They swim into the retina, to be instantly classified by experimental knowledge, and most speedily dismissed in the search for the ultimate, ever-increasing joy of the mountain ranges. Further investigation leads to the discovery that the movement is not a cyclical repetition, but an ascending spiral leading from earth to heaven. And if I had as great torments as he is of might, I should love better these torments, if they came of him, than I should glory that came not of him, [even were I] to have it everlastingly. For he that is, hath their will, [and he] knoweth what is good for them, and that sufficeth them without knowing or being sure. We cannot determine with any exactness who was the author of the Mirren, nor has anything further come to light since Miss Underhill, in 1911, conjectured that he may have been a secular priest or a Carthusian living on the borders of Flanders and France in the last third of the thirteenth century. This I shall tell you how and for why and in what? [241] Nor unto this time is the spirit perfectly dead until it have lost the feeling of his love, and the will is dead that gave her life. Lady Love, that I shall tell you, saith this soul, that he that loveth more than me and I do not love myself except for him hath in him, that which ye have said, that none knoweth but he only. For this, that I am the greatness and the sum of all evils. [263] These two debts, the one and the other, be henceforward all one, for this is the counsel of my next neighbour, and thereto I consent. It pleaseth them best that it be as God will have it done, [even] though they might, by their prayer, have it any otherwise, they offer all unto his divine ordering and will. To it he attributes certain purgative and illuminative effects which become more marked as advance is made. And then is a soul in the sixth state, of all things made free, pure, and clarified, not glorified; for glorifying is in the seventh estate that we shall have in glory, that none can speak of. And right as it is of some angels compared with others, as ye have heard say, right so it is by grace of the naughted souls that we speak of, as compared with all those that be not. [182], Mercy God, saith Reason, dare we call naught anything that is in God?. She hath nothing with holden. Ah, what had he in thought, who this book made? But this, that they save themselves by faith without works, and that they can no more work, it is not meant that they cease from all good works for evermore, and never do any work, but sit in sloth and idleness of soul and body; for those who take it so, they misunderstand it; but it is thus. The Mirror of Simple Souls Download PDF version of the book. So it befell that this lady heard tell of the great courtesy and of the great largesse of King Alexander; and anon she loved him for his noble gentleness and for his high renown. I am as foolish in the time that I make it except that love maketh it for me at my request as he should be that would shut the sea in the compass of his eye and bear the world upon the point of a rush, and light the sun with a shadow! Pure is that which is of him, in love. There dangers may no more appear, but glorious life is had. From these two cometh the love amiable of the Beloved in souls. If God hath drawn you into him, it doth not become you, saith Love, to forget what you were, when he made you first, and what you have been since if you took heed of your works and what you are and shall be, except [for] that which is of God in yourself.. And in none other usage than in this only point, show not the door at which ye be porters, that it do you not confusion; for in other point ye shall not be heard, but in this one only point, if it so befall that she be brought so low that she have of this need.. The author guards against the Pantheistic theory that the soul can be so absorbed into the divine nature as to become identical with it. All is one to her without dread and without joy, for she is no one in this one. And when she seeth this, thus saith to herself, that she will seek him. Never had she will according to the senses, nor work of spirit, but [she had] the will of the Deity in work divine. And by this love amiable these souls behold always the Beloved.. what faulteth me then? So doth God [set], saith Love, by divine nature, the drawings of his love in her, who formeth her questions in her without [her] witting. And then I said to him, that if it might be that he would give me as great torments as he is mightful, for to avenge him of my defaults, if it pleased him, it were my pleasaunce. And if I lost it, I should nor reck thereof but for him, and if he yielded it me again after this loss, I should not take it but for him. That none may her find. What a sweet union is this, that I am drawn into the thing that I love more than me; thereby have I lost my name for loving, who so little may love! But more righteous is he that alway abideth where stableness is. That is, that all that she coveteth and loveth and prizeth, it is of the divine bounty. Thus prayeth she not. Search for your book and save it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. And this people that thus be marred, hold themselves for caitiffs, and so they be, but they may come to the free being, the which we speak of, by the teaching of this divine light, of whom these little [ones] that be marred, ask the dressing of their way., Yea, yet little, saith the Holy Ghost, in sooth, as long as they make askings either of Knowing or of Love, or do anything that may be in love,[213] or in knowing, or in craving, for no wise man prayeth without cause, nor careth he for that which may not be. The issue that Mystics face is trying to put into words what is ineffable/wordless. Now perceiveth Reason that she hath joy, and goeth and saith to her that she hath sin thereof, that she maketh joy of that for which her even-Christians weep. And in this the divine will perfectly is fulfilled. An obscure passage. Some of the readings have been elucidated by reference to the Latin version of Richard Methley, who, it was hoped, might have known the exact value of contemporary mystical phrases, and whose Latin renderings shed much light on the syntax of an unpunctuated English MS. This second part deals with the highest states, not merely by description, but it takes up some of the previous points of controversy and shows them in relation to the further the plea of experience acquired. Then since I shall see so high a thing as is the Trinity, there shall not be taken from me the knowing of the angels and of souls. It may not be that time lost may ever be regained, and as oft as I have retired or with- drawn myself from loving and knowing and lauding and thanking you, so many moments of time I have been idle, and into these great defaults I am fallen. And this hath rested her of all things by excellent nobleness.. I shall not do it. i.e., liberty is my sole support. The author as a Latin and a member of the north-eastern race of Frenchmen, whose temperament, practical and logical, carries with it a predisposition to argumentative speculation, applies the paradoxes inherent in the Dionysian system not only to the method of prayer and the attainment of God as does the author of the Cloud but to the whole life of the individual. 155, 184 are quite definite in guarding against such an interpretation. Alas, alas! And the moon all full, for never ye shall diminish. But the first angels have not the name of seraphins, but of angels, and the seraphins have both the one name and the other; understand without saying[240] what this means! The first cost that this soul which is free hath, is this, that she hath no grudging of conscience, though she work not the work of virtues. The third censor was Don Frank, Cantor of the Abbey of Villiers, whose interests (perhaps because of his office) were in scriptural interpretation. And he waxeth not,[229] but is; for otherwise is the Son of the Father, and otherwise is the Holy Ghost of the Father and of the Son. For more details on the dependency of Pili on the work of Cordoni, and consequent to that, of Porete, see Cargnoni. And then the wound is opened, to heal where it is hurt. Now I did it for your peace and for to show the truth concerning low cowardice, the same that Reason hath to yield. We have, however, retained them as affording a valuable indication of the general drift of the argument, and as elucidating the unpunctuated chaos of the British Museum MS. And not only these words but also many more other words that be written before and after seem fable or error, or hard to understand. His love is not served in this, nor is this naught[297] it may not be. This is a scholar of divinity; she sitteth in the valley of meekness and in the plain of truth and in the mountain of love, there she resteth her.. Also, as Jesu Christ is buyer of the people by his death, and the laud of God the Father, right so am I, because of my wickedness, the salvation of mankind, and the glory of God the Father. Yes, saith Love, all the virtues be mothers.. And Gods Son is our ensample; we ought in this beholding to follow him, for we should will solely in all things the will of God, and so shall we be the sons of God the Father, to follow the ensample of Jesu Christ his Son. . We may surmise, moreover, that the English translators fears were not ungrounded, and that, if plain Englishmen found the Frenchmans treatise beyond their grasp in the first version he produced, the second may have met with similar fate. But nay, for Jesu Christ made this accordance so abundantly, so anguishously. This is full far from that which is said, that the righteous falleth seven times a day, into a case for correction.. This wot she, saith Love, for there she findeth him alway; for a thing must be found where it is. Even so, I tell you, they who keep the commandments and be in that feeling, they have the name of soul, and not of spirit. Their right name is soul, for these folks be full far from the life of spirit. This accordance is finely noble., I ask you a question: which is the most noble of these twain, the soul in gladness of that glory which draweth the soul, and embellisheth it by obedience to its nature, or that soul that to this glory is oned?, I know not, saith the soul that this first wrote, but Love, you yourself, say it for me! Now tell me, saith Love to the three divine virtues, why ask ye of us, what these souls be and where they be, and what they do? Charity giveth to all, all that she has of value. I sent you the Thrones for to answer you and to summon you, and the Cherubin to enlumine you and the Seraphin for to embrace or kiss[250] you. Certain points in the doctrine of the Mirror call for special comment, in that they seem to contribute something to the history of mystical theology. If ye understand not this, I may not amend it. The farthest of this is most nigh, for it oneth from within this being in himself, and it maketh her alway to be knit to his will without removing her therefrom, for thing that may fall to her.