CHAPTER XXIII.

Explains the fourth line — describes the wonderful hiding place of the soul in this night, and how the devil, though he enters other most secret places, enters not this.
In darkness and concealment .
4 In concealment/ that is, secretly or hidden. So when the soul says that it went forth in darkness and conceal- ment, it explains more clearly the great safety spoken of in the first line of this stanza — which it finds in this dim contemplation on the road of the union of the love of God.
2. The words of the soul 4 darkness and concealment ' mean here that the soul, because it went forth in the dark, travelled in secret, undiscovered by the evil one, beyond the reach of his wiles and stratagems. The reason why the soul is free, concealed from the devil and his wiles in the dimness of this contemplation, is, that infused contemplation, to which it is now admitted, is passively infused into it, in secret, without the cognisance of the senses, and of the interior and exterior powers of the sensual part. And that, too, is the reason why it escapes, not only from the embarrassments which the faculties, and naturally, through their weakness, present before it, but also from the evil one who, were it not for the sensual faculties, could never know what is passing
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in the soul. The more spiritual therefore the communi- cation is, and the further it is removed beyond the reach of sense, the less able is the devil to perceive it.
3. This being so, it greatly concerns the soul's security, that the lower senses should be in the dark, and have no knowledge of the interior conversation of the soul with God, and that for two reasons ; first, that the spiritual communication may be the more abundant, for then the weakness of the sensual part hinders not liberty of spirit. The second is, that the soul is more secure because the evil one cannot know what is passing within it. The words of our Lord, 1 Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doth,'* may be, in a spiritual sense, understood of this, and we may under- stand Him to say : Let not thy left hand, that is man's lower nature, know what is passing in the higher and spiritual part of the soul. That is, let the divine com- munications remain unknown to the lower senses, and a secret between the spirit and God.
4. It is very true, that oftentimes when these interior and most secret spiritual communications are made to the soul, the devil, though he knows neither their nature nor their form, ascertains their presence, and that the soul is then receiving some great blessings, merely from observing the silence and repose some of them effect in the senses, and in the powers of our lower nature. And
* St. Matt. vi. 3.
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then, when he sees that he cannot thwart them in the inmost depth of the soul, he does all he can to disquiet and disturb the sensual part which is accessible to him, now by pain and at another time by horrible dread, intending thereby to trouble the higher and spiritual part of the soul, and to frustrate the blessings it then receives and enjoys.
5. But very often when this contemplation pours its light purely into the spirit and exerts its strength therein, the devil, with all his efforts, is not able to disturb it, for then the soul becomes the recipient of renewed benefits, love, and a more secure peace ; for, wonderful to tell ! in its consciousness of the disturbing presence of the foe, it enters deeply into itself, without knowing how it comes to pass, and feels assured of a certain refuge where it can hide itself beyond the reach of the evil one ; and thus its peace and joy are increased, of which the devil attempted to rob it. All those terrors assail it only from without ; it sees clearly, and exults, that it can in the meanwhile securely enjoy in secret the calm peace and sweetness of the Bridegroom, which the world and the devil can neither give nor take away. The soul is now experiencing the truth of that which the bride says in the Canticle, * Behold, threescore valiants . . . compass the bed of Solomon . . .
for fears by night.’* Strength and peace abound
* Cant. iii. 7, 8.
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within the soul, though it feels the flesh and the bones frequently tormented without.
6. At other times, when the spiritual communica- tions flow over into the senses, the devil succeeds the more easily in disquieting the mind, and in disturbing it with the terrors with which he assails it through the senses. At that time the mental agonies are great, and occasionally surpassing all description ; for when spirit has to do with spirit, the evil one causes an intolerable horror in the good one, that is, in the soul, when it succeeds in disturbing it. This is the meaning of the bride in her account of that which happened to her when she tried to be interiorly recollected, so as to have the fruition of these goods : * I came down,' she says, ‘ into the garden of nuts to see the fruits of the valleys, and to look if the vineyard had flourished . . • . I knew not ; my soul troubled me for the chariots and the noise of Aminadab,' that is the devil.*
7. This attack of the devil takes place also when God bestows His favours upon a soul by the instrumentality of a good angel. The devil sees this occasionally, because God in general permits it to become known to the enemy, that he may do what he can, according to the measure of justice, against that soul, and that he may be debarred from pleading that he had no opportu- nity of seizing on that soul as he did in the case of Job.
* Cant. vi. 10, 11.
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It is, therefore, expedient that God should place these two combatants, the good angel and the devil, on an equality when they contend for the soul, in order that the victory may be of greater worth, and that the spul, triumphant and faithful in temptation, may be the more abundantly rewarded.
8. This is the reason — and it is right we should observe it — why God, in the order of grace, permits satan to disquiet and tempt the soul which He is guiding therein. When such a soul has real visions, through the instrumentality of an angel, God suffers the evil spirit to represent false visions of the same kind, in such a way that an incautious soul may be very easily deluded, as it has happened to many. We have an instance of this in Exodus, where we read that the
magicians of Pharao wrought apparently signs and wonders resembling those really wrought by Moses. For when Moses turned water into blood, the magicians of Egypt did the same ; and when he brought forth frogs, so did the magicians.*
9. It is not in bodily visions only that the evil spirit apes God, but in spiritual communications also, which are effected through the instrumentality of an angel* whenever he succeeds in discovering them. For as Job saith, ‘He seeth every high thing, 'f that is, he apes them, and insinuates himself among them as well as he
* Ex. vii. 11 , 22 ; viii. 6, 7. f J°b x ^- 2 5 «
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can. Spiritual visions have neither form nor figure — that is the characteristic of spirit — and, therefore, satan cannot imitate them, nor occasion others which shall in any way represent them. And so when the good angel communicates spiritual contemplation, the evil spirit, in order to attack it while the soul is being thus visited, presents itself before it with a certain horror and spiritual confusion, which is occasionally exceedingly painful. Sometimes the soul can quickly disembarrass itself, so that the terror of the evil spirit shall have no time to make any impression upon it, and recollects itself, favoured herein by that spiritual grace which the good angel then communicates.
io. Sometimes, too, God permits this horror and trouble to last a long time, and this is a greater torment to the soul than all the evils of this life can be ; the remembrance of which afterwards is sufficient to produce great pain. All this passes in the soul without its doing or undoing anything of itself to bring about these repre- sentations or impressions. But we must remember that, when God suffers the evil spirit thus to afflict the soul, it is with a view to purify and prepare it by that spiritual vigil for some great festival and spiritual grace which it is His will to bestow upon it, for He never mortifies but to give life, and never humbles but to exalt. This speedily ensues ; for the soul, according to the measure of the dark purgation it has undergone,
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enters on the fruition of sweet spiritual contemplation, and that so sublime at times that no language can describe it. This is to be understood of those visitations which God makes by the ministry of an angel, and wherein the soul, as I said before/ is not wholly secure, nor in such darkness and concealment as to be altogether unobserved by the enemy.
11. But when God visits the soul Himself, the words of the stanza are then true, for, in perfect darkness, hidden from the enemy, it receives, at such times, the spiritual graces of God. The reason of the difference is that God, being the sovereign Lord, dwells substantially in the soul, and that neither angel nor devil can discover what is going on there, nor penetrate the profound and secret communications which take place between Him and the soul. These communications, because the work of our Lord Himself, are wholly divine and supreme, and, as it were, substantial touches of the divine union between Himself and the soul ; in one of these, because it is the highest possible degree of prayer, the soul receives greater good than in all the rest. These are the touches for which the bride in the Canticle prayed, saying, ‘ Let Him kiss me with the kiss of His mouth / 1
12. This being a state so near unto God, into which the soul so anxiously longs to enter, one touch of the Godhead is prized and desired by it above all the other
* | 8. t Cant. i. i.
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gifts which God grants it. For this reason the bride in the Canticlet, after the great things wrought in her, of which she there sings, not finding them enough, prays for the divine touches, saying : ‘ Who shall give to me Thee my brother, sucking the breasts of my mother, that I may find Thee without, and kiss Thee ' with the mouth of my soul, ‘ and now no man despise me/* or presume to assail me. These words relate to that com- munication which God makes alone, without, and hidden from all creatures ; that is the meaning of the words ‘ alone/ ‘ without/ and * sucking/ This occurs when the soul in liberty of spirit enjoys these blessings in sweetness and inward peace, the sensual part thereof unable to hinder it, and the devil by means of it not able to disturb it.
13. Then indeed, the evil spirit would not venture to assail the soul, because he could not succeed, neither can he know of those divine touches in the substance of the soul with the substance of God, which is wrought by loving knowledge. No man can arrive at this blessed condition but by the most perfect purgation and detachment, by being spiritually hidden from all created things. It is a work wrought in the dark, in the hiding place, wherein the soul is confirmed more and more in union with God by love ; and, therefore, the soul sings, ‘ In darkness and concealment/
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14. When these favours are granted to the soul in secret, that is, in the spirit only, the higher and lower portions of the soul seem to it during some of them — it knows not how, to be so far apart that it recognises two parts in itself, each so distinct from the other, that neither seems to have anything in common with the other, being in appearance so far removed and apart. And, in reality, this is in a certain manner true, for in its present operations, which are wholly spiritual, it has no commerce with the sensual part.
15. Thus the soul becomes wholly spiritual, and the spiritual passions and desires are in a high degree suppressed in this hiding place of unitive contemplation. The soul then, speaking of its higher part, sings the last line of this stanza, ‘ My house being now at rest.'