CHAPTER V.

Explains how this dim contemplation is not a night only, but pain and torment also for the soul.
In a dark night .
^The dark night is a certain inflowing of God into the soul which cleanses it of its ignorances and imperfections, habitual, natural, and spiritual. Con- templatives call it infused contemplation, or mystical t heology , whereby God secretly teaches the soul and instructs it in the perfection of love, without efforts on its own part beyond a loving attention to God, listening to His voice and admitting the light He sends, but ^without understanding how this is infused contemplation.
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And inasmuch as it is the loving wisdom of God, it produces special effects in the soul, for it prepares it, by purifying and enlightening it, for union with God in love : it is the same loving wisdom, which by enlightening purifies the blessed spirits, that here purifies and enlightens the soul.
2. But it may be asked : Why does the soul call tlie"\ divine light, which enlightens the soul and purges it of its ignorances, the dark night ? I reply, that the divine wisdom is, for two reasons, not night and darkness only, but pain and torment also to the soul. The first is, the divine wisdom is so high that it transcends the capacity of the soul, and therefore is, in that respect, darkness. The second reason is based on the meanness and impurity of the soul, and in that respect the divine wisdom is painful to it, afflictive and dark also.
3. To prove the truth of the first reason, we take for granted a principle of the philosopher, namely, the more clear and evident divine things are, the more dark and hidden they are to the soul naturally. Thus the more? clear the light the more does it blind the eyes of thel owl,* and the stronger the sun's rays the more it blinds the visual organs ; overcoming them, by reason of their/ weakness, and depriving them of the power of seeing. So the divine light of contemplation, when it beats on
* [Aristot. Metaphysic, lib. 1. prope jinem. 4 ^lawep yap ra twv vvk - T€p[8(j>v oppara irpbs to €yyos to peO' rjpepav , outco Kal Trjs rjp€T€pas yvyr ) s 6 vovs 7rpbs ra Trj vcr€i av€pu>TaTa 7^avTa>J/. , ]
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the soul, not yet perfectly enlightened, causes spiritual darkness, because it not only surpasses its strength, but because it blinds it and deprives it of its natural perceptions.
4. It is for this reason that St. Dionysius and other mystic theologians call infused contemplation a ray of darkness, that is, for the unenlightened and unpurified soul, because this great supernatural light masters the natural power of the reason and takes away its natural way of understanding. Therefore, David also said : 4 Clouds and darkness are round about Him ; ’* not that this is so in reality, but in reference to our weak understanding, which, in light so great, becomes dimmed and blind, unable to ascend so high. He repeats it, saying : 4 At the brightness that was before Him the clouds passed/t that is, between Him and our understanding. This is the reason why the illuminating ray of hidden wisdom, when God sends it from Himself into the soul not yet transformed, produces thick dark- ness in the understanding.
5. This dim contemplation is in its beginnings, painful also to the soul. For as the infused divine contemplation contains many excellences in the highest degree, and the soul, which is the recipient, because not yet pure, is involved in many miseries the result is — as two contraries cannot co-exist in the same subject — that
* Ps. xcvi. 2. t lb. xvii. 13.
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the soul must suffer and be in pain, being the subject in which the two contraries meet, and resist each other because of the purgation of the soul from its imperfec- tions, which is being wrought by contemplation. I shall show it to be so by the following induction.
6. In the first place, because the light and wisdom of contemplation is most pure and bright, and because the soul, on which it beats, is in darkness and impure, that soul which is the recipient must greatly suffer. As eyes weakened and clouded by humours suffer pain when the clear light beats upon them, so the soul, by reason of its impurity, suffers exceedingly when the divine light really shines upon it. And when the rays of this pure light strike upon the soul, in order to expel its impurities, the soul perceives itself to be so unclean and miserable that it seems as if God had set Himself against it, and itself were set against God. So grievous and painful is this feeling — for it thinks now that God has abandoned it — that it was one of the heaviest afflictions of Job during his trial. ‘ Why hast Thou set me contrary to Thee, and I become burdensome to myself ? ’* The soul seeing distinctly in this bright and pure light, though dimly, its own impurity, acknowledges its own unworthiness before God and all creatures.
7. That which pains it still more is the fear it has that it never will be worthy, and that all its goodness is gone.
* Job vii. 20.
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This is the fruit of that deep impression, made on the mind, in the knowledge and sense of its own wickedness and misery. For now the divine and dim light reveals to it all its wretchedness, and it sees clearly that of itself it can never be other than it is. In this sense we can understand the words of the Psalmist : ‘ For iniquities Thou hast chastised man, and Thou hast made his soul pine away as a spider/*
8. In the second place, the pain of the soul comes from its natural and spiritual weakness ; for when this divine contemplation strikes it with a certain vehemence, in order to strengthen it and subdue it, it is then so pained in its weakness as almost to faint away, particu- larly at times when the divine contemplation strikes it with greater vehemence ; for sense and spirit, as if under a heavy and gloomy burden, suffer and groan in agony so great that death itself would be a desired relief.
9. This was the experience of Job, and he said, ‘ I will not that He contend with me with much strength, nor that He oppress me with the weight of His greatness. 't The soul under the burden of this oppression feels itself so removed out of God's favour that it thinks — and so it is — that all things which consoled it formerly have utterly failed it, and that no one is left to pity it. Job also speaks to the same purport, ‘ Have mercy upon me, have
* Ps. xxxviii. 12. t Job xxiii. 6 .
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mercy upon me, at the least you my friends, because the hand of our Lord hath touched me.’* Wonderful and piteous sight ! So great are the weakness and impurity of the soul that the hand of God, so soft and so gentle, is felt to be so heavy and oppressive, though neither press- ing nor resting on it, but merely touching it, and that, too, most mercifully ; for He touches the soul not to chastise it, but to load it with His graces.