymore acceptable than their faith. "Two extracts more will suffice to show the mode inwhich this pantheistic mysticism confounds, at its acme,the finite and the infinite. They are from FeridoddinAttar, who died in the second or third decade of the fourteenth century.-Man, what thou art is hidden from thyself.Know'st not that morning, mid-day, and the eve,All are within thee? The ninth heaven art thou;And from the spheres into this roar of timeDidst fall erewhile. Thou art the brush that paintedThe hues of all this world-the light of life,That rayed its glory on the nothingness.Joy! joy! I triumph! Now no more I knowMyself as simply me, I burn with loveUnto myself, and bury me in love.The Centre is within me, and its wonderLies as a circle everywhere about me.Joy! joy! no mortal thought can fathom me.Z2340 Persian Mysticism in the Middle Age. [B. VII.I am the merchant and the pearl at once.Lo, time and space lie crouching at my feet.Joy! joy! when I would revel in a rapture,Iplunge into myself and all things know.The poet then introduces Allah, as saying that he hadcast Attar into a trance, and withdrawn him into his ownessence, so that the words he uttered were the words ofGod.12Both with Emerson and Angelus, he who truly apprehends God becomes a part of the divine nature,-is a son,a god in God, according to the latter; and according tothe former, grows into an organ of the Universal Soul.This notion of identity Emerson seems to arrive at fromthe human, Angelus from the divine side. The salvationofman is reduced, with the German, very much to a process of divine development. With the American, everyelevated thought merges man for a time in the Oversoul.The idealism of Emerson is more subjective, his pantheismmore complete and consequent. Angelus is bold on thestrength of a theory of redemption which makes mannecessary to God. Emerson is bolder yet, on his ownaccount, for he makes his own God. This he does whenhe adores his own ideal, and, expanding Self to Universality, falls down and worships.Hear him describe this transcendental devotion: -' The simplest person, who in his integrity worshipsGod, becomes God; yet for ever and ever the influx ofthis better and universal self is new and unsearchable. 'Again: ' I, the imperfect, adore my own Perfect. I amsomehow receptive of the great soul, and thereby I dooverlook the sun and the stars, and feel them to be butthe fair accidents and effects which change and pass. ' So,C. 2.] Self-deifying Lapse into the Absolute. 341speaking of the contemplation of Nature:-' I become atransparent eyeball. I am nothing. I see all. Thecurrents of the Universal Being circulate through me; Iam part or particle of God,' &c.Angelus says, in virtue of his ideal sonship,-I am as great as God, and he as small as I;He cannot me surpass, or I beneath him lie.God cannot, without me, endure a moment's space,Were I to be destroyed, he must give up the ghost.Nought seemeth high to me, I am the highest thing;Because e'en God himself is poor deprived of me.13The central idea of the Persian mysticism is Emanation .The soul is to escape from the manifold to the One. Itstendency (in proportion as its votary believes that returnaccomplished) is to confound man with the Father. Theleading principle in the mysticism of Eckart and AngelusSilesius is Incarnation. Angelus is never weary of reiterating the doctrine that God became man in order thatman might become God. He does not labour, like theorientals, to attain deification by ascetic efforts of his own.He has a kind of Mediator. He seems to believe thatthrough Christ, in some way, every man is a divine Son ofGod, if he will only think so. All he has to do is to realizethis sonship; then he becomes, by Grace, all that the Sonof God is by Nature. The obvious result of this mysticismis to identify man with the Son.In that order of modern mysticism represented byEmerson, the central doctrine is Inspiration. In the creativeefforts of the poet, in the generalizations of the philosopher,the man ofgenius speaks as he is moved by the Oversoul.An influx of the universal spirit floods his being and carrieshim beyond himself. In intuition the finite Ego is identi342 Persian Mysticism in the Middle Age. [B. VII .fied with the absolute Ego. Humanity is a divine evolution, and each true man (to use Emerson's apt illustration)-afaçade of Deity. Even Angelus would have acknowledged that it was in some sort through Christ that hisboastful sonship became possible. But the believer in theOversoul will admit no such medium, and owns a debt toChrist much as he owns a debt to Shakspeare. Mysticismof this order usurps the office of the Holy Ghost, anddirectly identifies the spirit of man with the Spirit ofGod.Mysticism has always been accustomed to express thetransports of its divine passion by metaphors borrowedfrom the amorous phraseology of earth. It has done thiswith every variety of taste, from the grossness of some ofthe most eminent Romanist saints, to the beautiful Platonism of Spenser's Hymns of Heavenly Love' and ' Heavenly Beautie. ' But nowhere has metaphor branched soluxuriantly into allegory as in the East, and nowhere inthe East with such subtilty and such freedom as amongthe Persian mystics. The admiring countrymen of Hafiz ,Saadi, and Jami, interpret mystically almost everythingthey wrote. They underlay these poems everywhere witha system of correspondences whose ingenuity would havedone no discredit to Swedenborg himself. Sir WilliamJones furnishes some specimens of a sort of mystical glossary, by aid whereof their drinking songs may be read aspsalms, and their amatory effusions transformed intohymns full of edification for the faithful.14 Never, since thedays ofPlotinus, was a deity imagined more abstract thanthe Unity toward which the Sufi aspires. Yet never wasreligious language more florid or more sensuous . According to the system alluded to, wine is equivalent to devo-C. 2.] A Spiritual Drinking- Song. 343tion; the tavern is an oratory; kisses and embraces, theraptures of piety; while wantonness, drunkenness, andmerriment are religious ardour and abstraction from allterrestrial thoughts.The following passage from Mahmud's Gulschen Rasmay suffice as a specimen of these devout Bacchanalia.It has the advantage of exhibiting the key in the lock:-Know'st thou who the Host may be who pours the spirit's wine?Know'st thou what his liquor is whose taste is so divine?The Host is thy Beloved One-the wine annihilation,And in the fiery draught thy soul drinks in illumination.Up, soul! and drink with burning lip the wine of ecstasy,The drop should haste to lose itself in His unbounded sea.At such a draught mere intellect swims wildered and grows wild;Love puts the slave-ring in his ear and makes the rebel mild.Our Friend holds out the royal wine and bids us drink it up;The whole world is a drinking- house and everything a cup.Drunken even Wisdom lies-all in revel sunken;Drunken are the earth and heaven; all the angels drunken.Giddy is the very sky, round so often hasting,Up and down it staggers wide, with but a single tasting.Such the wine of might they drink in blest carouse above,So the angels higher lift their flaming height of love.Now and then the dregs they fling earthward in their quaffing,And where'er a drop alights, lo, anEden laughing! 15

NOTES.

BOOK I.NOTE TO CHAPTER II.' The Divine Dark.' The writer, who goes by the name ofDionysius Areopagita, teaches that the highest spiritual truth is revealed only to those who have transcended every ascent of every holyheight, and have left behind all divine lights and sounds and heavenlydiscoursings, and have passed into that Darkness where He really is(as saith the Scripture) who is above all things.'-De Mystica Theologia,cap. i. § 3.NOTES TO CHAPTER III.I On the word μύησις Suidas says, Εἴρηται δὲ παρὰ τὸ τὰ μυστήριακαὶ ἀπόῤῥητα τελεῖσθαι· ἢ διὰ τὸ μυόντας τὰς αἰσθήσεις καὶ ἐπέκεινα σωματικῆςφαντασίας γενομένους, τὰς θείας εἰσδέχεσθαι ἐλλάμψεις.Suicer also cites Hesychius. Etym. Mag.-Μύστης, παρὰ τὸ μύω, τὸκαμμύω. μύοντες γὰρ τὰς αἰσθήσεις καὶ ἔξω τῶν σαρκικῶν φροντίδωνγινόμενοι, οὕτω τὰς θείας ἀναλάμψεις ἐδέχοντο .2 See Bingham, Antiq. of the Christian Church, vol. ix. pp. 96-105.Clement of Alexandria abounds in examples of the application toChristian doctrine of the phraseology in use concerning the heathenmysteries;-e.g. Protrept . cap. xii. § 120.3 Both Plotinus and Proclus speak of the highest revelation concerning divine things as vouchsafed to the soul which withdraws intoitself, and, dead to all that is external, ' gazes with closed eyes '(μύσασαν) . See Tholuck's Blüthensammlung aus der MorgenlandischenMystik; Einleitung, § 1 , p. 6. Dr. Tholuck is the only German writerIhave seen who throws light on the word in question by accurately348 [в. І. Notes.investigating its etymology and successive meanings; and I readilyacknowledge my debt to his suggestions on this point.4Dionysius thus describes the mystical adept who has reached thesummit of union:-Then is he delivered from all seeing and beingseen, and passes into the truly mystical darkness of ignorance, wherehe excludes all intellectual apprehensions (τὰς γνωστικὰς ἀντιλήψεις),and abides in the utterly Impalpable and Invisible; being wholly hiswho is above all, with no other dependence, either on himself or anyother; and is made one, as to his nobler part, with the utterly Unknown, by the cessation of all knowing; and at the same time, inthat very knowing nothing, he knows what transcends the mind ofman.'-(De Mystica Theologia, cap. i. p. 710. S. Dion. Areop. Opp.Paris, 1644.)So again he exhorts Timothy ' by assiduous practice in mysticalcontemplations to abandon the senses and all operations of the intellect; all objects of sense and all objects of thought, all things non-existent and existent (αἰσθητὰ οὐκ ὄντα, νοητὰ=ὄντα) , and ignorantly tostrive upwards towards Union as close as possible with him who isabove all essence and knowledge:-inasmuch as by a pure, free, andabsolute separation (ἐκστάσει) of himself from all things, he will be exalted (stripped and freed from everything) to the superessential radiance of the divine darkness.'-p. 708.About the words rendered ' intellectual apprehensions ' commentators differ . The context, the antithesis, and the parallel passage inthe earlier part of the chapter, justify us in understanding them intheir strict sense, as conveying the idea of cessation from all mentalaction whatsoever.5 Numerous definitions of Mystical Theology ' are supplied byRoman Catholic divines who have written on the subject. With allof them the terms denote the religion of the heart as distinguishedfrom speculation, scholasticism, or ritualism; and, moreover, thosehigher experiences of the divine life associated, in their belief, withextraordinary gifts and miraculous powers. Such definitions will accordingly comprehend the theopathetic and theurgic forms of mysticism, but must necessarily exclude the theosophie. Many of themmight serve as definitions of genuine religion. These mystical experiences have been always coveted and admired in the RomishChurch; and those, therefore, who write concerning them employ theword mysticism in a highly favourable sense. That excess of subjectivity-those visionary raptures and supernatural exaltations, whichwe regard as the symptoms of spiritual disease, are, in the eyes ofthese writers , the choice rewards of sufferings and of aspirations themost intense, they are the vision ofGod and things celestial enjoyedc. 3.] Notes. 349by the pure in heart,-the dazzling glories wherewith Godhas crownedthe heads of a chosen few, whose example shall give light to all the world.Two or three specimens will suffice. Gerson gives the two followingdefinitions of the Theologia Mystica:-' Est animi extensio in Deumper amoris desiderium.' And again: ' Est motio anagogica in Deumper purum et fervidum amorem.' Elsewhere he is more metaphorical,describing it as the theology which teaches men to escape from thestormy sea of sensuous desires to the safe harbour of Eternity, andshows them how to attain that love which snatches them away to theBeloved, unites them with Him, and secures them rest in Him.Dionysius the Carthusian (associating evidently mystica and mysteriosa)says, Est autem mystica Theologia secretissima mentis cum Deolocutio.' John à Jesu Maria calls it, ' cœlestis quædam Dei notitia perunionem voluntatis Deo adhærentis elicita, vel lumine cœlitus immissoproducta. ' This mystical theology, observes the Carthusian Dionysius,farther, (commentating on the Areopagite), is no science, properly socalled; even regarded as an act, it is simply the concentration (defixio)ofthe mind on God-admiration of his majesty-a suspension of themind in the boundless and eternal light-a most fervid, most peaceful,transforming gaze on Deity, &c.All alike contrast the mystical with the scholastic and the symboHeal theology. The points of dissimilarity are thus summed up byCardinal Bona:-' Per scholasticam discit homo recte uti intelligibilibus,per symbolicam sensibilibus, per hanc (mysticam) rapitur ad super- mentales excessus. Scientiæ humanæ in valle phantasiæ discuntur,hæc in apice mentis. Illæ multis egent discursibus, et erroribussubjectæ sunt: hæc unico et simplici verbo docetur et discitur, et estmere supernaturalis tam in substantia quam in modo procedendi.'-Via Compendii ad Deum, cap. iii . 1-3.The definition given by Corderius in his introduction to the mysticaltheology of Dionysius is modelled on the mysticism of John de laCruz:-Theologia Mystica est sapientia experimentalis, Dei affectiva,divinitus infusa, quæ mentem ab omni inordinatione puram, per actussupernaturales fidei, spei, et charitatis, cum Deo intime conjungit.'-Isagoge, cap. ii.The most negative definition of all is that given by Pachymeres,the Greek paraphrast of Dionysius, who has evidently caught hismaster's mantle, or cloak of darkness. Mystical theology is not perception or discourse, not a movement of the mind, not an operation ,not a habit, nothing that any other power we may possess will bringto us; but if, in absolute immobility of mind we are illumined concerning it , we shall know that it is beyond everything cognizable by themind of man.'-Dion. Opp. vol. i. p. 722.350 Notes. [B. I.In one place the explanations of Corderius give us to understandthat the mysticism he extols does at least open a door to theosophyitself, i. e. to inspired science. He declares that the mystical theologiannot only has revealed to him the hidden sense of Scripture, but that hecan understand and pierce the mysteries of any natural science whatsoever, in a way quite different from that possible to other men-inshort, by a kind of special revelation. Isagoge, cap. iv.The reader will gather the most adequate notion of what is meant,or thought to be meant, by mystical theology from the descriptiongiven by Ludovic Blosius, a high authority on matters mystical, in hisInstitutio Spiritualis. Corderius cites him at length, as ' sublimissimusrerum mysticarum interpres. 'Happy, he exclaims, is that soul which steadfastly follows afterpurity of heart and holy introversion, renouncing utterly all privateaffection, all self-will, all self-interest. Such a soul deserves to approach nearer and ever nearer to God. Then at length, when itshigher powers have been elevated, purified, and furnished forth bydivine grace, it attains to unity and nudity of spirit-to a pure loveabove representation to that simplicity of thought which is devoid ofall thinkings. Now, therefore, since it hath become receptive of thesurpassing and ineffable grace of God, it is led to that living fountainwhich flows from everlasting, and doth refresh the minds of the saintsunto the full and in over-measure. Now do the powers of the soulshine as the stars, and she herself is fit to contemplate the abyss ofDivinity with a serene, a simple, and a jubilant intuition, free fromimagination and from the smallest admixture of the intellect. Accordingly, when she lovingly turns herself absolutely unto God, theincomprehensible light shines into her depths, and that radiance blindsthe eye of reason and understanding. But the simple eye of the soulitself remains open-that is thought, pure, naked, uniform, and raisedabove the understanding.Moreover, when the natural light of reason is blinded by so brighta glory, the soul takes cognizance of nothing in time, but is raisedabove time and space, and assumes as it were a certain attribute ofeternity. For the soul which has abandoned symbols and earthly distinctions and processes of thought, now learns experimentally that Godfar transcends all images-corporeal, spiritual, or divine, and thatwhatsoever the reason can apprehend, whatsoever can be said orwritten concerning God, whatsoever can be predicated of him bywords, must manifestly be infinitely remote from the reality of thedivine subsistence which is unnameable. The soul knows not, there- fore, what that God is she feels. Hence, by a foreknowledge whichis exercised without knowledge, she rests in the nude, the simple, thec. 3.] Notes. 351unknown God, who alone is to be loved. For the light is calleddark, from its excessive brightness. In this darkness the soul receivesthe hidden word which God utters in the inward silence and secretrecess of the mind. This word she receives, and doth happily experience the bond of mystical union. For when, by means of love, shehath transcended reason and all symbols, and is carried away aboveherself (a favour God alone can procure her) , straightway she flowsaway from herself and flows forth into God (a se defluens profluit inDeum), and then is God her peace andher enjoyment. Rightly doth shesing, in such a transport, ' I will both lay me down in peace andsleep.' The loving soul flows down, I say, falls away from herself,and, reduced as it were to nothing, melts and glides away altogetherinto the abyss of eternal love. There, dead to herself, she lives inGod, knowing nothing, perceiving nothing, except the love she tastes.For she loses herself in that vastest solitude and darkness of Divinity:but thus to lose is in fact to find herself. There, putting off whatsoeveris human, and putting on whatsoever is divine, she is transformed andtransmuted into God, as iron in a furnace takes the form of fire and istransmuted into fire. Nevertheless, the essence of the soul thus deifiedremains, as the glowing iron does not cease to be iron.....The soul, thus bathed in the essence ofGod, liquefied by the consuming fire of love, and united to Him without medium, doth, by wiseignorance and by the inmost touch of love, more clearly know God thando our fleshly eyes discern the visible sun.Though God doth sometimes manifest himself unto the perfect soulin most sublime and wondrous wise, yet he doth not reveal himself ashe is in his own ineffable glory, but as it is possible for him to be seenin this life. Isagoge Cord. cap. vii .BOOK II .NOTES TO CHAPTER III See Wilkins' Bagvat Gita, pp. 63-65. Ward, ii. 180. Also,Asiatic Researches, vol. xvii . pp. 169-313 , containing an account of theseYogis, by Horace Hayman Wilson. One sect, we are told, have awayofcontemplating Vishnu in miniature, by imagining the god in theirheart, about the size of an open hand, and so adoring him from top to352 [B. II . Notes.toe. In this gross conception of an indwelling deity these Hindoos doindeed exceed St. Theresa, who after swallowing the wafer conceives ofChrist as prisoner in her inwards, and, making her heart adoll's-house,calls it a temple. But beyond her, and beyond the Indians, too, insensuousness, are the Romanist stories of those saints in whom it isdeclared that a post mortem examination has disclosed the figure ofChrist, or the insignia of his passion, miraculously modelled in thechambers of the heart.2 Asiatic Researches , loc. cit. The worshipped principle ofHindooismis not love, but power. Certain objects are adored as containingdivine energy. The Guru is a representative and vehicle of divinepower-a God-ful man, and accordingly the most imperious of taskmasters. The prodigies of asceticism, so abundant in Indian fable, hadcommonly for their object the attainment of superhuman powers.Thus Taraki, according to the Siva Puran, stood a hundred years ontiptoe, lived a hundred years on air, a hundred on fire, &c. for thispurpose.-Notes to Curse ofKehama, p. 237.The following passage, cited by Ward, exhibits the subjective idealism of these Hindoos in its most daring absurdity. ' Let every onemeditate upon himself; let him be the worshipper and the worship.Whatever you see is but yourself, and father and mother are nonentities; you are the infant and the old man, the wise man and thefool, the male and the female; it is you who are drowned in thestream-you who pass over; you are the sensualist and the ascetic,the sick man and the strong; in short, whatsoever you see, that is you,as bubbles , surf, and billows are all but water.'6Now, there is an obvious resemblance between this idealism and thatof Fichte. The Indian and the German both ignore the notions formedfrom mere sensible experience; both dwell apart from experience, in aworld fashioned for themselves out of pure thought; both identifythought and being, subject and object. But here the likeness ends.The points of contrast are obvious. The Hindoo accepts as profoundest wisdom what would be an unfair caricature of the system ofFichte. The idealism of the Oriental is dreamy and passive; it dissolves his individuality; it makes him a particle, wrought now intothis, now into that, in the ever-shifting phantasmagoria of the universe; he has been, he may be, he, therefore, in a sense is, anythingand everything. Fichte's philosophy, on the contrary, rests altogetheron the intense activity on the autocracy of the Ego, which posits, orcreates, the Non-Ego. He says, ' The activity and passivity of theEgo are one and the same. For in as far as it does not posit a something in itself, it posits that something in the Non-Ego. Again, theactivity and passivity of the Non-Ego are one and the same. In as farC. 2.] Notes. 353as the Non-Ego works upon the Ego, and will absorb a something init, the Ego posits that very thing in the Non-Ego.' ( Grundlage dergesammten Wissenschaftslehre, § 3. Sämmtliche Werke, v. i. p. 177.)Action is all in all with him. God he calls a pure Action (reinesHandeln) , the life and principle of a supersensuous order of the worldjust as I am a pure Action, as a link in that order.' ( GerichtlicheVerantwortung gegen die Anklage des Atheismus, Werke, v. p. 261.) Chargedwith denying personality to God, Fichte replies that he only deniedhim that conditioned personality which belongs to ourselves-a denial,I suppose, in which we should all agree. The only God in his systemwhich is not an uninfluential abstraction is manifestly the Ego-thatis dilated to a colossal height, and deified. Pre-eminently anti-mystical as was the natural temperament of Fichte, here he opens a doorto the characteristic misconception of mysticism-the investiture ofour own notions and our own will with a divine authority or glory.He would say, ' The man of genius does think divine thoughts. Butthe manwho is unintelligible, who, in the very same province of purethought as that occupied by the true philosopher, thinks only at randomand incoherently; he is mistaken, I grant, in arrogating inspirationhim I call a mystic.' But of unintelligibility or incoherence what is tobe the test,-who is to be thejudge? In this anarchy of gods, numerous as thinkers, one deity must have as much divine right as another.There can be no appeal to experience, which all confessedly abandon;no appeal to facts , which each Ego creates after its own fashion foritself.BOOK III.NOTE TO CHAPTER I.Philo gives an account of the Therapeutæ referred to in the letter, inhis treatise De Vita Contemplativa.Passages corresponding with those contained in the letter contributed by Atherton, concerning the enmity of the flesh and the divinenature of the soul, are to be found in the works of Philo, Sacr. Leg.Alleg. lib. iii. p. 101 (ed. Mangey); lib. ii. p. 64; De eo quod det. potioriinsid. soleat, pp. 192, 208.Philo's interpretation of the scriptural account concerning Babelis contained in the De Confus. Linguarum, p. 424. His exposition ofVOL. I. AA354 [B. III. Notes.Gen. i. 9, illustrates the same principle, Sacr. Leg. Alleg. lib. i. p. 54;so of Gen. xxxvii . 12; De eo quod pot. p. 192.Eusebius shows us how Eleazar and Aristobulus must have preparedthe way for Philo in this attempt to harmonize Judaism with theletters and philosophy of Greece. Præp. Evang. lib. viii. 9, 10.NOTES TO CHAPTER II.I The testimony of Cicero and Iamblichus may be received as indicating truly the similarity of spirit between Pythagoras and Plato,-their common endeavour to escape the sensuous, and to realize in contemplative abstraction that tranquillity, superior to desire and passion,which assimilated men to gods. The principles of both degenerated,in the hands of their latest followers, into the mysteries of a theurgicfreemasonry. The scattered Pythagoreans were, many of them, incorporated in the Orphic associations, and their descendants were thoseitinerant venders of expiations and of charms-the ἀγύρται of whomPlato speaks (Repub. ii. p. 70)-the Grecian prototypes of Chaucer'sPardonere. Similarly, in the days of Iamblichus, the charlatans glorified themselves as the offspring of Plato.2 Clement of Alexandria gives a full account of the various storiesrespecting this idol, Protrept c. iv. p. 42 (ed. Potter); moreover anetymology and legend to match, Strom. lib. i. p. 383 .Certain sorts of wood and metal were supposed peculiarly appropriate to certain deities. The art of the theurgist consisted partly inascertaining the virtues of such substances; and it was supposed thatstatues constructed of a particular combination of materials, correspondent with the tastes and attributes of the deity represented, possessed a mysterious influence attracting the Power in question, andinducing him to take up his residence within the image. Iamblichuslays down this principle of sympathy in the treatise De Mysteriis , v.23, p. 139 (ed. Gale, 1678). Kircher furnishes a description of thisstatue of Serapis, Edip. Ægypt. i. 139.3 See Histoire de l'Ecole d'Alexandrie, par M. Jules Simon, tom. i.p. 99.4 This imaginary fragment from Ammonius Saccas is, I believe, trueto what seems fairly inferred concerning his teaching. See Brucker,ii . p. 211; and Jules Simon, i. 205; ii . 668 .Plotinus appears to have been indebted to Numenius even more thanto Ammonius or Potamon for some of the ideas peculiar to his system.The modicum of information concerning Numenius which Eusebius hashanded down shows that this Platonist anticipated the characteristicdoctrine of Neo-Platonism concerning the Divine Being. Like theC. 2. ] Notes. 355Neo-Platonist he pursued philosophical inquiry in a religious spirit,imploring, as Plotinus does, divine illumination. He endeavoured toharmonize Pythagoras and Plato, to elucidate and confirm the opinionsofboth by the religious dogmas of the Egyptians, the Magi, and theBrahmins, and, like many of the Christian Fathers, he believed thatPlato stood indebted to the Hebrew as well as to the Egyptian theologyfor much of his wisdom. He was pressed by the same great difficultywhich weighed upon Plotinus. How could the immutable One createthe Manifold without self-degradation? He solved it in a mannersubstantially the same. His answer is-by means of a hypostaticemanation. He posits in the Divine Nature three principles in a descending scale. His order of existence is as follows: -I. God, the Absolute.II. The Demiurge; he is the Artificer, in a sense, the imitator of theformer. He contemplates matter, his eye ordains and upholds it, yethe is himself separate from it, since matter contains a concupiscentprinciple, is fluctuating, and philosophically non-existent. TheDemiurge is the ἀρχὴ γενέσεως, and good; for goodness is the originalprinciple of Being. The second Hypostasis, engaged in the contemplation of matter, does not attain the serene self-contemplation ofthe First.III. Substance or Essence, of a twofold character, corresponding tothe two former.The Universe is a copy of this third Principle.This not very intelligible theory, which of course increases insteadof lessening the perplexity in which the Platonists were involved,though differing in detail from that of Plotinus, proceeds on the sameprinciple;-the expedient, namely, of appending to the One certainsubordinate hypostases to fill the gap between it and the Manifold.(See, on his opinions, Euseb. Præp. Evang. lib. viii. p. 411 (ed. Viger);lib . xi. c. 18, p. 537; capp. 21 , 22 , and lib. xv. c. 17 .5 See Jules Simon, ii. pp. 626, &c.6 See Note 3 to chap. iii.7 The statements made in this and the preceding paragraph, and thereasons adduced by Plotinus in support of them, will be found in thefifth Ennead, lib. v. c. 1. He assumes at once that the mind must be,from its very nature, the standard of certitude. He asks, (p. 519)Πῶς γὰρ ἂν ἔτι νοῦς, ἀνοηταίνων εἴη; δεῖ ἄρα αὐτὸν ἀεὶ ἐιδέναι καὶ μὴ δ᾽ ἂν ἐπιλαθέσθαί ποτε. He urges that if Intelligibles were without the mindit could possess but images of them; its knowledge, thus mediate,would be imperfect, p. 521. Truth consists in the harmony of themind with itself. Καὶ γὰρ αὐ, οὕτως οὐδ᾽ ἀποδείξεως δεῖ, οὐδὲ πίστεως· ὅτιοὕτως. αὐτὸς γὰρ οὕτως. καὶ ἐναργὴς αὐτὸς αὐτῷ. καὶ εἴ τι πρὸ αὐτοῦ, ὅτι ἐξAA2356 Notes. [B. III.αὐτοῦ, καὶ εἴ τι μετ᾿ ἐκεῖνο, ὅτι αὐτός. καὶ οὐδεὶς πιστότερος αὐτῷ περὶαὐτοῦ.καὶ ὅτι, ἐκεῖ τοῦτο, καὶ ὄντως. ὥστε καὶ ἡ ὄντως ἀλήθεια, οὐ συμφωνοῦσα ἄλλῳ,ἀλλ᾽ ἑαυτῇ. καὶ οὐδὲν παρ᾿ αὐτὴν ἄλλο λέγει καὶ ἔστι. καὶ ὃ ἔστι τοῦτο καὶλέγει, ρ. 522.8 Enn. iii . lib. v. capp. 2 & 7. There the gardens of Jove and Porus,with his plenty, are said to be allegorical representations of the intellectual food of a soul nourished and delighted by the truths of Reason.Poverty, again, with its sense of need, is the source of intellectualdesire. Comp. Plato, Symp. p. 429 (Bekk.)9 Plotinus and his successors are the model of the Pseudo-Dionysius inhis language concerning the Deity. Of his abstract primal principleneither being nor life can be predicated; he is above being and abovelife. Enn. iii . lib. 8, c. 9. But man by simplifying his nature to theutmost possible extent may become lost in this Unity. In Enn. v. lib.5, c. 8, the mind of the contemplative philosopher is described as illumined with a divine light. He cannot tell whence it comes or whitherit goes. It is rather he himself who approaches or withdraws. Hemust not pursue it (οὐ χρὴ διώκειν) but abide (a true Quietist) in patient waiting, as one looking for the rising of the sun out of the ocean. Thesoul, blind to all beside, gazes intently on the ideal vision of theBeautiful, and is glorified as it contemplates it-ἐκεῖ ἑαυτὸν πᾶς τρέπων καὶ διδοὺς, στὰς δὲ καὶ οἷον πληρωθεὶς μένους, εἶδε μὲν τὰ πρῶτα καλλίωγενόμενον ἑαυτὸν, καὶ ἐπιστίλβοντα ὡς ἐγγὺς ὄντος αὐτοῦ.But this is only a preliminary stage of exaltation. The Absolute, orthe One has no parts; all things partake of him, nothing possesseshim; to see him partially is an impossibility, a contradiction, if weimagine we recognise a portion he is far from us yet,-to see himmediately (δι' ἑτέρων) is to behold his traces, not himself. "Ὅταν μὲνὁρᾶς ὁλον βλέπε. But, asks Plotinus, is not seeing him wholly identitywith him? cap. 10.The mystical aspirant is directed therefore to leave the glorifiedimage of himself, radiant with the transforming effulgence ofBeauty,to escape from his individual self by withdrawing into his own unity,wherein he becomes identified with the Infinite One-εἰς ἓν αὑτῷ ἐλθὼν,καὶ μήκετι σχίσας, ἓν ὁμοῦ πάντα ἐστὶ μετ᾿ ἐκείνου τοῦ θεοῦ, ἀψοφητὶ παρόντος.Retreating into the inmost recesses of his own being, he there ἔχει πᾶν,καὶ ἀφεὶς τὴν αἴσθησιν εἰς τ᾽ ουπίσω, τοῦ ἕτερος εἶναι φόβῳ, εἷς ἐστιν ἐκεῖ.No language could more clearly express the doctrine of identity-the object seen and the subject seeing are one. Plotinus triumphantlyasks-πῶς οὖν ἔσται τίς ἐν καλῷ, μὴ ὁρῶν αὐτό; ἢ ὁρῶν αὐτὸ ὡς ἕτερον,οὐδέπω ἐν καλῷ· γενόμενος δὲ αὐτὸ, οὕτω μάλιστα ἐν καλῷ· εἰ οὖν ὅρασις τοῦἔξω, ὅρασιν μὲν οὐ δεῖ εἶναι, ἢ οὕτως ὡς ταὐτὸν τῷ ὁρατῷ. Ibid. pp. 552-3.10 Enn. i. lib. 3. c. 1 .c. 3.] Notes. 357NOTES TO CHAPTER III.I See Schelling's System des Transcendentalen Idealismus, pp. 19-23(Tübingen, 1800) , and Chalybæus, Hist. Entw. d. Spec. Phil. p. 244.2 Aids to Reflection, pp. 225, 249. The reader is referred to a discriminating criticism of this doctrine in the British Quarterly Review,No. xxxvii.3 M. Simon has shown, with much acuteness, in what way the exigencies of the system of Plotinus compelled him to have recourse to anew faculty, distinct from reason.Plotinus perceived that Plato had not been true to the consequencesof his own dialectics. When he had reached the summit of his logicalabstraction, had passed through definition after definition, each moreintangible than the last, on his way upward towards the One, hearrived at last at a God who was above Being itself. From this resulthe shrank, and so ceased to be consistent. How could such aGod beaGod of Providence, such a shadow of a shade a creator? Plato wasnot prepared, like Plotinus, to soar so completely above experience andthe practical as to accept the utmost consequences of his logical process. So, that his God might be still the God of Providence, he retained him within the sphere of reason, gave him Being, Thought,Power, and called him the Demiurge. When Plotinus, like a trueeclectic, carried still farther his survey of what history afforded him,he found Aristotle postulating a Deity so restricted by his ownabstraction and immutability as to render it impossible to associatewith his nature the idea of superintendence. It was feared that torepresent God as the God of Creation and of Providence would be todualize him. And yet the world did exist. How were the serene andremote Unity demanded by logic, and that activity and contact withmatter no less imperatively demanded for God by experience, to bereconciled with each other? It is scarcely necessary to observe thatthere was no real difficulty. The whole problem was the result ofthe notion, so universal, concerning the evil of matter, and of thewrong answer given by ancient philosophy to the vexed questionDoes the Supreme work τῷ εἶναι, οἱ τῷ βούλεσθαι? Philosophy maintained the former; the Christian Church the latter. To remove thisobstacle which philosophy had itself constructed, Plotinus proposedhis theory of these hypostases in the Divine Nature. Above andbeyond aGod such as that of Plato, he places another like that ofAristotle, and above him a simple Unity, like the God of the Eleatics.The last was the ultimatum of the process of logical simplification-asomething above being. But the hypothesis was destitute of proof-it358 [B. III.Notes.was, in fact, contrary to reason. Plotinus must therefore eithersurrender his theory or bid farewell to reason. He chose the lattercourse. He does not deny the important services of reason, but heprofesses to transcend its limits. He calls in mysticism to substantiate,by the doctrines of Illumination and Identity, his imaginary God.He affirms a God beyond reason, and then a faculty beyond reason todiscern that God withal.This attempt to solve the problem in question is of course a failure.It is still more open than the system of Plato to Aristotle's objection,that it resembled the expedient of an arithmetician who shouldendeavour to simplify a calculation he found perplexing by takingstill higher figures. Plotinus does not explain what he means by aHypostasis. If the Hypostases in his Trinity have reality, the idealunity he is so anxious to preserve in the Divine Nature is after alldestroyed. If they have not, the gap between the One and theManifold is still without a bridge, and the difficulty they are introducedto remove remains in effect where it was. If this hypothesis had madeno part of the system of Plotinus, the great occasion for the doctrineof Ecstasy and the most powerful internal inducement to mysticismwould have been wanting. The philosopher escapes from hislabyrinth by borrowing the wings of the mystic. See Jules Simon,tom. i. pp. 63 , 84; ii . 462.NOTES TO CHAPTER IV.1 J. Simon, i. 154; ii. 173 .2 Ibid. liv. iii. chap. 4.3 Iamblichus de Mysteriis , sect. x. cc. 1 , 4, 6; iii . 4, 8, 6, 24; i. 5, 6;ii. 3; iii. 31; ii. 4, 6, 7; iii . 1 , 3. These passages, in the order given,will be found to correspond with the opinions expressed in the letteras those of Iamblichus.The genuineness of the treatise De Mysteriis has been called inquestion, but its antiquity is undoubted. It differs only in one or twovery trivial statements from the doctrines of Iamblichus as ascertained from other sources , and is admitted by all to be the production,if not of Iamblichus himself, of one of his disciples, probably writingunder his direction. Jules Simon , ii . 219 .For the opinions ascribed to Porphyry in this letter, see his Epistolaad Anebonem, passim. He there proposes a series of difficult questions,and displays that sceptical disposition, especially concerning the pretensions of Theurgy, which so much scandalized Iamblichus. TheDe Mysteriis is an elaborate reply to that epistle, under the name ofAbammon.c. 4.] Notes.359In several passages of the De Mysteriis (ii. 11; V. 1 , 2, 3, 7; vi. 6)Iamblichus displays much anxiety lest his zeal for Theurgy shouldlead him to maintain any position inconsistent with the reverence dueto the gods. He was closely pressed on this weak point by theobjections of Porphyry. (Ep. ad Anebon. 5, 6.) His explanation inreply is , that the deities are not in reality drawn down by the merehuman will of the Theurgist, but that man is raised to a participationin the power of the gods. The approximation is real, but the apparentdescent of divinity is in fact the ascent of humanity. By his longcourse of preparation, by his knowledge of rites and symbols, ofpotent hymns, and of the mysterious virtues of certain herbs andminerals, the Theurgist is supposed to rise at last to the rank of anassociate with celestial powers; their knowledge and their will becomehis, and he controls inferior natures with the authority of the godsthemselves.Iamblichus supposes, moreover, that there is an order of powers inthe world, irrational and undiscerning, who are altogether at thebidding of man when by threats or conjurations he chooses to compelthem. De Myst. vi. 5.4 Jules Simon, ii. 218.BOOK IV.NOTES TO CHAPTER I.I Athanasii Opp. Vita S. Antonii. The vision alluded to is relatedp. 498.2 Poiret, Bibliotheca Mysticorum, p. 95. Macarius gives great prominence to the doctrine of Union-describes the streaming in of theHypostatic Light-how the spiritual nature is all-pervaded by the glory, and even the body is not so gross as to be impenetrable by thedivine radiance. Some centuries later we find the monks of Mount Athosprofessing to discern this supernatural effulgence illuminating theirstomachs. Gass, Die Mystik des N. Cabasilas, p. 56.3 In the year 533 the books of Dionysius were cited by the Severians,and their genuineness called in question by the bishop because neitherAthanasius nor Cyril had made any allusion to them. Acta Concil.Hard. ii. p. 1159.360 Notes [B. IV..NOTES TO CHAPTER II.I For the passages authenticating this account, see Dion. Areop. Opp .as follows:-(1.) De Div. Nom. c. iv. § 1; v. 3,6, 8; vi. 2, 3; i. 1. De Eccl. Hier.i. 3.(2.) De Cœl. Hier. i. 2, 3; iv. 3, 4; vii. De Eccl. Hier. i. 1; X. 3.The resemblance of this whole process to the Proodos and Epistropheof Plotinus is sufficiently obvious.(3.) De Div. Nom. iv. 20, p. 488. The chase after evil runs throughsections 24-34. He sums up in one place thus:-' In a word, goodsprings from the sole and complete cause, but evil from many andpartial defects. God knows the evil as good, and with him the causesof things evil are beneficent powers.' Proclus seeks escape from thehopeless difficulty in precisely the same way.Concerning the Via negativa and affirmativa, see De Div. Nom. i. 1 , 5,4; De Cœl. Hier. xv.; and De Myst. Theol. i. 2, 3.(4.) Ibid. Also, Ep. ad. Dorotheum; De Myst. Theol. iii. pp. 714,721.2 See Meier, Dionysii Areop. et Mysticorum sæculi xiv. doctrinæ interse comparantur.' He remarks justly ' causæ ad Causatum relationemcum relatione generis ad speciem confudit.' p. 13 .3 The hyper and the a privative are in constant requisition withDionysius. He cannot suffer any ordinary epithet to go alone, andmany of his adjectives march pompously, attended by a hyper on oneside and a superlative termination on the other.4 The later Greek theology modified the most objectionable parts ofthe Dionysian doctrine, while continuing to reverence him as a Father.See Ullmann's Nicholas von Methone.5Aristot. Eth. Nic. lib. x. c. 8. Aristotle extols contemplation, because it does not require means and opportunity, as do the socialvirtues, generosity, courage, &c. Plotinus lays still more stress on hisdistinction between the mere political virtues-which constitute simplya preparatory, purifying process, and the superior, or exemplarythose divine attainments whereby man is united with God. Aquinasadopts this classification, and distinguishes the virtues as exemplares ,purgatoriæ, andpolitice. He even goes so far as to give to each of thecardinal virtues a contemplative and ascetic turn; designating Prudence, in its highest exercise, as contempt for all things worldly;Temperance is abstraction from the sensuous; Fortitude, courage insustaining ourselves in the aerial regions of contemplation, remote fromthe objects ofsense; Justice, the absolute surrender ofthe spirit to this1C. 2.] Notes. 361law of its aspiration. He argues, that as man's highest blessedness is abeatitude surpassing the limits of human nature, he can be preparedfor it only by having added to that nature certain principles from thedivine;-such principles are the theological or superhuman virtues ,Faith, Hope, and Charity. See Münscher's Dogmengeschichte, 2 Abth.2 Absch. § 136.In consequence of the separation thus established between thehuman and the divine, we shall find the mystics of the fourteenth century representing regeneration almost as a process of dehumanization,and as the substitution of a divine nature for the human in the subjectofgrace. No theologians could have been further removed from Pelagianism; few more forgetful than these ardent contemplatists thatdivine influence is vouchsafed, not to obliterate and supersede ournatural capacities by some almost miraculous faculty, but to restoreand elevate man's nature, to realise its lost possibilities, and to consecrate it wholly, in body and soul-not in spirit, merely to theservice of God.With one voice both schoolmen and mystics would reason thus:-' Is not heaven the extreme opposite of this clouded, vexed, and sensuous life? Then we approach its blessedness most nearly by a lifethe most contrary possible to the secular,-by contemplation, by withdrawment, by total abstraction from sense.'This is one view of our best preparation for the heavenly world. Atthe opposite pole stands Behmen's doctrine, far less dangerous, and tobe preferred if we must have an extreme, viz. , that the believer is virtually in the heavenly state already-that eternity should be to us astime, and time as eternity.Between these two stands the scriptural teaching. St. Paul doesnot attempt to persuade himself that earth is heaven, that faith issight, that hope is fruition. He groans here, being burdened; helongs to have done with shortcoming and with conflict; to enter onthe vision face to face, on the unhindered service of the state of glory.But he does not deem it the best preparation for heaven to mimic uponearth an imaginary celestial repose, he will rather labour to-day hisutmost at the work to-day may bring, he will fight the good fight, hewill finish his course, and then receive the crown.362 Notes [B. v..BOOK V.NOTES TO CHAPTER I.I The writings of Augustine handed Neo-Platonism down to posterity as the original and esoteric doctrine of the first followers ofPlato. He enumerates the causes which led, in his opinion, to thenegative position assumed by the Academics, and to the concealmentof their real opinions. He describes Plotinus as a resuscitated Plato.-Contra Academ. iii. 17-20.He commends Porphyry for his measure of scepticism as regardsTheurgy, and bestows more than due praise on the doctrine ofIllumination held by Plotinus, for its similarity to the Christian truth concerning divine grace.-De Civitate Dei, Χ. 10; Χ. 2.He gives a scale of the spiritual degrees of ascent to God, formedafter the Platonist model (the ἐπαναβαθμοὶ of the Symposium), and sofurnished a precedent for all the attempts of a similar kind in whichscholastic mysticism delighted to exercise its ingenuity.-De QuantitateAnime, c. 35.He enumerates three kinds of perception, corporeal, intellectual(scientia), and spiritual (sapientia); and in describing the last uses thewords introrsum ascendere (De Trin. xii. 15; and comp. De Lib. Arbit.ii. 12) . But this phrase does not appear to have carried, withAugustine, the sense it bore when gladly adopted by mystical divinesof the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. He says elsewhere thatman, like the prodigal, must come to himself before he can arise and goto his Father, (Retract. i. 8.) Here what the wanderer finds within isthe voice of conscience, and in this sense it is quite true that the stepinward is a step upward. But it is not true that the inmost is the highestin the sense that man is able by abstraction and introspection to discover within himself a light which shall supersede, or supplement, oreven supply the place of external Revelation.2 John Scotus Erigena. This remarkable man began to teach in theSchool of the Palace,' under Charles the Bald, about the middle ofthe ninth century. He translated Dionysius, took part in the Gottschalk controversy, and, at last, when persecuted for the freedom of hisopinions, found a refuge with Alfred the Great.Erigena idolizes Dionysius and his commentator Maximus. Неbelieves in their hierarchies, their divine Dark, and supreme Nothing.C. I.] Notes. 363He declares, with them, that God is the essence of all things. Ipsenamque omnium essentia est qui solus vere est, ut ait Dionysius Areopagita. Esse, inquit, omnium est Superesse Divinitatis. De Div. Nat.i. 3, p. 443, (Jo. Scoti Opp. Paris, 1853.)But though much of the language is retained, the doctrine of Dionysius has assumed aform altogether new in the brain of the Scotchman.The phraseology of the emanation theory is , henceforth, only metaphor.What men call creation is, with Erigena, a necessary and eternal selfunfolding (analysis , he calls it) of the divine nature. As all things arenow God, self-unfolded, so, in the final restitution , all things will beresolved into God, self-withdrawn. Not the mind of man merely, asthe Greek thought, but matter and all creatures will be reduced totheir primordial causes, and God be manifested as all in all. De Div.Nat. i . 72. Postremo universalis creatura Creatori adunabitur, et eritin ipso et cum ipso unum. Et hic est finis omnium visibilium et invisibilium, quoniam omnia visibilia in intelligibilia, et intelligibiliain ipsum Deum transibunt, mirabili et ineffabili adunatione, nonautem, ut sæpe diximus, essentiarum aut substantiarum confusioneaut interitu-v. 20, p. 894. In this restitution, the elect are united toGodwith a degree of intimacy peculiar to themselves-v. 39. The agentof this restoration, both for beings above and below mankind, is theIncarnate Word-v. 25, p. 913. Erigena regards our incarceration inthe body, and the distinction of sex, as the consequence of sin. Heabandons the idea of a sensuous hell. What is termed the fire of hell iswith him a principle or law to which both the good and evil are subject, which wickedness assimilates and makes a torment; goodness, ablessing. So, he says, the light is grateful to the sound eye, painful tothe diseased; and thefood which is welcome to health is loathed bysickness. De Predestinatione, cap. xvii. p. 428. This idea, in whichthere lies assuredly an element of truth, became a favourite one withthe mystics, and re-appears in many varieties of mysticism. Erigena,farther, anticipates Kant in regarding time and space as mere modesof conception peculiar to our present state. He himself is much morerationalist than mystic (except in the fanciful interpretations ofScripture to which he is compelled to resort); but his system was developed, three centuries later, into an extreme and revolutionary mysticism.The combination of Platonism and Christianity, so often attempted,abandoned, and renewed, assumes five distinct phases.I. In the East, with Dionysius; dualistic, with real and ideal worldsapart, removing man far from God by an intervening chain of hierarchic emanations.II. In the West, with Scotus Erigena; abandoning emanation for364 [B. V. Notes.ever, and taking up instead the idea to which the Germans give thename of Immanence. God regarded more as the inner life and vitalsubstratum of the universe, than as radiating it from a far-off point ofabstraction.III. In the thirteenth century, at Paris, with Amalric of Bena andDavid of Dinant. They pronounce God the material, essential causeof all things, not the efficient cause merely. The Platonic identification of the velle and the esse in God. David and his sect blend withtheir pantheism the doctrine that under the coming new dispensation-that of the Holy Ghost-all believers are to regard themselves asincarnations of God, and to dispense (as men filled with the Spirit)with all sacraments and external rites . They carry the spiritualizingtendency of Erigena to a monstrous extreme, claim special revelation ,declare the real resurrection accomplished in themselves, and that theyare already in heaven, which they regard as a state and not a place.They maintain that the good are sufficiently rewarded and the badadequately punished by the blessedness or the privation they inwardlyexperience in time,-in short, that retribution is complete on this sidethe grave, and heavy woes, accordingly, will visit corrupt Christendom.The practical extravagance of this pantheism was repeated, in thefourteenth century, by fanatical mystics among the lower orders.IV. With Eckart, who reminds us of Plotinus. The ' Intuition' ofPlotinus is Eckart's ' Spark of the Soul,' the power whereby we cantranscend the sensible, the manifold, the temporal, and merge ourselves in the changeless One. At the height of this attainment, themystic of Plotinus and the mystic of Eckart find the same God,-thatis, the same blank abstraction, above being and above attributes. Butwith Plotinus such escape from finite consciousness is possible only incertain favoured intervals of ecstasy. Eckart, however (whose verypantheism is the exaggeration of a Christian truth beyond the range ofPlotinus) , will have man realize habitually his oneness with the Infinite.According to him, if a man by self-abandonment attains this consciousness, God has realized Himself within him-has brought forth hisSon-has evolved his Spirit. Such a man's knowledge of God isGod's knowledge of Himself. For all spirit is one. To distinguishbetween the divine ground of the soul and the Divinity is to disintegrate the indivisible Universal Spirit is to be far from God-is tostand on the lower ground of finite misconception, within the limitsof transitory Appearance. The true child of God ' breaksthrough' suchdistinction to the Oneness.' Thus, creation and redemption are resolved into a necessary process the evolution and involution ofGodhead. Yet this form of mediæval pantheism appears to advantagewhenwe compare it with that of ancient or of modern times. TheC. I.] Notes. 365pantheism of the Greek took refuge in apathy from Fate. The pantheism of the present day is a plea for self-will. But that of Eckartis half redeemed by a sublime disinterestedness, a confiding abnegationof all choice or preference, which betrays the presence of a measure ofChristian element altogether inconsistent with the basis of his philosophy.V. With Tauler and the ' German Theology.' This is the best, indisputably, of all the forms assumed by the combination in question.The Platonism is practically absorbed in the Christianity. Taulerspeaks of the ideal existence of the soul in God-of the loss of ournameless Ground in the unknown Godhead, and we find language inthe Theologia Germanica concerning God as the substance of allthings-concerning the partial and the Perfect, the manifold and theOne, which might be pantheistically construed. But such interpretation would be most unfair, and is contradicted by the whole tenourboth of the sermons and the treatise. An apprehension of the natureof sin so searching and profound asthat in the ' Theology,' is impossibleto pantheism. Luther could see therein only most Christian theism.These mystics still employed some of the terms transmitted by a revered philosophy. Tauler cites with deference the names of Dionysius,Proclus, and Plotinus. This mysticism clothes its thought with fragments from the old philosopher's cloak-but the heart and body belongto the school of Christ. With Dionysius, and even with Erigena, manseems to need but a process of approximation to the divine subsistence-a rise in the scale of being by becoming quantitatively ratherthan qualitatively more. With the German mystics he must be altogether unmade and born anew. To shift from one degree of illumination to another somewhat higher, is nothing in their eyes, for the needlies not in the understanding, but in heart and will. Accordingtothem, man must stand virtually in heaven or hell-be God's or thedevil's. The Father of our spirits is not relegated from men by ecclesiastical or angelic functionaries, but nearer to every one, clerk or lay,gentle or simple, than he is to himself. So the exclusiveness and thefrigid intellectualism so characteristic of the ancient ethnic philosophy,has vanished from the Teutonic mysticism. Plato helps rather thanharms by giving a vantage ground and defence to the more true andsubjective, as opposed to a merely institutional Christianity.Both Eckart and the Theologia Germanica would have man ' breakthrough' and transcend ' distinction. But it is true, with slight exception, that the distinctions Eckart would escape are natural; thosewhich the Theology' would surpass, for the most part artificial. Theasceticism of both is excessive. The self-reduction of Eckart is, however, more metaphysical than moral; that of the ' Theology ' moral366 [B. v.Notes.essentially. Both would say, the soul of the regenerate man is onewith God-cannot be separated from Him. But only Eckart wouldsay, such soul is not distinct from God. Both would essay to pass fromthe Nature to the Being of God-from his manifested Existence to hisEssence, and they both declare that our nature has its being in thedivine. But such assertion, with Tauler and the Theologia Germanica,by no means deifies man. It is but the Platonic expression of a greatChristiandoctrine-the real Fatherhood of God.3 Vita, ii. cap. v.4 See the account of his diet, and of the feebleness and sicknessconsequent on his austerities, by the same biographer (Alanus), Vitaii . cap. x. , in the Paris reprint of 1839, from the Benedictine editionof Bernard, tom. ii . p. 2426. John Eremita describes the devil's visitto Bernard, ut ungeret sandalia sua secundum consuetudinem,' andrelates the rebuke of the proud monk who would not wash the scutellæin the kitchen.-Vita, iv. p. 2508 .5 Vita, ii. caр. х. 32.6 Ерр. сх. , схі.7 Chronologia Bernardina, Opp. tom. i. p. 83.8 Epist. cxli.9 De Consideratione, IV. iii . 7, and II. vi. 11 , pp. 1028 and 1060.10 Epist. ccclxv. to the Archbishop of Mayence, against the fanaticRudolph.11 He thus distinguishes Faith, Intellection, and Opinion. Fidesest voluntaria quædamet certa prælibatio necdum propalatæ veritatis.Intellectus est rei cujuscumque invisibilis certa et manifesta notitia.Opinio est quasi pro vero habere aliquid, quod falsum esse nescias.Quid igitur distat (fides) ab intellectu?, Nempe quod etsi non habetincertum non magis quam intellectus, habet tamen involucrum, quodnon intellectus....... Nil autem malumus scire, quam quæ fide jamscimus. Nil supererit ad beatitudinem, cum quæjam certa sunt nobis,erunt æqueet nuda.-De Consideratione, V. 4, p. 1075.12 Itaque tum per totam fere Galliam in civitatibus , vicis, et castellis ,a scholaribus, non solum intra scholas, sed etiam triviatim; nec alitteratis, aut provectis tantum, sed a pueris et simplicibus, aut certestultis, de sancta Trinitate, quæ Deus est, disputaretur, &c. Epist.337, and comp. Epist. 332. Bernard at first refused to encounterAbelard, not simply because from his inexperience in such combats hewas little fitted to cope with that dialectic Goliath-a man of warfrom his youth-but because such discussions were in themselves, hethought, an indignity to the faith.-Epist. 189. Abelard he denouncesas wrong, not only in his heretical results, but in principle, Cum earatione nititur explorare, quæ pia mens fidei vivacitate apprehendit.C. I.] Notes. 367Fides piorum credit, non discutit. Sed iste Deum habens suspectum,credere non vult, nisi quod prius ratione discusserit.-Epist. 338 .13 In the eyes both of Anselm and Bernard, to deny the reality ofIdeas is to cut off our only escape from the gross region of sense.Neither faith nor reason have then left them any basis of operation.We attain to truth only through the medium of Ideas, by virtue of ouressential relationship to the Divine Source of Ideas-the InfiniteTruth. That Supreme Truth which gives to existing things theirreality is also the source of true thoughts in our minds. Thus, ourknowledge is an illumination dependent on the state of the hearttowards God. On this principle all doubt must be criminal, and everyheresy the offspring, not of a bewildered brain, but of a wicked heart.The fundamental maxim of the mediæval religio-philosophy-Invisibilia non decipiunt, was fertile in delusions. It led men to reject, asuntrustworthy, the testimony of sense and of experience. Thus, in thetransubstantiation controversy of the ninth century, Realism andSuperstition conquered together. It taught them to deduce all knowledge from certain mental abstractions, Platonic Ideas and AristotelianForms. Thus Bonaventura (who exhibits this tendency at its height)resolves all science into union with God. The successive attainmentof various kinds of knowledge is, in his system, an approximation,stage above stage, to God-a scaling of the heights of Illumination, aswe are more closely united with the Divine Word-the repertory ofIdeas. Thus, again, the Scriptures were studied by the schoolmen lessas a practical guide for the present life than as so much materialwhence they might deduce metaphysical axioms and propositionsdiscover more of those divine abstractions which they regarded as theseminal principles of all thought and all existence. They were constantly mistaking results which could only have been attained by reve..lation or tradition from without, for truth evolved from within thedepths of the finite mind, by virtue of its immediate commerce with theInfinite. Anselm found no difficulty in assuming that the God ofhisontological proof was identical with the God of the Bible.14 Thus, speaking of the angelic state, he says, Creatura cœli illaest, præsto habens per quod ista intueatur. Videt Verbum, et in Verbofacta per Verbum. Nec opus habet ex his quæ facta sunt, factorisnotitiam mendicare. De Consid. V. i. , and comp. Serm. in Cantica,v. 4.The three kinds of meditation, or stages of Christian proficiencyreferred to in the text, Bernard calls consideratio dispensativa, æstimativa, and speculativa. The last is thus defined:-Speculativa estconsideratio se in se colligens, et, quantum divinitus adjuvatur, rebushumanis eximens ad contemplandum Deum. He who reaches it is368 [B. V. Notes.among the greatest in the Kingdom ofHeaven. At omnium maximus,qui spreto ipso usu rerum et sensuum, quantum quidem humanæfragilitati fas est, non ascensoriis gradibus, sed inopinatis excessibus,avolare interdum contemplando ad illa sublimia consuevit. Ad hocultimum genus illos pertinere reor excessus Pauli. Excessus nonascensus: nam raptum potius fuisse, quam ascendisse ipse se perhibet.De Consid. v. ii. In one of the Sermons on the Canticles, Bernarddiscourses at more length on this kind of exaltation. Proinde et egonon absurde sponsæ exstasim vocaverim mortem, quæ tamen non vita,sed vitæ eripiat laqueis... Excedente quippe anima, etsi non vitacerte vitæ sensu, necesse est etiam ut nec vitæ tentatis sentiatur.Utinam hac morte frequenter cadam. Bona mors, quæ vitam nonaufert, sed transfert in melius; bona, qua non corpus cadit, sed animasublevatur. Verum hæc hominum est. Sed moriatur anima meamorte etiam si dici potest, Angelorum, ut presentium memoria excedens, rerum se inferiorum corporearumque non modo cupiditatibus,sed et similitudinibus exuat. Talis, ut opinor, excessus, aut tantum,aut maxime contemplatio dicitur. Rerum etenim cupiditatibus vivendonon teneri, humanæ virtutis est; corporum vero similitudinibus specиlando non involvi, angelicæ puritatis est.. Profecisti , separasti te;sed nondum elongasti, nisi et irruentia undique phantasmata corporearum similitudinum transvolare mentis puritate prævaleas. Hucusque noli tibi promittere requiem. In Cantica, Serm. lii. 4, 5.15 Fateor et mihi adventasse Verbum, in insipientia dico, et pluries.Cumque sæpius intraverit ad me, non sensi aliquoties cum intravit.Adesse sensi , adfuisse recordor, interdum et præsentiæ potui introitumejus, sentire nunquam, sed ne exitum quidem... Qua igitur introivit?An forte nec introivit quidem, quia non deforis venit? Neque enim estunum aliquid ex iis que foris sunt. Porro nec deintra me venitquoniambonum est, et scio quoniam non est in me bonum. Ascendietiam superius meum: et ecce supra hoc Verbum eminens. Ad inferius quoque meum curiosus explorator descendi: et nihilominus infrainventum est. Si foras aspexi , extra omne exterius meum comperiillud esse: si vero intus, et ipsum interius erat. Ita igiturintrans ad me aliquoties Verbum sponsus, nullis unquam introitumsuum indiciis innotescere fecit, non voce, non specie, non incessu.Nullis denique suis motibus compertum est mihi, nullis meis sensibusillapsum penetralibus meis: tantum ex motu cordis, sicut præfatussum, intellexi præsentiam ejus; et ex fuga vitiorum carnaliumquecompressione affectuum, &c. In Cantica, Serm. Ixxiv. 5, 6. Themetaphors of Bernard are actual sounds, sights, and fragrances withSt. Theresa. From this sensuous extreme his practical devotion is asfar removed, on the one side, as from the cold abstraction of DionysiusC. I.] Notes. 369on the other. His contemplation is no staring at the Divine Essencetill we are blind-no oblivion or disdain of outward means. WeseeGod, he says, not as He is, but as He wills sicuti vult non sicuti est.So, when describing that ascent of the soul to God, or descent of Godinto the soul , which constitutes Union, he says, in Spiritu fit ista conjunctio. Non ergo sic affecta et sic dilecta (anima) contenta eritomnino vel illa, quæ multis per ea quæ facta sunt; vel, illa quæ paucisper visa et somnia facta est manifestatio sponsi, nisi et specialiprærogativa intimis illum affectibus atque ipsis medullis cordis cœlitusillapsum suscipiat, habeatque præsto quem desiderat non figuratum, sedinfusum: non apparentem sed afficientem; nec dubium quin eojucundiorem, quo intus, non foris. Verbum nempe est, non sonans, sedpenetrans; non loquax, sed efficax; non obstrepens auribus, sed affectibus blandiens, &c.-In Cantica, Serm. xxxi . 6 and 1. Comp. also hisremarks at the close of the sermon, on the difference between faith andsight, p. 2868.Bernard describes three kisses of the soul,-the kiss of the feet ofGod, of the hand, and of the mouth. ( Serm. de diversis , 87, and InCantica, Serm. iv.) This is his fanciful way of characterising, by theelaboration of a single figurative phrase of Scripture, the progress ofthe soul through conversion and grace to perfection. Here, as in somany instances, his meaning is substantially correct; it is the expression which is objectionable. He is too much in earnest for the artificialgradations and metaphysical refinements of later mysticism. Comparehim, in this respect, with John of the Cross. Bernard would haverejected as unprofitable those descriptions of the successive absorptionof the several faculties in God; those manifold kinds of prayer-prayersof quiet, prayers of union, prayers of ecstasy, with their impalpabledistinctions; that analysis, miraculously achieved, of miraculousravishments, detailed at such length in the tedious treatises of theSpanish mystics. The doctrine taught by John of the Cross, that Godcompensates the faithful for the mortification of the senses by sensuousgratifications of a supernatural kind, would have revolted the morepure devotion of the simple-minded Abbot of Clairvaux. See LaMontée du Mont Carmel, livre ii. chapp. 16, 17; pp. 457, &c.It should be borne in mind that the highest kind of Consideratio isidentical , in Bernard's phraseology, with Contemplatio; and the termsare thus often used interchangeably. Generally, Consideratio is appliedto inquiry, Contemplatio to intuition.-De Consid. lib. ii . cap. 2.16 Sane in hoc gradu (tertio) diu statur: et nescio si a quoquamhominum quartus in hac vita perfecte apprehenditur, ut se scilicetdiligat homo tantum propter Deum. Asserant hoc si qui experti sunt:mihi, fateor, impossibile videtur. ( De diligendo Deo, xv. and Epist. xi. 8) .VOL. I. B BNotes. [B. V. 370And, again, in the same treatise (vii. 17), Non enim sine præmio.... Verus diligitur Deus, etsi absque præmii intuitu diligendus sit.amor se ipso contentus est. Habet præmium, sed id quod amatur.17 See Vita, ii. cap. 27, where his biographer gives Bernard's ownmodestestimate of these wonders. Wide, indeed, is the difference between the spiritual mysticism ofBernard and the gross materialism and arrogant pretension whichcharacterise the vision and the prophecy to which Hildegard laidclaim. The morbid ambition of theurgic mysticism received a newimpulse from the sanction afforded her by Bernard and the contemporary popes. Bernard makes no doubt of the reality of her gifts, anddesires a place in her prayers . (Epist. 366.) He did not foresee that themost extravagant and sensuous mysticism must soon of necessity dis- place the simpler and less dazzling. He would be afraid of taking hisplace with Rationalist mockers, and a superstitious awe would readily persuade him that it was better to believe than to doubt. Whenemperors and popes corresponded on familiar terms with the seeress;when haughty nobles and learned ecclesiastics sought counsel at heroracle concerning future events, and even for the decision of learned questions; when all she said in answer was delivered as subject to andin the interest of the Church Catholic-was often the very echo ofBernard's own warnings and exhortations-who was he, that heshouid presume to limit the operations ofthe Spirit of God? Many ofHildegard's prophecies, denouncing the ecclesiastical abuses of the day, were decidedly reformatory in their tendency. In this respectshe is the forerunner of the Abbot Joachim of Calabria, and of St.Brigitta, whose prophetic utterances startled the corrupt Church in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. In her supernatural gift oflanguage, her attendant divine radiance, and her fantastic revelations, she, like her friend Elizabeth of Schonau (who had an angel to waitupon her, and saw the eleven thousand virgins), prepares the way forCatharine of Sienna, Angela of Foligni, and St. Theresa.NOTES TO CHAPTER II.I Liebner's Hugo of St. Victor, p. 21. This account of his earlystudies is given by Hugo in his Didascalion.2 Schmid, Der Mysticismus des M. A., p. 303. 3 Comp. De Sacramentis, lib. v., p. x., c. 4 (tom. iii. p. 411 .Garzon's edition of his works, Cologne, 1617.)4 See Liebner, p. 315. 5 De Sacramentis, lib. i. p. i. cap. 12.-Quisquis sic ordinatus est ,dignus est lumine solis: ut mente sursum erecta et desiderio in superna.C. 2.] Notes. 371defixo lumen summæ veritatis contemplanti irradiet: et jam non perspeculum in ænigmate, sed in seipsa ut est veritatem agnoscat etsapiat.6 The treatise by Hugo, entitled De Vanitate Mundi, is a dialoguebetween teacher and scholar, in which, after directing his pupil tosurvey the endless variety and vicissitude of life, after showing himthe horrors of a shipwreck, the house of Dives, a marriage feast, thetoils and disputes of the learned, the instructor bids him shelter himself from this sea of care in that ark of God, the religious life. Heproceeds to describe that inner Eye, that oculus cordis , whose vision isso precious. Thou hast another eye,' he says (lib. i. p. 172) , ' an eyewithin, far more piercing than the other thou speakest of,-one thatbeholds at once the past, the present, and the future; which diffusesthrough all things the keen brightness of its vision; which penetrateswhat is hidden, investigates what is impalpable; which needs noforeign light wherewith to see, but gazes by a light of its own, peculiarto itself (luce aliena ad videndum non indigens, sed sua ac propria luceprospiciens) .Self-collection is opposed (p. 175) to distraction, or attachment tothe manifold, is declared to be restauratio , and at the same timeelevatio. The scholar inquires, ' If the heart of man be an ark or ship,how can man be said to enter into his own heart, or to navigate theuniverse with his heart? Lastly, if God, whom you call the harbour,be above, what can you mean by such an unheard-of thing as avoyage which carries the ship upwards, and bears away the marinerout of himself?" The teacher replies, ' When we purpose elevatingthe eye of the mind to things invisible, we must avail ourselves of certain analogies drawn from the objects of sense. Accordingly, when,in speaking of things spiritual and unseen, we say that anything ishighest, we do not mean that it is at the top of the sky, but that it isthe inmost of all things. To ascend to God, therefore, is to enter intoourselves, and not only so, but in our inmost self to transcend ourselves. (Ascendere ergo ad Deum hoc est intrare ad semet ipsum, etnon solum ad se intrare, sed ineffabili quodam modo in intimis etiamse ipsum transire, p. 176.)Hugo, like Richard, associates this illumination inseparably with thepractices of devotion. The tree of Wisdom within is watered byGrace. It stands by Faith, and is rooted in God. As it flourishes,we die to the world, we empty ourselves, we sigh over even the necessary use of anything earthly. Devotion makes it bud, constancy of penitence causes it to grow. Such penitence (compunctio) he comparesto digging in search of a treasure, or to find a spring. Sin has concealed this hoard-buried this water-source down beneath the manyBB2372 [B. v.Notes.evils of the heart. The watching and the prayer of the contrite spiritclears away what is earthly, and restores the divine gift. The spirit,inflamed with heavenly desire, soars upward-becomes, as it ascends,less gross, as a column of smoke is least dense towards its summit, tillwe are all spirit; are lost to mortal ken, as the cloud melts into theair, and find a perfect peace within, in secret gazing on the face ofthe Lord. De Arca morali, lib . iii. cap. 7.7 Tom. iii . p. 356. In speaking of the days of creation and of theanalogous seasons in the new creation within man, he says that as Godfirst saw the light, that it was good, and then divided it from thedarkness, so we must first try the spirit and examine our light withcare, ere we part it from what we call darkness, since Satan can assumethe garb of an angel of light.For an elaborate account of his entire theology, the reader is referred to Liebner's Hugo von St. Victor und die Theologischen Richtungen seiner Zeit; one of the best of the numerous monographsGerman scholarship has produced.8 Richardi S. Victoris Opp. (Lyons, 1534) , De Preparatione animi adcontemplationem, fol. 39.9 Ibid. cap. xli.10 Engelhardt, Richard von St. Victor, p. б.II See the introductory chapters of the Benjamin Minor, or De prep.anim. ad contemp. fol. 34, &c.-He rates this kind of interpretation veryhighly, and looks for success therein to Divine Illumination. (Deeruditione interioris hominis, cap. vi. fol. 25.) Apassage or two froman appendix to his Treatise on Contemplation, may serve, once for all ,as a specimen of his mystical interpretation. It is entitled Nonnullæallegoriæ tabernaculi fœderis. By the tabernacle of the covenant understand the state of perfection. Where perfection of the soul is, there isthe indwelling of God. The nearer we approach perfection, the moreclosely are we united with God. The tabernacle must have a courtabout it. Understand by this the discipline of the body; by thetabernacle itself, the discipline of the mind. The one is useless withoutthe other. The court is open to the sky, and so the discipline of thebody is accessible to all. What was within the tabernacle could notbe seen by those without. None knows what is in the inner man savethe spirit of man which is in him. The inner man is divided intorational and intellectual; the former represented by the outer, the latterby the inner part of the tabernacle. We call that rational perceptionby which we discern what is within ourselves. We here apply theterm intellectual perception to that faculty by which we are elevatedto the survey of what is divine. Man goes out of the tabernacle intothe court in the exerciseof works. He enters the first tabernacle whenC. 2.] Notes.373he returns to himself. He enters the second when he transcends himself. Self- transcendence is elevation into Deity. (Transcendendosane seipsum elevatur in Deum.) In the former, man is occupied withthe consideration of himself; in the latter, with the contemplation ofGod.' The ark of the covenant represents the grace of contemplation. Thekinds of contemplation are six, each distinct from the rest. Two ofthem are exercised with regard to visible creatures, two are occupiedwith invisible, the two last with what is divine. The first four arerepresented in the ark, the two others are set forth in the figures of thecherubim. Mark the difference between the wood and the gold. Thereis the same difference between the objects of imagination and theobjects of reason. By imagination we behold the forms of thingsvisible, by ratiocination we investigate their causes. The three kindsof consideration which have reference to things, works, and morals,belong to the length, breadth, and height of the ark respectively. Inthe consideration of form and matter, our knowledge avails a fullcubit. (It is equivalent to a cubit when complete.) But our knowledge of the nature of things is only partial . For this part, therefore,we reckon only half a cubit. Accordingly, the length of the ark istwo cubits and a half.' And thus he proceeds concerning thecrown, the rings, the staves, the mercy-seat, the cherubim, &c.-Fol. 63 , &c.12 The six degrees of contemplation are as follows (De Contemp.i. 6, fol . 45): -I In imaginatione secundum solam imaginationem.2 In imaginatione secundum rationem.3 In ratione secundum imaginationem.4 In ratione secundum rationem.5 Supra rationem sed non præter rationem.6 Supra rationem videtur esse præter rationem.The office of Imagination to which the first two belong is Thought(Cogitatio); the office of Reason, Investigation ( Meditatio); that of Intelligence, Contemplation ( Contemplatio. ) (Ibid. cap. 3.) These threestates are distinguished with much care, and his definition of the lastis as follows:-Contemplatio est perspicax et liber animi contuitus inres perspiciendas undequaque diffusus. Ibid. cap. 4. He draws thedistinction between intelligibilia and intellectibilia in cap. 7; theformer = invisibilia ratione tamen comprehensibilia; the latterinvisibilia et humanæ rationi incomprehensibilia. The four lower kindsare principally occupied, he adds, with created objects, the two lastwith what is uncreated and divine. Fol. 45.==13 The three heavens within the mind are described at length, (De374 Notes. [B. V.Contemp. lib. iii. cap. 8.) In the first are contained the images of allthings visible; in the second lie the definitions and principles of thingsseen, the investigations made concerning things unseen; in the thirdare contemplations of things divine, beheld as they truly are-a sunthat knows no going down, and there, and there alone, the kingdomofGodwithin us in its glory. Cap. x. , fol . 52.The eye of Intelligence is thus defined (cap. ix.):-Intelligentiæsiquidem oculus est sensus ille quo invisibilia videmus: non sicutoculo rationis quo occulta et absentia per investigationem quærimuset invenimus; sicut sæpe causas per effectus , vel effectus per causas ,et alia atque alia quocunque ratiocinandi modo comprehendimus. Sedsicut corporalia corporeo sensu videre solemus visibiliter potentialiteret corporaliter; sic utique intellectualis ille sensus invisibilia capit invisibiliter quidem, sed potentialiter, sed essentialiter. (Fol. 52.) Hethen goes on to speak of the veil drawn over this organ by sin, andadmits that even when illuminated from above, its gaze upon ourinner self is not so piercing as to be able to discern the essence of thesoul. The inner verities are said to be within, the upper, beyond theveil. ' It may be questioned, however, whether we are to see withthis same eye of Intelligence the things beyond the veil, or whether weuse one sense to behold the invisible things which are divine, andanother to behold the invisible things of our own nature. But thosewho maintain that there is one sense for the intuition of things aboveand another for those below, must prove it as well as they can. I believe that in this way they introduce much confusion into the use ofthis word Intelligence, now extending its signification to a speculation which is occupied with what is above, and now confining it towhat is below, and sometimes including both senses. This twofold intuition of things above and things below, whether we call it, as it were,adouble sense in one, or divide it, is yet the instrument of the samesense, or a twofold effect of the same instrument, and whichever wechoose, there can be no objection to our saying that they both belongto the intellectual heaven.' There is certainly much of the confusionofwhich he complains in his own use of the word,-a confusion whichis perhaps explained by supposing that he sometimes allows Intelligence to extend its office below its proper province, though no otherfaculty can rise above the limits assigned to it. Intelligence maysometimes survey from her altitude the more slow and laborious pro.cesses of reason, though she never descends to such toil.He dwells constantly on the importance of self-knowledge, selfsimplification, self-concentration, as essential to the ascent of thesoul, De Contemp. lib. iii. c. 3, c. 6; and on the difficulty of thisattainment, lib. iv. c. 6.C. 2.] Notes. 37514 De Contemp. lib. iv. cap. 6. Ibid. cap. 23, and comp. lib. v.cap. 1. Also iv. cap. 10. He calls it expressly a vision face to face: -Egressus autem quasi facie ad faciem intuetur, qui per mentis excessusextra semetipsum ductus summæ sapientiæ lumen sine aliquo involucro figurarum ve adumbratione; denique non per speculum et inenigmate, sed in simplici (ut sic dicam) veritate contemplatur. Fol . 56.See also lib . v. capp. 4. 5, where he enters at large on the degrees andstarting-points of self-transcendence. Comp. iv. c. 2, Fol. 60.me.De Contemp. i. cap. 10, describes the six wings, and declares that ina future state we shall possess them all. Speaking of ecstasy, hesays:- Cum enim per mentis excessum supra sive intra nosmetipsosin divinorum contemplationem rapimur exteriorum omnium statimimmo non solum eorum quæ extra nos verum etiam eorum quæ innobis sunt omniumobliviscimur.' Whenexplaining the separation of souland spirit, he exclaims,- O alta quies, O sublimis requies, ubi omnisquod humanitus moveri solet motum omnem amittit; ubi omnis quitunc est motus divinitus fit et in Deum transit. Hic ille spiritus efflatusin manus patris commendatur, non (ut ille somniator Jacob) scala indiget ut ad tertium (ne dicam ad primum) cælum evolet. Quidquæso scala indigeat quem pater inter manus bajulat ut ad tertii cœlisecreta rapiat intantum ut glorietur, et dicat, Dextera tua suscepitSpiritus ab infimis dividitur ut ad summa sublimetur.Spiritus ab anima scinditur ut Domino uniatur. Qui enim adhæretDomino unus spiritus est. (De extermin. mali et promotione boni, cар.xviii.) Again (De Contemp. lib. iv. c. 4.), In hac gemina speculationenihil imaginarium, nihil fantasticum debet occurrere. Longe enimomnem corporeæ similitudinis proprietatem excedit quicquid spectaculitibi hæc gemina novissimi operis specula proponit. Ubi pars nonest minor suo toto, nec totum universalius suo individuo; immo ubipars a toto non minuitur, totum ex partibus non constituitur; quiasimplex est quod universaliter proponitur et universale quod quasi particulare profertur; ubi totum singula, ubi omnia unum et unumomnia. In his utique absque dubio succumbit humana ratio, et quidfaciat ibi imaginatio? Absque dubio in ejusmodi spectaculo officerepotest; adjuvare omnino non potest. Elsewhere he describes the stateas one of rapturous spiritual intoxication. Magnitudine jocunditatiset exultationis mens hominis a seipsa alienatur, quum intima illa internæ suavitatis abundantia potata, immo plene inebriata, quid sit ,quid fuerit, penitus obliviscitur; et in abalienationis excessum tripudii sui nimietate traducitur; et in supermundanum quendamaffectum sub quodam miræ felicitatis statu raptim transformatur.-Ibid.lib. v. c. 5, fol. 60.376 Notes.BOOK VI.NOTES TO CHAPTER I.I The Heiligenleben of Hermann von Fritslar has been recentlyedited by Franz Pfeiffer, in his Ausgabe der Deutschen Mystiker(Leipsig, 1845.) Hermann says himself repeatedly that he had causedhis book to be written (schreiben lassen) , and there is every reason tobelieve that he was, like Rulman Merswin and Nicholas of Basle, hiscontemporaries, a devout layman, one of a class among the laitycharacteristic of that age and neighbourhood, who, without enteringinto an order, spent the greater part of their time in the exercises ofreligion, and of their fortune on religious objects. Though he couldnot write, he could read, and his book is confessedly a compilation frommany books and from the sermons and the sayings of learned andgodly men. He says, Diz buch ist zu sammene gelesen ûzze vileanderen bucheren und ûzze vile predigâten und ûzze vil lêrêren.-Vorrede.2 Concerning these sects, see Ullmann, Reformatoren vor der Reformation, vol. ii. pp. 1-18 . The fullest account is given of them ina masterly Latin treatise by Mosheim, De Beghardis et Beguinabus.He enters at length into the discussion of their name and origin;details the various charges brought against them, and gives the bullsand acts issued for their suppression. See especially the circularof John Ochsenstein, Bishop of Strasburg, cap. iv. § xi. p. 255.3 Authority for these statements concerning the literature of theperiod, will be found in Gervinus, Geschichte der poetischen NationalLiteratur der Deutschen, part vi. §§ 1 , 2, 5.4 Johannes Tauler von Strasburg, by Dr. Carl Schmidt, pp. 8-10;and Laguille's Histoire d'Alsace, liv. xxiv.5 Meister Eghart spricht: wer alle cit allein ist, der ist gottes wirdige; vnt wer alliu cit do heimenen ist, dem ist got gegenwürtig;vnt wer alliu cit stat in einem gegenwärtigen nu, in dem gebirt gotder vatter sinen sune an vnderlas. Sprüche Deutscher Mystiker, inWackernagel's Altdeutsches Lesebuch, p. 889.6 Meister Eghart sprach; vnt wem in einem anders ist denne indem andern, vnt dem got lieber ist in eime denne in dem andern,der mensche ist grobe, vnt noch verre vnt ein kint. Aber dem gotgelich ist in allen, der ist ce man worden. Ibid.Notes. 377Both this saying and the foregoing are expressions for that totalindifference and self-abandonment so strenuously inculcated by themystics. He who lives weaned from the world, alone with God,without regrets, without anticipations, ' stands in a present Now,' andsees the divine love as clearly in his sorrows as in his joys,-doesnot find one thing other than another.' There is exaggeration insuppressing, as Eckart would do, the instinct of thanksgiving forspecial benefaction; but in his strong language lies couched a greattruth, that only in utter self-surrender can man find abidingpeace.7 Alles das in der gottheyt ist, das ist ein, vnd davon ist nichtzu sprechen. Got der würcket, die gotheyt nit, sy hat auch nichtzu würckende, in ir ist auch kein werck. Gott vnt gotheyt hatunderscheyd, an würcken vnd an nit würcken.Was ist das letst end? Es ist die verborgen finsternusz derewigen gotheit, vnd ist unbekant, vnd wirt nymmerme bekant. ( Seea paper on Eckart, by Dr. Carl Schmidt in the Theol. Stud. u.Kritiken, 1839, 3, p. 693.) Comp. the following:-Got ist noch gutnoch besser, noch allerbest, vnd ick thue also unrecht, wenn ickGot gut heisse, rechte ase ob ick oder er etwas wiz weiss und ickes schwarz heisse. (Ibid. p. 675.) This last assertion was one of thecounts of accusation in the bull of 1330.8 Martensen's Meister Eckart (Hamburg, 1842) , p. 22.-The divinecommunication assumes with Eckart the form of philosophical necessity. The man emptied of Self is infallibly full of Deity, after thefashion of the old principle, ' Nature abhors a vacuum.' Yet eventhis doctrine is not wholly false. It is the misrepresentation of aChristian truth. Its correlative verity is this, -that the kingdomof grace, like the kingdom of nature, has its immutable laws. Hewho seeks shall find; as we sow we reap, with unerring certainty.Gravitation is not more sure than the announcement, With thatman will I dwell who is of a meek and contrite spirit .'9 Martensen, p. 23. Comp. Stud. u. Krit. loc. cit. Alles das denngot yn gegab seinem eingebornen sun, das hat er mir gegeben....Was got würcket, das ist ein, darumb gebiret er mich seinen sun, onaller underscheyd. These words exhibit the pantheistic principleon which this assumption is based. All spirit (whether in so-calledcreature or Creator) is substantially one and the same. It cannot bedivided; it can have no distinctive operations. Our dividual personal consciousness is, as it were, a temporary accretion on the Universal Soul with which we are in contact. Escaping this consciousness, we merge in that is, we become-the Universal Soul. We arebrought into the Essence, the calm, unknown oneness beyond all378 [B. VI. Notes.manifestation, above creation, providence, or grace. This is Eckart'sescape fromdistinction,-lapse into the totality of spirit. This doctrinehe teaches, not in opposition to the current Christian doctrine, butas a something above it, at once its higher interpretation and itsclimax.10 These statements concerning the ' füncklin der vernunfft' are thesubstance of passages given by Martensen, pp. 26, 27, and Schmidt(Stud. u. Krit. l. c.) pp. 707, 709.-Ich sprich es bey gutter warheit ,und bey yemmerwerender warheit, und bey ewiger warheit, dasdisem liechte nit benüget an dem einfaltigem stilstanden götlichenwesen, von wannen disz wesen harkommet, es will in den einfaltigengrundt in die stillen wüste, das nye underscheyd ingeluget, wedervatter noch sun noch heiliger geist, in dem einichen, da niemant daheim ist, da benüget es im liechte, und da ist es einicher, denn es seyin im selber, wann diser grundt ist ein einfeltig stille die in ir selberunbeweglich ist, und von diser unbeweglichkeit werdent beweget alleding, &c. Hermann von Fritslar, in a remarkable passage, enumeratesthe various and conflicting names given to this organ of mysticism.' Und das leben was daz licht der lûte.' Daz meinet, daz di sêle einenfunken in ir hât, der ist in gote êwiclichen gewest leben und licht.Und dirre funke ist mit der sêle geschaffen in allen menschen und istein lûter licht in ime selber und strafet allewege umme sunde undhat ein stête heischen zu der tugende und kriget allewege wider insînen ursprung. Dar umme heizen in etliche meistere einenwechter der sêle. Also sprach Daniêl: ' der wechter ûf dem turme derrufet gar sêre. Etliche heizen disen funken einen haven der sêle.Etliche heizen in di worbele (axis, or centre) der sêle. Etelîche heizenin ein gotechen in der sêle. Etelîche heizen in ein antlitze der sêle .Eteliche heizen intellectus , daz ist ein instênde kraft in der sêle.Etlîche heizen in sinderisis. Etliche heizen in daz wô der sêle.Etlîche heizen in daz nirgen der sêle.-Heiligenleben. Di dritte messe,p. 32.11 Martensen, p. 27. Schmidt, loc. cit.12 The passage in Martensen, p. 20.13 Martensen, pp. 19, 29.14 Ibid, p. 29.15 Etlich leut wöllent got mit den ougen ansehn, als sy ein kuansent unnd wöllent gott liebhan, als sy ein ku liebhaben (die hastulieb umb die milch, und umb den kätz, und umb dein eigen nutz).Also thund alle die leut die got liebhand, um uszwendigen reichtum,oder umb inwendigen trost, und die hand gott nit recht lieb, sundersy suchent sich selbs und ir eigen nutz.-Schmidt, 712.16 Got ist ein luter guot an ime selben, vnt do von wil er nienenc. 1.] Notes. 379wonen denne in einer lutern sele: in die mag er sich ergiessenvnt genzeclichen in si fliessen. was ist luterkeit? das ist das sich dermensche gekeret habe von allen creaturen, vnt sin herce so gar ufgerichtet habe gen dem lutern guot, das ime kein creature træstlichen si, vnt ir ouch nit begere denne als vil als si das luter guot, dasgot ist, darinne begriffen mag. vnt also wenig das liechte ouge icht inime erliden mag, also wenig mag diu luter sele icht an ir erliden keinevermasung vnt das si vermitlen mag. ir werdent alle creaturen luterce niessen: wanne si niusset alle creaturen in got vnt got in allencreaturen. Denne si ist also luter, das si sich selben durschowet,denne endarf si got nit verre suochen: si vindet in ir selben,wanne si in ir natiurlichen luterkeit ist geflossen in das übernatiurliche der lutern gotheit. vnt also ist si in got, vnt got in ir; vntwas si tuot, das tuot si in got, vnt tuot es got in ir.-Wackernagel,p. 891 .17 Wann sol der mensch warlich arm sein, so soll er seynes geschaffnen willes also ledig sein, als er was do er noch nit was. Und ichsag euch bey der ewigen warheit, als lang ir willen hand zu erfüllendden willen gottes , und icht begerung hand der ewigkeit und gottes , alsolang seind ir nitt recht arm, wann das ist ein arm mensch der nicht wil,noch nicht bekennet, noch nicht begeret. (Schmidt, p. 716.) Here againis the most extravagant expression possible of the doctrine of sainteindifférence, in comparison with which Madame Guyon is moderationitself.18 See Schmidt, p. 724.19 He was charged with denying hell and purgatory, because hedefined future punishment as deprivation,- das Nicht in der hellebrinnet. Schmidt, p. 722.20 The narrative here put into the mouth of Eckart is found in anappendix to Tauler's Medulla animæ. There is every reason to believethat it is Eckart's. Martensen gives it, p. 107.21 A literal translation of a curious old hymn in Wackernagel'scollection, p. 896.22 C. Schmidt ( Johannes Tauler von Strasburg, p. 42) gives examplesof the extravagant display in dress common among the clergy at thattime.23 The substance of this dialogue will be found in the works ofHeinrich Suso (ed. Melchior Diepenbrock, Regensburg, 1837) , Bookiii . chap. vii . pp. 310-14. Suso represents himself as holding such aconversation with ' ein vernunftiges Bilde, das war subtil an seinenWorten und war aber ungeübt an seinen Werken und war ausbrüchigin florirender Reichheit,' as he sat lost in meditation on a summer'sday. Atherton has ventured to clothe this ideal of the enthusiast of380 Notes [B. VI. .those times in more than a couple of yards of flesh and blood, andsupposes Arnstein to have picked up divinity enough in his sermonhearing to be able to reason with him just as Suso does in hisbook.The wandering devotees, who at this time abounded throughout thewhole region between the Netherlands and Switzerland, approximated,some of them, to Eckart's portraiture of a religious teacher, others toSuso's ideal of the Nameless Wild. In some cases, the enthusiasm ofthe same man may have approached now the nobler and now thebaser type.NOTE TO CHAPTER II.Both Hegel and Eckart regard Thought as the point of union between the human nature and the divine. But the former would pronounce both God and man unrevealed, i.e. , unconscious of themselves,till Thought has been developed by some Method into a philosophicSystem. Mysticism brings Eckart nearer to Schelling on this matterthan to the dry schoolman Hegel. The charge which Hegel bringsagainst the philosophy of Schelling he might have applied, with a littlealteration, to that of Eckart. Hegel says, ' When this knowledge whichclaims to be essential and ignores apprehension ( is begrifflose) , professesto have sunk the peculiarity of Self in the Essence, and so to give forththe utterance of a hallowed and unerring philosophy, men quite overlook the fact that this so-called wisdom, instead of being yielded up tothe influence of Divinity by its contempt of all proportion and definiteness, does really nothing but give full play to accident and to caprice.Such men imagine that by surrendering themselves to the unregulatedferment of the Substance (Substanz) , by throwing a veil over consciousness, and abandoning the understanding, they become those favouritesof Deity to whom he gives wisdom in sleep: verily, nothing was everproduced by such a process better than mere dreams.'-Vorrede zurPhænomenologie, p. 6.These are true and weighty words: unfortunately Hegel's remedyproves worse than the disease.We seem to hear Eckart speak when Fichte exclaims, ' Raise thyselfto the height of religion, and all veils are removed; the world and itsdead principle passes away from thee, and the very Godhead entersthee anew in its first and original form, as Life, as thine own life whichthou shalt and oughtest to live .'-(Anweisung zum sel. Leben, p. 470.)

• Eckart does not make use of his lapse into the Essence to philosophise withal; it is simply his religious ultimatum.

c. 3.] Notes. 381And again, ' Religion consists in the inward consciousness that Godactually lives and acts in us, and fulfils his work.'-(Ibid. p. 473.)But Eckart would not have affirmed with Fichte (a few pages fartheron) that, were Christ to return to the world, he would be indifferent tothe recognition or the denial of his work as a Saviour, provided a manwere only united to God somehow!NOTES TO CHAPTER III.I Louis was indebted for this important victory to the skill ofSchweppermann. After the battle the sole supply of the imperial tablewas found to consist of a basket of eggs which the emperor distributedamong his officers, saying, ' to each of you one egg-to our gallantSchweppermann two.'-Menzel.2 See Laguille, Histoire d'Alsace, liv. xxiii. p. 271 .3 Many passages in his Heiligenleben are altogether in the spirit ofEckart, and have their origin, beyond question, in his sayings, or inthose of his disciples. See pp. 114, 225, 150, 187 (Pfeiffer) , and also theextracts in Wackernagel, Altd. Leseb. p. 853.4 See Schmidt's Tauler, Appendix, p. 172, &c. , where such information as can be obtained concerning Henry of Nördlingen is given.5 Compare Petrarch's account in his letters, cited by Gieseler,Mitto stupra, raptus, incestus, adulteria, qui jam pontificalis lasciviæludi sunt: mitto raptarum viros, ne mutire audeant, non tantum avitislaribus , sed finibus patriis exturbatos, quæque contumeliarum gravissima est , et violatas conjuges et externo semine gravidas rursus accipere, et post partum reddere ad alternam satietatem abutentiumcoactos.'6 Laguille gives an account of this revolution, Hist. d'Alsace. p. 276.7 Schmidt's Tauler, p. 12.8 Laguille, liv. xxiv. p. 280.9 Schmidt, p. 22.10 Tauler's Sermon on the Twenty-second Sunday after Trinity containsan exhortation to Christian love remarkable for beauty and discrimination.-Tauler's Predigten, vol. ii . p. 591 (Berlin, 1841) .11 Schmidt, p. 14:-' do soltent sü ouch fürbas singenoder aber us der statt springen. '12 Schmidt's Tauler, Anhang über die Gottesfreunde.13 Passages from two of these mystics, Heinrich von Löwen andJohannes von Sterngasse, are given among the Sprüche Deutscher Mystiker, in Wackernagel, p. 890.382 Notes [B. VI. .14 See Tauler's Predigten, vol. ii. p. 584; and also, concerning thecharge of sectarianism, p. 595; and the services of the Friends ofGod, vol. i. pred. xxvi. p. 194; pred. xi. p. 85.15 Tauler's Predigten, vol. ii. pred. lxvi. p. 594.16 The sermon referred to is that on the Twenty-third Sunday afterTrinity, vol. ii. p. 598.While he is careful to warn his hearers against the presumptionof attempting at once to contemplate Deity apart from its manifestation in the humanity of Christ, he yet seems to admit that when thesoul has been thoroughly exercised in the imitation of Christ,-hasbecome conformed, as far as man can be, to his spirit and his sufferings, then there commences a period of repose and joy in which thereis an extraordinary intuition of Deity, which approximates to thatperfect vision promised hereafter, when we shall see, not ' through aglass darkly, but face to face. Vol. ii. p. 609.17 Meiners, Hist. Vergleichung der Sitten , &c. des Mittelalters, vol. ii .p. 117.NOTES TO CHAPTER IV.I This sermon is given entire in the second chapter of the ' Lebenshistorie des ehrwürdigen Doctors Johann Tauler, ' prefixed to his sermons.The succeeding incidents are all related by the same authority. Thecellarer only, and the family affairs of Adolf, appear to be invented byAtherton.2 These letters are preserved in substance in Specklin's Collectanea,and are inserted, from that source, in the introduction by Görres toDiepenbrock's edition of Suso's works; pp. xxxv, &c.NOTES TO CHAPTER V.I The substance of the foregoing narrative concerning Tauler andthe layman will be found in the Lebenshistorie des ehrwürdigen DoctorsJoh. Tauler. See also C. Schmidt's account of Nicholas in his monograph on Tauler (p. 28) , and a characteristic letter by Nicholas concerning visions of coming judgment given in the Appendix.2 These passages are from the second Sermon on Fifth Sunday afterTrinity. Predigten, ii. pp. 353, &c. The spiritual conflict and desolation which had shaken Tauler's nature to its depths bears fruit in thisprofound humility. Self-abasement is the cardinal doctrine of all hissermons; his lowliness of spirit the safeguard of his theology from alldangerous error. The troubles through which he and Suso were madec. 5.]Notes. 383to pass, gave them an antidote to the poison of the current ecclesiasticaldoctrine. Consciences so stirred were not to be cast into a sleep bythe mesmeric passes of a priestly hand. He only who had hurt couldheal; they fled from man to God-from means to the End, and so,like the patriarch, their eye saw God, and they repented and abhorredthemselves as in dust and ashes. Never after that could they believein salvation by works, and so they became aliens from the spirit ofthat Church whose pale retained them to the last.Tauler and his brethren will escape distinction; '-not that which isbetween creature and Creator, or between good and evil-that ratherwhich the Pharisee makes when he says, ' I am holier than thou. ' Itis their very anxiety to escape all assumption of merit which partlyvitiates the letter of their theology, and makes them speak as thoughgrace substituted God for man within the renewed nature.escape the dry and fruitless distinctions of the schoolman.escape the distinction which selfish comfort- worshippers make sobroad between ease and hardship. Sorrow and joy, pain and pleasure,are trustfully accepted as alike coming from the hand of Love.They willThey willEven when Tauler speaks ofself- surrender to an unknown Will, wemust not press his words too far. It is very evident that he whoreaches this coveted abandonment is not supposed to have forgottenthat gracious character under which God has made himself knownof which Christ is the manifestation. In casting his care on an unknown Will, Tauler acts on the conviction that he is cared for,-thisfact he knows; but precisely what that care may deem best for him hedoes not know. He surrenders, in true self-distrust, his personal notionofwhat may be the Divine good pleasure in any particular case. Fewlessons were more needed than this in Tauler's day, when superstitionfound signs and wonders everywhere, and fanaticism so recklesslyidentified human wrath and divine righteousness.Tauler's ' state above grace,' and ' transformed condition of the soul,in which God worketh all its works,' are perhaps little more thaninjudicious expressions for that more spontaneous and habitual pietycharacteristic of the established Christian life, that religion whichconsists so much more in a pervading spirit of devotion than in professed and special religious acts. He certainly inculcates no proudand self-complacent rejection and depreciation of any means. Ratherwould the man who learnt Tauler's doctrine well find all persons,objects, and circumstances, made more or less means of grace ' to him.In a landscape or a fever, an enemy or an accident, his soul would finddiscipline and blessing, and not in mass and penance and paternostermerely; for is not God in all things near us, and willing to makeeverything minister to our spiritual growth? Such teaching was truly384 [B. VI.Notes.reformatory, antagonistic as it was to that excessive value almosteverywhere attached in those days to works and sacraments.So again with Tauler's exhortation to rise above symbol, image, orfigure. He carries it too far, indeed. Such asceticism of the soul istoo severe a strain for ordinary humanity. It is unknown to Histeaching, who spake as never man spake. Yet there lay in it a mostwholesome protest against religious sentimentalism, visionary extravagance, hysterical inoperative emotions, against the fanciful prettinesses of superstitious ritual and routine.Tauler's ' Nothing,' or ' Ground ' of the soul, may be metaphysicallya fiction , religiously it indicates the sole seat of inward peace. Onlyas we put no trust in things earthly-only as amidst our most strenuousaction the heart saith ever, ' Thy will be done,'-only as we strive toreduce our feverish hopes and fears about temporal enjoyment asnearly as we can to Nothing, are we calm and brave, whatever maybefal. This loving repose of Faith is Eternal Life, as sin is so muchpresent death; it is a life lived, in harmony with the Everlasting,above the restlessness of time;-it is (in Eckart's phrase, though not inEckart's sense) a union with the All-moving Immobility-the divineserenity of Love Omnipotent, guiding and upholding all without aneffort.3 From the Sermon on the Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity, ii. p. 546.He says in this discourse that the soul has various names, accordingtothe different operations and attributes belonging to it. It is called Anima,or soul; Spirit; and Disposition (gemüth) , a marvellous and very lovelything, for the memory, the understanding, and the will of man are allcollected therein. The Disposition hath an objectum above the otherpowers, and as it follows or forsakes that aim so is it well or ill withthe rest of man's nature. Fourthly, the soul is called mens or mensch(man) , and that is the Ground which is nameless, and wherein dwellshidden the true image ofthe Holy Trinity. (Compare Third Serm. on ThirdSunday after Trin. , ii . 305, and Serm. on Eleventh Sunday after Trin. , ii.p. 435.) By the synteresis, or synderesis , Tauler appears to mean thenative tendency of the soul towards God. With Tauler and the mystics generally this tendency is an original capacity for knowing Godimmediately. The term is not peculiar to the mystics, but it bears intheir writings a signification which non-mystical theologians refuse toadmit. The distinction usually madebetween συντήρησις and συνείδησιςis simply this: the former expresses that constitution of our naturewhereby we assent at once to the axioms of morality, while the latterdenotes that judgment which man passes on himself in conformity withsuch constitution of his moral nature. The second is related to thefirst somewhat as recollection is to memory.c. 5.] Notes. 385On this divine centre or substratum of the soul rests the fundamentaldoctrine of these mystics. So Hermann of Fritslar says, speaking of-di kraft in der sêle, di her heizit sinderisis . In dirre kraft mac inkeinkrêatûre wirken noch inkein krêatûrlich bilde, sunder got der wirketdar in âne mittel und âne underlâz. Heiligenleben , p. 187. Thus, hesays elsewhere, that the masters speak of two faces of the soul , the oneturned toward this world, the other immediately to God. In the latterGod dothflow and shine eternally, whether man knoweth it or not. Itis , therefore, according to man's nature as possessed of this divineground, to seek God, his original; it must be so for ever, and even in hellthe suffering there has its source in the hopeless contradiction of thisindestructible tendency.4 Serm. on Eleventh Sun, after Trin. , ii . p. 436.5 Ibid. , pp. 442, 443. Also, Predigten, vol. iii . p. 19, and Schmidt,p. 125.6 Third Serm. on Thirteenth Sun. after Trin. , ii. pp. 474-478 .7 First Serm. on Thirteenth Sun. after Trin. , ii. p. 459.8 Third Serm. on Thirteenth Sun. after Trin. , ii . p. 480. The same remarkable combination of inward aspiration and outward love and service isurged with much force and beauty in the Sermon on Fifth Sunday afterTrinity, and in that on the Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity, ii . p. 512 .Tauler speaks of this Ground of the soul as that which is inseparablefrom the divine Nature, and wherein man hath by Grace what Godis by nature. Predigten, ii . p. 199. He quotes Proclus as saying that,while man is busied with images, which are beneath us, and clings tosuch, he cannot possibly return into his Ground or Essence. If thouwilt know by experience that such a Ground truly is , thou must forsakeall the manifold, and gaze thereon with thine intellectual eye alone.But wouldst thou come nearer yet, turn thine intellectual eyesighttherefrom-for even the intellect is beneath thee, and become one withthe One-that is , unite thyself with Unity.' This unity Proclus callsthe ' calm, silent, slumbering, and incomprehensible divine Darkness . 'To think, beloved in the Lord, that a heathen should understand somuch and go so far, and we be so behind, may well make us blush forshame. To this our Lord Jesus Christ testifies, when he says the kingdom ofGod is within you. That is, this kingdom is born in the inmostGround of all, apart from all that the powers of the mind can accomplish. In this Ground the eternal heavenly Father doth bringforth his only-begotten Son, a hundred thousand times quicker than aninstant, according to our apprehension,-ever anew in the light ofEternity, in the glory and unutterable brightness of his own Self. Hewho would experience this must turn himself inward far away from allworking of his outward and inward powers and imaginations-from allVOL. I. CC386 [B. VI.Notes.that ever cometh from without, and then sink and dissolve himself inthe Ground. Then cometh the power of the Father, and calls the maninto Himself through his only-begotten Son; and so the Son is born outof the Father and returneth unto the Father, and such a man is bornin the Son of the Father, and floweth back with the Son into theFather again, and becomes one with them' (p. 203, and Schmidt, p. 127) .Yet, with all this, Tauler sincerely repudiates any pantheistic confusionof the divine and human, and is always careful to state that this highestattainment-the vanishing point of Humanity, is the work of Grace.Some of his expressions in describing this union are almost as strongas those of Eckart (Third Serm. on Third Sun. after Trin. ii. p. 310) , buthis general tone far more lowly, practical, and true.9 Twenty-first Sun. after Trin. ii . p. 584.10 We best ascertain the true meaning of Tauler's mystical phraseology, and discover the point at which he was desirous that mysticismshould arrest its flight, by listening to the rebukes he administers to theunrighteous, pantheistic, or fantastical mystics of the day. Asermonof his on Psalm xci. 5 (Pred. vol, i. p. 228) , is of great importance inthis respect.Speaking of such as embrace a religious life, without any true vocation, he points out how, as they follow only their own inclinations ,they naturally desire rest; but are satisfied with a merely naturalinaction instead of that spiritual calm which is the gift of God.Consequently, while the devout mind (as Gregory saith) cannot tolerateself- seeking, or be content with any such mere negation, these menprofess to have attained the elevation of true peace while they havedone nothing more than abstain from all imagination and action.Any man, remarks Tauler, very sensibly, may do this, without anyespecial grace from God. Such persons live in indolence, become selfcomplacent and full of pride. True love ever longs to love more; themore of God it hath the more it covets. God is never to be found inthe pretended quiet of such men, which any Turk or heathen couldfind in the same way, as easily as they. They are persuaded by thedevil that devout exercises and works of charity will only disturbtheir inward quiet, and do in fact disobey and resist God in theirself- satisfied delusion.He next exposes the error of those who undergo great austerities tobe thought holy,-suffering for their own glory rather than that ofGod; and who think their penance and their works give them an extraordinary claim on the Most High. He shows how often theyfall into temptation by their wayward and passionate desire afterspecial spiritual manifestations, and by their clamorous importunityfor particular bestowments on which their unmortified self- will has beenc. 5.] Notes. 387obstinately set. Divine love, he says, offers itself up without reserve toGod-seeks his glory alone, and can be satisfied with nothing short ofGodHimself. Natural love seeks itself in all things, and falls ere long,as Adam did, into mortal sin into licence, pride, and covetousness.Then he proceeds to describe an error, ' yet more dangerous thanthis,' as follows: -' Those who compose this class call themselves Godseeing ( Gott schauende) men. You may know them by the natural restthey profess to experience, for they imagine themselves free from sinand immediately united to God. They fancy themselves free from anyobligation to obey either divine or human laws, and that they need nolonger be diligent in good works. They believe the quietto whichthey have devoted themselves so lofty and glorious a thing that theycannot, without sin, suffer themselves to be hindered or disturbedtherein. Therefore will they be subject to no man-will work not atall, either inwardly or outwardly, but lie like an idle tool awaiting itsmaster's hand. They think, if they were to work, God's operationwithin them would be hindered; so they sit inactive, and exercisethemselves in no good work or virtue. In short, they are resolved tobe so absolutely empty and idle that they will not so much as praiseand thank God-will not desire or pray for anything-will not knowor learn anything. All such things they hold to be mischievous-persuade themselves that they possess already all that can be requested,and that they have the true spiritual poverty because, as they flatterthemselves, they live without any will of their own, and have abandonedall choice. As to the laws and ordinances of the Church, they believethat they have not only fulfilled them, but have advanced far beyondthat state for which such institutions were designed. Neither God norman (they say) can give or take from them aught, because they sufferedall that was to be suffered till they passed beyond the stage of trialand virtue, and finally attained this absolute Quiet wherein they nowabide. For they declare expressly that the great difficulty is not somuch to attain to virtue as to overcome or surpass it, and to arrive atthe said Quiet and absolute emptiness of all virtue. Accordingly theywill be completely free and submit to no man, not to pope or bishops,or to the priests and teachers set over them; and if they sometimesprofess to obey they do not in reality yield any obedience either inspirit or in practice. And just as they say they will be free from alllaws and ordinances of the Holy Church, so they affirm, without ablush, that as long as a man is diligently striving to attain unto theChristian virtues he is not yet properly perfect, and knows not yetwhat spiritual poverty and spiritual freedom or emptiness really are.Moreover, they believe that they are exalted above the merits of allmen and angels; that they can neither add to their virtues nor beCC2388 [B. VI.Notes.guilty of any fault or sin, because (as they fancy) they live withoutwill, have brought their spirit into Quiet and Emptiness, are in themselves nothing, and veritably united unto God. They believe, likewise,madly enough, that they may fulfil all the desires of their naturewithout any sin, because, forsooth, they have arrived at perfect innocence, and for them there is no law. In short, that the Quiet andfreedom of their spirit may not be hindered, they do whatsoever theylist. They care not a whit for fasts, festivals , or ordinances, but whatthey do is done on account of others, they themselves having no conscience about any such matters . 'Afourth class brought under review are less arrogant than theseenthusiasts, and will admit that they may progress in grace. They areGod-suffering ( Gottesleidende) men'-in fact, mystics of the intransitivetheopathetic species par excellence. Their relation toward God is tobe one of complete passivity, and all their doings ( of whatevercharacter) are His work. Tauler acknowledges duly the humility andpatient endurance of these men. Their fault lies, he says, in theirbelief that every inward inclination they feel is the movement of theHoly Ghost, and this even when such inclinations are sinful, ' whereasthe Holy Spirit worketh in no man that which is useless or contrary tothe life of Christ and Holy Scriptures.' In their constancy as well asin their doctrine they nearly resemble the early quakers. They wouldsooner die, says Tauler, than swerve a hair's breadth from their opinionor their purpose.Tauler's reprobation of these forms of mysticism-which his own expressions, too literally understood, might appear sometimes to approach-shows clearly that he was himself practically free from suchextremes . His concluding remarks enforce very justly the necessity ofgood works as an evidence to our fellow-men of our sincerity. Hedwells on the indispensableness of religious ordinance, worship, andthanksgiving, as at once the expression and the nourishment of devoutaffection . He precludes at the same time, in the strongest language,all merit in the creature before God. I say that if it were possiblefor our spiritual nature to be deprived of all its modes of operation,and to be as absolutely inactive as it was when it lay yet uncreated inthe abyss of the Divine Nature, if it were possible for the rationalcreature to be still as it was when in God prior to creation, neither theone nor the other could even thus merit anything, yea, not now anymore than then; it would have no more holiness or blessedness initself than a block or a stone,' -( p. 243) . He points to the example ofChrist as the best refutation of this false doctrine of Quiet, saying,' He continued without ceasing to love and desire, to bless and praisehis Heavenly Father, and though his soul was joined to and blessedс. б.] Notes. 389in the Divine Essence, yet he never arrived at the Emptiness of whichthese men talk.'NOTES TO CHAPTER VI.1 See Hecker's BlackDeath (trans. by Dr. Babington, 1853 ) .-Heckergives the documents relating to the trial of the Neustadt Jews in anappendix, from the Chronicle of Jacob of Königshoven. See alsopp. 103-127.2 These fanatics were everywhere foremost among the instigators ofthe cruelties perpetrated on the Jews. Women, and even children,joined their ranks in great numbers, wearing the hats with red crosses,carrying flags, and scourging themselves with the rest. The particulars given are taken from the account in Jacob von Königshoven'sElassische u. Strassburgische Chronik, inserted entire in Wackernagel,-(p. 931.) The chronicler says:-Zuo Strôsburg kam mê denne tûsentmanne in ire geselleschaft, und siu teiltent sich zuo Strôsburg: eineparte der geischelaere gieng das lant abe, die ander parte das lant ûf.und kam sô vîl volkes in ire bruoderschaft, das es verdrôs den bôbestund den keiser und die phafheit, und der keiser verschreip dem bôbestedas er etwas hie zuo gedaechte: anders die geischeler verkêrtent alledie welt. The Flagellants claimed power to confess and give absolution.The thirty- four days' scourging among them was to make a man innocentas a babe, the virtue of the lash was above all sacraments. Thus thepeople took religion into their own hands, blindly and savagely,-noother way was then possible. It was a spasmodic movement of the massof life beneath, when the social disorder that accompanied the pestilencehad loosened the grasp of the power temporal and spiritual which heldthem down so long.3 See Schmidt's Tauler, p. 58.4 Laguille's Histoire d'Alsace, liv. xxv. p. 290.5 Hecker, p. 81 .6 Schmidt's Tauler, p. 59.7 From this time forward, Rulman Merswin gave himself up to thespiritual guidance of Nicholas the layman-taking him to be to him ' inGod's stead. ' He took no step without his direction, and wrote at hiscommand his book entitled Von den vier ioren sins anevohenden lebendesa record of what may be called his spiritual apprenticeship. Nicholastook a copy of it back with him to the Oberland Schmidt has broughttogether what is known of Merswin, in the Appendix to his Life ofTauler, pp. 177, &c.The Book of the Nine Rocks was commenced in 1352. It has beenpublished in Diepenbrock's edition of the works of Suso, to whom it390 [B. VI. Notes.was, till recently, attributed. The claim of Merswin to its authorshipis established beyond question-(Schmidt, 180) . The work opens byrelating how, early one morning in Advent, a man (the author) waswarned of God to prepare himself, by inward retirement, for that whichHe should show him. He was made to behold a vision full of strangeand alarming appearances. He cried out, Ah, my heart's Love! whatmeanest thou with these mysterious symbols?" He struggled hardagainst the phantoms of his trance, but the marvellous forms onlymultiplied the more. He was constrained by a divine voice to gaze,and commanded, in spite of his humble remonstrances, to write in abook what he saw-the image of the corruptions of Christendom, forthe warning of the guilty and the edification of the faithful. The dialogues are given at length between him and God-' the Man' and ' theAnswer.' For eleven weeks, in sickness and spiritual distress, hewavered. He was but a poor, ignorant layman; how should he presume to exhort the Church? The Voice of the Answer' is heard saying, Came not thy reluctance from humility, I would consign thee tothe pit. I see I must compel thee. In the name of the Holy Trinity,I command thee to begin to write this day.'The souls of men proceeding from God, but few of them returningto their Original, are shown him under the similitude of multitudes offish, brought down by the descent of great waters from the summit ofamountain. Men in the valley are catching them in nets. Scarcehalf of them reach the sea below. There the remnant swim in alldirections, and at length endeavour to leap back, up to the sourcewhence they came. Numbers are taken in the nets; only a few reacheven the base of the mountain. Some who ascend higher fall backupon the rocks and die. A very few, springing from rock to rock,reach, exhausted, the fountain at the top, and there forget their pains.The twenty following chapters are occupied with a dialogue, in whichthe divine Voice enumerates the characteristic sins of all classes ofmankind, from the pope to the begging friar-from the emperor to theserf.Then commences the vision of the Nine Rocks. A mountain, enor- mous in breadth and height, fills all the scene. As the eye travels upthe ascent, it beholds nine steep rocks, each loftier than that whichpreceded it , the highest lost in the heavens. From the lowest thewhole surface of the earth is visible. A net is spread over all the region beneath, but it does not reach the mountain. The multitudesseen beneath it are men in mortal sin. The men standing on the firstand lowest rock are religious persons, but such as are lukewarm, defective in aspiration and in zeal. They dwell dangerously near the net- (eap. xxiii. ). Some, from the first rock, are seen making their way upс. 6.] Notes. 391.the precipice, and reaching the second, where they become of dazzlingbrightness. Those on the second rock have heartily forsaken theworld; they will suffer less in purgatory, enjoy more in heaven, thanthose beneath; but they, too, are far from their Origin yet, and indanger of spiritual pride, self-seeking, and of growing faint and remissin their painful progress (cap. xxiv.) . Those on the third rock, fewerin number, suffering far more severely in time, are nearer to God, willsuffer little in purgatory, and are of yet more glorious aspect than theirpredecessors-(cap. xxv. ). Such is the process to the summit. All thenine rocks must be surmounted, would we return to our Divine Source.But few attain the last, which is indeed the Gate of the Origin-theconsummate blessedness, in which the believer, fearless of hell andpurgatory, has annihilated self, and hath no wish or will save that ofGod. One of these true worshippers brings more blessing to Christendom than thousands of such as live after their own will, and know notthat they are nothing.Finally, the man' is permitted a moment's glance into the Divine' Origin. ' The rapture of that moment he attempted in vain to describe;-no reflection, no image, could give the least hint of it.Both Rulman and ' the Friend of God in the Oberland' believedthemselves repeatedly warned ofGod in visions, that they should builda house for him in Strasburg. The merchant purchased a ruinedcloister on a little island in the river Ill, without the city walls. Herestored the church, and erected a stone belfry. Nicholas advised himto bestow it on the Johannites, in preference to any other Order,-forthere had been no little rivalry among the monks as to who was toenjoy the gift. The conditions of the deed for which he stipulated withthe Master of the Order are indicative of the new and more elevatedposition which mysticism had taught the laity to claim. The government of the house was to rest entirely with a lay triumvirate; the twosurvivors always to choose a third. The first three governors wereRulman himself, Heinzmann Wetzel, knight, and John Merswin,burg-graf. The admission of brethren rested with these heads of thehouse, and they were free to receive any one, clerk or layman, knightor serving-man, whether belonging to the order of St. John or not,requiring only that he should bring with him the moderate sum requisite to render his residence no burden on the convent.-Schmidt,p. 189.8 Ruysbroek sent a copy of his book, De ornatu spiritualium nuptiarum, to the Friends of God in the Oberland. He had many friendsin Cologne, and it is very likely that the work may have reached Taulerthere, either through them or from the author, who must have heardofhim.392 [B. VI. Notes.9 See Johannes Ruysbroek, by Engelhardt, p. 168.10 Froissart, book ii. chap. 40.11 Ibid. , chapp. 41 , 42.12 Ibid. , book i. chap. 34.13 Optimum aliena insania frui.14 Engelhardt, p. 326.15 It is certain that Ruysbroek was visited during the many yearsof his residence in Grünthal, much after the manner described, and alsothat Tauler was among the visitors, though the exact time of his journey is not known.16 See Engelhardt, pp. 189, 288. According to Ruysbroek, theTrinitarian Process lies at the basis of the kingdoms both of Natureand of Grace. There is a flowing forth and manifestation in thecreative Word,-a return and union of love by the Holy Ghost. Thisprocess goes on continually in the providential government of theuniverse, and in the spiritual life of believers . The upholding of theworld, and the maintenance of the work of grace in the heart, areboth in different ways a perpetual bringing forth of the Son, by whomall things consist, and who is formed in every devout soul. Ruysbroekis careful to state ( as a caveat against pantheism) that such process isno necessary development of the divine nature, it is the goodpleasure of the Supreme. (See Vier Schriften von J. Ruysbroek, in niederdeutscher Sprache, by A. v. Arnswaldt; Hanover, 1848). Wi hebbenalle boven onse ghescapenheit een ewich leuen in gode als in onseleuende sake die ons ghemaect ende ghescapen heest van niete, maerwi en sijn niet god noch wi en hebben ons seluen niet ghemaeckt. Wien sijn ooc niet wt gode ghevloten van naturen, maer want ons godewelijc ghevoelt heest ende bekent in hem seluen, so heest hi ons ghemaeckt, niet van naturen noch van node, maer van vriheit sijns willen ,-p. 291. (Spiegel der Seligkeit , xvii. )The bosom of the Father, he says, is our proper ground and origin(der schois des vaders is onse eygen gront ind onse oirsprunck); wehave all, therefore, the capacity for receiving God, and his grace enables us to recognise and realise this latent possibility (offenbairt indbrengit vort die verboirgenheit godes in wijsen), p. 144.17 Engelhardt, pp. 183 , 186. Ruysbroek speaks as follows of thatfundamental tendency godward of which he supposes prevenient grace(vurloiffende gracie) to lay hold. Ouch hait der mynsche eyn natur-

• ( 1 ) Die Zierde der Geistlichen Hochzeit; ( 2) Von dem funkelnden Steine; ( 3) Von Vier Versuchungen; (4) Der Spiegel der

Seligkeit.с. 6.] Notes. 393lich gront neygen zo gode overmitz den voncken der sielen ind dieoverste reden die altzijt begert dat goide ind hasset dat quaide. Mitdesen punten voirt got alle mynschen na dat sijs behoeven ind ecklichen na sinre noit, &c.-Geistl. Hochzeit, cap. 3 .Ruysbroek lays great stress on the exercise of the will. Ye are asholy as ye truly will to be holy,' said he one day to two ecclesiastics ,inquiring concerning growth in grace. It is not difficult to reconcilesuch active effort with the passivity of mysticism. The mystics allsay , ' We strive towards virtue by a strenuous use of the gifts whichGod communicates, but when God communicates Himself, then we canbe only passive-we repose, we enjoy, but all operation ceases.'18 Engelhardt, pp. 195, 199.19 Engelhardt, pp. 201 , 213. In the season of spiritual exaltation,the powers of the soul are, as it were, absorbed in absolute essentialenjoyment (staen ledich in een weselic gebrucken). But they are notannihilated, for then we should lose our creatureliness-. Mer si enwerden niet te niete, want soe verloeren wy onse gescapenheit. Endealsoe lange als wy mit geneichden geeste ende mit apen ogen sondermerken ledich staen, alsoe lange moegen wy schouwen ende gebruken.Mer in den seluen ogenblije dat wy proeven ende merken willen watdat is dat wy geuoelen, so vallen wy in reden, ende dan vynden wyonderscheit ende anderheit tusschen ons ende gade, ende dan vyndenwy gade buten ons in onbegripelicheiden. Von dem funkelndenSteine, x.20 The passage to which Tauler is made to refer is containedin the third book of the Spiritual Nuptials, chap. 5. Ind alle dieminschen die bouen ir geschaffenheit verhauen sin in eyn schauwendeleuen, die synt eyn mit deser gotlicher clairheit, ind sij sint dieclairheit selver. Ind sy sien ind gevoilen ind vynden sich selverouermitz dit gotliche licht , dat sy sin der selue eynveldige gront nawijse irre ungeschaffenheit, da de clairheit sonder mais vs schynt ingotlicher wijsen ind na sympelheit des wesens eynueldich binnenblijfft ewelich sonder wise. Ind hervm soilen die innyge schauwendeminschen vsgayn na wijse des schauwens bouen reden ind bouenvnderscheit ind bouen ir geschaffen wesen mit ewigen instarren ouermitz dat ingeboiren licht, soe werden sy getransformeirt ind eyn mitdesem seluen licht da sy mede sien ind dat sy sien. Ind also vervolgen die schauwende minschen ir ewich bilde da si zo gemacht sinind beschauwen got ind alle dinck sonder vnderscheit in eyme eynveldigen sien in gotlicher clairheit. Ind dat is dat edelste ind datvrberlichste schauwen da men zo komen mach in desem leuen.-Vier Schriften, p. 144.[And all men who are exalted above their creatureliness into a394 [B. VI. Notes.contemplative life are one with this divine glory , yea, are that glory .And they see, and feel , and find in themselves, by means of thisdivine light, that they are the same simple Ground as to their uncreated nature (i.e. , in respect of their ideal pre-existence in the Son) ,since the glory shineth forth without measure, after the divine manner,and abideth within them simply and without mode (particular manifestation or medium) , according to the simplicity of the essence.Wherefore interior contemplative men should go forth in the wayof contemplation above reason and distinction, beyond their createdsubstance, and gaze perpetually by the aid of their inborn light, andso they become transformed, and one with the same light, by means ofwhich they see, and which they see. Thus do contemplative men arriveat that eternal image after which they were created, and contemplate God and all things without distinction in a simple beholding,in divine glory. And this is the loftiest and most profitable contemplation whereto men may attain in this life. ]This passage, and others like it, gave rise to the charge of pantheism brought by Gerson against Ruysbroek in the following century. The prior of Grünthal found a defender in Schönhoven, whopointed with justice to numerous expressions in the writings of theaccused, altogether incompatible with the heresy alleged. Quite inconsistent with any confusion of the divine and human is Ruysbroek'sfine description of the insatiable hunger of the soul-growing by thatit feeds on, the consciousness that all possessed is but a drop tothe illimitable undeemed Perfection yet beyond. (Wi leren inwaerheit sijns aenschijns dat al dat wi gesmaken tegen dat ons ontblijft dat en is niet een draep tegen al die zee, dit verstormt onsengeest in hetten ende in ongeduer van mynnen.)-Von dem funkelndenSteine, x. p. 194, So again he says, ' Want wy en mogen te maelniet got werden ende onse gescapenheit verliesen, dat is onmoegelicp. 190; and similarly that we become one with God in love, not innature, (ouerformet ende een mit hem in sijnre minnen, niet in sijnrenaturen. )-Spiegel der Seligkeit, xxiv.21 Ruysbroek expressed to Gerard Groot, in these very words, hisbelief in the special guidance of the Holy Spirit vouchsafed for thecomposition of his books on these deep things' of the kingdom.-Engelhardt, p. 168.The doctrine of Ruysbroek is substantially the same with that ofhis friend and brother-mystic, Tauler. Whether speaking the highGerman of the upper Rhine or the low German of the Netherlands,mysticism gives utterance to the same complaint and the same aspiration. Ruysbroek is individually less speculative than Eckart, lesspractical than Tauler. The Flemish mystic is a more submissive sonс. 6.] Notes. 395of the Church than the stout-hearted Dominican of Strasburg, and laysproportionally more stress on what is outward and institutional. Heis fond of handling his topics analytically. His numerous divisionsand subdivisions remind us of the scholastic Richard of St. Victor,but Ruysbroek, less methodical by nature, and less disciplined, morefrequently loses sight of his own distinctions. The subject itself,indeed, where it possesses the writer, repudiates every artificial treatment. While he specifies with minuteness the stages of the mysticalascent, Ruysbroek does not contend that the experience of every adeptin the contemplative life must follow the precise order he lays down.(Geistl. Hochzeit. ii . § 30, p. 71.) He loves to ally the distinctions heenumerates in the world of nature, in the operations of grace, in theheavenly state, and in the Divine Being, by a relationship of correspondence. Thus the seven planets and the seven gifts of the HolySpirit answer to each other. The Empyrean in the external worldcorresponds to Pure Being in the divine nature, to the Spark of thesoul in man, and to the Contemplative stage of his spiritual experience.This scheme of analogies, incidental in Ruysbroek and the earliermystics, makes up almost the whole system of mystics like Behmenand Swedenborg. His elaborate comparison of the operations of graceto a fountain with three streams (one of which refreshes the memory,another clarifies the understanding, while a third invigorates the will) ,resembles strikingly the fanciful method of Madame Guyon in herTorrents, and of St. Theresa in her Degrees of Prayer. ( Geistl.Hochzeit, xvii. § 36, p. 80.) The mysticism of Ruysbroek is less sensuous than that of the poetical Suso. Beyond question the higherelevation of the contemplative life must have been a welcome refugeto many devout minds wearied with vain ritual, penance, and routine.As acknowledged contemplatists, they could escape without scandalfrom contact with the grosser machinery of their religion. Accordingly,to claim superiority to means and modes was by no means always thearrogant pretension it may seem to us. Tauler's ' state above grace'was the ark of an unconscious Protestantism. Where the means weremade the end, wisdom forsook them, and rejoiced to find that the nameof mystic could shelter spirituality from the dangers of the suspectedheretic. Ruysbroek, however, felt the want of such a protection forfreer thought, much less than did Tauler and some of his more activefollowers.22 Engelhardt, p. 225. Schmidt's Tauler, p. 61. The same doctrinewhich furnished a sanctuary for the devotion of purer natures suppliedalso an excuse for the licence of the base. Wilful perversion, or mereignorance, or some one of the manifold combinations of these twofactors , would work the mystical exhortation into some such result396 Notes. [B. VI.as that denounced by Ruysbroek. We may imagine some bewilderedman as speaking thus within himself: -' So we are to covet ignorance, to surmount distinctions, to shun what is clear or vivid asmediate and comparatively carnal, to transcend means and bid farewell to the wisdom of the schools. Wise and devout men forsakeall their learning, forget their pious toil and penance, to lose themselves in that ground in which we are united to God,-to sink intovague abstract confusion. But may I not do at first what they do at last? Why take in only to take out? I am empty already.Thank Heaven! I haven't a distinct idea in my head. 'It is so that the popular mind is sure to travesty the ultra-refinements of philosophy.23 Engelhardt, pp. 224-228 -Eckart, like Hegel, would seem tohave left behind him a right-hand and a left-hand party,-admirerslike Suso and Tauler, who dropped his extreme points and held bysuch saving clauses as they found; and headstrong spirits, ripe foranarchy, like these New-Lights or High-Fliers, the representatives ofmysticism run to seed. Ruysbroek's classification of them is somewhatartificial; fanaticism does not distribute itself theologically. In thetreatise entitled Spiegel der Seligkeit, § 16, he describes them generallyas follows:-Ander quade duulische menschen vint men, die segghendat si selue Cristus sijn of dat si god sijn, ende dat haer hant hemelende erde ghemaect heest, ende dat an haer hant hanghet hemel endeerde ende alle dinc, ende dat si verheuen sijn boven alle die sacramenten der heiligher kerken, ende dat si der niet en behoeuen noch sien willen der ooc niet. He represents their claim to identity with Godas leadingto a total moral indifference-(§ 17.) Ende sulke wanen godsijn, ende si en achten gheen dinc goet noch quaet, in dien dat si hemontbeelden connen ende in bloter ledicheit haer eighen wesen vindenende besitten moghen. Their idea of the consummation of all thingssavours of the Parisian heresy-the offspring of John Scotus, popularised by David of Dinant and his followers. The final restitution is toconsist in the resolution of all creatures into the Divine Substance. Sospreken si voort dat in den lesten daghe des ordels enghele ende duuele, goede ende quade, dese sullen alle werden een eenvoudighe substancie der godheit ende na dan, spreken si voort, en sal godbekennen noch minnen hem seluen noch ghene creature-(§ 16.)24 Engelhardt, pp. 326-336-. Good Ruysbroek was fully entitled tothe encomium placed in the mouth of Tauler. He himself, likeBernard, would frequently perform the meanest offices of the cloister.The happy spirit of brotherhood which prevailed among the canons ofGrünthal made a deep impression on that laborious practical reformer,Gerard Groot, when, in 1378, he visited the aged prior. What he then1c. 7.] Notes. 397saw was not without its influence in the formation of that communitywith which his name is associated-the Brethren of the Common Life.-See Ullmann, Reformatoren vor der Reformation, vol. ii.25 Engelhardt, p. 330.-Ruysbroek inveighs with much detail againstthe vanities of female dress-as to those hair-pads, sticking up likegreat horns, they are just so many devil's- nests . '26 Ruysbroek expressed himself in these words to Gerard Groot-(Engelhardt, p. 168.) In his touching description of the ' desolation 'endured by the soul on its way upward toward the ' super- essentialcontemplation,' he makes the sufferer say.- O Lord, since I am thine(want ich din eygen bin) , I would as soon be in hell as in heaven, ifsuch should be thy good pleasure; only do thy glorious will with me, OLord! ( Geistl. Hochzeit, § 30.) Ruysbroek, like Fénélon, abandons himself thus only on the supposition that even in hell he should stillretain the divine favour;-so impossible after all is the absolute disinterestedness toward which Quietism aspires. The Flemish mystic distinguishes between the servants of God, the friends, and the sons.Those worshippers who stand in the relation of friends have still something of their own (besitten oer inwendichkeit mit eygenscap) in theirlove to God. The sons ascend, ' dying-wise,' to an absolute emptiness .The friends still set value on divine bestowments and experiences; thesons are utterly dead to self, in bare modeless love (in bloeter, wiseloesermynnen) . Yet, very inconsistently, he represents the sons as moreassured of eternal life than the friends. Von dem funkelnden Steine,$ 8.27 Averitable personage. He died in 1377, and left behind him abook recording the conflicts he underwent and the revelations vouchsafed him.-Engelhardt, p. 326.28 The lyrics of Muscatblut are characterised by Gervinus ( ii.p. 225) , and the same authority gives some account, from the LimburgChronicle, of the famous friar, leper, and poet mentioned by Arnstein.NOTES TO CHAPTER VII.1 The Life of Suso, published in Diepenbrock's edition of his works,was written by his spiritual daughter, Elsbet Stäglin, according to the account she received at various intervals from his own lips. Hesprang from a good family, his name originally Heinrich vom Berg.The name of Suso he adopted from his mother, a woman remarkablefor her devotion. The secret name of Amandus, concealed till after hisdeath, was supposed to have been conferred by the Everlasting Wisdomhimself on his beloved servant.The incident of the rescue of himself and his book from the floods,398 [B. VI.Notes.by the timely intervention of a knight passing that way, is related inthe twenty-ninth chapter of the Life, p. 68.2 Heinrich Suso's Leben und Schriften, von M. Diepenbrock ( 1837) ,pp. 15, 51 , 86. Diepenbrock's book is an edition of the biography byStäglin, and of the Book of the Everlasting Wisdom, &c. , from theoldest manuscripts and editions, and rendered into modern German.3 Leben, cap. 48,-where it is also said that, on one occasion, as ' theservant ' was preaching at Cologne, one of his auditors beheld his faceluminous with a supernatural effulgence. It is known that Tauler possessed a copy of the Horologium Sapientice.See also Schmidt's Tauler, p. 169. Comp. Leben, cap, xxxi. p. 72,and cap. xlix.4 Leben, cap. iv.5 Leben, cap. xvii.-xx. Suso died in 1385 at Ulm; he was bornabout the commencement of the century.6 Suso sent a Latin version of the Book of the Everlasting Wisdom,under the title Horologium Sapientiæ, to Hugo von Vaucemain, Masterof the Order, for his approval. The date of the work is fixed between1333 and 1341. The prologue contains the account of the ' inspiratiosuperna' under which the work was written,-( Diepenb. Vorbericht, p. vi .)It was translated ere long into French, Dutch, and English, and appearsto have been in the fourteenth century almost what the ImitatioChristi became in the fifteenth. Ibid. p. 15.7 Leben, cap. vi.8 Leben, capp. x. and xiv.9 Leben, capp. xxii. p. 5; and xxv.10 This incident is related at length in the twenty-seventh chapterof the Life; and the adventure with the robber, which follows, in thesucceeding. The account given in the text follows closely in allessential particulars the narrative in the biography.11 Leben, cap. lvii. Suso speaks to this effect in a dialogue with hisspiritual daughter. She describes in another place (p. 74) how she drewSuso on to talk on these high themes, and then wrote down whatfollows.12 Leben, cap. xxxiv. p. 80; and comp. Buch. d. E. Weisheit, cap. vii.p. 199.13 Buchlein von d. E. Weisheit, Buch. iii. cap. ii.; and Leben, cap.lvi. p. 168, and p. 302.14 Leben, p. 171 .15 Extravagant as are his expressions concerning the absorption inGod, Suso has still numerous passages designed to preclude pantheism;declaring that the distinction between the Creator and the creature isnowise infringed by the essential union he extols. The dialogue withc. 7.]Notes.. 399the nameless Wild,' already alluded to, is an example. Comp. Leben,сар. lvi. pp . 166, 167, and Buch. d. E. W., Buch. iii. cap. vi.16 Leben, cap. liii. p. 148.The following passage, placed in the mouth of the Everlasting Wisdom, may serve as a further specimen of the sensuous and florid castof Suso's language:-' I am the throne ofjoy, I am the crown of bliss. Mine eyes are sobright, my mouth so tender, my cheeks so rosy-red, and all my form so winning fair, that were a man to abide in a glowing furnace till theLast Day, it would be a little price for a moment's vision of my beauty.Behold! I am so beauteously adorned with a robe ofglory, so delicatelyarrayed in all the blooming colours of the living flowers-red roses,white lilies , lovely violets , and flowers of every name, that the fairblossoms of all Mays, and the tender flowerets of all sunny fields, andthe sweet sprays of all bright meadows, are but as a rugged thistle beside my loveliness.' (Then he breaks into verse):-' I play in the Godhead the play ofjoy,And gladden the angel host on highWith a sweetness such that a thousand yearsLike a vanishing hour of time run by.Lo! I am..... Happy he who shall share the sweet play, and tread at my sidethe joy- dance of heaven for ever in gladsome security. One word frommy sweet mouth surpasses all the songs of angels, the sound of allharps, and all sweet playing on stringed instruments.a good so absolute that he who hath in time but one single drop thereoffinds all the joy and pleasure of this world a bitterness,-all wealth andhonour worthless. Those dear ones who love me are embraced by mysweet love, and swim and melt in the sole Unity with a love whichknows no form, no figure, no spoken words, and are borne and dissolved into the Good from whence they sprang,' &c.-Leben, cap. vii.p. 199.The following is a sample of Suso's old Suabian German, from theextracts given by Wackernagel, p. 885: -Entwürt der ewigen weisheit. Zuo uallende lon lit an sunderlicherfroed. die diu sel gewinnet von sunderlichen vnd erwirdigen werkenmit dien si hie gesiget hat. Alz die hohen lerer, die starken martyrer.Vnd die reinen iung frowen. Aber wesentliche lon. lit an schöwlicher ver einung der sele mit der blossen gotheit. Wan e geruowet siniemer, e si gefueret wirt über alle ir Krefte vnd mugentheit. vndgewiset wirt in der personen naturlich wesentheit. Vnd in dez wesenseinvaltig blosheit. Vnd in dem gegenwurf vindet si denn genuegdesiu nit anderz400 Notes. [B. VI.vnd ewige selikeit. Vnd ie abgescheidener lidiger usgang. ie frier ufgang. Vnd ie frier uf gang. ie neher in gang. in die wilden wuesti.vnd in daz tief ab gründe der wise losen gotheit in die siu versenketver swemmet vnd ver einet werdent. daz şiu underz mugen wellendenn daz got wil. vnd daz ist daz selb wesen daz do got ist. daz istdaz siu selig sint. von genaden, als er selig ist von nature. [Answerof the Everlasting Wisdom.--Adventitious reward consists in a particularjoy which souls receive for particular worthy deeds wherein they havehere been conquerors, such, for example, are the lofty teachers, thestout martyrs, and the pure virgins. But essential reward consists incontemplative union ofthe soul with the bare Godhead; for she restethnot until she be carried above all her own powers and possibility, andled into the natural essentiality of the Persons, and into the simpleabsoluteness of the Essence. And in the reaction she finds satisfactionand everlasting bliss. And the more separate and void the passageout (of self), the more free the passage up; and the freer the passageup, the nearer the passage into the wild waste and deep abyss of theunsearchable Godhead, in which the souls are sunk and dissolved andunited, so that they can will nothing but what God wills, and becomeof one nature with God, that is to say, are blessed by grace as He isblessed by nature.]17 Schröckh's Kirchengeschichte, vol. xxxiv. pp. 431-450.18 See Die Mystik des Nikolaus Cabasilas vom Leben in Christo.Von Dr. W. Gass ( 1849). In this work, Dr. Gass publishes, for thefirst time, the Greek text of the seven books, De Vita in Christo, withan able introduction. The authority for this summary of the theological tendency of Cabasilas will be found, pp. 210-224.NOTES TO CHAPTER VIII.1 Schmidt's Tauler, pp. 205, &c.-Mosheim gives the passage inNieder relating the apprehension and death of Nicholas. Acutissimusenim erat (says this authority) et idcirco manus Inquisitorum diuevaserat.-Mosheim de Beghardis et Beguinabus, cap. iv. § 42, p. 454.2 See Revelations Selectæ S. Brigittæ (Heuser, 1851) . This is aselection for the edification of good Catholics, and contains accordingly the most Mariolatrous and least important of her writings.Rudelbach gives some specimens of her spirited rebuke of papaliniquity in his Savonarola, pp. 300 &c. In her prophetic capacity shedoes not hesitate to call the pope a murderer of souls , andto declarehim and his greedy prelates forerunners of Antichrist. She says, Ifa man comes to them with four wounds, he goes away with five.'c. 8.] Notes. 401Like Savonarola, she placed her sole hope of reform in a generalcouncil.Acommon mode of self-mortification with her found an imitator inMadame Guyon: -the Swede dropped the wax of lighted tapers onher bare flesh , and carried gentian in her mouth-(Vita, p. 6.) TheFrenchwomanburned herself with hot sealing-waxin the same manner,and chewed a quid of coloquintida.The Revelationes de Vita et Passione Jesu Christi et gloriosæ Virginis,contain a puerile and profane account of the birth, childhood, anddeath of our Lord, in the style of the apocryphal Gospel of theInfancy, professedly conveyed in conversations with the authoressby the Mother and her Son. The Virgin tells her, in reference toher Son,-' quomodo neque aliqua immunditia ascendit super eum; andthat his hair was never in a tangle-(nec perplexitas in capillis ejusapparuit).3 Angela de Foligni.' See Beato Angelæ de Fulginio Visionum et Instructionum Liber; (recens. J. H. Lammertz; Cologne, 1851 . )-The account of the wonderful star is given by Arnold in his Prologue, p. 12 .At one time it is promised by the Lord that the ' whole Trinity shallenter into her,' (capit. xx.); at another, she is transported into the midstof the Trinity.-(Capit. xxxii.) In chapter after chapter of monotonousinflation, she wearies and disappoints the curious reader by declaringher ' abysses of delectation and illumination' altogetherunutterable,-such as language profanes rather than expresses-' inenarrabiles,'' indicibiles, ' &c. So the miraculous taste of the host to her favouredpalate was not like bread or flesh, but a ' sapor sapidissimus,' likenothing that can be named-. Capit. xl.The following act of saintship we give in the original, lest inEnglish it should act on delicate readers as an emetic. She speaks ofherself and a sister ascetic. ' Lavimus pedes feminarum ibi existentiumpauperum, et manus hominum, et maxime cujusdam leprosi, quihabebat manus valde fœtidas et marcidas et præpeditas et corruptas;et bibimus de illâ loturá. Tantam autem dulcedinem sensimus in illopotu, quod per totam viam venimus in magnâ suavitate, et videbaturmihi per omnia quod ego gustassem mirabilem dulcedinem, quantumad suavitatem quam ibi inveni. Et quia quædam squamula illarumplagarum erat interposita in gutture meo, conata sum ad diglutiendum eam, sicut si communicassem, donec deglutivi eam. Unde tantamsuavitatem inveni in hoc, quod eam non possum exprimere.'-Capit. 1.p. 176.In her Instructions,' she lays it down as a rule that none can everbe deceived in the visions and manifestations vouchsafed them whoare truly poor in spirit, who have rendered themselves as ' dead andVOL. I. DD402 [B. VII.Notes.putrid' into the hands of God. (Capp. liv. lv.) She says that whenGod manifests himself to the soul, it sees him, without bodily form,indeed, but more distinctly than one man can see another man, for theeyes of the soul behold a spiritual plenitude, not a corporeal, whereof Ican say nothing, since both words and imagination fail here.' (Capit.lii. p. 192.) Angela died in 1309.4 Catharine of Siena. Görres gives a short account of her in hisIntroduction to Diepenbrock's edition of Suso, p. 96.5 The theology of this remarkable little book * is substantially thesame with that already familiar to us in the sermons of Tauler.Luther, writing to Spalatin, and praising Tauler's theology, sends withhis letter what he calls an epitome thereof, cujus totius velut epitomen ecce hic tibi mitto. (Epp. De Wette, No. xxv.) He refers, therecan be little doubt, to his edition of the Deutsche Theologie, which cameout that year.6 See, especially, the twelfth chapter of the second book, On theNecessity of bearing the Cross. Compare Michelet's somewhat overdrawn picture of the effects of the Imitation in his History ofFrance.The Ignitum cum Deo Soliloquium of Gerlacus Petrus is a contemporary treatise belonging to the same school. (Comp. capp. xxxix. and xxvi.; ed. Strange, 1849) . It is less popular, less impassioned than theImitation, and more thoroughly impregnated with the spirit of mysticism. Gerlach would seem to have studied Suso: in one place he imitateshis language. The cast of his imagery, as well as the prominence given to mystical phraseology, more peculiar to the Germans, showsthat he addresses himself to an advanced and comparatively esotericcircle. Comp. capp. xxii. xxiv. p. 78.7'Gerson.' See an article by Liebner (Gerson's Mystische Theologie)in the Theologische Studien und Kritiken; 1835, ii.BOOK VII.NOTES TO CHAPTER I.1 Malcolm's Persia, vol. ii. , p. 383.2 See Schrader's Angelus Silesius und seine Mystik; Halle, 1853.

• An excellent translation has recently appeared, by Miss Winkworth.

C. 2.] Notes. 403This author shows, that the supposition identifying Scheffler withAngelus (copied too readily by one writer from another) may be tracedup to a source of very slight authority. Scheffler repudiated mysticismafter entering the Romish communion. Furious polemical treatises byScheffler, and sentimental religious poems by Angelus appeared contemporaneously during a considerable interval. Had Scheffler published anything mystical during his controversy, his Protestant antagonists would not have failed to charge him with it. With Schefflerthe Church is everything. In the Wanderer of Angelus the wordscarcely occurs. The former lives in externalisms; the latter covetsescape from them. The one is an angry bigot; the other, for aRomanist, serenely latitudinarian. Characteristics so opposite, urgesDr. Schrader, could not exist in the same man at the same time.The epithet Cherubic ' indicates the more speculative character ofthe book; as contrasted, in the language of the mystics, with the devotion of feeling and passion-seraphic love.3 Cherubinischer Wandersmann, i. 100, 9, 18; Schrader, p. 28.NOTES TO CHAPTER II.1 Tholuck, Ssufismus , sive Theosophia Persarum pantheistica (Berlin,1822) , pp. 51-54.2 Tholuck, Ssufismus, p. 63. Cherub. Wand. , ii. 18.3 Tholuck, Blüthensämmlung aus der Morgenlandischen Mystik (Berlin,1825), p. 114.4 Cherub. Wand. , i. 274; v. 81 .5 Blüthen. , p. 61. Cherub. Wand. , iv. 23 .6 Blüthen. , pp. 64, 71 , 113, 156.7 Blüthen. , p. 167. Emerson's Essays ( 1848), p. 35.8 Blüthen. , pp. 204-206. Cherub. Wand. , i. 24, 92, 140.9 Blüthen. , pp. 180, 181. Cherub. Wand., v. 367; ii. 92; 1. 91 , 39;ii . 152, 59. Emerson, pp. 37, 42.10 Blüthen. , pp. 85, 116. Emerson, pp. 141, 143. Cherub. Wand.i. 12. Compare Richard ofSt. Victor, cited above, p. 375 .11 Bluthen. , pp. 82, 84.-The truth, of which the licentious doctrinealluded to is the abuse, is well put byAngelus,-Dearer to God the good man's very sleepThan prayers and psalms of sinners all night long.'-(v. 334.)12 Blüthen. , pp. 266, 260.-Never does this soaring idealism becomeso definite and apprehensible as when it speaks with the large utterance' of the Sufis. Angelus has here and there somewhat similar404 Notes [B. VII. .imagery for the same thought. What is with him a dry skeletonacquires flesh and blood among the Orientals.' Sit in the centre, and thou seest at onceWhat is, what was; all here and all in heaven.' Is my will dead? Then what I will God must,And I prescribe his pattern and his end.' I must be sun myself, and with my beamsPaint all the hueless ocean of the Godhead.'-(ii . 183; i. 98, 115.)13 Emerson, pp. 154, 156, 196. Cherub. Wand. , i. 10, 8, 204.-Angelus has various modes of expressing the wayin which God realiseshis nature in the salvation of men.' I bear God's image. Would he see himself?He only can in me, or such as I.'Meekness is velvet whereon God takes rest:Art meek, O man?-God owes to thee his pillow.'I see in God both God and man,Heman and God in me;I quench his thirst, and he, in turn,Helps my necessity.'-(i. 105, 214, 224.)14 Works, vol. iv., On the Mystical Poetry of the Persians and Hindoos.15 Blüthen. , р. 218.END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

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