Part 6

“Christ and I keep house together, He is mine, I His; Night and day His love outwears me; He my heart hath stolen; In His mouth He holds me, What care have I outside!”

Elsewhere God says to man:--

“I will be thy nourishment, Thy host and thy cook. My flesh was well roasted On the cross for love of thee. Shalt eat and drink with Me.”

The translator is terrified and changes these astonishing flights into pale circumlocutions. The wild and simple air, the vast and savage love of the original work, most frequently disappear in a wise, correct, copious, and monotonous conventual phraseology; the fidelity to the meaning remaining all the while exact. It was fragments of this translation which Ernest Hello translated in his turn, or rather, he gathered together in chapters arranged by himself, phrases taken from different portions of the work, and disfigured by a double translation. He thus formed a kind of anthology, admirable in its way, almost entirely consecutive; but in which, in spite of careful searching, I have been unable to find more than three or four passages reproduced in their entirety.

As for the present translation, its one merit is its literal exactitude. I might perhaps have been able to make it, if not more elegant, at least more readable, and to improve the work a little from the point of view of theological and metaphysical terminology. But it seemed to me less dangerous and more loyal to confine myself to an almost blind word-for-word translation. I have also resisted the inevitable temptation to introduce unfaithful splendours, for the mind of the old monk is constantly touching upon strange beauties, which his discretion does not awake, and all his paths are peopled with lovely sleeping dreams, whose slumber his humility does not venture to disturb.

SELECTED PASSAGES FROM “THE ADORNMENT OF THE SPIRITUAL MARRIAGE.”

ON THE KINGDOM OF THE SOUL

He who desires to obtain and to preserve virtue will adorn, occupy, and arrange his soul like to a kingdom. Free will is the king of the soul. He is free by nature, and yet more free through divine mercy. He will be crowned with a crown named charity. This crown and this kingdom we shall receive from the Emperor, who is the Lord, the Ruler and the King of kings, and we shall possess, rule, and maintain this kingdom in His name. The sovereign, free will, shall dwell in the highest town of the kingdom--that is to say, in the strong desires of the soul. And he will be adorned with a robe of two parts. The right side of the robe shall be a virtue which is called strength, so that he may be strong and powerful to conquer every obstacle, and to dwell at last in heaven in the palace of the great Emperor, bending his crowned head with love and passionate self-surrender before the supreme and sovereign King. This is the fitting work of charity. Through it we receive the crown. Through it we adorn the crown, and through it we maintain and possess the kingdom through all eternity. The left side of the robe shall be a cardinal virtue, which is called moral strength. Through its aid shall free will, the king, put down all immorality and fulfil all virtue, and shall have the power to maintain his kingdom unto death.

This king shall choose councillors in his country, the wisest to be found in the land. These will be two divine virtues, knowledge and discretion, enlightened by the grace of God. They will dwell near the king, in a palace which is called the soul’s strength of reason; but they will be clothed and adorned with a moral virtue which is called temperance, so that the king may always act or refrain from acting according to their counsels. By knowledge we shall purge the conscience from all its faults and adorn it with every virtue; and by discretion we shall give and take, do and leave undone, speak and be silent, fast and eat, listen and reply; and in all things we shall act according to knowledge and discretion, clothed with their moral virtue, which is called temperance or moderation.

This king, free will, shall also set up in his kingdom a judge, who shall be called justice, a divine virtue when it springs from love; and it is one of the highest moral virtues. This judge shall dwell in the conscience, in the centre of the kingdom, in the strongest passions. And he will be adorned with moral virtue, which is called prudence. For justice cannot be perfect. This judge, justice, shall travel through the kingdom with the power and the force of the king, accompanied by wisdom of counsel and by his own prudence. He will promote and dismiss, judge and condemn, kill and keep alive, mutilate, blind and restore sight, lift up and put down, organise, punish, and chastise every sin with perfect justice, and at last destroy all vices.

The people of this kingdom--that is all the pure of soul--shall be established on and in the fear of God; they shall be subject unto God in all virtues, each according to his own capacity. He who has thus occupied, adorned, and regulated the kingdom of his soul, has gone forth in love and virtue towards God, himself, and his neighbour.

CHRIST THE SUN OF THE SOUL

The sun shines in the east, in the centre of the world, on the mountains; it hastens summer in that region, and creates good fruits and potent wines, filling the earth with joy. The same sun shines in the west, at the ends of the earth; there the country is colder, and the power of its heat is less, yet nevertheless it produces a great many excellent fruits; but few wines are found there.

Those men who dwell in the west of their own being, remain in the outward senses, and by their good intentions, their virtues, and their outward practices, through God’s grace, they produce abundant harvests and virtues in various ways, but they seldom taste the wine of inward joy and of spiritual consolation.

The man who will feel the shining of the Eternal Sun, which is Christ Himself, will have clear vision, and will dwell on the mountains of the east, concentrating all his energies and raising his heart towards God, free and careless as regards joy, sorrow, and all creatures. There Christ the Sun of Righteousness shines on the free and uplifted heart; and these are the mountains which I have in mind. Christ, the glorious sun and the divine brightness, shines and illumines and enkindles by His inward coming, and the power of His Spirit, the free heart and all the powers of the soul.

When summer draws near, and the sun rises higher in the heavens, it draws the moisture of the soil through the roots and the trunk of the trees, until it reaches the branches, and hence come foliage, flowers, and fruits. So likewise, when Christ, the Eternal Sun, rises in our hearts, so that the summer reigns over their adornment of virtues, He sends His light and His fire into our will, and draws the heart from the multitude of earthly things, and creates unity and close fellowship, and makes the heart to grow and become green through inward love, and to bear the flowers of loving devotion and the fruits of gratitude and affection, and preserves these fruits in the sorrow and humility we feel because of our impotence.

THE LESSON FROM THE BEE

Observe the wise bee and make it your model. It dwells in a community in the midst of its companions, and it goes forth, not during the storm, but when the weather is calm and still and the sun is shining; and it flies towards all the flowers on which it can find sweetness. It does not rest on any flower, neither in its beauty nor in its sweetness, but it draws from each calix honey and wax--that is to say, the sweetness and the substance of its brightness--and it bears them back to the community in which all the bees are assembled, so that the honey and wax may profitably bear fruit.

The opened heart on which Christ, the Eternal Sun, is shining, grows and flourishes under His rays, and flows with all its inner powers into joy and sweetnesses.

Now the wise man will act like the bee, and he will fly out in order to settle with care, intelligence, and prudence on all the gifts and on all the sweetness which he has experienced, and on all the good which God has done to him; and through the rays of the sun and his own inward observation he will experience a multitude of consolations and blessings. And he will not rest on any flower of all these gifts, but, laden with gratitude and praise, he will fly back again toward the home in which he longs to dwell and rest for evermore with God.

THE DEW OF MID-DAY

Sometimes in these burning days there falls the honey-dew of some false sweetness, which soils the fruits or completely spoils them. It falls for the most part at noon, in bright sunshine, and its great drops can hardly be distinguished from rain. Even so there are some men who can be caught away from their outward senses by some brightness which is the gift of the enemy. And this brightness enwraps and envelops them, and at that moment they behold images, falsehoods, and many kinds of truths, and voices speak to them in different ways, and all this is seen and received with great joy. And here there fall at times the honey-drops of a false sweetness in which the man delights himself. He who values it highly receives a great quantity, and so the man is often injured, for if he holds for true such things as have no resemblance to truth, because they have been shown or taught him, he falls into error and the fruit of virtue is lost. But those who have climbed by the paths which I have pointed out above, although they may indeed be tempted by that spirit and by that brightness, will recognise them and receive no injury.

THE LESSON FROM THE ANT

I will give a brief parable to those who live in continual ebullitions of love, in order that they may endure this disposition nobly and becomingly, and may attain to a higher virtue.

There is a little insect which is called the ant; it is strong and wise, and very tenacious of life, and it lives with its fellows in warm and dry soils. The ant works during summer and collects food and grain for the winter, and it splits the grain so that it may not become rotten or spoiled, and may be eaten when there is nothing more to be found. And it does not make strange paths, but all follow the same path, and after waiting till the proper time they become able to fly.

So should these men do; they will be strong by waiting for the coming of Christ, wise against the appearance and the inspiration of the enemy. They will not choose death, but they will prefer God’s glory alone and the winning of fresh virtues. They will dwell in the community of their heart and of their powers, and will follow the invitation and the constraint of divine unity. They will live in rich and warm soils, or, in other words, in the passionate heat of love, and in great impatience. And they will work during the summer of this life, and will gather in for eternity the fruits of virtue. These they will divide in two--one part means that they will always desire the supreme joy of eternity; the other, that by their reason they will always restrain themselves as much as possible, and wait the time that God has appointed for them, and so the fruit of virtue shall be preserved into eternity. They will not follow strange paths or curious methods, but through all storms they will follow the path of love, towards the place whither love shall guide them. And when the set time has come, and they have persevered in all the virtues, they shall be fit to behold God, and their wings shall bear them towards His mystery.

WHAT SHALL THE FORSAKEN DO?

He shall humbly consider that he hath nothing of his own save his misery, and shall say with resignation and self-abandonment the same words which were spoken by holy Job: “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” And in all things he shall yield up his own will, saying and thinking in his heart, “Lord, I am as willing to be poor and without all those things of which Thou hast deprived me, as I should be ready to be rich, Lord, if Thy will were so, and if in that state I might further Thy glory. It is not my natural will which must be done, but Thy will and the will of my spirit. Lord, I am Thine, and I should be Thine as gladly in hell as in heaven, if in that way I could advance Thy glory. So then, O Lord, fulfil in me the good pleasure of Thy will.” Out of all sufferings and all renunciations the man will draw for himself an inward joy; he will resign himself into the hands of God, and will rejoice to suffer in promoting God’s glory. And if he perseveres in this course, he will enjoy secret pleasures never tasted before; for nothing so rejoices the lover of God as to feel that he belongs to his Beloved. And if he has truly risen to this height in the path of virtues, it is not necessary that he shall have passed through the different states which we have pointed out in previous chapters, for he feels in himself, in work, in humble obedience, and in patience and resignation, the source of every virtue. This method has therefore an everlasting certainty.