CHAPTER XVIII.

Shows how this secret wisdom is also a ladder.
It remains for me to explain the second property, namely, how this secret wisdom is also a ladder. There are many reasons for calling secret contemplation a ladder. In the first place, as men employ ladders to mount up to those strong places where treasures are laid up, so also by secret contemplation, without knowing how, the soul ascends, and mounts upwards, to the knowledge and possession of the goods and treasures of heaven. This is well expressed by the royal prophet David when he says, ‘ Blessed is the man whose help is from Thee : he hath disposed ascensions in his heart, in the vale of tears, in the place which he hath appointed. For the Lawgiver shall give blessing ; they shall go from virtue into virtue : the God of gods shall be seen in Sion/* He is the treasure of the citadel of Sion which is blessedness.
2. We may also call it a ladder, for as the steps of one and the same ladder serve to descend as well as to ascend by, so, too, those very communications which the soul receives in secret contemplation raise it up to God and make it humble. For the communications which really come from God have this property : they humble and exalt the soul at one and the same time. In the
* Ps. lxxxiii. 6, 7, 8.
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spi ritua l wayyjtCL descen d is to ascend, and to ascend is to descend, ‘ because everyone that exalteth himself shall be humbled, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.'* Moreover, as the virtue of humility is an exaltation, for the trial of the soul therein, God is wont to make it ascend by this ladder that it may descend, and make it descend that it may ascend ; for thus are fulfilled the words of the Wise Man, ‘Before he be broken the heart of a man is exalted, and before he be glorified it is humbled/f
3. If the soul will reflect on the nature of a ladder — I omit the spiritual which is not perceptible— it will easily see how uneven is the road ; how after prosperity, which makes it glad, storms and trials follow at once, so that its previous repose seems to have been given it to prepare it and strengthen it for its present sufferings ; how also, after misery and distress, come abundance and ease, so that the soul shall seem to have kept a vigil before the feast. This is the ordinary course of the state of contemplation, for until the soul attains to repose it never continues in one state ; for all is ascending and descending. The reason is this ; the state of perfection, which consists in the perfect love of God and contempt of self, can only subsist on two conditions, the knowledge of God and of oneself. The soul, therefore, must of necessity be tried in the one and * St. Luke xiv. 11. t Prov - *viii. I2 *
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the other, in the first which exalts it, by giving it to taste the sweetness of God, in the second which, by trials, humbles it, until, perfect habits having been acquired, it ceases to ascend and descend, having arrived at the summit, united with God, Who is at the top of it, and on Whom, too, the ladder rests.
4. The ladder of contemplation, which, as I have said, comes down from God, is shadowed forth by that ladder which Jacob saw in a dream, and the angels ascending and descending by it, from God to man and from man to God, Who was Himself leaning upon it.* This took place by night, when Jacob slept, as the Scriptures declare, that we may learn from it how secret is the way and ascent unto God, and how different from all human conception. This is plain enough, for, in general, that which is to our greater profit — the loss and annihilation of self — we esteem a calamity ; and that which is of but little value — comfort and sweetness, where, in general, we lose instead of gaining — we look upon as the more advantageous for us.
5. But, to speak with more accuracy, and to the purpose, of the ladder of secret contemplation, I must observe that the chief reason why it is called a ladder is, that contemplation is the science of love, which is an infused loving knowledge of God, and which enlightens the soul and at the same time kindles within it the fire
* Gen. xx\Hii. 12, 13.
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of love till it shall ascend upwards step by step unto God its Creator ; for it is love only that unites the soul and God. With a view to the greater clearness of this matter, I shall mark the steps of this divine ladder, explaining concisely the signs and effects of each, that the soul may be able to form some conjecture on which of them it stands. I shall distinguish between them by their effects with St. Bernard and St. Thomas,* and because it is not naturally possible to know them as they are in themselves, because the ladder of love is so secret that it can be weighed and measured by God only.