The Project Gutenberg eBook of Hours with the mystics, by Robert Alfred Vaughan

281. The biographers of the saints differ both as to the time of her death (1308, 1299, 1393, are dates assigned), and as to the number and nature of the miraculous formations discovered within her heart. Ribadeneira’s account is by no means the most extravagant. He says:—Aperto ejus corde amplo et concavo, eidem repererunt impressa Dominicæ passionis insignia, nempe crucifixum cum tribus clavis, lancea, spongia, et arundine hinc, et illinic flagris, virgis, columna, corona spinea; atque hæc insignia Dominicæ Passionis, nervis validis durisque constabant.—Vida S. Claræ, p. 161.

282. Vida, cap. xxix, p. 213. Speaking of the delicious anguish, she says:—No es dolor corporal, sino espiritual, aunque no dexa de participar el cuerpo algo, y aun harto. Es un requiebro tan suave que passa entre el almo y Dios que suplico yo a su bondad lo dè a gustar a quien pensare que miento.

283. Vida, cap. xxxviii. pp. 300, 301; and xl. 328.

284. Vida, pp. 71 and 75. In the latter passage, Theresa says expressly:—En la mystica Teologia, que comence a dezir, pierde de obrar el entendimiento, porque le suspende Dios, como despues declararè mas, si supiere, y el me diere para el lo su favor. Presumir, ni pensar de suspenderle nosotros, es lo que digo no se haga, ni se dexe de obrar con el, porque nos quedaremos bouos y frios, y ni haremos lo uno ni lo otro. Que quando el Señor le suspende, y haze parar, dale de que se espante, y en que se ocupe, y que sin discurrir entienda mas en un credo que nosotros podemos entendir con todas nuestras diligencias de tierra en muchos años.

285. See Note on p. 175.

286. Vida, cap. xvii. and Castillo Interior, Moradas Quintas, cap. i.

287. Castillo Interior, p. 580.

288. See second Note on p. 175.

289. See Note on p. 176.

290. See Note on p. 177.

291. See Note on p. 178.

292. See the account of the proceedings against Molinos and his followers, in Arnold, th. III., c. xvii., and more fully in an Appendix to the English translation of Madame Guyon’s Autobiography.

293. Vida, chap. xxii.:—Quando Dios quiere suspender todas las potencias (como en los modos de oracion que quedan dichos hemos visto) claro estâ que aunque no queramos se quita esta presencia.... Mas que nosotros de maña y con cuydado nos acostumbremos a no procurar con todas nuestras fuerças traer delante siempre (y pluguiesse al Señor fuesse siempre) esta sacratissima humanidad esto digo que no me parece bien, y que es andar el alma en ayre, como dizen: porque parece no trae arrimo, por mucho que la parezca anda llena de Dios.—P. 154.

294. The words of John are:—Mais il faut remarquer que quand je dis qu’il est à propos d’oublier les espèces et les connaissances des objets matériels, je ne prétends nullement parler de Jésus-Christ ni de son humanité sacrée. Quoique l’âme n’en ait pas quelquefois la mémoire dans sa plus haute contemplation et dans le simple regard de la divinité, parce que Dieu élève l’esprit à cette connaissance confuse et surnaturelle, néanmoins il ne faut jamais négliger exprès la représentation de cette adorable humanité ni en effacer le souvenir ou l’idée, ni en affaiblir la connaissance.—La Montée du Mont Carmel, liv. III. chap. 1. I have used the French translation of his works, edited by the Abbé Migne, in his Bibliothèque Universelle du Clergé. 1845.

The chapter on images is the fourteenth of the same book.

Father Berthier (Lettres sur les Œuvres de S. Jean de la Croix) attempts to show the difference between the mysticism of his author and that of the false mystics. He succeeds only in pointing out a manifest disagreement between the opinions of John and those which he himself believes (or pretends to believe) are those of Quietism—the accusations, in fact, against the Quietists—the exaggerated conclusions drawn by their enemies.

295. See Note on p. 180.

296. Castillo Interior. Morada vi., c. v.

297. Ibid., capp. viii., ix., x.

298. Vida, cap. xxvii., pp. 191, &c. Here the supernatural illumination without means or mode, longed for by so many mystics, is professedly realised. Molinos puts forward no claim so dangerous as this special revelation. Theresa is confident that this most inexplicable species of communication is beyond the reach of any delusion, and inaccessible altogether to the father of lies. Her language concerning the absolute passivity of those who are its subjects, is as strong as it could be. No Quietist could push it farther. It so happens that the saint, in his chapter, contravenes expressly the three criteria, afterwards laid down by Fénélon, to distinguish the true mysticism from the false. The genuine contemplation according to him is not purely infused, not purely gratuitous (i.e., without correspondence on the part of the soul to the grace vouchsafed), not miraculous. With Theresa this form of passive contemplation is all three. So much more Quietist was the mysticism authorised than the mysticism condemned by Rome. See Maximes des Saints, art. xxix. What Fénélon rejects in the following section as false, answers exactly to the position of Theresa. Fénélon supports his more refined and sober mysticism by the authority of preceding mystics. He finds among them ample credentials, and indeed more than he wants. Their extravagances he tacitly rejects. Not that, as a good Catholic, he could venture openly to impugn their statements, but their fantastic extremes, and choice wonders, find a place with him rather as so much religious tradition, or extraordinary history, than as forming any essential part of the mysticism he himself represents and commends.

299. Vida, cap. xxv.

300. His exhortations here carry ascetic self-abnegation far beyond the Quietist indifference of Fénélon or Madame Guyon. They were satisfied—he, always, and she throughout her later life—to seek a state of calm, to hail joy or sorrow alike, with the trustful equanimity of perfect resignation. John is too violent—too much enamoured of miseries, to await the will of Providence. His ambition will command events, and make them torments.

‘Au reste, le meilleur moyen, le plus méritoire et le plus propre pour acquérir les vertus; le moyen, dis-je, le plus sûr pour mortifier la joie, l’espérance, la crainte et la douleur, est de se porter toujours aux choses non pas les plus faciles, mais les plus difficiles; non pas les plus savoureuses, mais les plus insipides; non pas les plus agréables, mais les plus désagréables; non pas à celles qui consolent, mais à celles qui causent de la peine; non pas aux plus grandes, mais aux plus petites; non pas aux plus sublimes et aux plus précieuses, mais aux plus basses et aux plus méprisables. Il faut enfin désirer et rechercher ce qu’il y a de pire, et non ce qu’il y a de meilleur, afin de se mettre, pour l’amour de Jésus Christ, dans la privation de toutes les choses du monde, et d’entrer dans l’esprit d’une nudité parfaite....

‘Premièrement, il faut que celui qui veut réprimer cette passion tâche de faire les choses qui tournent à son déshonneur, et il aura soin de se faire mépriser aussi par le prochain.

‘Secondement, il dira lui-même et fera dire aux autres les choses qui lui attirent du mépris.’—Montée du Carmel, liv. II. ch. xiii.

301. Dionysius is very clearly followed into his darkness in La Montée du Carmel, liv. II. chap. viii.; and his Hierarchies reappear in La Nuit Obscure, liv. II. ch. xii.

302. La Nuit Obscure, liv. II. ch. iv.; et passim.

303. This first Night is treated of at length in the first book of the Montée du Carmel, and in the first of the Nuit Obscure. The supernatural sensuous enjoyments, alluded to, are described in the Montée du Carmel, liv. II. ch. xi. They are placed in the second Night,—the compensation not taking place immediately; and their recipient is on no account to rely on them, or desire their continuance (p. 444). By ‘sense,’ John understands, not the body merely, but the least disorder of the passions, and all those imperfections so common to beginners which arise from an undue eagerness for religious enjoyments, such, for example, as what he calls spiritual avarice, spiritual luxury, spiritual gourmandise, &c.

304. See Note on p. 195.

305. Montée du Carmel, liv. II. ch. xxv.-xxxii.

306. Ibid. ch. viii. and vi.

307. Ibid. ch. xvii. and liv. III. ch. xii.

308. What a scope for the indignant eloquence of Bossuet, had Fénélon proclaimed as possible such a sudden equipment with all imaginable virtues as this:—Quelques-unes de ces connaissances et de ces touches intérieures que Dieu répand dans l’âme l’enrichissent de telle sorte qu’une seule suffit, non-seulement pour la délivrer tout d’un coup des imperfections qu’elle n’avait pu vaincre durant tout le cours de sa vie, mais aussi pour l’orner des vertus chrétiennes et des dons divins.—Montée du Carmel, liv. II. ch. xxvi. p. 484.

309. In the chapter just cited, John says expressly, ‘Elle ne saurait cependant s’élever à ces connaissances et à ces touches divines par sa co-opération,’ and describes these gifts as coming from God, ‘subitement et sans attendre le consentement de la volonté.’—P. 485. So again, quite as strongly, liv. II. chap. xi. p. 445. He discountenances the attempt to seek perfection by the ‘voies surnaturelles,’ yet his books are an introduction to the mystical evening, and a guide through the mystical midnight.

310. La Nuit Obscure, liv. II. ch. ix.; especially the passage cited in note on p. 195.

311. This night occupies the third book of the Montée du Carmel.

312. See Note on p. 196.

313. See second Note on p. 196.

314. See the life of the saint in Alban Butler, Nov. 24.

315. See the first six chapters of her Autobiography. This life was published posthumously at Cologne, in 1720. I have used an anonymous English translation, published at Bristol, in 1772.

316. See Note on p. 238.

317. Autobiography, chap. x.

318. Autobiography, chap. xii. p. 87.

319. See second Note on p. 238.

320. Görres, Die Christliche Mystik, b. IV. c. i.

321. Görres, Die Christliche Mystik, pp. 70-73.

322. Specimens of the language may be seen in Görres, p. 152.

323. Görres, Die Christliche Mystik, pp. 465, &c.

324. Ibid. pp. 532, &c.

325. See Note on p. 239.

326. Autobiography, part I. c. xv.

327. See Note on p. 240.

328. Autobiography, part I. c. xxviii. p. 163.

329. This spontaneity she likens to a fountain, as compared with a pump; love in the heart prompts every issue of life: outward occasions and stimulants are no longer awaited; and a glad inward readiness gives facility in every duty, patience under every trial. Such also is the teaching of Fénélon here—the genuine doctrine of spiritual life. But the enemies of Quietism were not slow to represent this ‘practising the virtues no longer as virtues,’ as a dangerous pretence for evading the obligations of virtue altogether.

330. Upham, vol. I. pp. 262, 263.

331. This Prayer of Silence became hers at an early period in her religious career, not as the result of direct effort in pursuance of a theory, but simply as the consequence of overpowering emotion. She says, ‘I had a secret desire given me from that time to be wholly devoted to the disposal of my God, let it be what it would. I said, ‘What couldst Thou demand of me, that I would not willingly sacrifice or offer Thee? Oh, spare me not.’ I could scarce hear speak of God, or our Lord Jesus Christ, without being almost ravished out of myself. What surprised me the most, was the great difficulty I had to say the vocal prayers I had been used to say. As soon as I opened my lips to pronounce them, the love of God seized me so strongly that I was swallowed up in a profound silence, and a peace not to be expressed. I made fresh essays, but still in vain. I began, but could not go on. And as I had never before heard of such a state, I knew not what to do. My inability therein still increased, because my love to God was still growing more strong, more violent, and more overpowering. There was made in me, without the sound of words, a continual prayer, which seemed to me to be the prayer of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself; a prayer of the Word, which is made by the Spirit, which, according to St. Paul, ‘asketh for us that which is good, perfect, and conformable to the will of God.’—Autobiography, part I. c. xiii.

Here we find genuine devout fervour, emancipating itself, very naturally in private, from allotted forms of prayer; but no mysticism, till we come to the last sentence—even that, admitting a favourable explanation.

332. Autobiography, part II. c. xvii. ‘God supplied me,’ she adds, ‘with what was pertinent and satisfactory to them all, after a wonderful manner, without any share of my study or meditation therein. Nothing was hid from me of their interior state, and of what passed within them. Here, O my God! thou madest an infinite number of conquests, known to Thyself only. They were instantly furnished with a wonderful facility of prayer. God conferred on them His grace plentifully, and wrought marvellous changes in them. The most advanced of these souls found, when with me, in silence, a grace communicated to them, which they could neither comprehend nor cease to admire. The others found an unction in my words, and that they operated in them what I said to them. They said they had never experienced anything like it. Friars of different orders, and priests of merit, came to see me, to whom our Lord granted very great favours, as indeed he did to all without exception, who came in sincerity. One thing was surprising, and that was, that I had not a word to say to such as came only to watch my words and to criticise them. Even when I thought to try to speak to them, I felt that I could not, and that God would not have me do it.... I felt that what I spoke flowed from the fountain, and that I was only the instrument of Him who made me speak.’—P. 86.

333. The little book to which she gave the name of The Torrents, was written, she tells us, at the suggestion of La Combe. When she took up her pen she knew not what she was to say, but soon came thoughts and words abundantly—as, indeed, they were sure to do. She compares the different kinds of spiritual progress to the mountain streams she had seen hurrying down the sides of the Alps. She describes the varieties in the gravitation of devout souls toward God—the ocean which they seek. Some proceed slowly, by means of meditations, austerities, and works of charity,—dependent mostly on outward appliances,—deficient in spontaneity and ardour,—little exercised by inward experience. Another class flow in a fuller stream,—grow into laden rivers—haste with more strength and speed; but these are apt to dwell, with too much complacence, on those rich gifts for which they are conspicuous. A third order (and to these she herself belonged) dash out from the poverty of the rocks, impetuous, leaping over every obstacle, unburdened by wealthy freightage, inglorious in the eyes of men, but simple, naked, self-emptied, with resistless eagerness foaming up out of abysmal chasms that seemed to swallow them, and finding, soonest of all, that Sea divine, wherein all rivers rest.

Her commentaries on Scripture were written with extraordinary rapidity. The fact that she consulted no book except the Bible in their composition must doubtless have contributed to their speed: certainly not, as she fancied, to their excellence. No writers are so diffuse as the mystics, because no others have written so fast, imagining headlong haste an attribute of inspiration. The transcriber could not copy in five days what she had written in one night. We may conjecture that the man must have been paid by the day. The commentary on the Canticles was written in a day and a half, and several visits received beside.—Autobiography, part II. c. xxi.

334. O man, wouldst thou be grafted, and to the heavenly soil transplanted? then must thou first thy branches wild hew quite away, that kindly fruits may come forth in God’s image.

335. As far as his doctrine differs from that of Madame Guyon, it is for the worse, because he approaches more nearly the extreme language of some of the orthodox mystics in his communion.

336. This Dialogue of Malaval’s, which goes much beyond the mysticism of Molinos, was approved by the Sorbonne, and found so conformable to the teachings of St. Theresa, that the translation of it was dedicated to the bare-footed Carmelites. The unobtrusive and not unqualified mysticism of Molinos was stigmatised by the new epithet of Quietism, and condemned as deadly error. The extravagant and wonder-working mysticism of Theresa was extolled as the angelic life. See the Account of Molinos and the Quietists, appended to the Autobiography of Madame Guyon: translated, I believe, from a French work, entitled, Recueil de Diverses Pièces concernant le Quiétisme et les Quiétistes.

337. Michelet, Priests, Women, and Families, p. 74.

338. See Note on p. 276.

339. Upham, vol. ii. pp. 3, &c. We find among these persons of rank a religion of some vitality—no court-fashion merely. It was to the Introduction à la Vie Dévote (1608) of St. Francis de Sales that Romanism was indebted for such hold as it really had on the upper classes. None of the great ecclesiastical writers of France—not even that darling of the fifteenth century, the Imitatio Christi, could win the ears of people of the world. In the Introduction, however, religion appeared neither ruthlessly stern, nor hopelessly fantastical. It was not, on the one side, scowling, unkempt, sordid, morose; it was not, on the other, impalpable, supersensuous, utterly unintelligible, as well as undesirable, to worldly common sense. Fashion and devotion met; piety and politeness embraced each other. The Introduction leaves to others the pains and raptures of the mystic. It is written for the Marthas, not the Marys. Its readers, personified in Philothea, are not supposed to be covetous of any extraordinary gifts. De Sales possessed a lively fancy, and the tender religious sentiment of his book, graced and lightened by its rainbow illustrations, was a bright-winged Psyche, welcome everywhere. These illustrations are drawn, sometimes from the farms, the flower-valleys, and the snow-peaks of his native Savoy; sometimes from fabulous natural history, from classic story, from the legends of the Church, or the forms and usages of the world,—oftenest of all, from the ways of infants and children, and from the love of mothers. St. Beuve happily characterises the work, as ‘un livre qui, sur la table d’une femme comme il faut ou d’un gentilhomme poli de ce temps-là, ne chassait pas absolument le volume de Montaigne, et, attendait, sans le fuir, le volume d’Urfé.’—Causeries du Lundi, tom. vii. p. 216.

340. This Harlay had owed his archbishopric to his libertinism in the days of Madame de Montespan. His sun was now setting, ingloriously enough, under the decent régime of the Maintenon, and there was nothing for it but to atone for the scandals of his life and diocese by exemplary rigour in matters of doctrine. The letters sent, and the documents shown him, were the fabrication of La Mothe and his creature the scrivener Gautier. They forged a letter from Marseilles, pretending that La Combe had slept in the same chamber with Madame Guyon—and also eaten meat in Lent. La Combe was further accused of having embraced and taught the heresy of Molinos.

The real letters which followed Madame Guyon from the scenes of her former activity breathe no suspicion of her character or motives. The Bishop of Geneva, in a letter quoted by Fénélon, declared that his only complaint against her was the indiscreet zeal with which she everywhere propagated truths which she believed serviceable to the Church. With that exception, ‘he esteemed her infinitely, and entertained for her the highest imaginable regard.’ This was in 1683. In 1688 he prohibited her books. But even in 1695, the same bishop repeats his praise of her piety and morals, and declares that his conscience never would have suffered him to speak of her in other than respectful language.—See Memoirs for the History of Madame de Maintenon (London, 1757), vol. III. bk. xi. c. 2. Autobiography, part III. chapp. i. ii. iii. Fénélon’s Réponse à la Relation sur le Quiétisme, chap. i.

341. Memoirs for the History of Madame de Maintenon, bk. ix. Madame Guyon’s doctrine entered St. Cyr while the absolute vows were yet under discussion.

342. Memoirs for the History of Madame de Maintenon, bk. xi. chap. v.

343. Autobiography, part III. chap. ix. Fénélon declares that her explanations at these interviews were such as to satisfy him of the harmlessness and orthodoxy of her intention. She appeared to him often extravagant or questionable in expression, from her ignorance; but so favoured of God, that the most learned divine might gather spiritual wisdom from her lips. She told him of certain instantaneous supernatural communications, which came and vanished, she knew not how. Yet, like John of the Cross, she did not rest on these, but passed on into the obscure path of pure faith. For this he praised her, and believed that though these experiences were illusory, a spirit so lowly and so obedient had been faithful to grace throughout, such involuntary deception notwithstanding.—Réponse à la Relation sur le Quiétisme, chap. i. 10-13.

344. She still speaks, however, of the ‘sense’ vouchsafed her of the state of the souls given to her, even when they were at a distance; and of communication in God with those to whom the Lord united her by the tie of spiritual maternity. Autobiography, part III. ch. viii. Nothing was more likely to open her eyes to the questionable character of some of her experiences, and to the unguarded nature of many of her expressions, than the kindly yet searching inquiries of a man like Fénélon, qualified by temperament to enter into her feelings, and a master in mystical theology. Mr. Upham seems to me greatly to overrate the influence of Madame Guyon on Fénélon. To her fancy, her imagination might at times depict him as a spiritual son: he was, in fact, a friendly judge.

345. When called to separate the true mysticism from the false in the writings of Madame Guyon, Bossuet was not only ignorant of Tauler, Ruysbroek, Harphius, and others; he had not even read Francis de Sales or John of the Cross. Fénélon, at his request, sent him a collection of passages from Suso, Harphius, Ruysbroek, Tauler, Catharine of Genoa, St. Theresa, John of the Cross, Alvarez, De Sales, and Madame de Chantal. With just indignation does Fénélon expose the artifice by which Bossuet afterwards attempted to turn this confidence against him.—Réponse à la Relation sur le Quiétisme, chap. ii. 18-27.

346. History of Madame de Maintenon, bk. XI. chap. vii.

347. History of Madame de Maintenon, bk. XI. chap. vii. Bausset, Histoire de Fénélon, liv. ii. p. 295. The high opinion entertained of Fénélon by Madame de Maintenon was, as yet, unshaken. She knew that though the friend of Madame Guyon, he was not her advocate. But she was called to side with the man of charity or the man of zeal—the liberal man or the bigot; and the issue could not long be doubtful. Fénélon early saw the signs of danger. We find him striving to moderate the enthusiasm of Madame de la Maisonfort—to reconcile her to the regulations of Godet—to repress her indiscreet zeal in behalf of her cousin, Madame Guyon.—Correspondance de Fénélon, Lettres 24, 26, 29, 30.

348. Autobiography, part III. chap. xiii. Phelipeaux gives in full the correspondence on both sides, Relation de l’Origine, du Progrès et de la Condamnation du Quiétisme répandu en France (1732), liv. i. pp. 73, &c. His account abounds in misrepresentations, and does little more, in the first part, than echo the Relation sur le Quiétisme of Bossuet, to whom the abbé was devoted. But his minuteness of detail, and the copious insertion of important letters and documents on either side, give to the heavy narrative considerable value. In a subsequent interview between Bossuet and Madame Guyon, she declared herself unable to pray for any particular thing—the forgiveness of her sins, for instance. To do so was to fail in absolute abandonment and disinterestedness. Bossuet was shocked. Madame Guyon promised and meant, to be all submission; but conscience would be unmanageable at times. Bossuet writes her long, sensible, hard-headed letters, in which, without much difficulty, he exposes her error, and leaves her no ground to stand on. She, however, must still humbly suggest that the exercise of love embraces all petitions, and that as there is a love without reflexion, so there may be a prayer without reflexion—a substantial prayer, comprehending all others.—Phelipeaux, p. 111.