Stanzas XIV and XV

Note

WHEN the dove — that is the soul — was .flying on the gale of love over the waters of the deluge of the weariness and longing of its love, ' not finding where her foot might rest/¹ the compassionate father Noe, in this last flight, put forth the hand of his mercy, caught her, and brought her into the ark of his charity and love. That took place when the Bridegroom, as in the stanza now explained, said, ' Return, My Dove.' In the shelter within the ark, the soul, finding all it desired, and more than it can ever express, begins to sing the praises of the Beloved, celebrating the magnificence which it feels and enjoys in that union, saying:

The Bride

My Beloved is the mountains,
The solitary wooded valleys,
The strange islands,
The roaring torrents,
The whisper of the amorous gales;
The tranquil night
At the approaches of the dawn,
The silent music,
The murmuring solitude,
The supper which revives, and enkindles love.

BEFORE I begin to explain these stanzas, I must observe, in order that they and those which follow may be better understood, that this spiritual flight signifies a certain high estate and union of love, whereunto, after many spiritual exercises, God is wont to elevate the soul: it is called the spiritual betrothal of the Word, the Son of God. In the beginning, when this occurs the first time, God reveals to it great things of Himself, makes it beautiful in majesty and grandeur, adorns it with graces and gifts, and endows it with honour, and with the knowledge of Himself, as a bride is adorned on the day of her betrothal. On this happy day the soul not only ceases from its anxieties and loving complaints, but is, moreover, adorned with all grace, entering into a state of peace and delight, and of the sweetness of love, as it appears from these stanzas, in which it does nothing else but recount and praise the magnificence of the Beloved, which it recognises in Him, and enjoys in the union of the betrothal.

In the stanzas that follow, the soul speaks no more of its anxieties and sufferings, as before, but of the sweet and peaceful intercourse of love with the Beloved; for now all its troubles are over. These two stanzas, which I am about to explain, contain all that God is wont at this time to bestow upon the soul; but we are not to suppose that all souls, thus far advanced, receive all that is here described, either in the same way or in the same degree of knowledge and of consciousness. Some souls receive more, others less; some in one way, some in another; and yet all may be in the state of spiritual betrothal. But in this stanza the highest possible is spoken of, because that embraces all.

Explanation

As in the ark of Noe there were many chambers for the different kinds of animals, as the Sacred Writings tell us, and ' all food that may be eaten/² so the soul, in its flight to the divine ark of the bosom of God, sees therein not only the many mansions of which our Lord speaks, but also all the food, that is, all the magnificence in which the soul may rejoice, and which are here referred to by the common terms of these stanzas. These are substan tially as follows:
In this divine union the soul has a vision and foretaste of abundant and inestimable riches, and finds there all the repose and refreshment it desired; it attains to the secrets of God, and to a strange knowledge of Him, which is the food of those who know Him most; it is conscious of the awful power of God beyond all other power and might, tastes of the wonderful sweetness and delight of the Spirit, finds its true rest and divine light, drinks deeply of the wisdom of God, which shines forth in the harmony of the creatures and works of God; it feels itself filled with all good, emptied, and delivered from all evil, and, above all, rejoices consciously in' the inestimable banquet of love which confirms it in love. This is the substance of these two stanzas.
The bride here says that her Beloved in Himself and to her is all the objects she enumerates; for in the ecstatic communications of God the soul feels and understands the truth of the saying of St. Francis: ' God is mine and all things are mine.' And because God is all, and the soul, and the good of all, the communication in this ecstasy is explained by the consideration that the goodness of the creatures referred to in these stanzas is a reflection of His goodness, as will appear from every line thereof. All that is here set forth is in God eminently in an infinite way, or rather, every one of these grandeurs is God, and all of them together are God. Inasmuch as the soul is one with God, it feels all things to be God according to the words of St. John: ' What was made, in Him was life/³
But we are not to understand this consciousness of the soul as if it saw the creatures in God as we see material objects in the light, but that it feels all things to be God in this fruition of Him; neither are we 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, by which the soul discerns this goodness of all things, as I proceed to explain.

' My Beloved is the mountains/

Mountains are high, fertile, extensive, beautiful, lovely, flowery, and odorous. These mountains my Beloved is to me.

' The solitary wooded valleys.'

Solitary valleys are tranquil, pleasant, cooling, shady, abounding in sweet waters, and by the variety of trees growing in them, and by the melody of the birds that frequent them, enliven and delight the senses; their solitude and silence procure us a refreshing rest. These valleys my Beloved is to me.

' The strange islands/

Strange islands are girt by the sea; they are also, because of the sea, distant and unknown to the com merce of men. They produce things very different from those with which we are conversant, in strange ways, and with qualities hitherto unknown, so as to surprise those who behold them, and fill them with wonder. Thus, then, by reason of the great and marvellous wonders, and the strange things that come to our know ledge, far beyond the common notions of men, which the soul beholds in God, it calls Him the strange islands. We say of a man that he is strange for one of two reasons: either because he withdraws himself from the society of his fellows, or because he is singular or distinguished in his life and conduct. For these two reasons together God is called strange by the soul. He is not only all that is strange in undiscovered islands, but His ways, judgments, and works are also strange, new, and mar vellous to men.
It is nothing wonderful that God should be strange to men who have never seen Him, seeing that He is also strange to the holy angels and the souls who see Him; for they neither can nor shall ever see Him perfectly. Yea, even to the day of the last judgment they will see in Him so much that is new in His deep judgments, in His acts of mercy and justice, as to excite their wonder more and more. Thus God is the strange islands not to men only, but to the angels also; only to Himself is He neither strange nor new.

'. The roaring torrents/ n. Torrents have three properties, i. They over flow all that is in their course. 2. They fill all hollows. 3. They overpower all other sounds by their own. And hence the soul, feeling most sweetly that these three properties belong to God, says, 'My Beloved is the roaring torrents/

As to the first property of which the soul is conscious it feels itself to be so overwhelmed with the torrent of the Spirit of God, and so violently overpowered by it, that all the waters in the world seem to it to have surrounded it, and to have drowned all its former actions and passions. Though all this be violent, yet there is nothing painful in it, for these rivers are rivers of peace, as it is written, God, speaking through Isaias, saying, ' I will decline upon her, as it were, a flood of peace, and as a torrent overflowing glory/⁴ That is, ' I will bring upon the soul, as it were, a river of peace, and a torrent overflowing with glory/ Thus this divine overflowing, like roaring torrents, fills the soul with peace and glory. The second property the soul feels is that this divine water is now filling the vessels of its humility and the emptiness of its desires, as it is written: 'He hath exalted the humble, and filled the hungry with good/⁵ The third property of which the soul is now conscious in the roaring torrents of the Beloved is a spiritual sound and voice overpowering all other sounds and voices in the world. The explana tion of this will take a little time.
This voice, or this murmuring sound of the waters, is an overflowing so abundant as to fill the soul with good, and a power so mighty seizing upon it as to seem not only the sound of many waters, but a most loud roaring of thunder. But the voice is a spiritual voice, unattended by material sounds or the pain and torment of them, but rather with majesty, power, might, delight, and glory: it is, as it were, a voice, an infinite interior sound which endows the soul with power and might. The Apostles heard in spirit this voice when the Holy Ghost descended upon them in the sound ' as of a mighty wind/⁶ as we read in the Acts of the Apostles. In order to manifest this spiritual voice, interiorly spoken, the sound was heard exteriorly, as of a rushing wind, by all those who were in Jerusalem. This exterior manifestation reveals what the Apostles interiorly re ceived, namely, fulness of power and might.
So also when our Lord Jesus prayed to the Father because of His distress and the rage of His enemies, He heard an interior voice from heaven, comforting Him in His Sacred Humanity. The sound, solemn and grave, was heard exteriorly by the Jews, some of whom ' said that it thundered: others said, An angel hath spoken to Him/⁷ The voice outwardly heard was the outward sign and expression of that strength and power which Christ then inwardly received in His human nature. We are not to suppose that the soul does not hear in spirit the spiritual voice because it is also outwardly heard. The spiritual voice is the effect on the soul of the audible voice, as material sounds strike the ear, and impress the meaning of it on the mind. This we learn from David when he said, ' He will give to His voice the voice of strength; '⁸ this strength is the interior voice. He will give to His voice — that is, the outward voice, audibly heard — the voice of strength which is felt within. God is an infinite voice, and com municating Himself thus to the soul produces the effect of an infinite voice.
This voice was heard by St. John, saying in the Apocalypse, ' I heard a voice from heaven as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of great thunder/ And, lest it should be supposed that a voice so strong was distressing and harsh, he adds immediately, ' The voice which I heard was as the voice of harpers harping on their harps.'⁹ Ezechiel says that this sound as of many waters was ' as it were the sound of the High God/¹⁰ profoundly and sweetly communicated in it. This voice is infinite, because, as I have said, it is God Who communicates Himself, speaking in the soul; but He adapts Himself to each soul, uttering the voice of strength according to its capacity, in majesty and joy. And so the bride sings in the Canticle: ' Let Thy voice sound in my ears, for Thy voice is sweet/¹¹

' The whisper of the amorous gales/

Two things are to be considered here — gales and whisper. The amorous gales are the virtues and graces of the Beloved, which, because of its union with the Bridegroom, play around the soul, and, most lovingly sent forth, touch it in their own substance. The whisper of the gales is a most sublime and sweet knowledge of God and of His attributes, which overflows into the understanding from the contact of the attributes of God with the substance of the soul. This is the highest delight of which the soul is capable in this life.
That we may understand this the better, we must keep in mind that as in a gale two things are observ able — the touch of it, and the whisper or sound — so there are two things observable also in the communications of the Bridegroom — the sense of delight, and the under standing of it. As the touch of the air is felt in the sense of touch, and the whisper of it heard in the ear, so also the contact of the perfections of the Beloved is felt and enjoyed in the touch of the soul — that is, in the substance thereof, through the instrumentality of the will; and the knowledge of the attributes of God felt in the hearing of the soul — that is, in the understanding.
The gale is said to blow amorously when it strikes deliciously, satisfying his desire who is longing for the refreshing which it ministers; for it then revives and soothes the sense of touch, and while the sense of touch is thus soothed, that of hearing also rejoices and delights in the sound and whisper of the gale more than the touch in the contact of the air, because the sense of hearing is more spiritual, or, to speak with greater cor rectness, is more nearly connected with the spiritual than is that of touch, and the delight thereof is more spiritual than is that of the touch. So also, inasmuch as this touch of God greatly satisfies and comforts the substance of the soul, sweetly fulfilling its longing to be received into union; this union, or touch, is called amorous gales, because, as I said before, the perfections of the Beloved are by it communicated to the soul lovingly and sweetly, and through it the whisper of knowledge to the understanding. It is called whisper, because, as the whisper of the air penetrates subtilely into the organ of hearing, so this most subtile and delicate knowledge enters with marvellous sweetness and delight into the inmost substance of the soul, which is the highest of all delights.
The reason is that substantial knowledge is now communicated intelligibly, and stripped of all accidents and images, to the understanding, which philosophers call passive or passible, because inactive without any natural efforts of its own during this communication. This is the highest delight of the soul, because it is in the understanding, which is the seat of fruition, as theo logians teach, and fruition is the vision of God. Some theologians think, inasmuch as this whisper signifies the substantial intelligence, that our father Elias had a vision of God in the delicate whisper of the air, which he heard on the mount at the mouth of the cave. The Holy Scripture calls it ' the whistling of a gentle wind/¹² be cause knowledge is begotten in the understanding by the subtile and delicate communication of the Spirit. The soul calls it here the whisper of the amorous gales, because it flows into the understanding from the loving communication of the perfections of the Beloved. This is why it is called the whisper of the amorous gales.
This divine whisper which enters in by the ear of the soul is not only substantial knowledge, but a manifestation also of the truths of the Divinity, and a revelation of the secret mysteries thereof. For in general, in the Holy Scriptures, every communication of God said to enter in by the ear is a manifestation of pure truths to the understanding, or a revelation of the secrets of God. These are revelations on purely spiritual visions, and are communicated directly to the soul without the intervention of the senses, and thus, what God com municates through the spiritual ear is most profound and most certain. When St. Paul would express the greatness of the revelations made to him, he did not say, ' I saw or I perceived secret words/ but ' I heard secret words which it is not granted to man to utter /¹³ It is thought that St. Paul also saw God, as our father Elias, in the whisper of a gentle air. For as ' faith cometh by hearing ' — so the Apostle teaches — that is, by the hearing of the material ear, so also that which the faith teaches, the intelligible truth, cometh by spiritual hearing.
The prophet Job, speaking to God, when He revealed Himself unto him, teaches the same doctrine, saying, ' With the hearing of the ear I have heard Thee, but now my eye seeth Thee/¹⁴ It is clear, from this, that to hear with the ear of the soul is to see with the eye of the passive understanding. He does not say, ' I heard with the hearing of my ears,' but ' with the hearing of my ear'; nor, 'with the seeing of my eyes/ but ' with the eye of my understanding '; the hearing of the soul is, therefore, the vision of the understanding.
Still, we are not to think that what the soul perceives, though pure truth, can be the perfect and clear fruition of Heaven. For though it be free from accidents, as I said before, j it is dim and not clear, because it is contemplation, which in this life, as St. Dionysius saith, ' is a ray of darkness/¹⁵ and thus we may say that it is a ray and an image of fruition, because it is in the understanding, which is the seat of fruition.

This substantial truth, called here a whisper, is the ' eyes desired ' which the Beloved showed to the bride, who, unable to bear the vision, cried, ' Turn them away,

0 my Beloved/¹⁶

There is a passage in the book of Job which greatly confirms what I have said of rapture and be trothal, and, because I consider it to be much to the purpose, I will give it here, though it may delay us a little, and explain those portions of it which belong to my subject. The explanation shall be short, and when

1 shall have made it, I shall go on to explain the other stanza. The passage is as follows: ' To me there was spoken a secret word/ said Eliphaz the Themanite, ' and, as it were, my ear by stealth received the veins of its whisper. In the horror of a vision by night, when deep sleep is wont to hold men, fear held me and trembling, and all my bones were made sore afraid: and when the spirit passed before me the hair of my flesh stood upright. There stood one whose countenance I knew not, an image before mine eyes, and I heard the voice, as it were, of a gentle wind/¹⁷

This passage contains almost all I said about rapture in the thirteenth stanza, where the bride says: ' Turn them away, O my Beloved/ The ' word spoken in secret ' to Eliphaz is that secret communication which by reason of its greatness the soul was not able to endure, and, therefore, cried out: ' Turn them away, O my Beloved/ Eliphaz says that his ' ear as it were by stealth received the veins of its whisper/ By that is meant the pure substance which the understanding receives, for the ' veins ' here denote the interior sub stance. The whisper is that communication and touch of the virtues whereby the said substance is communi cated to the understanding. It is called a whisper because of its great gentleness. And the soul calls it the amorous gales because it is lovingly communicated. It is said to be received as it were by stealth, for as that which is stolen is alienated, so this secret is alien to man, speaking in the order of nature, because that which he received does not appertain to him naturally, and thus it was not lawful for him to receive it; neither was it lawful for St. Paul to repeat what he heard. For this reason the prophet saith twice, ' My secret to myself, my secret to myself/¹⁸
When Eliphaz speaks of the horror of the vision by night, and of the fear and trembling that seized upon him, he refers to the awe and dread that comes upon the soul naturally in rapture, because in its natural strength it is unable, as I said before,¹⁹ to endure the communication of the Spirit of God. The prophet gives us to understand that, as when sleep is about to fall upon men, a certain vision which they call a nightmare is wont to oppress and terrify them in the interval between sleeping and waking, which is the moment of the approach of sleep, so in the spiritual passage between the sleep of natural ignorance and the waking of the supernatural understanding, which is the beginning of an ecstasy or rapture, the spiritual vision then revealed makes the soul fear and tremble.
' All my bones were affrighted '; that is, were shaken and disturbed. By this he meant a certain dislocation of the bones which takes place when the soul falls into an ecstasy. This is clearly expressed by Daniel when he saw the angel, saying, ' O my lord, at the sight of thee my joints are loosed/²⁰ ' When the spirit passed before me ' — that is, ' When my spirit was made to tran scend the ways and limitations of nature in ecstasies and raptures " — ' the hair of my flesh stood upright '; that is, my body was chilled, and the flesh contracted, like that of a dead man/
' There stood One ' — that is God, Who reveals Himself after this manner — ' Whose countenance I knew not ': in these communications or visions, however high they may be, the soul neither knows nor beholds the face and being of God. ' An image before my eyes '; that is, the knowledge of the secret words was most deep, as it were the image and face of God; but still this is not the essential vision of God. ' I heard the voice, as it were, of a gentle wind '; this is the whisper of the amorous gales — that is, of the Beloved of the soul.
But it is not to be supposed that these visits of God are always attended by such terrors and distress of nature: that happens to them only who are entering the state of illumination and perfection, and in this kind of communication; for in others they come with great sweetness.

Stanza XV

' THE tranquil night/ In this spiritual sleep in the bosom of the Beloved the soul is in possession and fruition of all the calm, repose, and quiet of a peaceful night, and receives at the same time in God a certain dim, unfathomable divine intelligence. This is the reason why it says that the Beloved is to it the tranquil night.

'At the approaches of the dawn.' This tranquil night is not like a night of darkness, but rather like the night when the sunrise is drawing nigh. This tran quillity and repose in God is not all darkness to the soul, as the dark night is, but rather tranquillity and repose in the divine light and in a new knowledge of God, whereby the mind, most sweetly tranquil, is raised to a divine light.
This divine light is here very appropriately called the approaches of the dawn, that is, the twilight; for as the twilight of the morn disperses the darkness of the night and reveals the light of day, so the mind, tranquil and reposing in God, is raised up from the darkness of natural knowledge to the morning light of the super natural knowledge of God; not clear, indeed, as I have said, but dim, like the night at the approaches of the dawn. For as it is then neither wholly night nor wholly day, but, as they say, twilight, so this solitude and divine repose is neither perfectly illumined by the divine light nor yet perfectly alien from it.
In this tranquillity the understanding is lifted up in a strange way above its natural comprehension to the divine light: it is like a man who, after a profound sleep, opens his eyes to unexpected light. This knowledge is referred to by David when he says, ' I have watched, and am become as the lonely sparrow on the housetop ' ;²¹ that is, ' I opened the eyes of my understanding and was raised up above all natural comprehension, lonely, without them, on the housetop, lifted up above all earthly considerations.' He says that he was ' become as the lonely sparrow/ because in this kind of contemplation, the spirit has the properties of the sparrow. These are five in number:

i. It frequents in general high places; and the spirit, in this state, rises to the highest contemplation.

ii. It is ever turning its face in the direction of the wind, and the spirit turns its affections thither whence comes the spirit of love, which is God.

iii. It is in general solitary, abstaining from the companionship of others, and flying away when any approach it: so the spirit, in contemplation, is far away from all worldly thoughts, lonely in its avoidance of them; neither does it consent to anything except to this solitude in God.

iv. It sings most sweetly, and so also does the spirit at this time sing unto God; for the praises which it offers up proceed from the sweetest love, most pleasing to itself, and most precious in the sight of God.

v. It is of no definite colour; so also is the perfect spirit, which in this ecstasy is not only without any tinge of sensual affection or self-love, but also without any particular consideration of the things of heaven or earth; neither can it give any account whatever of them, because it has entered into the abyss of the know ledge of God.

' The silent music.'

In this silence and tranquillity of the night, and in this knowledge of the divine light, the soul discerns a marvellous arrangement and disposition of God's wisdom in the diversities of His creatures and operations. All these, and each one of them, have a certain correspondence with God, whereby each, by a voice peculiar to itself, proclaims what there is in itself of God, so as to form a concert of sublimest melody, transcending all the harmonies of the world. This is the silent music, because it is knowledge tranquil and calm, without audible voice; and thus the sweetness of music and the repose of silence are enjoyed in it. The soul says that the Beloved is silent music, because this harmony of spiritual music is in Him understood and felt. He is not this only, He is also —

' The murmuring solitude/

This is almost the same as the silent music. For though the music is inaudible to the senses and the natural powers, it is a solitude most full of sound to the spiritual powers. These powers being in solitude, emptied of all forms and natural apprehensions, may well receive in spirit, like a resounding voice, the spiritual impression of the majesty of God in Himself and in His creatures; as it happened to St. John, who heard in spirit as it were ' the voice of harpers harping on their harps.'²² St. John heard this in spirit: it was not material harps that he heard, but a certain knowledge that he had of the praises of the blessed, which every one of them, each in his own degree of glory, is continually singing before God. It is as it were music. For as every one of the saints had the gifts of God in a different way, so every one of them sings His praises in a different way, and yet all harmonise in one concert of love, as in music.
In the same way, 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. This is the meaning of those words of the Holy Ghost in the Book of Wisdom: ' The Spirit of our Lord hath replenished the whole world, and that which containeth all things hath the knowledge of the voice.'²³ ' The voice ' is the murmuring solitude, which the soul is said to know, namely, the witness which all things bear to God. Inasmuch as the soul hears this music only in solitude and in estrangement from all outward things, it calls it silent music and murmuring solitude. These are the Beloved.

' The supper which revives, and enkindles love/

Lovers find recreation, satisfaction, and love in feasts. And because the Beloved in this sweet com munication produces these three effects in the soul, He is here said to be the supper that revives, and enkindles love. In Holy Scripture supper signifies the divine vision, for as supper is the conclusion of the day's labours, and the beginning of the night's repose, so the soul in this tranquil knowledge is made to feel that its trials are over, the possession of good begun, and its love of God increased. Hence, then, the Beloved is to the soul the supper that revives, in being the end of its trials, and that enkindles love, in being the beginning of the fruition of all good.
That we may see more clearly how the Bridegroom is the supper of the soul, we must refer to those words of the Beloved in the Apocalypse: ' Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man shall hear My voice, and open to Me the gate, I will enter in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me.'²⁴ It is evident from these words that He brings the supper with Him, which is nothing else but His own sweetness and delights, wherein He rejoiceth Himself, and which He, uniting Himself to the soul, communicates to it, making it a partaker of His joy: for this is the meaning of ' I will sup with him, and he with Me/ These words describe the effect of the divine union of the soul with God, wherein it shares the very goods of God Himself, Who communi cates them graciously and abundantly to it. Thus the Beloved is Himself the supper which revives, and en kindles love, refreshing the soul with His abundance, and enkindling its love in His graciousness.
But before I proceed to explain the stanzas which follow, I must observe that, in the state of betrothal, wherein the soul enjoys this tranquillity, and wherein it receives all that it can receive in this life, we are not to suppose its tranquillity to be perfect, but that the higher part of it is tranquil; for the sensual part, except in the state of spiritual marriage, never loses all its im perfect habits, and its powers are never wholly subdued, as I shall show hereafter.²⁵ What the soul receives now is all that it can receive in the state of be trothal, for in that of the marriage the blessings are greater. Though the bride- soul has great joy in these visits of the Beloved in the state of betrothal, still it has to suffer from His absence, to endure trouble and afflictions in the lower part, and at the hands of the devil. But all this ceases in the state of spiritual marriage.

Gen. viii. 9. ↩
Gen. vi. 21. ↩
St. John i. 3, 4. See Stanza viii. p. 64. ↩
Isa. Ixvi. 12. ↩
S. Luke i. 53. ↩
Acts ii. 2. ↩
St. John xii. 29. ↩
Ps. Ixvii. 34. ↩
Apoc. xiv. 2. ↩
Ezech. i. 24. ↩
Cant. ii. 14. ↩
3 Kings xix. 12. ↩
2 Cor. xii. 4. ↩
Job xlii. 5. ↩
§ 20. ↩
Cant. vi. 4. ↩
Job iv. 12-16. ↩
Is. xxiv. 16. ↩
Stan. xiii. § i. ↩
Dan. x. 16. ↩
Ps. ci. 8. ↩
Apoc. xiv. 2. ↩
Wisd. i. 7. ↩
Apoc. iii. 20. ↩
Stanza xxvi. ↩

Chapter 17 of 41