CHAPTER X.

Explanation of this purgation by a comparison.
To make what I have said, and what I have still to say, more clear, it is well to observe here that this purgative and loving knowledge, or divine light, of which I have spoken, is to the soul which it is purifying, in order to unite it perfectly to itself, as fire is to fuel which it is transforming into itself. The first action of material fire on fuel is to dry it, to expel from it all water and all moisture. It blackens it at once and soils it, and drying* it by little and little, makes it light and consumes all its foulness and blackness which are contrary to itself. Finally, having heated and set on fire its outward surface, it transforms the whole into itself, and makes it beautiful as itself. The fuel under these conditions retains neither active nor passive qualities of its own, except bulk and weight, and assumes all the properties and acts of fire. It becomes dry, being dry it glows.
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and glowing, burns ; luminous, it gives light, and burns more quickly than before. All this is the property and effect of fire.
2. It is in this way we have to reason about the divine fire of contemplative love which, before it unites with, and transforms the soul into, itself, purges away all its contrary qualities. It expels its impurities, blackens it and obscures it, and thus its condition is apparently worse than it was before. For while the divine purgation is removing all the evil and vicious humours, which, because so deeply rooted and settled in the soul, were neither seen nor felt, but now in order to their expulsion and annihilation, are rendered clearly visible in the dim light of the divine contemplation, the soul — though not worse in itself, nor in the sight of God — seeing at last what it never saw before, looks upon itself not only as unworthy of His regard, but even as a loathsome object and that God does loathe it. By this comparison we shall be able to understand much that I have said, and purpose to say.
3. In the first place, we can see how that very light, and that loving knowledge which unites the soul and transforms it into itself, is the same which purifies and prepares it ; for the fire that transforms the fuel and incorporates it with itself, is the very same which also at the first prepared it for that end.
4. In the second place, we may see that these
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sufferings of the soul do not proceed from the divine wisdom — it being written, ‘ All good things came to me together with her/* — but from its own weakness and imperfection, being incapable, previous to its purgation, of receiving this divine light, sweetness, and delight ; and that is the reason why its sufferings are so great. The fuel is not transformed into fire, at the instant of their contact, if it be not previously prepared for burning.
5. This is the experience of the Wise Man, who thus describes his sufferings before his union with, and possession of, wisdom : ‘ My soul hath wrestled in it.
. . My belly was troubled in seeking it ; therefore
shall I possess a good possession/t
6. In the third place we learn by the way how souls suffer in purgatory. The fire would have no power over them if they were perfectly prepared for the kingdom of God, and union with Him in glory, and if they had no faults for which they must suffer, for these are the matter on which that fire seizes ; when that matter is consumed there is nothing more to burn. So is it here, when ail imperfections are removed, the suffering of the soul ceases, and in its place comes joy as deep as it is possible for it to be in this life.
7. In the fourth place, we learn that the soul, the more it is purified and cleansed in the fire of love, the
* Wisd. vii. 11. t Ecclus. li. 25 — -29.
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more it glows with it. The better the fuel is prepared for the fire the better it burns. The soul, however, is not always conscious of this burning of love within it, but only now and then, when the contemplation is less profound, for the soul is then able to observe, and even to delight in, the work that is being wrought, because it is visible ; the hand of the artificer seems to be with- drawn from the work, and the iron taken out of the furnace, so as to show in some measure the work that is being wrought. Then, too, the soul is able to see in itself that good which it did not see while the process was going on. Thus, when the flame ceases to envelop the fuel, it is possible to see clearly how much of it has been burnt.
8. In the fifth place, we shall also find by this comparison that which has been said before,* namely, how true it is that after these consolations, the soul suffers again more intensely and keenly than it did before. For after the manifestation of the work that has been done, when the more outward imperfections have been expelled, the fire of love returns again to purge and consume that which is more interior. The suffering of the soul herein becomes more penetrating, deep, and spiritual, according as it refines away the more profound, subtle, and deeply rooted interior im- perfections of the spirit. It is here as with the fuel in
♦ Ch. vii. § 9.
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the fire, the deeper the fire penetrates the greater is its force and energy in disposing the inmost substance of the fuel for its own possession of it.
9. In the sixth place, we shall learn that the so'ul, though it rejoices intensely in these intervals of peace — so much so that it seems at times, as we have said, to think its trials over, never to return, even while it is certain that they will soon return — cannot but feel, if it observes a single root of imperfection behind — and sometimes it must do so — that its joy is not full. It seems as if that root threatened to spring up anew, and when that is so, it does so quickly.
10. Finally, that which still remains to be purified and enlightened within cannot well be concealed from the soul in the presence of that which has been already purified ; so also that portion of the fuel which is still to be set on fire is very different from that which the flame has purified. And when this purgation com- mences anew in the inmost soul, it is not strange that it should consider all its goodness to have perished, and think that it can never recover its former prosperity ; for in most interior sufferings all outward goodness is hidden from it.
11. Keeping this comparison, then, before our eyes, with that which I have already said,* on the first line of this stanza, concerning this dark night and its fearful
* Ch. iii.
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characteristics, it may be well to leave the subject of these afflictions of the soul, and to enter on the matter of the fruit of its tears and their blessed properties, of which the soul sings in the second line.