CHAPTER XXI.

The meaning of ‘disguised/ The colours in which the soul disguises itself in this night.
Having now explained why contemplation is called a secret ladder, I have further to explain what is meant by the word ‘ disguised ' ; for the soul says that it went forth by the secret ladder ‘ disguised/
2. For the understanding of the whole matter it is necessary to keep in mind that to be disguised is nothing else but to hide oneself under another form than our own, either for the purpose of showing, under that concealment the will and purpose of the heart with a view to gain the goodwill and affection of the person beloved, or for the purpose of escaping the observation of rivals, and thereby the better effect our object. Such * S. John xvi. 23.
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a person assumes the disguise which shall most represent and manifest the affection of his heart, and which shall the best conceal him from his rivals.
3. The soul, then, touched with the love of its Bridegroom Christ, that it may gain His favour and goodwill, sallies forth in that disguise which shall most vividly represent the affections of the mind and secure it against the assaults of its enemies, the devil, the world, and the flesh. The disguise it assumes is, there- fore, a garment of three principal colours, white, green, and purple, emblems of the three theological virtues, faith, hope, and charity ; by the help of which it shall not only enter into the good graces of the Beloved, but shall also be most secure and protected against its three enemies.
4. The faith is a garment of such surpassing white- ness as to dazzle the eyes of every understanding : for when the soul has put on faith it becomes invisible and inaccessible to the devil, because it is then most securely defended against him, its strongest and most cunning foe.
5. St. Peter knew of no better defence against the devil than faith, for he said, ‘ whom resist, stedfast in faith/* And with a view of entering into favour and union with the Beloved, the soul cannot put on a better garment, as the ground of the other virtues, than the
* 1 S. Pet. v. 9.
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white garment of faith, for without it, the Apostle saith, ‘ it is impossible to please God.’* But with a living faith the soul is pleasing and acceptable unto God, for He says so Himself by the mouth of the prophet: ‘I will espouse thee to Me in faith.'t It is as if He said to the soul, If thou wilt be united and betrothed to Me, thou must draw near inwardly clad in faith.
6. The soul put on the white robe of faith on its going forth in this dark night, when walking in the darkness amidst interior trials, as I said before,* it received no ray of light from the understanding; not from above, because heaven seemed shut and God hidden ; not from below, because its spiritual directors gave it no comfort. It bore its trials patiently and persevered, without fainting, or falling away from the Beloved, Who by these crosses and tribulations tried the faith of His bride, that it might be able hereafter truly to say with the Psalmist, ‘ For the words of Thy lips, I have kept hard ways.’§
7. Over the white robe of faith the soul puts on forth-
with that of the second colour, green, emblem of the virtue of hope, by which it is delivered and protected from its second enemy, the world. The freshness of a living hope in God fills the soul with such energy and resolution, with such aspirations after the things of eternal life, that all this world seems to it — as indeed * Heb. xi. 6. t ° s
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it is — in comparison with that which it hopes for, dry, withered, dead, and worthless. The soul now denudes itself of the garments and trappings of the world, by setting the heart upon nothing that is in it, and hoping for nothing that is, or may be, in it, living only in the hope of everlasting life. And, therefore, when the heart is thus lifted up above the world, the world cannot touch it or lay hold of it, nor even see it.
8. The soul then, thus disguised and clad in the vesture of hope, is secure from its second foe, the world, for St. Paul calls hope the helmet of salvation.* Now a helmet is armour which protects and covers the whole head, and has no opening except in one place, where the eyes may look through. Hope is such a helmet, for it covers all the senses of the head of the soul in such a way that they cannot be lost in worldly things, and leaves no part of them exposed to the arrows of the world. It has one loophole only through which the eyes may look upwards only ; this is the ordinary work of hope, to direct the eyes of the soul to God alone ; as David saith, * My eyes are always to our Lord,’t looking for succour nowhere else ; as he saith in another Psalm, ( As the eyes of the handmaid on the hands of her mistress, so are our eyes to our Lord God until He have mercy on us,’$ hoping in Him.
9. The green vesture of hope — for the soul is then
* 1 Thess. v. 8. t P s - xxiv. 15. { Ps, cxxii, j.
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ever looking upwards unto God, disregarding all else, and delighting only in Him — is so pleasing to the Beloved that the soul obtains from Him all it hopes for. This is why He tells the soul in the Canticle, ‘Thou hast wounded My heart in one of thine eyes/* It would have been useless for the soul, if it had not put on the green robe of hope in God, to claim such love, for it would not have succeeded, because that which influences the Beloved, and prevails, is persevering hope. It is in the vesture of hope that the soul goes forth disguised in this secret and dark night ; seeing that it goes forth so detached from all possession, without any consolations, that it regards nothing, and that its sole anxiety is about God, putting its ‘mouth in the dust if so be there may be hope,' in the words of Jeremias quoted already.!
io. Over the white and green robes, as the crown and perfection of its disguise, the soul puts on the third, the splendid robe of purple. This is the emblem of charity, which not only enhances the beauty of the others, but which so elevates the soul and renders it so lovely and pleasing in His eyes that it ventures to say to Him, ‘ I am black but beautiful, O daughters of Jerusalem, therefore hath the king loved me and brought me into His. secret chamber.'! This robe of
* Cant. iv. 9. t Ch. viii. § 1.
t Cant. i. 4. Off. B. M. V. ant. ad Vesp.
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charity, which is that of love, not only defends and protects the soul from its third enemy, the flesh — for where the true love of God is there is no room for self- love or for selfishness — but strengthens the other virtues also, and makes them flourish for the protection of the soul, beautifying it and adorning it with grace, so that it shall please the Beloved ; for without charity no virtue is pleasing unto God. This is the purple, spoken of in the Canticle, by which the soul ascends to the seat where God reposes : ‘ the seat of gold, the going up of purple/* It is vested in this robe of purple that the soul journeys, as the first stanza declares, when in the dark night it went out of itself, and from all created things, with anxious love inflamed, by the secret ladder of contemplation to the perfect union of the love of God its beloved Saviour.
ii. This, then, is that disguise which the soul says it puts on in the night of faith on the secret ladder ; and these are the three colours of it, namely, a certain most fitting disposition for its union with God in its three powers, memory, understanding and will. Faith blinds the understanding, and empties it of all natural intelligence, and thereby disposes it for union with the divine wisdom. Hope empties the memory and with- draws it from all created things which can possess it ; for as St. Paul saith, ‘ Hope that is seen is not hope/t * Cant. iii. io. f Rom * viii. 2 4«
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Thus the memory is withdrawn from all things on which it might dwell in this life, and is fixed on what the soul hopes to possess. Hope in God alone, therefore, purely disposes the memory according to the measure of the emptiness it has wrought for union with Him.
12. Charity in the same way empties the affections and desires of the will of everything that is not God, and fixes them on Him alone. This virtue of charity, then, disposes the will and unites it with God in love. And because these virtues — it being their special work — withdraw the soul from all that is not God, so also do they serve to unite the soul to Him. It is impossible for the soul to attain to the perfection of the love of God unless it journeys, in earnest, in the robes of these three virtues. This disguise, therefore, which the soul assumed when it went forth in order to obtain that which it aimed at, the loving and delightful union with the Beloved, was most necessary and expedient. And it was also a great happiness to have succeeded in thus disguising itself and persevering in it until it obtained the desired end, the union of love, as it declares in the next line.
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