XXV. t8-2l).

In Benedictine Monachism I wrote:
It is strange how the Devil has invaded the realm of mystical theology and shares the ground about equally with Almighty God. In Gorres's Myslik there are two volumes of "Divine Mysticism 5 and two volumes of 'Diabolical Mysticism*, in great measure a system- atized demonology, filthy and disgusting. Though the Devil figures largely in the stories of St Gregory's Dialogues, and is the object of much theological disquisition in his other works, and also in St Bernard's, neither saint manifests any fear of his intrusion in the intimate personal relations of the soul with God (p. 65). 1
It is for the reasons just set forth that I seemed to see in the teaching on contemplation of the three great Doctors, Augustine, Gregory, and Bernard^ a type of mysticism with clearly marked characteristics that differentiate it from other types of mysticism, earlier and later. It may be described as pre-Dionysian, pre- scholastic, non-philosophical; unaccompanied by psycho-physical concomitants, whether rapture or trance^ or any quasi- hypnotic symptoms; without imaginative visions, auditions, or revelations; and without thought of the Devil. It is a mysticism purely and solely religious, objective and empirical; being merely, on the practical side, the endeavour of the soul to mount to God in prayer and seek union with Him and surrender itself wholly to His love; and on the theoretical side, just the endeavour to describe the first-hand experi- ences of the personal relations between the soul and God in con- templation and union. And it is a mysticism far removed from any kind of quietism: though images and phantasmata and sense per- ceptions are shut out from the imagination and memory, and the processes of reasoning silenced, and the faculties of the mind quieted, and words cease and language fails; all this produces not a blank, but makes room for the soul itself to actuate and energize with a highly wrought activity and intense concentration on God,
1 A critic called in question this statement in regard to St Bernard, referring to Serm. in Cant, xxxiii. This is not counter to what is said in the text. Of course St Bernard accepted the New Testament doctrine that the Devil Is the great Tempter, 'going about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.' Of course he believed that Satan 'transforms himself into an angel of light," so as to deceive and mislead even those that stand spiritually highest: such stories are one of the commonplaces of early monasticism, witness Cassian and Palladius. But when St Bernard speaks of contemplation and prayer and personal devotion, the Devil does not come in, and there is not that abiding sense of the danger of his inter- vention, such as is in some measure manifested by even the most spiritual of more modern writers, as St John of the Cross and Fr Baker. The numerous pieces given in these pages show abundantly that St Bernard was not haunted by this fear of diabolical illusion in prayer.
CHARACTERISTICS 129
The foregoing description applies substantively to St Augustine's mysticism, as well as to St Gregory's and St Bernard's; but it applies more fully and more completely to theirs. Though in reality experi- mental, and not philosophical, St Augustine's mysticism is coloured by his neo-Platonism, and is conceived according to the ideas, and in some measure expressed in the language, of that philosophy which was such a living reality to him. But however expressed, real reli- gious mysticism is not a philosophy; it is an experience.
It is important to insist on the fact that neither the philosophizings of the mystics nor their theological speculations, even when claiming to be based on their experiences in mystical contemplation, have anything to say to essential mysticism. Some mystics are of a meta- physical turn of mind, and have endeavoured to give utterance to the thoughts their experiences have inspired on such profound sub- jects as the Being and Attributes of God, the Persons of the Holy Trinity, the nature of the soul, its union with God, the problem of evil, the cosmic laws of God's working in the universe. But such speculations are no more guaranteed by the mystic state in which they were conceived, are no more to be identified with mysticism, than are the revelations received, or thought to be received, under the same conditions, but against which the great spiritual masters give such emphatic warnings. Mysticism as such has nothing to say to philosophy: some mystics, like some other people, have held philosophies, and of all kinds Platonism, pantheism, scholasticism, idealism; but most mystics, like most other people, have been devoid of anything that deserves the name of philosophy. For, like religion, mysticism is not the privilege of the intellectual, but is within the reach of the poor and unlearned and the little ones of Christ; and without any doubt it is most commonly and most successfully cultivated by those who know not its name. Even masters in mysticism, as St Gregory, St Bernard, St Francis, St Teresa, can- not properly be said to have belonged to any philosophical school. Mysticism finds its working expression not in intellectual specula- tion, but in prayer.
Of course there may be a philosophy of mysticism, as there is a philosophy of history or of politics, although neither history nor politics are themselves philosophy. It is not too much to say that St Gregory and St Bernard might have written every word they wrote on contemplation and mysticism, had neither Plato, nor Aristotle, not Plotinus, nor c Dionysius', nor even Augustine himself, ever lived; because the personal religious experiences which they describe were in no way dependent on what they learned from any man.
igO WESTERN MYSTICISM
If, owing to its nee-Platonic affinities, St Augustine's mysticism stands somewhat apart from that of SS Gregory and Bernard, the mysticism found in Cassian is quite identical with theirs. Gassian's teaching on the spiritual life and prayer, on contemplation and mysticism, has been worked out sufficiently in Benedictine Monachism (pp. 47-49, 63-67, 78-82), and need not be incorporated here; in its essential elements it falls under the definition or description given above. It is set forth by Cassian as being what he learned from the hermits of the Egyptian deserts, and no doubt it was such. Its re- semblances to the teaching of SS Gregory and Bernard are doubtless due to similarity of origin: both are the result of the effort on the part of spiritually highly gifted, devout souls to express what they experienced in prayer, contemplation, and union with God, just objectively as they experienced it, and without regard to any theories or philosophies; and the identity of teaching is due to the fact that their experiences were much the same.
And so, while fully recognizing the surpassing elevation and the supreme value and interest of St Augustine's presentation of his mystical experience, it is pre-eminently to the mysticism of Cassian, Gregory, and Bernard that I venture to give the name 'Western Mysticism*. Cassian forbids us to claim it as a purely Western product, originating in the West. But it became domiciled in the West, and, owing chiefly to the overmastering influence of St Gregory, it held sway there universally during the early Middle Ages, the 'Benedictine Centuries', for the six hundred years from 550 to 1150. That it underwent no great change in all this period is shown by St Bernard's entire agreement with St Gregory. During this same period in the East, as after it also in the West, the mystical theology and theories of pseudo-Dionysius were the dominant in- fluence; so that the simple practical mysticism of these centuries in Western Europe is a thing apart^ and deserves a name to itself and separate treatment.
Abbe Pourrat (op. cit.) calls the affective practical mysticism of St Bernard, 'the Benedictine School 3 ; but though without doubt it was the kind of spirituality and mysticism in use generally in the Benedictine monasteries of the Middle Ages, it cannot be claimed as being in any particular sense Benedictine. It was the mysticism of the Church in the West in those days, and Benedictines quite naturally adopted it. It seems to me that 'Western Mysticism 5 is the proper name, both because it was the mysticism of the West until foreign elements, notably pseudo-Dionysius, came in, and because its principal exponent, St Gregory, was typically Western, Roman, in mind and temperament, so that his formulation of mystical
CHARACTERISTICS 13!
doctrine was characterized by an element of Roman soberness and practical sense, which made this type of mysticism immune from the elements of extravagance, fanaticism, and delusion, both of thought and act, which have so frequently disfigured mysticism in its con- crete embodiments.
For it has to be recognized that there are few religious tendencies more dangerous, more mischievous, than a false, uncontrolled, unbalanced mysticism. It has led in all ages to deplorable excesses of fanaticism, self-deception, madness, rebellion. The like may, of course, be said of other things in themselves good of metaphysics, politics, economics. One feels that the rulers of the Church must often have been sorely tempted, in view of the practical troubles and embarrassments occasioned by the aberrations of mystics, to rule the whole thing out. And yet they have not done so. On the contrary, the Church has blessed mysticism in her saints; for those of them who have not been martyrs or apostles, have for the most part been mystics. In spite of all errors and counterfeits, the Church has set the seal of her approval on mysticism itself, and in its highest manifestations as made in the saints.
These saints themselves, the mystics, are unanimous as to the great religious value of contemplation and the mystical experience. It is the conviction that the type of mysticism here called 'Western Mysticism 3 , especially as presented by St Gregory and St Bernard, offers to all devout souls a kind of mysticism free from danger, intellectual or spiritual; free from bodily and psycho-physical phenomena, usually so dubious, so liable to illusion, and at best in most cases so little desirable; a mysticism that is simple and practical and downright in character, being no more than the exercise of piety and prayer and love in a very earnest and whole-hearted manner it is this conviction that led to the writing of this book.
It is a fact to be deplored that devout souls are apt to be fright- ened off mysticism by the presentations commonly made of it nowadays, whereby it is almost identified with a quasi-miraculous state of visions, revelations, and extraordinary favours frequently affecting the body; so that it is placed on a sort of pedestal, as a thing to be wondered at and admired respectfully from beneath, out of reach of all but the small number of select ones called by God to a privilege so exceptional, the very thought of which as a thing to be practically desired would be presumption. Yet it was the standard teaching in the Catholic ages down to modern times that contemplation is the natural term of a spiritual life seriously lived, and is a thing to be desired, aspired to, aimed at, and not infrequently attained to by devout souls. We shall see that it is
132 WESTERN MYSTICISM
explicitly taught by SS Augustine and Gregory (under K) that contemplation is open to all. And that this was the great Catholic tradition is shown by Abbe Saudreau in the book La Vie Union a Dieu (1901). This older view is being reasserted increasingly by Catholic writers on the subject in these our days. It is the hope that the teaching of the three great Western Doctors may promote the return to the old Catholic tradition that has prompted the under- taking of this presentation of c Western Mysticism'.
CONTEMPLATION EPILOGUE
EPILOGUE THE VALIDITY OF THE MYSTICS' CLAIM
BEING now in possession of a body of first-hand material, we may come to face the question posed in the 'Prologue' as the outstanding problem of mysticism: The validity of the claim consistently made by the great mystics. The extracts there given from the utterances of a number of the best-accredited Catholic mystics show that their claim amounts to this: that in the highest mystic state the soul, already in this life, enters into conscious immediate relationship with God. It would be too much to say that on the admission of this claim depends the value of the writings of the mystics: even if it be disallowed, many of their writings would retain indeed their value and utility as spiritual instruction for those embracing an interior life of self-discipline, mortification, and prayer; but the most characteristically mystical treatises would have to find their level as the utterance of a splendid illusion, of value only to the psychologist studying religious phenomena or the historian of religious thought. Thus, St Teresa's Way of Perfection and the first four Mansions of the Interior Castle would always be of practical use to those endeavouring to lead a spiritual life; but the last three Mansions, along with the two latest and most mystical of the treatises of St John of the Cross, and a host of other such writings, would have to be classed in our libraries as outworn ideas of a bygone age, or at best as religious poetry.
At the outset it has to be premised that at all times and in many ways the idea of communion with divinity, and the effort to achieve it, and the conviction of the individual that he has achieved it, are common features in religions of all kinds, and are amongst the most universal expressions of the religious consciousness; and especially is ecstasy looked on as the means of effecting union with divinity.
The vast majority of such claims have to be set aside as unreal. Often the means taken to bring about the state of ecstasy and union are altogether repulsive magical, orgiac, immoral; often they are hypnotic. Often a state of religious excitement and exaltation is de- liberately produced by physical or psychological methods, or by playing on the religious emotions of a crowd, as in revivals. Of such methods the result is often religious frenzy and abnormal physi- cal phenomena, akin to hysteria. Within Christianity religious
136 WESTERN MYSTICISM
excitement and expectancy frequently produce the feeling of being specially visited by God, by the Holy Ghost, by Jesus Christ. Well- authenticated and evidently sincere cases of such convictions fill volumes. 1 In most cases the experience must be set down as purely subjective, the result of highly-wrought religious emotions, nothing more than an excess of sensible devotion. Similarly, visions, revela- tions, locutions, auditions, impulses, movements, experiences, are a field wherein is endless scope for illusion, self-deception, auto- suggestion, as is very well recognized by the most accredited author- ities on the spiritual life; concerning a nun who claimed to hear locutions from God, St John of the Cross said: 'All this that she says: God spoke to me; I spoke to God; seems nonsense. Such an one has only been speaking to herself* (after the Letters, and Ascent, ii. 29). Bodily conditions, indistinguishable on the physical side from ecstasy and rapture, but without any religious content, can be produced by hypnotism, or may be the results of hysteria or neurasthenia or other morbid pathological conditions. And there is a series of well-authenticated cases of what may be called 'nature ecstasies', non-religious in the manner of production, and non- religious or vaguely religious in content, but akin on the phenomenal side to religious ecstasy,
In short it is not to be denied that the mystics find themselves in bad company. The question is: From all this welter of unpromising stuff do the experiences of the great mystics stand out with such distinction and such compelling force as to impose themselves by their quality, so that they constitute a class apart, able to carry the weight of their tremendous claim, and to assert its validity?
For myself, I believe that it is so. To prevent misconception, I say quite simply that I have never had any such experience myself, never anything that could be called an experimental perception of God or His Presence. But I do accept the witness of the great mystics of the Catholic Church: it is one of the best equipped of modern writers on mysticism, not a Catholic, who has declared that 'the greatest mystics have been Catholic saints.' 2 The reports of the greatest among them come home to me with convincing signs not only of truthfulness, but of objective truth. I cannot think they were under such grievous delusion in what they believed they had been through.
It will be helpful to know the position in regard to mystical ex- periences of a modern psychologist like William James. He sums up
1 See Starbuck, Psychology of Religion, and William James, Varieties of Religious Experience.
2 Evelyn Underbill, Mysticism, p. 126.
EPILOGUE 137
the subject at the end of the lectures on Mysticism (Varieties of Religious Experience, pp. 422-4) :
Mystical experiences are, and have the right to be, authoritative for those that have had them, and those who have had them not are not in a position to criticize or deny the validity of the experience; the mystic is invulnerable and must be left in undisturbed possession of his creed.
But, on the other hand, he says, those that have not had the experience are not called upon to accept the validity of the claim on the authority of the mystics; though James himself evidently is prepared to admit that there may be validity in it:
It must always remain an open question whether mystical states may not possibly be superior points of view, windows through which the mind looks out upon a more extensive and inclusive world (p. 428).
So it comes back to the question of evidence, and it would seem that the only way of bringing the claim to the test is to listen to what the greatest of the mystics report of their experience, and to judge in accordance with the impressions of truthfulness, reality, sanity, religious elevation, made by their reports. Copious collec- tions of extracts from the writings of very many of them are to be found in the standard works on mysticism; but it seems preferable to allow a small number of master-mystics to speak at some length as representatives of the race, and give a short, connected account of what they declare their individual personal experiences to have been. We have already heard three such master-mystics thus speak- ing in the persons of SS Augustine, Gregory, and Bernard; and I propose adducing as a fourth witness St John of the Gross. But before doing so it will be well to clear the ground by making certain general considerations.
(i) Let us then consider the claim of the mystics in the light of Christian theology, beginning with the New Testament.
Such texts as the following at once meet us: 'If a man love me, he will keep my words, and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him and make our abode with him' (John xiv. 23). The indwelling of the Holy Ghost in the souls of the just is affirmed by St Paul in a number of places: 'Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?' (i Cor. iii 16). 'Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost who is in you, whom ye have from God?' (r Cor. vi. 19).
In Catholic theology, and I believe in old-fashioned Protestant
138 WESTERN MYSTICISM
theology, these texts are taken as being literally true in the regenerate soul in a state of grace God dwells, and in an especial manner the Holy Ghost. Thus St Thomas says: c The Holy Ghost inhabits the mind by His substance.' 1 The effect of this indwelling is further described by St Paul: "The love of God hath been shed abroad in our hearts through the Holy Ghost who hath been given unto us' (Rom. v. 5); and along with love the other virtues too 5 and the Seven Gifts of the Holy Ghost, which make the Twelve Fruits of the Spirit grow in the soul. All this results in a wondrous beautifying of the soul On this subject Fathers, theologians, preachers wax eloquent; they find it difficult to depict the spiritual beauty of the soul in the state of God's grace and friendship, inhabited by the Holy Ghost, and adorned with His Gifts. They adopt the words of 2 Peter, 'partakers of the divine nature 5 (i. 4), and rise to the idea of 'deification*: 'All those in whom the Holy Ghost abides become deified by this reason alone/ 2
And not only in the order of grace, but in that of nature is God present in every soul: *He is not far from each one of us, for in Him we live and move and have our being 1 ' (Acts xvii. 27). As the theologians say, God is present in all creatures in a threefold way: by essence, by power, by presence or inhabitation; and He is in a special way present in spiritual beings. According to the Catholic sense of divine immanence, God working in man is more intimately present in him than man is even in himself, 3 This reminds us of Augustine: 'Thou art more inward to me than my most inward part.' 4
When these elements of Christian doctrine are kept in view, it appears that the claim of the mystics is hardly more than this: that what is accepted by Christian belief as realities of faith in the case of all souls in the state of grace, becomes consciously realized in the mystic vision. It involves hardly more than momentary liftings of the veil that keeps hidden from the mind's eye the soul's super- natural estate. It is an experimental perception of the presence of God in the soul, Who at all times is there,
If it be said that on this showing what would be surprising is not that the mystical experience should sometimes take place, but rather that it should so seldom take place; should it not be expected to be a more ordinary experience of the spiritual life devotedly lived? To
1 'Spiritus Sanctus per suam substantiam mentem inhabitat* (e?. GettL iv. 18).
a Athanasius, Ep. ad Ssrap. i. 24.
8 *Sunt qui in eo collocant (divinam iramanentiana), quod Deus agens intime adsit in homine, magis quam ipse sibi homo; quod plane, si recte intelligitur, reprehensionem non habet* (Encyclical 'Pascendi')'
4 Tu, autem eras interior intimo raeo* (Conf. iii. 1 1).
EPILOGUE 139
such questions the answer must be the same as that to all questions and difficulties concerning God's distribution of graces and favours, whether in the supernatural order or the natural We do not know. Our only answer can be that confession of ignorance with which St Paul concludes the discussion of these mysterious subjects: *O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God 1 s
There is an answer given in the Imitation of Christ: 'This is the reason why there are found so few contemplative persons., because few know how to separate themselves wholly from created and perishing things' (iii. 31), And this would be the answer of St John of the Gross, that few are willing to pay the full price in renunciation at which alone the mystic experience can be purchased; few are prepared to make the Ascent of Mount Garmel with him.
(2) Let us now consider the claim from the side of psychology.
The modern psychologists, who, while not accepting the objective truth of the mystics* claim, still very well recognize that there is something there that is not to be explained as hallucination or hysteria or degeneracy, such as William James and H. Delacroix, 1 have recourse to recent theories of the 'subliminal self 9 or 'sub- conscious self/ Great attention is being paid in modern psychology to the sub-conscious regions of the mind; yet no one has explored them better than did St Augustine in Book x. of the Confessions, where he speaks of the Memory, as the mysterious storehouse of vast quantities of forgotten knowledge and impressions. And not only forgotten knowledge is there, but powers, instincts, intuitions, good and bad, highest and lowest, they are all working in this unconscious region, and only now and then, and imperfectly, come to the surface of consciousness. It is the idea of William James and others that mystical states are part of the stuff of the sub-conscious region, and are an emergence of latent powers from sub-consciousness into consciousness 'inroads from the sub-conscious life, of the cerebral activity correlative to which we as yet know nothing' (Varieties, p. 427). To offer as an explanation of the mystic experience such bursting into consciousness of powers from this unknown region seems a case of c ignotum per ignotius 5 .
But should it be said that it is the sub-conscious or subliminal self that emerges into consciousness, we seem to be near the idea of the mystics. Behind the faculties of the soul, behind intellection and understanding and reason and will and emotion and imagination, is the soul itself, the spiritual principle that is the root of all the faculties: as St Thomas says: 'all the powers of the soul are rooted
1 Etudes (Fhistoire et de psychology du Mysticism*; Us grands mystiques Chrltuns.
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in the one essence of the soul.* 1 This at least will be held by all who regard the mind as something other than a bundle of sensations, phantasmata, emotions, cognitions, volitions.
This essence of the soul, the soul itself, is what the mystics mean when they speak of the centre of the soul, or its apex, or ground, or the fund of the spirit, or the synteresis. 2 It has been called also in modern terminology the core of personality, and the transcend- ental self.
For the Catholic mystics it is this essence of the soul that enters into union with God. This we learned from St Gregory: he says that the mind must first clear itself of all sense perceptions and of all images of things bodily and spiritual, so that it may be able to find and consider itself as it is in itself, i.e., its essence; and then, by means of this realization of itself thus stript of all, it rises to the contemplation of God (Horn, in Ezech. n. v. 8, 9; see p. 98).
The following is Fr Baker's account, certainly based on personal experience:
According to the doctrine of mystics, this union passes above both the understanding and will, namely, in that supreme portion of the spirit which is visible to God alone, and in which He alone can inhabit; a portion so pure, noble, and divine, that it neither hath nor can have any aame proper to it, though mystics endeavour to express it by divers, calling it the summit of the mind, the fund and centre of the spirit, the essence of the soul, its virginal portion (Sancta Sophia^ p. 533).
At the end of the Book of Spiritual Instruction Blosius sets forth at some length the doctrine of the Catholic mystics on this hidden essence of the soul.
Few rise above their natural powers; few ever come to know the apex of the spirit and the hidden fund or depth of the soul. It is far more inward and sublime than are the three higher faculties, for it is their origin. It is wholly simple, essential, and uniform, and so there is not multiplicity in it, but unity, and in it the three higher faculties are one thing. Here is perfect tranquillity, deepest silence, because never can any image enter here. By this depth, in which the divine image lies hidden, we are deiform. This same depth is called the heaven of the spirit, for the Kingdom of God is in it, as the Lord said: c The Kingdom of God is within you'; and the King- dom of God is God Himself with all His riches. Therefore this naked and unfigured depth is above all created things, and is raised above
1 *Omnes potentiae animae in una essentia animae radicantur* (Summa, i sae, qu xxxvii, art. i).
* They speak also of 'the spark of the soul'; and some, as Eckhart, regard this essence of the soul as a spark or emanation of divinity, and so uncreated. Such idea was not commonly held.
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all senses and faculties; it transcends place and time, abiding by a certain perpetual adhesion in God its beginning; yet it is essentially within us, because it is the abyss of the mind and its most inward essence. This depth, which the uncreated light ever irradiates, when it is laid open to a man and begins to shine on him, powerfully affects and attracts him. . . . May God, the uncreated Abyss, vouch- safe to call unto Himself our spirit, the created abyss, and make it one with Him, that our spirit, plunged in the deep sea of the God- head, may happily lose itself in the Spirit of God.
When this inmost sanctuary of the soul, wherein God abides, has been entered and the soul itself is consciously realized, then like to like, spirit with Spirit, real with Real, the soul of man, being one of the spiritual realities, is capable of union with the Supreme Ultimate Reality, God, and thus may the union of the two Realities be experi- enced that is spoken of by the mystics.
The modern psychologist does not commonly accept the doctrine of the presence of God in the soul or the indwelling of the Holy Ghost; but if he did, it would seem possible to conciliate with the experience of the mystics his idea of the subliminal self taken as the soul itself. William James, at any rate, is a representative modern psychologist, and he is able to say: 'The overcoming of all the usual barriers between the individual and the Absolute is the great mystic achievement 9 (Varieties, p. 419). The language is different, and the underlying thought is different; but the psychologist and the mystics are speaking of the same thing.
(3) In many minds, no doubt, the objection will arise that the conception of the mystical experience just put forward implies a supernatural character. This is the case. The mystical experience as here represented is in the order of grace, and the order of grace is supernatural. In proclaiming the supernatural character of the mystical experience as the definite operation of God, the Christian mystics are surely right. For if God working in man is more in- timately present in him than man is even in himself; if the indwelling of the Holy Ghost in the souls of the just is a reality; then we are already in the presence of the supernatural. And if the veil be momentarily lifted, so that man is made experimentally aware of God's presence, if (to use St Gregory's favourite symbol) he 'catches a glimpse of the uncircumscribed light as coming through a chink/ then this too, still more, must be supernatural, must be brought about by God's own working in the soul.
Is it then miraculous? It is difficult in the extreme to draw a line of demarcation between the ordinary and the miraculous in the supernatural order.
iq% WESTERN MYSTICISM
Yet all who believe in the reality of the life of grace in the soul, believe that there are supernatural workings of God and effects in the soul that would not be called miraculous. It is Catholic doctrine, fixed at the Pelagian controversies, that prayer which shall be meritorious unto life everlasting, or which shall be even the begin- ning of sanctification, is supernatural, being completely beyond the power of unassisted nature; 1 but it is not therefore miraculous. It is hard to say whether there be any recognizable established order of supernature, as there is a recognizable established order of nature. And so it seems that the mystical experience should be said to be supernatural, but not, at any rate in most cases, miraculous. But to modern 'naturalists' the whole Catholic conception of the super- natural order of grace will be intolerable.
(4) In appraising the value of the evidence of the mystics, it is necessary to examine their character as witnesses, if they be worthy of credit. Their bona fides will not be questioned by any who know them: they are possessed by the most utter conviction of the truth of what they say. What will be questioned is the correctness of their judgement as to the objective nature of their experience. It would not be to the point to urge that they readily believed in the miracu- lous, some of them with an avidity amounting to credulity. What is in question is not external happenings, but the most intimately personal religious experience of their souls. It is character, and soundness of judgement, and general good sense, and spiritual eleva- tion, that will carry conviction. Judged by these tests many of the mystics must be accepted as witnesses with good credentials.
The first called may be St Paul, whose being caught up to the third heaven into Paradise, whatever this symbolizes, was surely a mystical experience, almost unique.
Next St Augustine: he is on all hands recognized as having a place in the inmost circle of greatest minds of the whole human race, and as a spiritual genius of the highest order. Equal to his power of intellectual vision were his good judgement and practical sense, as is shown by the whole tenor of his life. He is a witness of the highest quality, little likely to have been mistaken as to the true nature of the experiences he claims to have had.
Our two other doctors, SS Gregory and Bernard,, though on a much lower intellectual level than St Augustine, are witnesses that must command respect. They were both men of high intelligence and character and good sense, and each of them was in his day probably the predominant personality of the Western Church. They were not dreamers, but public men, born rulers, who left their mark 1 Bishop Hedley, Prayer and Contemplation, p. 13.
EPILOGUE 143
on the history of the Church and of the world. Their lives were lived on high spiritual levels, and we have learned to admire their earnest personal religion and their spiritual insight. It is not likely that they should have misinterpreted their religious experiences.
In his book Degeneracy (p. 64) Max Nordau brings in St Teresa in illustration. But St Teresa was not a degenerate. On the contrary* she is universally recognized as one of the great women, a fine, strong character, virile yet womanly, who achieved great things through her courage and perseverance. And, what is especially to the point, her robust good sense in things spiritual, no less than secular, is the quality that stands forth most conspicuously in her writings. She also is a witness who must inspire confidence.
I am not going to prolong a litany of the great Catholic mystics, but many others might be adduced whose lives and personalities proclaim them witnesses worthy of credit: such are the two Cather- ines, of Siena and Genoa, St Francis, St Ignatius, St John of the Cross. It will be admitted that their own account of what happened in their personal experience, when given by such witnesses, is entitled to carry great weight.
'There is about mystical utterances an eternal unanimity which ought to make a critic stop and think' 1
(5) The surpassing richness and fruitfulness of the content of the mystics 5 experiences as described by themselves is another element to be taken into account when we estimate the credibility of what they say. If the great and first commandment be to love God with all our heart and all our soul and all our mind and all our strength; and if, therefore, acts of love of God be the highest and richest acts of the human mind and soul; how rich are the experiences described by St Augustine, and by St Bernard in the fine passage on the Spiritual Marriage! Such descriptions of the spiritual espousal and marriage as are given by St John of the Cross in his treatises The Spiritual Canticle of the Soul and The Living Flame of Love^ and by St Teresa in the last three Mansions of the Interior Castle^ should be read in order that the fullness and richnessjof their mystical experi- ence may be understood. Psychologists and others recognize and emphasize the bliss that, according to all mystics, accompanies the highest experiences. But not ecstatic joy so much as ecstatic love, is the characteristic feature of the experience.
The Spiritual Marriage is not a passing experience, but a lasting
state, and the love conceived in the, mystic experience is an abiding
possession which colours the whole life of the mystics, as is seen in
well-nigh every page of St Augustine's Confessions^ or in the prayers
1 W. James, Varieties, p. 419.
144 WESTERN MYSTICISM
and affections into which St Teresa so continually breaks forth in the pages of her Autobiography,, or in the Confessions of a Lover by Dame Gertrude More, Fr Baker's disciple. The following words are taken from her Twenty-eighth Confession, but the same refrain runs through them all:
my God, let me walk in the way of love which knoweth not how to seek self in anything whatsoever. Let this love wholly possess my soul and heart, which, I beseech Thee, may live and move only in, and out of, a pure and sincere love to Thee. Oh! that Thy pure love were so grounded and established in my heart, that I might sigh and pant without ceasing after Thee, and be able in the strength of this Thy love to live without all comfort and consolation, human or divine. Oh, sight to be wished, desired, and longed for, because once to have seen Thee is to have learned all things! Nothing can bring us to this sight but love. But what love must it be? Not a sensible love only, a childish love, a love which seeketh itself more than the Beloved. No, it must be an ardent love, a pure love, a courageous love, a love of charity, a humble love, and a constant love, not worn out with labours., nor daunted with any difficulties. O Lord, give this love into my soul, that I may never more live nor breathe but out of a most pure love of Thee, my All and only Good. Let me love Thee for Thyself, and nothing else but in and for Thee. Let me love nothing instead of Thee, for to give all for love is a most sweet bargain. . . . Let Thy love work in me and by me, and let me love Thee as Thou wouldst be loved by me. I can- not tell how much love I would have of Thee, because I would love Thee beyond all that can be imagined or desired by me. Be Thou in this, as in all other things, my chooser for me, for Thou art my only choice, most dear to me. The more I shall love Thee, the more will my soul desire Thee, and desire to suffer for Thee. 1
A writer well read in the literature of mysticism has said:
The language of human passion is tepid and insignificant beside the language in which the mystics try to tell the splendours of their love. 'This monk can give lessons to lovers!' exclaimed Arthur Symonds in astonishment of St John of the Cross. 2
1 refrain from entering on the matter of intellectual illumination that is so frequent an element of the mystics* claim; 3 1 only cite the judgement passed by Dean Inge:
The fact of intuition into Divine truth, during states of spiritual exaltation (ecstasy), seems incontrovertible, and the admission can cause no difficulty to a theist 4
1 Life and Writings of Dame Gertrude More, ed, 191 1, li. 83.
* Evelyn Underbill, Mysticism, p. 106. A. Symonds translated St John's poems. 8 Augustine (above, p. 49), Ruysbroeck, St John of the Cross (below, pp.
St Teresaj St Ignatius, are conspicuous examples.
* Hastings, Encyclopaedia of Religion, art. 'Ecstasy'.
EPILOGUE 145
It Is necessary, however, to emphasize how alien from any kind of 'quietism' are even the highest states of the great mystics. What I said in Benedictine Monachism concerning Cassian's account of the 'richest' and 'glowing' prayer of the Egyptian monks, is applicable to the experiences of the classical mystics:
It is true that in this prayer words cease, and language fails, and sense impressions are transcended; but the powers of mind and soul are operating and energizing with a highly-wrought activity., utterly removed from quietism (p. 57).
Though the mind is emptied of sense perceptions and images, and though reasoning ceases, and the faculties seem at rest, the soul itself is all the time actuating with a concentration and energy unsurpassed in this life, 'acting', says Fr Baker, e by a portion of the spirit above all the faculties 9 (Sancta Sophia, p. 545). l
Some psychologists are prone to speak of the ecstasy of the mystics as a state of mental blank without content, akin to hypnotic sleep. This may have an element of truth in certain, oriental cases. But in the case of the great Christian mystics of the West, if their own evidence, which is the only evidence we possess, be accepted, it has to be said that nothing could be further from the truth. Intellectually, emotionally, religiously, the experience, according to all that they tell us, is of a fullness and a richness beyond all power of expression.
Whoever will read the accounts given of their experiences by the great classical mystics will find a coherence and quiet sanity in the midst of a mysterious elevation; and in the midst of exuberance of religious feeling, a dignity and sobriety, and a conviction of reality, which is all deeply Impressive; it creates a sense of spiritual life and experience on high levels, and seems even to command assent to its claims.
1 No one is more emphatic in his condemnation of 'quietism' than that highest of contemplativeSj Ruysbroeck: 'When a man is bare and imageless in his senses, and empty and idle in his higher powers, he enters into rest through mere nature, Now mark the way in which this natural rest is practised. It is a sitting still without either outward or inward acts, in vacancy, in order that rest may be found and may remain untroubled. But a rest which is practised in this way is unlawful. Such a rest is nought else than idleness, and is wholly contrary to the supernatural rest, which one possesses in God; for that is a loving self-mergence joined to a simple gazing into the incomprehensible Brightness. This rest in God is actively sought with inward longing, and is found in fruitive inclination., and is eternally possessed in the self-mergence of love, and when possessed is sought none the less. When a man wishes to possess inward rest in idleness, without inward and desirous cleaving to God, then he is ready for all errors. ... These men maintain themselves in pure passivity, without any activity towards above or towards below. For they deem that if they worked themselves, God would be hindered in His work. They have no knowledge and no love, no will, no prayer, no desire* (Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage, ii. c. 66, to be read in its entirety, also c. 67).
WM o
146 WESTERN MYSTICISM
(6) Lastly we must consider the effects upon life of the mystical experience.
Ecstasy is often accompanied by a physical condition of rapture or trance, and such conditions are well known medically as patho- logical symptoms in hysterical and neurotic subjects. These latter trances are bad in their effects, physical, mental, and moral alike, and are rightly set down as signs and effects of degeneracy. But the day has passed when doctors and psychologists classed St Teresa's raptures as hysteria. It is recognized that not all ecstasies are degeneracy, and that the only valid criterion in judging them is their content: What takes place in them; and their effect on life. 'By their fruits shall you know them'. William James recognized this very clearly:
To pass a spiritual judgement upon these states, we must not content ourselves with superficial medical talk, but inquire into their fruits for life. [The result of his inquiry is that in natively strong minds and characters mysticism exercises a strengthening effect] : the great Spanish mystics, who carried the habit of ecstasy as far as it has often been carried, appear for the most part to have shown indomitable spirit and energy, and all the more so for the trances in which they indulged.
He introduces one of St Teresa's descriptions of the effects of her ecstasies by the words:
Where in literature is there a more evidently veracious account of the formation of a new centre of spiritual energy?
And of St Ignatius he says:
He was a mystic, but his mysticism made him assuredly one of the most powerfully practical human engines that ever lived. 1
This puts the thing in its true light: the mystics were what they were, not in spite of their mysticism, but because of it. This is par- ticularly evident in the case^of St Teresa.|The|first twenty years of her life as a nun were quite ordinary, lived on an average level, and had she so lived on and died, her name would Jhave been indistinguish- able among the crowd of Spanish nuns of her day* But the 'con- version' of 1555, described in the ninth chapter of her Autobiography, heralded in the great and ever-growing series of mystical experiences that went on until her death. And that it was precisely these experi- ences that enlarged and strengthened her character, and spiritual- ized and elevated her nature, and made her into the great saint, and great woman, and great personality in religious history that she 1 Varieties of Religious Experience, pp. 413, 414.
EPILOGUE *47
is, this must be evident to every one who reads her Life, written by herself. For it is the case that her power and influence, and her mystical experiences, began together and went on developing together.
Their own accounts of their experiences given by St Augustine, St Gregory, St Bernard, which we have seen, show the effects of them on life, both the inner life of the soul and the life lived among men. One other account, that of Fr Augustine Baker, of the effects on soul and character of a 'passive union purely intellectual' is reproduced here, as being a certainly first-hand record of personal experience:
The change that is made by this supernatural union with regard to the will and affections is admirable, insomuch as many years spent in mortification and other internal exercises will not so purify the soul as a few minutes passed in such a divine inaction. Here it is, indeed, that a soul perfectly feels her own nothing and God's totality, and thereby is strangely advanced in humility and the divine love; for being so immediately united to God, so illustrated with His heavenly light, and inflamed with His love, all creatures (and herself above all) are become as nothing, yea, perfectly odious to her. Besides, there are many secret defects in a soul, so subtle and intime, that they can neither be cured nor so much as discovered but by a passive union, insomuch as hereby the soul is advanced to perfection in a manner and degree not to be imagined, far more efficaciously than by all the former actions of herself put^ together, so that the following aspirations and elevations of the spirit become far more pure and efficacious than before. And, indeed, were it not for such good fruits and effects upon the will, such passive unions would be little profitable to the soul; for our merit consists in our own free acts produced in virtue of divine grace assisting us, and not by the operations simply wherein God is only agent, and we patients (Sancta Sophia, p. 534).
These considerations will prepare the way for a judgement on the mystic claim. Reasons have been brought forward showing that from the standpoints of theology and of psychology the claim is not incredible; and that it is recommended by the high calibre of the principal witnesses, and by the qualities of richness of content and fruitfulness for character and life of the experience they describe. St John of the Cross may now be allowed to speak, as representative of the mystics, in behalf of the mystic claim. After hesitating between him and Blessed John Ruysbroeck, the two who probably combine in the greatest measure the achievement of heights of contemplation with systematic and powerful description, I have chosen St John as the one on whom to stake the issue. This choice I have made because
148 WESTERN MYSTICISM
he is more coherent and. in his expositions more easily intelligible than Ruysbroeck. In his two treatises. The Spiritual Canticle of the Soul and The Living Flame of Love, he attains to a sustained elevation of thought and language probably not equalled certainly not sur- passed by any other who has essayed to describe the highest mystical experiences. Besides being saint and mystic, St John is at once poet, orator, psychologist, and theologian; and to no one has it been given to depict with more daring and actuality the relations that may be possible, even in this life, between the soul of man and God.
The following catena from these works has been formed princi- pally on the basis of psychology, as recording the mental states he had experienced^ and which he entirely believed to correspond to realities. But no mere selection of passages can do justice to the case for the mystics as presented by St John. No one can be in possession of the evidence that would give him a cognizance of the case sufficient to justify him in passing an adverse verdict on the claim of the mystics, who has not read in their entirety St John's two mystical treatises. The Spiritual Canticle and Living Flame: nor can any one understand St John who has not read also the two ascetical treatises. The Ascent of Mount Carmel and The Dark Night, for only so can be appreciated the price paid for the attainment to the Spiritual Marriage; verily it was the pearl of great price, to purchase which he went and sold, quite literally, all that he had. His writings produce the conviction that they are autobiography from beginning to end: whether he inculcates appalling inhuman, It will be said, renunciation and detachment in the ascetical treatises, or depicts the intimacies of the divine union in the mystical, we feel in both cases alike that he speaks of nothing but what he had himself been through. The peculiar fascination of his writings is probably due to this. The effect on us of reading him is as though we had been climbing the first slopes of a mountain range, and having reached an eminence, should look out over the plain below, and think how high we had got till we look round and see behind us the great peaks and crags, tier after tier, towering up to heaven; and as we gaze aloft we descry on the sky-line, among the hard, ice- bound rocks, but bathed in the warmth and light of the sunshine, a solitary climber wending his way with steady head and sure foot at heights that make us dizzy even to look at.
Let us now hear him: 1
* The following extracts have been revised by Fr Benedict Zimmerman,, Prior of the Carmelites in Kensington, on the text of the critical edition produced by the Spanish Carmelites in 1912.
EPILOGUE 149
St John starts from the theological position that God permanently resides in the inmost depth of each one's soul,
We must remember that the Word, the Son of God, together with the Father and the Holy Ghost, is hidden in essence and in presence in the inmost being of the soul. That soul, therefore, that will find Him, must go out from all things in will and affection, and enter into the profoundest self-recollection, and all things must be to it as if they existed not. . . . Go not to seek Him out of thyself, for that will be but distraction and weariness, and thou shalt not find Him; because there is no fruition of Him more certain, more ready, more intimate than that which is within (Cant, stanza i. 7-9).
We must keep in mind that God dwells in a secret and hidden way in all souls, in their very substance, for if He did not, they could not exist at all. This dwelling of God is very different in different souls: in some He dwells contented, in others displeased; in some as in His own house, giving His orders and ruling it; in others, as a stranger in a house not His own, where He is not permitted to command or to do anything at all (Living Flame> stanza iv. 14).
In stanza iv. of the Living Flame, St John tells of the 'awakening of God in the souP, and the souPs consequent awakening to a realization of God's presence within it:
This awakening is a movement of the Word in the depth of the soul, of such grandeur, authority, and glory, and of such profound sweetness, that all the balsams, all the aromatic herbs and flowers of the world, seem to be mingled and shaken together for the pro- duction of that sweetness (Living Flame, iv. 3).
Then is felt the Touch of God:
There occurs that most delicate touch of the Beloved, which the soul feels at times, even when least expecting it, and which sets the heart on fire with love, as if a spark had fallen upon it and made it burn. Then the will in an instant, like one roused from sleep, burns with the fire of love, longs for God, praises Him and gives Him thanks, worships and honours Him, and prays to Him in the sweetness of love (Cant. xxv. 5).
He apostrophizes the Touch of God:
O gentle, subtile touch, the Word, the Son of God, Who because of the pureness of Thy divine nature dost penetrate subtilely the very substance of my soul, and touching it gently, absorbest it wholly in divine ways of sweetness. O touch of the Word, so gentle, so
150 WESTERN MYSTICISM
wonderfully gentle to me. O blessed soul, most blessed, which Thou, Who art so terrible and so strong, touchest so gently. Proclaim it to the world, O my soul no, proclaim it not, for the world knoweth not the gentle air, neither will it listen to it. O gentle touch 1 as in Thee there is nothing material, so Thy touch is the more penetrating, changing what in me is human into divine, for Thy divine Essence, wherewith Thou touchest me, is foreign to all modes and manners. O gentle touch and most gentle, for Thou touchest me with Thy most simple Substance and innermost Essence; therefore is this touch so subtile, so loving, so deep, and so delicious (Living Flame, ii. 18-21).
What the soul tastes now in this touch of God is in truth, though not perfectly, a certain foretaste of everlasting life. It is not in- credible it should be so, when we believe, as we do believe, that this touch is most substantial, and that the Substance of God touches the substance of the soul. The sweetness of delight which this touch occasions baffles all description (ibid. 22).
In the Living Flame of Love these Touches are considered to be the Holy Ghost playing on the soul as a Fire:
As the fire of love is infinite, so when God touches the soul some- what sharply the burning heat within it becomes so extreme as to surpass all the fires of the world. This is why this touch of God is said to be a 'burn'; for the fire there is more intense and more con- centrated, and the effect of it surpasses all other fires. When the divine fire shall have transformed the soul into itself, the soul not only feels the burn, but itself is become wholly and entirely burnt up in this vehement fire (Living Flame, ii. 3, 4).
O delicious wound, and the more delicious the more the burn of love penetrates the inmost substance of the soul, burning all it can burn, that it may supply all the delight it can give. This burning and wound, in my opinion, are the highest condition attainable in this life; for this is the touch of the Divinity without form or figure, either intellectual or imaginary (ibid. ii. 9).
In that burn the flame rushes forth and surges vehemently, as in a glowing furnace or forge. The soul feels that the wound it has thus received is sovereignly delicious. It feels its love to grow, strengthen, and refine itself to such a degree as to seem to itself as if seas of fire were in it, filling it with love. ... The soul beholds itself as one Immense sea of fire (Living Flame, 10, ii).
The second half of the Spiritual Canticle of the Soul (stanzas xxii.-xl.) treats of the Spiritual Marriage, on which we have heard St Bernard:
The gifts of love which the Bridegroom bestows on the soul in he spiritual marriage are inestimable; the praises and endearing
EPILOGUE
expressions of divine love which pass so frequently between them are beyond all utterance. The soul is occupied in praising Him and in giving Him thanks; and He in exalting, praising, and thanking the soul (Cant, xxxiv. pref. note).
We have seen in St Bernard that ecstatic love, unto inebriation, is the characteristic of the state of Spiritual Marriage. So is it for St John:
God sometimes bestows an exceeding great grace upon advanced souls, when the Holy Spirit inebriates them with the sweet, luscious, and strong wine of love. This love communicates to the soul such a strong abundant inebriation when God visits it, that it pours forth with great effect and force acts of rapturous praise, love, and wor- ship, with a marvellous longing to labour and suffer for Him (Cant. xxv. 8).
God is sometimes so merciful to the Bride-soul as to manifest to it its interior treasures and to reveal to it all its beauty. So abundant are these favours at times that the soul seems enveloped in delight and bathed in inestimable bliss (ibid. xvii. 6, 7).
If we speak of that light of glory which, in the soul's embrace, God sometimes produces within it, and which is a certain spiritual communion wherein He causes it to behold and enjoy the abyss of delight and riches He has laid up within it, there is no language to express any degree of it (Cant. xx. 16).
It cannot be doubted that St John believed he had experienced 'transformation' of the soul in God and 'deification':
God, to make the soul perfect and to raise it above the flesh more and more, assails it divinely and gloriously, and these Assaults are really encounters wherein God penetrates the soul, deifies the very substance of it, and renders it godlike, divine. The Substance of God absorbs the soul, because He assails and pierces it to the quick by the Holy Ghost, Whose communications are vehement where they are of fire (Living Flame, i. 34).
He guards himself, however, against suspicion of any pantheistic absorption of the soul in God:
The thread of love binds so closely God and the soul, and so unites them, that it transforms them and makes them one by love; so that, though in essence different, yet in glory and appearance the soul seems God and God the soul Such is this marvellous union. God Himself is here the suitor 1 Who, in the omnipotence of His unfathomable love, absorbs the soul with greater violence and efficacy than a torrent of fire a single drop of the morning dew (Cant. xxxi. pref. note).
1 This reminds us of Francis Thompson's 'Hound of Heaven*.
152 WESTERN MYSTICISM
Elsewhere:
The soul seems God by participation, though in reality pre- serving its own natural substance as distinct from God, as it did before, although transformed in Him (Ascent of ML Carmel, ii. 5).
In the state of transformation and perfect union of love the soul thus expresses the unification:
Let me be so transformed in Thy beauty, that, being alike in beauty, we may see ourselves both in Thy beauty; so that one be- holding the other, each may see his own beauty in the other, the beauty of both being Thine only, and mine absorbed in it. And thus I shall see Thee in Thy beauty, and myself in Thy beauty, and Thou shalt see me in Thy beauty; and I shall see myself in Thee in Thy beauty, and Thou Thyself in me in Thy beauty; so shall I seem to be Thyself in Thy beauty, and Thou myself in Thy beauty; my beauty shall be Thine, Thine shall be mine, and I shall be Thou in it, and Thou myself in Thine own beauty; for Thy beauty will be my beauty, and so we shall see, each the other, in Thy beauty (Cant, xxxvi 3).
Intellectual illumination and intuition of the mysteries and secrets of God are for St John, as for the other great mystics, an integral part of the mystical experience:
[In the 'awakening of the souF it beholds what God is in Himself, and what He is in creatures.] This awakening and vision of the soul is as if God drew back some of the many veils and coverings that are before it, so that it might see what He is; then indeed but still dimly, because all the veils are not drawn back the divine Face, full of grace, bursts through and shines, which as it moves all things by its power, appears together with the effect it produces (Living Flame, iv. 7).
St John does not follow the idea of SS Augustine and Thomas, that the divine Essence can be seen in this life:
The communication and sense of God's presence, however great they may be, and the most sublime and profound knowledge of God which the soul may have in this life, are not God essentially, neither have they any affinity with Him, for in very truth He is still hidden from the soul (Cant i. 52).
We are not to imagine that the soul sees God essentially and clearly because it has so deep a sense of Him; for this is only a strong and abundant communication from Him, a glimmering light of what He is in Himself (ibid. xiv. 6).
EPILOGUE 153
It is utterly impossible to describe what the soul in its awakening knows and feels of the majesty of God in the inmost depths of its being (Living Flame, iv. 9).
A most sublime and sweet knowledge of God and of His attributes overflows into the understanding from the contact of the attributes of God with the substance of the soul. This is the most supreme delight of which the soul is capable in this life (Cant. xiv. 16). The soul is admitted to a knowledge of the wisdom, secrets and graces, and gifts and powers of God, whereby it is made so beautiful and rich (ibid. xxiv. 2). The knowledge of God communicated to the understanding is not only substantial knowledge, but a manifesta- tion also of the truths of the Divinity, and a revelation of the secret mysteries thereof (ibid. xiv. 20).
St John does not claim, like Ruysbroeck, to have been admitted to the vision of the Three Divine Persons and to have penetrated into the Unity of the Godhead that lies behind Them; but he does claim to have been granted an intimate understanding of the Mystery of the Incarnation:
When the soul has been raised to the high state of spiritual marriage the Bridegroom reveals to it His own marvellous secrets most readily and most frequently. The chief matter of His com- munications are the sweet mysteries of His Incarnation, and the ways and means of Redemption, which is one of the highest works of God (Cant xxiii. pref. note) .
He claims, too, to have been accorded a cosmic revelation, im- parting a deeper insight into the relations of creatures with God:
The divine life and being and the harmony of creation are re- vealed with marvellous newness (Living Flame,, iv. 6).
Though it is true that the soul here sees that all creatures are distinct from God, in that they have a created existence; it under- stands them in Him in their power, root, and energy; it knows also that God in His own Essence is, in an infinitely pre-eminent way, all these things, so that it understands them better in Him, their First Cause, than in themselves. This is the great joy of this awaken- ing, namely to know creatures in God, and not God in His creatures: this is to know effects in their cause, and not cause by its effects (ibid. iv. 5).
[The soul is able to hear the great Concert of Creation praising its Maker] :
In this silence and tranquillity, and in this knowledge of the divine light, the soul discerns a marvellous arrangement and dis- position of God's wisdom in the diversities of His creatures and operations. All these, and each one of them, have a certain corres- pondence with God, whereby each, by a voice peculiar to itself,
154 WESTERN MYSTICISM
proclaims what there is in itself of God, so as to form a concert of sublimest melody, transcending all the harmonies of the world (Cant. xv. 5).
Again:
In this tranquil contemplation the soul beholds all creatures^ not only the highest but the lowest also, each one according to the gift of God to it, sending forth the voice of its witness to what God is. It beholds each one magnifying Him in its own way, and possessing Him according to its particular capacity. And thus all these voices together unite in one strain in praise of God's greatness, wisdom, and marvellous knowledge (Cant. xv. 7).
It only remains to put the question: Is this the language of illusion? For my part I do not believe that it is.