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diff --git a/old/50206-0.txt b/old/50206-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index c680e09..0000000 --- a/old/50206-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,21198 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Mystical Element of Religion, as -studied in Saint Catherine of Genoa , by Baron Friedrich von Hügel - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: The Mystical Element of Religion, as studied in Saint Catherine of Genoa and her friends, Volume 2 (of 2) - -Author: Baron Friedrich von Hügel - -Release Date: October 14, 2015 [EBook #50206] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MYSTICAL ELEMENT OF RELIGION, VOL 2 *** - - - - -Produced by Julie Barkley and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - -TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: Volume I is available as Project Gutenberg ebook -number 50205. - - - - - - THE MYSTICAL ELEMENT - OF RELIGION - - _All rights reserved._ - - [Illustration: _The Venerable Battista Vernazza - (Tommasina Vernazza) - 1497-1587._] - - THE MYSTICAL ELEMENT - OF RELIGION AS STUDIED - IN SAINT CATHERINE OF - GENOA AND HER FRIENDS - - BY BARON FRIEDRICH VON HÜGEL - MEMBER OF THE CAMBRIDGE PHILOLOGICAL SOCIETY - - [Illustration] - - VOLUME SECOND - CRITICAL STUDIES - - LONDON: J. M. DENT & CO. - NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO. - MCMVIII - - RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED, - BREAD STREET HILL, E.C., AND - BUNGAY, SUFFOLK. - - - - -CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME - - -The frontispiece consists of a reduced facsimile, in photogravure, of -a lithograph by F. Scotto, entitled “Ven. Batta. Vernazza,” which -was printed and owned by the firm of Gervasoni, and which appeared -in the large 4to volume, _Ritratti, ed Elogi di Liguri Illustri_, -with the text printed by Ponthenier, all in Genoa. This book was -published there, in monthly parts, from 1823 to 1830. Scotto’s highly -characteristic lithograph no doubt reproduces an authentic likeness; -and probably the original portrait was, in the first instance, owned -by the Canonesses of S. Maria delle Grazie, Battista’s own convent -in Genoa. The picture now in the possession of the Nuns of S. Maria -in Passione, the successors of those Canonesses, is of a quite -conventional, secondary type. - - PAGE - - PART III.--CRITICAL - - CHAPTER IX.--PSYCHO-PHYSICAL AND TEMPERAMENTAL QUESTIONS 3-61 - - Introductory 3-9 - - I. Catherine’s Third Period, 1497-1510 9-13 - - II. Conclusions concerning Catherine’s Psycho-physical - Condition during this Last Period 14-21 - - III. Catherine’s Psycho-physical Condition, its Likeness and - Unlikeness to Hysteria 22-27 - - IV. First Period of Catherine’s Life, 1447-1477, in its Three - Stages 28-32 - - V. The Second, Great Middle Period of Catherine’s Life, - 1477-1499 32-40 - - VI. Three Rules which seem to govern the Relations between - Psycho-physical Peculiarities and Sanctity in general 40-47 - - VII. Perennial Freshness of the Great Mystics’ Main Spiritual - Test, in Contradistinction to their Secondary, Psychological - Contention. Two Special Difficulties 47-61 - - CHAPTER X.--THE MAIN LITERARY SOURCES OF CATHERINE’S - CONCEPTIONS 62-110 - - Introductory 62, 63 - - I. The Pauline Writings: the Two Sources of their - Pre-Conversion Assumptions; Catherine’s Preponderant - Attitude towards each Position 63-79 - - II. The Joannine Writings 79-90 - - III. The Areopagite Writings 90-101 - - IV. Jacopone da Todi’s “Lode” 102-110 - - V. Points common to all Five Minds; and Catherine’s Main - Difference from her Four Predecessors 110 - - CHAPTER XI.--CATHERINE’S LESS ULTIMATE THIS-WORLD DOCTRINES 111-181 - - Introductory 111, 112 - - I. Interpretative Religion 112-121 - - II. Dualistic Attitude towards the Body 121-129 - - III. Quietude and Passivity. Points in this Tendency to be - considered here 129-152 - - IV. Pure Love, or Disinterested Religion: its Distinction - from Quietism 152-181 - - CHAPTER XII.--THE AFTER-LIFE PROBLEMS AND DOCTRINES 182-258 - - I. The Chief Present-day Problems, Perplexities, and - Requirements with Regard to the After-Life in General 182-199 - - II. Catherine’s General After-Life Conceptions 199-218 - - III. Catherine and Eternal Punishment 218-230 - - IV. Catherine and Purgatory 230-246 - - V. Catherine and Heaven--Three Perplexities to be considered 246-258 - - CHAPTER XIII.--THE FIRST THREE ULTIMATE QUESTIONS 259-308 - - I. The Relations between Morality and Mysticism, Philosophy - and Religion 259-275 - - II. Mysticism and the Limits of Human Knowledge and Experience 275-290 - - III. Mysticism and the Question of Evil 290-308 - - CHAPTER XIV.--THE TWO FINAL PROBLEMS: MYSTICISM AND PANTHEISM, - THE IMMANENCE OF GOD, AND SPIRITUAL PERSONALITY, HUMAN AND - DIVINE 309-340 - - Introductory 309, 310 - - I. Relations between the General and the Particular, God and - Individual Things, according to Aristotle, the Neo-Platonists, - and the Medieval Strict Realists 310-319 - - II. Relations between God and the Human Soul 319-325 - - III. Mysticism and Pantheism: their Differences and Points of - Likeness 325-335 - - IV. The Divine Immanence; Spiritual Personality 336-340 - - CHAPTER XV.--SUMMING-UP OF THE WHOLE BOOK. BACK THROUGH - ASCETICISM, SOCIAL RELIGION, AND THE SCIENTIFIC HABIT OF MIND, - TO THE MYSTICAL ELEMENT OF RELIGION 341-396 - - I. Asceticism and Mysticism 341-351 - - II. Social Religion and Mysticism 351-366 - - III. The Scientific Habit and Mysticism 367-386 - - IV. Final Summary and Return to the Starting-point of the Whole - Inquiry: the Necessity, and yet the Almost Inevitable Mutual - Hostility, of the Three Great Forces of the Soul and of the - Three Corresponding Elements of Religion 387-396 - - INDEX 397 - - - - -THE MYSTICAL ELEMENT OF RELIGION - - - - -PART III - -CRITICAL - - - - -CHAPTER IX - -PSYCHO-PHYSICAL AND TEMPERAMENTAL QUESTIONS - - -INTRODUCTORY. - - -1. _Plan of Part Three._ - -The picture of Catherine’s life and teaching which was attempted in the -previous volume will, I hope, have been sufficiently vivid to stimulate -in the reader a desire to try and go deeper, and to get as near as may -be to the driving forces, the metaphysical depths of her life. And -yet it is obvious that, if we would understand something of these, we -must proceed slowly and thoroughly, and must begin with comparatively -superficial questions. Or rather, we must begin by studying her -temperamental and psycho-physical endowment and condition, and then the -literary influences that stimulated and helped to mould these things, -as though all this were not secondary and but the material and occasion -of the forces and self-determinations to be considered later on. - - -2. _Defects of ancient psycho-physical theory._ - -Now as to those temperamental and neural matters, to which this chapter -shall be devoted, the reader will, no doubt long ago, have discovered -that it is precisely here that not a little of the _Vita e Dottrina_ -is faded and withered beyond recall, or has even become positively -repulsive to us. The constant assumption, and frequent explicit -insistence, on the part of more or less all the contributors, upon the -immediate and separate significance, indeed the directly miraculous -character, of certain psycho-physical states--states which, taken -thus separately, would now be inevitably classed as most explicable -neural abnormalities,--all this atmosphere of nervous high-pitch and -tremulousness has now become a matter demanding a difficult historical -imagination and magnanimity, if we would be just to those who held such -views, and would thus benefit to the full from these past positions and -misconceptions. - -Thus when we read the views of perhaps all her educated attendants: -“this condition, in which her body remained alive without food or -medicine, was a supernatural thing”; “her state was clearly understood -to be supernatural when, in so short a time, so great a change was -seen”; and “she became yellow all over,--a manifest sign that her -humanity was being entirely consumed in the fire of divine love”:[1] -we feel indeed that we can no more follow. And when we read, as part -of one of the late additions, the worthless legends gathered from, or -occasioned by, the uneducated Argentina: “in proof that she bore the -stigmata within her,--on putting her hands in a cup of cold water, the -latter became so boiling hot that it greatly heated the very saucer -beneath it”:[2] we are necessarily disgusted. And when, worst of all, -she is made, by a demonstrable, probably double misinterpretation of an -externally similar action, to burn her bare arm with a live charcoal -or lighted candle, with intent to see which fire, this external one or -that interior one of the divine love, were the greater:[3] we can, even -if we have the good fortune of being able, by means of the critical -analysis of the sources, to put this absurd story to the discredit of -her eulogists, but feel the pathos of such well-meant perversity, which -took so sure a way for rendering ridiculous one who, take her all in -all, is so truly great.[4] - - -3. _Slow growth of Neurology._ - -We should, of course, be very patient in such matters: for -psycho-physical knowledge was, as yet, in its very infancy, witness -the all-important fact that the nerves were, in our modern sense of -the term, still as unknown as they were to the whole of Graeco-Roman -antiquity, with which “neuron” and “nervus” ever meant “muscle” or -“ligament” and, derivatively, “energy,” but never consciously what -they now mean in the strict medical sense. Thus the _Vita_ (1551) -writes: “There remained no member or muscle (nervo) of her body that -was not tormented by fire within it”; “one rib was separated from -the others, with great pains in the ligaments (_nervi_) and bones”; -and “all her body was excruciated and her muscles (_nervi_) were -tormented”:[5] where, in the first and last case, visible muscular -convulsive movements are clearly meant. St. Teresa, in her own _Life_ -(1561 or 1562), writes: “Nervous pains, according to the physicians, -are intolerable; and all my nerves were shrunk”; and “if the rapture -lasts, all the nerves are made to feel it.”[6] Even Fénelon (died -1715) can still write of the human body: “The bones sustain the flesh -which envelops them; the nerves” (ligaments, minor muscles) “which -are stretched along them, constitute all their strength; and the -muscles, by inflation and elongation at the points where the nerves -are intertwined with them, produce the most precise and regular -movements.”[7] Here the soul acts directly upon the muscles, and, -through these and their dependent ligaments, upon the bones and the -flesh. - - -4. _Permanent values of the ancient theory._ - -And yet that old position with regard to the rarer psycho-physical -states has a right to our respectful and sympathetic study. - -For one thing, we are now coming again to recognize, more and more, -how real and remarkable are certain psycho-physical states and facts, -whether simply morbid or fruitfully utilized states, so long derided, -by the bulk of Scientists, as mere childish legend or deliberate -imposture; and to see how natural, indeed inevitable it was, that -these, at that time quite inexplicable, things should have been -attributed to a direct and discontinuous kind of Divine intervention. -We, on our part, have then to guard against the Philistinism both -of the Rationalists and of the older Supernaturalists, and will -neither measure our assent to facts by our ability to explain them, -nor postulate the unmediated action of God wherever our powers of -explanation fail us. On this point we have admirable models of -sympathetic docility towards facts, in the works of Prof. Pierre Janet, -in his medico-psychological investigations of present-day morbid -cases; of Hermann Gunkel and Heinrich Weinel, in their examination of -mostly healthy psycho-physical phenomena in early Christian times and -writings; and of William James, in his study of instances of various -kinds, both past and present.[8] - -And next, these (at first sight physical) phenomena are turning out, -more and more, to be the direct or indirect consequence of the action -of mind: no doubt, in the first instance, of the human mind, but still -of mind, both free-willing and automatically operative. And at the same -time this action is, more and more, seen to be limited and variously -occasioned by the physical organism, and to be accompanied or followed, -in a determinist fashion, by certain changes in that organism. Yet if -we have now immeasurably more knowledge than men had, even fifty years -ago, of this latter ceaselessly active, limiting, occasioning influence -of the body upon the mind, we have also immeasurably more precise and -numerous facts and knowledge in testimony of the all but boundless -effect of mind over body. Here, again, Prof. Janet’s writings, those -of Alfred Binet, and the Dominican Père Coconnier’s very sensible book -register a mass of material, although of the morbid type.[9] - -And further, such remarkable peripheral states and phenomena are -getting again to be rightly looked for in at least some types of -unusual spiritual insight and power (although such states are found to -be indicative, in exact proportion to the spiritual greatness of their -subject, of a substantially different mental and moral condition of -soul). Witness again the Unitarian Prof. James’s _Varieties_, and the -Church-Historical works of the Broad Lutheran German scholars Weinel, -Bernoulli, and Duhm.[10] - -And lastly, the very closeness with which modern experimental and -analytical psychology is exploring the phenomena of our consciousness -is once more bringing into ever-clearer relief the irrepressible -metaphysical apprehensions and affirmations involved and implied by -the experience of every human mind, from its first dim apprehension -in infancy of a “something,” as yet undifferentiated by it into -subjective and objective, up to its mature and reflective affirmation -of the trans-subjective validity of its “positions,” or at least of its -negations--pure scepticism turning out to be practically impossible. -Here we have, with respect to that apprehension, such admirable workers -as Henri Bergson in France, and Professors Henry Jones and James -Ward in England; and, for this affirmation, such striking thinkers -as the French Maurice Blondel, and the Germans Johannes Volkelt and -Hugo Münsterberg. And Mgr. Mercier of Louvain, now Cardinal Mercier, -has contributed some valuable criticism of certain points in these -positions.[11] - - -5. _Difficulties of this inquiry._ - -Now here I am met at once by two special difficulties, the one -personal to myself and to Catherine, and the other one of method. -For, with regard to those three first sets of recent explorations of -a psycho-physical kind, I am no physician at all, and not primarily -a psychologist. And again, in Catherine’s instance, the evidence as -to her psycho-physical states is not, as with St. Teresa and some few -other cases, furnished by writings from the pen of the very person who -experienced them, and it is at all copious and precise only for the -period when she was admittedly ill and physically incapacitated.--And -yet these last thirteen years of her life occupy a most prominent -place in her biography; it is during, and on occasion of, those -psycho-physical states, and largely with the materials furnished by -them, that, precisely in those years, she built up her noblest legacy, -her great Purgatorial teaching; the illness was (quite evidently) of a -predominantly psychical type, and concerns more the psychologist than -the physician, being closely connected with her particular temperament -and type of spirituality, a temperament and type to be found again and -again among the Saints. All this and more makes it simply impossible -for me to shrink from some study of the matter, and permits me to hope -for some success in attempting, slowly and cautiously, to arrive at -certain general conclusions of a spiritually important kind. - -But then there is also the difficulty of method. For if we begin -the study of these psycho-physical peculiarities and states by -judging them from the temperamental and psychological standpoint, -we can hardly escape from treating them, at least for the moment, -as self-explanatory, and hence from using these our preliminary -conclusions about such neural phenomena as the measure, type, and -explanation of and for all such other facts and apprehensions as our -further study of the religious mind and experience may bring before -us. In this wise, these our psychological conclusions would furnish -not only a negative test and positive material, but also the exclusive -standard for all further study. And such a procedure, until and unless -it were justified in its method, would evidently be nothing but a -surreptitious begging of the question.--Yet to begin with the fullest -analysis of the elementary and normal phenomena of consciousness and -of its implications and inviolable prerequisites, would too readily -land us in metaphysics which have themselves to operate in and with -those immediate and continuous experiences; and hence these latter -experiences, whether normal and healthy, or, as here, unusual and in -part _maladif_, must be carefully studied first. We have, however, -to guard most cautiously against our allowing this, our preliminary, -analysis and description of psycho-physical states from imperceptibly -blocking the way to, or occupying the ground of, our ultimate analysis -and metaphysical synthesis and explanation. Only this latter will be -able, by a final movement from within-outwards, to show the true place -and worth of the more or less phenomenal series, passed by us in review -on our previous movement from outside-inwards. - -6. _Threefold division._ - -I propose, then, in this chapter, to take, as separately as is -compatible with such a method, the temperamental, psycho-physical side -of Catherine’s life. I shall first take those last thirteen years -of admitted illness, as those which are alone at all fully known to -us by contemporary evidence.--I shall then make a jump back to her -first period,--to the first sixteen years up to her marriage, with -the next ten years of relaxation, and the following four years of -her conversion and active penitence. I take these next, because, -of these thirty years, we have her own late memories, as registered -for us by her disciples, at the time of her narration of the facts -concerned.--And only then, with these materials and instruments thus -gathered from after and before, shall I try to master the (for us -very obscure) middle period, and to arrive at some estimate of her -temperamental peripheral condition during these twenty years of her -fullest expansion.--I shall conclude the chapter by taking Catherine -in her general, lifelong temperament, and by comparing and contrasting -this type and modality of spiritual character and apprehension with the -other rival forms of, and approaches to, religious truth and goodness -as these are furnished for us by history. - -The ultimate metaphysical questions and valuation are reserved for the -penultimate chapter of my book. - - -I. CATHERINE’S THIRD PERIOD, 1497 TO 1510. - - -1. _Increasing illness of Catherine’s last years._ - -Beginning with her third and last period (1497-1510), there can be no -doubt that throughout it she was ill and increasingly so. Her closest -friends and observers attest it. It is presumably Ettore Vernazza who -tells us, for 1497, “when she was about fifty years of age, she ceased -to be able to attend either to the Hospital or to her own house, owing -to her great bodily weakness. Even on Fast-days she was obliged, after -Holy Communion, to take some food to sustain her strength.” Probably -Marabotto it is who tells us that, in 1499, “after twenty-five years -she could no further bear her spiritual loneliness, either because of -old age or because of her great bodily weakness.” We hear from a later -Redactor that, “about nine years before her death (_i.e._ about 1501), -there came to her an infirmity.” And then, especially from November -1509, May 1510, and August 1510 onwards, she is declared and described -as more and more ill.[12] Indeed she herself, both by her acts and by -her words, emphatically admits her incapacitation. For it is clearly -ill-health which drives her to abandon the Matronship and even all -minor continuous work for the Hospital. In her Wills we find indeed -that, as late as May 21, 1506, she was able to get to the neighbouring -Hospital for Incurables; and that even on November 27, 1508 she was -“healthy in mind and body.” But her Codicil of January 5, 1503, was -drawn up in the presence of nine witnesses at midnight,--a sure sign of -some acute ill-health. Indeed already on July 23, 1484, she is lying -“infirm in bed, in her room in the Women’s quarter of the Hospital, -oppressed with bodily infirmity.”[13] - - -2. _Abnormal sensations, impressions and moods._ - -Her attendants are all puzzled by the multitude and intensity, the -mobility and the self-contradictory character of the psycho-physical -manifestations. Perhaps already before 1497 “she would press thorny -rose-twigs in both her hands, and this without any pain”; and so -late as about three weeks before her death “she remained paralyzed -(_manca_),” and no doubt anaesthetic “in one (the right) hand and in -one finger of the other hand.”--Probably again before 1497 “her body -could not,” at times, “be moved from the sitting posture without the -application of force.” In February or March 1510 “she could not move -out of her bed”; in August, “on some occasions she could not move -the lips or the tongue, or the arms or legs, unless helped to do -so,--especially on the left side,--and this would, at times, last three -or four hours.”--In December 1509 “she suffered from great cold,” as -part of her peculiar condition; on September 4, 1510, “she suffered -from great cold in the right arm.”[14] - -On other occasions she is, on the contrary, intensely hyper-aesthetic. -Some time in February or March 1510, “for a day and a night, her flesh -could not be touched, because of the great pain that such touching -caused her.” At the end of August “she was so sensitive, that it was -impossible to touch her very bedclothes or the bedstead, or a single -hair on her head, because in such case she would cry out as though she -had been grievously wounded.”--These states seem to have been usually -accompanied by sensations of great heat: for on the former occasion -“she seemed like a creature placed in a great flame of fire”; whilst on -the latter “she had her tongue and lips so inflamed, that they seemed -as though actual fire.” - -And movement appears to have been more often increased than diminished. -In the last case indeed “she did not move nor speak nor see; but, when -thus immovable, she suffered more than when she could cry out and -turn about in her bed.” But in the former instance “she could not be -kept in bed”; and in April 1510 “she cried aloud, and could not keep -herself from moving about, on her bed, on hands and feet.”--There -are curious localizations of apparently automatic movements. During -an attack somewhere in March 1510 “her flesh was all in a tremble, -particularly the right shoulder”; on later occasions “an arm, a leg, a -hand would tremble, and she would seem to have a spasm within her, with -all-but-unbroken acute pains in the flanks, the shoulders, the abdomen, -the feet and the brain.” On an earlier occasion “her body writhed in -great distress.” On another day “she seemed all on fire and lost her -power of speech, and made signs with her head and hands.” On one day -in February or March 1510 “she lost both speech and sight, though not -her intelligence”; and on September 12 “her sight was so weak, that she -could hardly any further distinguish or recognize her attendants.”--The -heat is liable to be curiously localized. Early in September 1510 “she -had a great heat situated in and on her left ear, which lasted for -three hours; the ear was red and felt very hot to the touch of others.” - -Various kinds of haemorrhage are not uncommon. On the last-mentioned -occasion bloody urine is passed; bleeding of the nose, with loss of -bile, occurs in December 1509; very black blood is lost by the mouth, -whilst black spots appear all over her person, on September 12, 1510; -and more blood is evacuated on the following day. In February or March -1510 “there were in her flesh certain places which had become concave, -like as paste looks where a finger has been put into it.” At the end of -August 1510 “her skin became saffron-yellow all over.” - -Troubles of breathing and of heart-action are frequently acute. -Somewhere about March 1510 “she had such a spasm in her throat and -mouth as to be unable, for about an hour, to speak or to open her -eyes, and that she could hardly regain her breath.” “Cupping-glasses -were applied to her side, to ease her heart, and lung-action, but with -little effect.” On one occasion “she made signs indicative of feeling -as though burning pincers were seizing her heart”; and on a day soon -after “she felt like a hard nail at her heart.”[15] - -Disturbances of the power of swallowing and of nutrition are often -grave and sudden, and in curious contradiction to her abnormally acute -and shifting longing for and revulsion from certain specific kinds of -food. On August 22, 1510, “she was so thirsty that she felt as though -she could drink up the very ocean”; “yet she could not,” in fact, -“manage to swallow even one little drop of water.” On September 10 -“her attendants continuously gave her drinking water; but she would -straightway return it from her mouth.” And on September 12, “whilst -her mouth was being bathed, she exclaimed, ‘I am suffocating,’--and -this because a drop of water had trickled down her throat--a drop which -she was unable to gulp down.” And on a day in August “she saw a melon -and had a great desire to eat it; but hardly did she have some of it -in her mouth, when she rejected it with intense disgust.” So too with -odours. A little later, “on one day the smell of wine would please -her, and she would bathe her hands and face in it with great relish; -and next day she would so much dislike it, that she could not bear to -see or smell it in her room.”--And so too with colours. On September -2 “a physician-friend came to visit her in his scarlet robes; and she -bore the sight a little, so as not to pain him.” But she then declared -that she could no longer bear it; and he went, and returned to her in -his ordinary black habit. And yet we have seen, from the Inventory of -her effects, that she loved to have vermilion colour upon her bed and -person.[16] - -And her emotional moods are analogously intense and rapidly shifting. -In the spring of 1510 “she cried aloud because of the great pain: this -attack lasted a day and a night”; in the night of August 10 “she tossed -about with many exclamations”; and at the beginning of September “she -cried out with a loud voice.” At other times, she laughs for joy. So at -the end of April “she would laugh without speaking”; on August 11 “she -fixed her eyes steadily on the ceiling; and for about an hour she abode -all but immovable, and spoke not, but kept laughing in a very joyous -fashion”; on August 17 great interior jubilation “expressed itself in -merry laughter”; and on the evening of September 7 “her joy appeared -exteriorly in laughter which lasted, with but small interruptions, -for some two hours.”--And her entire apparent condition would shift -from one such extreme to the other with extraordinary swiftness. In -the autumn of 1509 “she many times remained as though dead; and at -other times she would appear as healthy,--as though she had never had -anything the matter with her.” Already in December 1509 she herself, -after much vomiting and loss of blood, had sent for her Confessor and -had declared that “she felt as though she must die in consequence of -these many accidents.” Yet even on September 10, 1510, “when she was -not being oppressed and tormented by her accidents (attacks), she -seemed to be in good health; but when she was being suffocated by them, -she seemed as one dead.”[17] - - -II. CONCLUSIONS CONCERNING CATHERINE’S PSYCHO-PHYSICAL CONDITION DURING -THIS LAST PERIOD. - - -1. _Her illness not primarily physical. Her self-diagnosis._ - -Now we saw, at the beginning of this chapter, how readily her -attendants concluded, from all these extreme, multiple, swift-changing -and self-contradictory states, to their directly and separately -supernatural origin.--And indeed the diagnosis and treatment of her -case showed clearly that it was not primarily physical. So in the -case, probably in November 1509, of the cupping-glasses, when “she got -medically treated for a bodily infirmity, whilst her real trouble was -fire of the spirit”; so with a medicine given to her by the resident -Hospital physician, some time in April 1510, “from taking which she -nearly died”; so with Giovanni Boerio’s three-weeks’ treatment of her, -in May 1510, a treatment which led to no other results than momentary -additional distress; and so with the declaration of the ten Physicians -who, even on September 10, four days before her death, “could find no -trace of disease in her pulse, secretions, or any other symptom,” and -who consequently abstained from prescribing anything. And hence, more -or less throughout her last nine years, “there was confusion in the -management of her, not on her own part, but on that of those who served -her.”[18] - -For--and these two further points are of primary importance--the -tending of her, as distinct from physic, was throughout held by herself -to be of great importance; and yet this care was declared by her to -be often useless or harmful, owing to the powers of discrimination -possessed by her attendants being as much below their good-will, as her -own knowledge as to the differences between her healthy and _maladif_ -states exceeded her power of herself acting upon this knowledge against -these sickly conditions. “She would often appear to be asleep; and -would awake from such a state, at one time, quite refreshed, and, at -another time, so limp and broken down as to be unable to move. Those -that served her knew not how to distinguish one state from the other; -and on recovering from an attack of the latter sort, she would say to -them: ‘Why did you let me continue in that state of quiet, from which -I have all but died?’” So, on September 5, “she cried aloud on waking -from a state of quiet, which had appeared to be (healthy) quietude, but -had not been so.” And indeed, already on January 10 previous, she had -shut herself off from her Confessor, “because it seemed to her that he -bore with her too much in her sayings and doings.” - -Yet, at least after this time, Marabotto does oppose her sometimes. -Thus on two, somewhat later, occasions she respectively makes signs, -and asks, that Extreme Unction be given her; but only some four months -later did she actually receive it. In these cases, then, she either -had not, even at bottom, a correct physical self-knowledge; or her -requests had been prompted, at the time, by her secondary, _maladif_ -consciousness alone.--When first visited by Boerio, she takes pleasure -in the thought of getting possibly cured by him; but “in the following -night, when great pain came upon her, she reproved herself, saying, -‘You are suffering this, because you allowed yourself to rejoice -without cause.’” But this declaration distinctly falls short of -any necessary implication of a directly supernatural origin of her -malady, as the _Vita_ here will have it, and but refers, either to the -continuance of earthly existence not deserving such joy, or to her -persistent fundamental consciousness that the phenomena were partly -the fruitful, profitable occasions, and partly the price paid, for the -mind’s close intercourse with things divine. - -Indeed her (otherwise unbroken) attitude is one, both of quiet -conviction that physic cannot help her, and of gentle readiness to let -the physicians try whatever they may think worth the trying: so with -the cupping-glasses, and the various examinations and physickings. -Especially is this disposition clear in her short dialogue with Boerio, -where, in answer to his assertion that she ought to beware of giving -scandal to all the world by saying that her infirmity had no need of -remedies, and that she ought to look upon such an attitude as “a kind -of hypocrisy,” she declares: “I am sorry if any one is scandalized -because of me; and I am ready to use any remedy for infirmity, -supposing that it can be found.”[19] - - -2. _Her preoccupation with the spiritual suggestions afforded by the -phenomena._ - -It would, indeed, be a grave misreading of her whole character -and habits of mind to think of her as at all engrossed in her -psycho-physical states as such, and as having ever formally considered -and decided that they must either come directly from God or be -amenable to medicine. On the contrary, she is too habitually absorbed -in the consideration and contemplation of certain great spiritual -doctrines and realities, to have the leisure or inclination for any -such questions.--Indeed it is this very absorption in those spiritual -realities which has ended by suggesting, with an extraordinary -readiness, frequency and vividness, through her mind to her senses, -and by these back to her mind, certain psycho-physical images and -illustrations for those very doctrines, until her whole psycho-physical -organism has been, all but entirely, modified and moulded into an apt -instrument and manifestation for and of that world unseen. - -Thus, after her greatest psycho-physical and spiritual experience -in November 1509, she declares to Vernazza, when he urges her to -let him write down the graces she has received from God, that “it -would, strictly speaking, be impossible to narrate those interior -things; whilst, of exterior ones, few or none have happened to -me.” And she never entirely loses her mental consciousness in any -state not recognized by herself as _maladif_. So, on a day of great -psycho-physical trouble in February or March 1510, “they thought she -must expire; but, though she lost both sight and speech, she never -lost her intelligence.” And even on September 11 and 12, amidst -foodlessness and suffocations, her intelligence still persists.--In -the March previous “her mind appeared to grow daily in contentment.” -Some days later, her attendants “saw how, after an hour of spasm and -breathlessness, and then a great restriction of all her being, she -returned to her normal condition, and addressed many beautiful words -to them.” And later on, “her attendants were amazed at seeing a body, -which seemed to be healthy, in such a tormented condition.” But “soon -after she laughed and spoke as one in health, and told them not to -distress themselves about her, since she was very contented; but that -they should see to it that they did much good, since the way of God is -very narrow.”[20] - - -3. _Interaction and mutual suggestion of her spiritual and physical -states._ - -As to the extraordinary closeness and readiness for mutual response -between her sensible impressions and her thoughts and emotions--her -sensations turning, all but automatically, into religious emotions, -and her thoughts and feelings translating themselves into appropriate -psycho-physical states--we have a mass of interesting evidence. - -Thus when, about the end of November 1509, in response to her seeing, -on some wall of the Hospital, a picture of Our Lord at the Well of -Samaria, and to her asking Him for one drop of that Divine water, -“instantly a drop was given to her which refreshed her within and -without.” The spiritual idea and emotion is here accompanied and -further stimulated by the keenest psycho-physical impression of -drinking. And such an impression can even become painful through -its excessive suggestiveness. Thus she herself explains to Maestro -Boerio, on September 2, 1510, that she cannot long bear the sight -of his scarlet robe “because of what it suggests (represents) to my -memory,”--no doubt the fire of divine love. Three days later, on the -contrary, “she mentally saw herself lying upon a bier, surrounded by -many Religious robed in black,” and greatly rejoiced at the sight. Here -the very impression of black, the colour of death, will have conveyed, -during this special mood of hers, a downright psycho-physical pleasure, -somewhat as Boerio’s reappearance, on the former occasion, in a black -gown, had been a sensible relief to her. - -So also with scents. When, certainly after 1499, “she perceived, on -the (right) hand of her Confessor, an odour which penetrated her very -heart,” and “which abode with her and restored both mind and body for -many days,” we have again a primarily mental act and state which she -herself knows well to be untransferable, even to Don Marabotto himself. -Here the association of ideas was, no doubt, the right hand of the -Priest and her daily reception, by means of it, of the Holy Eucharist. -For the latter, “the Bread from heaven, having within it all manner -of delight,” is already connected in her mind with an impression of -sweet odour. “One day, on receiving Communion, so much odour and -sweetness came to her, that she seemed to herself to be in Paradise.” -Probably the love for, and then the disgust at, the smell of wine, was -also connected with her Eucharistic experiences. Certainly “one day, -having received Holy Communion, she was granted so great a consolation -as to fall into an ecstasy, so that when the Priest wanted to give -her to drink from the Chalice (with unconsecrated wine) she had to be -brought back by force to her ordinary consciousness.” Vivid memories -of both sets of psycho-physical impressions are, I think, at work -when she says: “If a consecrated Host were to be given to me amongst -unconsecrated ones, I should be able to distinguish it by the very -taste, as I do wine from water.” And as the sight of red rapidly became -painful from the very excess of its mental suggestiveness, so will the -smell of wine have been both specially dear and specially painful to -her.[21] - -Indeed her psycho-physical troubles possess, for the most part, a -still traceable, most delicate selectiveness as to date, range, form, -combination, and other peculiarities. Thus some of the most acute -attacks coincide, in their date of occurrence and general character, as -the biographers point out, with special saint’s and holy days: so in -the night leading into St. Lawrence’s day, August 9 and 10, 1510; so -on the Vigil of St. Bartholomew’s day, August 24; and so in the night -previous to and on the Feast (August 28) of St. Augustine, special -Patron of her only sister’s Order and of the Convent in which her own -Conversion had taken place thirty-seven years before. Yet we have also -seen how that these synchronisms did not rise to the heights which -were soon desired by her biographers, for we know that she died, not -(as they would have it) on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, -September 14, but early on the day following. - -Thus too as to her incapacity to swallow and retain food, we find that, -up to the end, with the rarest exceptions of a directly physical kind, -she retained the most complete facility in receiving Holy Communion: -so on September 2, 1510, when “all ordinary food was returned, but -the Holy Eucharist she retained without any difficulty”; and so too -on September 4, when, after “lying for close upon twelve hours with -closed eyes, speechless and all but immovable,” Marabotto himself -feared to communicate her, but “she made a sign to him, with a joyous -countenance, to have no fear, and she communicated with ease, and -soon after began to speak, owing to the vigour given to her by the -Sacrament.” Yet here too the abnormality is not complete: some ordinary -food is retained, now and then; so, minced chicken, specially mentioned -for December 1509, and on September 3, 1510. - -As to her heat-attacks and the corresponding extreme--the sense of -intense cold,--it is clear how close is their connection with her -profound concentration upon the conception of God as Love, and upon the -image of Love as fire. It is these sudden and intense psycho-physical, -spiritually suggestive because spiritually suggested, heat-attacks -which are, I think, always meant by the terms “assault” (_assalto_), -“stroke” (_ferita_), and “arrow” (_saetta_): terms which already -indicate the mental quality of these attacks. And these heats are -mostly localized in a doctrinally suggestive manner: they centre in and -around the heart, or on the tongue and lips, or they envelop the whole -person “as though it were placed in a great flame of fire,” or “in a -glowing furnace.” Indeed these heats are often so described, by her -attendants or herself, as to imply their predominantly psycho-physical -nature: “it was necessary, with a view to prolonging her life, to -use many means for lightening the strain of that interior fire upon -her mind”; and “I feel,” she says herself, on occasion of such an -attack, “so great a contentment on the part of the spirit, as to be -unutterable; whilst, on the part of my humanity, all the pains are, so -to say, no pains.” - -As to her boundless thirst, her inability to drink, and her sense of -strangulation, their doctrinal suggestions are largely clear. Thus -when “she was so thirsty as to feel able to drink up all the waters -of the sea,” and when she calls out “I am suffocating” (drowning, _io -affogo_), we are at once reminded of her great saying: “If the sea -were all so much love, there would not live man or woman who would -not go to drown himself in it (_si affogasse_).” And when, at the end -of August 1510, unable to drink, she herself declares “all the water -that is on earth could not give me the least refreshment,” there is, -perhaps, an implied contrast to that “little drop of divine water” -which had so much refreshed her a year before. - -And finally, the various paralyses and death-like swoons seem, at least -in part, to follow from, and to represent, the death of the spirit -to the life of the senses, and to mirror the intensity with which -perfection has been conceived and practised as “Love going forth out -of self, and abiding all in God and separated from man.” Thus when, on -August 22, 1510, “she had a day of great heat, and abode paralyzed in -one hand and in one finger of the other hand for about sixteen hours, -and she was so greatly occupied (absorbed), that she neither spoke, nor -opened her eyes, nor could take any food.”[22] - - -4. _Only two cases of spiritually unsuggestive impressions._ - -It is indeed profoundly instructive to note how that, in exact -proportion as a human-mental mediation and suggestion of a religious -kind is directly traceable or at least probable in any or all of -these things, is that thing also worthy of being considered as having -ultimately the Divine Spirit Itself for its first cause as well as last -end; and that, in exact proportion as this kind of human mediation -and suggestion is impossible or unlikely, the thing turns out to be -unworthy of being attributed, in any special sense, to the spirit of -God Himself. - -Of such spiritually opaque, religiously unused and apparently -unuseable, hysteriform impressions, I can, even during the last -days of these nine years of admitted infirmity, find but two clear -instances,--instances which, by their very unlikeness to the mass of -her spiritually transparent, readily used impressions, strongly confirm -our high estimate of the all but totality of her psycho-physical -states, as experienced and understood and used by herself. On September -7, 1510, after having seen and wisely utilized the spiritually -suggestive image of “a great ladder of fire,” she ends by having so -vivid an hallucination of the whole world being on fire “that she asked -whether it were not so, and caused her windows to be opened that the -facts might be ascertained;” and “she abode the whole night, possessed -by that imagination,” as the _Vita_ itself calls this impression. At -night, on September 11, she complained of a very great heat, and cast -forth from her mouth very black blood; and black spots came out all -over her body. And on the 13th, “she was seen with her eyes fixed upon -the ceiling, and with much movement of the lips and hands; and she -answered her attendants’ queries as to what she was seeing with ‘Drive -away that beast.…’ the remaining words being inaudible.”[23] - -Here we have, I think, the only two merely factual, unsuggestive, and -hence simply delusive, impressions really experienced by herself and -recorded in the _Vita_, a book whose very eagerness to discover things -of this kind and readiness to take them as directly supernatural is a -guarantee that no other marked instances of the kind have been omitted -or suppressed. And these two impressions both take place within a week -of her death, and respectively four days before, and two days after, -the first clear case of organic disease or lesion to be found anywhere -in the life. - - -III. CATHERINE’S PSYCHO-PHYSICAL CONDITION, ITS LIKENESS AND UNLIKENESS -TO HYSTERIA. - -Only by a quite unfair magnifying or multiplying of the two incidents -just described could we come to hold, with Mr. Baring-Gould, that -Catherine was simply a sufferer from hysteria, and that the Roman -Church did well to canonize her on the ground of her having, in spite -of this malady, managed to achieve much useful work amongst the sick -and poor.[24] Here we shall do well to consider three groups of facts. - - -1. _Misapprehensions as to hysteria._ - -The first group gives the reasons why we should try and get rid of the -terror and horror still so often felt in connection with the very name -of this malady. This now quite demonstrably excessive, indeed largely -mythical, connotation of the term springs from four causes. - -First, the very name still tends to suggest, as the causes or -conditions of the malady, things fit only for discussion in medical -reviews. But then, ever since 1855, all limitation to, or special -connection with, anything peculiarly female, or indeed generally -sexual, has been increasingly shown to be false, until now no serious -authority on the matter can be found to espouse the old view. The -malady is now well known to attack men as well as women, and to have no -special relation to things of sex at all.[25] - -Next, probably as a consequence from the initial error, this disorder -was supposed to predominantly come from, or to lead to, moral impurity, -or at least to be ordinarily accompanied by strong erotic propensions. -But here the now carefully observed facts are imperatively hostile: -of the 120 living cases most carefully studied by Prof. Janet, only -four showed the predominance of any such tendencies, a proportion -undoubtedly not above the percentage to be found amongst non-hysterical -persons.[26] - -And again, the term was long synonymous with untruthfulness and deceit. -But here again Prof. Janet shows how unfounded is this prejudice, since -it but springs from the misplaced promptitude with which the earlier -observers refused to believe what they had not as yet sufficiently -examined and could not at all explain, and from the malady being itself -equivalent to a more or less extensive breaking-up of the normal -inter-connection between the several, successive or simultaneous -states, and, as it were, layers of the one personality. He is convinced -that real untruthfulness is no commoner among such patients than it is -among healthy persons.[27] - -And, finally, it is no doubt felt that, apart from all such -specifically moral suspicions, the malady involves all kinds of fancies -and inaccuracies of feeling and of perception, and that it frequently -passes into downright insanity. And this is no doubt the one objection -which does retain some of its old cogency. Still, it is well to note -that, as has now been fully established, the elements of the human mind -are and remain the same throughout the whole range of its conditions, -from the sanest to the maddest, whilst only their proportion and -admixture, and the presence or absence and the kind of synthesis -necessary to hold them together differentiate these various states of -mind. In true insanity there is no such synthesis; in hysteria the -synthesis, however slight and peculiar, is always still traceable -throughout the widespread disgregation of the elements and states.[28] -And it is this very persistence of the fundamental unity, together with -the strikingly different combination and considerable disaggregation -of its elements, that makes the study of hysteria so fruitful for -the knowledge of the fully healthy mind and of its unity; whilst the -continuance of all the elements of the normal intelligence, even in -insanity, readily explains why it is apparently so easy to see insanity -everywhere, and to treat genius and sanctity as but so much degeneracy. - - -2. _Hysteriform phenomena observable in Catherine’s case._ - -The second group of facts consists in the phenomena which, in -Catherine’s case, are like or identical to what is observable in cases -of hysteria. - -There is, perhaps above all else, the anaesthetic condition, which was -presumably co-extensive with her paralytic states. “Anaesthesia,” says -Prof. Janet, “can be considered as the type of the other symptoms of -hysteria; it exists in the great majority of cases, it is thoroughly -characteristic of the malady. In its most frequent localization -(semi-anaesthesia) it affects one of the lateral halves of the body, -and this half is usually the left side.” Or, “a finger or hand will be -affected.” Such “insensibility can be very frequent and very profound”; -but “it disappears suddenly” and even “varies from one moment to -another.”[29] - -Then there is the corresponding counter-phenomenon of hyper-aesthesia. -“The slightest contact provokes great pains, exclamations, and spasms. -The painful zones have their seat mostly on the abdomen or on the -hips.” And “sensation in these states is not painful in itself, by its -own intensity, but by its quality, its characteristics; it has become -the signal, by association of ideas, for the production of a set of -extremely painful phenomena.” So, with the colour-sense: “one patient -adores the colour red, and sees in its dullest shade ‘sparkling rays -which penetrate to her very heart and warm her through and through.’” -But “another one finds this ‘a repulsive colour and one capable -of producing nausea.’” And similarly with the senses of taste and -odour.[30] - -Then, too, the inability to stand or walk, with the conservation, -at times, of the power to crawl; the acceptance, followed by the -rejection, of food, because of certain spasms in the throat or stomach, -and the curious, mentally explicable, exceptions to this incapacity; -the sense, even at other times, of strangulation; heart palpitations, -fever heats, strange haemorrhages from the stomach or even from the -lung; red patches on the skin and emotional jaundice all over it, and -one or two other peculiarities.[31] - -Then, as to a particular kind of quietude, from which Catherine warns -her attendants to rouse her, we find a patient who “ceases her reading, -without showing any sign of doing so. She gets taken to be profoundly -attentive; it is, however, but one of her attacks of ‘fixity.’ And she -has promptly to be shaken out of this state, or, in a few minutes, -there will be no getting her out of it.” - -As to Catherine’s consciousness of possessing an extraordinary fineness -of discrimination between sensibly identical objects, we see that -“if one points out, to some of these patients, an imaginary portrait -upon a plain white card, and mixes this card with other similar ones, -they will almost always find again the portrait on the same card.” And -similarly as to her attaching a particular quasi-sensible perception -to Marabotto’s hand alone, we find that, if M. Janet touches Léonie’s -hand, he having suggested a nosegay to her, she will henceforth, when -he touches the hand, see that nosegay; whereas, if another person -touches that same hand, Léonie will see nothing special. - -As to Catherine’s feelings of criminality and of being already dead, M. -Janet quotes M., who says, “I am like a criminal about to be punished”; -and R., who declares, “It seems to me that I am dead.” As to the -hallucination of a Beast, Marcelle suffers from the same impression.[32] - -And,--perhaps the most important of all these -surface-resemblances,--there is Catherine’s apparent freedom from all -emotion at the deaths of her brothers and sister, and her extraordinary -dependence upon, and claimfulness towards, her Confessor alone. “These -patients rapidly lose the social feelings: Berthe, who for some time -preserved some affection for her brother, ends by losing all interest -in him; Marcelle, at the very beginning of her illness, separates -herself from every one.” “It is always their own personality which -dominates their thoughts.” Yet these patients have “an extraordinary -attachment to their physician. For him they are resolved to do all -things. In return, they are extremely exacting,--he is to occupy -himself entirely with each one alone. Only a very superficial observer -would ascribe this feeling to a vulgar source.”[33] - - -3. _Catherine’s personality not disintegrated._ - -But a third group of facts clearly differentiates Catherine’s case, -even in these years of avowed ill-health, from such patients; and these -facts become clearer and more numerous in precise proportion as we move -away from peripheral, psycho-physical phenomena and mechanisms, and -dwell upon her practically unbroken mental and moral characteristics, -and upon the use and meaning, the place and context of these things -within her ample life. - -For as to her relations with her attendants, even now it is still she -who leads, who suggests, who influences; a strong and self-consistent -will shows itself still, under all this shifting psycho-physical -surface. Thus Don Marabotto now administers, it is true, all her money -and charitable affairs for her. But it is she who insists, alone and -unaided, upon the true spiritual function of that impression of odour -on his hand.--Vernazza, no doubt, has now to help her in the fight -against subtle scruples, on occasion of her deepest depressions. But -her far more frequent times of light and joy are in nowise occasions -of a simply subjective self-engrossment or of a purely psycho-physical -interest, for her mind is absorbed if in but a few, yet in -inexhaustibly fruitful and universally applicable ideas and experiences -of a spiritual kind, such as helped to urge this friend on to his -world-renewing impulses and determinations.--Her closest relations and -friends, one must admit, succeed by their action, taken eighteen months -and then again two days before her death, in getting her to desist -from ordering her burial by the side of her husband. But we have seen, -in the one case, how indirectly, and, in the other case, how suddenly -and even then quite informally, they had to gain their point.--Her -attendants in general, and Marabotto in particular, certainly paid her -an engrossed attention, and the all but endlessness of her superficial -fancies and requirements have been chronicled by them with a naïve and -wearisome fulness. But then she herself is well aware that, had they -but the requisite knowledge as to how and when to apply them, some -sturdy opposition and a greater roughness of handling would, on their -part, be of the greatest use to her, in this her psychical infirmity; -indeed her shutting herself away from Marabotto, as late as January -1510, is directly caused by her sense and fear of being spoilt by him. - -It is true again that, already in 1502, we hear, in a probably -exaggerated but still possibly semi-authentic account, of her -indifference of feeling with regard to the deaths of two brothers and -of her only sister; and that, from January 1510 onwards, she gradually -excludes all her attendants from her sick-room, with, eventually, the -sole exceptions of Marabotto or Carenzio and Argentina. But her Wills -show conclusively how persistent were her detailed interest in, and -dispositions for, the requirements of her surviving brother, nephews, -and nieces; of poor Thobia and the girl’s hidden mother; of her -priest-attendants, and of each and all of her humblest domestics; of -the natives in the far-away Greek Island of Scios; and, above all, of -the Hospital and its great work which she had ever loved so well. - -We have indeed found two cases, both from within the last week of her -life, of mentally opaque and spiritually unsuggestive and unutilized -impressions which are truly analogous to those characteristic of -hysteria. But we have also seen how forcibly these two solitary cases -bring out, by contrast, the spiritual transparency and fruitfulness of -her usual, finely reflective picturings of these last years. For here -it is her own deliberate and spiritual mind which joyously greets, and -straightway utilizes and transcends, the psycho-physical occurrences; -and it does so, not because these occurrences are, or are taken to be, -the causes or requisites or objects of her faith and spiritual insight, -but because, on the contrary, they meet and clothe an already exuberant -faith and insight--spiritual certainties derived from quite another -source. - -And finally, if the monotony and superficial pettiness of the sick-room -can easily pall upon us, especially when presented with the credulities -and hectic exaggerations which disfigure so much of the _Vita’s_ -description of it; we must, in justice, as I have attempted to do in my -seventh and eighth chapters, count in, as part of her biography, her -deep affection for and persistent influence with Ettore and Battista -Vernazza, and the exemplification of her doctrine by these virile -souls, makers of history in the wide, varied world of men.[34] - -In a word, it is plain at once that, given the necessarily limited -number of ways in which the psycho-physical organism reacts under -mental stimulations, certain neural phenomena may, in any two cases, -be, in themselves, perfectly similar, although their respective mental -causes or occasions may be as different, each from the other, as -the Moonlight Sonata of Beethoven, or the working out of the Law of -Gravitation by Newton, or the elaboration of the implications of the -Categorical Imperative by Kant, are different from the sudden jumping -of a live mouse in the face of an hysterically-disposed young woman, or -as the various causes of tears and laughter throughout the whole world. - - -IV. FIRST PERIOD OF CATHERINE’S LIFE, 1447 TO 1477, IN ITS THREE STAGES. - -If we next go back to the first period of her life, in its three stages -of the sixteen years of her girlhood, 1447-1463, the first ten years -of her married life, 1463-1473, and the four years of her Conversion -and active Penitence, 1473-1477, we shall find, I think, in the matter -of temperament and psycho-physical conditions, little or nothing -but a rare degree of spiritual sensitiveness, and an extraordinary -close-knittedness of body and mind. - - -1. _From her childhood to her conversion._ - -Thus, already in her early childhood, that picture of the Pietà seems -to have suggested religious ideas and feelings with the suddenness -and emotional solidity of a physical seizure--an impression still -undimmed when she herself recounted it, some fifty years later, to her -two intimates.--It is true that during those first, deeply unhappy -ten years of marriage, we cannot readily find more than indications -of a most profound and brooding melancholy, the apparent result of -but two factors,--a naturally sad disposition and acutely painful -domestic circumstances. Yet it is clear, from the sequel, that more -and other things lay behind. It is indeed evident that she possessed -a congenitally melancholy temperament; that nothing but the rarest -combination of conditions could have brought out, into something like -elastic play and varied exercise, her great but few and naturally -excessive qualities of mind and heart; that these conditions were not -only absent, but were replaced by circumstances of the most painful -kind; and that she will hardly, at this time, have had even a moment’s -clear consciousness of any other sources than just those conditions for -her deep, keen, and ever-increasing dissatisfaction with all things, -her own self included: all peace and joy, the very capacity for either -seemed gone, and gone for ever. But it is only the third stage, with -its sudden-seeming conversion on March 20, 1473, and the then following -four years of strenuously active self-immolation and dedication to the -humblest service of others, which lets us see deep into those previous -years of sullen gloom and apparently hopeless drift and dreary wastage. - -The two stages really belong to one another, and the depth of the -former gloom and dreariness stood in direct proportion and relation to -the capacities of that nature and to the height of their satisfaction -in the later light and vigour brought to and assimilated by them. It -was the sense, at that previous time still inarticulate, but none the -less mightily operative, of the insufficiency of all things merely -contingent, of all things taken as such and inevitably found to be -such, that had been adding, and was now discovered to have added, a -quite determining weight and poignancy to the natural pressure of her -temperament and external lot. And this temperament and lot, which had -not alone produced that sadness, could still less of themselves remove -it, whatever might be its cause. Her sense of emptiness and impotence -could indeed add to her sense of fulness and of power, once these -latter had come; but of themselves the former could no more give her -the latter, than hunger, which indeed makes bread to taste delicious, -can give us real bread and, with it, that delight. - -And it was such real bread of life and real power which now came to -her. For if the tests of reality in such things are their persistence -and large and rich spiritual applicability and fruitfulness, -then something profoundly real and important took place in the -soul of that sad and weary woman of six-and-twenty, within that -Convent-chapel, at that Annunciation-tide. Her four years of heroic -persistence; her unbroken Hospital service of a quarter of a century; -her lofty magnanimity towards her husband, Thobia and Thobia’s -mother; her profound influence upon Vernazza, in urging him on to -his splendid labours throughout Italy, and to his grand death in -plague-stricken Genoa; her daringly original, yet immensely persuasive, -doctrine,--nearly all this dates back, completely for her consciousness -and very largely in reality, to those few moments on that memorable day. - - -2. _Her conversion not sudden nor visionary._ - -But two points, concerning the manner and form of this experience, -are, though of but secondary spiritual interest, far more difficult -to decide. There is, for one thing, the indubitable impression, for -her own mind and for ours, of complete suddenness and newness in her -change. Was this suddenness and newness merely apparent, or real as -well? And should this suddenness, if real, be taken as in itself and -directly supernatural? - -Now it is certain that Catherine, up to ten years before, had been -full of definitely religious acts and dispositions. Had she not, -already at thirteen, wanted to be a Nun, and, at eight or so, been -deeply moved by a picture of the dead Christ in His Mother’s lap? -Hence, ideas and feelings of self-dedication and of the Christ-God’s -hatred of sin and love for her had, in earlier and during longer times -than those of her comparative carelessness, soaked into and formed her -mental and emotional bent, and will have in so far shaped her will, -as to make the later determination along those earlier lines of its -operation, comparatively easy, even after those years of relaxation and -deviation. Yet it is clear that there was not here, as indeed there -is nowhere, any mere repetition of the past. New combinations and an -indefinitely deeper apprehension of the great religious ideas and facts -of God’s holiness and man’s weakness, of the necessity for the soul to -reach its own true depth or to suffer fruitlessly, and of God having -Himself to meet and feed this movement and hunger which He has Himself -implanted; new combinations and depths of emotion, and an indefinite -expansion and heroic determination of the will: were all certainly -here, and were new as compared with even the most religious moments in -the past. - -As to the suddenness, we cannot but take it as, in large part, simply -apparent,--a dim apprehension of what then became clear having been -previously quite oppressively with her. And, in any case, this -suddenness seems to belong rather to the temperamental peculiarities -and necessary forms of her particular experiences than to the essence -and content of her spiritual life. For, whatever she thinks, feels, -says or does throughout her life, she does and experiences with actual -suddenness, or at least with a sense of suddenness; and there is -clearly no more necessary connection between such suddenness and grace -and true self-renouncement, than there is between gradualness and mere -nature; both suddenness and gradualness being but simple modes, more or -less fixed for each individual, yet differing from each to each, modes -in which God’s grace and man’s will interact and manifest themselves in -different souls.[35] - -And then there is the question as to whether or not this -conversion-experience took the form of a vision. We have seen, in -the Appendix, how considerable are the difficulties which beset the -account of the Bleeding Christ Vision in the Palace; and how the story -of the previous visionless experience in the Chapel is free from all -such objections. But, even supposing the two accounts to be equally -reliable, it is the first, the visionless experience, which was -demonstrably the more important and the more abidingly operative of the -two. More important, for it is during those visionless moments that -her conversion is first effected; and more abiding, for, according to -all the ancient accounts, the impression of the Bleeding Christ Vision -disappeared utterly at the end of at longest four years, whereas the -memory of the visionless conversion moments remained with her, as an -operative force, up to the very last. Witness the free self-casting of -the soul into painful-joyous Purgation, into Love, into God (without -any picturing of the historic Christ), which forms one of the two -constituents of her great latter-day teaching; and how entirely free -from directly historic elements all her recorded visions of the middle -period turn out to be.[36] - - -3. _Peculiarities of her Active Penitence._ - -As to the four years of Active Penitence, we must beware of losing -the sense of the dependence, the simple, spontaneous instrumentality, -in which the negative and restrictive side of of her action stood -towards the positive and expansive one. An immense affirmation, an -anticipating, creative buoyancy and resourcefulness, had come full -flood into her life; and had shifted her centre of deliberate interest -and willing away from the disordered, pleasure-seeking, sore and -sulky lesser self in which her true personality had for so long been -enmeshed. Thus all this strenuous work of transforming and raising her -lower levels of inclinations and of habit to the likeness and heights -of her now deliberate loftiest standard was not taking place for the -sake of something which actually was, or which even seemed to be, less -than what she had possessed or had, even dimly, sought before, nor with -a view to her true self’s contraction. But, on the contrary, the work -was for the end of that indefinite More, of that great pushing upwards -of her soul’s centre and widening out of its circumference, which she -could herself confirm and increase only by such ever-renewed warfare -against what she now recognized as her false and crippling self. - -And it is noticeable how soon and how largely, even still within this -stage, her attitude became “passive.” She pretty early came to do these -numerous definite acts of penance without any deliberate selection -or full attention to them. As in her third period her absorption in -large spiritual ideas spontaneously suggests certain corresponding -psycho-physical phenomena, which then, in return, stimulate anew the -apprehensions of the mind; so here, towards the end of the first -period, penitential love ends by quite spontaneously suggesting -divers external acts of penitence, which readily become so much fresh -stimulation for love. - -I take this time to have been as yet free from visions or ecstasies--at -least of the later lengthy and specific type. For the Bleeding Christ -experience, even if fully historical, occurred within the first -conversion-days, and only its vivid memory prolonged itself throughout -those penitential years; whilst all such other visions, as have been -handed down to us, do not treat of conversion and penance, at least in -any active and personal sense. And only towards the end of these years -do the psycho-physical phenomena as to the abstention from food begin -to show themselves. The consideration of both the Visions and the Fasts -had, then, better be reserved for the great central period. - - -V. THE SECOND, GREAT MIDDLE PERIOD OF CATHERINE’S LIFE, 1477 TO 1499. - -It is most natural yet very regrettable that we should know so little -as to Catherine’s spiritual life, or even as to her psycho-physical -condition, during these central twenty-two years of her life. It is -natural, for she had, at this time, neither Physician nor Confessor -busy with her, and the very richness and balanced fulness of this epoch -of her life may well have helped to produce but little that could have -been specially seized and registered by either. Yet it is regrettable, -since here we have what, at least for us human observers, constitutes -the culmination and the true measure of her life, the first period -looking but like the preparation, and the third period, like the price -paid for such a rich expansion.--Yet we know something about three -matters of considerable psycho-physical and temperamental interest, -which are specially characteristic of this time: her attitude towards -food; her ecstasies and visions; and certain peculiarities in her -conception and practice of the spiritual warfare. - - -1. _Her extraordinary fasts._ - -As to food, it is clear that, however much we may be able or bound to -deduct from the accounts, there remains a solid nucleus of remarkable -fact. During some twenty years she evidently went, for a fairly equal -number of days,--some thirty in Advent and some forty in Lent, seventy -in all annually,--with all but no food; and was, during these fasts, -at least as vigorous and active as when her nutrition was normal. -For it is not fairly possible to make these great fasts end much -before 1496, when she ceased to be Matron of the Hospital; and they -cannot have begun much after 1475 or 1476: so that practically the -whole of her devoted service and administration in and of that great -institution fell within these years, of which well-nigh one-fifth was -covered by these all but total abstentions from food. Yet here again -we are compelled to take these things, not separately, and as directly -supernatural, but in connection with everything else; and to consider -the resultant whole as the effect and evidence of a strong mind and -will operating upon and through an immensely responsive psycho-physical -organism. - -For here again we easily find a significant system and delicate -selectiveness both in the constant approximate synchronisms--these -incapacities occurring about Advent and Lent; and in the foods -exempted--since there is no difficulty in connection with the daily -Holy Eucharist, with the unconsecrated wine given to her, as to all -Communicants in that age at Genoa, immediately after Communion, or with -water when seasoned penitentially with salt or vinegar. And if the -actual heightening of nervous energy and balance, recorded as having -generally accompanied these two fasts, is indeed a striking testimony -to the extraordinary powers of her mind and will, we must not forget -that these fruitful fasts were accompanied, and no doubt rendered -possible, by the second great psychical peculiarity of these middle -years, her ecstasies. - - -2. _Her ecstasies and visions._ - -It is indeed remarkable how these two conditions and functions, her -fasts and her ecstasies of a definite, lengthy and strength-bringing -kind, arise, persist and then fade out of her life together. And since, -in ecstasy, the respiration, the circulation, and the other physical -functions are all slackened and simplified; the mind is occupied with -fewer, simpler, larger ideas, harmonious amongst themselves; and -the emotions and the will are, for the time, saved the conflict and -confusion, the stress and strain, of the fully waking moments; and -considering that Catherine was peculiarly sensitive to all this flux -and friction, and that she was now often in a more or less ecstatic -trance from two up to eight hours: it follows that the amount of food -required to heal the breach made by life’s wear and tear would, by -these ecstasies, be considerably reduced. And indeed it will have been -these contemplative absorptions which directly mediated for her those -accessions of vigour: and that they did so, in such a soul and for the -uses to which she put this strength, is their fullest justification as -thoroughly wholesome, at least in their ultimate outcome, in and for -this particular life. - -And the visions recorded have these two characteristics, that they all -deal with metaphysical realities and relations--God as source and end -of all things, as Light and food of the soul, and similar conceptions, -and never directly with historical persons, scenes, or institutions; -and that, whereas the non-ecstatic picturings of her last period -are grandly original, and demonstrably based upon her own spiritual -experience, these second-period ecstatic visions are readily traceable -to New Testament, Neo-Platonist, and Franciscan precursors, and have -little more originality than this special selection from amongst other -possible literary sources. - - -3. _Special character of her spiritual warfare._ - -Catherine’s ecstasies lead us easily on to the special method of her -spiritual warfare, which can, I think, be summed up in three maxims: -“One thing, and only one at a time”; “Ever fight self, and you -need not trouble about any other foe”; and “Fight self by an heroic -indirectness and by love, for love,--through a continuous self-donation -to Pure Love alone.” - -Studying here these great convictions simply in their temperamental -occasions, colouring, and limitations, we can readily discover how the -“one thing at a time” maxim springs from the same disposition as that -which found such refreshment in ecstasy. For here too, partly from a -congenital incapacity to take things lightly, partly from an equally -characteristic sensitiveness to the conflict and confusion incident -to the introduction of any fresh multiplicity into the consciousness, -she requires, even in her non-ecstatic moments, to have her attention -specially concentrated upon one all-important idea, one point in the -field of consciousness. And, by a faithful wholeness of attention to -the successive spiritually significant circumstances and obligations, -interior impressions and lights, which her praying, thinking, -suffering, actively bring round to her notice, she manages, by such -single steps, gradually to go a very long way, and, by such severe -successiveness, to build up a rich simultaneity. For each of these -faithfully accepted and fully willed and utilized acts and states, -received into her one ever-growing and deepening personality, leave -memories and stimulations behind them, and mingle, as subconscious -elements, with the conscious acts which follow later on. - - -4. _Two remarkable consequences of this kind of warfare._ - -There were two specially remarkable consequences of this constant -watchful fixation of the one spiritually significant point in each -congeries of circumstances, and of the manner in which (partly perhaps -as the occasion, but probably in great part as the effect of this -attention) one interior condition of apparent fixity would suddenly -shift to another condition of a different kind but of a similar -apparent stability. There was the manner in which, during these years, -she appears to have escaped the committing of any at all definite -offences against the better and best lights of that particular moment; -and there was the way in which she would realize the faultiness and -subtle self-seeking of any one state, only at the moment of its -disappearing to make room for another. - -I take the accounts of both these remarkable peculiarities to be -substantially accurate, since, if the first condition had not obtained, -we should have found her practising more or less frequent Confession, -as we find her doing in the first and third, but not in this period; -and if the second condition had not existed, we should have had, for -this period also, some such vivid account of painful scruples arising -from the impression of actually present unfaithfulnesses, such as has -been preserved for her last years. And indeed, as soon as we have -vividly conceived a state in which a soul (by a wise utilization of the -quite exceptional successiveness and simplification to which it has -been, in great part, driven by its temperamental requirements, and by -a constant heroic watchfulness) has managed to exclude from its life, -during a long series of years, all fully deliberate resistances to, or -lapses from, its contemporaneous better insight: one sees at once that -a consciousness of faultiness could come to her only at those moments -when, one state and level giving place to another, she could, for the -moment, see the former habits and their implicit defects in the clear -light of their contrast to her new, deeper insights and dispositions. - -Now it is evident that here again we have in part (in the curious -quasi-fixity of each state, and then the sudden replacement of it -by another) something which, taken alone, is simply psychically -peculiar and spiritually indifferent. The persistent sense of gradual -or of rapid change in the midst of a certain continuity and indeed -abidingness, characteristic of the average moments of the average soul, -is, taken in itself, more true to life and to the normal reaction of -the human mind, and not less capable of spiritual utilization, than is -Catherine’s peculiarity. Her heroic utilization of her special psychic -life for purposes of self-fighting, and the degree in which, as we -shall find in a later chapter, she succeeded in moulding this life into -a shape representative of certain great spiritual truths: these things -it is which constitute here the spiritually significant element. - -And her second peculiarity of religious practice was her great -simplification and intensification of the spiritual combat. -Simplification: for she does not fight directly either the Devil or the -World; she directly fights the “Flesh” alone, and recognizes but one -immediate opponent, her own lower self. Hence the references to the -world are always simply as to an extension or indefinite repetition -of that same self, or of similar lower selves; and those to the devil -are, except where she declares her own lower self “a very devil,” -extraordinarily rare, and, in their authentic forms, never directly and -formally connected with her own spiritual interests and struggles. -And Intensification: for she conceives this lower self, against which -all her fighting is turned, as capable of any enormity, as actually -cloaking itself successively in every kind of disguise, and as more or -less vitiating even the most spiritual-seeming of her states and acts. - -And here again we can, I think, clearly trace the influence of her -special temperament and psycho-physical functioning, yet in a direction -opposite to that in which we would naturally expect it. For it is not -so much that this temperament led her to exaggerate the badness of her -false self, or to elaborate a myth concerning its (all but completely -separate) existence, as that, owing in large part to that temperament -and functioning, her false self _was_ both unusually distinct from her -true self and particularly clamorous and claimful. It would indeed be -well for hagiography if, in all cases, at least an attempt were made to -discover and present the precise and particular good and bad selves, -worked for and fought by the particular saint: for it is just this -double particularization of the common warfare in every individual soul -that gives the poignant interest and instructiveness, and a bracing -sense of reality to these lonely yet typical, unique yet universal -struggles, defeats, and victories. - -And in Catherine’s case her special temperament; her particular -attitude during the ten years’ laxity, and again during the last years’ -times of obscurity and scruple; even some of her sayings probably -still belonging to this middle period; but above all the precise point -and edge of her counter-ideal and _attrait_: all indicate clearly -enough what was her congenital defect. A great self-engrossment of -a downrightly selfish kind; a grouping of all things round such a -self-adoring _Ego_; a noiseless but determined elimination from -her life and memory of all that would not or could not, then and -there, be drawn and woven into the organism and functioning of this -immensely self-seeking, infinitely woundable and wounded, endlessly -self-doctoring “I” and “Me”: a self intensely, although not sexually, -jealous, envious and exacting, incapable of easy accommodation, of -pleasure in half successes, of humour and brightness, of joyous -“once-born” creatureliness: all this was certainly to be found, in -strong tendency at least, in the untrained parts and periods of her -character and life. - -And then the same peculiarity and sensitiveness of her psycho-physical -organism which, in her last period, ended by mirroring her mental -spiritual apprehensions and picturings in her very body, and which, -even at this time, has been traced by us in the curious long fixities -and rapid changes of her fields of consciousness, clearly operates -also and already here, in separating off this false self from the good -one and in heightening the apprehension of that false self to almost a -perception in space, or to an all but physical sensation. - -We thus get something of which the interesting cases of “doubleness -of personality,” so much studied of late years, are, as it were, -purely psychical, definitely _maladif_ caricatures; the great -difference consisting in Catherine herself possessing, at all times, -the consciousness and memory of both sides, of both “selves,” and of -each as both actual and potential, within the range of her one great -personality. Indeed it is this very multiplicity thus englobed and -utilized by that higher unity, which gives depth to her sanity and -sanctity.[37] - - -5. _Precise object and end of her striving._ - -And all this is confirmed and completed, as already hinted, by the -precise object of her ideal, the particular means and special end of -the struggle. Here, at the very culmination of her inner life and -aim, we find the deepest traces of her temperamental requirements; -and here, in what she seeks, there is again an immense concentration -and a significant choice. The distinctions between obligation and -supererogation, between merit and grace, are not utilized but -transcended; the conception of God having anger as well as love arouses -as keen a sense of intolerableness as that of God’s envy aroused in -Plato, and God appears to her as, in Himself, continuously loving. - -This love of God, again, is seen to be present everywhere, and, of -Itself, everywhere to effect happiness. The dispositions of souls are -indeed held to vary within each soul and between soul and soul, and to -determine the differences in their reception, and consequently in the -effect upon them, of God’s one universal love: but the soul’s reward -and punishment are not something distinct from its state, they are but -that very state prolonged and articulated, since man can indeed go -against his deepest requirements but can never finally suppress them. -Heaven, Purgatory, Hell are thus not places as well as states, nor do -they begin only in the beyond: they are states alone, and begin already -here. And Grace and Love, and Love and Christ, and Christ and Spirit, -and hence Grace and Love and Christ and Spirit are, at bottom, one, and -this One is God. Hence God, loving Himself in and through us, is alone -our full true self. Here, in this constant stretching out and forward -of her whole being into and towards the ocean of light and love, of -God the All in All, it is not hard to recognize a soul which finds -happiness only when looking out and away from self, and turning, in -more or less ecstatic contemplation and action, towards that Infinite -Country, that great Over-Againstness, God. - -And, in her sensitive shrinking from the idea of an angry God, we -find the instinctive reaction of a nature too naturally prone itself -to angry claimfulness, and which had been too much driven out of -its self-occupation by the painful sense of interior self-division -consequent upon that jealousy, not to find it intolerable to get out -of that little Scylla of her own hungry self only to fall into a great -Charybdis, an apparent mere enlargement and canonization of that same -self, in the angry God Himself. - -And if her second peculiarity, the concentration of the fight upon an -unusually isolated and intense false self, had introduced an element of -at least relative Rigorism and contraction into her spirituality, this -third peculiarity brings a compensating movement of quasi-Pantheism, -of immense expansion. Here the crushed plant expands in boundless -air, light and warmth; the parched seaweed floats and unfolds itself -in an immense ocean of pure waters--the soul, as it were, breathes -and bathes in God’s peace and love. And it is evident that the great -super-sensible realities and relations adumbrated by such figures, did -not, with her, lead to mere dry or vague apprehensions. Even in this -period, although here with a peaceful, bracing orderliness and harmony, -the reality thus long and closely dwelt on and lived with was, as it -were, physically seen and felt in these its images by a ready response -of her immensely docile psycho-physical organism. - - -6. _Catherine possessed two out of the three conditions apparently -necessary for stigmatization._ - -And in this connection we should note how largely reasonable was -the expectation of some of her disciples of finding some permanent -physical effects upon her body; and yet why she not only had not the -stigmata of the Passion, but why she could not have them. For, of the -three apparently necessary conditions for such stigmatization, she had -indeed two--a long and intense absorption in religious ideas, and a -specially sensitive psycho-physical temperament and organization of -the ecstatic type; but the third condition, the concentration of that -absorption upon Our Lord’s Passion and wounds, was wholly wanting--at -least after those four actively penitential and during those twenty-two -ecstatic years. We can, however, say most truly that although, since -at all events 1477, her visions and contemplations were all concerning -purely metaphysical, eternal realities, or certain ceaselessly -repeated experiences of the human soul, or laws and types derived from -the greatest of Christian institutions, her daily solace, the Holy -Eucharist: yet that these verities ended by producing definite images -in her senses, and certain observable though passing impressions upon -her body, so that we can here talk of sensible shadows or “stigmata” of -things purely spiritual and eternal. - -And if, in the cases of some ecstatic saints, mental pathologists of -a more or less materialistic type have, at times, shown excessive -suspicion as to some of the causes and effects of these saints’ -devotion to Our Lord’s Humanity under the imagery and categories of -the Canticle of Canticles--all such suspicions, fair or unfair, have -absolutely no foothold in Catherine’s life, since not only is there -here no devotion to God or to Our Lord as Bridegroom of the Bridal -soul: there is no direct contemplative occupation with the historic -Christ and no figuring of Him or of God under human attributes -or relations at all. I think that her temperament and health had -something to do with her habitual dwelling upon Thing-symbols of God: -Ocean--Air--Fire--picturings which, conceived with her psycho-physical -vividness, must, in their expanse, have rested and purified her in a -way that historical contingencies and details would not have done. The -doctrinal and metaphysical side of the matter will be considered later -on. - - -VI. THREE RULES WHICH SEEM TO GOVERN THE RELATIONS BETWEEN -PSYCHO-PHYSICAL PECULIARITIES AND SANCTITY IN GENERAL. - -If we next inquire how matters stand historically with regard to the -relations between ecstatic states and psycho-physical peculiarities -on the one hand, and sanctity in general on the other hand, we shall -find, I think, that the following three rules or laws really cover, in -a necessarily general, somewhat schematic way, all the chief points, -at all certain or practically important, in this complex and delicate -matter. - - -1. _Intense spiritual energising is accompanied by auto-suggestion and -mono-ideism._ - -It is clear, for one thing, that as simply all and every mental, -emotional, and volitional energizing is necessarily and always -accompanied by corresponding nerve-states, and that if we had -not some neural sensitiveness and neural adaptability, we could -not--whilst living our earthly life--think, or feel, or will in -regard to anything whatsoever: a certain special degree of at least -potential psycho-physical sensitiveness and adaptability must be -taken to be, not the productive cause, but a necessary condition for -the exercise, of any considerable range and depth of mind and will, -and hence of sanctity in general; and that the actual aiming at, -and gradual achievement of, sanctity in these, thus merely possible -cases, spiritualizes and further defines this sensitiveness, as the -instrument, material, and expression of the soul’s work.[38] And this -work of the heroic soul will necessarily consist, in great part, in -attending to, calling up, and, as far as may be, both fixing and ever -renovating certain few great dominant ideas, and in attempting by every -means to saturate the imagination with images and figures, historical -and symbolic, as so many incarnations of these great verities. - -We get thus what, taken simply phenomenally and without as yet any -inquiry as to an ultimate reality pressing in upon the soul,--a divine -stimulation underlying all its sincere and fruitful action,--is a -spiritual mono-ideism and auto-suggestion, of a more or less general -kind. But, at this stage, these activities and their psycho-physical -concomitants and results will, though different in kind, be no -more abnormal than is the mono-ideism and auto-suggestion of the -mathematician, the tactician, and the constructive statesman. Newton, -Napoleon, and Richelieu: they were all dominated by some great -central idea, and they all for long years dwelt upon it and worked -for it within themselves, till it became alive and aflame in their -imaginations and their outward-moving wills, before, yet as the means -of, its taking external and visible shape. And, in all the cases -that we can test in detail, the psycho-physical accompaniments of -all this profound mental-volitional energy were most marked. In the -cases of Newton and Napoleon, for instance, a classification of their -energizings solely according to their neural accompaniments would -force us to class these great discoverers and organizers amongst -psycho-physical eccentrics. Yet the truth and value of their work and -character has, of course, to be measured, not by this its neural fringe -and cost, but by its central spiritual truth and fruitfulness. - - -2. _Such mechanisms specially marked in Philosophers, Musicians, Poets, -and Mystical Religionists._ - -The mystical and contemplative element in the religious life, and the -group of saints amongst whom this element is predominant, no doubt give -us a still larger amount of what, again taking the matter phenomenally -and not ultimately, is once more mono-ideism and auto-suggestion, -and entails a correspondingly larger amount of psycho-physical -impressionableness and reaction utilized by the mind. But here also, -from the simplest forms of the “prayer of quiet” to absorptions of an -approximately ecstatic type, we have something which, though different -in kind and value, is yet no more abnormal than are the highest flights -and absorptions of the Philosopher, the Musician, and the Poet. And -yet, in such cases as Kant and Beethoven, a classifier of humanity -according to its psycho-physical phenomena alone would put these great -discoverers and creators, without hesitation, amongst hopeless and -useless hypochondriacs. Yet here again the truth of their ideas and the -work of their lives have to be measured by quite other things than by -this their neural concomitance and cost. - - -3. _Ecstatics possess a peculiar psycho-physical organization._ - -The downright ecstatics and hearers of voices and seers of visions -have all, wherever we are able to trace their temperamental and neural -constitution and history, possessed and developed a definitely peculiar -psycho-physical organization. We have traced it in Catherine and -indicated it in St. Teresa. We find it again in St. Maria Magdalena -dei Pazzi and in St. Marguerite Marie Alacocque, in modern times, -and in St. Catherine of Siena and St. Francis of Assisi in mediaeval -times. For early Christian times we are too ignorant as regards the -psycho-physical organization of St. Ignatius of Antioch, Hermas, -and St. Cyprian, to be able to establish a connection between their -temperamental endowments and their hearing of voices and seeing of -visions--in the last two cases we get much that looks like more or less -of a mere conventional literary device.[39] - -We are, however, in a fair position for judging, in the typical and -thoroughly original case of St. Paul. In 2 Cor. xiii, 7, 8, after -speaking of the abundant revelations accorded to him, he adds that -“lest I be lifted up, a thorn” (literally, a stake) “in the flesh was -given to me, an Angel of Satan to buffet me.” And though “I thrice -besought the Lord that it might depart from me, the Lord answered -me, ‘My grace is sufficient for thee; for grace is perfected in -infirmity.’” And he was consequently determined “rather” to “glory in -his infirmities, so that the power of Christ may dwell within” him. -And in Gal. iv, 14, 15, written about the same time, he reminds his -readers how he had “preached to them through the infirmity of the -flesh,” commending them because they “did not despise nor loathe their -temptation in his flesh” (this is no doubt the correct reading), “but -had received him as an Angel of God, as Christ Jesus.” - -Now the most ancient interpretation of this “thorn” or “stake” is some -kind of bodily complaint,--violent headache or earache is mentioned by -Tertullian de Pudicitia, 13, and by St. Jerome, Comm. in Gal. _loc. -cit._ Indeed St. Paul’s own description of his “bodily presence” as -“weak,” and his “spoken word” as “contemptible” (2 Cor. x, 10), points -this way. It seems plain that it cannot have been carnal temptations -(only in the sixth century did this interpretation become firmly -established), for he could not have gloried in these, nor could they, -hidden as they would be within his heart, have exposed him to the -contempt of others. Indeed he expressly excludes such troubles from his -life, where, in advising those who were thus oppressed to marry, he -gives the preference to the single life, and declares, “I would that -all men were even as myself” (1 Cor. vii, 7). - -The attacks of this trouble were evidently acutely painful: note the -metaphor of a stake driven into the live flesh and the Angel of Satan -who buffeted him. (And compare St. Teresa’s account: “An Angel of God -appeared to me to be thrusting at times a long spear into my heart and -to pierce my very entrails”; “the pain was so great that it made me -moan”; “it really seems to the soul as if an arrow were thrust through -the heart or through itself; the suffering is not one of sense, neither -is the wound physical”; and how, on another occasion, she heard Our -Lord answer her: “Serve thou Me, and meddle not with this.”)[40] - -These attacks would come suddenly, even in the course of his public -ministry, rendering him, in so far, an object of derision and of -loathing. (Compare here St. Teresa’s declaration: “During the rapture, -the body is very often perfectly powerless; it continues in the -position it was in when the rapture came upon it: if sitting, sitting; -if the hands were open, or if they were shut, they will remain open or -shut”; “if the body” was “standing or kneeling, it remains so.”)[41] - -Yet these attacks were evidently somehow connected, both in fact and -in his consciousness, with his Visions; and they were recurrent. The -vision of the Third Heaven and his apparently first attack seem to have -been practically coincident,--about A.D. 44. We find a second attack -hanging about him for some time, on his first preaching in Galatia, -about A.D. 51 or 52 (see 1 Thess. ii, 18; 1 Cor. ii, 3). And a third -attack appears to have come in A.D. 57 or 58, when the Second Epistle -to the Corinthians and that to the Galatians were written; note the -words (2 Cor. i, 9), “But” (in addition to his share in the public -persecution) “we ourselves had the sentence of death within ourselves, -in order that we might not trust in ourselves but in God who raiseth -the dead to life.” (And compare here St. Teresa: in July 1547 “for -about four days I remained insensible. They must have regarded me as -dead more than once. For a day and a half the grave was open in my -monastery, waiting for my body. But it pleased Our Lord I should come -to myself.”)[42] Dr. Lightfoot gives as a parallel the epileptiform -seizures of King Alfred, which, sudden, acutely painful, at times -death-like, and protracted, tended to render the royal power despicable -in the eyes of the world.[43] Yet, except for the difference of sex and -of relative privacy, St. Teresa’s states, which I have given here, are -more closely similar, in so much as they are intimately connected with -religious visions and voices. - -And, amongst Old Testament figures, we can find a similar connection, -on a still larger scale, in the case of Ezekiel, the most definitely -ecstatic, though (upon the whole) the least original, of the literary -Prophets. For, as to the visionary element, we have his own records -of three visions of the glory of Jahve; of five other ecstasies, -three of which are accompanied by remarkable telepathic, second-sight -activities; and of twelve symbolic (better: representative) prophetic -actions, which are now all rightly coming to be considered as having -been externally carried out by him.[44] And we get psycho-physical -states, as marked as in any other ecstatic saint. For we hear how Jahve -on one occasion says to him: “But thou, son of man, lay thyself on -thy left side” (_i.e._ according to Jewish orientation, towards the -North) “and I shall lay the guilt of the house of Israel” (the Northern -Kingdom) “upon thee; the number of days that thou shalt lie upon it, -shalt thou bear their guilt. But I appoint unto thee the years of their -guilt, as a (corresponding) number of days, (namely) one hundred and -fifty days.… And, when thou hast done with them, thou shalt lay thyself -on thy right side” (_i.e._ towards the South), “and thou shalt bear the -guilt of the house of Judah” (the Southern Kingdom); “one day for each -year shall I appoint unto thee. And behold I shall lay cords upon thee, -that thou shalt be unable to turn from one side to the other, till thou -hast ended the days of thy boundness” (iv, 4-8). Krätzschmar, no doubt -rightly, finds here a case of hemiplegia and anaesthesia, functional -cataleptic paralysis lasting during five months on the left side, and -then shifting for about six weeks to the right side. And the _alalia_ -(speechlessness), which no doubt accompanied this state, is referred -to on three other occasions: xxiv, 27; xxix, 31; xxxiii, 22. And note -how Jahve’s address to Ezekiel, “son of man,” which occurs in this book -over ninety times, and but once in the whole of the rest of the Old -Testament (Dan. viii, 17), evidently stands here for the sense of his -creaturely nothingness, so characteristic of the true ecstatic.[45] - -Now, at this last stage, the analogy of the other non-religious -activities of the healthy mind and of their psycho-physical conditions -and effects forsakes us; but not the principle which has guided us -all along. For here, as from the very first, some such conditions -and effects are inevitable; and the simple fact of this occurrence, -apart from the question of their particular character, is something -thoroughly normal. And here again, and more than ever, the emphasis -and decision have to lie with, and to depend upon, the mental and -volitional work and the spiritual truth and reality achieved in and for -the recipient, and, through him, in and for others. - -Even at the earlier stages, to cling to the form, as distinct from -the content and end, of these things was to be thoroughly unfair -to this their content and end, within the spacious economy of the -spirit’s life; at this stage such clinging becomes destructive of all -true religion. For if the mere psycho-physical forms and phenomena of -ecstasy, of vision, of hearing of voices is, in proportion to their -psycho-physical intensity and seeming automatism and quasi-physical -objectivity, to be taken as necessarily a means and mark of sanctity or -of insight, or, at least, as something presumably sent direct by God -or else as diabolical, something necessarily super- or preter-natural: -then the lunatic asylums contain more miracles, saints, and sages, or -their direct, strangely similar antipodes, than all the most fervent or -perverted churches, monasteries, and families upon God’s earth. For in -asylums we find ecstasies, visions, voices, all more, not less marked, -all more, not less irresistibly objective-seeming to the recipient, -than anything to be found outside. - -Yet apply impartially to both sets the test, not of form, but of -content, of spiritual fruitfulness and of many-sided applicability--and -this surface-similarity yields at once to a fundamental difference. -Indeed all the great mystics, and this in precise proportion to their -greatness, have ever taught that, the mystical capacities and habits -being but means and not ends, only such ecstasies are valuable as -leave the soul, and the very body as its instrument, strengthened and -improved; and that visions and voices are to be accepted by the mind -only in proportion as they convey some spiritual truth of importance to -it or to others, and as they actually help it to become more humble, -true, and loving. - -And there can be no doubt that these things worked thus with such -great ecstatic mystics as Ezekiel, the man of the great prophetic -schemes and the permanently fruitful picturing of the Good Shepherd; -as St. Paul, the greatest missionary and organizer ever given to the -Christian Church; as St. Francis of Assisi, the salt and leaven and -light of the Church and of society, in his day and more or less ever -since; as St. Catherine of Siena, the free-spoken, docile reinspirer -of the Papacy; as Jeanne d’Arc, the maiden deliverer of a Nation; as -St. Teresa, reformer of a great Order. All these, and countless others, -would, quite evidently, have achieved less, not more, of interior -light and of far-reaching helpfulness of a kind readily recognized by -all specifically religious souls, had they been without the rest, the -bracing, the experience furnished to them by their ecstasies and allied -states and apprehensions. - - - - -VII. PERENNIAL FRESHNESS OF THE GREAT MYSTICS’ MAIN SPIRITUAL TEST, IN -CONTRADISTINCTION TO THEIR SECONDARY, PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTENTION. TWO -SPECIAL DIFFICULTIES. - - -1. _A false and a true test of mystical experience._ - -Now it is deeply interesting to note how entirely unweakened, indeed -how impressively strengthened, by the intervening severe test of -whole centuries of further experience and of thought, has remained -the main and direct, the spiritual test of the great Mystics, in -contradistinction to their secondary psychological contention with -respect to such experiences. The secondary, psychological contention -is well reproduced by St. Teresa where she says: “When I speak, I go -on with my understanding arranging what I am saying; but, if I am -spoken to by others, I do nothing else but listen without any labour.” -In the former case, “the soul,” if it be in good faith, “cannot -possibly fail to see clearly that itself arranges the words and utters -them to itself. How then can the understanding have time enough to -arrange these locutions? They require time.”[46] Now this particular -argument for their supernaturalness derived from the psychological -form--from the suddenness, clearness, and apparent automatism of these -locutions--has ceased to carry weight, owing to our present, curiously -recent, knowledge concerning the subconscious region of the mind, and -the occasionally sudden irruption of that region’s contents into the -field of that same mind’s ordinary, full consciousness. In the Ven. -Battista Vernazza’s case we have a particularly clear instance of such -a long accumulation,--by means of much, in great part full, attention -to certain spiritual ideas, words, and images,--in the subconscious -regions of a particularly strong and deeply sincere and saintly mind; -and the sudden irruption from those regions of certain clear and -apparently quite spontaneous words and images into the field of her -mind’s full consciousness.[47] - -But the reference to the great Mystics’ chief and direct test, upon -which they dwell with an assurance and self-consistency far surpassing -that which accompanies their psychological argument,--the spiritual -content and effects of such experiences,--this, retains all its -cogency. St. Teresa tells us: “When Our Lord speaks, it is both word -and work: His words are deeds.” “I found myself, through these words -alone, tranquil and strong, courageous and confident, at rest and -enlightened: I felt I could maintain against all the world that my -prayer was the work of God.” “I could not believe that Satan, if he -wished to deceive me, could have recourse to means so adverse to his -purpose as this, of rooting out my faults, and implanting virtues and -spiritual strength: for I saw clearly that I had become another person, -by means of these visions.” “So efficacious was the vision, and such -was the nature of the words spoken to me, that I could not possibly -doubt that they came from Him.” “I was in a trance; and the effects of -it were such, that I could have no doubt it came from God.” On another -occasion she writes less positively even of the great test: “She never -undertook anything merely because it came to her in prayer. For all -that her Confessors told her that these things came from God, she never -so thoroughly believed them that she could swear to it herself, though -it did seem to her that they were spiritually safe, because of the -effects thereof.”[48] This doctrine is still the last word of wisdom in -these matters. - - -2. _First special difficulty in testing ecstasies._ - -Yet it is only at this last stage that two special difficulties occur, -the one philosophical, the other moral. The philosophical difficulty -is as follows. As long as the earlier stages are in progress, it is -not difficult to understand that the soul may be gradually building up -for herself a world of spiritual apprehensions, and a corresponding -spiritual and moral character, by a process which, looked at merely -phenomenally and separately, appears as a simple case of mono-ideism -and auto-suggestion, but which can and should be conceived, when -studied in its ultimate cause and end, as due to the pressure and -influence of God’s spirit working in and through the spirit of -man,--the Creator causing His own little human creature freely to -create for itself some copy of and approach to its own eternally -subsisting, substantial Cause and Crown. There the operation of such an -underlying Supreme Cause, and a consequent relation between the world -thus conceived and built up by the human soul and the real world of the -Divine Spirit, appears possible, because the things which the soul is -thus made to suggest to itself are ideas, and because even these ideas -are clearly recognized by the soul as only instruments and approaches -to the realities for which they stand. But here, in this last stage, we -get the suggestion, not of ideas, but of psycho-physical impressions, -and these impressions are, apparently, not taken as but distantly -illustrative, but as somehow one with the spiritual realities for which -they stand. Is not, _e.g._, Catherine’s joy at this stage centred -precisely in the downright feeling, smelling, seeing, of ocean waters, -penetrating odours, all-enveloping light; and in the identification of -those waters, odours, lights, with God Himself, so that God becomes at -last an object of direct, passive, sensible perception? Have we not -then here at last reached pure delusion? - -Not so, in proportion as the mystic is great and spiritual, and as -he here still clings to the principles common to all true religion. -For, in proportion as he is and does this, will he find and regard the -mind as deeper and more operative than sense, and God’s Spirit as -penetrating and transcending both the one and the other. And hence he -will (at least implicitly) regard those psycho-physical impressions -as but sense-like and really mental; and he will consider this mental -impression and projection as indeed produced by the presence and -action of the Spirit within his mind or of the pressure of spiritual -realities upon it, but will hold that this whole mental process, with -these its spacial- and temporal-seeming embodiments, these sights and -sounds, has only a relation and analogical likeness to, and is not -and cannot be identical with, those realities of an intrinsically -super-spacial, super-temporal order.--And thus here as everywhere, -although here necessarily more than ever, we find again the conception -of the Transcendent yet also Immanent Spirit, effecting in the human -spirit the ever-increasing apprehension of Himself, accompanied in -this spirit by an ever keener sense of His incomprehensibility for all -but Himself. And here again the truth, and more especially the divine -origin of these apprehensions, is tested and guaranteed on and on by -the consequent deepening of that spiritual and ethical fruitfulness and -death to self, which are the common aspirations of every deepest moment -and every sincerest movement within the universal heart of man. - -Thus, as regards the mentality of these experiences, Catherine -constantly speaks of seeing “as though with the eyes of the body.” And -St. Teresa tells us of her visions with “the eyes of the soul”; of -how at first she “did not know that it was possible to see anything -otherwise than with the eyes of the body”; of how, in reality “she -never,” in her true visions and locutions, “saw anything with her -bodily eyes, nor heard anything with her bodily ears”; and of how -indeed she later on, on one occasion, “saw nothing with the eyes of -the body, nothing with the eyes of the soul,”--she “simply felt Christ -close by her,”--evidently again with the soul. Thus, too, Catherine -tells us, that “as the intellect exceeds language, so does love exceed -intellection”; and how vividly she feels that “all that can be said of -God,” compared to the great Reality, “is but tiny crumbs from the great -Master’s table.”[49] - -And, as to the inadequacy of these impressions, the classical authority -on such things, St. John of the Cross, declares: “He that will rely on -the letter of the divine locutions or on the intelligible form of the -vision, will of necessity fall into delusion; for he does not yield to -the Spirit in detachment from sense.” “He who shall give attention to -these motes of the Spirit alone will, in the end, have no spirituality -at all.” “All visions, revelations, and heavenly feelings, and whatever -is greater than these, are not worth the least act of humility, bearing -the fruits of that charity which neither values nor seeks itself, -which thinketh well not of self but of all others.” Indeed “virtue -does not consist in these apprehensions. Let men then cease to regard, -and labour to forget them, that they may be free.” For “spiritual -supernatural knowledge is of two kinds, one distinct and special,” -which comprises “visions, revelations, locutions, and spiritual -impressions”; “the other confused, obscure, and general,” which “has -but one form, that of contemplation which is the work of faith. The -soul is to be led into this, by directing it thereto through all the -rest, beginning with the first, and detaching it from them.” - -Hence “many souls, to whom visions have never come, are incomparably -more advanced in the way of perfection than others to whom many -have been given”; and “they who are already perfect, receive these -visitations of the Spirit of God in peace; ecstasies cease, for they -were only graces to prepare them for this greater grace.” Hence, too, -“one desire only doth God allow and suffer in His Presence: that of -perfectly observing His law and of carrying the Cross of Christ. In -the Ark of the Covenant there was but the Book of the Law, the Rod of -Aaron, and the Pot of Manna. Even so that soul, which has no other aim -than the perfect observance of the Law of God and the carrying of the -Cross of Christ, will be a true Ark containing the true Manna, which -is God.” And this perfected soul’s intellectual apprehensions will, -in their very mixture of light and conscious obscurity, more and more -approach and forestall the eternal condition of the beatified soul. -“One of the greatest favours, bestowed transiently on the soul in this -life, is to enable it to see so distinctly and to feel so profoundly, -that it cannot comprehend Him at all. These souls are herein, in -some degree, like the Saints in Heaven, where they who know Him most -perfectly perceive most clearly that He is infinitely incomprehensible; -for those who have the less clear vision do not perceive so distinctly -as the others how greatly He transcends their vision.”[50] - - -3. _Second special difficulty in testing ecstasies._ - -The second special difficulty is this. Have not at least some of the -saints of this definitely ecstatic type shown more psycho-physical -abnormality than spiritually fruitful origination or utilization of -such things, so that their whole life seems penetrated by a fantastic -spirit? And have not many others, who, at their best, may not have been -amenable to this charge, ended with shattered nerve- and will-power, -with an organism apparently incapable of any further growth or use, -even if we restrict our survey exclusively to strength-bringing ecstasy -and to a contemplative prayer of some traceable significance? - -(1) As a good instance of the apparent predominance of psycho-physical -and even spiritual strangeness, we can take the Venerable Sister -Lukardis, Cistercian Nun of Ober-Weimar, born probably in 1276. -Her life is published from a unique Latin MS. by the Bollandists -(_Analecta_, Vol. XVIII, pp. 305-367, Bruxelles, 1899), and presents us -with a mediaevally naïve and strangely unanalytic, yet extraordinarily -vivid picture of things actually seen by the writer. “Although,” say -the most competent editors, “we know not the name nor profession of -the Author, whether he belonged to the Friars or to the Monks,[51] it -is certain that he was a contemporary of Lukardis, that he knew her -intimately, and that he learnt many details from her fellow-nuns. And -though we shall be slow to agree with him when he ascribes all the -strange things which she experienced in her soul and body to divine -influence, yet we should beware of considering him to be in bad faith. -For, though he erred perchance in ascribing to a divine operation -things which are simply the work of nature, such a vice is common -amongst those who transmit such things.”[52] I take the chief points in -the order of their narration by the _Vita_. - -“Soon after Lukardis had, at twelve years of age, taken the Cistercian -habit, her mother died,” over twelve English miles away, at Erfurt, yet -Lukardis “saw the scene” in such detail “in the spirit,” that, when -her sister came to tell her, she, Lukardis, “anticipated her with an -account of the day, the place and hour of the death, of the clothes -then being worn by their mother, of the precise position of the bed and -of the hospital, and of the persons present at the time.” - -She soon suffered from “stone” in the bladder; “quartan, tertian, and -continuous fevers,” and from fainting fits; also from contraction of -the muscles (_nervi_) of the hands, so that the latter were all but -useless and could not even hold the staff on which she had to lean in -walking, till they had been “tightly wrapped round in certain clothes.” -Yet “she would, at times, strike her hands so vehemently against each -other, that they resounded as though they had been wooden boards.” -“When lying in bed she would sometimes, as it were, plant her feet -beneath her, hang her head down” backwards, “and raise her abdomen and -chest, making thus, as it were, a highly curved arch of her person.” -Indeed sometimes “she would for a long while stand upon her head and -shoulders, with her feet up in air, but with her garments adhering to -her limbs, as though they had been sewn on to them.” “Often, too, by -day or night, she was wont to run with a most impetuous course;--she -understood that, by this her course, she was compensating Christ for -His earthly course of thirty-three years.”[53] - -“On one occasion she had a vision of Christ, in which He said to her: -‘Join thy hands to My hands, and thy feet to My feet, and thy breast -to My breast, and thus shall I be aided by thee to suffer less.’ And -instantly she felt a most keen pain of wounds,” in all three regions, -“although wounds did not as yet appear to sight.” But “as she bore -the memory of the hammering of the nails into Christ upon the Cross -within her heart, so did she exercise herself in outward deed. For she -was frequently wont, with the middle finger of one hand, impetuously -to wound the other in the place appropriate to the stigmata; then to -withdraw her finger to the distance of a cubit, and straightway again -impetuously to wound herself. Those middle fingers felt hard like -metal. And about the sixth and ninth hour she would impetuously wound -herself with her finger in the breast, at the appropriate place for the -wound.”--After about two years “Christ appeared to her in the night of -Blessed Gregory, Pope” (St. Gregory VII, May 26?), “pressed her right -hand firmly in His, and declared, ‘I desire thee to suffer with Me.’ -On her consenting, a wound instantly appeared in her right hand; about -ten days later a wound in the left hand; and thus successively the five -wounds were found in her body.” “The wounds of the scourging were also -found upon her, of a finger’s length, and having a certain hard skin -around them.”[54] - -“At whiles she would lie like one dead throughout the day; yet her -countenance was very attractive, owing to a wondrous flushed look. And -even if a needle was pressed into her flesh, she felt no pain.”--“On -one occasion she was carried upon her couch by two sisters into the -Lady Chapel, to the very spot where her body now reposes. After having -been left there alone for about an hour, the Blessed Virgin appeared -to her, with her beloved Infant, Jesus, in her arms, and suckling Him. -And Lukardis, contrary to the law of her strength”--she had, by now, -been long confined to a reclining posture--“arose from her couch and -began to stand upright. And at this juncture one of the Sisters opened -the Chapel door a little, and, on looking in, marvelled at Lukardis -being able to stand, but withdrew and forbade the other Sisters from -approaching thither, since she feared that, if they saw her standing -thus, they might declare her to be quite able, if she but chose, to -arise and stand at any time. Upon the Blessed Virgin twice insisting -upon being asked for some special favour, and Lukardis declaring, ‘I -desire that thou slake my thirst with that same milk with which I now -see thee suckling thy beloved Son,’ the Blessed Virgin came up to her, -and gave her to drink of her milk.” And when later on Lukardis was -fetched by the Sisters, she was “found reclining on her couch. And for -three days and nights she took neither food nor drink, and could not -see the light of day. And as a precaution, since her death was feared, -Extreme Unction was administered to her. And, later on, the Sister who -had seen her standing in the Chapel, gradually drew the whole story -from her.”[55] - -“After she had lain, very weak, and, as it were, in a state of -contracture, for eleven years, it happened that, about the ninth hour -of one Good Friday, the natural bodily heat and colour forsook her; -she seemed nowise to breathe; her wounds bled more than usual; she -appeared to be dead. And her fellow-Sisters wept greatly. Yet about -Vesper-time she opened her eyes and began to move; and her companions -were wondrously consoled. And then in the Easter night, about the hour -of Christ’s Resurrection, as, with the other sick Sisters, she lay in -her bed placed so as to be able to hear the Divine Office, she felt -all her limbs to be as it were suffused with a most refreshing dew. -And straightway she saw stretched down to her from Heaven a hand, as -it were of the Blessed Virgin, which stroked her wounds and all the -painful places, the ligaments and joints of her members, gently and -compassionately. After which she straightway felt how that all her -members, which before had for so long been severely contracted, and how -the knots, formed by the ligaments (_nervi_), were being efficaciously -resolved and equally distended, so that she considered herself freed -from her hard bondage. She arose unaided from her couch, proceeded to -the near-by entrance to the Choir, and prostrated herself there, in -fervent orison, with her arms outstretched in cross-form, for a very -long hour. And then, commanded by the Abbess to rise, she readily arose -without help, stood with pleasure, and walked whithersoever she would.” -“At all times she ever suffered more from the cold than any of her -companions.”[56] - -“As, during those eleven years that she lay like one paralyzed, she was -wont, on every Friday, to lie with her arms expanded as though on the -Cross, and her feet one on the top of the other; so, after the Lord had -so wonderfully raised her on that Paschal day, she, on every Friday -and every Lenten day, would stand erect with her arms outstretched, -crosswise, and, without any support, on one foot only, with the -other foot planted upon its fellow, from the hour of noon to that of -Vespers.”--“Whilst she was still uncured, and required some delicate -refection which the Convent could not afford, there came to her,” one -day, “the most loving Infant, bearing in His Hand the leg of a chicken, -newly roasted, and begging her to eat it for His sake.” She did so, -and was wonderfully strengthened. Apparently late on in her life “they -procured, with much labour and diligence, all kinds of drinkables from -different and even from distant places for her. But she, having tasted -any one of them, would straightway shake her head, close her lips, and -then declare that she could not drink it up.” “However delicious in -itself, it seemed to be so much gall and wormwood when applied to her -mouth.”[57] - -And if we look, not at seemingly childish fantasticalness in certain -mystical lives, but at the later state of shattered health and -apparently weakened nerve- and will-power which appears so frequently -to be the price paid for the definitely ecstatic type of religion, even -where it has been spiritually fruitful, our anxiety is readily renewed. -Look at the nine, possibly thirteen, last years of Catherine’s, or at -the last period of St. Margaret Mary’s life; note the similar cases -of SS. Maria Magdalena de Pazzi and Juliana Falconieri. And we have -a figure of all but pure suffering and passivity in St. Lidwina of -Schiedam (1380-1433), over which M. Huysmans has managed to be so -thoroughly morbid. - -(2) And if such lives strike us as too exceptional to be taken, with -whatever deductions, as a case in point, we can find a thoroughly fair -instance in the life of Father Isaac Hecker. Here we have a man of -extraordinary breadth, solidity, and activity of mind and character, -and whose mysticism is of the most sober and harmonious kind. Yet his -close companion and most faithful chronicler, Father Walter Elliott, -tells us: “From severe colds, acute headaches, and weakness of the -digestive organs, Father Hecker was at all times a frequent sufferer. -But, towards the end of the year 1871, his headaches became much more -painful, his appetite forsook him, and sleeplessness and excitability -of the nervous system were added to his other ailments. Remedies of -every kind were tried, but without permanent relief. By the summer -of 1872 he was wholly incapacitated.” “The physical sufferings of -those last sixteen” (out of the sixty-nine) “years of his life were -never such as to impair his mental soundness … though his organs of -speech were sometimes too slow for his thoughts.” His digestion and -nervous system had been impaired by excessive abstinence in early -manhood, and by excessive work in later life, “till at last the body -struck work altogether. During the sixteen years of his illness every -symptom of bodily illness was aggravated by the least attention to -community affairs or business matters, and also by interior trials,” -although he still managed, by heroic efforts, at times directly to -serve his congregation and to write some remarkable papers. Yet this -state continued, practically unbroken, up to the end, on December 22, -1888.[58] And although the various proximate causes, indicated by -Father Elliott, had no doubt been operative here, there can, in view of -the numerous similar cases, be no question that the most fundamental -of the reasons of this general condition of health was his strongly -mystical type and habit of mind and his corresponding psycho-physical -organization. - -(3) In view of those fantasticalnesses and of these exhaustions, we -cannot but ask whether these things are not a terrible price to pay -for such states? whether such states should not be disallowed by -all solid morality, and should not prompt men of sense to try and -stamp them out? And, above all, we seem placed once more, with added -anxiety, before the question whether what is liable to end in such sad -general incapacitation was not, from the first, directly productive -of, and indeed simply produced by, some merely subjective, simply -psycho-physical abnormality and morbidness? - -(4) Three points here call for consideration. Let us, for one thing, -never forget that physical health is not the true end of human life, -but only one of its most important means and conditions. The ideal man -is not, primarily and directly, a physical machine, perfect as such -in its development and function, to which would be tacked on, as a -sort of concomitant or means, the mental, moral, and spiritual life -and character. But the ideal man is precisely this latter life and -character, with the psycho-physical organism sustained and developed in -such, and only such, a degree, direction, and combination, as may make -it the best possible substratum, stimulus, instrument, material, and -expression for and of that spiritual personality.[59] Hence, the true -question here is not whether such a type of life as we are considering -exacts a serious physical tribute or not, but whether the specifically -human effects and fruits of that life are worth that cost. - -No one denies that mining, or warfare, or hospital work, both spiritual -and medical, involve grave risks to life, nor that the preparation -of many chemicals is directly and inevitably injurious to health. -Yet no one thinks of abolishing such occupations or of blaming those -who follow them, and rightly so; for instant death may and should be -risked, the slow but certain undermining of the physical health may be -laudably embarked on, if only the mind and character are not damaged, -and if the end to be attained is found to be necessary or seriously -helpful, and unattainable by other means. - -The simple fact, then, of frequent and subsequent, or even of universal -and concomitant ill-health in such mystical cases, or even the proof -of this ill-health being a direct consequence or necessary condition -of that mystical life, can but push back the debate, and simply raises -the question as to the serious value of that habit and activity. Only -a decision adverse to that serious value would constitute those facts -into a condemnation of that activity itself. - -And, next, it must be plain to any one endowed with an appreciable dose -of the mystical sense, and with a sufficiently large knowledge of human -nature and of religious apprehension in the past and present,--that, if -it is doubtless possible quite erroneously to treat all men as having -a considerable element of mysticism in them, and hence to strain and -spoil souls belonging to one of the other types: it is equally possible -to starve those that possess this element in an operative degree. -Atrophy is as truly a malady as plethora. - -And here the question is an individual one: would that particular -temperament and psycho-physical organism congenial to Sister Lukardis, -to Catherine Fiesca Adorna, to Marguerite Marie Alacocque, and to Isaac -Hecker, have--taking the whole existence and output together--produced -more useful work, and have apprehended and presented more of abiding -truth, had their ecstatic states or tendencies been, if possible, -absent or suppressed? Does not this type of apprehension, this, as -it were, incubation, harmonization, and vivifying of their otherwise -painfully fragmentary and heavy impressions, stand out,--in their -central, creative periods,--as the one thoroughly appropriate means and -form of their true self-development and self-expression, and of such -an apprehension and showing forth of spiritual truth as to them,--to -them and not to you and me,--was possible? And if we are bound to admit -that, even in such cases, ecstasy appears, psycho-physically, as a kind -of second state, and that these personalities find or regain their -fullest joy and deepest strength only in and from such a state; yet we -know too that such ecstasy is not, as in the trances of hysteria and -of other functional disorders, simply discontinuous from the ordinary, -primary state of such souls; and that,--again contrary to those -_maladif_ trances,--whenever the ecstasy answers to the tests insisted -upon by the great mystics, viz. a true and valuable ethico-spiritual -content and effect, it also, in the long run, leaves the very body -strengthened and improved. - -And if, after this, their productive period, some of these persons end -by losing their psycho-physical health, it is far from unreasonable -to suppose that the actual alternative to those ecstasies and this -break-up, would, _for them_, have been a lifelong dreary languor and -melancholy self-absorption, somewhat after the pattern of Catherine’s -last ten pre-conversion years. Thus for her, and doubtless for most of -the spiritually considerable ecstatics, life was, taken all in all, -indefinitely happier, richer, and more fruitful in religious truth and -holiness, with the help of those ecstatic states, than it would have -been if these states had been absent or could have been suppressed. - -And thirdly, here again, even from the point of view of psycho-physical -health and its protection, it is precisely the actual practice and, -as interpreted by it, the deepest sayings of the standard Christian -mystics which are being most powerfully confirmed,--although -necessarily by largely new reasons and with important modifications -in the analysis and application of their doctrine,--by all that we -have gained, during the last forty years, in definite knowledge of -the psycho-physical regions and functions of human nature, and, -during two centuries and more, in enlargement and precision of our -religious-historical outlook. - -If we consider the specific health-dangers of this way, we shall find, -I think, that their roots are ever two. These dangers, and with them -the probability of delusion or at least of spiritual barrenness, always -become actual, and often acute, the minute that we allow ourselves to -attach a primary and independent importance to the psycho-physical -form and means of these things, as against their spiritual-ethical -content, suggestions, and end; or that we take the whole man, or at -least the whole of the religious man, to consist of the specifically -mystical habits and life alone. Now the first of these dangers has -been ceaselessly exposed and fought by all the great ethical and -Christian mystics of the past, _e.g._ St. John of the Cross and St. -Teresa; and the latter has been ever enforced by the actual practice, -as social religionists, of these same mystics, even if and when some -of their sayings, or the logical drift of their speculative system, -left insufficient room or no intrinsic necessity and function for such -things. - -(5) And everything that has happened and is happening in the world -of psychological and philosophical research, in the world of -historico-critical investigation into the past history and modalities -of religion, and in the world of our own present religious experience -and requirements, has but brought to light fresh facts, forces, -and connections, in proof both of the right and irreplaceableness -of the Mystical element in life and religion, and of the reality -and constant presence of these its two dangers. For, as to these -dangers, we now know, with extraordinary clearness and certainty, how -necessary, constant and far-reaching is, on its phenomenal surface, -the auto-suggestive, mono-ideistic power and mechanism of the mind; -yet how easily, in some states, too much can be made of such vivid -apprehensions and quasi-sensible imagings of invisible reality,--things -admirable as means, ruinous as ends. And we also know, with an -astonishing universality of application, how great a multiplicity in -unity is necessarily presented by every concrete object and by every -mental act and emotional state of every sane human being throughout -every moment of his waking life; and how this unity is actually -constituted and measured by the multiplicity of the materials and -by the degree of their harmonization.--Hence, not the absence of -the Mystical element, but the presence both of it and of the other -constituents of religion, will turn out to be the safeguard of our -deepest life and of its sanity, a sanity which demands a balanced -fulness of the soul’s three fundamental pairs of activities: sensible -perception and picturing memory; reflection, speculative and analytic; -and emotion and volition, all issuing in interior and exterior acts, -and these latter, again, providing so much fresh material and occasions -for renewed action and for a growing unification in an increasing -variety, on and on. - -The metaphysical and faith questions, necessarily raised by the -phenomenal facts and mechanisms here considered, but which cannot -be answered at this level, will be discussed in a later chapter. -Here we can but once more point out, in conclusion, that no amount -of admitted or demonstrated auto-suggestion or mono-ideism in the -phenomenal reaches and mechanism of the mind decides, of itself, -anything whatsoever about, and still less against, the objective truth -and spiritual value of the ultimate causes, dominant ideas, and final -results of the process; nor as to whether and how far the whole great -movement is, at bottom, occasioned and directed by the Supreme Spirit, -God, working, in and through man, towards man’s apprehension and -manifestation of Himself.[60] - - - - -CHAPTER X - -THE MAIN LITERARY SOURCES OF CATHERINE’S CONCEPTIONS - - -INTRODUCTORY. - - -1. _The main literary sources of Catherine’s teaching are four._ - -The main literary sources of Catherine’s conceptions can be grouped -under four heads: the New Testament, Pauline and Joannine writings; -the Christian Neo-Platonist, Areopagite books; and the Franciscan, -Jacopone da Todi’s teachings. And here, as in all cases of such -partial dependence, we have to distinguish between the apparently -accidental occasions (her seemingly fortuitous acquaintance with these -particular writings), and the certainly necessary causes (the intrinsic -requirements of her own mind and soul, and its special reactions under, -and transformations of, these materials and stimulations). And during -this latter process this mind’s original trend itself undergoes, in its -turn, not only much development, but even some modification. She would -no doubt owe her close knowledge of the first two sets of writings to -the Augustinian Canonesses, (her sister Limbania amongst them,) and to -their Augustinian-Pauline tradition; her acquaintance with the third -set, to her Dominican cousin; and her intimacy with the fourth, to the -Franciscans of the Hospital. Yet only her own spiritual affinity for -similar religious states and ideals, and her already at least partial -experience of them, could ever have made these writings to her what -they actually became: direct stimulations, indeed considerable elements -and often curiously vivid expressions, of her own immediate interior -life. - - -2. _Plan of the following study of these sources._ - -I shall, in this chapter, first try to draw out those characteristics -of each group, which were either specially accepted or transformed, -neglected or supplanted by her, and carefully to note the particular -nature of these her reactions and refashionings. And I shall end up -by a short account of what she and all four sets have got in common, -and of what she has brought, as a gift of her own, to that common -stock which had given her so much. And since her distinct and direct -use of the Pauline and Joannine writings is quite certain, whereas -all her knowledge of Neo-Platonism seems to have been mediated by -pseudo-Dionysius alone, and all her Franciscanism appears, as far as -literary sources go, to take its rise from Jacopone, I shall give four -divisions to her chief literary sources, and a fifth section to the -stream common to them all.[61] - - -I. THE PAULINE WRITINGS: THE TWO SOURCES OF THEIR PRE-CONVERSION -ASSUMPTIONS; CATHERINE’S PREPONDERANT ATTITUDE TOWARDS EACH POSITION. - -It is well that the chronological order requires us to begin with -St. Paul, for he is probably, if not the most extensive, yet the -most intense of all these influences upon Catherine’s mind. I here -take the points of his experience and teaching which thus concern -us in the probable order of their development in the Apostle’s own -consciousness,--his pre-conversion assumptions and positions, first -and the convictions gained at and after his conversion or clarified -last;[62] and under each heading I shall group together, once for all, -the chief reactions of Catherine’s religious consciousness. - -Now those Pauline pre-conversion assumptions and positions come from -two chief sources--Palestinian, Rabbinical Judaism, (for he was the -disciple of the Pharisee, Gamaliel, at Jerusalem), and a Hellenistic -religiousness closely akin to, though not derived from, Philo, (for he -had been born in the intensely Hellenistic Cilician city Tarsus, at -that time a most important seat of Greek learning in general and of -the Stoic philosophy in particular). And we shall find that Catherine -appropriates especially this, his Hellenistic element; indeed, that at -times she sympathizes rather with the still more intensely Hellenistic -attitude exemplified by Philo, than with the limitations introduced by -St. Paul. - - -1. _St. Paul’s Anthropology in general._ - -If we take the Pauline Anthropology first, we at once come upon a -profoundly dualistic attitude. - -(1) There is, in general, “the outer” and “the inner” man, 2 Cor. iv, -16; and the latter is not the exclusive privilege of the redeemed,--the -contrast is that between the merely natural individual and the moral -personality. And this contrast, foreign to the ancient Hebrews, is -first worked out, with clear consciousness, by Plato, who, _e.g._, -in his _Banquet_, causes one of the characters to say: “Socrates has -thrown this Silenus-like form around himself externally, as in the case -of those Silenus-statues which enclose a statuette of Apollo; but, when -he is opened, how full is he found to be of temperance within”; and who -treats this contrast as typical of the dualism inherent to all human -life here on earth.[63]--This contrast exists throughout Catherine’s -teaching as regards the thing itself, although her terms are different. -She has, for reasons which will appear presently, no one constant term -for “the inner man,” but “the outer man” is continuously styled “la -umanità.” - -(2) The “outer man” consists for St. Paul of the body’s earthly -material, “the flesh”; and of the animating principle of the flesh, -“the psyche,” which is inseparably connected with that flesh, and -which dies for good and all at the death of the latter; whereas the -form of “the body” is capable of resuscitation, and is then filled out -by a finer material, “glory.”[64]--Here Catherine has no precise or -constant word for the “psyche”; her “umanità” generally stands for the -“psyche” _plus_ body and flesh, all in one; and her “anima” practically -always means part or the whole of “the inner man,” and mostly stands -for “mind.” And there is no occasion for her to reflect upon any -distinction between the form and the matter of the body, since she -nowhere directly busies herself with the resurrection. - -The “inner man” consists for St. Paul in the Mind, the Heart, and the -Conscience. The Mind (_noûs_), corresponding roughly to our theoretical -and practical Reason, has a certain tendency towards God: “The -invisible things of God are seen by the mind in the works of creation,” -Rom. i, 20; and there is “a law of the mind” which is fought by “the -law of sin,” Rom. vii, 23; and this, although there is also a “mind -of the flesh,” Col. ii, 18; “a reprobate mind,” Rom. i, 28; and a -“renovation of the mind,” Rom. xii, 2.--Catherine clings throughout -most closely to the Pauline use of the term, as far as that use is -favourable: note how she perceives invisible things “colla mente mia.” - -The Heart is even more accessible to the divine influence,--at least, -it is to it that God gives “the first fruits of the Spirit” and “the -Spirit of His Son, crying Abba, Father,” Gal. iv, 6; 2 Cor. i, 22. As -an organ of immediate perception it is so parallel to the Mind, that we -can hear of “eyes of the heart”; yet it is also the seat of feeling, -of will, and of moral consciousness, Eph. i, 18; 2 Cor. ii, 4; 1 Cor. -iv, 5; Rom. ii, 15. It can stand for the inner life generally; or, -like the Mind, it can become darkened and impenitent; whilst again, -over the heart God’s love is poured out, God’s peace keeps guard, and -we believe with the heart, 1 Cor. xiv, 25; Rom. i, 21; ii, 5; v, 5; -Phil. iv, 7; Rom. x, 9.--All this again, as far as it is favourable, is -closely followed by Catherine; indeed the persistence with which she -comes back to certain effects wrought upon her heart by the Spirit, -Christ,--effects which some of her followers readily interpreted as so -many physical miracles,--was no doubt occasioned or stimulated by 2 -Cor. iii, 3, “Be ye an epistle of Christ, written by the Spirit of the -living God … upon the fleshly tables of the heart.” - -And Conscience, “Syneidēsis”--that late Greek word introduced -by St. Paul as a technical term into the Christian -vocabulary--includes our “conscience,” but is as comprehensive as -our “consciousness.”--Catherine practically never uses the term: no -doubt because, in the narrower of the two senses which had become -the ordinary one, it was too predominantly ethical to satisfy her -overwhelmingly religious preoccupations. - -(3) Now, with regard to this whole dualism of the “outer” and the -“inner man,” its application to the resurrection of the body in -St. Paul and in St. Catherine shall occupy us in connection with -her Eschatology; here I would but indicate the two Pauline moods -or attitudes towards the earthly body, and Catherine’s continuous -reproduction of but one of these. For his magnificent conception of the -Christian society, in which each person, by a different specific gift -and duty, co-operates towards the production of an organic whole, a -whole which in return develops and dignifies those its constituents, -is worked out by means of the image of the human earthly body, in -which each member is a necessary part and constituent of the complete -organism, which is greater than, and which gives full dignity to, -each and all these its factors (1 Cor. xii). And he thus, in his most -deliberate and systematic mood, shows very clearly how deeply he has -realized the dignity of the human body, as the instrument both for the -development of the soul itself and for the work of that soul in and -upon the visible world. - -But in his other mood, which remains secondary and sporadic throughout -his writings, his attitude is acutely dualistic. His one direct -expression of it occurs in 2 Cor. v, 1-4: “For we know that, if our -earthly house of this tent be dissolved, we have a building of God, a -house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this also we -groan, desiring to be clothed upon with our habitation that is from -heaven. We who are in this tabernacle do groan, being burthened.” Now -this passage is undoubtedly modelled by St. Paul upon the Book of -Wisdom, ix, 15: “For the corruptible body is a load upon the soul, and -the earthly habitation presseth down the mind that museth upon many -things.” And this latter saying again is as certainly formed upon Plato -(_Phaedo_, 81 _c_): “It behoves us to think of the body as oppressive -and heavy and earthlike and visible. And hence the soul, being of -such a nature as we have seen, when possessing such a body, is both -burthened and dragged down again into the visible world.”[65] And it is -this conception of the Hellenic Athenian Plato (about 380 B.C.) which, -passing through the Hellenistic Alexandrian Jewish Wisdom-writer (80 -B.C.?) and then through the Hellenistically tinctured ex-Rabbi, Paul -of Tarsus (52 A.D.), still powerfully, indeed all but continuously, -influences the mind of the Genoese Christian Catherine, especially -during the years from A.D. 1496 to 1510. - -Catherine’s still more pessimistic figure of the body as a prison-house -and furnace of purification for the soul, is no doubt the resultant of -suggestions received, probably in part through intermediary literature, -from the following three passages:--(1) Plato, in his _Cratylus_ -(400 B.C.), makes Socrates say: “Some declare that the body (_sōma_) -is the grave (_sēma_) of the soul, as she finds herself at present. -The Orphite poets seem to have invented the appellation: they held -that the soul is thus paying the penalty of sin, and that the body is -an enclosure which may be likened to a prison, in which the soul is -enclosed until the penalty is paid.” (2) St. Matt. v, 25, 26, gives -Our Lord’s words: “Be thou reconciled with thine adversary whilst he -is still with thee on the way … lest the Judge hand thee over to the -prison-warder, and thou be cast into prison.… Thou shalt not go forth -thence, until thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.” And (3) St. -Paul declares, 1 Cor. iii, 15: “Every man’s work shall be tested by -fire. If a man’s work be burnt, he shall suffer loss; yet he himself -shall be saved, yet so as by fire.” These three passages combined will -readily suggest, to a soul thirsting for purification and possessed of -an extremely sensitive psycho-physical organization with its attendant -liability to fever heats, the picture of the body as a flame-full -prison-house,--a purgatory of the soul. - - -2. _St. Paul’s conception of “Spirit.”_ - -A very difficult complication and varying element is introduced into -St. Paul’s Anthropology by the term into which he has poured all -that is most original, deepest, most deliberate and abiding in his -teaching,--the Spirit, “Pneuma.” For somewhat as he uses the term -“Sarx,” the flesh, both in its loose popular signification of “mankind -in general”; and in a precise, technical sense of “the matter which -composes the earthly body”; so also he has, occasionally, a loose -popular use of the term “spirit,” when it figures as but a fourth -parallel to “mind,” “heart,” and “conscience”; and, usually, a very -strict and technical use of it, when it designates the Spirit, God -Himself. - -(1) Now it is precisely in the latter case that his doctrine attains -its fullest depth and its greatest difficulty. For here the Spirit, -the Pneuma, is, strictly speaking, only one--the Spirit of God, God -Himself, in His action either outside or inside the human mind, Noûs. -And in such passages of St. Paul, where man seems to possess a distinct -pneuma of his own, by far the greater number only apparently contradict -this doctrine. For in some, so in 1 Cor. ii, the context is dominated -by a comparison between the divine and the human consciousness, so -that, in v. 11, man’s Noûs is designated Pneuma, and in v. 16, and -Rom. xi, 34, the Lord’s Pneuma is called His Noûs. And the “spirit of -the world” contrasted here, in v. 11, with the “Spirit of God,” is -a still further deliberate laxity of expression, similar to that of -Satan as “the God of this world,” 2 Cor. iv, 4. In other passages,--so -Rom. viii, 16; i, 9; viii, 10, and even in 1 Cor. v, 5 (the “spirit” -of the incestuous Corinthian which is to be saved),--we seem to have -“spirit” either as the mind in so far as the object of the Spirit’s -communications, or as the mind transformed by the Spirit’s influence. -And if we can hear of a “defilement of the spirit,” 2 Cor. vii, 1, we -are also told that we can forget the fact of the body being the temple -of the holy Spirit, 1 Cor. vi, 19; and that this temple’s profanation -“grieves the holy Spirit,” Eph. iv, 30. Very few, sporadic, and short -passages remain in which “the spirit of man” cannot clearly be shown to -have a deliberately derivative sense. - -Catherine, in this great matter, completely follows St. Paul. For she -too has loosely-knit moods and passages, in which “spirito” appears -as a natural endowment of her own, parallel to, or identical with, -the “mente.” But when speaking strictly, and in her intense moods, -she means by “spirito,” the Spirit, Christ, Love, God, a Power which, -though in its nature profoundly distinct and different from her entire -self-seeking self, can and does come to dwell within, and to supplant, -this self. Indeed her highly characteristic saying, “my Me is God,” -with her own explanations of it, expresses, if pressed, even more than -this. In these moods, the term “mente” is usually absent, just as in -St. Paul. - -Now in his formally doctrinal _Loci_, St. Paul defines the Divine -Pneuma and the human sarx, not merely as ontologically contrary -substances, but as keenly conflicting, ethically contradictory -principles. An anti-spiritual power, lust, possesses the flesh and the -whole outer man, whilst, in an indefinitely higher degree and manner, -the Spirit, which finds an echo in the mind, the inner man, is a -spontaneous, counter-working force; and these two energies fight out -the battle in man, and for his complete domination, Rom. vi, 12-14; -vii, 22, 23; viii, 4-13. And this dualistic conception is in close -affinity to all that was noblest in the Hellenistic world of St. Paul’s -own day; but is in marked contrast to the pre-exilic, specifically -Jewish Old Testament view, where we have but the contrast between -the visible and transitory, and the Invisible and Eternal; and the -consciousness of the weakness and fallibility of “flesh and blood.” And -this latter is the temper of mind that dominates the Synoptic Gospels: -“The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak”; and “Father, -forgive them, for they know not what they do,” are here the divinely -serene and infinitely fruitful leading notes.--And Catherine, on this -point, is habitually on the Synoptist side: man is, for her, far more -weak and ignorant than forcibly and deliberately wicked. Yet her -detailed intensity towards the successive cloaks of self-love is still, -as it were, a shadow and echo of the fierce, and far more massive, -flesh-and-spirit struggle in St. Paul. - - -3. _The Angry and the Loving God._ - -And, as against the intense wickedness of man, we find in St. Paul an -emphatic insistence--although this is directly derived from the Old -Testament and Rabbinical tradition--upon the anger and indignation -of God, Rom. ii, 8, and frequently.--Here Catherine is in explicit -contrast with him, in so far as the anger would be held to stand for -an emotion not proceeding from love and not ameliorative in its aim -and operation. This attitude sprang no doubt, in part, from the strong -influence upon her of the Dionysian teaching concerning the negative -character of evil; possibly still more from her continuous pondering -of the text, “As a father hath compassion upon his children, so hath -the Lord compassion on them that fear Him; for He knoweth our frame, He -remembereth that we are dust,” Ps. ciii, 13, 14,--where she dwells upon -the fact that we are all His children rather than upon the fact that -we do not all fear Him; but certainly, most of all, from her habitual -dwelling upon the other side of St. Paul’s teaching, that concerning -the Love of God. - -Now the depth and glow of Paul’s faith and love goes clearly back to -his conversion, an event which colours and influences all his feeling -and teaching for some thirty-four years, up to the end. And similarly -Catherine’s conversion-experience has been found by us to determine the -sequence and all the chief points of her Purgatorial teaching, some -thirty-seven years after that supreme event. - -Already Philo had, under Platonic influence, believed in an Ideal -Man, a Heavenly Man; had identified him with the Logos, the Word -or Wisdom of God; and had held him to be in some way ethereal and -luminous,--never arriving at either a definitely personal or a simply -impersonal conception of this at one time intermediate Being, at -another time this supreme attribute of God. St. Paul, under the -profound impression of the Historic Christ and the great experience -on the road to Damascus, perceives the Risen, Heavenly Jesus as -possessed of a luminous, ethereal body, a body of “glory,” Acts xxii, -11. And this Christ is, for St. Paul, identical with “the Spirit”: -“the Lord is the Spirit,” 2 Cor. iii, 17; and “to be in Christ” and -“Christ is in us” are parallel terms to those of “to be in the Spirit” -and “the Spirit is within us” respectively. In all four cases we get -Christ or the Spirit conceived as an element, as it were an ocean of -ethereal light, in which souls are plunged and which penetrates them. -In Catherine we have, at her conversion, this same perception and -conception of Spirit as an ethereal light, and of Christ as Spirit; -and up to the end she more and more appears to herself to bathe, to be -submerged in, an ocean of light, which, at the same time, fills her -within and penetrates her through and through. - -But again, and specially since his conversion, St. Paul thinks of God -as loving, as Love, and this conception henceforth largely supplants -the Old Testament conception of the angry God. This loving God is -chiefly manifested through the loving Christ: indeed the love of Christ -and the love of God are the same thing. And this Christ-Love dwells -within us.[66] And Catherine, since her mind has perceived Love to be -the central character of God, and has adopted fire as love’s fullest -image, cannot but hold,--God and Love and Christ and Spirit being all -one and the same thing,--that Christ-Spirit-Fire is in her and she -in It. The yellow light-image, which all but alone typifies God’s -friendliness in the Bible, is thus turned into a red fire-image. And -yet this latter in so far retains with Catherine something of its older -connotation of anger, that the Fire and Heat appear in her teaching -more as symbols of the suffering caused by the opposition of man’s -at least partial impurity to the Spirit, Christ, Love, God, and of -the pain attendant upon that Spirit’s action, even where it can still -purify; whereas the Light and Illumination mostly express the peaceful -penetration of man’s spirit by God’s Spirit, and the blissful gain -accruing from such penetration. - - -4. _The Risen Christ and the Heavenly Adam._ - -St. Paul dwells continuously upon the post-earthly, the Risen Christ, -and upon Him in His identity with the pre-earthly, the Heavenly Man: -so that the historical Jesus tends to become, all but for the final -acts in the Supper-room and upon the Cross, a transitory episode;--a -super-earthly biography all but supplants the earthly one, since His -death and resurrection and their immediate contexts are all but the -only two events dwelt upon, and form but the two constituents of one -inseparable whole.--Here Catherine is deeply Pauline in her striking -non-occupation with the details of the earthly life (the scene -with the Woman at the Well being the single exception), and in her -continuous insistence upon Christ as the life-giving Spirit. Indeed, -even the death is strangely absent. There is but the one doubtful -contrary instance, in any case a quite early and sporadic one, of the -Vision of the Bleeding Christ. The fact is that, in her teaching, -the self-donation of God in general, in His mysterious love for each -individual soul, and of Christ in particular, in His Eucharistic -presence as our daily food, take all their special depth of tenderness -from her vivid realization of the whole teaching, temper, life, and -death of Jesus Christ; and that teaching derives its profundity of -feeling only from all this latter complexus of facts and convictions. - - -5. _Reconciliation, Justification, Sanctification._ - -(1) St. Paul has two lines of thought concerning Reconciliation. In -the objective, juridical, more Judaic conception, the attention is -concentrated on the one moment of Christ’s death, and the consequences -appear as though instantaneous and automatic; in the other, the -subjective, ethical, more Hellenistic conception, the attention -is spread over the whole action of the Christ’s incarnational -self-humiliation, and the consequences are realized only if and when we -strive to imitate Him,--they are a voluntary and continuous process. -Catherine’s fundamental conversion-experience and all her later -teachings attach her Reconciliation to the entire act of ceaseless -Divine “ecstasy,” self-humiliation, and redemptive immanence in Man, -of which the whole earthly life and death of Christ are the centre -and culmination; but though the human soul’s corresponding action is -conceived as continuous, once it has begun, she loves to dwell upon -this whole action as itself the gift of God and the consequence of His -prevenient act. - -(2) As to Justification, we have again, in St. Paul, a preponderatingly -Jewish juridical conception of adoption, in which a purely vicarious -justice and imputed righteousness seem to be taught; and an ethical -conception of immanent justice, based on his own experience and -expressed by means of Hellenistic forms, according to which “the -love of God is poured out in our hearts,” Rom. v, 5. And he often -insists strenuously upon excluding every human merit from the moment -and act of justification, insisting upon its being a “free gift” of -God.--Catherine absorbs herself in the second, ethical conception, -and certainly understands this love of God as primarily God’s, the -Spirit’s, Christ’s love, as Love Itself poured out in our hearts; and -she often breaks out into angry protests against the very suggestion of -any act, or part of an act, dear to God, proceeding from her natural or -separate self, indeed, if we press her expressions, from herself at all. - -(3) As to Sanctification, St. Paul has three couples of contrasted -conceptions. The first couple conceives the Spirit, either Old -Testament-wise, as manifesting and accrediting Itself in extraordinary, -sudden, sporadic, miraculous gifts and doings--_e.g._ in ecstatic -speaking with tongues; or,--and this is the more frequent and the -decisive conception,--as an abiding, equable penetration and spiritual -reformation of its recipient. Here the faithful “live and walk in the -spirit,” are “driven by the spirit,” “serve God in the spirit,” are -“temples of the Spirit,” Gal. v, 25; Rom. viii, 14; vii, 6; 1 Cor. -vi, 19: the Spirit has become the creative source of a supernatural -character-building.[67]--Here Catherine, in contrast to most of her -friends, who are wedded to the first view, is strongly attached to the -second view, perhaps the deepest of St. Paul’s conceptions. - -The second couple conceives Sanctification either juridically, and -moves dramatically from act to act,--the Sacrifice on the Cross and -the Resurrection of the Son of God, the sentence of Justification and -the Adoption as sons of God; or ethically, and presupposes everywhere -continuous processes,--beginning with the reception of the Spirit, and -ending with “the Lord of the Spirit.”--Here Catherine has curiously -little of the dramatic and prominently personal conception: only in -the imperfect soul’s acutely painful moment, of standing before and -seeing God immediately after death, do we get one link in this chain, -in a somewhat modified form. For the rest, the ethical and continuous -conception is present practically throughout her teaching, but in a -curious, apparently paradoxical form, to be noticed in a minute. - -And the third couple either treats Sanctification as, at each moment of -its actual presence, practically infallible and complete: “We who have -died to sin, how shall we further live in it?” “Freed from sin, ye have -become the servants of Justice”; “now we are loosed from the law of -death, so as to serve in newness of spirit”; “those who are according -to the flesh, mind the things of the flesh; but they that are according -to the Spirit, mind the things of the Spirit,” Rom. vi, 2, 18; vii, 6; -viii, 5. Or it considers Sanctification as only approximately complete, -so long as man has to live here below, not only in the Spirit, Rom. -viii, 9, but also in the flesh, Gal. ii, 20. The faithful have indeed -crucified the flesh once for all, Gal. v, 24: yet they have continually -to mortify their members anew, Col. iii, 5, and by the Spirit to -destroy the works of the flesh, Rom. viii, 13. The “fear of the Lord,” -“of God,” does not cease to be a motive for the sanctified, 2 Cor. v, -11; vii, 1. To “walk in the Spirit,” “in the light,” has to be insisted -on (1 Thess. v, 4-8; Rom. xiii, 11-14; 2 Cor. vi, 14), as long as the -eternal day has not yet arisen for us. And even in Romans, chapter -vi, we find admonitions, vv. 12, 13, 19, which, if we press the other -conception, are quite superfluous.[68] - -And here Catherine, in her intense sympathy with each of these -contrasted conceptions, offers us a combination of both in a state -of unstable equilibrium and delicate tension. I take it that it is -not her immensely impulsive and impatient temperament, nor survivals -of the Old Testament idea as to instantaneousness being the special -characteristic of divine action, but her deep and noble sense of the -givenness and pure grace of religion, and of God’s omnipotence being, -if possible, exceeded only by His overflowing, self-communicative -love, which chiefly determine her curious presentation and emotional -experience of spiritual growth and life as a movement composed of -sudden shiftings upwards, with long, apparently complete pauses in -between. For here this form (of so many instants, of which each is -complete in itself) stands for her as the least inadequate symbol, as a -kind of shattered mirror, not of time at all, but of eternity; whilst -the succession and difference between these instants indicates a growth -in the apprehending soul, which has, in reality, been proceeding also -in between these instants and not only during them. And this remarkable -scheme presents her conviction that, in principle, the work of the -all-powerful, all-loving Spirit cannot, of itself, be other than final -and complete, and yet that, as a matter of fact, it never is so, in -weak, self-deceptive, and variously resisting man, but ever turns -out to require a fresh and deeper application. And this succession -of sudden jerks onwards and upwards, after long, apparently complete -pauses between them, gives to her fundamentally ethical and continuous -conception something of the look of the forensic, dramatic series, -with its separate acts,--a series which would otherwise be all but -unrepresented in her picture of the soul’s life on this side of death -and of its life (immediately after its vivid sight of God and itself, -and its act of free-election) in the Beyond. - - -6. _Pauline Social Ethics._ - -As to Social Ethics, St. Paul’s worldward movement is strongly -represented in Catherine’s teaching. Her great sayings as to God being -servable not only in the married state, but in a camp of (mercenary) -soldiers; and as to her determination violently to appropriate the -monk’s cowl, should this his state be necessary to the attainment of -the highest love of God, are full of the tone of Rom. xiv, 14, 20, -“nothing is common in itself, but to him who considereth anything to be -common, to him it is common,”--“all things are clean”; and of 1 Cor. -x, 26, 28, “the earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof.” And her -sense of her soul’s positive relation to nature, _e.g._ trees, was no -doubt in part awakened by that striking passage, Rom. viii, 19, “the -expectation of the creature awaiteth the revelation of the sons of God; -for the creature was made subject to vanity not willingly.” - -On the other hand, it would be impossible confidently to identify -her own attitude concerning marriage with that of St. Paul, since, -as we know, her peculiar health and her unhappiness with Giuliano -make it impossible to speak here with any certainty of the mature -woman’s deliberate judgment concerning continence and marriage. Yet -her impulsive protestation, in the scene with the monk, against any -idea of being debarred by her state from as perfect a love of God as -his,--whilst, of course, not in contradiction with the Pauline and -generally Catholic positions in the matter, seems to imply an emotional -attitude somewhat different from that of some of the Apostle’s -sayings. Indeed, in her whole general and unconscious position as to -how a woman should hold herself in religious things it is interesting -to note the absence of all influence from those Pauline sayings which, -herein like Philo (and indeed the whole ancient world) treat man alone -as “the (direct) image and glory (reflex) of God,” and the woman as but -“the glory (reflex) of the man,” 1 Cor. xi, 7. Everywhere she appears -full, on the contrary, of St. Paul’s other (more characteristic and -deliberate) strain, according to which, as there is “neither Jew nor -Gentile, bond nor free” before God, so “neither is the man without the -woman, nor the woman without the man, in the Lord,” 1 Cor. xi, 11.--And -in social matters generally, Catherine’s convert life and practice -shows, in the active mortifications of its first penitential part, in -her persistent great aloofness from all things of sense as regards -her own gratification, and in the ecstasies and love of solitude -which marked the zenith of her power, a close sympathy with, and no -doubt in part a direct imitation of, St. Paul’s Arabian retirement, -chastisement of his body, and lonely concentration upon rapt communion -with God. Yet she as strongly exemplifies St. Paul’s other, the -outward movement, the love-impelled, whole-hearted service of the -poorest, world-forgotten, sick and sorrowing brethren. And the whole -resultant rhythmic life has got such fine spontaneity, emotional and -efficacious fulness, and expansive joy about it, as to suggest at once -those unfading teachings of St. Paul which had so largely occasioned -it,--those hymns in praise of that love “which minds not high things -but consenteth to the humble,” Rom. xii, 16; “becomes all things to -all men,” 1 Cor. ix, 22; “weeps with those that weep and rejoices with -those that rejoice,” _ibid._ xii, 26; and which, as the twin love of -God and man, is not only the chief member of the central ethical triad, -but, already here below, itself becomes the subject which exercises the -other two virtues, for it is “love” that “believeth all things, hopeth -all things,” even before that eternity in which love alone will never -vanish away, _ibid._ xiii, 7, 8. Here Catherine with Paul triumphs -completely over time: their actions and teaching are as completely -fresh now, after well-nigh nineteen and four centuries, as when they -first experienced, willed, and uttered them. - - -7. _Sacramental Teachings._ - -In Sacramental matters it is interesting to note St. Paul’s close -correlation of Baptism and the Holy Eucharist: “All (our fathers) were -baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and all ate the same -spiritual food and all drank the same spiritual drink,” 1 Cor. x, 3; -“in one Spirit we have all been baptized into one body, and we have all -been made to drink one Spirit,” Christ, His blood, _ibid._ xii, 13. -And Catherine is influenced by these passages, when she represents the -soul as hungering for, and drowning itself in, the ocean of spiritual -sustenance which is Love, Christ, God: but she attaches the similes, -which are distributed by St. Paul among the two Rites, to the Holy -Eucharist alone. Baptism had been a grown man’s deliberate act in -Paul’s case,--an act immediately subsequent to, and directly expressive -of, his conversion, the culminating experience of his life; and, as a -great Church organizer, he could not but dwell with an equal insistence -upon the two chief Sacraments. - -Catherine had received baptism as an unconscious infant, and the event -lay far back in that pre-conversion time, which was all but completely -ousted from her memory by the great experience of some twenty-five -years later. And in the latter experience it was (more or less from the -first and soon all but exclusively) the sense of a divine encirclement -and sustenance, of an addition of love, rather than a consciousness of -the subtraction of sins or of a divine purification, that possessed -her. In her late, though profoundly characteristic Purgatorial -teaching, the soul again plunges into an ocean; but now, since the soul -is rather defiled than hungry, and wills rather to be purified than -to be fed, this plunge is indeed a kind of Baptism by Immersion. Yet -we have no more the symbol of water, for the long state and effects -to which that swift act leads, but we have, instead, fire and light, -and, in one place, once again bread and the hunger for bread. And -this is no doubt because, in these Purgatorial picturings, it is her -conversion-experience of love under the symbols of light and of fire, -and her forty years of daily hungering for the Holy Eucharist and Love -Incarnate, which furnish the emotional colours and the intellectual -outlines. - - -8. _Eschatological matters._ - -In Eschatological matters the main points of contact and of contrast -appear to be four; and three of the differences are occasioned by St. -Paul’s preoccupation with Christ’s Second Coming, with the Resurrection -of the body, and with the General Judgment, mostly as three events in -close temporal correlation, and likely to occur soon; whilst Catherine -abstracts entirely from all three. - -(1) Thus St. Paul is naturally busy with the question as to the Time -when he shall be with Christ. In 1 Thess. iv, 15, he speaks of “we -who are now living, who have been left for the coming of the Lord,” -_i.e._ he expects this event during his own lifetime; whilst in Phil. -i, 23, he “desires to be dissolved and to be with Christ,” _i.e._ he -has ceased confidently to expect this coming before his own death. -But Catherine dwells exclusively, with this latter conception, upon -the moment of death, as that when the soul shall see, and be finally -confirmed in its union with, Love, Christ, God; for into her earthly -lifetime Love, Christ, God, can and do come, but invisibly, and she may -still lose full union with them for ever. - -(2) As to the Place, it is notoriously obscure whether St. Paul thinks -of it, as do the Old Testament and the Apocalypse, as the renovated -earth, or as the sky, or as the intervening space. The risen faithful -who “shall be caught in the clouds to meet Christ,” 1 Thess. iv, 16, -seem clearly to be meeting Him, in mid-air, as He descends upon earth; -and “Jerusalem above,” Gal. iv, 26, may well, as in Apoc. iii, 12; xxi, -2, be conceived as destined to come down upon earth. But Catherine, -though she constantly talks of Heaven, Purgatory, Hell as “places,” -makes it plain that such “places” are for her but vivid symbols for -states of soul. God Himself repeatedly appears in her sayings as “the -soul’s place”; and it is this “place,” the soul’s true spiritual -birthplace and home, which, ever identical and bliss-conferring in -itself, is variously experienced by the soul, in exact accordance -with its dispositions,--as that profoundly painful, or that joyfully -distressing, or that supremely blissful “place” which respectively we -call Hell, and Purgatory, and Heaven. - -(3) As to the Body, we have already noted St. Paul’s doctrine, -intermediate between the Palestinian and Alexandrian Jewish teaching, -that it will rise indeed, but composed henceforth of “glory” and -no more of “flesh.” It is this his requirement of a body, however -spiritual, which underlies his anxiety to be “found clothed, not -naked,” at and after death, 2 Cor. v, 3. Indeed, in this whole passage, -v, 1-4, “our earthly house of this habitation,” and “a building of God -not made with hands,” no doubt mean, respectively, the present body -of flesh and the future body of glory; just as the various, highly -complex, conceptions of “clothed,” “unclothed,” “clothed upon,” refer -to the different conditions of the soul with a body of flesh, without a -body at all, and with a body of glory.--Now this passage, owing to its -extreme complication and abstruseness of doctrine, has come down to us -in texts and versions of every conceivable form; and this uncertainty -has helped Catherine towards her very free utilization of it. For she -not only, as ever, simply ignores all questions of a risen body, and -transfers the concept of a luminous ethereal substance from the body to -the soul itself, and refers the “nakedness,” “unclothing,” “clothing,” -and “clothing upon” to conditions obtaining, not between the soul and -the body, but between the soul and God; but she also, in most cases, -takes the nakedness as the desirable state, since typical of the soul’s -faithful self-exposure to the all-purifying rays of God’s light and -fire, and interprets the “unclothing” as the penitential stripping from -off itself of those pretences and corrupt incrustations which prevent -God’s blissful action upon it. - -(4) And, finally, as to the Judgment, we have in St. Paul a double -current,--the inherited Judaistic conception of a forensic retribution; -Christ, the divine Judge, externally applying such and such statutory -rewards and punishments to such and such good and evil deeds,--so -in Rom. ii, 6-10; and the experimental conception, helped on to -articulation by Hellenistic influences, of the bodily resurrection and -man’s whole final destiny as the necessary resultant and manifestation -of an internal process, the presence of the Spirit and of the power -of God,--so in the later parts of Romans, in Gal. vi, 8, and in 1 -Cor. vi, 14; 2 Cor. xiii, 4.--Among Catherine’s sayings also we -find some passages--but these the less characteristic and mostly -of doubtful authenticity,--where reward and punishment, indeed the -three “places” themselves, appear as so many separate institutions -of God, which get externally applied to certain good and evil deeds. -But these are completely overshadowed in number, sure authenticity, -emotional intensity, and organic connection with her other teachings, -by sayings of the second type, where the soul’s fate is but the -necessary consequence of its own deliberate choice and gradually -formed dispositions, the result, inseparable since the first from -its self-identification with this or that of the various possible -will-attitudes towards God. - -(5) We can then sum up the main points of contact and of difference -between Paul and Catherine, by saying that, in both cases, everything -leads up to, or looks back upon, a great culminating, directly -personal experience of shortest clock-time duration, whence all -their doctrine, wherever emphatic, is but an attempt to articulate -and universalize this original experience; and that if in Paul there -remains more of explicit occupation with the last great events of -the earthly life of Jesus, yet in both there is the same insistence -upon the life-giving Spirit, the eternal Christ, manifesting His -inexhaustible power in the transformation of souls, on and on, here and -now, into the likeness of Himself. - - -II. THE JOANNINE WRITINGS. - -On moving now from the Pauline to the Joannine writings, we shall -find that Catherine’s obligations to these latter are but rarely as -deep, yet that they cover a wider reach of ideas and images. I take -this fresh source of influence under the double heading of the general -relations of the Joannine teaching to other, previous or contemporary, -conceptions; and of this same teaching considered in itself.[69] - - -1. _Joannine teaching contrasted with other systems._ - -(1) As to the general relations towards other positions, we get here, -towards Judaism and Paganism, an emphatic insistence upon the novelty -and independence of Christianity as regards not only Paganism, but even -the previous Judaism, “The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth -came by Jesus Christ,” i, 17; and upon the Logos, Christ, as “the Light -that enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world,” “unto his -own,” _i.e._ men in general; for this Light “was in the world, and the -world was made by Him,” i, 9-11. There is thus a divinely-implanted, -innate tendency towards this light, extant in man prior to the explicit -act of faith, and operative outside of the Christian body: “Every -man who is from the truth, heareth my voice,” xviii, 37: “he who -doeth the truth, cometh to the light,” in, 21: “begotten,” as he is, -not of man but “of God,” i, 13; 1 John iii, 9. And thus Samaritans, -Greeks, and Heathens act and speak in the best dispositions, iv, 42; -xii, 20-24; x, 16; whilst such terms and sayings as “the Saviour of -the World,” “God so loved the world,” iv, 42, iii, 16, are the most -universalistic declarations to be found in the New Testament.--And -this current dominates the whole of Catherine’s temper and teaching: -this certainty as to the innate affinity of every human soul to the -Light, Love, Christ, God, gives a tone of exultation to the musings -of this otherwise melancholy woman. Whereas the Joannine passages of -a contrasting exclusiveness and even fierceness of tone, such as “all -they that came before Me, were thieves and robbers,” x, 8; “ye are -from your father, the devil,” viii, 44; “ye shall die in your sins,” -viii, 21; “your sin remains,” ix, 41, are without any parallel among -Catherine’s sayings. Indeed it is plain that Catherine, whilst as sure -as the Evangelist that all man’s goodness comes from God, nowhere, -except in her own case, finds man’s evil to be diabolic in character. - -(2) With regard to Paulinism, the Joannine writings give us a -continuation and extension of the representation of the soul’s mystical -union with Christ, as a local abiding in the element Christ. Indeed -it is in these writings that we find the terms “to abide in” the -light, 1 John ii, 10, in God, 1 John iv, 13, in Christ, 1 John ii, 6, -24, 27, iii, 6, 24, and in His love, John xv, 9, 1 John iv, 16; the -corresponding expressions, “God abideth in us,” 1 John iv, 12, 16, -“Christ abideth in us,” 1 John iii, 24, and “love abideth in us,” 1 -John iv, 16; the two immanences coupled together, where the communicant -“abideth in Me and I in him,” vi, 56, and where the members of His -mystical body are bidden to “abide in Me and I in you,” xv, 4; and the -supreme pattern of all these interpenetrations, “I am in the Father, -and the Father is in Me,” xiv, 10.--And it is from here that Catherine -primarily gets the literary suggestions for her images of the soul -plunged into, and filled by, an ocean of Light, Love, Christ, God; and -again from here, more than from St. Paul, she gets her favourite term -μένειν (It. _restare_), around which are grouped, in her mind, most of -the quietistic-sounding elements of her teaching. - -(3) As to the points of contact between the Joannine teaching and -Alexandrianism, we find that three are vividly renewed by Catherine. - -Philo had taught: “God ceases not from acting: as to burn is the -property of fire, so to act is the property of God,” _Legg. Alleg._ I, -3. And in John we find: “God is a Spirit,” and “My Father worketh ever -and I work ever,” iv, 24; v, 17. And God as pure Spiritual Energy, as -the _Actus Purus_, is a truth and experience that penetrates the whole -life of Catherine. - -The work of Christ is not dwelt on in its earthly beginnings; but it is -traced up and back, in the form of a spiritual “Genesis,” to His life -and work as the Logos in Heaven, where He abides “in the bosom of the -Father,” and whence He learns what He “hath declared” to us, i, 18; -just as, in his turn, the disciple whom Jesus loved “was reclining” at -the Last Supper “on the bosom of Jesus,” and later on “beareth witness -concerning the things” which he had learnt there, xiii, 23; xxi, 24. So -also Catherine transcends the early earthly life of Christ altogether, -and habitually dwells upon Him as the Light and as Love, as God in His -own Self-Manifestation; and upon the ever-abiding sustenance afforded -by this Light and Life and Love to the faithful soul reclining and -resting upon it. - -And the contrast between the Spiritual and the Material, the Abiding -and the Transitory, is symbolized throughout John, in exact accord -with Philo, under the spacial categories of upper and lower, and of -extension: “Ye are from below, I am from above,” viii, 23; “He that -cometh from above, is above all,” iv, 31; and “in my Father’s house,” -that upper world, “there are many mansions,” abiding-places, xiv, -2. Hence all things divine here below have descended from above: -regeneration, iii, 3; the Spirit, i, 32; Angels, i, 51; the Son of God -Himself, iii, 13: and they mount once more up above, so especially -Christ Himself, iii, 13; vi, 62. And the things of that upper world -are the true things: “the true light,” “ the true adorers,” “the -true vine,” “the true bread from Heaven,” i, ix; iv, 23; xv, 1; vi, -32: all this in contrast to the shadowy semi-realities of the lower -world.--Catherine is here in fullest accord with the spacial imagery -generally; she even talks of God Himself, not only as in a place, but -as Himself a place, as the soul’s “loco.” But she has, for reasons -explained elsewhere, generally to abandon the upper-and-lower category -when picturing the soul’s self-dedication to purification, since, for -this act, she mostly figures a downward plunge into suffering; and -she gives us a number of striking sayings, in which she explicitly -re-translates all this quantitative spacial imagery into its underlying -meaning of qualitative spiritual states. - -(4) As to the Joannine approximations and antagonisms to Gnosticism, -Catherine’s position is as follows. In the Synoptic accounts, Our Lord -makes the acquisition of eternal life depend upon the keeping of the -two great commandments of the love of God and of one’s neighbour, Luke -x, 26-28, and parallels. In John Our Lord says: “this is eternal life, -that they may know Thee, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom Thou -hast sent,” xvii, 3. To “know,” γινώσκειν, occurs twenty-five times in -1 John alone. Here the final object of every soul is to believe and to -know: “they received and knew truly and believed,” xvii, 8; “we have -believed and have known,” vi, 69; or “we have known and have believed,” -1 John iv, 16. And Catherine also lays much stress upon faith ending, -even here below, in a certain vivid knowledge; but this knowledge is, -with her, less doctrinally articulated, no doubt in part because there -was no Gnosticism fronting her, to force on such articulation. - -And the Joannine writings compare this higher mental knowledge to the -lower, sensible perception: “He who cometh from heaven, witnesseth to -what he hath seen and heard,” iii, 31; “when He shall become manifest, -we shall see Him as He is,” 1 John iii, 2. And they have three special -terms, in common with Gnosticism, for the object of such knowledge: -Life, Light, and Fulness (_Plerōma_),--the latter, as a technical term, -appearing in the New Testament only in John i, 16, and in the Epistles -to the Colossians and Ephesians. Catherine, also, is ever experiencing -and conceiving the mental apprehensions of faith, as so many -quasi-sensible, ocular, perceptions; and Life and Light are constantly -mentioned, and Fulness is, at least, implied in the psycho-physical -concomitants or consequences of her thinkings. - -On the other hand, she does not follow John in the intensely dualistic -elements of his teaching,--the sort of determinist, all but innate, -distinction between “the darkness,” “the men who loved the darkness -rather than the light,” and the Light itself and those who loved it, i, -4, 5; iii, 19,--children of God and children of the devil--the latter -all but incapable of being saved, viii, 38-47; x, 26; xi, 52; xiv, -17. Rather is she like him in his all but complete silence as to “the -anger of God,”--a term which he uses once only, iii, 36, as against the -twenty-two instances of it in St. Paul. - -And she is full to overflowing of the great central, profoundly un- and -anti-Gnostic, sensitively Christian teachings of St. John: as to the -Light, the only-begotten Son, having been given by God, because God so -loved the world; as to Jesus having loved his own even to the end; as -to the object of Christ’s manifestation of His Father’s name to men, -being that God’s love for Christ, and indeed Christ Himself, might -be within them; and as to how, if they love Him, they will keep His -commandments,--His commandment to love each other as He has loved them, -iii, 21; iii, 16; xiii, 1; xvii, 26; xiv, 15; xv, 17. In this last -great declaration especially do we find the very epitome of Catherine’s -life and spirit, of her who can never think of Him as Light and -Knowledge only, but ever insists on His being Fire and Love as well; -and who has but one commandment, that of Love-impelled, Love-seeking -loving. - -(5) And lastly, in relation to organized, Ecclesiastical Christianity, -the Joannine writings dwell, as regards the more general principles, on -points which, where positive, are simply presupposed by Catherine; and, -where negative, find no echo within her. - -The Joannine writings insist continually upon the unity and -inter-communion of the faithful: “There shall be one fold, one -shepherd”; Christ’s death was in order “that He might gather the -scattered children of God into one”; He prays to the Father that -believers “may be one, as we are one”; and He leaves as His legacy -His seamless robe, x, 16; xi, 52; xvii, 21; xix, 24. And these same -writings have a painfully absolute condemnation for all outside of -this visible fold: “The whole world lies in evil”; its “Prince is the -Devil”; “the blood of Jesus cleanseth us from all sin,” within the -community alone; false prophets, those who have gone forth from the -community, are not to be prayed for, are not even to be saluted, 1 -John, v, 19; John xii, 31; John i, 7; v, 16; 2 John, 10. For the great -and necessary fight with Gnosticism has already begun in these writings. - -But Catherine dies before the unity of Christendom is again in jeopardy -through the Protestant Reformation, and she never dwells--this is -doubtless a limit--upon the Christian community, as such. And her -enthusiastic sympathy with the spiritual teachings of Jacopone da -Todi, who, some two centuries before, had, as one of the prophetic -opposition, vehemently attacked the intensely theocratic policy of -Pope Boniface VIII, and had suffered a long imprisonment at his hands; -her tender care for the schismatic population of the far-away Greek -island of Chios; and her intimacy with Dre. Tommaso Moro, who, later -on, became for a while a Calvinist; all indicate how free from all -suspiciousness towards individual Catholics, or of fierceness against -other religious bodies and persons, was her deeply filial attachment to -the Church. - -In the Synoptists Our Lord declares, as to the exorcist who worked -cures in His name, although not a follower of His, that “he that is -not against us, is for us,” and refuses to accede to His disciples’ -proposal to interfere with his activity, Mark ix, 38-41; and He points, -as to the means of inheriting eternal life, to the keeping of the -two great commandments, as these are already formulated in the Old -Testament, and insists that this neighbour, whom here we are bidden -to love, is any and every man, Luke x, 25-37. The Joannine writings -insist strongly upon the strict necessity of full, explicit adhesion: -the commandment of love which Our Lord gives is here “My commandment,” -“a new commandment,” one held “from the beginning”--in the Christian -community; and the command to “love one another” is here addressed to -the brethren in their relations to their fellow-believers only, xiii, -34; xiii, 35; xv, 12, 17. Catherine’s feeling, in this matter, is -clearly with the Synoptists. - - -2. _Joannine teaching considered in itself._ - -If we next take the Joannine teachings in themselves, we shall find the -following interesting points of contact or contrast to exist between -John and Catherine. - -(1) In matters of Theology proper, she is completely penetrated by -the great doctrine, more explicit in St. John even than in St. Paul, -that “God is Love,” 1 John iv, 8; and by the conceptions of God and of -Christ “working always” as Life, Light, and Love.--But whereas, in the -first Epistle of John, God Himself is “eternal life” and “light,” v, -20; i, 5; and, in the Gospel, it is Christ Who, in the first instance, -appears as Life and as Light, xi, 25; viii, 12: Catherine nowhere -distinguishes at all between Christ and God. And similarly, whereas in -St. John “God doth not give” unto Christ “the Spirit by measure”; and -Christ promises to the disciples “another Paraclete,” _i.e._ the Holy -Spirit, iii, 34; xiv, 16; and indeed the Son and the Spirit appear, -throughout, as distinct from one another as do the Son and the Father: -in Catherine we get, practically everywhere, an exclusive concentration -upon the fact, so often implied or declared by St. Paul, of Love, -Christ, being Himself Spirit. - -(2) The Joannine Soteriology has, I think, influenced Catherine as -follows. Christ’s redemptive work appears, in the more original current -of that teaching, under the symbols of the Word, Light, Bread, as -the self-revelation of God. For in proportion that this Logos-Light -and Bread enlightens and nourishes, does He drive away darkness and -weakness, and, with them, sin, and this previously to any historic -acts of His earthly life. And, in this connection, there is but little -stress laid upon penance and the forgiveness of sins as compared -with the Synoptic accounts, and the term of turning back, στρέφειν, -is absent here.--But that same redemptive work appears, in the more -Pauline of the two Joannine currents, as the direct result of so many -vicarious, atoning deeds, the historic Passion and Death of Our Lord. -Here there is indeed sin, a “sin of the world,” and specially for this -sin is Christ the propitiation: “God so loved the world, as to give His -only-begotten Son”--Him “the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of -the world,” i, 29; 1 John ii, 2; John ii, 16; i, 29, 36. - -Catherine, with the probably incomplete exception of her Conversion -and Penance-period, concentrates her attention, with a striking degree -of exclusiveness, upon the former group of conceptions. With her too -the God-Christ is--all but solely--conceived as Light which, in so far -as it is not hindered, operates the healing and the growth of souls. -And in her great picture of all souls inevitably hungering for the -sight of the One Bread, God, she has operated a fusion between two of -the Joannine images, the Light which is seen and the Bread which is -eaten: here the bare sight (in reality, a satiating sight) of the Bread -suffices. If, for the self-manifesting God-Christ, she has, besides the -Joannine Light-image, a Fire-symbol, which has its literary antecedents -rather in the Old Testament than in the New, this comes from the fact -that she is largely occupied with the pain of the impressions and -processes undergone by already God-loving yet still imperfectly pure -souls, and that fierce fire is as appropriate a symbol for such pain as -is peaceful light for joy. - -Now this painfulness is, in Catherine’s teaching, the direct result -of whatever may be incomplete and piecemeal in the soul’s state and -process of purification. And this her conception, of Perfect Love being -mostly attained only through a series of apparently sudden shifts, -each seemingly final, is no doubt in part moulded upon the practically -identical Joannine teaching as to Faith. - -True, we have already seen that her conception of the nature of God’s -action upon the soul, and of the soul’s reaction under this His -touch, is more akin to the rich Synoptic idea of a disposition and -determination of the soul’s whole being, (a cordial trust at least as -much as an intellectual apprehension and clear assent), than to the -Joannine view, which lays a predominant stress upon mental apprehension -and assent. And again, she nowhere presents anything analogous to the -Joannine, already scholastic, formulations of the object of this Faith -and Trust,--all of them explicitly concerned with the nature of Christ. - -But, everywhere in the Joannine writings, the living Person and Spirit -aimed at by these definitions is considered as experienced by the -soul in a succession of ever-deepening intuitions and acts of Faith. -Already at the Jordan, Andrew and Nathaniel have declared Jesus to be -the Christ, the Son of God, i, 41, 49; yet they, His disciples, are -said to have believed in Him at Cana, in consequence of His miracle -there, ii, 11. Already at Capernaum Peter asserts for the twelve, “We -have believed and known that Thou art the Holy One of God,” vi, 69; -yet still, at the Last Supper, Christ exhorts them to believe in Him, -xiv, 10, 11, and predicts future events to them, in order that, when -these predictions come true, their faith may still further increase, -xiii, 19; xiv, 29. And, as far on as after the Resurrection we hear -that the Beloved Disciple “saw” (the empty tomb) “and believed,” xx, -8, 29. We thus get in John precisely the same logically paradoxical, -but psychologically and spiritually most accurate and profound, -combination of an apparent completeness of Faith at each point of -special illumination, with a sudden re-beginning and impulsive upward -shifting of the soul’s Light and Believing, which is so characteristic -of Catherine’s experience and teaching as to the successive levels of -the soul’s Fire, Light and Love. And the opposite movement--of the -fading away of the Light and the Faith--can be traced in John, as the -corresponding doctrine of the going out of the Fire, Light and Love -within the Soul can be found in Catherine. - -Again, both John and Catherine are penetrated with the sense that this -Faith and Love is somehow waked up in souls by a true touch of God, a -touch to which they spontaneously respond, because they already possess -a substantial affinity to Him. “His,” the Good Shepherd’s, “sheep hear -His voice,” x, 16; they hear it, because they are already His: the -Light solicits and is accepted by the soul, because the soul itself -is light-like and light-requiring, and because it proceeds originally -from this very Light which would now reinforce the soul’s own deepest -requirements. This great truth appears also in those profound Joannine -passages: “No man can come to Me, unless the Father Who sent Me draw -him”; and “I have manifested Thy name, to those men whom Thou didst -give Me from out of the world,” vi, 44; xvii, 6. - -And this attractive force is also a faculty of Christ: “I shall draw -all men unto Myself,” xii, 32. And note how Catherine, ever completely -identifying God, Christ, Light, Love, and, where these work in -imperfectly pure souls, Fire, is stimulated by the last-quoted text -to extend God’s, Christ’s, Love’s drawing, attraction, to all men; -to limit only, in various degrees, these various men’s response to -it; and to realize so intensely that a generous yielding to this our -ineradicable deepest _attrait_ is our fullest joy, and the resisting it -is our one final misery, as to picture the soul, penitent for this its -mad resistance, plunging itself, now eagerly responsive to that intense -attraction, into God and a growing conformity with Him. - -(3) As to points concerning the Sacraments where Catherine is -influenced by John, we find that here again Baptismal conceptions are -passed over by her. She does not allude to the water in the discourse -to Nicodemus, iii, 5, although she is full of other ideas suggested -there; but she dwells upon the water in the address to the Woman at -the Well, iv, 10-15, that “living water,” which is, for her, the -spirit’s spiritual sustenance, Love, Christ, God, and insensibly glides -over into the images and experiences attaching, for her, to the Holy -Eucharist. - -But, as to this the greatest of the Sacraments and the all-absorbing -devotion of her life, her symbols and concepts are all suggested by -the Fourth Gospel, in contrast to the Synoptists and St. Paul. For the -Holy Eucharist is, with her, ever detached from any direct memory of -the Last Supper, Passion, and Death, the original, historical, unique -occasions which still form its setting in the pre-Joannine writings, -although those greatest proofs of a divinely boundless self-immolation -undoubtedly give to her devotion to the Blessed Sacrament its beautiful -enthusiasm and tenderness. The Holy Eucharist ever appears with her, -as with St. John, attached to the scene of the multiplication of the -breads,--a feast of joy and of life, with Christ at the zenith of His -earthly hope and power. For not “a shewing of the death” in “the -eating of this bread,” 1 Cor. xi, 26, is dwelt on by John; but we have: -“I am the Bread of Life; he that eateth this bread, shall live for -ever,” John vi, 51, 52. - -And Catherine follows John in thinking predominantly of the single -soul, when dwelling upon the Holy Eucharist. For if John presents -a great open-air Love-Feast in lieu of Paul’s Upper Chamber and -Supper with the twelve, he, as over against Paul’s profoundly social -standpoint, has, throughout this his Eucharistic chapter, but three -indications of the plural as against some fourteen singulars. - -And, finally, John’s change from the future tense, with its reference -to a coming historic institution, “the food which … the Son of Man -will give you,” vi, 27, to the present tense, with its declaration -of an eternal fact and relation, “I am” (now and always) “the living -bread which hath come down from heaven,” vi, 51, will have helped -Catherine towards the conception of the eternal Christ-God offering -Himself as their ceaseless spiritual food to His creatures, possessed -as they are by an indestructible spiritual hunger for Himself. For if -the Eucharistic food, Bread, Body, has already been declared by St. -Paul to be “spiritual,” 2 Cor. iii, 17, in St. John also it has to be -spiritual, for it is here “the true bread from heaven” and “the bread -of life”; and Christ declares here “it is the Spirit that giveth life, -the flesh (alone) profiteth nothing,” vi, 61, 69. Hence Catherine is, -again through the Holy Eucharist and St. John, brought back to her -favourite Pauline conception of the Lord as Himself “Spirit,” “the -Life-giving Spirit,” 2 Cor. iii, 17; 1 Cor. xv, 45. - -(4) And if we conclude with the Joannine Eschatology, we shall find -that Catherine has penetrated deep into the following conceptions, -which undoubtedly, even in their union, present us with a less rich -outlook than that furnished by the Synoptists, but which may be said to -constitute the central spirit of Our Lord’s teaching. - -Like John, who has but two mentions of “the Kingdom of God,” iii, 3, -5, and who elsewhere ever speaks of “Life,” Catherine has nowhere “the -Kingdom,” but everywhere “Life.” Like him she conceives the process of -Conversion as a “making alive” of the moribund, darkened, cold soul, by -the Light, Love, Christ, God, v, 21-29, when He, Who is Himself “the -Life,” xi, 25, and “the Spirit,” iv, 24, speaks to the soul “words” -that are “spirit and life,” vi, 63; for then the soul that gives ear -to His words “hath eternal life,” v, 24. - -Again Catherine, for the most part, appropriates and develops that one -out of the two Joannine currents of doctrine concerning the Judgment, -which treats the latter as already determined and forestalled by Man’s -present personal attitude towards the Light. The judgment is thus -simply a discrimination, according to the original meaning of the noun -κρίσις--like when God in the beginning “discriminated the light from -the darkness,” Gen. i, 5; a discrimination substantially effected -already here and now, “he that believeth in Him, is not judged; he -that believeth not, is already judged,” iii, 18. But the other current -of doctrine, so prominent in the Synoptists, is not absent from St. -John,--the teaching as to a later, external and visible, forensic -judgment. And Catherine has a similar intermixture of two currents, yet -with a strong predominance of the immanental, present conception of the -matter. - -And even for that one volitional act in the beyond, which, according -to her doctrine, has a certain constitutive importance for the whole -eternity of all still partially impure souls--for that voluntary -plunge--we can find an analogue in the Joannine writings, although here -there is no reference to the after life. For throughout the greater -part of his teaching--from iii, 15, 16, apparently up to the end of the -Gospel,--the possession of spiritual Life is consequent upon the soul’s -own acts of Faith, and not, as one would expect from his other, more -characteristic teaching, upon its Regeneration from above, iii, 3. And -the result of such acts of Faith is a “Metabasis,” a “passing over from -death to life,” v, 24; 1 John iii, 14. Catherine will have conceived -such an act of Faith as predominantly an act of Love, and the act as -itself already that Metabasis; and will, most characteristically, -have quickened the movement, and have altered its direction from the -horizontal to the vertical, so that the “passing, going over,” becomes -a “plunge down into” Life. For indeed the Fire she plunges into is, in -her doctrine, Life Itself; since it is Light, Love, Christ, and God. - -Catherine, once more, is John’s most faithful disciple, where he -declares that Life to stream out immediately from the life-giving -object of Faith into the life-seeking subject of that Faith, from the -believed God into the believing soul: “I am the Bread of Life; he who -cometh to Me, shall not hunger”; “he who abideth in Me, and I in him, -beareth much fruit”; vi, 35; xv, 5. - -And finally, she follows John closely where he insists upon -Simultaneity and Eternity as contrasted with Succession and -Immortality, so as even to abstract from the bodily resurrection. He -who “hath passed over from death to life” (already) “possesses eternal -life”; “every one who liveth and believeth in Me, shall not die for -ever (at any time)”; “this,” already and of itself, “is eternal life, -to know Thee, the one true God and Jesus Christ Whom Thou hast sent”; -and the soul’s abiding in such an experience is Christ’s own joy, -transplanted into it, and a joy which is full, v, 24; xi, 26; xvii, 3; -xv, 11. And there is here such an insistence upon an unbroken spiritual -life, in spite of and right through physical death, that, to Martha’s -declaration that her brother will arise at the last day, xi, 24, Jesus -answers, “I am the Resurrection and the Life: he who believeth in Me, -even if he die” the bodily death, “shall live” on in his soul; indeed -“every man who liveth” the life of the body, “and who believeth in Me, -shall not die for ever (at any time)” in his soul, xi, 25, 26. John’s -other line of thought, in which the bodily resurrection is prominent, -remains without any definite or systematic response in Catherine’s -teaching. - -(5) We can then summarize the influence exercised by John upon -Catherine by saying that he encouraged her to conceive religion as -an experience of eternity; as a true, living knowledge of things -spiritual; indeed as a direct touch of man’s soul by God Himself, -culminating in man’s certainty that God is Love. - - -III. THE AREOPAGITE WRITINGS. - -Catherine’s close relations to the Areopagite, the Pseudo-Dionysius, -are of peculiar interest, in their manifold agreement, difference, or -non-responsiveness; and this although the ideas thus assimilated are -mostly of lesser depth and importance than those derived from the New -Testament writings just considered. They can be grouped conveniently -under the subject-matters of God’s creative, providential, and -restorative, outgoing, His action upon souls and all things extant, -and of the reasons for the different results of this action; of -certain symbols used to characterize that essential action of God -upon His creatures; of the states and energizings of the soul, in so -far as it is responsive to that action; of certain terms concerning -these reactions of the soul; and of the final result of the whole -process. I shall try and get back, in most cases, to the Areopagite’s -Neo-Platonist sources, the dry, intensely scholastic Proclus, and that -great soul, the prince of the non-Christian Mystics, Plotinus.[70] - - -1. _God’s general action._ - -As to God’s action, we have in Dionysius the Circle with the -three stages of its movement,--a conception so dear to Catherine. -“Theologians call Him the Esteemed and the Loved, and again Love and -Loving-kindness, as being a Power at once propulsive and leading up” -and back “to Himself; a loving movement self-moved, which pre-exists in -the Good, and bubbles forth from the Good to things existing, and which -again returns to the Good--as it were a sort of everlasting circle -whirling round, because of the Good, from the Good, in the Good, and -to the Good,--ever advancing and remaining and returning in the same -and throughout the same.” This is “the power of the divine similitude” -present throughout creation, “which turns all created things to their -cause.”[71] The doctrine is derived from Proclus: “Everything caused -both abides in its cause and proceeds from it and returns to it”; -and “everything that proceeds from something returns, by a natural -instinct, to that from which it proceeds.”[72] And Plotinus had led -the way: “there” in the super-sensible world, experienced in moments -of ecstasy, “in touch and union with the One, the soul begets Beauty, -Justice, and Virtue: and that place and life is, for it, its principle -and end: principle, since it springs from thence; end, because the Good -is there, and because, once arrived there, the soul becomes what it was -at first.”[73] - -And Dionysius has the doctrine, so dear to Catherine, that “the Source -of Good is indeed present to all, but all are not,” by their intention, -“present to It; yet, by our aptitude for Divine union, we all,” in a -sense, “are present to It.” “It shines, on Its own part, equally upon -all things capable of participation in It.”[74] Already Plotinus had -finely said: “The One is not far away from any one, and yet is liable -to be far away from one and all, since, present though It be, It is” -efficaciously “present only to such as are capable of receiving It, and -are so disposed as to adapt themselves to It and, as it were, to seize -and touch It by their likeness to It, … when, in a word, the soul is in -the state in which it was when it came from It.”[75] - -We have again in Dionysius the combination, so characteristic of -Catherine, of a tender respect for the substance of human nature, as -good and ever respected by God, and of a keen sense of the pathetic -weakness of man’s sense-clogged spirit here below. “Providence, as -befits its goodness, provides for each being suitably: for to destroy -nature is not a function of Providence.” “All those who cavil at the -Divine Justice, unconsciously commit a manifest injustice. For they -say that immortality ought to be in mortals, and perfection in the -imperfect … and perfect power in the weak, and that the temporal should -be eternal … in a word, they assign the properties of one thing to -another.”[76] - - -2. _Symbols of God’s action._ - -(1) As to the symbols of God’s action, we have first the Chain or Rope, -Catherine’s “fune,” that “rope of His pure Love,” of which “an end was -thrown to her from heaven.”[77] This symbol was no doubt suggested by -Dionysius: “Let us then elevate our very selves by our prayers to the -higher ascent of the Divine … rays; as though a luminous chain (rope, -σειρά) were suspended from the celestial heights and reached down -hither, and we, by ever stretching out to it up and up … were thus -carried upwards.”[78] And this passage again goes back to Proclus, -who describes the “chain (rope) of love” as “having its entirely -simple and hidden highest point fixed amongst the very first ranks of -the Gods”; its middle effluence “amongst the Gods higher than the -(sensible) world”; and its third, lowest, part, as “divided multiformly -throughout the (sensible) world.” “The divine Love implants one common -bond (chain) and one indissoluble friendship in and between each soul -(that participates in its power), and between all and the Beautiful -Itself.”[79] And this simile of a chain from heaven, which in Dionysius -is luminous, and in Catherine and Proclus is loving, goes back, across -Plato (_Theaetetus_ 153_c_ and _Republic_, X, 61_b_, 99_c_) to Homer, -where it again is luminous (golden). For, in the _Iliad_, viii, 17-20, -Zeus says to the Gods in Olympus, “So as to see all things, do you, O -Gods and Goddesses all, hang a golden chain from heaven, and do you all -seize hold of it”--so as thus to descend to earth. - -(2) We have next the symbol of the Sun and its purifying, healing -Light, under which God and His action are rapturously proclaimed by -Dionysius. “Even as our sun, by its very being, enlightens all things -able to partake of its light in their various degrees, so also the -Good, by its very existence, sends unto all things that be, the rays -of its entire goodness, according to their capacity for them. By means -of these rays they are purified from all corruption and death … and -are separated from instability.” “The Divine Goodness, this our great -sun, enlightens … nourishes, perfects, renews.” Even the pure can -thus be made purer still. “He, the Good, is called spiritual light -… he cleanses the mental vision of the very angels: they taste, as -it were, the light.”[80] All this imagery goes back, in the first -instance, to Proclus. For Proclus puts in parallel “sun” and “God,” and -“to be enlightened” and “to be deified”; makes all purifying forces -to coalesce in the activity of the Sun-God, Apollo Katharsios, the -Purifier, who “everywhere unifies multiplicity … purifying the entire -heaven and all living things throughout the world”; and describes how -“from above, from his super-heavenly post, Apollo scatters the arrows -of Zeus,--his rays upon all the world.”[81] The Sun’s rays, here as -powerful as the bolts of Zeus, thus begin to play the part still -assigned to them in Catherine’s imagery of the “Saëtte” and “Radii” of -the divine Light and Love. And the substance of the whole symbol goes -back, through fine sayings of Plotinus and through Philo, to Plato, who -calls the Sun “the offspring of the Good and analogous to it,” and who -(doubtless rightly) takes Homer’s “golden chain” to be nothing but the -Sun-rays,--thus identifying the two symbols.[82] - -(3) Fire, as a symbol for God and His action, is thus praised by -Dionysius: “The sacred theologians often describe the super-essential -Essence in terms of Fire.… For sensible fire is, so to say, present -in all things, and pervades them all without mingling with them, and -is received by all things; … it is intolerable yet invisible; it -masters all things by its own might, and yet it but brings the things -in which it resides to (the development of) their own energy; it has -a transforming power; it communicates itself to all who approach it -in any degree; … it has the power of dividing (what it seizes); it -bears upwards; it is penetrating; … it increases its own self in a -hidden manner; it suddenly shines forth.”[83]--All these qualities, -and the delicate transitions from fire to light and from light back to -fire, and from heat immanent to heat applied from without, we can find -again, vividly assimilated and experienced, in Catherine’s teaching -and emotional life. But the Sun-light predominates in Dionysius, the -Fire-heat in Catherine; and whereas the former explicitly attaches -purification only to the Sun-light, the latter connects the cleansing -chiefly with Fire-heat, no doubt because the Greek man is busy chiefly -with the intellectually cognitive, and the Italian woman with the -morally ameliorative, activities and interests of the mind and soul. - - -3. _The soul’s reaction._ - -(1) As to the soul’s reaction under God’s action, and its return to -Him, we first get, in Dionysius, the insistence upon Mystical Quietude -and Silence, which, according to him, are strictly necessary, since -only like can know and become one with like, and God is “Peace and -Repose” and, “as compared with every known progression, Immobility,” -and “the one all-perfect source and cause of the Peace of all”; and -He is Silence, “the Angels are, as it were, the heralds of the Divine -Silence,”--teaching not unlike that of St. Ignatius of Antioch, -“Jesus Christ … the Word which proceeds from Silence.”[84] Hence “in -proportion as we ascend to the higher designations of God, do our -expressions become more and more circumscribed”; and at last “we shall -find, not a little speaking, but a complete absence of speech and -of conception.”[85] As Proclus has it: “Let this Fountain of Godhead -be honoured on our part by silence and by the union which is above -silence.”[86] And Plotinus says: “This,” the Divine, “Light comes not -from anywhere nor disappears any whither, but simply shines or shines -not: hence we must not pursue after it, but must abide in quietness -till it appears.” And when it does appear, “the contemplative, as one -rapt and divinely inspired, abides here with quietude in a motionless -condition, … being entirely stable, and becoming, as it were, stability -itself.”[87]--All this still finds its echo in Catherine.--But the -treble (cognitive) movement of the Angelic and human mind,--the -circular, the straight-line, and the spiral,--which Dionysius, in -direct imitation of Proclus, carefully develops throughout three -sections, is quite absent from Catherine’s mind.[88] - -(2) We next get, in Dionysius, the following teachings as to Mystical -Vision and Union. “The Unity-above-Mind is placed above the minds; -and the Good-above-word is unutterable by word.” “There is, further, -the most divine knowledge of Almighty God, which is known through -not knowing … when the mind, having stood apart from all existing -things, and having then also dismissed itself, has been made one with -the super-luminous rays.” “We must contemplate things divine by our -whole selves standing out of our whole selves, and becoming wholly -of God.” “By the resistless and absolute ecstasy, in all purity, -from out of thyself and all things, thou wilt be carried on high, to -the super-essential ray of the divine darkness.” “It is during the -cessation of every mental energizing, that such a union of the deified -minds and of the super-divine light takes place.”[89] And the original -cause and final effect of such a going forth from self, are indicated -in words which were worked out in a vivid fulness by Catherine’s whole -convert life: “Divine Love is ecstatic, not permitting any lovers to -belong to themselves, but only to those beloved by them. And this -love, the superior beings show by being full of forethought for their -inferiors; those equal in rank, by their mutual coherence; and the -inferior by a looking back and up to the superior ones.”[90] - -Dionysius here everywhere follows Proclus. Yet the noblest -Neo-Platonist sayings are again furnished by Plotinus: “We are not cut -off or severed from the Light, but we breathe and consist in It, since -It ever enlightens and bears us, as long as It is what It is.” In the -moments of Union, “we are able to see both Him and ourself,--ourself -in dazzling splendour, full of spiritual light, or rather one with the -pure Light Itself … our life’s flame is then enkindled.” “There the -soul rests, after it has fled up, away from evil, to the place which -is free from evils … and the true life is there.” “Arrived there, -the soul becomes that which she was at first.”[91] And if Plotinus -has thus already got the symbolism of place, he is as fully aware as -Catherine herself that, for purposes of vivid presentation, he is -spacializing spiritual, that is, unextended, qualitative states and -realities. “Things incorporeal do not get excluded by bodies; they are -severed only by otherness and difference: hence, when such otherness is -absent, they, not differing, are near each other.” And already, as with -Catherine, there is the apparent finality, and yet also the renewed -search for more. “The seer and the seen have become one, as though it -were a case not of vision but of union.” “When he shall have crossed -over as the image to its Archetype, then he will have reached his -journey’s end.” And yet this “ecstasy, simplification, and donation of -one’s self,” this “quiet,” is still also “a striving after contact,” “a -musing to achieve union.”[92] - - -4. _Terminology of the soul’s reaction._ - -(1) Certain terms and conceptions in connection with the soul’s return -to God, which are specially dear to Catherine, already appear, fully -developed, in Dionysius, Proclus, and Plotinus; in part, even in Plato. -Her “suddenly “ (_subito_) appears but rarely in Dionysius, _e.g._ in -_Heavenly Hierarchy_ xv, 2; but it is carefully explained by him in -his Third Epistle, specially devoted to the subject.[93] It is common -in Plotinus: “Suddenly the soul saw, without seeing how it saw”; -“suddenly thou shalt receive light,” “suddenly shining.”[94] And in -Plato we find: “He who has learnt to see the Beautiful in due order -and succession, when he comes towards the end, will suddenly perceive -a Nature of wondrous beauty--Beauty alone, absolute, separate, simple -and everlasting”: a passage which derives its imagery from the Epopteia -of the Eleusynian Mysteries,--the sudden appearance, the curtain being -withdrawn, upon the stage whereon the Heathen Mystery-play was being -performed, under a peculiar fairy-illumination, of the figures of -Demeter, Kore, and Iacchus, as the culmination of a long succession of -purifications and initiations.[95] - -Catherine’s “wound,” or “wounding stroke,” (_ferita_), is, in part, the -necessary consequence of the “arrow” conception already considered; -in part, the echo of that group of terms which, in Dionysius and -Proclus even more than in Plotinus, express the painfully sudden -and overwhelming, free-grace character of God’s action upon the -soul,--especially of ἐπιβολή, “immissio,” a “coming-upon,” a “hitting,” -a very common word in the Areopagite; μετοχή, “communication,” and -παραδοχή, “reception,” being the corresponding terms for God’s and the -soul’s share in this encounter respectively. Thus: “Unions, whether we -call them immissions or receptions from God.”[96] - -“Presence,” “presenza,” παρουσιά, is another favourite term, as with -Catherine so also with Dionysius and Proclus. Thus the Areopagite: -“The presence of the spiritual light causes recollection and unity in -those that are being enlightened with it,” “His wholly inconceivable -presence.”[97] And Proclus: “Every perfect spiritual contact and -communion is owing to the presence of God.”[98] And the conception of a -sudden presence goes back, among the Neo-Platonists, to Plato and the -Greek Mysteries, in which the God was held suddenly to arrive and to -take part in the sacred dance. Such rings of sacred dancers, “choirs,” -are still characteristic of Dionysius--_e.g._ _Heavenly Hierarchy_, -vii, 4--but they are quite wanting in Catherine.--But “contact,” -“touch,” ἐπαφή,--said of God’s direct action upon the soul,--a -conception so intensely active in Catherine’s mind and life, is again -a favourite term with Dionysius and Proclus. The former declares this -“touch” to be neither “sensible” nor “intelligible” and that “we are -brought into contact with things unutterable”; the latter talks of -“perfect spiritual contact.”[99] - -The symbols of “Nakedness” and “Garments,” as indicative respectively -of the soul’s purity and impurity or self-delusion, are, though most -prominent in Catherine, rare in Dionysius. But his declaration: -“The nakedness of the (Angels’) feet indicates purification from -the addition of all things external and assimilation to the divine -simplicity” exactly expresses her idea.[100] And Proclus has it more -fully: The soul, on descending into the body, forsakes unity, “and -around her, from all sides, there grow multiform kinds of existence -and manifold garments”; “love of honour is the last garment of souls”; -and “when,” in mounting up, “we lay aside our passions and garments -which, in coming down, we had put on, we must also strip off that -last garment, in order that, having become (entirely) naked, we may -establish ourselves before God, having made ourselves like to the -divine life.”[101] - -(2) Again, as to Triads, it is interesting to note that Catherine has -nothing about the three stages or ways of the inner life,--purgative, -illuminative, unitive,--of which Dionysius is full, and which are -already indicated in Proclus; for we can find but two in her life, the -purgative and unitive, and in her teaching these two alone appear, -mostly in close combination, sometimes in strong contrast. Nor has -she anything about the three degrees or kinds of prayer,--Meditation, -Contemplation, Union,--as indicated in Dionysius: “It behoves us, by -our prayers, to be lifted into proximity with the Divine Trinity; and -then, by still further approaching it, to be initiated…; and (lastly) -to make ourselves one with it”; and as taught by Proclus: “Knowledge -leads, then follows proximity, and then union.”[102] With her we -only get Contemplation and Union.--Nor do we get in her anything -about thrice three choirs of Angels, or three orders of Christian -Ministrants, or three classes of Christian people, or thrice three -groups of Sacraments and Sacramental acts. For she is too intensely -bent upon immediate intercourse with God, and too much absorbed in the -sense of profound unity and again of innumerable multiplicity, to be -attracted by Dionysius’s Neo-Platonist ladder of carefully graduated -intermediaries, or by his continuous interest in triads of every kind. -Catherine thus follows the current in Dionysius which insists upon -direct contact between the soul and the transcendent God, and ignores -the other, which bridges over the abyss between the two by carefully -graduated intermediaries: these intermediaries having become, with her, -successive stages of purification and of ever more penetrating union of -the one soul with the one God. - - -5. _Deification, especially through the Eucharist._ - -As to the end of the whole process, we find that Deification, so -frequently implied or suggested by Catherine, is formally taught by -Dionysius: “A union of the deified minds” (ἐκθεουμένων); the heavenly -and the earthly Hierarchy have the power and task “to communicate -to their subjects, according to the dignity of each, the sacred -deification” (ἐκθέωσις); “we are led up, by means of the multiform of -sensible symbols, to the uniform Deification.”[103] “The One is the -very God,” says Proclus, “but the Mind (the Noûs) is the divinest of -beings, and the soul is divine, and the body is godlike.… And every -body that is God-like is so through the soul having become divine; and -every soul that is divine, is so through the Mind being very divine; -and every Mind that is thus very divine, is so through participation -in the Divine One.”[104] There are preformations of this doctrine in -Plotinus and echoes of it throughout Catherine’s sayings. - -And the Areopagite’s teaching that the chief means and the culmination -of this deification are found and reached in the reception of the -Holy Eucharist will no doubt also have stimulated Catherine’s mind: -“The Communicant is led to the summit of deiformation, as far as this -is possible for him.”[105] And her soul responds completely to the -beautiful Dionysian-Proclian teaching concerning God’s presence in all -things, as the cause of the profound sympathy which binds them all -together. “They say,” declares Dionysius, “that He is in minds … and -in bodies, and in heaven and in earth; (indeed that He is) sun, fire, -water, spirit … all things existing, and yet again not one of all -things existing.” “The distribution of boundless power passes from -Almighty God all things, and no single being but has intellectual, -or rational, or sensible, or vital, or essential power.” “The gifts -of the unfailing Power pass on to men and (lesser) living creatures, -to plants, and to the entire nature of the Universe.”[106] This -latter passage was suggested by Proclus: “One would say that, through -participation in the One, all things are deified, each according to -its rank, inclusive of the very lowest of beings.” “The image of the -One and the inter-communion existing through it,--this it is that -produces the extant sympathy” which permeates all things.[107]--But -Catherine has nowhere the term “echo,” which is so dear to Dionysius: -“His all-surpassing power holds together and preserves even the -remotest of its echoes”; “the sun and plants are or hold most distant -echoes of the Good and of Life”; indeed even the licentious man still -possesses, in his very passion, “as it were a faint echo of Union and -of Friendship.”[108] - - -6. _Dionysius and Catherine; three agreements and differences._ - -I conclude with three important points of difference and similarity -between Catherine and Dionysius. - -(1) Catherine abstains from the use of those repulsive, impossibly -hyperbolic epithets such as “the Super-Good,” “the Above-Mind,” which -Dionysius is never weary of applying to God, and is content with ever -feeling and declaring how high above the very best conception which -she can form of mind and of goodness He undoubtedly is; thus wisely -moderated, I take it, by her constant experience and faith as to -God’s immediate presence within the human soul, which soul cannot, -consequently, be presented as entirely remote from the nature of God. - -(2) Catherine transforms over-intense and impoverishing insistence upon -the pure Oneness of God, such as we find it even in Dionysius and still -more in Proclus, into a, sometimes equally over-intense, conception as -to the oneness of our union with Him, leaving Him to be still conceived -as an overflowing richness of all kinds. - -(3) And Catherine keeps, in an interesting manner, Hellenic, and -specifically Platonic, formulation for the deepest of her experiences -and teachings, since her standing designation of God and of Our -Lord is never personal, “My Lover” or “My Friend”; but, as it were, -elemental, “Love” or “My Love.” Her keen self-purifying instinct -and reverence for God will have spontaneously inclined her thus to -consider Him first as an Ocean of Being in which to quench and drown -her small, clamorous individuality, and this as a necessary step -towards reconstituting that true personality, which, itself spirit, -would be penetrated and sustained by the Spirit, Christ, God. And then -the Pauline-Joannine picturings of God as a quasi-place and extended -substance (“from Him and in Him and to Him,” “in the Spirit,” “in -Christ,” “God is Charity and he that abideth in Charity, abideth in -Him”) will have strongly confirmed this trend. Yet Dionysius too must -have greatly helped on this movement of her mind. For in Dionysius -the standing appellations for God are, in true Neo-Platonist fashion, -derived from extended or diffusive material substances or conditions, -Light, Fire, Fountain, Ocean; and from that pervasive emotion, Love, -strictly speaking Desire, Eros. - -Now this, for our modern and Christian feeling, curiously impersonal, -general and abstract method goes back, through Proclus and Plotinus, -to Plato, who, above all in his _Symposium_, is dominated by the two -tendencies and requirements, of identifying the First and Perfect -with the most General and the most Abstract; and of making the very -prerequisites and instruments of the search for It,--even the earthly -Eros, still so far from the Heavenly Eros and from the Christian -Agapē,--into occasions, effects or instalments of and for the great -Reality sought by them. And since it is thus the love, the desire, the -eros, of things beautiful, and true, and good,--a love first sensible, -then intellectual, and at last spiritual, which makes us seek and find -It, the Beauty, Truth, and Goodness which is First Cause and Final End -of the whole series, this Cause and End will be considered not as a -Lover but as Love Itself. It is plain, I think, that it is specially -this second motive, this requirement of a pervading organization and -circle of and within the life of spirits and of the Spirit, which has -also determined Catherine to retain Plato’s terminology. - - -IV. JACOPONE DA TODI’S “LODE.” - -In the case of Jacopone, the suddenly wife-bereft and converted lawyer, -an ardent poet doubled by a soaring, daring mystic, with an astonishing -richness of simultaneous symbols and conceptions and rapidity of -successive complements and contrasts, it will really be simplest if -I take the chief touches which have characteristically stimulated -Catherine or have left her unaffected, in the order and grouping in -which they appear in his chief “Lode,” as these latter are given in the -first printed edition, probably the very one used by Catherine.[109] - - -1. _Lode XIII, XXIII, XXXV, XLV._ - -In Loda XIII “the vicious soul is likened unto Hell,” vv. 1-7; and “the -soul that yesterday was Hell, to-day has turned into Heaven,” v. 8. We -thus get here, precisely as in Catherine, the spaceless conditions of -the soul and their modifications treated under the symbols of places -and of the spacial change from one place to the other. - -In Loda XXIII we first have five successive purifications and purities -of Love, “carnal, counterfeit, self-seeking, natural, spiritual, -transformed,” vv. 1-6; and then the symbols of spacial location -and movement reappear, “if height does not abase itself, it cannot -participate with, nor communicate itself to, the lowest grade”; all -which is frequent with Catherine. But she nowhere echoes the teaching -reproduced here, v. 10, as to the Divine Trinity being figured in man’s -three faculties of soul. - -Loda XXXV gives us a sort of Christian Stoicism very dear dear to -Catherine: “Thou, my soul, hast been created in great elevation; thy -nature is grounded in great nobility (_gentilezza_),” v. 7; “thou hast -not thy life in created things; it is necessary for thee to breathe in -other countries, to mount up to God thine inheritance, Who (alone) can -satisfy thy poverty,” v. 10; “great is the honour which thou doest to -God, when thou abidest (stare) in Him, in thy (true) nobility,” v. 11. - -Loda XLV gives “the Five Modes in which God appears in the Soul”--“the -state of fear”; mercenary, “beggar-love”; “the way of love”; “the -paternal mode”; “the mode of espousals.” Catherine leaves the last two, -anthropomorphic and familial, conceptions quite unused, and passes in -her life, at one bound, from the first to the third mode. - - -2. _Lode LVIIIa, LVIIIb._ - -The fine Loda LVIII_a_, “Of Holy Poverty, Mistress of all Things,” has -evidently suggested much to Catherine. “Waters, rivers, lakes, and -ocean, fish within them and their swimming; airs, winds, birds, and all -their flying: all these turn to jewels for me,” v. 10. How readily the -sense of water, and of rapid movement within it, passes here into that -of air, and of swift locomotion within _it_! And both these movements, -are felt to represent, in vivid fashion, certain very different -experiences of the soul.--“Moon, Sun, Sky, and Stars,--even these are -_not_ amongst my treasures; above the very sky those things abide, -which are the object of my song,” v. 11. The positive, “analogic” -method has here turned suddenly into the negative, “apophatic” one; -and yet, even here, we still have the spacial symbolism, for the best -is the highest up,--indeed it is this very symbolism which is made to -add point to the negative declaration, a declaration which nevertheless -clearly implies the mere symbolism of that spacialization. All this is -fully absorbed by Catherine.--“Since God has my will, … my wings have -such feathers that from earth to heaven there is no distance for me,” -v. 12. Here we see how Plato filters through, complete, to Jacopone; -but only in his central idea to Catherine. For the _Phaedrus_, 246_b_, -_c_, teaches: “The perfect soul then, having become winged, soars -upwards, and is the ruler of the universe; whilst the imperfect soul -sheds her feathers and is borne downwards, till it settles on the solid -ground.” Catherine never mentions wings nor feathers, but often dwells -upon flying. - -The great Loda LVIII_b_, “Of Holy Poverty and its Treble Heaven,” -(one passage of which is formally quoted and carefully expounded -by Catherine), is a combination of Platonism, Paulinism, and -Franciscanism, and has specially influenced her through its Platonist -element. Verses 1-9 contain a fine apostrophe to Poverty. “O Love of -Poverty, Reign of tranquillity! Poverty, high Wisdom! to be subject -to nothing; through despising to possess all things created!” v. 1: -all this is echoed by Catherine. But the ex-lawyer’s declaration that -such a soul “has neither judge nor notary,” v. 3, did certainly not -determine her literally, for we have had before us some fifteen cases -in which she had recourse to lawyers. “God makes not His abode in a -narrow heart; thou art, oh man, precisely as great as thine affection -may be. The spirit of poverty possesses so ample a bosom, that Deity -Itself takes up its dwelling there,” v. 8. Catherine’s deepest self -seems to breathe from out of this profound saying. - -Verses 10 to 30 describe the three heavens of successive -self-despoilments. The firmamental heaven, which typifies the four-fold -renouncement,--of honour, riches, science, reputation of sanctity, -has left no echo in Catherine. The stellar heaven is “composed of -solidified clear waters (_aque solidate_)”; here “the four winds” -cease “that move the sea,--that perturb the mind: fear and hope, grief -and joy,” 11-14. Here Plato again touches Catherine through Jacopone. -For the _Symposium_, 197_a_, declares: “Love it is that produces -peace among men and calm on the sea, a cessation of the winds, and -repose and sleep even in trouble”; and Jacopone identifies the middle -“crystalline” heaven, (“the waters above” of Genesis, chap, i,) with -Plato’s “sea”; takes Plato’s (four) winds as the soul’s chief passions; -and considers Plato’s “peace” and “windlessness” as equivalent to the -“much silence,” which, says the Apocalypse, “arose in heaven,” viii, 1, -interpreted here as “in mid-heaven.” “Not to fear Hell, nor to hope for -Heaven, to rejoice in no good, to grieve over no adversity,” v. 16, is -a formulation unlike Catherine, although single sayings of hers stand -for sentiments analogous to the first and last.--“If the virtues are -naked, and the vices are not garmented,--mortal wounds get given to the -soul,” v. 19, has a symbolism exactly opposite to Catherine’s, who, we -know, loves to glorify “nakedness” as the soul’s purity.--“The highest -heaven” is “beyond even the imagings of the mortified fancy”; “of every -good it has despoiled thee, and has expropriated thee from all virtue: -lay up as a treasure this thy gain,--the sense of thine own vileness.” -“O purified Love! it alone lives in the truth!” These verses, 20-22, -have left a deep impress upon Catherine, although she wisely does -not press that “expropriation from virtue,” which goes back at least -to Plotinus, for whom the true Ecstatic is “beyond the choir of the -virtues.”[110] - -“That which appears to thee (as extant), is not truly, existent: -so high (above) is that which truly is. True elevation of soul -(_la superbia_) dwells in heaven above, and baseness of mind -(_humilitade_) leads to damnation,” v. 24, is a saying to which we -still have Catherine’s detailed commentary. In its markedly Platonic -distinction between an upper true and a lower seeming world, and in its -characteristically mystical love of paradox and a play upon words, it -is more curious than abidingly important; but in its deeply Christian -consciousness of “pride” and “humility,” in their ordinary ethical -sense, being respectively the subtlest vice and the noblest virtue, it -rises sheer above all Platonist and Neo-Platonist apprehension. - -“Love abides in prison, in that darksome light! All light there is -darkness, and all darkness there is as the day,” vv. 26, 27. Here -Catherine no doubt found aids towards her prison-conception,--of the -loving soul imprisoned in the earthly body, and of the imperfect, -yet loving, disembodied souls imprisoned in Purgatory; and towards -articulating her strong sense of the change in the meaning and value of -the same symbols, as the soul grows in depth and experience. But her -symbolization of God, and of our apprehension of Him as Light and Fire, -is too solidly established in her mind, to allow her to emphasize the -darkness-symbol with any reference to Him. - -“There where Christ is enclosed (in the soul), all the old is changed -by Him,--the one is transformed into the Other, in a marvellous union. -To live as I and yet not I; and my very being to be not mine: this is -so great a cross-purpose (_traversio_), that I know not how to define -it,” vv. 28-30. This vivid description, based of course upon St. Paul, -of the apparent shifting of the very centre of the soul’s personality, -has left clear echoes in Catherine’s sayings; but the explicit -reference to Christ is here as characteristically Franciscan as it is -unlike Catherine’s special habits.--And the great poem ends with a -_refrain_ of its opening apostrophe. - - -3. _Lode LXXIV, LXXIX, LXXXI, LXXXIII._ - -In the dramatically vivid Dialogue between the Old and the Young Friar -“Concerning the divers manners of contemplating the Cross,” Loda -LXXIV, the elder says to the younger man: “And I find the Cross full -of arrows, which issue from its side: they get fixed in my heart. The -Archer has aimed them at me; He causes me to be pierced,” v. 6. The -Cross is here a bow; and yet the arrows evidently issue not from it, -but, as so many rays, from the Sun, the Light-Christ, Who is laid upon -it,--from the heart of the Crucified. Catherine maintains the rays and -arrows, and the Sun and Fire from which they issue; but the Cross and -the Crucified, presupposed here throughout, appear not, even to this -extent, in her post-conversion picturings.--“You abide by the warmth, -but I abide within the fire; to you it is delight, but I am burning -through and through, I cannot find a place of refuge in this furnace,” -v. 13. All this has been echoed throughout by Catherine. - -Loda LXXIX, “Of the Divine Love and its Praises,” has evidently much -influenced her. “O joyous wound, delightful wound, gladsome wound, for -him who is wounded by Thee, O Love!” “O Love, divine Fire! Love full -of laughter and playfulness!” “O Love, sweet and suave; O Love, Thou -art the key of heaven! Ship that Thou art, bring me to port and calm -the tempest,” vv. 3, 6, 16. All this we have found reproduced in her -similes and experiences. “Love, bounteous in spending Thyself; Love -with widespread tables!” “Love, Thou art the One that loves, and the -Means wherewith the heart loves Thee!” vv. 24, 26. These verses give us -the wide, wide world outlook, the connection between Love and the Holy -Eucharist, and the identity of the Subject, Means, and Object of Love, -which are all so much dwelt upon by Catherine. - -Loda LXXXI is interesting by the way in which, although treating of -“the love of Christ upon the Cross,” it everywhere apostrophizes Love -and not the Lover, and treats the former, again like Catherine, as a -kind of boundless living substance; indeed v. 17 must have helped to -suggest one of her favourite conceptions: “O great Love, greater than -the great sea! Oh! the man who is drowned within it, under it, and with -it all around him, whilst he knows not where he is!” - -Loda LXXXIII has two touches dear to Catherine. “O Love, whose name is -‘I love’--the plural is never found,” v. 5,--a saying which evidently -is directed, not against a social conception of religion, but against -a denial of the Divine Love being Source as well as Object of our -love; and “I did not love Thee with any gain to myself, until I loved -Thee for Thine own sake,” v. 15,--a declaration of wondrous depth and -simplicity. - - -4. _Lode LXXXVIII, LXXXIX, LXXXX, LXXXXVIII, LXXXXIX._ - -The great Loda LXXXVIII, “How the soul complains to God concerning -the excessive ardours of the love infused into it,” contains numerous -touches which have been interestingly responded to or ignored by -Catherine. “All my will is on fire with Love, is united, transformed -(into It); who can bear such Love? Nor fire nor sword can part the -loving soul and her Love; a thing so united cannot be divided; neither -suffering nor death can henceforth mount up to that height where the -soul abides in ecstasy,” vv. 5, 6: a combination of St. Paul and -Plotinus, quite after Catherine’s heart. But “the light of the sun -appears to me obscure, now that I see that resplendent Countenance,” -v. 7, has an anthropomorphic touch to which she does not respond; -and “I have given all my heart, that it may possess that Lover who -renews me so,--O Beauty ancient and ever new!” v. 10, has the personal -designation “Lover,” which, again, is alien to her vocabulary. - -“Seeing such Beauty, I have been drawn out of myself … and the heart -now gets undone, melted as though it were wax, and finds itself again, -with the likeness of Christ upon it,” v. 11, must have stimulated, by -its first part, some of her own experiences, and will, by its second -part, taken literally, have helped on the fantastic expectations of -her attendants. “Love rises to such ardour, that the heart seems to -be transfixed as with a knife,” v. 14, no doubt both expressed an -experience of Jacopone and helped to constitute the form of a similar -experience on the part of Catherine. “As iron, which is all on fire, -as dawn, made resplendent by the sun, lose their own form (nature) and -exist in another, so is it with the pure mind, when clothed by Thee, O -Love,” v. 21, contains ideas, (all but the symbol of clothing,) very -dear to Catherine. But the astonishingly daring words: “Since my soul -has been transformed into Truth, into Thee, O Christ alone, into Thee -Who art tender Loving,--not to myself but to Thee can be imputed what I -do. Hence, if I please Thee not, Thou dost not please Thine Own Self, -O Love!” v. 22, remain unechoed by her, no doubt because her states -shift from one to another, and she wisely abstains from pushing the -articulation of any one of them to its own separate logical limit. - -“Thou wast born into the world by love and not by flesh, O Love -become Man (_humanato Amore_),” v. 27, is like her in its interesting -persistence in the “Love” (not “Lover”) designation, but is unlike her -in its definite reference to the historic Incarnation. “Love, O Love, -Jesus, I have reached the haven,” v. 32, is closely like her, all but -the explicit mention of the historic name; and “Love, O Love, Thou art -the full-orbed circle,” “Thou art both warp and woof,” beginning and -end, material and transforming agency, v. 33, is Catherine’s central -idea, expressed in a form much calculated to impress it upon her. - -The daring and profound Loda LXXXIX, “How the soul, by holy -self-annihilation and love, reaches an unknowable and indescribable -state,” contains again numerous touches which have been assimilated by -Catherine. So with: “Drawn forth, out of her natural state, into that -unmeasurable condition whither love goes to drown itself, the soul, -having plunged into the abyss of this ocean, henceforth cannot find, -on any side, any means of issuing forth from it,” vv. 12, 13. So also -with: “Since thou dost no longer love thyself, but alone that Goodness -… it has become necessary for thee again to love thyself, but with -His Love,--into so great an unity hast thou been drawn by Him,” vv. -52-54. So too with: “All Faith ceases for the soul to whom it has been -given to see; and all Hope, since it now actually holds what it used -to seek,” v. 70, although this is more absolute than are her similar -utterances.--But especially are the startling words interesting: “In -this transformation, thou drinkest Another, and that Other drinketh -thee (_tu bevi e sei bevuto, in transformazione_),” v. 98, which, in -their second part, are identical with R. Browning’s “My end, to slake -Thy thirst”:[111] for they will have helped to support or to encourage -Catherine’s corresponding inversion--the teaching of an eating, an -assimilation, not of God by man, but of man by God. Both sets of images -go back, of course, to the Eucharistic reception by the soul of the -God-man Christ, under the forms of Bread eaten and of Wine drunk. - -The striking Loda LXXXX, “How the soul arrives at a treble state of -annihilation,” has doubtless suggested much to Catherine. “He who -has become the very Cause of all things” (_chi è cosa d’ogni cosa_) -“can never more desire anything,” v. 4, is, it is true, more daring, -because more quietly explicit, than any saying of hers. But v. 13 has -been echoed by her throughout: “The heavens have grown stagnant; their -silence constrains me to cry aloud: ‘O profound Ocean, the very depth -of Thine Abyss has constrained me to attempt and drown myself within -it,’”--where note the interestingly antique presupposition of the music -of the spheres, which has now stopped, and of the watery constitution -of the crystalline heaven, which allows of stagnation; and the rapidity -of the change in the impressions,--from immobility to silence, and from -air to water. Indeed that Ocean is one as much of air as of water, and -as little the one as the other; and its attractive force is still that -innate affinity between the river-soul and its living Source and Home, -the Ocean God, which we have so constantly found in Plotinus, Proclus, -and Dionysius. “The land of promise is, for such a soul, no longer one -of promise only: for the perfect soul already reigns within that land. -Men can thus transform themselves, in any and every place,” v. 18, has, -in its touching and lofty Stoic-Christian teaching, found the noblest -response and re-utterance in and by Catherine’s words and life. - -Loda LXXXXVIII, “Of the Incarnation of the Divine Word,” full though -it is of beautiful Franciscanism, has left her uninfluenced. But the -fine Loda LXXXXIX, “How true Love is not idle,” contains touches which -have sunk deep into her mind. “Splendour that givest to all the world -its light, O Love Jesus … heaven and earth are by Thee; Thine action -resplends in all things and all things turn to Thee. Only the sinner -despises Thy Love and severs himself from Thee, his Creator,” v. 6, -is, in its substance, taken over by her. “O ye cold sinners!” v. 12, -is her favourite epithet. And vv. 13, 14, with their rapid ringing of -the changes on the different sense-perceptions, will, by their shifting -vividness, have helped on a similar iridescence in her own imagery: “O -Odour, that transcendest every sweetness! O living river of Delight … -that causest the very dead to return to their vigour! In heaven Thy -lovers possess Thine immense Sweetness, tasting there those savoury -morsels.” - -And finally Loda LXXXVII, “Of true and false discretion,” which, in vv. -12-20, consists of a dialogue between “the Flesh” and “the Reason,” -will have helped to suggest the slight beginnings of this form of -apprehension to Catherine which we have found amongst her authentic -sayings and experiences, and which were, later on, developed on so -large a scale, by Battista Vernazza, throughout her long _Dialogo della -Beata Caterina_. - -5. Jacopone it is, then, who furnished Catherine with much help towards -that rare combination of deep feeling with severely abstract thinking -which, if at times it somewhat strains and wearies us moderns who would -ever end with the concrete, gives a nobly virile, bracing note to even -the most effective of her sayings. - - -V. POINTS COMMON TO ALL FIVE MINDS; AND CATHERINE’S MAIN DIFFERENCE -FROM HER FOUR PREDECESSORS. - -If we now consider for a moment the general points common to the four -writers just considered and to Catherine, we readily note that all -five are profoundly reflective and interpretative in their attitude -towards the given contingencies of traditional religion; that they -all tend to find the Then and There of History still at work, in -various degrees, Here and Now, throughout Time and Space, and in the -last resort, above and behind both these categories, in a spaceless, -timeless Present. And if only three, Paul, Jacopone, and Catherine, -bear marks, throughout all they think and feel and do and are, of the -cataclysmic conversion-crisis through which they had passed,--the -temporally intermediate two, John and Dionysius, have also got, but in -a more indirect form, much of a similar Dualism. All five are, in these -and other respects, indefinitely closer to each other than any one of -them is to the still richer, more complete, and more entirely balanced -though less articulated, Synoptic teaching, which enfolds all that -is abiding in those other five, whilst they, even if united, do not -approximately exhaust the substance of that teaching. - -And if we would briefly define the main point on which Catherine holds -views additional to, or other than, those other four, we must point to -her Purgatorial teaching, which has received but little or no direct -suggestion from any one of them, and which, whatever may have been its -literary precursors and occasions, gives, perhaps more than anything -else, a peculiarly human and personal, original and yet still modern, -touch to what would otherwise be, to our feeling, too abstract and -antique a spiritual physiognomy. - - - - -CHAPTER XI - -CATHERINE’S LESS ULTIMATE THIS-WORLD DOCTRINES - - -INTRODUCTORY: CATHERINE’S LESS ULTIMATE POSITIONS, CONCERNING OUR LIFE -HERE, ARE FOUR. - -We have now attempted, (by means of a doubtless more or less artificial -distinction between things that, in real life, constitute parts of one -whole in a state of hardly separable inter-penetration,) a presentation -of Catherine’s special, mental and psycho-physical, character and -temperament, and of the principal literary stimulations and materials -which acted upon, and in return were refashioned by, that character; -and we have also given, in sufficient detail, the resultant doctrines -and world-view acquired and developed by that deep soul and noble mind. -The most important and difficult part of our task remains, however, -still to be accomplished,--the attempt to get an (at least approximate) -estimate of the abiding meaning, place, and worth of this whole, highly -synthesized position, for and within the religious life generally and -our present-day requirements in particular. For the general outline of -the Introduction, (intended there more as an instrument of research -and classification for the literature and history then about to be -examined, than as this history’s final religious appraisement,) cannot -dispense us from now attempting something more precise and ultimate.--I -propose, then, to give the next four chapters to an examination -of Catherine’s principal positions and practices, the first two, -respectively, to “the less ultimate This-World Doctrines”; and “the -Other-World Doctrines,” or “the Eschatology”; and the last two to “the -Ultimate Implications and Problems” underlying both. The last chapter -shall then sum up the whole book, and consider the abiding place and -function of Mysticism, in its contrast to, and supplementation of, -Asceticism, Institutionalism, and the Scientific Habit and Activity of -the Mind. - -Now I think the less ultimate spiritual positions, as far as they -concern our life here below, which are specially represented, or at -least forcibly suggested by, Catherine, can reasonably be accounted as -four: Interpretative Religion; a strongly Dualistic attitude towards -the body; Quietude and Passivity; and Pure Love. I shall devote a -section to each position. - - -I. INTERPRETATIVE RELIGION. - - -1. _Difficulties of the Subjective element of Religion._ - -Now, by Interpretative Religion, I do not mean to imply that there -is anywhere, in _rerum natura_, such a thing as a religion which is -not interpretative, which does not consist as truly of a reaction on -the part of the believing soul to certain stimulations of and within -it, as of these latter stimulations and actions. As every (even -but semi-conscious) act and state of the human mind, ever embraces -both such action of the object and such reaction of the subject,--a -relatively crude fact of sensation or of feeling born in upon it, and -an interpretation, an incorporation of this fact by, and into, the -living tissue and organism of this mind: so is it also, necessarily -and above all, with the deepest and most richly complex of all human -acts and states,--the specifically religious ones. But if this -interpretative activity of the mind was present from the very dawn of -human reason, and exists in each individual in the precise proportion -as mind can be predicated as operative within him at all: this mental -activity is yet the last element in the compound process and result -which is, or can be, perceived as such by the mind itself. The process -is too near to the observer, even when he is once awake to its -existence; he is too much occupied with the materials brought before -his mind and with moulding and sorting them out; and this moulding and -sorting activity is itself too rapid and too deeply independent of -those materials as to its form, and too closely dependent upon them as -to its content, for the observation by the mind of this same mind’s -contributions towards its own affirmations of reality and of the nature -of this reality, not ever to appear late in the history of the human -race or in the life of any human individual, or not to be, even when it -appears difficult, a fitful and an imperfect mental exercise. - -And when the discovery of this constant contribution of the mind to -its own affirmations of reality is first made, it can hardly fail, -for the time being, to occasion misgivings and anxieties of a more or -less sceptical kind. Is not the whole of what I have hitherto taken -to be a solid world of sense outside me, and the whole of the world -of necessary truth and of obligatory goodness within me,--is it not, -perhaps, all a merely individual creation of my single mind--a mind cut -off from all effective intercourse with reality,--my neighbour’s mind -included? For all having, so far, been held to be objective, the mind -readily flies to the other extreme, and suspects all to be subjective. -Or if all my apprehensions and certainties are the resultants from the -interaction between impressions received by my senses and mind and -reactions and elaborations on the part of this mind with regard to -those impressions, how can I be sure of apprehending rightly, unless -I can divide each constituent off from the other? And yet, how can I -effect such a continuous discounting of my mind’s action by means of my -own mind itself? - -And this objection is felt most keenly in religion, when the religious -soul first wakes up to the fact that itself, of necessity and -continuously, contributes, by its own action, to the constitution of -those affirmations and certainties, which, until then, seemed, without -a doubt, to be directly borne in upon a purely receptive, automatically -registering mind, from that extra-, super-human world which it thus -affirmed. Here also, all having for so long been assumed to be purely -objective, the temptation now arises to consider it all as purely -subjective. Or again, if we insist upon holding that, here too, there -are both objective and subjective elements, we readily experience keen -distress at our inability clearly to divide off the objective, which is -surely the reality, from the subjective, which can hardly fail to be -its travesty. - -And finally, this doubt and trouble would seem to find specially ready -material in the mystical element and form of religion. For here, as we -have already seen, psycho-physical and auto-suggestive phenomena and -mechanisms abound; here especially does the mind cling to an immediate -access to Reality; and here the ordinary checks and complements -afforded by the Historical and Institutional, the Analytically -Rational, and the Volitional, Practical elements of Religion are at -a minimum. Little but the Emotional and the Speculatively Rational -elements seems to remain; and these, more than any others, appear -incapable of admitting that they are anything other than the pure and -direct effects and expressions of spiritual Reality. - -What, then, shall we think of all this? - - -2. _Answers to the above difficulties._ - -We evidently must, in the first instance, guard against any attempt -at doing a doctrinaire violence to the undeniable facts of our -consciousness or of its docile analysis, by explaining all our -knowledge, or only even all our knowledge of any single thing, as -either of purely subjective or of purely objective provenance; for -everywhere and always these two elements co-exist in all human -apprehension, reason, feeling, will, and faith. We find, throughout, an -organization, an indissoluble organism, of subjective and objective, -hence a unity in diversity, which is indeed so great that (for our -own experience and with respect to our own minds at all events), the -Subjective does not and cannot exist without the Objective, nor the -Objective without the Subjective. - -In the next place, we must beware against exalting the Objective -against the Subjective, or the Subjective against the Objective, as -if Life, Reality, and Truth consisted in the one rather than the -other. Because the subjective element is, on the first showing, a work -of our own minds, it does not follow (as we shall see more clearly -when studying the ultimate problems) that its operations are bereft -of correspondence with reality, or, at least, that they are further -from reality than are our sense-perceptions. For just as the degree -of worth represented by these sense-perceptions can range from the -crudest delusion to a stimulation of primary importance and exquisite -precision, so also our mental and emotional reaction and penetration -represent almost any and every degree of accuracy and value. - -And, above all, as already implied, the true priority and superiority -lies, not with one of these constituents against the other, but with -the total subjective-objective interaction and resultant, which is -superior, and indeed gives their place and worth to, those ever -interdependent parts. - -Now, in the general human experience, the Objective element is -constituted, in the first instance and for clear and ready analysis, -by the sense-stimulations; and, after some mental response to and -elaboration of these, by the larger psychic moods; and later still, by -the examples of great spiritual attitudes and of great personalities -offered by other souls to the soul that keeps itself open to such -impressions. And though the sense of Reality (as contrasted with -Appearance), of the Abiding and Infinite (as different from the -Passing and the Finite), are doubtless awakened, however faintly and -inarticulately, in the human soul from the first, as the background and -presupposition of the foreground and the middle-distances of its total -world of perceptions and aspirations: yet all these middle-distances, -as well as that great background and groundwork, would remain -unawakened but for those humble little sense-perceptions on the one -hand, and intercourse with human fellow-creatures on the other. And in -such intercourse with the minds and souls, or with the literary remains -and other monuments of souls, either still living here or gone hence -some two thousand years or more, a mass of mental and moral impressions -and stimulations, which, in those souls, were largely their own -elaborations, offer themselves to any one human mind, or to the minds -of a whole generation or country, with the apparent homogeneity of a -purely objective, as it were a sense-impression. - -Especially in Religion the Historical and Institutional (as Religion’s -manifestation in space and time), come down to us thus from the past -and surround us in the present, and either press in upon us with a -painful weight, or support us with a comforting solidity, thus giving -them many of the qualities of things physically seen and touched, -say, a mystery play or a vast cathedral. And, on the other hand, -the Rational, (whether Analytic or Synthetic,) and the Emotional -and Volitional Elements, whenever they are at all preponderant or -relatively independent of the other, more objective ones, are liable, -in Religion, to look quite exceptionally subjective,--and this in -the unfavourable sense of the word, as though either superfluous and -fantastic, or as dangerous and destructive.--And yet both that look of -the objective elements being, in Religion, more self-sufficing than -they appear to be in the ordinary psychic, or the artistic, or social, -or scientific life; and that impression conveyed by the subjective -elements in Religion, as being there less necessary or more dangerous -than elsewhere, are doubtless deceptive. These impressions are simply -caused by two very certain facts. Religion is the deepest and most -inclusive of all the soul’s energizings and experiences, and hence -all its constituents reveal a difference, at least in amount and -degree, when compared with the corresponding constituents of the more -superficial and more partial activities of the soul; and Religion, -just because of this, requires the fullest action and co-operation, the -most perfect unity, in and through diversity, of all the soul’s powers, -and all mere non-use of any of these forces, even any restriction to -the use of but one or two, is here, more readily and extensively than -elsewhere, detrimental both to the non-exercised and to the exercised -forces, and, above all, is impoverishing to the soul itself and to its -religion. - -Hence, here as elsewhere, but more than anywhere, our ideal standard -will be the greatest possible development of, and inter-stimulation -between, each and all of the religious elements, with the greatest -possible unity in the resulting organism. And yet,--in view of the -very greatness of the result aimed at, and of the fact that its even -approximate attainment can, even for any one age of the world, be -reasonably expected only from the co-operation of the differently -endowed and attracted races and nations, social and moral grades, -sexes, ages and individuals that make up mankind,--we shall not -only be very tolerant of, we shall positively encourage, largely -one-sided developments, provided that each keeps some touch with the -elements which itself knows not how to develop in abundance, and that -it considers its own self, and works out its own special gift and -_attrait_, as but one out of many variously gifted and apportioned -fellow-servants in the Kingdom,--as only one of the countless, mutually -complementary, individually ever imperfect, part-expressions of the -manifold greatness, of the rich unity of spiritual humanity as willed -by God, and of God Himself. - - -3. _Partial developments of the full Gospel Ideal._ - -Now in the New Testament we have a most instructive, at first sight -puzzling phenomenon, illustrative of the positions just taken up. -For here it is clear that, with regard to the distinction between -richly many-sided but as yet unarticulated religion, and comparatively -one-sided and limited but profoundly developed religion, we have two -considerably contrasted types of spiritual tone and teaching. We get -the predominantly “Objective” strand of life and doctrine, in the -pre-Pauline parts and in their non-Pauline echoes, _i.e._ in the -substance of the Synoptic tradition, and in the Epistles of St. James -and of St. Peter; and we find the predominantly “Subjective” strain -in the “Pauline” parts, St. Paul’s Epistles and the Joannine Gospel -and Letters.--And it has become more and more clear that it is the -pre-Pauline parts which give us the most immediately and literally -faithful, and especially the most complete and many-sided, picture of -Our Lord’s precise words and actions; whereas the Pauline parts give -us rather what some of these great creative forces were and became for -the first generations of Christians and for the most penetrating of -Christ’s early disciples and lovers. And yet it is the latter documents -which, at first sight, appear to be the deeper, the wider, and the more -profoundly spiritual; whereas the former look more superficial, more -temporal and local, and more simply popular and material. - -And yet,--though this first impression has been held to be finally -true by large masses of Christians; although the Greek Fathers -predominantly, and, in the West, the great soul of an Augustine, and -the powerful but one-sided personalities of a Luther and a Calvin -have, in various degrees and ways, helped to articulate and all but -finally fix it for the general Christian consciousness: this view is -yielding, somewhat slowly but none the less surely, to the sense that -it is the Synoptic, the pre-Pauline tradition which contains the fuller -arsenal of the spiritual forces which have transfigured and which still -inspire the world of souls. This, of course, does not mean that the -Pauline-Joannine developments were not necessary, or are not abiding -elements towards the understanding of the Christian spirit. - -And, to come to the true answer to our objection, such a judgment -does not mean that the reflective penetration and reapplication of -the original more spontaneous message was, from the very nature of -the case, inferior to the first less articulated announcement of the -Good Tidings. But it merely signifies that this necessary process of -reflection could only be applied to parts of the original, immensely -rich and varied, because utterly living, divinely spiritual, whole; and -that, thus, the special balance and tension which characterized the -original, complete spirit and temper, could, however profoundly, be -reproduced only in part. For the time being this later penetration and -resetting of some elements from among the whole of Our Lord’s divinely -rich and simple life and teaching, necessarily and rightly, yet none -the less most really, ignored, or put for the time into some other -context, certain other sides and aspects of that primitive treasure -of inexhaustible experience. Only the full, equable, and simultaneous -unfolding of all the petals could have realized the promise and -content of the bud; whereas the bud, holding enfolded within itself -such various elements and combinations of truth, could not expand its -petals otherwise than successively, hence, at any one moment only -somewhat one-sidedly and partially. Each and all of these unfoldings -bring some further insight into, and articulation of, the original -spiritual organism; and that they are not more, but less, than the -totality of that primitive experience and revelation, does not prove -that such reflective work is wrong or even simply dispensable,--for, on -the contrary, in some degree or form it was and ever is necessary to -the soul’s apprehension of that life and truth,--but simply implies the -immensity of the spiritual light and impulsion given by Our Lord, and -the relative smallness of even the greatest of His followers. - -Thus only if it could be shown that those parts of the New Testament -which doubtless give us the nearest approach to the actual words and -deeds of Our Lord require us to conceive them as having been without -the reflective and emotional element; or again that, in the case of the -more derivative parts of the New Testament, it is their reflectiveness, -and not their relative incompleteness and one-sidedness, that cause -them to be more readily englobed in the former world, than that former -world in the latter: could the facts here found be used as an argument -against the importance and strict necessity for religion of the -reflective and emotional, the “Subjective” elements, alongside of the -“Objective,” the Historical and Institutional ones. - -It is a most legitimate ground for consolation to a Catholic when -he finds the necessities of life and those of learned research both -driving us more and more to this conclusion; for it is not deniable -that Catholicism has ever refused to do more than include the Pauline -and Joannine theologies amongst its earliest and most normative -stimulations and expressions; and that it has ever retained, far -more than Protestantism, the sense, which (upon the whole) is most -unbrokenly preserved by the Synoptists, of, if I may so phrase it, the -Christianity of certain true elements in the pre- and extra-Christian -religions. For it is in the Synoptists that we get the clear -presentation of Our Lord’s attitude towards the Jewish Church of His -time, as one, even at its keenest, analogous to that of Savonarola, and -not to that of a Luther, still less of a Calvin, towards the Christian -Church of their day.--Indeed in these documents all idea of limiting -Christianity to what He brought of new, appears as foreign to His mind -as it ever has been to that of the Catholic Church. Here we get the -most spontaneous and many-sided expression of that divinely human, -widely traditional and social, all-welcoming and all-transforming -spirit, which embraces both grace _and_ nature, eternity _and_ time, -soul _and_ body, attachment _and_ detachment. The Pauline strain stands -for the stress necessary to the full spiritualization of all those -occasions and materials, as against all, mere unregenerate or static, -retention of the simple rudiments or empty names of those things; -and predominantly insists upon grace, _not_ nature; eternity, _not_ -time; soul, _not_ body; the cross and death here, the Crown and Life -hereafter. No wonder it is this latter strain that gets repeated, -with varying truth and success, in times of acute transition, and by -characters more antithetic than synthetic, more great at developing a -part of the truth than the whole. - -Thinkers, of such wide historical outlook and unimpeachable detachment -from immediate controversial interest as Prof. Wilhelm Dilthey and -Dr. Edward Caird, have brought out, with admirable force, this -greater fulness of content offered by the Synoptists, and how the -Pauline-Joannine writings give us the first and most important of -those concentrations upon, and in part philosophic and mystical -reinterpretations of, certain constituents of the original happenings, -actions and message, as apprehended and transmitted by the first -eye-witnesses and believers.[112]--Here I would but try and drive -home the apparently vague, but in reality ever pressing and concrete, -lesson afforded by the clear and dominant fact of these two groups -within the New Testament itself:--of how no mere accumulation of -external happenings, or of external testimony as to their having -happened,--no amount of history or of institutionalism, taken as sheer, -purely positive givennesses,--can anywhere be found, or can anywhere -suffice for the human mind and conscience, in the apprehension and -embodiment of the truth. For although, in Our Lord’s most literally -transmitted sayings and doings, this continuous and inalienable element -of the apprehending, organizing, vitalizing mind and heart,--on -His part above all, but also on the part of His several hearers and -chroniclers,--can mostly still be traced and must everywhere be -assumed: yet it is in the Pauline-Joannine literature that the ever -important, the rightly and fruitfully “subjective,” the speculative and -emotional, the mystical and the volitional strain can best be studied, -both as to its necessity and as to its special character and dangers, -because here it is developed to the relative exclusion of the other -factors of complete religion. - - -4. _The exclusive emotionalism of Dionysius and Jacopone._ - -Now if even in St. Paul and St. John there is a strong predominance of -these reflective-emotional elements, in Dionysius and Jacopone they -threaten to become exclusive of everything else. Especially is this -the case with the Pseudo-Areopagite, steeped as he is in reflection -upon reflections and in emotion upon emotions, often of the most -subtle kind: a Christian echo, with curiously slight modifications, -of Neo-Platonism in its last stage,--hence, unfortunately, of the -over-systematic and largely artificial Proclus, instead of the -predominantly experimental and often truly sublime Plotinus. And even -Jacopone, although he has distinctly more of the historic element, is -still predominantly reflective-emotional, and presents us with many a -hardly modified Platonic or Stoic doctrine, derived no doubt from late -Graeco-Roman writers and their mediaeval Christian echoes. - - -5. _Catherine’s interpretation of the Gospel Ideal._ - -Catherine herself, although delightfully free from the long scale of -mediations between the soul and God which forms one of the predominant -doctrines of the Areopagite, continues and emphasizes most of what is -common, and much of what is special to, all and each of these four -writers; she is a reflective saint, if ever there was one. And of her -too we shall have to say that she is great by what she possesses, and -not by what she is without: great because of her noble embodiment of -the reflective and emotional, the mystical and volitional elements -of Christianity and Religion generally. Religion is here, at first -sight at least, all but entirely a thought and an emotion; yet all -this thought and emotion is directed to, and occasioned by, an -abiding Reality which originates, sustains, regulates, and fulfils -it. And although this Reality is in large part conceived, in Greek -and specially in Neo-Platonist fashion, rather under its timeless and -spaceless, or at least under its cosmic aspect, rather as Law and -Substance, than as Personality and Spirit: yet, already because of the -strong influence upon her of the noblest Platonic doctrine, it is loved -as overflowing Love and Goodness, as cause and end of all lesser love -and goodness; and the real, though but rarely articulated, acceptance -and influence of History and Institutions, above all the enthusiastic -devotion to the Holy Eucharist with all its great implications, gives -to the whole a profoundly Christian tone and temper. - -True, the Church at large, indeed the single soul (if we would take -such a soul as our standard of completeness) requires a larger -proportion of those crisp, definite outlines, of those factual, -historical, and institutional elements; a very little less than what -remains in Catherine of these elements, and her religion would be -a simple, even though deep religiosity, a general aspiration, not -a definite finding, an explicit religion. Yet it remains certain, -although ever readily forgotten by religious souls, especially by -theological apologists, that without some degree and kind of those -outgoing, apprehending, interpreting activities, no religion is -possible. Only the question as to what these activities should be, and -what is their true place and function within the whole religious life, -remains an open one. And this question we can study with profit in -connection with such a life and teaching as Catherine’s, which brings -out, with a spontaneous, childlike profundity and daring, the elemental -religious passion, the spiritual hunger and thirst of man when he is -once fully awake; the depths within him anticipating the heights above -him; the affinity to and contact with the Infinite implied and required -by that nobly incurable restlessness of his heart, which finds its rest -in Him alone Who made it. - - -II. DUALISTIC ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE BODY. - -And if Catherine is profoundly reflective, that reflection is, in its -general drift, deeply dualistic,--at least in the matter of body and -spirit. Their difference and incompatibility; the spirit’s fleeing of -the body; the spirit’s getting outside of it,--by ecstasy, for a little -while, even in this earthly life, and by this earthly body’s death, for -good and all; the body a prison-house, a true purgatory to the soul: -all this hangs well together, and is largely, in its very form, of -ultimately Neo-Platonist or Platonic origin. - - -1. _New Testament valuations of the body._ - -Now here is one of the promised instances of a double type--if not of -doctrine, yet at least of emotional valuation in the New Testament. - -(1) In the Synoptist documents, (with the but apparent, or at least -solitary, exceptions, of Jesus’ Fasting in the Desert and of His -commendation of those who have made themselves eunuchs for the Kingdom -of Heaven),[113] we find no direct or acute antagonism to the body, -even to the average earthly human body, in the teaching and practice -of Our Lord. The Second Coming and its proximity do indeed, here -also, dwarf all earthly concerns, in so far as earthly.[114] This -background to the teaching and its tradition was, in course of time, -in part abstracted from, in part restated.--The entrance into life is -through the narrow gate and the steep way; only if a man turn, can he -enter into the Kingdom of God; only if he lose his soul, can he find -it:[115] this great teaching and example, as to life and joy being ever -reached through death to self and by the whole-hearted turning of the -soul from its false self to its true source, God: remains, in the very -form of its promulgation as given by the Synoptists, the fundamental -test and standard of all truly spiritual life and progress. But as to -the body in particular, Jesus here knows indeed that “the flesh is -weak,” and that we must pray for strength against its weakness:[116] -but He nowhere declares it evil--an inevitable prison-house or a -natural antagonist to the spirit. The beautiful balance of an unbroken, -unstrained nature, and a corresponding doctrine as full of sober -earnestness as it is free from all concentrated or systematic dualism, -are here everywhere apparent. - -(2) It is St. Paul, the man of the strongest bodily passions -and temptations, he who became suddenly free from them by the -all-transforming lightning-flash of his conversion, who, on and on, -remained vividly conscious of what he had been and, but for that -grace, still would be, and of what, through that grace, he had become. -The deepest shadows are thus ever kept in closest contrast to the -highest lights; and the line of demarcation between them runs here -along the division between body and soul. “Unhappy man that I am, who -can liberate me from this body of sin?” “In my flesh dwelleth no good -thing”:[117] are sayings which are both keener in their tone and more -limited in their range than are Our Lord’s. And we have seen how, in -one of his most depressed moods, he transiently adopts and carries -on a specifically Platonist attitude towards the body’s relation to -the soul, as he finds it in that beautiful, profoundly Hellenistic -treatise, the Book of Wisdom.[118] This attitude evidently represents, -in his strenuous and deeply Christian character, only a passing -feeling; for, if we pressed it home, we could hardly reconcile it with -his doctrine as to the reality and nature of the body’s resurrection. -It is indeed clear how the Platonist, and especially the Neo-Platonist, -mode of conceiving that relation excludes any and every kind of body -from the soul’s final stage of purification and happiness; and how -the Synoptic, and indeed the generally Christian conception of it, -necessarily eliminates that keen and abiding dualism characteristic of -the late Greek attitude. - - -2. _Platonic, Synoptic, and Pauline elements in Catherine’s view._ - -Now in Catherine we generally find an interesting combination of the -Platonic form with the Synoptic substance and spirit: and this can, of -course, be achieved only because that abiding form itself is made to -signify a changed set and connection of ideas. - -(1) We have seen how she dwells much, Plotinus-like, upon the soul’s -stripping itself of all its numerous garments, and exposing itself -naked to the rays of God’s healing light. Yet in the original Platonic -scheme these garments are put on by the soul in its descent from -spirit into matter, and are stripped off again in its ascent back out -of matter into spirit; in both cases, they stand for the body and its -effects. In Catherine, even more than in Plotinus, the garments stand -for various evil self-attachments and self-delusions of the soul; -and against these evils and dangers the Synoptists furnish endless -warnings. And yet she insists upon purity, clear separation, complete -abstraction of the soul, in such terms as still to show plainly enough -the originally Neo-Platonist provenance of much of her form; for -in the Neo-Platonists we get, even more markedly than here, a like -insistence upon the natural dissimilarity of the body and the soul, -and a cognate longing to get away from it in ecstasy and death. But -whilst in the Neo-Platonists there is, at the bottom of all this, a -predominant belief that the senses are the primary source and occasion -of all sin, so that sin is essentially the contamination of spirit -by matter: in Catherine, (although she shares to the full Plotinus’s -thirst for ecstasy, as the escape from division and trouble into unity -and peace), impurity stands primarily for self-complacency,--belief in, -and love of, our imaginary independence of even God Himself; and purity -means, in the first instance, the loving Him and His whole system of -souls and of life, and one’s own self only in and as part of that -system. - -It is very instructive to note, in this connection, how, after her four -years of directly penitential and ascetical practice, (an activity -which, even then, extended quite as much to matters of decentralization -of the self as of bodily mortification), her warfare is, in the first -instance, all but exclusively directed against the successive refuges -and ambushes of self-complacency and self-centredness. Thus there is -significance in the secondary place occupied, (even in the _Vita_, and -doubtless still more in her own mind), by the question of continence; -indeed her great declaration to the Friar indicates plainly her -profound concentration upon the continuous practice of, and growth in, -Love Divine, and her comparative indifference to the question of the -systematic renunciation of anything but sin and selfish attachments and -self-centrednesses of any kind. Her conception of sinners as “cold,” -even more than as dark or stained; of God as Fire, even more than -as Light; and of purity as indefinitely increasable, since Love can -grow on and on: all similarly point to this finely positive, flame-, -not snow-conception, in which purity has ceased to be primarily, as -with the Greeks, a simple absence of soiledness, even if it be moral -soiledness, and has become, as with the Synoptic teaching, something -primarily positive, love itself. - -In her occasionally intense insistence upon herself as being all evil, -a very Devil, and in some of her picturings of her interior combat, -we get, on the other hand, echoes, not of Plato, nor again of the -Synoptist teaching, but of St. Paul’s “in my flesh there dwelleth no -good thing,” and of his combat between flesh and spirit.--Yet the evil -which she is thus conscious of, is not sensual nor even sensible evil -and temptation, but consists in her unbounded natural claimfulness and -intense inclination to sensitive self-absorption.--And this gives, -indeed, to these feminine echoes of St. Paul a certain thin shrillness -which the original tones have not got, standing there for the massive -experiences of a man violently solicitated by both sense and spirit. -But it leaves her free to note, as regards the flesh, the whole bodily -organism, (and this in beautiful sympathy with Our Lord’s own genially -fervent, homely heroic spirit), not its wickedness, but its weakness, -its short-livedness, and its appeal for merciful allowance to God, -“Who knows that we are dust.” Instead of a direct and pointed dualism -of two distinct substances informed by all but incurably antagonistic -principles, we thus get a direct conflict between two dispositions of -the soul, and a but imperfect correspondence between the body and that -soul. - -(2) There is, indeed, no doubt that the very ancient association of the -ideas of Fire and of spiritual Purification goes back, in the first -instance, to the conception of the soul being necessarily stained by -the very fact of its connection with the body, and of those stains -being finally removed by the body’s death and cremation. We find -this severely self-consistent view scattered up and down Hellenic -religion and literature.[119] And even in Catherine the fire, a sense -of fever-heat, still seizes the body, and this body wastes away, -and leaves the soul more and more pure, during those last years of -illness.--Yet the striking identity, between that old cluster of ideas -and her own forms of thought, brings out, all the more clearly, the -immense road traversed by spirituality between the substance of those -ideas and the essence of this thought. For in her teaching, which -is but symbolized or at most occasioned by those physico-psychical -fever-heats, the Fire is, at bottom, so spiritual and so directly -busy with the soul alone, that it is ever identical with itself in -Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, and on earth, and stands for God Himself; and -that its effects are not the destruction of a foreign substance, but -the bringing back, wherever and as far as possible, of the fire-like -soul’s disposition and quality to full harmony with its Fire-source and -Parent, God Himself. - -(3) Only the Prison-house simile for the body, as essentially an -earthly purgatory for the soul, must be admitted, I think, to remain -a primarily Platonic, not fully Christianizable conception; just as -the absence of all reference by her to the resurrection of the body -will have been, in part, occasioned by the strong element of Platonism -in her general selection and combination of ideas. Yet it would -obviously be unfair to press these two points too much, since, as to -the resurrection, her long illness and evidently constant physical -discomfort must, even of themselves, have disinclined her to all -picturing of an abiding, even though highly spiritualized, bodily -organization; and as to the likeness of her body to a prison and -purgatory of the soul, we are expressly told that it began only with -the specially suffering last part of her life. - - -3. _Dualism pragmatic, not final. Its limits._ - -Now, for this whole matter of the right conception as to the relations -of body and soul, it is clear that any more than partial and -increasingly superable antagonism between body and spirit cannot be -accepted. - -(1) A final Dualism is unsound in Psychology, since all the first -materials, stimulations, and instruments for even our most abstract -thinking are supplied to us by our sense-perceptions, hence also -through the body. It is narrow in Cosmology, for we do not want to -isolate man in this great universe of visible things; and his link -with animal- and plant-life, and even with the mineral creation, is, -increasingly as we descend in the scale of beings, his body. It is -ruinous for Ethics, because purity, in such a physical-spiritual being -as is man, consists precisely in spiritual standards and laws extending -to and transforming his merely physical inclinations. It is directly -contradictory of the central truth and temper of Christianity, since -these require a full acceptance of the substantial goodness and the -thorough sanctifiableness of man’s body; of God’s condescension to -man’s whole physico-spiritual organism; and of the persistence or -reanimation of all that is essential to man’s true personality across -and after death. And it is, at bottom, profoundly un-Catholic; the -whole Sacramental system, the entire deep and noble conception of the -normal relations between the Invisible and the Visible being throughout -of the Incarnational type,--an action of the one in the other, which -develops the agent and subject at the same time that it spiritualizes -the patient, the object, is in direct conflict with it. Neo-Platonism -came more and more to treat the body and the entire visible creation -as an intrinsic obstacle to spirit, to be eliminated by the latter as -completely as possible; at least this very prominent strain within it -was undoubtedly pushed on to this extreme by the Gnostic sects. But -Christianity has ever to come back to its central presupposition--the -substantial goodness and spiritual utility and transfigurableness of -body and matter; and to its final end,--the actual transformation of -them by the spirit into ever more adequate instruments, materials, and -expressions of abiding ethical and religious values and realities. - -(2) The fact is that here, as practically at every chief turning-point -in ethical and religious philosophy, the movement of the specifically -Christian life and conviction is not a circle round a single -centre,--detachment; but an ellipse round two centres,--detachment and -attachment. And precisely in this difficult, but immensely fruitful, -oscillation and rhythm between, as it were, the two poles of the -spiritual life; in this fleeing and seeking, in the recollection back -and away from the visible (so as to allay the dust and fever of growing -distraction, and to reharmonize the soul and its new gains according -to the intrinsic requirements and ideals of the spirit), and in the -subsequent, renewed immersion in the visible, (in view both of gaining -fresh concrete stimulation and content for the spiritual life, and of -gradually shaping and permeating the visible according to and with -spiritual ends and forces): in this combination, and not in either -of these two movements taken alone, consists the completeness and -culmination of Christianity.[120] - -(3) It no doubt looks, at first sight, as though the Church, by her -canonization of the Monastic Ideal, gave us, for the ultimate pattern -and measure of all Christian perfection, as pure and simple a flight of -the soul from the body and the world, as (short of insanity or suicide) -can be made in this life. But here we have to remember three things. - -In the first place, the Church not only forbids all attacks upon -the legitimacy, indeed sanctity of marriage, or upon its necessity, -indeed duty, for mankind at large; but St. Augustine and St. Thomas -only articulate her ordinary, strenuously anti-Manichean teaching, -in declaring that man was originally created by God, in body and in -soul, not for celibacy but for marriage; and that only owing to the -accidental event of the Fall and of its effects,--the introduction of -disorder and excess into human nature, but not any corruption of its -substance and foundations,--does any inferiority,--the dispositions, -motives, and circumstances being equal,--attach to marriage as compared -with virginity.[121] Hence, still, the absolute ideal would be that man -could and did use marriage as all other legitimate functions and things -of sense, as a necessary, and ever more and more perfected, means and -expression of truly human spirituality, a spirituality which ever -requires some non-spiritual material in which to work, and by working -in which the soul itself, not only spiritualizes it, but increasingly -develops its own self. - -And secondly, detachment, unification, spiritual recollection is the -more difficult, and the less obviously necessary, of the two movements, -and yet is precisely the one which (by coming upon the extant or -inchoate attachments, and by suppressing or purifying them according -as they are bad or good) first stamps any and every life as definitely -religious at all. No wonder, then, that it is this sacred detachment -and love of the Cross that we notice, first of all, in the life and -doctrine of Our Lord and of all His followers, indeed in all truly -religious souls throughout the world; and that the Church should, by -her teaching and selection of striking examples, ever preach and uphold -this most necessary test and ingredient, this very salt of all virile -and fruitful spirituality. - -But, in the third place, a man need only directly attack the family, -society, the state; or art, literature, science,--as intrinsically -evil or even as, in practice, true hindrances to moral and religious -perfection,--and the Church,--both the learning and experimenting, -and the official and formulating Church,--will at once disavow him: -so strong is, at bottom, the instinct that attachment and variety -of interests,--variety both in kind and in degree--that materials, -occasions, and objects for spirituality to leaven and to raise, and to -work on in order to be itself deepened and developed,--are as truly -essential to the spiritual life as are detachment, and unity, and -transcendence of ultimate motive and aim; these latter furnishing to -the soul the power gradually to penetrate all that material, and, in -and through this labour, more and more to articulate its own spiritual -character. - -(4) No man can become, or is proclaimed to have become, a Christian -saint, who has not thus achieved a profound spiritualization and -unification of a more or less recalcitrant material and multiplicity. -In some cases, it is the unity and detachment that greatly predominate -over the multiplicity and attachment,--as, say, in the Fathers of the -Desert. In other cases, it is the variety and attachment that strikes -us first of all,--as, for instance, in Sir Thomas More and Edmund -Campion. And, in a third set of cases, it is the depth of the unity and -detachment, in the breath of the variety and attachment, which is the -dominant characteristic, so with St. Paul and St. Augustine. Catherine -herself belongs, for her great middle period, rather to the third -group than to either of the other two; only during her penitential -period and her last long illness does she clearly belong to the group -of intensely detached and unified saints.--It is evidently impossible -in such a matter to do more than insist upon the necessity of both -movements; upon the immensely fruitful friction and tension which -their well-ordered alternation introduces into the soul’s inner life; -and upon the full ideal and ultimate measure for the complete and -perfected man, humanity at large, being a maximum of multiplicity and -attachment permeated and purified by a maximum of unity and detachment. -The life which can englobe and organize both these movements, with -their manifold interaction, will have a multitude of warm attachments, -without fever or distraction, and a great unity of pure detachment, -without coldness or emptiness: it will have the, winning because rich, -simplicity and wondrous combination of apparent inevitableness and of -seeming paradox furnished by all true life, hence exhibited in its -greatest fulness by the religious life which, at its deepest, is deeper -any other kind of life. - - -III. QUIETUDE AND PASSIVITY. POINTS IN THIS TENDENCY TO BE CONSIDERED -HERE. - -We have inevitably somewhat anticipated another matter, in which -Catherine shows all the true Mystic’s affinities: the craving for -simplification and permanence of the soul’s states,--her practice -and teaching as to Quietude and Passivity. Pushed fully home, this -tendency involves four closely related, increasingly profound, -convictions and experiences. Utter unification of the soul’s functions, -indeed utter unity of its substance: _i.e._ the soul does one single -thing, and seems to do it by one single act; itself is simply one, and -expresses itself by one sole act. Passivity of the soul: _i.e._ the -soul does not apparently act at all, it simply _is_ and receives--it -is now nothing but one pure immense recipiency. Immediacy of contact -between the soul and God: _i.e._ there seems to be nothing separating, -or indeed in any way between, the soul and God. And, finally, an -apparent coalescence of the soul and God: _i.e._ the soul _is_ God, and -God _is_ the soul.--Only the first two points, and then the closely -related question of Pure Love, shall occupy us here; the last two -points must stand over for our penultimate chapter. - - -1. _Distinction between experiences, their expression, and their -analysis._ - -We have already studied the psycho-physical occasions, concomitants, -and embodiments of Catherine’s keen desire for, and profound experience -of, spiritual unification and passivity; and we can have no kind of -doubt as to the factual reality and the practical fruitfulness of the -state so vividly described by her. Here we have only to inquire into -the accuracy of the analysis and terminology effected and employed by -her, in so far as they seem to claim more than simply to describe the -soul’s own feeling and impression as to these states thus experienced -by itself. We have then to consider the nature and truth of what can -roughly be styled Quietism and Passivity. - -Now here especially will it be necessary for us carefully to -distinguish between the direct experiences, impressions, and -instinctive requirements of the soul,--here all souls, in precise -proportion to their depth and delicacy of holiness and of -self-knowledge are our masters, and furnish us with our only materials -and tests; and, on the other hand, the implications and analysis of -these states, as, in the first instance, psychological, and then as -requiring elucidation with regard to their ontological cause and -reality by means of a religious philosophy,--here, psychology, and -religious philosophy, especially also the discriminations and decisions -of theologians and Church authorities as expressive of these ultimate -questions, will be our guides.[122] - -(1) If we start from the history of the nomenclature which, (though -present only partially in Catherine’s sayings, for she nowhere uses the -term “passivity”), runs, with however varying a completeness, right -through the Christian Mystics more or less from the first, we shall -find that it consists, roughly, of three stages, and, throughout, -of two currents. There is the Pre-Pauline and Pre-Philonian stage; -the stage of Paul, Philo, and John, through Clement and Origen, -on to Gregory of Nyssa and St. Augustine; and the stage from the -Pseudo-Dionysius onward, down to Nicolas of Coes inclusive, and which, -to this hour, still largely influences us all.--And there are the two -currents. The one tends so to emphasize the sense and reality of the -soul’s simple receptivity, and of what the soul receives at such, -apparently, purely receptive times, as to ignore, or even practically -deny, the undeniable fact that this very receptivity is, inevitably, -an act of its own. Its decisive terms are Passivity, Fixedness, -Oneness. The other current realizes that Grace does not destroy, -violate, or supplant Nature, either entirely or in part, but that it -awakens, purifies, and completes it, so that every divine influx is -also ever a stimulation of all the good and true energy already, even -though latently, present in the soul. And its characteristic terms are -“Action” (as distinguished from “Activity”), Growth, Harmony. - -(2) And we should note with care that these two currents are not simply -Heathen and Christian respectively. For if that great, indeed all but -central, term and conception of “Action” has been wisely generalized -by most Christian Mystics, as the truly Christian substitute for the -strongly Neo-Platonist term “Passivity”: that term and conception of -“Action” was first fixed and elucidated by Aristotle, who, as Mr. -Schiller well puts it, “has packed into his technical term ‘Energeia,’ -and especially into the combination ‘Unmoving Energy,’ all that -was most distinctive, most original, most fundamental, and most -profound in his philosophy”;[123] whilst the second term, “Passivity,” -goes on figuring in Christian Mystics and Mystical Theologies--(in -spite of its demonstrably dangerous suggestions and frequently -scandalous history)--because the religious, especially the Christian, -consciousness requires a term for the expression of one element of all -its deepest experiences, that character of “giveness” and of grace, of -merciful anticipation by God, which marks all such states, in exact -proportion to their depth and to the soul’s awakeness. - -(3) Now Aristotle’s conception of God’s Unmoving Energy, is taken over -by St. Thomas in the form of God being One Actus Purus,--sheer Energy, -His very peace and stillness coming from the brimming fulness of His -infinite life. And even finite spirit, whilst fully retaining, indeed -deepening, its own character, can and does penetrate finite spirit -through and through,--the law of Physics, which does not admit more -than one body in any one place, having here no kind of application,--so -that the Infinite Spirit is at once conceived unspiritually, if He -is conceived as supplanting, and not as penetrating, stimulating, -and transforming the finite spirits whom He made into an increasing -likeness to Him, their Maker. And hence according to the unanimous -teaching of the most experienced and explicit of the specifically -Theistic and Christian Mystics, the appearance, the soul’s own -impression, of a cessation of life and energy of the soul in periods -of special union with God or of great advance in spirituality, is an -appearance only. Indeed this, at such times strong, impression of rest -springs most certainly from an unusually large amount of actualized -energy, an energy which is now penetrating, and finding expression -by, every pore and fibre of the soul. The whole moral and spiritual -creature expands and rests, yes; but this very rest is produced by -Action “unperceived because so fleet,” so near, so all fulfilling; or -rather by a tissue of single acts, mental, emotional, volitional, so -finely interwoven, so exceptionally stimulative and expressive of the -soul’s deepest aspirations, that these acts are not perceived as so -many single acts, indeed that their very collective presence is apt to -remain unnoticed by the soul itself. - -(4) Close parallels to such a state are abundant in all phases and -directions of the soul’s life. The happiest and most fruitful moments -for our aesthetic sense, those in which our mind expands most and -grows most, hence is most active in aesthetic “action” (though not -“activity”) are those in which we are unforcedly and massively absorbed -in drinking in, with a quiet intentness, the contrasts and harmonies, -the grand unity in variety, the very presence and spirit of an alpine -upland, or of a river’s flowing, or of the ocean’s outspread, or of -the Parthenon sculptures or of Rafael’s madonnas. At such moments -we altogether cease to be directly conscious of ourselves, of time -or of the body’s whereabouts; and when we return to our ordinary -psychical and mental condition, we do so with an undeniable sense -of added strength and youthfulness,--somewhat as though our face, -old and haggard, were, after gazing in utter self-oblivion upon some -resplendent youthfulness, to feel, beyond all doubt, all its many -wrinkles to have gone. And so too with the mind’s absorption in some -great poem or philosophy or character.--In all these cases, the mind or -soul energizes and develops, in precise proportion as it is so absorbed -in the contemplation of these various over-againstnesses, these -“countries” of the spirit, as to cease to notice its own overflowing -action. It is only when the mind but partially attends that a part of -it remains at leisure to note the attention of the other part; when -the mind is fully engrossed, and hence most keenly active, there is no -part of it sufficiently disengaged to note the fact of the engrossment -and action of, now, the whole mind. And, with the direct consciousness -of our mind’s action, we lose, for the time being, all clear -consciousness of the mind’s very existence. And let it be carefully -noted, this absence of the direct consciousness of the self is as -truly characteristic of the deepest, most creative, moments of full -external action: the degree of mind and will-force operating in Nelson -at Trafalgar and in Napoleon at Waterloo, or again in St. Ignatius -of Antioch in the Amphitheatre, and in Savonarola at the stake, was -evidently in the precisely contrary ratio to their direct consciousness -of it or of themselves at all. - - -(5) Now if such “Passivity,” or Action, is in reality the condition -in which the soul attains to its fullest energizing, we can argue -back, from this universal principle, to the nature of the various -stages and kinds of the Prayer and States of Quiet. In each case, that -is, we shall combat the still very common conception that,--though -orthodoxy, it is admitted, requires _some_ human action to remain -throughout,--such Prayer and States consist (not only as to the -immediate feeling of their subjects, but in reality and in their -ultimate analysis) in an ever-increasing preponderance of divine action -within the soul, and an ever-decreasing remnant of acts of the soul -itself. For such a view assumes that God supplants man, and that, so -to speak, His Hand appears unclothed alongside of the tissue woven by -man’s own mind; whereas God everywhere but stimulates and supports man -whom He has made, and His Hand moves ever underneath and behind the -tissue,--a tissue which, at best, can become as it were a glove, and -suggest the latent hand. The Divine Action will thus stimulate and -inform the human action somewhat like the force that drives the blood -within the stag’s young antlers, or like the energy that pushes the -tender sap-full fern-buds up through the hard, heavy ground. - -Thus a special intensity of divine help and presence, and an unusual -degree of holiness and of union, have nothing to do with the fewness -of the soul’s own acts at such times, but with their quality,--with -the preponderance amongst them of divinely informed acts as against -merely natural, or wrongly self-seeking, or downrightly sinful acts. -And since it is certain that living simplicity is but the harmony and -unification, the synthesis, of an organism, and hence is great in -precise proportion to the greater perfection of that synthesis, it -follows that the living, utterly one-seeming Action or State will, -at such times, contain a maximum number of interpenetrating acts and -energies, all worked up into this harmonious whole. - - -2. _Four causes of inadequate analysis._ - -It is plain, I think, that one thoroughly normal, one accidental, and -two mischievous, causes have all conspired to arrest or to deflect the -analysis of most of the Mystics themselves concerning Simplicity. - -For one thing, the soul, as has just been shown, at such moments of -harmonious concentration and of willing and thinking in union with -God’s Light and Will, necessarily ceases, more or less, to be conscious -of its own operations, and, in looking back, braced and rested as it -now is, it cannot but think that it either did not act at all, or that -its action was reduced to a minimum. For how otherwise could it now -feel so rested, when, after its ordinary activity, it feels so tired -and dissatisfied? and how otherwise could it be so unable to give -any clear account of what happened in those minutes of union? Yet it -is, on the contrary, the very fulness of the action which has rested, -by expanding, the soul; and which has made the soul, returned to its -ordinary distractedness, incapable of clearly explaining that, now -past, concentration. - -The accidental cause has been the fairly frequent, though not -necessary, connection of the more pronounced instances of such habits -of mind with more or less of the psycho-physical phenomena of ecstasy, -in the technical sense of the word. For, in such trances, the breathing -and circulation are retarded, and the operation of the senses is in -part suspended. And it was easy to reason, from such visible, literal -simplification of the physical life, to a similar modification of -the soul’s action at such times; and, from the assumed desirableness -of that psycho-physical condition, to the advantage of the supposed -corresponding state of the soul itself. Any tendency to an extreme -dualism, as to the relations between body and soul, would thus -directly help on an inclination to downright Quietism.--Here it is, -on the contrary, certain that only in so far as those psycho-physical -simplifications are the results of, or conditions for, a deepening -multiplicity in unity, a fuller synthetic action of the soul, or, -at least, of a fuller penetration by the soul of even one limited -experience or idea--an operation which entails not less, but more, -energizing of the soul,--are such psycho-physical simplifications of -any spiritual advantage or significance. And in such cases they could -not be indications of the cessation or diminution of the deepest and -most docile energizing of the soul. - -And the mischievous causes were a mistake in Psychology and a mistake -in Theology. For, as to Psychology, not only was simplicity assumed, -(through a mistaken acceptance of the soul’s own feeling, as furnishing -the ultimate analysis of its state), to consist, at any one moment, -of an act materially and literally one, instead of a great organism -of various simultaneous energizings; but this one act was often -held to require no kind of repetition. Since the act was one as -against any simultaneous multiplicity, so was it one as against any -successive multiplicity, even if this latter were taken as a repetition -differentiated by number alone. And yet here again energizing _is_ -energizing; and though the soul’s acts overlap and interpenetrate -each other, and though when, by their number and harmony, they -completely fill and pacify the soul, many of them are simultaneously -or successively present to the soul in their effects alone: it is -nevertheless the renewal, however peaceful and unperceived, of these -acts, which keeps the state of soul in existence. For these acts are -not simply unowned acts that happen to be present within the soul; they -are the soul’s own acts, whether, in addition, the soul is directly -conscious of them or not. - -And, theologically, the idea was often at work that it was more -worthy of God to operate alone and, as it were, _in vacuo_; and more -creaturely of man to make, or try to make, such a void for Him. Yet -this is in direct conflict with the fundamental Christian doctrine, -of the Condescension, the Incarnation of God to and in human nature, -and of the persistence, and elevation of this humanity, even in the -case of Christ Himself. God’s action does not keep outside of, nor -does it replace, man’s action; but it is,--Our Lord Himself has told -us,--that of yeast working in meal, which manifests its hidden power in -proportion to the mass of meal which it penetrates and transforms. - - -3. _Four Quietistic aberrations._ - -Now it is certain that the error of Quietism has, in no doubt many -cases, not remained confined to such mistakes in psychological analysis -and theological doctrine, but that these have joined hands with, and -have furnished a defence to, sloth and love of dreamy ease, or to some -impatience of the necessary details of life, or to fanatical attachment -to some one mood and form of experience; and that they have, thus -reinforced, ravaged not a few wills and souls. - -Four chief Quietistic aberrations can be studied in history. - -(1) The neglect or even contempt of vocal prayer, and of the historical -and institutional elements of religion, at least in the case of -more advanced souls, is one of these abuses.--Now it is true, and -Catherine has been a striking instance, that the proportion of all -these different elements towards one another vary, and should vary, -considerably between soul and soul, according to the _attrait_ and -degree of advance of each; that the soul’s most solid advance is in the -direction of an ever-deepened spiritual devotedness, and not in that of -a multiplication of particular devotions; that the use of even the more -central of those elements and means may, for souls called to the prayer -of Quiet, become remarkably elastic and largely unmethodized; and that, -for such souls (and, in various degrees and ways, sooner or latter, for -perhaps most other souls), a prayer of peacefully humble expectation -and of all but inarticulate, practically indescribable, brooding of -love, and of dim, expansive trust and conformity is possible, sometimes -alone possible, and is proved right and useful, if it leaves them -strengthened to act and to suffer, to help and to devote themselves to -their fellows, to Christ, and to God. - -But it remains equally true, even for these as for all other souls, -that the historical and institutional elements must ever remain -represented, and sufficiently represented; indeed the persistence in -these elements of religion will be one of the chief means for avoiding -delusion. We have St. Teresa’s experience and teaching here, as a truly -classical instance. And if the prayer of Quiet will give a special -colour, depth, and unity to those more contingent-seeming practices, -these practices will, in return, give a particular definiteness, -content, and creaturely quality to that prayer. And thus too the -universally and profoundly important union and interchange with souls -of other, equally legitimate, kinds and degrees of spirituality will -be kept up. Only the sum-total of all these souls, only the complete -invisible Church, is the full Bride of Christ; and though the souls -composing her may and should each contribute a varying predominance of -different elements, no soul should be entirely without a certain amount -of each of these constituents. - -(2) Another abuse is the neglect, contempt, or misapplied fear -of not directly religious occupations and labours which, however -otherwise appropriate or even necessary to this soul’s growth and -destination, tend to disturb its quiet and to absorb a part of its -time and attention. Here it is doubtless true that the other elements -of religion are also all more or less apprehensive and jealous with -regard to actual, or even only possible, non-religious rival interests. -And it is certain that they are all right in so far as that a certain -interior leisureliness and recollection, a certain ultimate preference -for the spiritualizing religious force of the soul as against the -materials, non-religious and other, which that force is to penetrate, -are necessary to the soul that would advance. - -But the fear that characterizes the Historical and Institutional -elements is rather a fear, respectively, of error and of disobedience -and singularity, whereas on the part of the Mystical element it is a -fear of distraction and absorption away from the _Unum Necessarium_ of -the soul. Perhaps even among the Canonized Mystics there is none that -has more impressively warned us, both by word and example, against -this insidious danger, than the distinguished Platonist scholar and -deep spiritual writer, Père Jean Nicolas Grou, who, right through the -long mystical period of his life, alternated his prayer of Quiet with -extensive and vigorous critical work on the Graeco-Latin classics, -and whose practice only wants further expansion and application, -(according to the largely increased or changed conditions of such not -directly religious work), in order to bear much fruit, not only for -criticism and science, but, (by the return-effect of such occupations -upon the soul’s general temper and particular devotional habits), for -spirituality itself. But we must return to this point more fully in our -last chapter. - -(3) The third abuse is the neglect or contempt of morality, especially -on its social, visible, and physical sides. Particular Mystics, and -even whole Mystical schools and movements, have undoubtedly in some -instances, and have, possibly, in many more cases, been maligned on -this point, since even such a spotless life as Fénelon’s, and that of -such a profoundly well-intentioned woman as Madame Guyon, did not, -for a time, escape the most unjust suspicions. It is also true that, -as a man advances in spirituality, he lays increasing stress upon the -intention and general attitude of the agent, and increasingly requires -to be judged by the same interior standard, if he is to be rightly -understood at all. God may and does, to humble and purify him, allow -painful temptations and trials from within to combine, apparently, -against him, with persecutions and much isolation from without. And -the difference, rather than the similarity, between Religion and -Morality,--the sense of pure grace, of free pardon, of the strange -profound “givenness” of even our fullest willings and of our most -emphatically personal achievements,--can and should grow in him more -and more. - -And yet it is clear that there must have been some fire to account -for all that smoke of accusation; that the material and the effect -outwards, the _body_ of an action, do matter, as well as does that -action’s _spirit_; that this body does not only act thus outwards, -but also inwards, back upon the spirit of the act and of the agent; -and that temptations and trials are purifying, not by their simple -presence but in proportion as they are resisted, or, if they have been -yielded to, in proportion as such defeats are sincerely deplored and -renounced. Thus everywhere the full development of any one part of -life, and the true unity of the whole, have to be achieved through the -gradual assimilation of at first largely recalcitrant other elements, -and within an ever-abiding multiplicity--a maximum number of parts and -functions interacting within one great organism. And hence not the -outrage, neglect, or supersession of morality, but, on the contrary, -its deeper development, by more precise differentiation from, and more -organic integration into, religion proper, must, here again and here -above all, be the final aim. Once more again it is the Incarnational -type which is the only fully true, the only genuinely Christian one. - -(4) And, finally, there are certain hardly classifiable fanaticisms, -which are nevertheless a strictly logical consequence from a wrongly -understood Quiet and Passivity,--from Quietism in its unfavourable, -condemned sense. I am thinking of such a case as that of Margarethe -Peters, a young Quietist, who caused herself to be crucified by her -girl-companions, at Wildenspuch, near Schaffhausen, in 1823,--in order -to carry out, in full literalness and separateness, the utmost and -most painful passivity and dependence and resistless self-donation, in -direct imitation of the culminating act of Christ’s life on earth and -of His truest followers.[124] Here, in the deliberate suicide of this -undoubtedly noble Lutheran girl, we get an act which but brings out -the strength and weakness of Quietism wherever found. For the greatest -constituents of the Christian spirit are undoubtedly there: free -self-sacrifice, impelled by love of God, of Christ, and of all men, -and by hatred of self.--Yet, because they here suppress other, equally -necessary, constituents, and are out of their proper context and bereft -of their proper checks, they but render possible and actual a deed of -piteous self-delusion. How terrible is false simplification, the short -cut taken by pure logic, operating without a sufficient induction from -facts, and within an ardent, self-immolating temperament! - - -4. _Rome’s condemnation of Quietism._ - -All this is abundantly sufficient to explain and justify Rome’s -condemnation of Quietism. The term “Quietists” appears, I think, for -the first time,--at least in an invidious sense,--in the Letter which -Cardinal Caraccioli, Archbishop of Naples, addressed to Pope Innocent -XI (Odescalchi) on June 30, 1682, and in which he graphically describes -the abuses which, (under pretext or through the misapplication of -spiritual Quiet and Passivity), had now appeared in his Diocese: souls -apparently incapable of using their beads or making the sign of the -Cross; or which will neither say a vocal prayer nor go to Confession; -or which, when in this prayer of Quiet, even when at Holy Communion, -will strive to drive away any image, even of Our Lord Himself, that may -present itself to their imagination; or which tear down a Crucifix, as -a hindrance to union with God; or which look upon all the thoughts that -come to them in the quietude of prayer, as so many rays and effluences -from God Himself, exempting them henceforth from every law.[125] - -Yet it is important to bear well in mind, the special circumstances, -the admitted limits, and the probable signification of Rome’s -condemnations. - -(1) As to the circumstances of the time, it appears certain that it was -the ready circulation of the doctrines of the Spanish priest, Miguel de -Molinos in the _Guida Spirituale_, 1675, and the abuses of the kind we -have just now detailed, and that sprang from this circulation, which -formed the primary reason and motive for the otherwise excessively -severe treatment of a man and a book, which had both received the very -highest and the most deliberate ecclesiastical approbations. That these -two circumstances were the determining causes of at least the severity -of his condemnation is well brought out by the circumstance that, -during his two years’ trial (1685-1687), not only the short _Guida_ but -his whole obtainable correspondence (some twenty thousand letters) were -examined, and that it is at least as much on such occasional manuscript -material, and on Molinos’s own oral admissions,--in prison and -doubtless, in part at least, under torture,--that the condemnation was -based, containing, as it does, certain revoltingly immoral propositions -and confessions, admittedly absent from his published writings. - -But if at least some shadow of doubt rests upon the moral character -of Molinos, not a shadow of such suspicion or of doubt concerning his -perfectly Catholic intentions can, in justice, be allowed to rest -upon his chief follower and the most distinguished apologist for his -doctrine, the saintly Oratorian and Bishop, the much-tried Cardinal -Petrucci; any more than Fénelon’s moral and spiritual character, or -deeply Catholic spirit and intentions, can, (in spite of the painfully -fierce and unjust attack upon both by Bossuet in his formally classic -invective, _Relation sur le Quiétisme_), for one moment be called -in question.[126] Other admittedly deeply spiritual and entirely -well-intentioned Catholics, whose writings were also condemned during -this time when devotional expressions having an at all quietistic tinge -or drift were very severely judged, are Mère Marie de l’Incarnation -(Marie Guyard), a French Ursuline Religious, who died in Canada in -1672, and the process of whose Beatification has been introduced; the -saintly French layman, Jean de Bernières-Louvigny, much admired by -Fénelon, who died in 1659; the very interior, though at times somewhat -fantastic, Secular Priest, Henri Marie Boudon, who died in 1702; and -the very austere but highly experienced ascetical writer, the Jesuit -Père Joseph Surin, whom Bossuet had formally approved, and who died in -1668.[127] But Madame Guyon herself, that much-tried and vehemently -opposed woman, was held, by many an undoubtedly Catholic-minded, -experienced and close observer, to be (in spite of the largely -misleading and indeed incorrect character of many of her analyses and -expressions) a truly saintly, entirely filial Catholic.[128] - -(2) As to the limits of these condemnations, we must remember that only -two of them,--those of Molinos and of Fénelon,--claim to be directly -doctrinal at all; and that Fénelon was never really compromised in -the question of Quietism proper, but was condemned on questions of -Pure Love alone. Bossuet himself was far less sound as against the -central Quietist doctrine of the One Act, which, unless formally -revoked, lasts on throughout life, and hence need never be repeated; -Fénelon’s early criticism of the Molinos propositions remains one of -the clearest extant refutations of that error. Again in the matter of -the Passivity of advanced souls, Bossuet was distinctly less normal and -sober than Fénelon: for whilst Fénelon taught that in no state does -the soul lose all capacity, although the facility may greatly vary, -to produce distinct acts of the virtues or vocal prayers and other -partially external exercises, Bossuet taught that, in some cases, all -capacity of this kind is abolished.[129] “I take,” says Fénelon, “the -terms ‘Passive’ and ‘Passivity’ as they actually appear everywhere -in the language of the (sound) Mystics, as something opposed to the -terms ‘active’ and ‘activity’: ‘Passivity,’ taken in the sense of an -entire inaction of the will, would be a heresy.” And he then opposes -“Passivity,” not to “Action,” but to that “Activity,” which is a merely -natural, restless, and hurried excitation.[130] - -(3) And as to the abiding significance of the whole anti-quietist -decisions and measures, we shall do well to consider the following -large facts. From St. Paul and St. John to Clement of Alexandria and -Origen; from these to Dionysius the Areopagite; from the Areopagite to -St. Bernard of Clairvaux and then the Franciscan and Dominican Mystics; -from these, again, on to the great Renaissance and Counter-Reformation -saints and writers of this type,--the German Cardinal Nicolas of Coes -and the Italian St. Catherine of Genoa, the Spaniards St. Teresa and -St. John of the Cross, and the French Saint Francis de Sales and -Saint Jane Frances de Chantal, we get a particular type of religious -experience and doctrine, which but unfolds and concentrates, with an -unusual articulation, breadth, and depth, what is to be found, on -some sides of their spiritual character and teaching, among Saints -and religious souls of the more mixed type, such as St. Augustine, -St. Anselm, St. Thomas of Aquin, and St. Ignatius Loyola. And this -mixed type, bearing within it a considerable amount of that mystical -quiet and emotional-speculative element, is again but a deepening, a -purification and a realization of one of the profoundest affinities and -constituents of every human heart and will. - -Hence, even in the thickest of the quietist controversy, when that -mystical element must have seemed, to many, to be discredited once for -all, those best acquainted with the rich history of the Church, and -with the manifold requirements of the abiding religious consciousness, -could not and did not doubt that all that was good, deep, and true -in that element would continue to be upheld by, and represented in, -the Church.--And it is not difficult to point to the more or less -Mystical souls furnished by the Monks, the Friars; the Clerks-Regular, -specially the Jesuits; the Secular Clergy; and the Laity, down to -the present day. Such writers and Saints as Père de Caussade (_d._ -about 1770) on the one hand, and Père Jean N. Grou (_d._ 1803) and -the Curé d’Ars (_d._ 1859) on the other hand, carry on the two -streams of the predominantly mystical and of the mixed type,--streams -so clearly observable before 1687 and 1699. Quietism, the doctrine -of the One Act; Passivity in a literal sense, as the absence or -imperfection of the power and use of initiative on the soul’s part in -any and every state: these doctrines were finally condemned, and most -rightly and necessarily condemned; the Prayer of Quiet, and various -states and degrees of an ever-increasing predominance of Action over -Activity,--an Action which is all the more the soul’s very own, -because the more occasioned, directed, and informed by God’s action -and stimulation,--these, and the other chief lines of the ancient -experience and practice, remain as true, correct, and necessary as ever. - - -5. _Rome’s alleged change of front._ - -And yet it is undeniable that the Roman events between 1675 and 1688 do -seem, at first sight, to justify the strongly Protestant Dr. Heppe’s -contention that those twelve years,--not to speak of the later troubles -of Madame Guyon and of Fénelon--witnessed a complete _volte face_, a -formal self-stultification, of the Roman teaching and authority, on -these difficult but immediately important matters. - -(1) Let us put aside the many passages in Molinos’s _Guida_ which -were but (more or less) literal reproductions of the teachings -of such solemnly approved authorities as Saints Teresa, Peter of -Alcantara, John of the Cross, Francis de Sales and Jane Frances de -Chantal,--passages which, of course, remained uncondemned even in -Molinos’s pages, but which it would often be difficult to distinguish -from the parts of his book that were censured. Yet there still remain -such facts as the following. - -Juan Falconi’s _Alfabeto_ and _Lettera_ were at their Fifth Italian -edition, 1680, and all five editions had been approved by the Master -of the Apostolic Palace; but only in 1688 were these writings -forbidden. Yet the _Lettera_ contains, with unsurpassed directness and -clearness, the central doctrine of Quietism: an exhortation to the -production of one single lively Act of Faith, which will then continue -uninterruptedly through the whole earthly life into eternity, and -which, consequently, is not to be repeated.[131] - -Molinos’s _Guida_ and _Breve Trattato_ appeared in Rome, respectively -in 1675 and 1681, with the approbations of five theologians, four of -whom were Consultors of the Holy Office,--the Archbishop of Reggio; -the Minister-General of the Franciscans; the late General of the -Carmelites; Father Martin Esparza, the same Jesuit Theologian-Professor -of the Roman College who, some years before, had been one of those who -had examined and approved St. Catherine’s _Vita ed Opere_; and the -actual General of the Carmelites.[132] - -Even after these two writings of Molinos had been criticised by the -Jesuits Bell Huomo and Segneri and the Clerk Regular Regio, (Segneri -enjoying a deservedly immense reputation, and showing in this affair -much moderation and a strong sense of the legitimate claims of -Mysticism), the Inquisition examined these criticisms, and forbade, not -the incriminated writings of Molinos and Petrucci, but the critique of -Bell Huomo _donec corrigatur_, and those of Regio and of Segneri (in -his _Lettera_ of 1681) absolutely. Segneri’s subsequent _Concordia_ -almost cost him his life, so strong was the popular veneration of -Molinos. - -Molinos indeed was the guest of Pope Innocent XI himself, and the -friend and confidant, amongst countless other spiritually-minded souls, -of various Cardinals, especially of the deeply devout Petrucci, Bishop -of Jesi, who was raised to the Cardinalate eighteen months after the -beginning of Molinos’s trial. The imprisonment of Molinos began in May -1685, but the trial did not end till August 1687, when (after nineteen -“Principal Errors of the New Contemplation” had been censured by the -Holy Office in February 1687) sixty-eight propositions, out of the -two hundred and sixty-three which had been urged against him, were -solemnly condemned: of these the clearly and directly immoral ones -being admittedly not derived from any printed book, or indeed any ever -published letter of his Molinos.[133] - -(2) To estimate Rome’s attitude (as far as it concerns the ultimate -truth and completeness of these doctrines, taken in their most -characteristic and explicit forms) fairly, we shall have to put aside -all questions as to the motives that impelled, and the methods that -were employed, by either side against the other. Molinos may have been -even worse than the condemned propositions represent, and yet Petrucci -would remain a saintly soul; and we certainly are driven to ask with -Leibniz: “Si Molinos a caché du venin sous ce miel, est-il juste que -Petrucci et autres personnes de mérite en soient responsables?”[134] -But neither the wickedness of the one nor the sanctity of the other -would make the doctrines propounded by them, objectively, any less -solid or more spiritual than they are in themselves. The acutely -anti-Roman Anglican Bishop Burnet may not have invented or exaggerated -when he wrote from Rome, during those critical years, that one of the -chief motives which actuated the opponents of the Quietists was the -fact that, though the latter “were observed to become more strict in -their lives, more retired and serious in their mental devotions, yet … -they were not so assiduous at Mass, nor so earnest to procure Masses to -be said for their friends: nor … so frequently either at Confession or -in processions”: and so “the trade of those that live by these things -was sensibly sunk.”[135] And the cruel injustice of many details and -processes of the movement against the Quietists,--a movement which soon -had much of the character of a popular scare and panic, in reaction -against a previous, in part, heedless enthusiasm,--are beyond dispute -or justification. Yet mercenary and ruthless as part of the motives and -much of the action of the anti-quietists doubtlessly were, the question -as to the worth and wisdom of Quietism, (taken objectively, and not as -an excusable counter-excess but as a true synthesis of the spiritual -life), remains precisely where it was before. - -(3) Now I think that two peculiarities, most difficult to notice at -the time, seriously differentiate the Molinist movement from the great -current of fully Catholic Mysticism, even in those points and elements -where the two are materially alike or even identical; and yet that -these peculiarities are but the caricature (through further emphasis -and systematization) of certain elements present, in a more latent -and sporadic manner, in the formulae and philosophic assumptions -or explanations of the older Mysticism,--elements which had been -borrowed too largely from a, at bottom, profoundly anti-incarnational -philosophy, not to be of far less value and of much greater danger than -the profoundly true experiences, nobly spiritual maxims, and exquisite -psychological descriptions which that predominantly Neo-Platonist -framework handed on. - -The first peculiarity is that the older Mystics, especially those of -the type of St. Catherine of Genoa and St. John of the Cross, but -even also those of the more “mixed” type of Mysticism, such as St. -Teresa, had indeed quite freely used terms which are vividly true -as descriptions of the prima facie aspect and emotional impression -of certain states and experiences of the soul: “empty,” “fixed,” -“motionless,” “the reason and the will have ceased to act,” “doing -nothing,” “incapable of doing anything,” “moved by irresistible grace,” -“but one act,” “one single desire”: these and equivalent expressions -occur again and again. But these sayings do not here lead up to such a -deliberate and exclusive rule as is that given by Falconi, and repeated -by Molinos in his _Guida_, Nos. 103-106.[136] - -This doctrine of the One Act, in this its negative form,--for it -is not to be repeated,--and in its application to the whole waking -and sleeping life, is first an exclusive concentration upon, and -then a wholesale extension of, one out of the several trends of the -older teaching, a doctrine which, compared with that teaching in its -completeness, is thin and doctrinaire, and as untrue to the full -psychological explanation and working requirements of the soul as it -is readily abusable in practice and contrary to the Incarnational type -of religion. It is impossible not to feel that the manifold great -ocean-waters of life, that the diversely blowing winds of God’s Spirit -are here, somehow, expected to flow and breathe in a little shortcut, -single channel, through a tiny pipe; one more infallible recipe or -prescription is here offered to us, hardly more adequate than the many -similar “sure” roads to salvation, declared by this or that body of -devout religionists to attach to the practice or possession of this or -that particular prayer or particular religious object. - -And the second difference is that the older Catholic Mystics leave -less the impression that the external side of religion, its _body_, -is of little or no importance, and indeed very readily an obstacle to -its interior side, its _soul_. And this, again, for the simple reason -that their teaching is, in general, less systematic and pointed, more -incidental, and careless of much self-consistency. - -(4) Yet these two differences have largely sprung from the simple -pressing and further extension of precisely the least satisfactory, the -explanatory and systematic side,--the form as against the content,--of -the older Mystics. For once the more specifically Neo-Platonist -constituent, in those Mystics’ explanation and systematization, was -isolated from the elements of other provenance which there had kept it -in check, and now became, as it were, hypostasized and self-sufficient, -this constituent could not but reveal, more clearly than before, its -inadequacy as a form for the intensely organic and “incarnational” -spiritual realities and processes which it attempted to show forth. -That Neo-Platonist constituent, always present in those ancient -Mystics, had ever tended to conceive the soul’s unity, at any one -moment, as a something outside of all multiplicity whatsoever. Hence -this character of the simultaneous unity had only to be extended to -the successive unity,--and the literally One Act, as in the present so -throughout the future, became a necessary postulate. - -And that same constituent had, even in those great teachers of -profound maxims, exquisite religious psychology, and noblest living, -tended, (however efficaciously checked by all this their Christian -experience and by certain specifically Platonist and Aristotelian -elements of their philosophy), towards depreciating the necessity, -importance, indeed even the preponderant utility, of the External, -Contingent, Historical and Institutional, and of the interchange, the -inter-stimulation between these sides and expressions of religion and -its internal centre and spirit. - -Perhaps, amongst all the great ecclesiastically authorized Mystics of -that past, the then most recent of them all, St. John of the Cross, -comes, by his (theoretically continuous though in his practice by no -means exclusive) insistence upon the abstractive and universal, the -obscure and invisible, the self-despoiling and simplifying element and -movement, nearest to an exclusion of the other element and movement. -Indeed the Quietists’ generally strong insistence upon the necessity -of a Director and upon Frequent Communion gives their teaching, when -taken in its completeness, a prima facie greater Institutionalism than -is offered by the spiritual theory of the great Spaniard. Yet if, even -in him, one misses, in his theoretical system, a sufficiently organic -necessity for the outgoing movement, a movement begun by God Himself, -and which cannot but be of fundamental importance and influence for -believers in the Incarnation, there is as complete an absence of the -doctrinaire One-Act recipe for perfection as in the most Historical and -Institutional of Christian teachers. But more about this hereafter. - - -6. _Four needs recognised by Quietism._ - -Quietism, then, has undoubtedly isolated and further exaggerated -certain explanatory elements of the older Mysticism which, even there, -were largely a weakness and not a strength; has thus underrated and -starved the Particular, Visible, Historical, Institutional constituents -of Religion; and has, indeed, misunderstood the nature of true Unity -everywhere. Yet the very eagerness with which it was welcomed at -the time,--in France and Italy especially,--and this, not only as a -fashion by the _Quidnuncs_, but as so much spiritual food and life by -many a deeply religious soul; and the difficulty, and not infrequent -ruthlessness of its suppression, indicate plainly enough that, with -all its faults and dangers, it was divining and attempting to supply -certain profound and abiding needs of the soul. I take these needs to -be the following four. - -(1) Man has an ineradicable, and, when rightly assuaged, profoundly -fruitful thirst for Unity,--for Unification, Synthesis, Harmonization; -for a living System, an Organization both within and without himself, -in which each constituent gains its full expansion and significance -through being, and more and more becoming, just _that_ part and -function of a great, dynamic whole; a sense of the essential and -ultimate organic connection of all things, in so far as, in any degree -or form, they are fair and true and good. And this sense and inevitable -requirement alone explain the surprise and pain caused, at first, to -us all, by the actual condition of mutual aloofness and hostility, -characteristic of most of the constituents of the world within us, as -of the world around us, towards their fellow-constituents. A truly -atomistic world,--even an atomistic conception of the world,--of life, -as a collection of things one alongside of another, on and on, is -utterly repulsive to any deeply religious spirit whose self-knowledge -is at all equal to its aspirations.--No wonder, then, if the Quietists, -haunted by the false alternative of one such impenetrable atom-act or -of an indefinite number of them, chose the One Act, and not a multitude -of them. - -(2) Man has a deep-seated necessity to purify himself by detachment, -not only from things that are illicit but even from those that are -essential and towards which he is bound to practise a deep and warm -attachment. There is no shadow of theoretical or ultimate contradiction -here: to love one’s country deeply, yet not to be a _Chauvinist_; to -love one’s wife tenderly, yet not to be uxorious; to care profoundly -for one’s children, yet to train, rebuke, and ever brace them, when -necessary, up to suffering and even death itself: these things so -little exclude each the other, that each attachment can only rightly -grow in and through the corresponding detachment. The imperfection -in all these cases, and in all the analogous, specifically religious -ones, lies not in the objects to be loved, nor in these objects being -many and of various degrees and kinds of lovableness, nor in the right -(both effective and affective, appropriately varied) love of them: -but simply in our actual manner of loving them.--No wonder then that -Quietism, face to face with the false alternative of either Attachment -or Detachment, chose Detachment, (the salt and the leaven of life) and -not attachment (life’s meat and meal). - -(3) Man has a profound, though ever largely latent, capacity and need -for admiration, trust, faith; and does not by any means improve solely -by direct efforts at self-improvement, and by explicit examinations -of his efforts and failures; but, (a little from the first, and very -soon as much, and later on far more), he progresses by means of a -happy absorption in anything clean and fruitful that can and does -lift him out of and above his smaller self altogether.--And such an -absorption will necessarily be unaccompanied, at the time, by any -direct consciousness on the part of the mind as to this its absorption. -And, religiously, such quiet concentrations will, in so far as they are -at all analyzable after the event, consist in a quite inarticulate, -and yet profound and spiritually renovating, sense of God; and they -will have to be tested, not by their describable content, but by their -ethical and religious effects. “Psychology and religion,” says that -great psychological authority, Prof. William James, “both admit that -there are forces, seemingly outside of the conscious individual, that -bring redemption to his life.” “A man’s conscious wit and will, so far -as they strain after the ideal, are aiming at something only dimly and -inaccurately imagined, whilst the deeper forces of organic ripening -within him tend towards a rearrangement that is pretty surely definite, -and definitely different from what he consciously conceives and -determines. It may consequently be actually interfered with by efforts -of too direct and energetic a kind on our part.”[137]--No wonder -then that Quietism, finding this element of quiet incubation much -ignored and starved in the lives of most religious souls, flew to the -other extreme, of making this inarticulateness and wise indirectness -of striving into the one test and measure of the perfection of all -the constituents of the religious life, instead of insisting upon -various degrees and combination of full and direct consciousness and -articulation, and of much dimness and indirect alertness, as each -requiring the other, and as both required by the complete and normal -life of the soul. - -(4) And Man has a deep-seated sense of shame, in precise proportion -as he becomes spiritually awake, about appropriating to himself his -virtues and spiritual insight, even in so much as he perceives and -admits his possession of them. Not all his consciousness and conviction -of the reality of his own efforts and initiative, can or does prevent -a growing sense that this very giving of his is (in a true sense) -God’s gift,--that his very seeking of God ever implies that he had, in -some degree, already found God,--that God had already sought him out, -in order that he might seek and find God.--No wonder then that, once -more shrinking from a Unity constituted in a Multiplicity, Quietism -should, (with the apparently sole choice before it, of God Himself -operating literally all, or of man subtracting something from that -exclusive action and honour of God), have chosen God alone and entire, -rather than, as it were, a fragmentary, limited, baffled influence -and efficiency of the Almighty within His Own creature. Yet here -again the greater does not supplant, but informs, the lesser; and the -Incarnational action of God is, in this supreme question also, the -central truth and secret of Christianity. - - -7. _Multiplicity and unity, in different proportions, needful for all -spiritual life._ - -We find, then, that it is essential for even the most advanced souls, -that they should keep and increase the sense and the practice of a -right multiplicity, as ever a constituent and essential condition -of every concrete, living unity; of a right attachment, as ever the -necessary material and content for a fruitful and enriching detachment; -of a right consciousness and articulation of images, thoughts, -feelings, volitions, and external acts, as ever stimulations, restful -alternations, and food for a wise and strengthening prayer or states -of Quiet and inarticulation; and of a right personal initiative -and responsibility, as the most precious means and element for the -operations of God. - -We find, too, that it is equally important, for even the most imperfect -souls, to be helped towards some, (though but ever semi-conscious and -intermittent), sense of the unity which alone can give much worth -or meaning to their multiplicity; of the detachment which alone can -purify and spiritualize their attachments; of the self-oblivion, in -rapt and peaceful admiration, which alone can save even their right -self-watchings and self-improvements from still further centring them -in themselves; and of the true self-abandonment to pure grace and the -breathing of God’s Spirit, which alone can give a touch of winning -freedom and of joyful spaciousness to all the prudence and right fear -and conscious responsibility which, left alone, will hip, darken and -weigh down the religious soul. - -And thus we shall find that there is no degree of perfection for any -one set of souls which is not, in some form and amount, prefigured and -required by all other souls of good-will; and again, that there is -no one constituent, to which any one soul is specially drawn, which -does not require the supplementation and corrective of some other -constituents, more fully represented in other souls of possibly lower -sanctity. - -Thus each soul and grade requires all the others; and thus the measure -of a soul’s greatness is not its possessing things which cannot, in -any degree or way, be found in, or expected of, all human souls, in -proportion as they are fully and characteristically human, but, on the -contrary, its being full of a spirit and a force which, in different -degrees and forms, are the very salt and yeast, the very light and -life, of all men in every place and time. - -The following weighty declaration, long ascribed to St. Thomas Aquinas, -fully covers, I think, the doctrine and ideal aimed at throughout this -section: “Already in this life we ought continuously to enjoy God, as -a thing most fully our own, in all our works.… Great is the blindness -and exceeding the folly of many souls that are ever seeking God, -continuously sighing after God, and frequently desiring God: whilst, -all the time, they are themselves the tabernacles of the living God … -since their soul is the seat of God, in which He continuously reposes. -Now who but a fool deliberately seeks a tool which he possesses under -lock and key? or who can use and profit by an instrument which he is -seeking? or who can draw comfort from food for which he hungers, but -which he does not relish at leisure? Like unto all this is the life -of many a just soul, which ever seeks God and never tarries to enjoy -Him; and all the works of such an one are, on this account, less -perfect.”[138] - - -IV. PURE LOVE, OR DISINTERESTED RELIGION: ITS DISTINCTION FROM QUIETISM. - -The problem of Pure Love, of Disinterested Religion, can hardly, in -practice, be distinguished from that of Quiet and Passivity, if only -because Quietists, (those who have considered perfection to diminish -more and more the number of the soul’s acts, or at least to eliminate -more and more the need of distinctness or difference between them), -have, quite inevitably, ever given a special prominence to the question -as to what should be the character of those few acts, of that one -unbroken act. For once allow this their main question we should all -have to answer in the Quietist’s way,--viz. that this single act must, -for a perfect soul, to be the most perfect of the acts possible to -man, and hence must be an act of Pure Love.--Yet it is well to realize -clearly that, if Quietism necessitates an even excessive and unreal -doctrine of Pure Love, a moderate and solid Pure-Love teaching has -no kind of necessary connection with Quietism. For even though my -interior life be necessarily one continuous stream and tissue of acts, -countless in their number, variety, and degrees of inter-penetration, -it in nowise follows that acts of Pure Love are not the best, or are -impossible; nor that, in proportion as Pure Love informs the soul’s -multiform acts, such acts must lose in depth and delicacy of variety -and articulation. Indeed here, with regard to the very culmination -of the interior life, we shall again find and must again test the two -conceptions: the finally abstractive and materially simplifying one, -which must ever have any one real thing outside of another; and the -incarnational and synthetic one, which finds spiritual realities and -forces working the one inside and through the other. And the latter -view will appear the true one. - - -1. _New Testament teaching as to Pure Love._ - -Now we must first try and get some clear ideas as to how this difficult -matter stands in the New Testament,--in the Synoptic tradition and in -the Pauline-Joannine teaching respectively. Here again it is the former -which, (though on its surface it appears as the more ordinary and the -more locally coloured teaching), is the richer, in its grandly elastic -and manifold simplicity; and it is the latter which has most profoundly -penetrated and articulated the ultimate meaning and genius of a part -of Our Lord’s doctrine, yet at the cost of a certain narrowing of the -variety and breadth of that outlook. In both cases I shall move, from -the easier and more popular teaching, to the deepest and most original -enunciations and explanations.[139] - -(1) The Synoptic teaching starts throughout from the ordinary -post-exilic Jewish feeling and teaching, which indeed recognizes the -ceremonial obligations and the more tangible amongst the ethical -demands as standing under the categorical imperative of the Legal -“Thou Shalt,” but places the large territory of the finer moral -precepts outside of the Law. So with the “Zedakah,” the “Justice” of -almsdeeds, and with the “Gemiluth Chasadim,” the “works of mercy,” -such as visiting the sick, burying the dead, and rejoicing with the -joyful and sorrowing with the sorrowful. Thus Rabbi Simon the Just -tells us: “The world rests on three things: on the Law (_Thorah_), -on Worship (_Abodah_), and on Works of Mercy (_Gemiluth Chasadim_)”; -and Rabbi Eleazar declared the “Gemiluth Chasadim” to be above the -“Zedakah.”[140] And it is especially in view of these works of -supererogation that rewards, and indeed a strict scale of rewards, -are conceived. Thus already in the Book of Tobit, (written somewhere -between 175 and 25 B.C.), we have Tobit instructing his son Tobias that -“Prayer is good with Fasting and Alms, more than to buy up treasures -of gold. For Alms delivereth from death … they that practise Mercy and -Justice shall live long.”[141] And one of the sayings of the Jewish -Fathers declares: “So much trouble, so much reward.”[142] - -Now this whole scheme and its spirit seems, at first to be taken over -quite unchanged by Our Lord. The very Beatitudes end with: “Rejoice -… because your reward is great in heaven.” And, in the following -Sermon, his hearers are bidden to beware of doing their “Zedakah,”--the -“Justice” of Prayer, Fasting, Almsdeeds in order to be seen by men; -since, in that case, “ye shall not have reward from your Father Who is -in heaven.” And this is driven home in detail: these three kinds of -Justice are to be done “in secret,” and “thy Father will repay thee.” -Even Prayer itself thus appears as a meritorious good work, one of the -means to “treasure up treasures in heaven.” Similarly, the rich man -is bid “Go sell all that thou hast and give it to the poor; and thou -shalt have a treasure in heaven.” Even “he that shall give you a cup of -cold water in My name, shall not lose his reward.” Indeed we have the -general principle, “the labourer is worthy of his hire.”[143] - -And yet we can follow the delicate indications of the presence, and the -transitions to the expression, of the deeper apprehension and truth. -For, on the part of God, the reward appears, in the first instance, as -in intrinsic relation to the deed. The reward is the deed’s congenital -equivalent: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy”; -“if ye forgive men their trespasses, your Father … will likewise -forgive you your trespasses”; and “everyone who shall confess Me before -men, him will I also confess before My Father Who is in heaven.”[144] -Or the reward appears as a just inversion of the ordinary results of -the action thus rewarded: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit -the land”; take the highest seat at a banquet, and you will be forced -down to the lowest, take the lowest, and you will be moved up to the -highest; and, generally, “he who findeth his soul, shall lose it; -and that loseth his soul, for My sake, shall find it.”[145] Or the -reward appears as an effect organically connected with the deed, as its -cause or condition: “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see -God.”[146] And then the reward comes to vary, although the deed remains -quantitatively identical, solely because of that deed’s qualitative -difference,--_i.e._ according to the variation in its motive: “He that -receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet, shall receive the reward -of a prophet; and he who receiveth a just man in the name of a just -man, shall receive the reward of a just man.”[147] And then the reward -moves up and up and becomes a grace, through being so far in excess -of the work done: “Every one who hath forsaken house … or father or -children or fields for My name, shall receive manifold,” indeed “an -hundredfold”--“a full … and overflowing measure shall they pour into -your lap”; and “whosoever shall humble himself, shall be exalted,”--not -simply back to his original level, but into the Kingdom of Heaven. So, -too, “Thou wast faithful over a few things, I shall place thee over -many things”; indeed this faithful servant’s master “shall place him -over all his possessions;” or rather, “blessed are those servants whom -the Lord, when He cometh, shall find watching. Amen, I say unto you, -that he shall approach … and shall minister unto them.”[148] - -This immense disproportion between the work and its reward, and the -consequent grace-character of the latter, is driven home with a -purposely paradoxical, provocative pointedness, in the two Parables of -the Wedding Garment and of the Equal Payment of the Unequal Labourers, -both of which are in St. Matthew alone. The former concerns the soul’s -call to the kingdom, and that soul’s response. The King here, after -having formally invited a certain select number of previously warned -relatives and nobles, who all, as such, had a _claim_ upon him, Matt, -xxii, 3, sends out invitations with absolute indiscrimination,--to men -with no claims or with less than none; to “bad” as well as “good.” And -it is the King, again, who gratuitously supplies them each with the -appropriate white wedding-feast garment. He has thus a double right to -expect all his guests to be thus clothed, and to punish instantly, -not the mere negligence, but the active rejection implied on the part -of the man clothed in his ordinary clothing (vv. 11, 12). Both call -and investiture have been here throughout pure graces, which rendered -possible, and which invited but did not force, an acceptance.[149] - -The second Parable describes the “Householder” who hired labourers -for his vineyard at the first, third, sixth, ninth, and even eleventh -hour,--each and all of them for a penny a day; who actually pays out -to them, at the end of the day, this one identical pay; and who, -to the labourer of the first shift who complains, “These last have -wrought but one hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us who have -borne the burden and heat of the day,” declares, “Friend, I do thee -no wrong: didst thou not agree with me for a penny? Take thine own -and go thy way: I will give to this last even as unto thee. Is it not -lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil (art -thou envious) because I am good” (because I choose to be bountiful)? -Matt. xx, 1-15. Here again the overflowing generosity of God’s grace -is brought home to us, as operating according to other standards -than those of ordinary daily life: nor is this operation unjust, for -the Householder paid their due to the first set of workers, whilst -rewarding, far above their worth, those poor labourers of the last -hour. But, as Jülicher well points out, “we should not pedantically -insist upon finding here a doctrine of the strict equality of souls in -the Beyond--a doctrine contradicted by other declarations of Jesus. -Only the _claim_ of single groups of souls to preferential treatment is -combated here …: a certain fundamental religious disposition is to be -awakened.” And, as Bugge rightly notes, “the great supreme conception -which lies at the bottom of the parable has, parablewise, remained here -unnamed: Paul has found the expressive term for it,--‘Grace.’”[150] - -And we get corresponding, increasingly spiritual interpretations with -regard to man’s action and man’s merit. First, all ostentation in the -doing of the deed cancels all reward in the Beyond; so, in the case -of each of the three branches of “Justice.”[151] And then the worker -is to be satisfied, day by day, with that day’s pay and sustenance: -“Give us this day our daily bread,” every soul is to pray; the divine -Householder will say, “Didst thou not agree with me for a penny a day? -Take thine own and go thy way.” And even “when ye have done all that -has been commanded you, say ‘we are unprofitable servants, we have but -done what we were bound to do.’” They are invited to look away from -self, to “seek first the Kingdom and His Justice,” and then “all these -things,” their very necessaries for earthly life, “shall be added unto -you.” Indeed it is the boundlessly generous self-communicativeness of -God Himself which is to be His disciples’ deliberate ideal, “be ye -perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect”; and the production of -this likeness within themselves is to be the ultimate end and crown -of their most heroic, most costly acts: “love your enemies, and pray -for those that persecute you: that you may become the sons of your -Father who is in Heaven, who maketh His sun to rise upon the evil and -the good, and who raineth upon the just and the unjust.” And the more -there is of such self-oblivious love, the more will even the gravest -sins be entirely blotted out, and the more rapid will be the full -sanctification of the soul, as Our Lord solemnly declares concerning -the sinful woman in St. Luke, “her many sins are forgiven her, because -she hath loved much.”[152] - -In all this matter it is St. Luke’s Gospel which is specially -interesting as showing, so to speak, side by side, an increased -Rabbinical-like preciseness of balance between work and reward, and -yet the adoption, doubtlessly under Pauline influence, of St. Paul’s -central term in lieu of the old Jewish terminology. For, in one of its -curious so-called “Ebjonite” passages, this Gospel works up the Parable -of the Talents, with its only approximate relation between the deeds -and their rewards (Matt. xxv, 14-30), into the Parable of the Pounds -(Luke xix, 12-27), with its mathematically symmetrical interdependence -between the quantities of the merit and those of this merit’s reward: -the man who makes ten pounds is placed over ten cities, and he who -makes five, over five. And, on the other hand, in a Lukan equivalent -for part of the Sermon on the Mount, St. Matthew’s “reward” is replaced -by “grace”: “If ye love them that love you, what grace (χάρις) have -you? and if ye do good to those that do you good, what grace have -you?”[153] - -(2) St. Paul indeed it is who, in the specially characteristic portions -of his teaching, unfolds, by means of a partly original terminology, -the deepest motives and implications of Our Lord’s own divinely -deep sayings and doings, and never wearies of insisting upon the -Grace-character of the soul’s call and salvation,--the Free Mercy, the -Pure Love which God shows to us, and the sheer dependence and complete -self-donation, the pure love which we owe to Him, and which, at the -soul’s best, it can and does give Him. - -It is true that in the contrasting, the traditional layer of his -teaching, we find the old Jewish terminology still intact: “God will -render unto every man according to his works”; “it behoves us to -appear before the Judgment-seat of Christ, that everyone … may receive -according to what he hath done, whether it be good or bad.”[154] -Indeed it is precisely in St. Paul’s pages that we find the two most -difficult and, at first sight, least spiritual sayings concerning this -matter to be discovered in the whole New Testament: “If in this life -only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most miserable.” -And: “If the dead do not rise … let us eat and drink, for to-morrow -we die.”[155] But these two passages must doubtless be taken partly -as arguments adapted to the dispositions of his hearers,--the “Let us -eat and drink” conclusion is given in the words of a current Heathen -Greek proverb,--and, still more, as expressions not so much of a -formal doctrine as of a mood, of one out of the many intense, mutually -supplementary and corrective moods of that rich nature. - -According to his own deepest, most deliberate, and most systematic -teaching, it is the life of Christ, the living Christ, energizing even -now within the faithful soul, that constitutes both the primary source -and the ultimate motive of Christian sanctity. “I am crucified with -Christ; nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” And -through this divine-human life within us “we faint not; but though our -outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.” Indeed -the Lord Himself said to him: “My grace is sufficient for thee; for -power is made perfect in infirmity”; and hence he, Paul, could declare: -“Gladly therefore will I glory in my infirmities, that the power of -Christ may dwell in me.” And thus, with Christ living within him, he -can exclaim: “If God be for us, who shall be against us?… Who shall -separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or peril, or -the sword?… In all these things we are more than conquerors, through -him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, -nor things present nor things to come … shall be able to separate us -from the love of God.” “Whether we live, or whether we die, we are -the Lord’s.”[156] We thus get here a reinsistence upon, and a further -deepening of, perhaps the profoundest utterance of the whole Old -Testament: “What have I in Heaven besides Thee? and besides Thee I seek -nothing upon earth. Even though my flesh and my heart faint, Thou art -my rock and my portion for ever.”[157] - -And then that deathless hymn to Pure Love, the thirteenth chapter of -the First Epistle to the Corinthians, not only culminates with the -proclamation that, of all man can hope and wish and will and do, of -all his doings and his graces, “there remain these three, Faith, Hope, -Love, (Charity): but the greatest of these is Love (Charity).” But -the Love that has this primacy is Pure Love, for “it seeketh not its -own.” And though of this Love alone it is said that “it never passeth -away,” ever persists in the Beyond: yet even here already it can and -does get exercised,--and this, not only without any suppression of -parallel acts of the other virtues, but with these other virtues and -their specific motives now taken over and deepened, each in its special -characteristic, by the supreme virtue and motive of Pure Love: “Love -believeth all things, hopeth all things, beareth all things.”[158] Thus -Faith, Hope, Patience, and all the other virtues, they all remain, -but it is Love that is now the ultimate motive of all their specific -motives. These, his culminating teachings, indicate clearly enough that -virtue’s rewards are regarded by him, ultimately and substantially, as -“the wages of going on and not to die”; or rather that they are, in -their essence, manifestations of that Eternal Life which is already -energizing, within souls that earnestly seek God, even here and now. -This Life, then, however great may be its further expansion and the -soul’s consciousness of possessing it, already holds within itself -sufficient, indeed abundant motives, (in the fulfilment of its own -deepest nature and of its now awakened requirements of harmony, -strength, and peace through self-donation), for giving itself ever more -and more to God. - -(3) And with regard to the Joannine teaching, it will be enough for -us to refer back to the texts discussed in the preceding chapter, and -to note how large and specially characteristic is here the current -which insists upon the reward being already, at least inchoatively, -enclosed in the deed itself, and upon this deed being the result and -expression of Eternal Life operating within the faithful soul, even -already, Here and Now. Only the declaration that “perfect love casteth -out fear,” that it does not tolerate fear alongside of itself, 1 John -iv, 18, appears to be contrary to the Pauline doctrine that Perfect -Love, “Love” itself “beareth all things, believeth, hopeth, endureth -all things,” 1 Cor. xiii, 7. Love then can animate other virtues: why -not then a holy fear? But this Joannine saying seems in fact modelled -upon St. Paul’s quotation and use of a passage from the Septuagint: -“Cast out the bondwoman (the slave-servant) and her son, for the son -of the bondwoman shall not be heir together with the son of the free,” -Gal. iv, 30; and hence this saying will not exclude “children of the -free-woman,”--a holy fear as well as faith, hope, patience,--but -only “children of the slave-woman,” superstition, presumption, -weakmindedness, and slavish fear. - - -2. _The “Pure Love” controversy._ - -In turning now to the controversy as to, Pure Love (1694-1699) and its -assured results, we shall have again to distinguish carefully between -the lives and intentions of the writers who were censured, and the -doctrines, analytic or systematic, taught or implied by them, which -were condemned. This distinction is easier in this case than in that of -Quietism, for the chief writer concerned here is Fénelon, as to whose -pure and spiritual character and deeply Catholic intentions there never -has been any serious doubt. - -But in this instance we have to make a further distinction--viz. -between the objective drift of at least part of his _Explication des -Maximes des Saints sur la Vie Interieure_, published in 1697, and -especially the twenty-three propositions extracted from it which -were condemned by Pope Innocent XII in 1699; and the teaching which -he increasingly clarified and improved in his numerous apologetic -writings against Bossuet and other opponents in this memorable -controversy--especially in his Latin writings, intended for -transmission to the Pope, and written as late as 1710 and 1712.[159] -It is certain that Bishops and theologians who opposed his _Maximes_ -were found warmly endorsing such pieces as his wonderfully clear and -sober _Première Réponse aux Difficultés de M. l’Evêque de Chartres_. -It is these pieces, comprising also his remarkably rich _Instruction -Pastorale_, his admirably penetrating _Lettre sur l’Oraison Passive_ -and _Lettre sur la Charité_, and his extraordinarily compact and -balanced Second Epistle to Pope Clement XI, 1712 (where all the -censured ambiguities and expressions are carefully avoided), and which -alone among Fénelon’s writings shall be accepted in what follows.[160] -Indeed even the earlier of these writings fail in but one thing--in -justifying the actual text of the condemned book, as distinguished -from the intentions of its writer. Bishop Hedley sums up the real -position with the treble authority of a spiritually trained Monk, -of a practised theological writer, and of a Catholic Bishop of long -experience: “The doctrine intended by Fénelon, in his _Maximes des -Saints_, and as explained by him during his controversy with Bossuet, -has never been censured, although the opposite party laboured hard for -its condemnation. Fifteen years after the condemnation of his book, we -find him re-stating to Pope Clement XI (who, as Cardinal, had drawn up -the Brief of his condemnations), in careful scholastic language the -doctrine intended by himself, but which he himself had misstated in his -popular treatise. As there were errors, the other side, whatever the -crudity or novelty of some of its contentions, whatever its motives or -methods--and some of them were far from creditable--was sure in the end -to succeed. And it is well that it should have succeeded as far as it -did succeed.”[161] - -In any case, we shall have to beware of considering Bossuet’s -contentions as to the specific character of Charity, Love, and as to -the possibility, for man here below, of single acts of pure love, to -be representative of the ordinary Catholic teaching either before or -since the condemnation. On both these fundamental points Fénelon’s -positions are demonstrably, and indeed have been generally admitted to -be, a mere restatement of that teaching, as is shown, for instance, in -the Jesuit Father Deharbe’s solid and sober, thoroughly traditional and -highly authorized essay: _Die vollkommene Liebe Gottes … dargestellt -nach der Lehre des h. Thomas von Aquin_, Regensburg, 1856. It is -this most useful treatise and the admirable _Analyse Raisonnée de la -Controverse du Quiétisme_ of the Abbé Gosselin,[162] (which has already -much helped me in the preceding section), that have been my chief aids -in my careful study, back through Bossuet and Fénelon, to St. Thomas -and his chief commentators, Sylvius, who died in 1649, and Cardinal -Cajetan, who died in 1534, and to the other chief authorities beyond -them.--I group the main points, which alone need concern us here, under -three heads: the specific Nature of Pure Love; single Acts of Pure -Love; a State of Pure Love. - -(1) Now as to the specific Nature of Charity, or Pure, Perfect Love, -St. Thomas tells us: “One Kind of Love is perfect, the other kind is -imperfect. Perfect Love is that wherewith a man is loved for his own -sake: as, for instance, when some one wishes well to another person, -for that other person’s sake, in the manner in which a man loves his -friend. Imperfect love is the love wherewith a man loves something, -not for its own sake, but in order that this good thing may accrue to -himself,--in the manner in which a man loves a thing that he covets. -Now the former kind of love pertains to Charity, which clings to God -for His own sake, whereas it is Hope that pertains to the second -kind of love, since he who hopes aims at obtaining something for -himself.”[163] And Cardinal Cajetan explains that this wishing well to -God, “this good that we can will God to have, is double. The good that -is in Him, that (strictly speaking) is God Himself,--we can, by Love, -will Him to have it, when we find our delight in God being what He is. -And the good that is but referred to God,--His honour and Kingdom and -the Obedience we owe him,--this we can will, not only by finding our -pleasure in it, but by labouring at its maintenance and increase with -all our might.”[164] - -And, says St. Thomas, such Perfect Love alone is Love in its strict -sense and “the most excellent of all the virtues”: for “ever that which -exists for its own sake is greater than that which exists in view of -something else. Now Faith and Hope attain indeed to God, yet as the -source from which there accrue to us the knowledge of the Truth and -the acquisition of the Good; whilst Love attains to God Himself, with -a view to abide in Him, and not that some advantage may accrue to us -from Him.” And perhaps still more clearly: “ When a man loves something -so as to covet it, he apprehends it as something pertaining to his -own well-being. The lover here stands towards the object beloved, as -towards something which is his property.”[165] And note how, although -he teaches that whereas “the beatitude of man, as regards its cause -and its object, is something increate,” _i.e._ God Himself, “the -essence of the beatitude itself is something created,” for “men are -rendered blessed by participation, and this participation in beatitude -is something created”: yet he is careful to explain some of his more -incidental passages, in which he speaks of this essence of beatitude -as itself man’s end, by the _ex professo_ declaration: “God” alone “is -man’s ultimate end, and beatitude is only as it were an end before the -very end, an end in immediate proximity to the ultimate end.”[166] - -(2) And next, as to the possibility, actual occurrence and -desirableness of single Acts of such Pure Love, even here below: -all this is assumed as a matter of course throughout St. Thomas’s -_ex professo_ teaching on the matter. For throughout the passages -concerning the Nature of Pure Love he is not exclusively, indeed not -even primarily, busy with man’s acts in the future life, but with the -respective characteristics of man’s various acts as executed and as -analyzable, more or less perfectly, already here below. And nowhere -does he warn us against concluding, from his reiterated insistence upon -the essential characteristics of Pure Love, that such love cannot, as -a matter of fact, be practised, at least in single acts, here below at -all. Hence it is clear that, according to him, the soul as it advances -in perfection will--alongside of acts of supernatural Faith, Hope, -Fear, etc. (and the production of such acts will never cease), produce -more and more acts of Pure Love: not necessarily more, as compared -with the other kinds of contemporary acts, but certainly more as -compared with its former acts of the same character. - -But there is a further, profoundly and delicately experienced -doctrine. Not only can Pure Love be exercised in single and simple -acts, alongside of single and simple acts of other kinds of virtues, -supernatural or otherwise: but Pure Love can itself come to command -or to inform acts which in themselves bear, and will now bear in -increased degree, the characteristics of the other kinds of acts. St. -Thomas tells us, with admirable clearness: “An act can be derived from -Charity in one of two ways. In the first way, the act is elicited -by Charity itself, and such a virtuous act requires no other virtue -beside Charity,--as in the case of loving the Good, rejoicing in it, -and mourning over its opposite. In the second way, an act proceeds -from Charity in the sense of being commanded by it: and in this -manner,--since Charity” has the full range of and “commands all the -virtues, as ordering them (each and all) to their (ultimate) end,--an -act can proceed from Charity whilst nevertheless belonging to any other -special virtue.” And he assures us that: “The merit of eternal life,” -“the fountain-head of meriting,” “pertains primarily to, consists in -Charity, and pertains to and consists in other kinds of supernatural -acts in only a secondary manner,--that is, only in so far as these acts -are commanded or informed by Charity” or Pure Love.[167] - -Let us take some instances of such two-fold manifestations of identical -motives and virtues, according as these motives and virtues operate -in simple co-ordination, or within a compound and organic system. In -the scholar’s life, Greek and Latin and Hebrew may be acquired, each -simply for its own sake and each alongside of the other; or they can be -acquired, from the immediate motive indeed of knowing each in its own -specific nature as thoroughly as possible, yet with the ultimate, ever -more and more conscious and all-penetrating, motive of thus acquiring -means and materials for the science of language, or for the study of -philosophy, or for research into early phases of the Jewish-Christian -religion. In the family life, a man, woman, or child can live for -himself or herself, and then for his or her other immediate relatives, -each taken as separate alongside of the other, or he or she may get -more and more dominated by the conception and claims of the family as -an organic whole, and may end by working largely, even with respect -to himself, as but for so many constituents of that larger organism -in which alone each part can attain its fullest significance. And -especially a young mother can live for her own health and joys, and -then, alongside of these, for those of her child, or she can get to the -point of sustaining her own physical health and her mental hopes and -will to live as so many means and conditions for feeding and fostering -the claimful body and soul of her child. - -So again, in the creatively artistic life, we can have a Dante writing -prose and poetry and painting a picture, and a Rafael painting -pictures and writing sonnets; or we can have Wagner bringing all his -activities of scholar, poet, painter, musician, stage-manager,--each -retaining, and indeed indefinitely increasing, its specific character -and capabilities,--to contribute, by endless mutual stimulation and -interaction, to something other and greater than any one of them -individually or even than the simple addition of them all,--to a great -Music-Drama and multiform yet intensely unified image of life itself. -And an organist can draw out, as he plays, the _Vox Humana_ stop, and -then another and another limitedly efficacious organ-stop, whilst each -new-comer takes the place of its predecessor or a place beside it; or -he can draw out the _Grand Jeu_ stop, which sets all the other stops -to work in endless interaction, with itself permeating and organizing -the whole. We thus, in these and countless other cases, and in every -variety of degree within each case, get two kinds of variety, what we -may call the simple and the compound diversification. And everywhere -we can find that the richest variety not only can co-exist with, but -that it requires and is required by, indeed that it is a necessary -constituent and occasion of, the deepest and most delicate unity.[168] - -(3) And finally, as to a State of Pure Love. Only here do we reach the -class of questions to which the condemnations of Fénelon really apply. - -We shall do well to begin by bearing in mind the very ancient, -practically unbroken, very orthodox Christian discrimination of -faithful souls,--sometimes into the two classes of Mercenaries (or -Slaves) and Friends or Children, the latter of whom the great Clement -of Alexandria, who died about A.D. 215, called “Gnostics,” “Gnosis” -being his term for perfection (this scheme is the one to which -Catherine’s life and teaching conform); or into the three classes -of Servants (Slaves); Mercenaries; and Friends (or Children), as is -already worked out with full explicitness by Saints Basil, Gregory -of Nazianzum, and Gregory of Nyssa, who died in the years 379, 389, -and 395 (?) respectively. Now Clement places the Mercenary on the -left of the Sanctuary, but the “Gnostic” on the right; and, whilst -declaring that the former “are those who, by means of renouncing things -perishable, hope to receive the goods of incorruption in exchange,” -he demands of the “Gnostic” that “he approach the saving word neither -from the fear of punishment, nor from the motive of reward, but simply -because He is good.”[169] And St. Basil, echoed in this by his two -contemporaries, teaches that, “We obey God and avoid vices, from the -fear of punishment, and in that case we take on the resemblance of -Slaves. Or we keep the precepts, because of the utility that we derive -from the recompense, thus resembling Mercenaries. Or finally, from -love of Him who has given us the law, we obey with joy at having been -judged worthy of serving so great and good a God, and thus we imitate -the affection of Children towards their parents.”[170] And, in the case -of all these Fathers, it is clear that, not only single acts, but whole -states of soul and life are meant. - -But the increased fineness in the analysis of interior experiences -and dispositions has since then required, and the Church formulations -have most wisely demanded, that these three classes be not so sharply -distinguished as to make any one soul seem exclusively and unchangeably -to pertain to any one of them; and, still more, that these three -divisions be taken to represent, even where and whilst they are most -completely realized, only the predominant character of the majority of -the acts constituting the respective state of soul. For it is clear -that not only is there, and can there be, no such thing, on earth at -least, as a state composed of one unrepeated act; but there is no such -thing as a condition of soul made up solely of acts of “simple” Pure -Love, or even of supernatural acts of all sorts commanded throughout -by Charity, or indeed solely of supernatural acts, both simple and -commanded. The “One-act” state is a chimera; the state of “simple” -acts of Pure Love alone would, if possible, involve the neglect of -numberless other virtues and duties; and the last two states indeed -highly desirable, but it would be fanaticism to think we could -completely attain to them here below. - -Yet there is nothing in any Church-censure to prevent, and there is -much in the teaching and life of countless saints to invite, our -holding the possibility, hence the working ideal and standard, for even -here below, of a state in which two kinds of acts, which are still -good in their degree, would be in a considerable minority: acts of -merely natural, unspiritualized hope, fear, desire, etc.; and acts of -supernatural hope, fear, desire, etc., in so far as not commanded by -Charity. For even in this state not fully deliberate venial sins would -occasionally be committed, far more would a certain number of acts -of an unspiritualized, unsupernatural kind occur. And the necessary -variety among the supernatural acts would in nowise be impaired,--it -would indeed be greatly stimulated, by Pure Love being now, for the -most part, the ultimate motive of their exercise. - -Sylvius, in his highly authoritative commentary on St. Thomas, puts the -matter admirably: “We may not love God in view of reward in suchwise -as to make eternal life the true and ultimate end of our love, or to -love God because of it, so that without the reward we would not love -Him … We must love God with reference to the eternal reward in suchwise -that we put forth indeed both love and good works in view of such -beatitude,--in so far as the latter is the end proposed to these works -by God Himself; yet that we subordinate this our beatitude to the love -of God as the true and ultimate end,” so that “if we had no beatitude -to expect at all, we should nevertheless still love Him and execute -good works for His own sake alone. In this manner we shall first love -God above all things and for His own sake; and we shall next keep the -eternal reward before us, for the sake of God and of His honour.”[171] -A man in these dispositions would still hope, and desire, and fear, -and regret, and strive for, and aspire to conditions, things, persons -both of earth and of the beyond, both for himself and for others, -both for time and for eternity: but all this, for the most part, from -the ultimate motive, penetrating, deepening, unifying all the other -motives,--of the love of Love, Christ, Spirit, God. - -Any hesitation to accept the reality or possibility of such a state -cannot, then, be based upon such acceptance involving any kind of -Quietism, but simply on the admittedly great elevation of such a -condition. Yet this latter objection seems to be sufficiently met if -we continuously insist that even such a state neither exempts souls -from the commission of (more or less deliberate) venial sin; nor is -ever entirely equable; nor is incapable of being completely lost; nor, -as we have just contended, is ever without more or less numerous acts -of an unsupernaturalized kind, and still less without acts of the -supernatural virtues other than Love and unprompted by Love. - -And all fear of fanaticism will be finally removed by a further most -necessary and grandly enlarging insistence upon the Mercenaries and -even the Servants having passing moments, and producing varyingly -numerous single acts of, Pure Love and of the other supernatural -virtues prompted by Pure Love. All souls in a state of Grace throughout -God’s wide wide world,--every constituent, however slight and recent, -of the great soul of the Church throughout every sex, age, race, clime, -and external organization, would thus have some touches, some at least -incidental beginnings of Pure Love, and of the other supernatural -virtues prompted by Pure Love. All souls would thus, in proportion to -their degree of grace and of fidelity, have some of those touches; and -the progress of all would consist in the degree to which that variety -of acts would become informed and commanded by the supreme motive of -all motives, Pure and Perfect Love.[172] - -And with such an Ideal, required by fundamental Catholic positions, -ever increasingly actuating the soul and binding it to all souls -beneath, around, above it, what there is of truth in the savage -attacks of Spinoza and of Kant and of such recent writers as A. -E. Taylor,[173] upon the supposed hypocritical self-seeking in the -practice and temper of average Christians, would lose all its force. - - -3. _Cognate Problems._ - -Three much-discussed cognate matters require some elucidation here. -They answer to the questions: Does reference to the self, as for -instance in acts of gratitude and thanksgiving, prevent an act from -being one of Pure Love? Is the pleasurableness, normally ever attached -and subsequent to all virtuous acts, to be regarded as part of the -reward from which Pure Love abstracts? And finally are, I will not say -any technically ecstatic or other in part psycho-physical peculiarities -and manifestations, but even active Contemplation or the simple Prayer -of Quiet, necessary conditions or expressions of a state of Pure -Love,--understood in the sense explained above? - -(1) As to reference to the self, it is highly important to distinguish -between acts of Pure Love, and attempts, by means of the maximum -possible degree of abstraction, to apprehend the absolute character -and being of God. For these two things have no necessary connection, -and yet they have been frequently confounded. St. Teresa’s noble -confession of past error, and consequent doubly valuable, amended -teaching is perhaps the most classical pronouncement extant upon this -profoundly important point.[174] The contingent, spacial and temporal, -manifestations and communications of God, above all as we have them in -the life of Our Lord and in those who have come nearest to Him, but -also, in their several degrees and forms, in the lives of each one of -us: all these, in their sacred, awakening and healing, particularity -and closeness of contact, can and should be occasions and materials for -the most perfect, for the purest Love. - -Indeed it is well never to forget that nothing, and least of all God, -the deepest of all the realities, is known to us at all, except in and -by means of its relation to our own self or to our fellow-creatures. -Hence if Love were Pure only in proportion as it could be based upon -our apprehension of God as independent of all relation to ourselves, -Pure Love would be simply impossible for us.--But, in truth, such a -conception would, in addition, be false in itself: it would imply that -the whole great Incarnation-fact and -doctrine,--the whole of that -great root of all religion, the certainty that it is because God has -first loved us that we can love Him, that He is a self-revealing God, -and One whom we can know and reach because “in Him we live and move -and have our being”--was taking us, not towards, but away from, our -true goal. There are, surely, few sadder and, at bottom, more deeply -uncreaturely, unchristian attitudes, than that which would seek or -measure perfection in and by the greatest possible abstraction from all -those touching contingencies which God Himself has vouchsafed to our -nature,--a nature formed by Himself to require such plentiful contact -with the historical and visible.--And if God’s pure love for us can -and does manifest itself in such contingent acts, then our love can -and should become and manifest itself purer and purer by means, not -only of the prayer of formless abstraction and expectation, but also -by the contemplation of these contingencies and by the production of -analogously contingent acts. And if so, then certainly gratitude, in so -far as it truly deserves the name, can and does belong to Pure Love, -for the very characteristic of such gratitude consists in a desire to -give and not to receive.[175] - -Not, then, the degree of disoccupation with the Contingent, even -of the contingent of our own life, but the degree of freedom from -self-seeking, and of the harmonization and subordination of all these -contingencies in and under the supreme motive of the Pure Love and -service of God in man and of man in God, is the standard and test of -Christian perfection. - -(2) As to the pleasurableness which, in normal psychic conditions, more -or less immediately accompanies or follows the virtuous acts of the -soul, the realizations of its own deeper and deepest ideals, we should -note that, in its earthly degree and form, it is not included in what -theologians mean by the “rewards” of virtuous action. And in this they -are thoroughly self-consistent, for they adhere, I think with practical -unanimity, to Catherine’s doctrine that these immediate consequences -of virtuous acts are not to be considered a matter of positive and, -as it were, separate divine institution,--as something which, given -the fundamental character of man’s spiritual nature, might have been -otherwise; but as what,--given the immutable nature of God and of the -image at nature in His creature, man,--follows from an intrinsic, -quite spontaneous necessity.--Hence, at this point especially, would -it be foolish and fanatical, because contrary to the immanental nature -of things, and to the right interplay of the elemental forces of all -life, to attempt the suppression even of the several actual irruptions -of such pleasure, and still more of the source and recurrence of this -delectation. Fortunately success is here as impossible as it would be -undesirable,--as much so as, on a lower plane, would be the suppression -of the pleasure concomitant with the necessary kinds and degrees of -eating. Indeed, it is clear, upon reflection that unless a man (at -least implicitly) accepts and (indirectly) wills that spiritual or -physical pleasure, he cannot profitably eat his food or love his God. - -But from this in nowise follows what Bossuet tried so hard to -prove,--that what is thus necessarily present in man, as a psychical or -physical prompting and satisfaction, must also of necessity be willed -by him, directly and as his determining reason and justification. In -turning to eat, man cannot help feeling a psychic pleasure of an all -but purely physical kind; and, if he is wise, he will make no attempt -to meddle with this feeling. But he can either deliberately will, as -his action’s object, that pleasure which is thus inevitably incident -to the act, and the more he does so, the more simply greedy and -sensual he will become; or he can directly will, as his determining -end, that sustenance of life and strength for his work and spiritual -growth, which is the justification and ultimate reason of eating (the -_rationale_ of that very pleasure so wisely attached by nature, as a -stimulus, to a process so necessary to the very highest objects), and -the more he does so, the more manly and spiritual he will grow. - -And so with every one of man’s wondrously manifold and different -physical, psychical, spiritual requirements and actions, within -the wide range of his right nature and ideals. There is not one of -them,--not the most purely physical-seeming of these acts,--which he -cannot ennoble and spiritualize by, as it were, meeting it,--by willing -it, more and more, because of its rational end and justification. -And there is not one of them,--not an act which, judged simply by -its direct subject-matter and by the soul’s faculties immediately -engaged, would be the most purely mental and religious of acts,--which -man cannot degrade and de-spiritualize, by, as it were, following -it, by willing it more and more because of its psychical attraction -and pleasurable concomitance alone. For, in the former case, the -act, however gross may seem its material, is made the occasion and -instrument of spiritual character-building and of the constitution -of liberty; in the latter case, the act, however ethereal its body, -is but the occasion and means of the soul’s dispersion in the mere -phenomenal flux of the surface of existence, and of its subjection to -the determinism which obtains here.[176] - -Catherine’s whole convert life is one long series of the most striking -examples of an heroic delicacy in self-knowledge and self-fighting in -this matter: a delicacy which, as to the degree of its possibility and -desirableness in any particular soul, is, however, peculiarly dependent -upon that soul’s special circumstances, temperament, _attrait_, and -degree of perfection reached and to be reached. - -(3) And, finally, as to the relations between the Contemplative forms -of Prayer, and Acts and variously complete States of Pure Love; and, -again, of such Prayer and Love, and Abnormal or Miraculous conditions: -it is clear that, if there is no true Contemplation without much Pure -Love, there can be much Pure Love without Contemplation. - -Abbé Gosselin well sums up the ordinary Catholic teaching. “Meditation -consists of discursive acts which are easily distinguished from each -other, both because of the kind of strain and shock with which they -are produced, and because of the diversity of their objects. It is -the ordinary foundation of the interior life and the ordinary prayer -of beginners, whose imperfect love requires to be thus excited and -sustained by distinct and reflective acts. Contemplation consists, -strictly speaking, in direct ‘non-reflex’ acts,--acts so simple and -peaceful as to have nothing salient by which the soul could distinguish -one from the other. It is called by the Mystical Saints ‘a simple and -loving look,’ as discriminating it from meditation and the latter’s -many methodic and discursive acts, and as limiting it to a simple and -loving consideration and view of God and of divine things, certified -and rendered present to the soul by faith. It is the ordinary prayer -of perfect souls, or at least of those that have already made much -progress in the divine love. For the more purely a soul loves -God, the less it requires to be sustained by distinct, reflective -acts; reasoning becomes a fatigue and an embarrassment to it in its -prayer--it longs but to love and to contemplate the object of its love.” - -Or as Fénelon puts it: “‘Passivity,’ ‘Action,’ is not precisely itself -Pure Love, but is the mode in which Pure Love operates.… ‘Passivity,’ -‘Action,’ is not precisely the purity of Love, but is the effect of -that purity.”[177] Yet, as M. Gosselin adds, “It must be admitted that -without Contemplation the soul can arrive at a very high perfection; -and that the most discursive meditation, and hence still more all -prayer as it becomes effective, often includes certain direct acts -which form an admixture and beginning of contemplation.”[178] - -And as to any supposed necessary relations between the very highest -contemplation and the most complete state of Pure Love on the one hand, -and anything abnormal or miraculous on the other hand, Fénelon, in -this point remarkably more sober than Bossuet, well sums up the most -authoritative and classical Church-teaching on the matter: “‘Passive’ -Contemplation is but Pure Contemplation: ‘Active’ Contemplation -being one which is still mixed with hurried and discursive acts. -When Contemplation has ceased to have any remnant of this hurry, of -this ‘activity,’ it is entirely ‘Passive,’ that is, peaceful, in -its acts.” “This free and loving look of the soul means acts of the -understanding,--for it is a look; and acts of the will, for the look -is a loving one; and acts produced by free-will, without any strict -necessity, for the look is a free look.” “We should not compare -Passive Contemplation,” as did Bossuet, “to prophecy, or to the gift -of tongues or of miracles; nor may we say that this mystical state -consists principally in something wrought by God within us without -our co-operation, and where, consequently, there neither is nor can -be any merit. We must, on the contrary, to speak correctly, say that -the substance of such Passive Prayer, taken in its specific acts, -is free, meritorious, and operated within us by a grace that acts -together with us.” “It is the attraction to the acts which the soul -now produces which, as by a secondary and counter-effect, occasions -a quasi-incapacity for those acts which it does not produce. Now -this attraction is not of a kind to deprive the soul of the use of -its free-will: we see this from the nature of the acts which this -attraction causes the soul to produce. Whence I conclude that this -same attraction does not, again, deprive it of its liberty with regard -to the acts which it prevents. The attraction but prevents the latter -in the way it produces the other,--by an efficacious influence that -involves no sheer necessity.” “‘Passivity,’ if it comes from God, ever -leaves the soul fully free for the exercise of the distinct virtues -demanded by God in the Gospel; the _attrait_ is truly divine only -in so far as it draws the soul on to the perfect fulfilment of the -evangelical counsels and promises concerning all the virtues.” “The -inspiration of the Passive state is but an habitual inspiration for -the interior acts of evangelical piety. It renders the Passive soul -neither infallible nor impeccable, nor independent of the Church even -for its interior direction, nor exempt from the obligation of meriting -and growing in virtue.… The inspiration of the passive soul differs -from that of actively just souls only in being purer; that is, more -exempt from all natural self-seeking, more full, more simple, more -continuous, and more developed at each moment. We have, throughout, -ever one and the same inspiration, which but grows in perfection and -purity in proportion as the soul renounces itself more, and becomes -more sensitive to the divine impressions.”[179] - -Thus we get an impressive, simple and yet varied, conception of -spirituality, in which a real continuity, and a power and obligation of -mutual understanding and aid underlies all the changes of degree and -form, from first to last. For from first to last there are different -degrees, but of the same supernatural grace acting in and upon the same -human nature responsive in different degrees and ways. From first to -last there is, necessarily and at every step, the Supernatural: at no -point is there any necessary presence of, or essential connection with, -the Miraculous or the Abnormal. - - -4. _Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant._ - -Theology and Philosophy have not ceased to occupy themselves, at least -indirectly, with the substance of these great questions, since they -furnished the subject-matter to Bossuet and Fénelon in their memorable -controversy; somewhat over-subtle although some of it was in its -earlier phases, owing to Fénelon’s chivalrous anxiety to defend, as far -as possible, the very expressions, often so nebulous and shifting, of -his cousin, Madame Guyon. - -(1) Indeed about twenty years before that controversy, Spinoza had, -in his _Theologico-Political Treatise_, and then, more impressively -still, in his _Ethics_, made a brilliant assault upon all, especially -all religious, self-seeking. Also on this point these writings showed -that strange, pathetic combination of grandly religious intuitions -and instincts with a Naturalistic system which, logically, leaves no -room for those deepest requirements of that great soul; and here they -revealed, in addition, considerable injustice towards the, doubtless -very mixed and imperfect, motives of average humanity. - -True intuition speaks in his _Treatise_ (published in 1670) in the -words: “Since the love of God is man’s supreme beatitude and the final -end and scope of all human actions: it follows that only that man -conforms to the divine law, who strives to love God, not from fear of -punishment, nor from the love of some other thing, such as delights, -fame, and so forth, but from this motive alone, that he knows God, or -that he knows the knowledge and love of God, to be his supreme end.” -But a little further back we learn that “the more we know the things -of Nature, the greater and the more perfect knowledge of God do we -acquire”; a frank application of the pure Pantheism of his reasoned -system. - -In his _Ethics_, again, a noble intuition finds voice where he says: -“Even if we did not know our Mind,” our individual soul, “to be -eternal, we should still put Piety and Religion and, in a word, all -those virtues that are to be referred to magnanimity and generosity, -first in our esteem.” But he is doubtless excessive in his picturing of -the downright, systematic immorality of attitude of ordinary men--the -“slaves” and “mercenaries.” “Unless this hope of laying aside the -burdens of Piety and Religion after death and of receiving the price -of their service, and this fear of being punished by dire punishments -after death were in men, and if they, contrariwise, believed that -their minds would perish with their bodies: they would let themselves -go to their natural inclination and would decide to rule all their -actions according to their lust.” And he is doubtlessly, though nobly, -excessive in his contrary ideal: “He who loves God cannot strive that -God shall love him in return,”--an ideal which is, however, certainly -in part determined by his philosophy, which knows no ultimate abiding -personality or consciousness either in God or man. - -Yet, once again, we have him at his inspiring best when, -Catherine-like, he tells us: “The supreme Good of those who pursue -virtue is common to them all, and all are equally able to rejoice in -it”; and “this love towards God is incapable of being stained by the -passions of envy and bitterness, but is increased in proportion as we -figure to ourselves a larger number of men joined to God by the same -bonds of love”; when he declares: “we do not enjoy beatitude because we -master our passions; rather, contrariwise, do we master our passions -because we enjoy beatitude”; and when he insists, with no doubt too -indiscriminating, too Jacopone-like, a simplification, upon what, -in its substance, is a profound truth: “the intellectual,” the pure -“love of the soul for God is the very love of God, wherewith God loves -Himself.”[180] - -(2) It was, however, the astonishingly circumspect and many-sided -Leibniz who, indefinitely smaller soul though he was, succeeded, -perhaps better than any other modern philosopher, in successfully -combining the divers constitutive elements of the act and state of -Pure Love, when he wrote in 1714: “Since true Pure Love consists in a -state of soul which makes me find pleasure in the perfections and the -felicity of the object loved by me, this love cannot but give us the -greatest pleasure of which we are capable, when God is that object. -And, though this love be disinterested, it already constitutes, even -thus simply by itself, our greatest-good and deepest interest.” - -Or, as he wrote in 1698: “Our love of others cannot be separated -from our true good, nor our love of God from our felicity. But it is -equally certain that the consideration of our own particular good, as -distinguished from the pleasure which we taste in seeing the felicity -of another, does not enter into Pure Love.” And earlier still he -had defined the act of loving as “the finding one’s pleasure in the -felicity of another”; and had concluded thence that Love is for man -essentially an enjoyment, although the specific motive of love is not -the pleasure or the particular good of him who loves, but the good or -the felicity of the beloved object.[181] - -(3) Yet it is especially Kant who, with his predominant hostility to -all Eudaemonism in Morality and Religion, has, more than all others, -renewed the controversy as to the relations between virtue and piety -on the one hand, and self-seeking motives on the other, and who is -popularly credited with an entirely self-consistent antagonism to even -such a wise and necessary attitude as are the amended positions of -Fénelon and those of Leibniz. And yet I sincerely doubt whether (if -we put aside the question as to the strictly logical consequences of -his Critical Idealism, such as that Idealism appears in its greatest -purity in the _Critique of Pure Reason_, 1781; and if we neglect the -numerous, often grossly unjust, Spinoza-like sallies against the -supposed undiluted mercenariness of ordinary piety, which abound in his -_Religion within the Limits of Pure Reason_, 1793), we could readily -find any explicit pronouncement hopelessly antagonistic to the Catholic -Pure-Love doctrine. - -Certainly the position taken up towards this point in that very -pregnant and curious, largely-overlooked little treatise, _The Canon -of Pure Reason_, which (evidently an earlier and complete sketch), has -been inserted by him into his later, larger, but materially altered -scheme of the _Critique_ of 1781, (where it now forms the _Zweite -Hauptstück_ of the _Transcendentale Methodenlehre_, ed. Kehrbach, -Reclam, pp. 603-628), appears to be substantially acceptable.[182] -“Happiness consists in the satisfaction of all our inclinations, -according to their various character, intensity, and duration. The -law of practical action, in so far as it is derived from the motive -of happiness, I call Pragmatic, a Rule of Good Sense; the same law, -in so far as it has for its motive only the becoming worthy of such -happiness, I call Moral, the Moral Law. Now Morality already by itself -constitutes a system, but Happiness does not do so, except in so far as -Happiness is distributed in exact accordance with Morality. But such a -distribution is only possible in the intelligible world,”--the world -beyond phenomena which can be reached by our reason alone--“and under -a wise Originator and Ruler. Such an One, together with life in such a -world--a world which we are obliged to consider as a future one--reason -finds itself forced to assume, or else to look upon the moral laws as -empty phantoms, since the necessary result of these laws,--a result -which that same reason connects with their very idea,--would have to -fall away, if that assumption were to go. Hence every one looks upon -the moral laws as _commandments_, a thing which they could not be, -if they did not conjoin with their rule consequences of _a priori_ -appropriateness, and hence if they did not carry with them _promises_ -and _threats_. But this too they can do only if they lie within the -compass of a Single Necessary Being, Itself the Supreme Good, Which -alone can render possible such a unity embracing both means and -end.--Happiness alone is, for our reason, far from being the Complete -Good, for reason does not approve of Happiness unless it be united with -the being worthy of Happiness, _i.e._ Moral Rectitude. But Morality -alone, and with it the simple being worthy of happiness, is also far -from the Complete Good. Even if reason, free from any consideration of -any interest of its own, were to put itself in the position of a being -that had to distribute all happiness to others alone, it could not -judge otherwise: for, in the complete idea of practical action, both -points are in essential conjunction, yet in suchwise that it is the -moral disposition which, as condition, first renders possible a sharing -in happiness, and not the prospect of happiness which first gives -an opening to the moral disposition. For, in this latter case, the -disposition would not be moral, and, consequently, would not deserve -that complete happiness to which reason can assign no other limitation -than such as springs from our own immoral attitude of will.”[183] - -In his _Foundation of the Metaphysic of Morals_, 1785, the noble -apostrophe to the Good Will no doubt appears formally to proclaim -as possible and desirable a complete human disposition, in which no -considerations of Happiness play any part: “The good will is good, -not through what it effects or produces, not through its utility for -the attainment of any intention or end, but it is good through the -quality of the volition alone; that is, it is good in itself.…” “If, -with its greatest efforts, nothing were to be effected by it, and only -the good will itself were to remain, this bare will would yet shine in -lonely splendour as a jewel,--as something which has its full value in -itself.” But further on he shows us how, after all, “this good will -cannot, then, be the only and the whole good, but still it is the -highest good and the condition for all the rest, even for our desire of -happiness.”[184] Certain exaggerations, which are next developed by -him here, shall be considered in a later chapter. - - -5. _Four important points._ - -Here I will but put together, in conclusion, four positions which I -have rejoiced to find in two such utterly, indeed at times recklessly, -independent writers as Professor Georg Simmel of Berlin and Professor -A. E. Taylor. - -(1) Dr. Simmel declares, with admirable cogency: “The concept of -religion completely loses in Kant, owing to his rationalistic manner -of discovering in it a mere compound of the moral interest and the -striving after happiness, its most specific and deepest character. -No doubt these two apprehensions are also essential to religion, but -precisely the direction in which Kant conjoins them,--that duty issues -in happiness, is the least characteristic of religion, and is only -determined by his Moralism, which refuses to recognize the striving -after happiness as a valuable motive. The opposite direction appears to -me as far more decisively a part of religion and of its incomparable -force: for we thus find in religion precisely that ideal power, which -makes it the duty of man to win his own salvation. According to the -Kantian Moralism, it is every man’s private affair how he shall meet -his requirement of happiness; and to turn such a private aspiration -into an objective, ideal claim, would be for Kant a contradiction and -abomination. In reality, however, religion itself _requires_ that man -should have a care for his own welfare and beatitude, and in this -consists its incomparable force of attraction.”[185] Let the reader -note how entirely this agrees with, whilst properly safeguarding, the -doctrine of Pure Love: it is the precise position of the best critics -of the unamended Fénelon. - -(2) Professor Taylor insists that “it is possible to desire directly -and immediately pleasant experiences which are not my own.… Because -it is _I_ who in every case have the pleasure of the anticipation, it -is assumed that it must be I who am to experience the realization of -the anticipation.” Yet “it is really no more paradoxical that I should -anticipate with pleasure some event which is not to form part of my own -direct sensible experience, than it is that I should find pleasure in -the anticipation at twenty of myself at eighty.” “The austerest saints -will and can mortify themselves as a thing well-pleasing to God.”[186] -In this way the joy of each constituent of the Kingdom of God in the -joys of all the rest, and in the all-pervading joy of God, is seen to -be as possible as it is undoubtedly actual: the problem of the relation -between pleasure and egoism is solved. - -(3) And Professor Taylor again insists upon how pleasant experiences, -which do not owe their pleasantness to their relation to a previous -anticipation, are not, properly speaking, good or worthy. It is by -“satisfactions” and not by mere “pleasures” that “even the most -confirmed Hedonist must compute the goodness of a life.… Only when -the pleasant experience includes in itself the realization of an idea -is it truly good.”[187] But, if so, then the experience will be good, -not in proportion as it is unpleasant, as Kant was so prone to imply; -nor directly in proportion as it is pleasant, although pleasantness -will accompany or succeed it, of a finer quality if not of a greater -intensity, according as the idea which it embodies is good: but -directly in proportion to the goodness of that idea. Thus all things -licit, from sense to spirit, will find their place and function in such -acts, and in a life composed of such acts, spirit expressing itself -in terms of sense. And the purification, continuously necessary for -the ever more adequate expression of the one in and by the other, will -be something different from any attempt at suppressing this means of -expression. Thus here again the great Christian Incarnation-Doctrine -appears as the deepest truth, and as the solution of the problem as to -the relations of pleasure and duty.[188] - -(4) And finally, as to the ever-present need and importance of a theory -concerning these matters, Professor Taylor points out, not only that -some such theory is necessary to the full human life, but that it must -place an infinite ideal before us: paradox though it may sound, nothing -less is truly practical, for “any end that is to be permanently felt -as worth striving for, must be infinite,” and therefore “in a sense -infinitely remote”; and hence “if indifference to the demand for a -practicable ideal be the mark of a dreamer or a fanatic, contentment -with a finite and practicable ideal is no less undeniably the mark of -an _esprit borné_.”[189] - -Here Fénelon has adequately interpreted the permanent and complete -requirements of the religious life and spirit. “You tell me,” he -says to his adversaries, “that ‘Christianity is not a school of -Metaphysicians.’ All Christians cannot, it is true, be Metaphysicians; -but the principal Theologians have great need to be such. It was by a -sublime Metaphysic that St. Augustine soared above the majority of the -other Fathers, who were, for the rest, as fully versed in Scripture -and Tradition. It was by his lofty Metaphysic that St. Gregory of -Nazianzum has merited the distinguishing title of _Theologian_. -It is by Metaphysic that St. Anselm and St. Thomas have been such -great luminaries of the Church. True, the Church is not ‘a school of -Metaphysicians,’ who dispute without docility, as did the ancient sects -of philosophers. Yet she is a school in which St. Paul teaches that -Charity is more perfect than Hope, and in which the holiest Doctors -declare, in accordance with the principles of the Fathers, that Love -is more perfect, precisely because it ‘abides in God, not in view of -any benefit that may accrue to us from so doing.’” “I know well,” he -writes to a friend, “that men misuse the doctrines of Pure Love and -Resignation; I know that there are hypocrites who, under cover of -such noble terms, overthrow the Gospel. Yet it is the worst of all -procedures to attempt the destruction of perfect things, from a fear -that men will make a wrong use of them.” Notwithstanding all misuse of -the doctrine--“the very perfection of Christianity is Pure Love.”[190] - - - - -CHAPTER XII - -THE AFTER-LIFE PROBLEMS AND DOCTRINES - - -Moving on now to the questions concerning the After-Life, it -will be convenient to consider them under five heads: the chief -present-day positions and perplexities with regard to belief in -the After-Life in General; the main implications and convictions -inherent to an Eschatology such as Catherine’s; and then the principal -characteristics, difficulties, and helps of her tendencies and -teachings concerning Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven. And throughout the -Chapter we shall busy ourselves directly only with the After-Life in -the sense of a heightened, or at least an equal, consciousness after -death, as compared to that which existed before death: the belief in -a shrunken state of survival, in non-annihilation, appearing to be as -certainly the universal minimum of belief as such a minimum is not -Immortality. - - -I. THE CHIEF PRESENT-DAY PROBLEMS, PERPLEXITIES, AND REQUIREMENTS WITH -REGARD TO THE AFTER-LIFE IN GENERAL. - -Now I take our chief present-day problems, perplexities, and resultant -requirements with regard to the After-Life in general, to fall into -three groups, according as those problems are predominantly Historical, -or Philosophical, or directly Practical and Ethical. - - -1. _Three Historical Difficulties._ - -The Historical group now brings very clearly and certainly before -us the striking non-universality, the startling lateness, and -the generally strange fitfulness and apparent unreasonableness -characterizing the earliest stage of belief in the soul’s heightened, -or at least equivalent, consciousness after death. - -(1) Now with respect to the Non-Universality of the doctrine, it -is true that, in China, Confucianism is full of care for the dead. -“Throughout the Empire, the authorities are obliged to hold three -annual sacrifices for the refreshment and rest of the souls of the dead -in general.” “It is hardly doubtful that the cultus of Ancestors formed -the chief institution in classical Confucianism, and constituted the -very centre of religion for the people. Even now ancestor-worship is -the only form of religion for which rules, applicable to the various -classes among the Emperor’s subjects, are laid down in the Dynastic -Statutes.” And Professor De Groot, from whom I am quoting, gives an -interesting conspectus of the numberless ways in which the religious -service of the dead penetrates Chinese life.[191]--Yet we hear of -Kong-Tse (Confucius) himself (551-478 B.C.), that, though he insisted -upon the most scrupulous execution of the three hundred rules of the -then extant temple-ceremonial, which were no doubt largely busy with -the dead, and though he said that one should sacrifice to the spirits -as if they were present, he designated, in several of his sayings, -occupation with theological problems as useless: “as long as we do not -know men, how shall we know spirits? As long as we do not understand -life, how should we fathom death?” And to questions relative to the -spirits and the dead, he would give evasive answers.[192] Thus the -founder of the most characteristic of the Chinese religions was without -any clear and consistent conviction on the point in question. - -In India we find, for Brahmanic religion, certain unmistakable -Immortality-Doctrines (in the sense of the survival of the soul’s -self-consciousness), expressed in the hymns of the _Rig-Veda_.--But -already, in the philosophizings of the _Upanishads_, we get a -world-soul, and this soul’s exclusive permanence: “to attain to true -unity, the very duality of subject and object is to disappear. The -terms Atman and Brahman here express the true Being which vivifies all -beings and appearances, and with which cognizing man reunites himself -whilst losing his individual existence.”[193] - -And if we move on to Buddhism, with its hundreds of millions of -adherents in Burmah, Tibet, China, and Japan, we can learn, from the -classical work of Oldenberg, how interestingly deep down lies the -reason for the long conflict between scholars as to whether Nirvana -is or is not to be taken for the complete extinction of the individual -soul. “Everything, in the Buddhist dogmatic system, is part and parcel -of a circle of Becoming and of Dissolution: all things are but a -Dhamma, a Sankhara; and all Dhamma, all Sankhara are but temporary.… -The Mutable, Conditioned is here thinkable only as conditioned by -another Mutable and Conditioned. If we follow the dialectic consequence -alone, there is no seeing how, according to this system, there can -remain over, when a succession and mutual destruction of things -conditioning and of things conditioned has run its course, anything -but a pure vacuum.” And we have also such a saying of the Buddha as -the following. “Now if, O disciples, the Ego (_atta_) and anything -appertaining to the Ego (_attaniya_) cannot be comprehended with -accuracy and certainty, is not then the faith which declares: ‘This is -the world, and this is the Ego; this shall I become at death,--firm, -constant, eternal, unchangeable,--thus shall I be there, throughout -eternity,’--is not this sheer empty folly?” “How should it not, O -Lord, be sheer empty folly?” answer the disciples. “One who spoke -thus,” is Oldenberg’s weighty comment, “cannot have been far from the -conviction that Nirvana is annihilation. Yet it is understandable how -the very thinkers, who were capable of bearing this consequence, should -have hesitated to raise it to the rank of an official dogma of the -community.… Hence the official doctrine of the Buddhist Church attained -the form, that, on the question of the real existence of the Ego, of -whether or not the perfected saint lives on after death, the exalted -Buddha has taught nothing. Indeed the legally obligatory doctrine of -the old community required of its votaries an explicit renunciation of -all knowledge concerning the existence or non-existence of completely -redeemed souls.” - -“Buddhism,” so Oldenberg sums up the matter, with, I think, the -substantial adhesion of all present-day competent authorities, “teaches -that there is a way out of the world of created things, out into the -dark Infinite. Does this way lead to new being? or does it lead to -nothingness? Buddhist belief maintains itself on the knife’s edge -of these alternatives. The desire of the heart, as it longs for the -Eternal, is not left without something, and yet the thinking mind is -not given a something that it could grasp and retain. The thought -of the Infinite, the Eternal, could not be present at all, and yet -vanish further away than here, where, a mere breath and on the -point of sinking into sheer nothingness, it threatens to disappear -altogether.”[194] This vast Buddhist community, numbering, perhaps, a -third of the human race, should not, then, be forgotten, when we urge -the contrary instances of the religions of Assyria and Babylonia; of -Egypt; of Greece and Rome; and, above all, of the Jews and Christianity. - -Yet it is well to remember that such non-universality of belief is at -least as real, to this very hour, for such a fundamental religious -truth and practice as Monotheism and Monolatry; such purely Ethical -convictions as Monogamy and the Illicitness of Slavery; such a plain -dictate of the universal humanitarian ideal as the illegitimacy -of the application of physical compulsion in matters of religious -conviction; and such directly demonstrable psychical and natural facts -as subconsciousness in the human soul, the sexual character of plants, -and the earth’s rotundity and rotation around the sun. In none of these -cases can we claim more than that the higher, truer doctrine,--that is, -the one which explains and transcends the element of truth contained in -its predecessor and opposite,--is explicitly reached by a part only of -humanity, and is but implied and required by other men, at their best. -Yet this is clearly enough for leaving us free to decide,--reasonably -conclusive evidence for their truth being forthcoming,--in favour of -the views of the minority: since the assumption of an equality of -spiritual and moral insight and advance throughout mankind is as little -based upon fact, as would be the supposition of men’s equal physical -strength or height, or of any other quality or circumstance of their -nature and environment. - -(2) The lateness of the doctrine’s appearance, precisely in the cases -where there can be no doubt of its standing for a conviction of an -endless persistence of a heightened consciousness after death,--that -is, amongst the Greeks (and Romans) and the Jews (and Christians),--has -now been well established by critical historical research. - -With regard to the Greeks,[195] the matter is particularly plain, -since we can still trace even in Plato, (427 to 347 B.C.), who, next -to Our Lord Himself and to St. Paul, is doubtless the greatest and -most influential teacher of full individual Immortality that the world -has seen, two periods of thought in this matter, and can show that -the first was without any such certain conviction. In his _Apology of -Socrates_, written soon after the execution in 399 B.C., he makes his -great master, close to his end, declare that death would bring to man -either a complete unconsciousness, like to a dreamless sleep, or a -transition into another life,--a life here pictured like to the Homeric -Hades. Both possibilities Socrates made to accept resignedly, in full -reliance on the justice of the Gods, and to look no further; how should -he know what is known to no man?--And this is Plato’s own earlier -teaching. For in the very _Republic_ which, in its chronologically -later constituents, (especially in Book V, 471_c_, to the end of -Book VIII, Book IX, 560_d_ to 588_a_, and Book X up to 608_b_), so -insists upon and develops the truth and importance of Immortality in -the strictest, indeed the sublimest sense: we get, in its earlier -portions, (especially in Book II, 10_c_, to Book V, 460_c_), no trace -of any such conviction. For, in these earlier passages, the Guardians -in the Ideal State are not to consider what may come after death: the -central theme is the manner in which Justice carries with it its own -recompense; and the rewards, that are popularly wont to be placed -before the soul, are referred to ironically,--Socrates is determined to -do without such hopes. In those later portions, on the contrary, there -is the greatest insistence upon the importance of caring, not for this -short life alone, but for the soul’s “whole time” and for what awaits -it after death. And in the still later parts, (as in Books VI and VII), -the sublimest form of Immortality is presupposed as true and actual -throughout. Thus in Greece it is not till about 390-380 B.C., and in -Plato himself not till his middle life, that we get a quite definite -and final doctrine of the Immortality of all souls, and of a blessed -after-existence for every just and holy life here below. - -For the survival after the body’s death, indubitably attributed to -the Psyche in the Homeric Poems, is conceived there, throughout, -as a miserably shrunken consciousness, and one which is dependent -for its continuance upon the good offices bestowed by the survivors -upon the corpse and grave. And the translation of the still living -Menelaus to Elysium (Od. IV, 560-568) is probably a later insertion; -belongs to a small class of exceptional cases; implies the writer’s -inability to conceive a heightened consciousness for the soul, after -the soul’s separation from the body; and is based, not upon any virtue -or reward, but upon Menelaus’s family-relationship to Zeus. Ganymede -gets similarly translated because of his physical beauty (II. XX, 232 -_seq._). - -Hesiod, though later than Homer as a writer, gives us, in his account -of the Five Ages of the World (_Works and Days_, ll. 109-201), some -traces of an Animistic conception of a heightened life of the bodiless -soul beyond the grave,--a conception which had been neglected or -suppressed by Homer, but which had evidently been preserved alive in -the popular religion of, at least, Central Greece. Yet Hesiod knows of -such a life only for the Golden and for the Silver Ages, and for some -miraculous, exceptional cases of the fourth, the Heroic Age: already -in the third, the Bronze Age, and still more emphatically in his own -fifth, the Iron Age, there are no such consolations: nothing but the -shrunken consciousness of the Homeric after-death Psyche is, quite -evidently, felt by him to be the lot of all souls in the hard, iron -present. - -The Cultus of the Heroes is already registered in Draco’s Athenian -Laws, in about 620 B.C., as a traditional custom. And these Heroes have -certainly lived at one time as men upon earth, and have become heroes -only after death; their souls, though severed from the body, live a -heightened imperishable life, indeed one that can mightily help men -here below and now,--so at Delphi and at Salamis against the Persians. -Yet here again each case of such an elevation was felt to be a miracle, -an exception incapable of becoming a universal law: not even the germ -of a belief in the Immortality of the soul as such seems to be here. - -The Cultus of the Nether-World Deities, of the Departed generally, and, -as the culmination of all this movement, the Eleusinian Mysteries, -must not be conceived as involving or as leading to, any belief in the -ecstatic elevation of the soul, or consciousness of its God-likeness; -and such unending bliss as is secured, is gained by men, not because -they are virtuous and devout, but through their initiation into the -Mysteries. Rhode assures us, rightly I think, that “it remains unproved -that, during the classical period of Greek culture, the belief in -Judges and a Judgment to be held in Hades over the deeds done by men on -earth, had struck root among the people”; Professor Percy Gardner adds -his great authority to the same conclusion.[196] Here again it is Plato -who is the first to take up a clearly and consistently spiritual and -universalistic position. - -Indeed it is only in the predominantly neuropathic, indeed largely -immoral and repulsive, forms of the Dionysiac sect and movement, (at -work, perhaps, already in the eighth century B.C. and which leads -on to the formation of the more aristocratic and priestly Orphic -communities) that a demonstrable and direct belief arose in the soul’s -intrinsic God-likeness, or even divinity, and in its immortality, -or even eternity; and that stimulations, materials, and conceptions -were furnished to Greek thought, which are traceable wheresoever it -henceforth inclines to belief in the soul’s intrinsic Immortality. - -Yet the leaven spread but slowly into philosophy. For the Ionian -philosophers, and among them Heraclitus, the impressive teacher of -the flux of all things, flourish from about 600 to 430 B.C.; but, -_naïve_ Materialists and Pantheists as they are, they frankly exclude -all survival of individual consciousness after death. The Eleatic -philosophers live between 550 and 450 B.C., and are all busy with _a -priori_ logical constructions of the physical world, conceived as sole -and self-explanatory; and amongst them is Parmenides, the powerful -propounder of the complete identity and immutability of all reality. -Those transcendent spiritual beliefs appear first as part, indeed as -the very foundation, although still rather of a mode of life than of -a formal philosophy, in the teaching and community of Pythagoras, who -seems to have lived about 580 to 490 B.C., and who certainly emigrated -from Asia Minor to Croton in Southern Italy. The soul appears here -as intrinsically immortal, indeed without beginning and without end. -And then Immortality forms one (the mystical) of the two thoroughly -heterogeneous elements of the, otherwise predominantly Ionic and -Materialistic, philosophy of Empedocles of Agrigentum in Sicily, about -490 to 435 B.C. In both these cases the Dionysiac-Orphic provenance of -the “Immortality”-doctrines is clearly apparent. - -And then, among the poets who bridge over the period up to Plato, we -find Pindar, who, alongside of reproductions of the ordinary, popular -conceptions, gives us at times lofty, Orphic-like teachings as to -the eternity, the migration, and the eventual persistent rest and -happiness of the just Soul, and as to the suffering of the unjust one; -Aeschylus, who primarily dwells upon the Gods’ judgment in this life, -and who makes occasional allusions to the after-life which are partly -still of the Homeric type; Sophocles, who indeed refers to the special -privileges which, in the after-life, attend upon the souls that have -here been initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries, and who causes -Oedipus to be translated, whilst still alive, to Other-World happiness, -but who knows nothing of an unceasing heightened consciousness -for all men after death; and Euripides, who, showing plainly the -influence of the Sophists, gives expression, alongside of Pantheistic -identifications of the soul and of the aether, to every kind of -misgiving and doubt as to any survival after death. - -And as to the appearance of the doctrine among the Jews, we again find -a surprising lateness. I follow here, with but minor contributions -and modifications from other writers and myself, the main conclusions -of Dr. Charles’s standard _Critical History of the Doctrine of a -Future Life_, London, 1899, whose close knowledge of the subject is -unsurpassed, and who finds as many and as early attestations as are -well-nigh findable by serious workers.[197] - -“The primitive beliefs of the individual Israelite regarding the future -life, being derived from Ancestor-worship, were implicitly antagonistic -to Yahwism, from its first proclamation by Moses.… This antagonism -becomes explicit and results in the final triumph of Yahwism.” And -to the early Israelite, even under Yahwism, “the religious unit was” -not the individual but “the family or tribe.” Thus, even fully six -centuries after Moses, “the message of the prophets of the eighth -century,” Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah, “is still directed to the -nation, and the judgments they proclaim are collective punishment for -collective guilt. It is not till late in the seventh century B.C. that -the problem of individual retribution really emerged, and received -its first solution in the teaching of Jeremiah.” And “the further -development of these ideas,” by the teaching of Ezekiel and of some -of the Psalms and Proverbs, as regards individual responsibility -and retribution in this life, and by the deep misgivings and keen -questionings of Job and Ecclesiastes, as to the adequacy of this -teaching, “led inevitably to the conception of a blessed life beyond -the grave.” - -Yet throughout the Hebrew Old Testament the Eschatology of the Nation -greatly predominates over that of the Individual. Indeed in pre-Exilic -times “the day of Yahwe,” with its national judgments, constitutes -the all but exclusive subject of the prophetic teaching as to the -future. Only from the Exile, (597 to 538 B.C.), onwards, does the -eschatological development begin to grow in complexity, for now the -individualism first preached by Jeremiah begins to maintain its claim -also. But not till the close of the fourth century, or the beginning of -the third century B.C., do the separate eschatologies of the individual -and of the nation issue finally in their synthesis: the righteous -individual will participate in the Messianic Kingdom, the righteous -dead of Israel will arise to share therein,--thus in Isaiah xxvi, 1-19, -a passage which it is difficult to place earlier than about 334 B.C. -The resurrection is here limited to the just. In Daniel xii, 2, which -is probably not earlier than 165 B.C., the resurrection is extended, -not indeed to all members of Israel, but, with respective good and evil -effects, to its martyrs and apostates. - -And the slowness and incompleteness of the development throughout the -Hebrew Old Testament is strikingly illustrated by the great paucity -of texts which yield, without the application of undue pressure, any -clear conviction or hope of a heightened, or even a sheer, maintenance -of the soul’s this-life consciousness and force after death. Besides -the passages just indicated, Dr. Charles can only find Psalms xlix and -lxxiii, and Job xix, 25-27, all three, according to him, later than -Ezekiel, who died in 571 B.C.[198] The textually uncertain and obscure -Job-passage (xix, 25, 26) must be discounted, since it evidently -demands interpretation according to the plain presupposition and point -of the great poem as a whole.--And the same result is reached by the -numerous, entirely unambiguous, passages which maintain the negative -persuasion. In the hymn put into the mouth of the sick king Hezekiah, -for about 713 B.C., (a composition which seems to be very late, -perhaps only of the second century B.C.), we hear: “The grave cannot -praise Thee … they that go down into the pit cannot hope for truth. -The living, the living, he shall praise Thee, as I do this day.” And -the Psalter contains numerous similar declarations. Thus vi, 5: “In -death there is no remembrance of Thee: in the grave who shall give Thee -thanks?” and cxv, 17: “The dead praise not the Lord, neither any that -go down into silence; but _we_ praise the Lord.” See also Psalms xxx, -19; lxxxviii, 11. - -Indeed the name for the Departed is Rephaim, “the limp, the powerless -ones.” Stade well says: “According to the ancient Israelitish -conception the entire human being, body and soul, outlasts death, -whilst losing all that makes life worth living. That which persists -in Sheol for all eternity is the form of man, emptied of all content. -Antique thought ignores as yet that there exists no such thing as a -form without substance. The conception has as little in common with -the conviction of the Immortality of the Soul, which found its chief -support in Greek ideas, as with the expectation of the Resurrection, -which grew out of the Jewish Messianic hope, or with the Christian -anticipation of Eternal Life, which is also based upon religious -motives.”[199] - -Yet, with respect to this objection from the lateness of the doctrine, -we must not forget that fully consistent Monotheism and Monogamy are -also late, but not, on that account, less true or less precious; and -indeed that, as a universal rule, the human mind has acquired at all -adequate convictions as to most certain and precious truths but slowly -and haltingly. This process is manifest even in Astronomy, Geology, -Botany, Human Anatomy. It could not fail to be, not less but more -the case in a matter like this which, if it concerns us most deeply, -is yet both too close to us to be readily appreciated in its true -proportions, and too little a matter of mathematical demonstration -or of direct experience not to take much time to develop, and not to -demand an ever-renewed acquisition and purification, being, as it is, -the postulate and completion of man’s ethical and spiritual faiths, at -their deepest and fullest. - -(3) And with regard to the unsatisfactory character of some of the -earliest manifestations of the belief, this point is brought home to -us, with startling vividness, in the beginnings of the doctrine in -ancient Greece. For Rhode’s very careful and competent examination of -precisely this side of the whole question shows conclusively (even -though I think, with Crusius, that he has overlooked certain rudiments -of analogous but healthy experiences and beliefs in pre-Dionysiac -Greece) how new and permanently effective a contribution to the full -doctrine was made, for the Hellenic world and hence indirectly for -all Western humanity, by the self-knowledge gained in that wildly -orgiastic upheaval, those dervish-like dances and ecstatic fits during -the Dionysian night-celebrations on the Thracian mountain-sides. -Indeed Rhode traces how from these experiences, partly from the -continuation of them, partly from the reaction against them, on the -part of the intensely dualistic and ascetic teaching and training of -the Orphic sect, there arose, and filtered through to Pythagoras, to -Plato, and to the whole Neo-Platonist school, the clear conception -and precise terminology concerning ecstatic, enthusiastic states, -the divinity and eternity of the human soul, its punitive lapse -into and imprisonment within the body, and its need of purification -throughout the earthly life and of liberation through death from this -its incurably accidental and impeding companion.--Thus we get here, -concerning one of the chief sources of at least the formulation of our -belief in Immortality, what looks a very nest of suspicious, repulsive -circumstances:--psycho-physical phenomena, which, quite explicable to, -and indeed explained by, us now as in nowise supernatural, could not -fail to appear portentous to those men who first experienced them; -unmoral or immoral attitudes and activities of mind and will; and -demonstrable excesses of feeling and conception as regards both the -static goodness, the downright divinity, eternity, and increateness -of the soul, and the unmixed evil of the body with its entirely -disconnected alongsideness to the soul. Does not all this spell a mass -of wild hallucination, impurity, fanaticism, and superstition? - -Yet here again it behoves us, if not to accept, yet also not to reject, -in wholesale fashion and in haste. For the profoundly experienced -Professor Pierre Janet shows[200] us, what is now assumed as an axiom, -and as the ultimate justification of the present widespread interest -in the study of Hysteria, that “we must admit for the moral world the -great principle universally admitted for the physical world since -Claude Bernard,--viz. that the laws of illness are, at bottom, the -same as those of health, and that, in the former, there is but the -exaggeration or the diminution of phenomena which existed already in -the latter.” - -And if thus our recent studies of morbid mentalities have been able -to throw a flood of light upon the mechanism and character of the -healthy mind, a mind more difficult to analyze precisely because -of the harmonious interaction of its forces, there is nothing very -surprising if man, in the past, learnt to know his own fundamental -nature better in and through periods of abnormal excitation than in -those of normal balance. And the resultant doctrines in the case in -question only required, and demand again and again, a careful pruning -and harmonizing to show forth an extraordinary volume of abiding -truth. The insuppressible difference between mind and matter, and the -distinction between the fully recollected soul (intuitive reason), and -explicit reasoning; the immeasurable superiority of mind over matter, -and the superiority of that full reason over this “thin” reasoning; -the certainty, involved in all our inevitable mental categories and -assumptions and in all our motives for action, of this mind and -intuition being more like the cause of all things than are those -other inferior realities and activities; the indestructibleness of -the postulates and standards of objective and infinite Beauty, Truth, -Goodness, of our consciousness of being intrinsically bound to them, -and of our inmost humanity and its relative greatness being measurable -by just this our consciousness of this our obligation, and hence -by the keenness of our sense of failure, and by our striving after -purification and the realization of our immanental possibilities: all -this remains deeply fruitful and true. - -And those crude early experiences and analyses certainly point to -what, even now, are our most solid reasons for belief in Immortality: -for if man’s mind and soul can thus keenly suffer from the sense -of the contingency and mutability of all things directly observed -by it without and within, it must itself be, at least in part or -potentially, outside of this flux which it so vividly apprehends -as _not_ Permanence, _not_ Rest, _not_ true Life. Let us overlook, -then, and forgive the first tumultuous, childishly rude and clumsy, -mentally and emotionally hyper-aesthetic forms of apprehension of -these great spiritual facts and laws, forms which are not, after all, -more misleading than is the ordinary anaesthetic condition of our -apprehending faculties towards these fundamental forces and testimonies -of our lot and nature. Not the wholesale rejection, then, of even those -crude Dionysian witnessings, still less of the already more clarified -Orphic teaching, and least of all of Plato’s great utilizations and -spiritualizations can be required of us, but only a reinterpretation -of those first impressions and of mankind’s analogous experiences, and -a sifting and testing of the latter by the light of all that has been -deeply lived through, and seriously thought out, by spiritually awake -humanity ever since.--And we should remember that the history of the -doctrine among the Jews is, as has already been intimated, grandly free -from any such suspicious occasions and concomitances. - - -2. _Two Philosophical Difficulties._ - -Yet it is precisely this latter, social, body-and-soul-survival -doctrine which brings the second group of objections, the philosophical -difficulties, to clear articulation. For thus we are unavoidably driven -to one or other of the equally difficult alternatives, of a bodiless -life of the soul, and of a survival or resurrection of the body. - -(1) Christianity, by its explicit teachings, and even more by its whole -drift and interior affinities, requires the survival of all that is -essential to the whole man, and conceives this whole as constituted, -not by thought alone but also by feeling and will and the power of -effectuation; so that the body, or some unpicturable equivalent to -it, seems necessary to this physico-spiritual, ultimately organic -conception of what man is and must continue to be, if he is to remain -man at all.--And Psychology, on its part, is showing us, more and more, -how astonishingly wide and deep is the dependence, at least for their -actuation, of the various functions and expressions of man’s character -and spirit upon his bodily frame. For not only is the reasoning -faculty seen, ever since Aristotle, to depend, for its material and -stimulation, upon the impressions of the senses, nor can we represent -it to ourselves otherwise than as seated in the brain or in some -such physical organism, but the interesting Lange-James observations -and theory make it likely that also the emotions,--the feelings as -distinct from sensations,--ever result, as a matter of fact, from -certain foregoing, physico-neural impressions and modifications, which -latter follow upon this or that perception of the mind, a perception -which would otherwise, as is the case in certain neural lesions and -anaesthesias, remain entirely dry and unemotional.[201]--And the -sense of the Infinite, which we have had such reason to take as the -very centre of religion, arises ever, within man’s life here below, -in contrast to, and as a concomitant and supplementation of, his -perception of the Finite and Contingent, and hence not without his -senses being alive and active. - -Now all this fits in admirably with the whole Jewish-Christian respect -for, high claims upon, and constant training of the body, the senses, -the emotions, and with the importance attached to the Visible and -Audible,--History, Institutions, Society.--Yet our difficulties are -clear. For however spiritually we may conceive a bodily survival or -resurrection; however completely we may place the identity of the -various stages of the body in this life, and the sameness between -the body before death and after the resurrection, in the identity of -its quasi-creator, the body-weaving soul, we can in nowise picture -to ourselves such a new, indefinitely more spiritual, incorporation, -and we bring upon ourselves acute difficulties, for both before and -after this unpicturable event. Before the resurrection there would -have to be unconsciousness between death and that event; but thus -the future life is broken up, and for no spiritual reason. Or there -would be consciousness; but then the substitute for the body, that -occasions this consciousness, would, apparently, render all further -revivification of the body unnecessary. And if we take the resurrection -as effected, we promptly feel how mixed and clumsy, how inadequate, -how less, and not more, than the best and noblest elements of our -experience and aspirations even here and now, is such a, still -essentially temporal and spacial, mode of existence. - -I take it that, against all this, we can but continue to maintain -two points. The soul’s life after bodily death is not a matter of -experience or of logical demonstration, but a postulate of faith and a -consequence from our realization of the human spirit’s worth; and hence -is as little capable of being satisfactorily pictured, as are all the -other great spiritual realities which can nevertheless be shown to be -presupposed and implicitly affirmed by every act of faith in the final -truth and abiding importance of anything whatsoever.--And again, it is -not worth while to attempt to rescue, Aristotle-wise, just that single, -and doubtless not the highest, function of man’s spirit and character, -his dialectic faculty, or even his intellectual intuitive power, for -the purpose of thus escaping, or at least minimizing, the difficulties -attendant upon the belief in Immortality. If we postulate, as we do, -man’s survival, we must postulate, without being able to fill in or to -justify any details of the scheme, the survival of all that may and -does constitute man’s true and ultimate personality. How much or how -little this may precisely mean, we evidently know but very imperfectly: -but we know enough to be confident that it means more than the -abstractive, increasingly dualistic school of Plato, Philo, Plotinus, -Proclus would allow. - -(2) But speculative reason seems also to raise a quite general -objection, based upon man’s littleness within the immense Universe, and -upon the arbitrariness of excepting those tiny points, those centres of -human consciousness, men’s souls, from the flux, the ceaseless becoming -and undoing, of all the other parts of that mighty whole, immortal, -surely, only _as_ a whole. - -Here we can safely say that, at least in this precise form, the -difficulty springs predominantly not from reason or experience, but -from an untutored imagination. For all our knowledge of that great -external world, which this objection supposes to englobe our small -internal world, as a part inferior, or at most but equal, to the other -parts of that whole, is dependent upon this interior world of ours; and -however truly inherent in that external world we may hold that world’s -laws to be, those laws can, after all, be shown to be as truly the -result of our own mind’s spontaneous work,--an architectonic building -up by this mind of the sense-impressions conveyed to it from without. -And that whole Universe, in so far as it is material, cannot be -compared, either in kind or in dignity, to Mind: only the indications -there, parallel in this to our experiences within our own mind, of a -Mind and Spirit infinitely greater and nobler than, yet with a certain -affinity to, our own,--only these constitute that outer world as great -as this our inner world. Indeed it is plain that Materialism is so -far from constituting the solution to the problem of existence, that -even Psycho-Physical Parallelism, even the attribution of any ultimate -reality to Matter, are on their trial. It is anyhow already clear that, -of the two, it is easier and nearer to the truth to maintain that -Matter and its categories are simply modes in the manifestation of Mind -to minds and in the apprehension of Mind by minds, than to declare Mind -to be but a function or resultant of Matter.[202] - -But if all this is so, then no simply sensible predominance of the -sensible Universe, nor even any ascertainment of the mere flux and -interchange of and between all things material and their elements, -can reasonably affect the question as to the superiority and -permanence of Mind. But we shall return, in the next chapter, to the -difficulties special to the Immortality of individual human spirits or -personalities,--for this is, I think, the point at which the problem is -still acute. - - -3. _Three Ethico-Practical Difficulties._ - -The last group of objections is directly practical and ethical, and -raises three points: the small space and influence occupied and -exercised, apparently, by such a belief, in the spiritual life of even -serious persons; the seemingly selfish, ungenerous type of religion and -of moral tone fostered by definite belief in, or at least occupation -with, the thought of an individual future life, as contrasted with the -nobility of tone engendered by such denials or abstractions from all -such beliefs as we find in Spinoza and Schleiermacher; and, finally, -the plausibility of the teaching, on the part of some distinguished -thinkers and poets, that a positive conviction of this our short -earthly life being the sole span of our individual consciousness -is directly productive of a certain deep tenderness, an heroic -concentration of attention, and a virile truthfulness, which are -unattainable, which indeed are weakened or rendered impossible by, -the necessarily vague anticipation of an unending future life; a hope -which, where operative at all, can but dwarf and deaden all earthly -aspiration and endeavour. - -(1) As to the first point, which has perhaps never been more -brilliantly affirmed than by Mr. Schiller,[203] I altogether doubt -whether the numerous appearances, which admittedly seem to point that -way, are rightly interpreted by such a conclusion. For it is, for one -thing, most certainly possible to be deeply convinced of the reality -and importance of the soul’s heightened after-life, and to have no -kind of belief or interest in Psychical Research, at least in such -Research as an intrinsically valuable aid to any specifically religious -convictions. No aloofness from such attempts to find spiritual -realities at the phenomenal level can, (unless it is clear that the -majority of educated Western Europeans share the naïve assumptions of -this position), indicate negation of, or indifference to, the belief in -Immortality.--And next, it is equally certain that precisely the most -fruitful form of the belief is that which conceives the After-life as -already involved in this one, and which, therefore, dwells specially, -not upon the posteriority in time, but upon the difference in kind -of that spiritual life of the soul which, even _hic et nunc_, can be -sought after and experienced, in ever imperfect degrees no doubt, yet -really and more and more. Here we ever get an approach to Simultaneity -and Eternity, instead of sheer succession and clock-time: and here -the fundamental attitude of the believer would appear only if pressed -to deny or exclude the deathlessness of the spirit and its life,--the -usual latency and simple implication of the positive conviction, in -nowise diminishing this conviction’s reality.--And, finally, it would -have to be seen whether those who are indifferent or sceptical as to -Immortal or Eternal Life, are appreciably fewer and largely other -than those who are careless as to the other deep implications and -requirements of spiritual experience. We may well doubt whether they -would turn out to be so. - -(2) As to the second point, we have already found how utterly -insuppressible is the pleasure, normally concomitant upon every act of -noble self-conquest; and how, though we can and should perform such -and all other acts, as far as possible, from the ultimate, determining -motive of thereby furthering the realization of the Kingdom of God, -there can be no solid truthfulness or sane nobility in insisting upon -attempts at thinking away and denying the fact and utility of that -concomitant pleasure. But if so, then a further, other-world extension -of that realization and of this concomitant happiness, and a belief -here below in such an eventual extension, cannot of themselves be -ignoble or debasing. Occasions for every degree and kind of purely -selfish and faultily natural acts, of acts inchoatively supernatural -but still predominantly slavish, reappear here, in close parallel to -the variety of disposition displayed by men towards every kind of -reality and ideal, towards the Family, Science, the State, Humanity, -where the same concomitances and the same high uses and mean abuses are -ever possible and actual. Neither here nor there should we attempt to -impoverish truth and life, in order to exclude the possibility of their -abuse.--And it would, of course, be profoundly unfair to contrast such -a rarely noble spirit as Spinoza among the deniers with the average -mind from among the affirmers. The average or the majority of the -deniers would not, I think, appear as more generous and devoted than -the corresponding average or majority on the other side. - -(3) And as to the supposed directly beneficial effects of a positive -denial of Immortality, such as have been sung for us by George -Eliot and Giovanni Pascoli, we can safely affirm that the special -tendernesses and quiet heroisms, deduced by them from such a negation, -are too obviously dependent upon spiritual implications and instincts, -for us to be able to put them directly to the credit of that denial. -Only in so far as Immortality were not a postulate intrinsically -connected with belief in objective and obligatory Beauty, Truth, and -Goodness,--in God as our origin and end,--could its persistent and -deliberate denial not be injurious to these fundamental convictions -and to the ultimate health of the soul’s life: and of this intrinsic -non-connection there is no sufficient evidence.--Certainly, in such -a case as Spinoza’s, the same strain of reasoning which makes him -abandon individual Immortality Ought, in logic, to prevent him, a -mere hopelessly determined link in the _Natura Naturata_, from ever -attaining to the free self-dedication of himself, as now a fully -responsible member of the _Natura Naturans_. And if not all the grand -depth of his spiritual instinct and moral nobility, and its persistence -in spite of its having no logical room in the fixedly naturalistic -element of his teaching, can be urged as an argument in favour of the -ultimate truth and ethical helpfulness of that whole element, neither -can it be urged with respect to what is presumably one part of that -element, his denial of personal Immortality. - - -II. CATHERINE’S GENERAL AFTER-LIFE CONCEPTIONS. - -Now Catherine’s general After-Life Conceptions in part bring into -interesting prominence, in part really meet and overcome, the -perplexities and mutually destructive alternatives which we have just -considered. I shall here again leave over to the next chapter the -simply ultimate questions, such as that of the pure Eternity _versus_ -the Unendingness of the soul; but shall allow myself, as to one set -of her general ideas, a little digression as to the probability of -their ultimate literary suggestion by Plato.--These Platonic passages -probably reached her too indirectly, and by means and in forms which I -have too entirely failed to discover, for me to be able to discuss them -in my chapter devoted to her assured and demonstrably direct literary -sources. But these sayings of Plato greatly help to illustrate the -meaning of her doctrine.--I shall group these, her general, positions -and implications under four heads, and shall consider three of these -as, in substance, profoundly satisfactory, but one of them, the second, -as acceptable only with many limitations, although this second has -obviously much influenced the form given by her to several of those -other conceptions. - - -1. _Forecasts of the Hereafter, based upon present experience._ - -First, then, we get, as the fundamental presupposition of the -whole Eschatology, a grandly sane, simple, and profound doctrine -formulated over and over again and applied throughout, with a splendid -consistency, as the key and limit to all her anticipations and -picturings. Only because of the fact, and of our conviction of the -fact, of the unbroken continuity and identity of God with Himself, -of the human soul with itself, and of the deepest of the relations -subsisting between that God and the soul, across the chasm formed by -our body’s death, and only in proportion as we can and do experience -and achieve, during this our earthly life, certain spiritual laws and -realities of a sufficiently elemental, universal, and fruitful, more or -less time- and space-less character, can we (whilst ever remembering -the analogical nature of such picturings even as to the soul’s life -here) safely and profitably forecast certain general features of the -future which is thus already so largely a present. But, given these -conditions in the present, we can and should forecast the future, -to the extent implied. And as Plato’s great imaginative projection, -his life-work, the _Republic_, achieves its original end, (of making -more readily understandable, by objectivizing on a large scale, the -life of the inner city of our own soul), in so far as he has rightly -understood the human soul and has found appropriate representations -of its powers, laws, and ideals in his future commonwealth, even -if we cannot accept this picture for political purposes and in all -its details: so is it also with Catherine’s projection, which, if -bolder in its subject-matter, is, most rightly, indefinitely more -general in its indications than is Plato’s great diagram of the soul. -Man’s spiritual personality, being held by her to survive death,--to -retain its identity and an at least equivalent consciousness, of that -identity,--the deepest experiences of that personality before the -body’s death are conceived as re-experienced by it, in a heightened -degree and form, after death itself. Hence these great pictures, of -what the soul will experience then, would remain profoundly true of -what the soul seeks and requires now, even if there were no _then_ at -all. - -And note particularly how only with regard to one stage and condition -of the spirit’s future life,--that of the purification of the imperfect -soul,--does she indulge in any at all direct doctrine or detailed -picturing; and this, doubtless, not only because she has experienced -much concerning this matter in her own life here, but also because -the projection of these experiences would still give us, not the -ultimate state, but more or less only a prolongation of our mixed, -joy-in-suffering life upon earth. As to the two ultimate states, we get -only quite incidental glimpses, although even these are strongly marked -by her general position and method. - - -2. _Catherine’s forecasts and present experience correspondingly -limited._ - -And next, coming to the projection itself, we naturally find it -to present all the strength and limitations of her own spiritual -experiences which are thus projected: her attitude towards the body -and towards human fellowship, (two subjects which are shown to be -closely inter-related by the continuous manner in which they stand -and fall together throughout the history of philosophy and religion,) -thus constitute the second general peculiarity of her Eschatology. We -have already noted, in her life, her strongly ecstatic, body-ignoring, -body-escaping type of religion; and how, even in her case, it tended to -starve the corporate, institutional conceptions and affections. Here, -in the projection, we find both the cause and the effect again, and on -a larger scale. Her continuous psycho-physical discomforts and keen -thirst for a unity and simplicity as rapid and complete as possible, -the joy and strength derived from ecstatic habits and affinities, would -all make her, without even herself being aware of it, drop all further -thought as to the future fate of that oppressive “prison-house” from -which her spirit had at last got free. - -Now such non-occupation with the fate of the body and of her -fellow-souls may appear quite appropriate in her Purgatorial -Eschatology, yet we cannot but find that, even here, it already -possesses grave disadvantages, and that it persists throughout all her -After-life conceptions. For in all the states and stages of the soul we -get a markedly unsocial, a _sola cum solo_ picture. And yet there is, -perhaps, no more striking difference, amongst their many affinities, -between Platonism and Christianity than the intense Individualism -which marks the great Greek’s doctrine, and the profoundly social -conception which pervades Our Lord’s own teaching,--in each case as -regards the next life as well as this one. Plotinus’s great culminating -commendation of “the flight of the alone to the Alone” continues -Plato’s tradition; whereas, if even St. Paul and the Joannine writings -speak at times as though the individual soul attained to its full -personality in and by direct intercourse with God alone, the Synoptic -Gospels, and at bottom also those two great lovers of Our Lord’s -spirit, never cease to emphasize the social constituent of the soul’s -life both here and hereafter. The Kingdom of Heaven, the Soul of -the Church, as truly constitutes the different personalities, their -spirituality and their joy, as they constitute it,--that great Organism -which, as such, is both first and last in the Divine thought and love. - -Here, in the at least partial ignoring of these great social facts, -we touch the main defect of most mystical outlooks; yet this defect -does not arise from what they possess, but from what they lack. For -solitude, and the abstractive, unifying, intuitive, emotional, mystical -element is also wanted, and this element and movement Catherine -exemplifies in rare perfection. Indeed, in the great classical, -central period of her life she had, as we know, combined all this -with much of the outward movement, society, detailed observation, -attachment, the morally _en-static_, the immanental type. Unfortunately -the same ill-health and ever-increasing predominance of the former -element, which turned her, quite naturally, to these eschatological -contemplations, and which indeed helped to give them their touching -tone of first-hand experience, also tended, of necessity, to make her -drop even such slight and lingering social elements as had formerly -coloured her thought. It is, then, only towards the understanding and -deepening of the former of these two necessary movements of religion, -that these, her latter-day enlargements of some of her deepest -experiences and convictions will be found true helps. - -Yet if the usual _ad extra_ disadvantages of such an abstractive -position towards the body are thus exemplified by her, in this her -unsocial, individualistic attitude, it is most interesting to note -how entirely she avoids the usual _ad intra_ drawbacks of this same -position. For if her whole attention, and, increasingly, even her -consciousness are, in true ecstatic guise, absorbed away from her -fellows and concentrated exclusively upon God in herself and herself -in God, yet this consciousness consists not only of _Noûs_, that dry -theoretic reason which, already by Plato, but still more by Aristotle, -is alone conceived as surviving the body, but contains also the upper -range of _Thumos_,--all those passions of the noblest kind,--love, -admiration, gratitude, utter self-donation, joy in purifying suffering -and in an ever-growing self-realization as part of the great plan of -God,--all the highest notes in that wondrous scale of deep feeling and -of emotionally coloured willing which Plato made dependent, not for its -character but for the possibility of its operation, upon the body’s -union with the soul.--And thus we see how, in her conception of the -soul’s own self within itself and of its relation to God, the Christian -idea of Personality, as of a many-sided organism in which Love and -Will are the very flower of the whole, has triumphed over the Platonic -presentation of the Spirit, in so far as this is taken to require and -achieve an ultimate sublimation free from all emotive elements. Thus -in her doctrine the whole Personality survives death, although this -Personality energizes only, as it were upwards, to God alone, and -not also sideways and downwards, towards its fellows and the lesser -children of God. - - -3. _Catherine’s forecast influenced by Plato._ - -Catherine’s third peculiarity consists in a rich and profound -organization of two doctrines, the one libertarian, the other -determinist; and requires considerable quotation from Plato, whose -teachings, bereft of all transmigration-fancies, seem clearly to -reappear here, (however complex may have been the mediation,) in -Catherine’s great conception. - -The determinist doctrine maintains that virtue and vice, in proportion -as they are allowed their full development, spontaneously and -necessarily attain to their own congenital consummation, a consummation -which consists, respectively, in the bliss inseparable from the final -and complete identity between the inevitable results upon itself of -the soul’s deliberate endeavours, and the indestructible requirements -of this same soul’s fundamental nature; and in the misery of the, now -fully felt but only gradually superable, or even, in other cases, -insuperable, antagonism between the inevitable consequences within its -own self of the soul’s more or less deliberate choosings, and those -same, here also ineradicable, demands of its own truest nature. - -As Marsilio Ficino says, in his _Theologia Platonica_, published in -Florence in 1482: “Virtue is reward in its first budding, reward is -virtue full-grown. Vice is punishment at the moment of its birth; -punishment is vice at its consummation. For, in each of these cases, -one and the same thing is first the simple seed and then the full ear -of corn; and one and the same thing is the full ear of corn and then -the food of man. Precisely the very things then that we sow in this our -(earthly) autumn, shall we reap in that (other-world) summer-day.”[204] -It is true that forensic terms and images are also not wanting in -Catherine’s sayings; but these, in part, run simply parallel to the -immanental conception without modifying it; in part, they are in -its service; and, in part, they are the work of the theologians’ -arrangements and glosses discussed in my Appendix. - -And the libertarian doctrine declares that it is the soul itself which, -in the beyond and immediately after death, chooses the least painful, -because the most expressive of her then actual desires, from among the -states which the natural effects upon her own self of her own earthly -choosings have left her interiorly free to choose. - -Now it is in this second doctrine especially that we find so detailed -an anticipation by Plato of a whole number of highly original and -characteristic points and combinations of points, as to render a -fortuitous concurrence between Catherine and Plato practically -impossible. Yet I have sought in vain, among Catherine’s authentic -sayings, actions, possessions, or friends, for any trace of direct -acquaintance with any of Plato’s writings. But Ficino’s Latin -translation of Plato, published, with immense applause, in Florence in -1483, 1484, must have been known, in those intensely Platonizing times, -to even non-professed Humanists in Genoa, long before Catherine’s death -in 1510, so that one or other of her intimates may have communicated -the substance of these Platonic doctrines to her.[205] Plotinus, of -whom Ficino published a Latin translation in 1492, contains but a -feeble echo of Plato on this point. Proclus, directly known only very -little till much after Catherine’s time, is in even worse case. The -Areopagite, who has so continuously taken over whole passages from -all three writers, although directly almost exclusively from Proclus, -contains nothing more immediately to the purpose than his impressive -sayings concerning Providence’s continuous non-forcing of the human -personality in its fundamental constitution and its free elections with -their inevitable consequences; hence Catherine cannot have derived her -ideas, in the crisp definiteness which they retain in her sayings, from -her cousin the Dominican nun and the Areopagite. And it is certain, as -we have seen, how scattered and inchoate are the hints which she may -have found in St. Paul, the Joannine writings, and Jacopone da Todi. -St. Augustine contains nothing that would be directly available,--an -otherwise likely source considering Catherine’s close connection with -the Augustinian Canonesses of S. Maria delle Grazie. - -In Plato, then, we get five conceptions and symbolic pictures that are -practically identical with those of Catherine. - -(1) First we get the conception of souls having each, in exact -accordance with the respective differences of their moral and spiritual -disposition and character, as these have been constituted by them here -below, a “place” or environment, expressive of that character, ready -for their occupation after the body’s death. “The soul that is pure -departs at death, herself invisible, to the invisible world,--to the -divine, immortal and rational: thither arriving, she lives in bliss. -But the soul that is impure at the time of her departure and is … -engrossed by the corporeal …, is weighed down and drawn back again into -the visible place (world).” - -And this scheme, of like disposition seeking a like place, is then -carried out, by the help of the theory of transmigration, as a -re-incarnation of these various characters into environments, bodies, -exactly corresponding to them: gluttonous souls are assigned to asses’ -bodies, tyrannous souls to those of wolves, and so on: in a word, -“there is no difficulty in assigning to all ‘a whither’ (a place) -answering to their general natures and propensities.”[206] For this -corresponds to a law which runs throughout all things,--a determinism -of consequences which does not prevent the liberty of causes. “The King -of the universe contrived a general plan, by which a thing of a certain -nature found a seat and place of a certain kind. But the formation of -this nature, he left to the wills of individuals.” - -Or, with the further spacial imagery of movements up, level, or down, -we get: “All things that have a soul change … and, in changing, move -according to law and the order of destiny. Lesser changes of nature -move on level ground, but great crimes sink … into the so-called lower -places …; and, when the soul becomes greatly different and divine, she -also greatly changes her place, which is now altogether holy.”[207] The -original, divinely intended “places” of souls are all high and good, -and similar to each other though not identical, each soul having its -own special “place”; and for this congenital “place” each soul has a -resistible yet ineradicable home-sickness. “The first incarnation” of -human souls which “distributes each soul to a star,” is ordained to -be similar for all.… “And when they have been of necessity implanted -in bodily forms, should they master their passions … they live in -righteousness; if otherwise, in unrighteousness. And he who lived well -through his allotted time shall be conveyed once more to a habitation -in his kindred star, and there shall enjoy a blissful and congenial -life; but failing this he shall pass into … such a form of (further) -incarnation as fits his disposition … until he shall overcome, by -reason, all that burthen that afterwards clung around him.”[208] - -If from all this we exclude the soul’s existence before any -beginning of its body, its transmigration into other bodies, and the -self-sufficiency of reason; and if we make it all to be penetrated -by God’s presence, grace, and love, and by our corresponding or -conflicting emotional and volitional as well as intellectual attitude: -we shall get Catherine’s position exactly. - -(2) But again, in at least one phase of his thinking, Plato pictures -the purification of the imperfect soul as effected, of at least as -begun, not in a succession of “places” of an extensionally small but -organic kind, bodies, but in a “place” of an extensionally larger but -inorganic sort,--the shore of a lake, where the soul has to wait. -“The Acherusian lake is the lake to the shores of which the many go -when they are dead; and, after waiting an appointed time, which to -some is longer and to others shorter, they are sent back to be born -as animals.” Here we evidently get a survival of the conception, -predominant in Homer, of a pain-and-joyless Hades, but limited here to -the middle, the imperfect class of souls, and followed, in their case, -by transmigration, to which alone, apparently, purification is directly -attached. - -In the same Dialogue we read later on: “Those who appear to have lived -neither well nor ill … go to the river Acheron, and are carried to the -lake; and there they dwell and are purified of their evil deeds … and -are absolved and receive the rewards of their good deeds according to -their deserts.” Here we have, evidently, still the same “many” and the -same place, the shores of the Acherusian lake, but also an explicit -affirmation of purification effected there, for this purification is -now followed directly, not by re-incarnation, but by the ultimate -happiness in the soul’s original and fundamentally congenial “place.” -And this scheme is far more conformable to Plato’s fundamental -position: for how can bodies, even lower than the human, help to purify -the soul which has become impure precisely on occasion of its human -body?--We can see how the Christian Purgatorial doctrine derives some -of its pictures from the second of these parallel passages; yet that -the “longer or shorter waiting” of the first passage also enters into -that teaching,--especially in its more ordinary modern form, according -to which there is, in this state, no intrinsic purification. - -And lower down we find: “Those who have committed crimes which, -although great, are not unpardonable,--for these it is necessary to -plunge (ἐμπεσεῖν) into Tartarus, the pains of which they are compelled -to undergo for a year; but at the end of the year they are borne to -the Acherusian lake. But those who appear incurable by reason of the -greatness of their crimes … such their appropriate destiny hurls -(ῤίπτει) into Tartarus, whence they never come forth.” Here we get a -Purgatory, pictured as a watery substance in which the more gravely -impure of the curable souls are immersed before arriving at the easier -purification, the waiting on the dry land alongside the lake; this -Purgatory is, as a “place” and, in intensity, identical with Hell; and -into this place the curable souls “plunge” and the incurable ones are -“hurled.”--Of this third passage Catherine retains the identification -of the pains of Purgatory and those of Hell; the “plunge,” or -“hurling,” of two distinct classes of souls into these pains; and -the mitigation, after a time, previous to complete cessation, of the -suffering in the case of the curable class. But the “plunge,” with her, -is common to all degrees of imperfectly pure souls; there is, for all -these souls, no change of “place” during their purgation, but only a -mitigation of suffering; and this mitigation is at work gradually and -from the first. And the ordinary modern Purgatorial teaching is like -this passage, in that it keeps the curable souls in Tartarus, say, for -one year, and lets them suffer there, apparently without mitigation, -throughout that time: and that, in the case of both classes of souls, -it conceives the punishment as extrinsic, vindictive, and inoperative. - -And a fourth _Phaedo_ passage tells us: “Those who are remarkable for -having led holy lives are released from this earthly prison, and go -to their pure home, which is above, and dwell in the purer earth,” -the Isles of the Just, in Oceanus. “And those, again, amongst these -who have duly purified themselves with philosophy, live henceforth -altogether without the body, in mansions fairer far than these.” Here -we get, alongside of the two Purgatories and the one Hell, two Heavens, -of which the first is but taken over from Homer and Pindar, but of -which the second is Plato’s own conception. Catherine, in entire accord -with the ordinary teaching, has got but one “place” of each kind; and -her Heaven corresponds, apart from his formal and final exclusion of -every sort of body, to the second of these Platonic Heavens; whilst, -here again, the all-encompassing presence of God’s love for souls as -of the soul’s love for God, which, in her teaching, is the beginning, -means, and end of the whole movement, effects an indefinite difference -between the two positions.[209] - -(3) Yet Plato, in his most characteristic moods, explicitly anticipates -Catherine as to the intrinsic, ameliorative nature and work of -Purgatory: “The proper office of punishment is two-fold: he who -is rightly punished ought either to become better … by it, or he -ought to be made an example to his fellows, that they may see what -he suffers and … become better. Those who are punished by Gods and -men and improved, are those whose sins are curable … by pain and -suffering:--for there is no other way in which they can be delivered -from evil, as in this world so also in the other. But the others are -incurable--the time has passed at which they can receive any benefit -themselves.… Rhadamanthus,” the chief of the three nether-world judges, -“looks with admiration on the soul of some just one, who has lived in -holiness and truth … and sends him” without any intervening suffering -“to the Isles of the Blessed.… I consider how I shall present my soul -whole and undefiled before the Judge, in that day.”[210] Here the last -sentence is strikingly like in form as well as in spirit to many a -saying of St. Paul and Catherine. - -(4) But the following most original passages give us a sentiment and an -image which, in their special drift, are as opposed to St. Paul, and -indeed to the ordinary Christian consciousness, as they are dear to -Catherine, in this matter so strongly, although probably unconsciously, -Platonist, indeed Neo-Platonist, in her affinities. “In the time of -Kronos, indeed down to that of Zeus, the Judgment was given on the day -on which men were to die,” _i.e._ immediately _before_ their death; -“and the consequence was, that the judgments were not well given,--the -souls found their way to the wrong places. Zeus said: ‘The reason is, -that the judged have their clothes on, for they are alive.… There are -many, having evil souls, who are apparelled in fair bodies or wrapt -round in wealth and rank.… The Judges are awed by them; and they -themselves too have their clothes on when judging: their eyes and -ears and their whole bodies are interposed, as a veil, before their -own souls. What is to be done? … Men shall be entirely stript before -they are judged, for they shall be judged when dead; the Judge too -shall be naked, that is, dead: he, with his naked soul, shall pierce -into the other naked soul immediately _after_ each man dies … and is -bereft of all his kith and kin, and has left behind him all his brave -attire upon earth, and thus the Judgment will be just.’”[211]--If we -compare this with St. Paul’s precisely contrary instinct and desire to -be “clothed upon” at death, “lest we be found naked,” i.e. without the -protection of any kind of body; and then realize Catherine’s intense -longing for “nudità,”--to strip herself here, as far as possible, from -all imperfection and self-delusion before the final stripping off of -the body in death, and to appear, utterly naked, before the utterly -naked eye of God, so that no “clothes” should remain requiring to -be burnt away by the purifying fires,[212] the profound affinity of -sentiment and imagery between Catherine and Plato--and this on a point -essentially Platonic,--is very striking. - -(5) But, above all, in his deep doctrine as to the soul’s spontaneous -choice after death of that condition, “place,” which, owing to the -natural effects within her of her earthly willings and self-formation, -she cannot but now find the most congenial to herself, Plato appears as -the ultimate source of a literary kind for Catherine’s most original -view, which otherwise is, I think, without predecessors. “The souls,” -he tells us in the _Republic_, “immediately on their arrival in the -other world, were required to go to Lachesis,” one of the three Fates. -And “an interpreter, having taken from her lap a number of lots and -plans of life, spoke as follows: ‘Thus saith Lachesis, the daughter of -Necessity.… “Your destiny shall not be allotted to you, but you shall -choose it for yourselves. Let him who draws the first lot, be the first -to choose a life which shall be his irrevocably.… The responsibility -lies with the chooser, Heaven is guiltless.”’” “No settled character -of soul was included in the plans of life, because, with the change -of life, the soul inevitably became changed itself.” “It was a truly -wonderful sight, to watch how each soul selected its life.… When all -the souls had chosen their lives, Lachesis dispatched with each of -them the Destiny he had selected, to guard his life and satisfy his -choice.”[213] And in the _Phaedrus_ Plato tells us that “at the end of -the first thousand years” (of the first incarnation) “the good souls -and also the evil souls both come to cast lots and to choose their -second life; and they may take any that they like.”[214] - -In both the dialogues the lots are evidently taken over from popular -mythology, but are here made merely to introduce a certain orderly -succession among the spontaneous choosings of the souls themselves, -whilst the lap of the daughter of Necessity, spread out before all -the choosers previous to their choice, and the separate, specially -appropriate Destiny that accompanies each soul after its choice, -indicate plainly that, although the choice itself is the free act -and pure self-expression of each soul’s then present disposition, -yet that this disposition is the necessary result of its earthly -volitions and self-development or self-deformation, and that the -choice now made becomes, in its turn, the cause of certain inevitable -consequences,--of a special environment which itself is then productive -of special effects upon, and of special occasions for, the final -working out of this soul’s character.--Plotinus retains the doctrine: -“the soul chooses there” in the Other world,--“its Daemon and its kind -of life.”[215] But neither Proclus nor Dionysius has the doctrine, -whilst Catherine, on the contrary, reproduces it with a penetrating -completeness. - - -4. _Simplifications characteristic of Catherine’s Eschatology._ - -And under our last, fourth head, we can group the simplifications -characteristic of Catherine’s Eschatology. - -(1) One simplification has, of course, for now some fifteen hundred -years, been the ordinary Christian conception: I mean the elimination -of the time-element between the moment of death and the beginning of -the three states. Yet it is interesting to note how by far the greatest -of the Latin Fathers, St. Augustine, who died in A.D. 430, still clings -predominantly to the older Christian and Jewish conception of the soul -abiding in a state of shrunken, joy-and-painless consciousness from -the moment of the body’s death up to that of the general resurrection -and judgment. “After this short life, thou wilt not yet be where the -saints will be,” _i.e._ in Heaven. “Thou wilt not yet be there: who -is ignorant of this? But thou canst straightway be where the rich -man descried the ulcerous beggar to be a-resting, far away,” _i.e._ -in Limbo. “Placed in that rest, thou canst await the day of judgment -with security, when thou shalt receive thy body also, when thou shalt -be changed so as to be equal to an Angel.”[216] Only with regard to -Purgatory, a state held by him, in writings of his last years, 410-430 -A.D., to be possible, indeed probable, does he make an exception to -his general rule: for such purification would have to take place” in -the interval of time between the death of the body and the last day of -condemnation and reward.”[217] - -It is doubtless the still further fading away of the expectation, so -vivid and universal in early Christian times, of the proximity of Our -Lord’s Second Advent, and the tacit prevalence of Greek affinities and -conceptions concerning the bodiless soul, that helped to eliminate, -at last universally, this interval of waiting, in the case of souls -too good or too bad for purgation, from the general consciousness -of at least Western Christendom. The gain in this was the great -simplification and concentration of the immediate outlook and interest; -the loss was the diminished apprehension of the essentially complex, -concrete, synthetic character of man’s nature, and of the necessity for -our assuming that this characteristic will be somehow preserved in this -nature’s ultimate perfection. - -(2) There is a second simplification in Catherine which, though here -St. Augustine leads the way, is less common among Christians: her three -other-world “places” are not, according to her ultimate thought, three -distinct spacial extensions and localities, filled, respectively, with -ceaselessly suffering, temporarily suffering, and ceaselessly blessed -souls; but they are, (notwithstanding all the terms necessitated by -such spacial picturings as “entering,” “coming out,” “plunging into”), -so many distinct states and conditions of the soul, of a painful, -mixed, or joyful character. We shall have these her ultimate ideas very -fully before us presently. But here I would only remark that this her -union of a picturing faculty, as vivid as the keenest sense-perception, -and of a complete non-enslavement to, a vigorous utilization of, -these life-like spacial projections, by a religious instinct and -experience which never forgets that God and souls are spirits, to whom -our ordinary categories of space and extension, time and motion, do -not and cannot in strictness apply, is as rare as it is admirable; -and that, though her intensely anti-corporeal and non-social attitude -made such a position more immediately easy for her than it can be for -those who remain keenly aware of the great truths involved in the -doctrines of the Resurrection of the Body and the Communion of Saints, -this her trend of thought brings into full articulation precisely the -deepest of our spiritual apprehensions and requirements, whilst it is -not her fault if it but further accentuates some of our intellectual -perplexities. - -We get much in St. Augustine, which he himself declares to have -derived, in the first instance, from “the writings of the Platonists,” -which doubtless means above all Plotinus, (that keen spiritual thinker -who can so readily be traced throughout this part of the great -Convert’s teaching), as to this profound incommensurableness between -spiritual presence, energizing, and affectedness on the one hand, and -spacial position, extension, and movement on the other. “What place is -there within me, to which my God can come? … I would not exist at all, -unless Thou already wert within me.” “Thou wast never a place, and yet -we have receded from Thee; and we have drawn near to Thee, yet Thou -art never a place.” “ Are we submerged and do we emerge? Yet it is not -places into which we are plunged and out of which we rise. What can be -more like to places and yet more unlike? For here the affections are in -case,--the impurity of our spirit, which flows downwards, oppressed by -the love of earthly cares; and the holiness of Thy Spirit, which lifts -us upwards with the love of security.”[218] For, as he teaches “the -spiritual creature can only be changed by times,”--a succession within -a duration: “by remembering what it had forgotten, or by learning -what it did not know, or by willing what it did not will. The bodily -creature can be changed by times and places,” by spacial motion, “from -earth to heaven, from heaven to earth, from east to west.” “That thing -is not moved through space which is not extended in space … the soul is -not considered to move in space, unless it be held to be a body.”[219] - -In applying the doctrine just expressed to eschatological matters, St. -Augustine concludes: “If it be asked whether the soul, when it goes -forth from the body, is borne to some corporeal places, or to such as, -though incorporeal, are like to bodies, or to what is more excellent -than either: I readily answer that, unless it have some kind of body, -it is not borne to bodily places at all, or, at least, that it is not -borne to them by bodily motion.… But I myself do not think that it -possesses any body, when it goes forth from this earthly body.… It gets -borne, according to its deserts, to spiritual conditions, or to penal -places having a similitude to bodies.”[220] - -The reader will readily note a curiously uncertain frame of mind -in this last utterance. I take it that Plotinian influences are -here being checked by the Jewish conception of certain, definitely -located, provision-chambers (_promptuaria_), in which all souls are -placed for safe keeping, between the time of the body’s death and its -resurrection. So in the Fourth Book of Esra (of about 90 A.D.), “the -souls of the just in their chambers said: ‘How long are we to remain -here?’”; and in the Apocalypse of Baruch (of about 150-250 A.D.), “at -the coming of the Messiah, the provision-chambers will open, in which -the” whole, precise “number of the souls of the just have been kept, -and they will come forth.”[221] - -But it is St. Thomas Aquinas who, by the explicit and consistent -adoption and classification of these _promptuaria receptacula_, reveals -to us more clearly the perplexities and fancifulnesses involved in -the strictly spacial conception. “Although bodies are not assigned -to souls (immediately) after death, yet certain bodily places are -congruously assigned to these souls in accordance with the degree of -their dignity, in which places they are, as it were, locally, in the -manner in which bodiless things can be in space: each soul having a -higher place assigned to it, according as it approaches more or less -to the first substance, God, whose seat, according to Scripture, is -Heaven.” “In the Scriptures God is called the Sun, since He is the -principle of spiritual life, as the physical sun is of bodily life; -and, according to this convention, … souls spiritually illuminated have -a greater fitness for luminous bodies, and sin-darkened souls for dark -places.” “It is probable that, as to local position, Hell and the Limbo -of the Fathers constitute one and the same place, or are more or less -continuous.” “The place of Purgatory adjoins (that of) Hell.” “There -are altogether five places ready to receive (_receptanda_) souls bereft -of their bodies: Paradise, the Limbo of the Fathers, Purgatory, Hell, -and the Limbo of Infants.”[222] - -No doubt all these positions became the common scholastic teaching. But -then, as Cardinal Bellarmine cogently points out: “no ancient, as far -as I know, has written that the Earthly Paradise was destroyed … and I -have read a large number who affirm its existence. This is the doctrine -of all the Scholastics, beginning with St. Thomas, and of the Fathers. -… St. Augustine indeed appears to rank this truth amongst the dogmas -of faith.”[223] We shall do well, then, not to press these literal -localization-schemes, especially since, according to St. Augustine’s -penetrating analysis, our spiritual experiences, already in this our -earthly existence, have a distinctly non-spacial character. Catherine’s -position, if applied to the central life of man here, and hence -presumptively hereafter, remains as true and fresh and unassailable as -ever. - -(3) And her last simplification consists in taking the Fire of Hell, -the Fire of Purgatory, and the Fire and Light of Heaven as profoundly -appropriate symbols or descriptions of the variously painful or joyous -impressions produced, through the differing volitional attitudes of -souls towards Him, by the one God’s intrinsically identical presence -in each and all. In all three cases, throughout their several grades, -there are ever but two realities, the Spirit-God and the spirit-soul, -in various states of inter-relation. - -Here again it is Catherine’s complete abstraction from the body which -renders such a view easy and, in a manner, necessary for her mind. But -here I would only emphasize the impressive simplicity and spirituality -of view which thus, as in the material world it finds the one sun-light -and the one fire-heat, which, in themselves everywhere the same, vary -indefinitely in their effects, owing to the varying condition of the -different bodies which meet the rays and flames; so, in the Spiritual -World it discovers One supreme spiritual Energy and Influence which, -whilst ever self-identical, is assimilated, deflected, or resisted by -the lesser spirits, with inevitably joyous, mixed, or painful states -of soul, since they can each and all resist, but cannot eradicate that -Energy’s impression within their deepest selves. And though, even with -her, the Sun-light image remains quasi-Hellenic and Intellectual, and -the Fire-heat picture is more immediately Christian and Moral: yet -she also frequently takes the sunlight as the symbol of the achieved -Harmony and Peace, and the Fire-heat as that of more or less persisting -Conflict and Pain. She is doubtless right in keeping both symbols, and -in ever thinking of each as ultimately implying the other, for God is -Beauty and Truth, as well as Goodness and Love, and man is made with -the indestructible aspiration after Him in His living completeness. - -And here again Catherine has a complicated doctrinal history behind her. - -We have already considered the numerous Scriptural passages where -God and His effects upon the soul are symbolized as light and fire; -and those again where joy or, contrariwise, trial and suffering are -respectively pictured by the same physical properties. And Catherine -takes the latter passages as directly explanatory of the first, in -so far as these joys and sufferings are spiritual in their causes or -effects. - -Among the Greek Fathers, Clement of Alexandria tells us that “the Fire” -of Purgatory,--for he has no Eternal Damnation,--“is a rational,” -spiritual, “fire that penetrates the soul”; and Origen teaches that -“each sinner himself lights the flame of his own fire, and is not -thrown into a fire that has been lit before that moment and that exists -in front of him.… His conscience is agitated and pierced by its own -pricks.” Saints Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory of Nazianzum are more or -less influenced by Origen on this point. And St. John Damascene, who -died in about 750 A.D., says explicitly that the fire of Hell is not a -material fire, that it is very different from our ordinary fire, and -that men hardly know what it is.[224] - -Among the Latins, St. Ambrose declares: “neither is the gnashing, a -gnashing of bodily teeth; nor is the everlasting fire, a fire of bodily -flames; nor is the worm, a bodily one.”--St. Jerome, in one passage, -counts the theory of the non-physical fire as one of Origen’s errors; -but elsewhere he mentions it without any unfavourable note, and even -enumerates several Scripture-texts which favour it, and admits that -“‘the worm which dieth not and the fire which is not quenched,’ is -understood, by the majority of interpreters (_a plerisque_), of the -conscience of sinners which tortures them.”[225]--St. Augustine, in -413 A.D., declares: “In the matter of the pains of the wicked, both -the unquenchable fire and the intensely living worm are interpreted -differently by different commentators. Some interpreters refer both -to the body, others refer both to the soul; and some take the fire -literally, in application to the body, and the worm figuratively, -in application to the soul, which latter opinion appears the more -credible.” Yet when, during the last years of his life, he came, -somewhat tentatively, to hold an other-world Purgatory as well, he -throughout assimilated this Purgatory’s fire to the fire of this-world -sufferings. Thus in 422 A.D.: “Souls which renounce the wood, hay, -straw, built upon that foundation (I Cor. iii, 11-15), not without pain -indeed (since they loved these things with a carnal affection), but -with faith in the foundation, a faith operative through love … arrive -at salvation, through a certain fire of pain.… Whether men suffer these -things in this life only, or such-like judgments follow even after -this life--in either case, this interpretation of that text is not -discordant with the truth.” “‘He shall be saved yet so as by fire,’ -because the pain, over the loss of the things he loved, burns him. It -is not incredible that some such thing takes place even after this life -… that some of the faithful are saved by a certain purgatorial fire, -more quickly or more slowly, according as they have less or more loved -perishable things.”[226] - -St. Thomas, voicing and leading Scholastic opinion, teaches that the -fire of Purgatory is the same as that of Hell; and Cardinal Bellarmine, -who died in 1621, tells us: “The common opinion of theologians is that -the fire of Purgatory is a real and true fire, of the same kind as an -earthly fire. This opinion, it is true, is not of faith, but it is very -probable,”--because of the “consent of the scholastics, who cannot be -despised without temerity,” and also because of “the eruptions of Mount -Etna.”[227] Yet the Council of Florence had, in 1439, restricted itself -to the quite general proposition that “if men die truly penitent, -in the love of God, before they have satisfied … for their sins … -their souls are purified by purgatorial pains after death”; thus -very deliberately avoiding all commitment as to the nature of these -pains.[228] Cardinal Gousset, who died in 1866, tells us: “The more -common opinion amongst theologians makes the sufferings of Purgatory -to consist in the pain of fire, or at least in a pain analogous to -that of fire.”[229] This latter position is practically identical with -Catherine’s. - -As to the fire of Hell, although here especially the Scholastics, old -and new, are unanimous, it is certain that there is no definition or -solemn judgment of the Church declaring it to be material. On this -point again we find St. Thomas and those who follow him involved in -practically endless difficulties and in, for us now, increasingly -intolerable subtleties, where they try to show how a material fire -can affect an immaterial spirit. Bossuet, so severely orthodox in all -such matters, preaching, before the Court, about sin becoming in Hell -the chastisement of the sinner, does not hesitate to finish thus: “We -bear within our hearts the instrument of our punishment. ‘I shall -produce fire from thy midst, which shall devour thee’ (Ezek. xxviii, -18). I shall not send it against thee from afar, it will ignite in -thy conscience, its flames will arise from thy midst, and it will be -thy sins which will produce it.”[230]--And the Abbé F. Dubois, in a -careful article in the Ecclesiastical _Revue du Clergé Français_ of -Paris, has recently expressed the conviction that “the best minds of -our time, which are above being suspected of yielding to mere passing -fashions, feel the necessity of abandoning the literal interpretation, -judged to be insufficient, of the ancient symbols; and of returning -to a freer exegesis, of which some of the Ancients have given us the -example.”[231] Among these helpful “Ancients” we cannot but count -Catherine, with her One God Who is the Fire of Pain and the Light of -Joy to souls, according as they resist Him or will Him, either here or -hereafter. - - -III. CATHERINE AND ETERNAL PUNISHMENT. - - -_Introductory: four doctrines and difficulties to be considered._ - -Taking now the three great after-life conditions separately, in the -order of Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, I would first of all note that -some readers may be disappointed that Catherine did not, like our -own English Mystic, the entirely orthodox optimist, Mother Juliana -of Norwich--her _Revelations_ belong to the year 1373 A.D.--simply -proclaim that, whilst the teaching and meaning of Christ and His -Church would come true, all, in ways known to God alone, would yet -be well.[232] In this manner, without any weakening of traditional -teaching, the whole dread secret as to the future of evil-doers is -left in the hands of God, and a beautifully boundless trust and hope -glows throughout those contemplations. - -Yet, as I hope to show as we go along, certain assumptions and -conceptions, involved in the doctrine of Eternal Punishment, cannot -be systematically excluded, or even simply ignored, without a grave -weakening of the specifically Christian earnestness; and that, -grand as is, in certain respects, the idea of the Apocatastasis, -the Final Restitution of all Things and Souls--as taught by Clement -and Origen--it is not, at bottom, compatible with the whole drift, -philosophy, and tone, (even apart from specific sayings) of Our Lord. -And this latter teaching--of the simply abiding significance and effect -of our deliberate elections during this our one testing-time,--and -not that of an indefinite series of chances and purifications with -an ultimate disappearance of all difference between the results of -the worst life and the best, answers to the deepest postulates and -aspirations of the most complete and delicate ethical and spiritual -sense. For minds that can discriminate between shifting fashions and -solid growth in abiding truth, that will patiently seek out the deepest -instinct and simplest implications underlying the popular presentations -of the Doctrine of Abiding Consequences, and that take these -implications as but part of a larger whole: this doctrine still, and -now again, presents itself as a permanent element of the full religious -consciousness. - -It would certainly be unfair to press Catherine’s rare and incidental -sayings on Hell into a formal system. Yet those remarks are deep and -suggestive, and help too much to interpret, supplement, and balance -her central, Purgatorial teaching, and indeed to elucidate her general -religious principles, for us to be able to pass them over. We have -already sufficiently considered the question as to the nature of the -Fire; and that as to Evil Spirits is reserved for the next Chapter. -Here I shall consider four doctrines and difficulties, together with -Catherine’s attitude towards them: the soul’s final fate, dependent -upon the character of the will’s act or active disposition at the -moment of the body’s death; the total moral perversion of the lost; the -mitigation of their pains; and the eternity of their punishment. - - -1. _Eternity dependent on the earthly life’s last moment._ - -Now as to the soul’s final fate being made dependent upon the -character of that soul’s particular act or disposition at the last -moment previous to death, this teaching, prominent in parts of the -_Trattato and Vita_, goes back ultimately to Ezekiel, who, as Prof. -Charles interestingly shows, introduces a double individualism into -the older, Social and Organic, Eschatology of the Hebrew Prophets. -For Man is seen, by him, as responsible for his own acts alone, and -as himself working out separately his own salvation or his own doom; -and this individual man again is looked at, not in his organic unity, -but as repeating himself in a succession of separate religious acts. -The individual act is taken to be a true expression of the whole man -at the moment of its occurrence: and hence, if this act is wicked at -the moment of the advent of the Kingdom, the agent will rightfully be -destroyed; but if it be righteous, he will be preserved.[233]--Now -the profound truth and genuine advance thus proclaimed, who can doubt -them? And yet it is clear that the doctrine here is solidly true, only -if taken as the explicitation and supplement, and even in part as the -corrective, of the previously predominant teaching. Take the Ezekielian -doctrine as complete, even for its own time, or as final over against -the later, the Gospel depth of teaching, (with its union of the social -body and of individual souls, and of the soul’s single acts and of the -general disposition produced by and reacting upon these acts), and you -get an all but solipsistic Individualism and an atomistic Psychology, -and you offend Christianity and Science equally. - -It is evident that Catherine, if she can fairly be taxed with what, -if pressed, would, in her doctrine rather than in her life, be an -excessive Individualism, is, in her general teaching and practice, -admirably free from Psychological Atomism; indeed did any soul ever -understand better the profound reality of habits, general dispositions, -tones of mind and feeling and will, as distinct from the single acts -that gradually build them up and that, in return, are encircled and -coloured by them all? Her whole Purgatorial doctrine stands and falls -by this distinction, and this although, with a profound self-knowledge, -she does not hesitate to make the soul express, in one particular act -after death,--that of the Plunge,--an even deeper level of its true -attitude of will and of its moral character than is constituted by -those imperfect habits of the will, habits which it will take so much -suffering and acceptance of suffering gradually to rectify. - -Thus the passages in which Catherine seems to teach that God can and -does, as it were, catch souls unawares, calling them away, and finally -deciding their fate on occasion of any and every _de facto_ volitional -condition at the instant of death, however little expressive of the -radical determination of that soul such an act or surface-state may be, -will have, (even if they be genuine, and most of them have doubtlessly -grown, perhaps have completely sprung up, under the pen of sermonizing -scribes), to be taken as hortatory, hence as partly hyperbolical. -And such an admission will in nowise deny the possibility for the -soul to express its deliberate and full disposition and determination -in a single act or combination of acts; nor that the other-world -effects will follow according to such deep, deliberate orientations -of the character: it will only deny that, at any and every moment, -any and every act of the soul sufficiently expresses its deliberate -disposition. Certainly it is comparatively rarely that the soul exerts -its full liberty, in an act of true, spiritual self-realization; and -an analogous rarity cannot but be postulated by religious philosophy -for contrary acts, of an approximately equal fulness of deliberation -and accuracy of representation, with regard to the soul’s volitional -state. And yet the operative influence towards such rare, fully -self-expressive acts of the right kind, and the aid towards similar, -massive, and truly representative volitions of the wrong kind, afforded -by even quite ordinary half-awake acts and habits of respectively good -or evil quality are so undeniable, and it is so impossible to draw -a general line as to where such wishes pass into full willings and -deliberate states: that the prevalence of a hortatory attitude towards -the whole subject is right and indeed inevitable. - - -2. _The reprobate will of the lost._ - -As to Moral Perversion, the reprobate will of the lost, we find that -Catherine approaches the question from two different, and at bottom, -on this point, incompatible, systems; but some incidental and short -sayings of hers give us suggestive hints towards a consistent position -in this difficult matter. - -Catherine has a double approach. For, consistently with the strong -Neo-Platonist, Dionysian strain in her mind, she frequently teaches and -implies that Evil is the absence of Good, of Love, and nothing positive -at all. In this case Evil would not only be less strong than good--only -Manichaeans would maintain that they were equal--but, as against the -constructive force of good, it would have no kind even of destructive -strength. Varying amounts, degrees, and kinds of good, but good and -only good, everywhere, would render all, even transitory, pollution of -the soul, and all, even passing, purification of it, so much actual -impossibility and theoretical superstition. All that survived at all, -could but be good; and at most some good might be added, but no evil -could be removed, since none would exist.--Yet all this is, of course, -strongly denied and supplanted by the, at first sight, less beautiful, -but far deeper and alone fully Christian, position of her specifically -Purgatorial teaching. Here Evil is something positive, an active -disposition, orientation, and attachment of the will; it is not without -destructive force; and its cure is a positive change in that will and -its habits, and not a mere addition of good. Yet it is plain that, even -exclusively within the implications of this deeper conviction, there -is no necessity to postulate unmixed evil in the disposition of any -soul. In some the evil would be triumphing over the good; in others -good would be triumphing over evil,--each over the other, in every -degree of good or of evil, up to the all but complete extinction of all -inclinations to evil or to good respectively. - -And Catherine has suggestive sayings. For one or two of them go, at -least in their implications, beyond a declaration as to the presence -of God’s extrinsic mercy in Hell, a presence indicated by a mitigation -of the souls’ sufferings to below what these souls deserve; and even -beyond the Areopagite’s insistence upon the presence of some real good -in these souls, since he hardly gets beyond their continuous possession -of those non-moral goods, existence, intelligence, and will-power.[234] -For when she says, “The ray of God’s mercy shines even in Hell,” she -need not, indeed, mean more than that extrinsic mercy, and its effect, -that mitigation. But when she declares: “if a creature could be found -that did not participate in the divine Goodness,--that creature would, -as it were, be as malignant as God is good,” we cannot, I think, avoid -applying this to the moral dispositions of such souls.[235] - -Now I know that St. Thomas had already taught, in at first sight -identical terms: “Evil cannot exist (quite) pure without the admixture -of good, as the Supreme Good exists free from all admixture of evil.… -Those who are detained in Hell, are not bereft of all good”;[236] and -yet he undoubtedly maintained the complete depravation of the will’s -dispositions in these souls. And, again, after Catherine’s first -declaration there follow, (at least in the text handed down in the -_Vita_), words which explain that extrinsic mercy, not as mitigating -the finite amount of suffering due to the sinner, but as turning the -infinite suffering due to the sinner’s infinite malice, into a finite, -though indefinite amount; and hence, in the second declaration, a -corresponding interior mercy may be signified--God’s grace preventing -the sinner from being infinitely wicked. - -But Catherine, unlike St. Thomas, expressly speaks not only of Good and -Evil, but of Good and Malignancy; and Malignancy undoubtedly refers -to dispositions of the will. And even if the words, now found as the -sequel to the first saying, be authentic, they belong to a different -occasion, and cannot be allowed to force the meaning of words spoken -at another time. In this latter saying the words “as it were” show -plainly that she is not thinking of a possible infiniteness of human -wickedness which has been changed, through God’s mercy, to an actual -finitude of evil; but is simply asking herself whether a man could be, -not infinitely but wholly, malignant. For she answers that, were this -possible, a man would “as it were” be as malignant as God is good, and -thus shows that the malignancy, which she denies, would only in a sense -form a counterpart to God’s benevolence: since, though the man would be -as entirely malignant as God is entirely good, God would still remain -infinite in His goodness as against the finitude of Man’s wickedness. - -The difficulties of such a combination of convictions are, of course, -numerous and great. Psychologically it seems hard to understand why -this remnant of good disposition should be unable to germinate further -and further good, so that, at last, good would leaven the whole -soul. From the point of view of any Theodicy, it appears difficult -to justify the unending exclusion of such a soul from growth in, and -the acquirement of, a predominantly good will and the happiness that -accompanies such a will. And the testimony of Our Lord Himself and of -the general doctrine of the Church appear definitely opposed: for does -not His solemn declaration: “Hell, where their worm dieth not” (Mark -ix, 48), find its authoritative interpretation in the common Church -teaching as to the utterly reprobate will of the lost? And indeed -Catherine herself, in her great saying that if but one little drop of -Love could fall into Hell (that is, surely, if but the least beginning -of a right disposition towards God could enter those souls) Hell would -be turned into Heaven, seems clearly to endorse this position. - -And yet, we have full experience in this life of genuinely good -dispositions being present, and yet not triumphing or even spreading -within the soul; of such conditions being, in various degrees, our own -fault; and of such defeat bringing necessarily with it more or less of -keen suffering.--There would be no injustice if, after a full, good -chance and sufficient aid had been given to the soul to actualize its -capabilities of spiritual self-constitution, such a soul’s deliberately -sporadic, culpably non-predominant, good did not, even eventually, lead -to the full satisfaction of that soul’s essential cravings.--The saying -attributed to Our Lord, which appears in St. Mark alone, is a pure -quotation from Isaiah lxvi, 24 and Ecclesiasticus vii, 17, and does not -seem to require more than an abiding distress of conscience, an eternal -keenness of remorse. - -Again, the common Church-teaching is undoubtedly voiced by St. Thomas -in the words, “Since these souls are completely averse to the final end -of right reason, they must be declared to be without any good will.” -Yet St. Thomas himself (partly in explanation of the Areopagite’s -words, “the evil spirits desire the good and the best, namely, to -be, to live, and to understand”), is obliged to distinguish between -such souls’ deliberate will and their “natural will and inclination,” -and to proclaim that this latter, “which is not from themselves but -from the Author of nature, who put this inclination into nature … can -indeed be good.”[237] And, if we would not construct a scheme flatly -contradictory of all earthly experience, we can hardly restrict the -soul, even in the beyond, to entirely indeliberate, good inclinations, -and to fully deliberate, bad volitions, but cannot help interposing -an indefinite variety of inchoative energizings, half-wishes, and -the like, and thinking of these as mixed with good and evil. Indeed -this conclusion seems also required by the common teaching that the -suffering there differs from soul to soul, and this because of the -different degrees of the guilt: for such degrees depend undoubtedly -even more upon the degree of deliberation and massiveness of the will -than upon the degree of objective badness in the deed, and hence can -hardly fail to leave variously small or large fragments of more or less -good and imperfectly deliberate wishings and energizings present in the -soul. - -And finally Catherine’s “little drop of Love” would, she says, “at -once” turn Hell into Heaven, and hence cannot mean some ordinary good -moral disposition or even such supernatural virtues as theological -Faith and Hope, but Pure Love alone, which latter queen of all the -virtues she is explicitly discussing there. Thus she in nowise requires -the absence from these souls of a certain remnant of semi-deliberate -virtue of a less exalted, and not necessarily regenerative kind. - - -3. _Mitigation of the sufferings of the lost._ - -As to the Mitigation of the Suffering, it is remarkable that Catherine, -who has been so bold concerning the source of the pains, and the -dispositions, of the lost souls, does not more explicitly teach such -an alleviation. I say “remarkable,” because important Fathers and -Churches, that were quite uninfected by Origenism, have held and have -acted upon such a doctrine. St. Augustine, in his _Enchiridion_ (A.D. -423 (?)) tells us that “in so far as” the Offering of the Sacrifice of -the Altar and Alms “profit” souls in the beyond, “they profit them by -procuring a full remission (of the punishment), or at least that their -damnation may become more tolerable.” And after warning men against -believing in an end to the sufferings of the lost, he adds: “But let -them consider, if they like, that the sufferings of the damned are -somewhat mitigated during certain intervals of time.”[238]--Saints -John Chrysostom and John Damascene, thoroughly orthodox Greek Fathers, -and the deeply devout hymn-writer Prudentius among the Latins, teach -similar doctrine; and in many ancient Latin missals, ranging from the -eleventh to the fourteenth century, prayers for the Mitigation of the -Sufferings of the Damned are to be found.[239] - -Hence the great Jesuit Theologian Petau, though not himself -sharing this view, can declare: “Concerning such a breathing-time -(_respiratio_) of lost souls, nothing certain has as yet been decreed -by the Catholic Church, so that this opinion of most holy Fathers -should not temerariously be rejected as absurd, even though it be -foreign to the common opinion of Catholics in our time.”[240] And the -Abbé Emery, that great Catholic Christian, the second founder of St. -Sulpice, who died in 1811, showed, in a treatise _On the Mitigation -of the Pains of the Damned_, that this view had also been held by -certain Scholastic Theologians, and had been defended, without any -opposition, by Mark of Ephesus, in the Sessions of the Council of -Florence (A.D. 1439); and concluded that this doctrine was not contrary -to the Catholic Faith and did not deserve any censure. The most learned -Theologians in Rome found nothing reprehensible in this treatise, and -Pope Pius VII caused his Theologian, the Barnabite General, Padre -Fontana, to thank M. Emery for the copy sent by him to the Holy -Father.[241] - -Catherine herself cannot well have been thinking of anything but some -such Mitigation when she so emphatically teaches that God’s mercy -extends even into Hell. Indeed, even the continuation of this great -saying in the present _Vita_-text formally teaches such Mitigation, yet -practically withdraws it, by making it consist in a rebate and change, -from an infinitude in degree and duration into a finitude in degree -though not in duration.[242] But, as we have already found, this highly -schematic statement is doubtless one of the later glosses, in which -case her true meaning must have been substantially that of the Fathers -referred to, viz. that the suffering, taken as anyhow finite in its -degree, gets mercifully mitigated for these souls.--And, if she was -here also faithful to her general principles, she will have conceived -the mitigation, not as simply sporadic and arbitrary, but as more or -less progressive, and connected with the presence in these souls of -those various degrees of semi-voluntary good inclinations and wishes, -required by her other saying. Even if these wishings could slowly and -slightly increase, and the sufferings could similarly decrease, this -would in nowise imply or require a final full rectification of the -deliberate will itself, and hence not a complete extinction of the -resultant suffering. Hell would still remain essentially distinct -from Purgatory; for in Purgatory the deliberate, active will is good -from the first, and only the various semi-volitions and old habits are -imperfect, but are being gradually brought into full harmony with that -will, by the now complete willing of the soul; and hence this state -has an end; whereas in Hell the deliberate, active will is bad from -the first, and only various partially deliberate wishes and tendencies -are good, but cannot be brought to fruition in a full virtuous -determination of the dominant character of the soul, and hence _this_ -state has no end. - - -4. _The Endlessness of Hell._ - -And lastly, as to the Endlessness of this condition of the Lost, it is, -of course, plain that Catherine held this defined doctrine; and again, -that “the chief weight, in the Church-teaching as to Hell, rests upon -Hell’s Eternity.”[243] - -Here I would suggest five groups of considerations: - -(1) Precisely this Eternity appears to be the feature of all others -which is ever increasingly decried by contemporary philosophy and -liberal theology as impossible and revolting. Thus it is frequently -argued as though, not the indiscriminateness nor the materiality nor -the forensic externality nor the complete fixity of the sufferings, nor -again the complete malignity of the lost were incredible, and hence -the unendingness of such conditions were impossible of acceptance; -but, on the contrary, as though,--be the degree and nature of those -sufferings conceived as ever so discriminated, spiritual, interior, and -relatively mobile, and as occasioned and accompanied by a disposition -in which semi-voluntary good is present,--the simple assumption of -anything unending or final about them, at once renders the whole -doctrine impossible to believe. It is true that Tennyson and Browning -take the doctrine simply in its popular Calvinistic form, and then -reject it; and even John Stuart Mill and Frederick Denison Maurice -hardly consider the eternity separately. But certainly that thoughtful -and religious-minded writer, Mr. W. R. Greg, brings forward the -eternity-doctrine as, already in itself, “a _curiosa infelicitas_ which -is almost stupidity on the part of the Church.”[244] - -(2) Yet it is plain how strongly, even in Mr. Greg’s case, the supposed -(local, physical, indiscriminate, etc.) nature of the state affects -the writer’s judgment as to the possibility of its unendingness,--as -indeed is inevitable. And it is even clearer, I think, that precisely -this eternity-doctrine stands for a truth which is but an ever-present -mysterious corollary to every deeply ethical or spiritual, and, -above all, every specifically Christian view of life. For every such -view comes, surely, into hopeless collision with its own inalienable -requirements if it _will_ hold that the deepest ethical and spiritual -acts and conditions are,--avowedly performed though they be in time -and space--simply temporary in their inmost nature and effects; -whereas every vigorously ethical religion, in so far as it has reached -a definite personal-immortality doctrine at all, cannot admit that -the soul’s deliberate character remains without any strictly final -and permanent results. The fact is that we get here to a profound -ethical and spiritual postulate, which cannot be adequately set aside -on the ground that it is the product of barbarous ages and vindictive -minds, since this objection applies only to the physical picturings, -the indiscriminateness, non-mitigation, and utter reprobation; or on -the ground that a long, keen purification, hence a temporally finite -suffering, would do as well, since, when all this has completely -passed away, there would be an entire obliteration of all difference -in the consequences of right and wrong; or that acts and dispositions -built up in time cannot have other than finite consequences, since -this is to naturalize radically the deepest things of life; or finally -that “Evil,” as the Areopagite would have it, “is not,”[245] since -thus the very existence of the conviction as to free-will and sin -becomes more inexplicable than the theoretical difficulties against -Libertarianism are insoluble.--Against this deep requirement of the -most alert and complete ethical and spiritual life the wave of any -Apocatastasis-doctrine or -emotion will, in the long run, ever break -itself in vain. - -(3) The doctrine of Conditional Immortality has, I think, many -undeniable advantages over every kind of Origenism. This view does not, -as is often imputed to it, believe in the annihilation by Omnipotence -of the naturally immortal souls of impenitent grave sinners; but simply -holds that human souls begin with the capacity of acquiring, with the -help of God’s Spirit, a spiritual personality, built up out of the mere -possibilities and partial tendencies of their highly mixed natures, -which, if left uncultivated and untranscended, become definitely fixed -at the first, phenomenal, merely individual level,--so that spiritual -personality alone deserves to live on and does so, whilst this animal -individuality does not deserve and does not do so. The soul is thus -not simply born as, but can become more and more, that “inner man” who -alone persists, indeed who “is renewed day by day, even though our -outward man perish.”[246] - -This conception thus fully retains, indeed increases, the profound -ultimate difference between the results of spiritual and personal, and -of animal and simply individual life respectively,--standing, as it -does, at the antipodes to Origenism; it eliminates all unmoralized, -unspiritualized elements from the ultimate world, without keeping souls -in an apparently fruitless suffering; and it gives full emphasis to a -supremely important, though continually forgotten fact,--the profoundly -expensive, creative, positive process and nature of spiritual -character. No wonder, then, that great thinkers and scholars, such -as Goethe, Richard Rothe, Heinrich Holtzmann, and some Frenchmen and -Englishmen have held this view.[247] - -Yet the objections against this view, taken in its strictness, are -surely conclusive. For how can an originally simply mortal substance, -force, or entity become immortal, and a phenomenal nature be leavened -by a spiritual principle which, _ex hypothesi_, is not present within -it? And how misleadingly hyperbolical, according to this, would be -the greatest spiritual exhortations, beginning with those of Our Lord -Himself! - -(4) And yet the conception of Conditional Immortality cannot be -far from the truth, since everything, surely, points to a lowered -consciousness in the souls in question, or at least to one lower -than that in the ultimate state of the saved. This conception of the -shrunken condition of these souls was certainly held by Catherine, -even if the other, the view of a heightened, consciousness, appears -in hortatory passages which just _may_ be authentic; and indeed only -that conception is conformable with her fundamental position that -love alone is fully positive and alone gives vital strength, and that -all fully deliberate love is absent from the lost souls. And if we -consider how predominantly hortatory in tone and object the ordinary -teaching on this point cannot fail to be; and, on the other hand, how -close to Manichaeism, any serious equating of the force and intensity -of life and consciousness between the Saved and the Lost would be, we -can hardly fail to find ourselves free, indeed compelled, to hold a -lesser consciousness for the Lost than for the Saved. Whilst the joyful -life of the Saved would range, in harmonious intensity, beyond all that -we can experience here, the painful consciousness of the Lost would -be, in various degrees, indefinitely less. The Saved would thus not be -only _other_ than the Lost, they would actually be _more_: for God is -Life supreme, and, where there is more affinity with God, there is more -life, and more consciousness. - -(5) But, if the view just stated is the more likely one, then we -cannot soften the sufferings of those souls, by giving them a sense of -Eternity, of one unending momentary Now, instead of our earthly sense -of Succession, as Cardinal Newman and Father Tyrrell have attempted to -do, in a very instructive and obviously orthodox manner.[248] I shall -presently argue strongly in favour of some consciousness of Eternity -being traceable in our best moments here, and of this consciousness -being doubtless more extended in the future blessed life. But here I -have only to consider whether for one who, like Catherine, follows the -analogy of earthly experience, the Lost should be considered nearer to, -or farther from, such a _Totum-Simul_ consciousness than we possess -now, here below, at our best? And to this the answer must, surely, be -that they are further away from it. Yet God in His mercy may allow -this greater successiveness, if unaccompanied by any keen memory or -prevision, to help in effecting that mitigation of the suffering which -we have already allowed. - - -IV. CATHERINE AND PURGATORY. - - -1. _Introductory._ - - -(1) _Changed feeling concerning Purgatory._ - -In the matter of a Purgatory, a very striking return of religious -feeling towards its normal equilibrium has been occurring in the most -unexpected, entirely unprejudiced quarters, within the last century -and a half. In Germany we have Lessing, who, in the wake of Leibniz, -encourages the acceptance of “that middle state which the greater part -of our fellow-Christians have adopted”: Schleiermacher, who calls the -overpassing of a middle state by a violent leap at death “a magical -proceeding”; David F. Strauss, who entirely agrees; Carl von Hase, who, -in his very Manual of Anti-Roman Polemics admits that “most men when -they die are probably too good for Hell, but they are certainly too bad -for Heaven”; the delicately thoughtful philosopher Fechner who, in the -most sober-minded of his religious works, insists upon our “conceiving -the life beyond according to the analogy of this-life conditions,” and -refers wistfully to “the belief which is found amongst all peoples -and is quite shrunken only among Protestants--that the living can -still do something to aid the dead”; and Prof. Anrich, probably the -greatest contemporary authority on the Hellenic elements incorporated -in Christian doctrine, declares, all definite Protestant though he -is, that “legitimate religious postulates underlie the doctrine of -Purgatory.”[249] And in England that sensitively religious Unitarian, -W. R. Greg, tells us “Purgatory, ranging from a single day to a century -of ages, offers that borderland of discriminating retribution for which -justice and humanity cry out”; and the Positivist, John Stuart Mill, -declares at the end of his life: “All the probabilities in case of a -future life are that such as we have been made or have made ourselves -before the change, such we shall enter into the life hereafter.… To -imagine that a miracle will be wrought at death … making perfect every -one whom it is His will to include among His elect … is utterly opposed -to every presumption that can be adduced from the light of nature.”[250] - - -(2) _Causes of the previous prejudice._ - -Indeed the general principle of ameliorative suffering is so obviously -true and inexhaustibly profound that only many, long-lived abuses -in the practice, and a frequent obscuration in the teaching, of the -doctrine, can explain and excuse the sad neglect, indeed discredit, -into which the very principle and root-doctrine has fallen among -well-nigh one-half of Western Christendom. As to the deplorably -widespread existence, at the time of the Protestant Reformation, of -both these causes, which largely occasioned or strengthened each other, -we have the unimpeachable authority of the Council of Trent itself: for -it orders the Bishops “not to permit that uncertain doctrines, or such -as labour under the presumption of falsity, be propagated and taught,” -and “to prohibit, as so many scandals and stones of stumbling for the -faithful, whatever belongs to a certain curiosity or superstition or -savours of filthy lucre.”[251] The cautious admissions of the strictly -Catholic scholar-theologian, Dr. N. Paulus, and the precise documentary -additions and corrections to Paulus furnished, directly from the -contemporary documents, by the fair-minded Protestant worker at -Reformation History, Prof. T. Brieger, now furnish us, conjointly, with -the most vivid and detailed picture of the sad subtleties and abuses -which gave occasion to that Decree.[252] - - -(3) _Catherine’s purgatorial conceptions avoid those causes. Her -conceptions harbour two currents of thought._ - -It is surely not a small recommendation of Catherine’s mode of -conceiving Purgatory, that it cuts, as we shall see, at the very root -of those abuses. Yet we must first face certain opposite dangers and -ambiguities which are closely intertwined with the group of terms -and images taken over, for the purpose of describing an immanental -Purgation, by her and her great Alexandrian Christian predecessors, -from the Greek Heathen world. And only after the delimitation of the -defect in the suggestions which still so readily operate from out of -these originally Hellenic ideas, can we consider the difficulties and -imperfections peculiar to the other, in modern times the predominant, -element in the complete teaching as to the Middle State, an element -mostly of Jewish and Roman provenance, and aiming at an extrinsically -punitive conception. Both currents can be properly elucidated only if -we first take them historically. - - -1. _Jewish prayers for the dead._ - -It is admitted on all hands that, in the practical form of Prayers for -the Dead, the general doctrine of a Middle State can be traced back, in -Judaism, up to the important passage in the Second Book of Maccabees, -c. ii, vv. 43-45, where Judas Maccabaeus sends about two thousand -drachms of silver to Jerusalem, in order that a Sin-Offering may be -offered up for the Jews fallen in battle against Gorgias, upon whose -bodies heathen amulets had been found. “He did excellently in this … -it is a holy and devout thought. Hence he instituted the Sin-Offering -for the dead, that they might be loosed from their sins.” That battle -occurred in B.C. 166, and this book appears to have been written in -B.C. 124, in Egypt, by a Jew of the school of the Pharisees. - -Now it is difficult not to recognize, in the doctrinal comment upon the -facts here given, rather as yet the opinions of a Judaeo-Alexandrian -circle, which was small even at the time of the composition of the -comment, than the general opinion of Judaism at the date of Judas’s -act. For if this act had been prompted by a clear and generally -accepted conviction as to the resurrection, and the efficacy of prayers -for the dead, the writer would have had no occasion or inclination to -make an induction of his own as to the meaning and worth of that act; -and we should find some indications of such a doctrine and practice in -the voluminous works of Philo and Josephus, some century and a half -later on. But all such indications are wanting in these writers. - -And in the New Testament there is, with regard to helping the dead, -only that curious passage: “If the dead do not arise, what shall they -do who are baptized for the dead?”[253] where St. Paul refers, without -either acceptance or blame, to a contemporary custom among Christian -Proselytes from Paganism, who offered up that bath of initiation for -the benefit of the souls of deceased relatives who had died without any -such purification. Perhaps not till Rabbi Akiba’s time, about 130 A.D., -had prayers for the dead become part of the regular Synagogue ritual. -By 200 A.D. Tertullian speaks of the practice as of an established -usage among the Christian communities: “we make oblations for the Dead, -on their anniversary, every year”; although “if you ask where is the -law concerning this custom in Scripture, you cannot read of any such -there. Tradition will appear before you as its initiator, custom as its -confirmer, and faith as its observer.”[254] - -It is interesting to note how considerably subsequent to the practice -is, in this instance also, its clear doctrinal justification. Indeed -the Jews are, to this hour, extraordinarily deficient in explicit, -harmonious conceptions on the matter. Certainly throughout Prof. W. -Bacher’s five volumes of Sayings of the Jewish Rabbis from 30 B.C. -to 400 A.D., I can only find the following saying, by Jochanan the -Amoraean, who died 279 A.D.: “There are three books before God, in -which men are inscribed according to their merit and their guilt: that -of the perfectly devout, that of the perfect evil-doers, and that of -the middle, the uncertain souls. The devout and the evil-doers receive -their sentence on New Year’s day … the first, unto life; the second, -unto death. As to middle souls, their sentence remains in suspense -till the day of Atonement: if by then they have done penance, they get -written down alongside of the devout; if not, they are written down -alongside of the evil-doers.”[255] - - -2. _Alexandrine Fathers on Purgatory._ - -Yet it is the Platonizing Alexandrian Fathers Clement and Origen, -(they died, respectively, in about 215 and in 254 A.D.), who are the -first, and to this hour the most important, Christian spokesmen for -a state of true intrinsic purgation. We have already deliberately -rejected their Universalism; but this error in no way weakens the -profound truth of their teaching as to the immanental, necessary -inter-connection between suffering and morally imperfect habits, and -as to the ameliorative effects of suffering where, as in Purgatory, it -is willed by a right moral determination. Thus Clement: “As children -at the hands of their teacher or father, so also are we punished by -Providence. God does not avenge Himself, for vengeance is to repay -evil by evil, but His punishment aims at our good.” “Although a -punishment, it is an emendation of the soul.” “The training which -men call punishments.”[256] And Origen: “The fury of God’s vengeance -profits unto the purification of souls; the punishment is unto -purgation.” “These souls receive, in the prison, not the retribution -of their folly, but a benefaction in the purification from the evils -contracted in that folly,--a purification effected by means of salutary -troubles.”[257] - -Now Clement is fully aware of the chief source for his formulation of -these deeply spiritual and Christian instincts and convictions. “Plato -speaks well when he teaches that ‘men who are punished, experience in -truth a benefit: for those who get justly punished, profit through -their souls becoming better.’”[258] But Plato, in contradistinction -from Clement, holds that this applies only to such imperfect souls as -“have sinned curable sins”; he has a Hell as well as a Purgatory: yet -his Purgatory, as Clement’s, truly purges: the souls are there because -they are partially impure, and they cease to be there when they are -completely purified. - -And Plato, in his turn, makes no secret as to whence he got his -suggestions and raw materials, _viz._ the Orphic priesthood and -its literature, which, ever since the sixth century B.C., had been -succeeding to and supplanting the previous Orgiastic Dionysianism.[259] -Plato gives us vivid pictures of their doings in Athens, at the time -of his writing, in about 380 B.C. “Mendicant prophets go to rich men’s -doors, and persuade these men that they have a power committed to them -of making an atonement for their sins, or for those of their fathers, -by sacrifices and incantations … and they persuade whole cities that -expiations and purifications of sin may be made by sacrifices and -amusements which fill a vacant hour, and are equally at the service of -the living and the dead.”[260]--Yet from these men, thus scorned as -well-nigh sheer impostors, Plato takes over certain conceptions and -formulations which contribute one of the profoundest, still unexhausted -elements to his teaching,--although this element is, at bottom, in -conflict with that beautiful but inadequate, quite anti-Orphic, -conception of his--the purely negative character of Evil. For the -Orphic literary remains, fragmentary and late though they be, plainly -teach that moral or ritual transgressions are a defilement of the soul, -an infliction of positive stains upon it; that these single offences -and “spots” produce a generally sinful and “spotted” condition; -and that this condition is amenable to and requires purification by -suffering,--water, or more frequently fire, which wash or burn out -these stains of sin. So Plutarch (who died about 120 A.D.) still -declares that the souls in Hades have stains of different colours -according to the different passions; and the object of the purificatory -punishment is “that, these stains having been worn away, the soul may -become altogether resplendent.” And Virgil, when he declares “the -guilt which infects the soul is washed out or burnt out … until a -long time-span has effaced the clotted stain, and leaves the heavenly -conscience pure”: is utilizing an Orphic-Pythagorean Hades-book.[261] - -This conception of positive stains is carefully taken over by the -Alexandrian Fathers: Clement speaks of “removing, by continuous prayer, -the stains (κηλίδας) contracted through former sins,” and declares -that “the Gnostic,” the perfect Christian, “fears not death, having -purified himself from all the spots (σπίλους) on his soul.” And Origen -describes “the pure soul that is not weighed down by leaden weights of -wickedness,” where the spots have turned to leaden pellets such as were -fastened to fishing-nets. Hence, says Clement, “post-baptismal sins -have to be purified out” of the soul; and, says Origen, “these rivers -of fire are declared to be of God, who causes the evil that is mixed up -with the whole soul to disappear from out of it.”[262] - -In Pseudo-Dionysius the non-Orphic, purely negative, view prevails: -“Evil is neither in demons nor in us as an existent evil, but as a -failure and dearth in the perfection of our own proper goods.” And St. -Thomas similarly declares that “different souls have correspondingly -different stains, like shadows differ in accordance with the difference -of the bodies which interpose themselves between the light.”[263] - -But Catherine, in this inconsistent with her own general -Privation-doctrine, again conceives the stain, the “macchia del -peccato,” as Cardinal Manning has acutely observed, not simply as a -deprivation of the light of glory, but “as the cause, not the effect, -of God’s not shining into the soul”: it includes in it the idea of -an imperfection, weakness with regard to virtue, bad (secondary) -dispositions, and unheavenly tastes.[264] - - -3. _The true and the false in the Orphic conception._ - -Now precisely in this profoundly true conception of Positive Stain -there lurk certain dangers, which all proceed from the original Orphic -diagnosis concerning the source of these stains, and these dangers will -have to be carefully guarded against. - -(1) The conviction as to the purificatory power of fire was no doubt, -originally, the direct consequence from the Orphic belief as to the -intrinsically staining and imprisoning effect of the body upon the -soul. “The soul, as the Orphics say, is enclosed in the body, in -punishment for the punishable acts”; “liberations” from the body, -and “purifications” of the living and the dead, ever, with them, -proceed together. And hence to burn the dead body was considered -to purify the soul that had been stained by that prison-house: the -slain Clytemnestra, says Euripides, “is purified, as to her body, by -fire,” for, as the Scholiast explains, “fire purifies all things, -and burnt bodies are considered holy.”[265] And such an intensely -anti-body attitude we find, not only fully developed later on into a -deliberate anti-Incarnational doctrine, among the Gnostics, but, as we -have already seen, slighter traces of this same tone may be found in -the (doubtless Alexandrian) Book of Wisdom, and in one, not formally -doctrinal passage, a momentary echo of it, in St. Paul himself. -And Catherine’s attitude is generally, and often strongly, in this -direction. - -(2) A careful distinction is evidently necessary here. The doctrine -that sin defiles,--affects the quality of the soul’s moral and -spiritual dispositions, and that this defilement and perversion, ever -occasioned by the search after facile pleasure or the flight from -fruitful pain, can normally be removed and corrected only by a long -discipline of fully accepted, gradually restorative pain, either here, -or hereafter, or both: are profound anticipations, and have been most -rightly made integral parts, of the Christian life and conception. The -doctrine that the body is essentially a mere accident or superaddition -or necessary defilement to the soul, is profoundly untrue, in its -exaggeration and one-sidedness: for if the body is the occasion of -the least spiritual of our sins, it can and should become the chief -servant of the spirit; the slow and difficult training of this servant -is one of the most important means of development for the soul itself; -and many faults and vices are not occasioned by the body at all, whilst -none are directly and necessarily caused by it. Without the body, we -should not have impurity, but neither should we have specifically -human purity of soul; and without it, given the persistence and -activity of the soul, there could be as great, perhaps greater, pride -and _solipsism_, the most anti-Christian of all the vices. Hence if, -in Our Lord’s teaching, we find no trace of a Gnostic desire for -purification from all things bodily as essentially soul-staining, we do -find a profound insistence upon purity of heart, and upon the soul’s -real, active “turning,” conversion, (an interior change from an un- or -anti-moral attitude to an ethical and spiritual dependence upon God), -as a _sine qua non_ condition for entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven. -And the Joannine teachings re-affirm this great truth for us as a -_Metabasis_, a moving from Death over to Life. - - -4. _Catherine’s conceptions as to the character of the stains and of -their purgation._ - -And this idea, as to an intrinsic purgation through suffering of -impurities contracted by the soul, can be kept thoroughly Christian, -if we ever insist, with Catherine in her most emphatic and deepest -teachings, that Purgation can and should be effected in this life, -hence in the body,--in and through all the right uses of the body, -as well as in and through all the legitimate and will-strengthening -abstentions from such uses; that the subject-matter of such purgation -are the habits and inclinations contrary to our best spiritual lights, -and which we have largely ourselves built up by our variously perverse -or slothful acts, but which in no case are directly caused by the body, -and in many cases are not even occasioned by it; and, finally, that -holiness consists primarily, not in the absence of faults, but in the -presence of spiritual force, in Love creative, Love triumphant,--the -soul becoming flame rather than snow, and dwelling upon what to do, -give and be, rather than upon what to shun.--Catherine’s predominant, -ultimate tone possesses this profound positiveness, and corrects all -but entirely whatever, if taken alone, would appear to render the -soul’s substantial purity impossible in this life; to constitute the -body a direct and necessary cause of impurity to the soul; and to find -the ideal of perfection in the negative condition of being free from -stain. In her greatest sayings, and in her actual life, Purity is -found to be Love, and this Love is exercised, not only in the inward, -home-coming, recollective movement,--in the purifying of the soul’s -dispositions, but also in the outgoing, world-visiting, dispersive -movement,--in action towards fellow-souls. - - -5. _Judaeo-Roman conception of Purgatory._ - -And this social side and movement brings us to the second element and -current in the complete doctrine of a Middle State,--a constituent -which possesses affinities and advantages, and produces excesses -and abuses, directly contrary to those proper to the element of an -intrinsic purgation. - -(1) Here we get early Christian utilizations, for purposes of a -doctrine concerning the Intermediate State, of sayings and images which -dwell directly only upon certain extrinsic consequences of evil-doing, -or which, again, describe a future historical and social event,--the -Last Day. For already Origen interprets, in his beautiful _Treatise on -Prayer_, XXIX, 16, Our Lord’s words as to the debtor: “Thou shalt be -cast into prison, thou shalt not come forth from thence, until thou -hast paid the uttermost farthing,” Matt, v, 25, 26, as applying to -Purgatory. And in his _Contra Celsum_, VII, 13, he already takes, as -the Biblical _locus classicus_ for a Purgatory, St. Paul’s words as to -how men build, upon the one foundation Christ, either gold, silver, -gems, or wood, hay, stubble; and how fire will test each man’s work; -and, if the work remain, he shall receive a reward, but if it be burnt, -he shall suffer loss and yet he himself shall be saved yet so as by -fire, 1 Cor. iii, 10-15. It appears certain, however, that St. Paul -is, in this passage, thinking directly of the Last Day, the End of the -World, with its accompaniment of physical fire, and as to how far the -various human beings, then on earth, will be able to endure the dread -stress and testing of that crisis; and he holds that some will be fit -to bear it and some will not. - -Such a destruction of the world by fire appears elsewhere in -Palestinian Jewish literature,--in the Book of Enoch and the Testament -of Levi; and in the New Testament, in 2 Peter iii, 12: “The heavens -being on fire shall be dissolved, the elements shall melt with fervent -heat.” Josephus, _Antiquities_, XI, ii, 3, teaches a destruction by -fire and another by water. And the Stoics, to whom also Clement and -Origen appeal, had gradually modified their first doctrine of a simply -cosmological Ekpyrōsis, a renovation of the physical universe by fire, -into a moral purification of the earth, occasioned by, and applied -to, the sinfulness of man. Thus Seneca has the double, water-and-fire, -instrument: “At that time the tide” of the sea “will be borne along -free from all measure, for the same reason which will cause the future -conflagration. Both occur when it seems fit to God to initiate a better -order of things and to have done with the old.… The judgment of mankind -being concluded, the primitive order of things will be recalled, and to -the earth will be re-given man innocent of crimes.”[266] - -(2) It is interesting to note how--largely under the influence of the -forensic temper and growth of the Canonical Penitential system, and -of its successive relaxations in the form of substituted lighter good -works, Indulgences,--the Latin half of Christendom, ever more social -and immediately practical than the Greek portion, came, in general, -more and more to dwell upon two ideas suggested to their minds by -those two, Gospel and Pauline, passages. The one idea was that souls -which, whilst fundamentally well-disposed, are not fit for Heaven at -the body’s death, can receive instant purification by the momentary -fire of the Particular Judgment; and the other held that, thus already -entirely purified and interiorly fit for Heaven, they are but detained -(in what we ought, properly, to term a _Satisfactorium_), to suffer -the now completely non-ameliorative, simply vindictive, infliction of -punishment,--a punishment still, in strict justice, due to them for -past sins, of which the guilt and the deteriorating effects upon their -own souls have been fully remitted and cured. - -In this way it was felt that the complete unchangeableness of the -condition of every kind of soul after death, or at least after the -Particular Judgment (a Judgment held practically to synchronize with -death), was assured. And indeed how could there be any interior growth -in Purgatory, seeing that there is no meriting there? Again it was -thought that thus the vision of God at the moment of Judgment was given -an operative value for the spiritual amelioration of souls which, -already in substantially good dispositions, could hardly be held to -pass through so profound an experience without intrinsic improvement, -as the other view seemed to hold.--And, above all, this form of the -doctrine was found greatly to favour the multiplication among the -people of prayers, Masses and good-works for the dead; since the _modus -operandi_ of such acts seemed thus to become entirely clear, simple, -immediate, and, as it were, measurable and mechanical. For these souls -in their “Satisfactorium,” being, from its very beginning, already -completely purged and fit for Heaven,--God is, as it were, free to -relax at any instant, in favour of sufficiently fervent or numerous -intercessions, the exigencies of his entirely extrinsic justice. - -(3) The position of a purely extrinsic punishment is emphasized, with -even unusual vehemence, in the theological glosses inserted, in about -1512 to 1529, in Catherine’s _Dicchiarazione_. Yet it is probably -the very influential Jesuit theologian Francesco Suarez, who died -in 1617, who has done most towards formulating and theologically -popularizing this view. All the guilt of sin, he teaches, is remitted -(in these Middle souls) at the first moment of the soul’s separation -from the body, by means of a single act of contrition, whereby the -will is wholly converted to God, and turned away from every venial -sin. “And in this way sin may be remitted, as to its guilt, in -Purgatory, because the soul’s purification dates from this moment”;--in -strictness, from before the first moment of what should be here termed -the “Satisfactorium.” As to bad habits and vicious inclinations, -“we ought not to imagine that the soul is detained for these”: but -“they are either taken away at the moment of death, or expelled by an -infusion of the contrary virtues when the soul enters into glory.”[267] -This highly artificial, inorganic view is adopted, amongst other -of our contemporary theologians, by Atzberger, the continuator of -Scheeben.[268] - - -6. _The Judaeo-Roman conception must be taken in synthesis with the -Alexandrine._ - -Now it is plain that the long-enduring Penitential system of the Latin -Church, and the doctrine and practice of Indulgences stand for certain -important truths liable to being insufficiently emphasized by the Greek -teachings concerning an intrinsically ameliorative _Purgatorium_, and -that there can be no question of simply eliminating these truths. -But neither are they capable of simple co-ordination with, still -less of super-ordination to, those most profound and spiritually -central immanental positions. As between the primarily forensic and -governmental, and the directly ethical and spiritual, it will be the -former that will have to be conceived and practised as, somehow, an -expression and amplification of, and a practical corrective and means -to, the latter.[269] - -(1) The ordinary, indeed the strictly obligatory, Church teaching -clearly marks the suggested relation as the right one, at three, simply -cardinal points. We are bound, by the Confession of Faith of Michael -Palaeologus, 1267 A.D., and by the Decree of the Council of Florence, -1429 A.D., to hold that these Middle souls “are purged after death by -purgatorial or cathartic pains”; and by that of Trent “that there is -a Purgatory.”[270] Yet we have here a true _lucus a non lucendo_, if -this place or state does not involve purgation: for no theologian dares -explicitly to transfer and restrict the name “Purgatory” to the instant -of the soul’s Particular Judgment; even Suarez, as we have seen, has to -extend the name somehow. - -Next we are bound, by the same three great Decrees, to hold indeed that -“the Masses, Prayers, Alms, and other pious offices of the Faithful -Living are profitable towards the relief of these pains,” yet this by -mode of “suffrage,” since, as the severely orthodox Jesuit, Father H. -Hurter, explains in his standard _Theologiae Dogmaticae Compendium_, -“the fruit of this impetration and satisfaction is not infallible, for -it depends upon the merciful acceptance of God.”[271] Hence in no case -can we, short of superstition, conceive such good works as operating -automatically: so that the _a priori_ simplest view concerning the -mode of operation of these prayers is declared to be mistaken. We can -and ought, then, to choose among the conceptions, not in proportion to -their mechanical simplicity, but according to their spiritual richness -and to their analogy with our deepest this-life experiences. - -And we are all bound, by the Decree of Trent and the Condemnation of -Baius, 1567 A.D., to hold that Contrition springing from Perfect Love -reconciles man with God, even before Confession, and this also outside -of cases of necessity or of martyrdom.[272] Indeed, it is the common -doctrine that one single act of Pure Love abolishes, not only Hell, -but Purgatory, so that, if the soul were to die whilst that act was -in operation, it would forthwith be in Heaven. If then, in case of -perfect purity, the soul is at once in heaven, the soul cannot be quite -pure and yet continue in Purgatory. - -(2) It is thus plain that, as regards Sin in its relation to the -Sinner, there are, in strictness, ever three points to consider: the -guilty act, the reflex effect of the act upon the disposition the -agent, and the punishment; for all theologians admit that the more or -less bad disposition, contracted through the sinful act, remains in -the soul, except in the case of Perfect Contrition, after the guilt -of the act has been remitted. But whilst the holders of an Extrinsic, -Vindictive Purgatory, work for a punishment as independent as possible -of these moral effects of sin still present in the pardoned soul, the -advocates of an Intrinsic, Ameliorative Purgatory find the punishment -centre in the pain and difficulty attendant upon “getting slowly -back to fully virtuous dispositions, through retracing the steps we -have taken in departing from it.”[273] And the system of Indulgences -appears, in this latter view, to find its chief justification in that -it keeps up a link with the past Penitential system of the Church; that -it vividly recalls and applies the profound truth of the interaction, -for good even more than for evil, between all human souls, alive and -dead; and that it insists upon the readily forgotten truth of even the -forgiven sinner, the man with the good determination, having ordinarily -still much to do and to suffer before he is quit of the effects of his -sin. - -(3) And the difficulties and motives special to those who supplant -the Intrinsic, Ameliorating Purgatory by an Extrinsic, Vindicative -_Satisfactorium_, can indeed be met by those who would preserve that -beautifully dynamic, ethical, and spiritual conception. For we can -hold that the fundamental condition,--the particular determination -of the active will,--remains quite unchanged, from Death to Heaven, -in these souls; that this determination of the active will requires -more or less of time and suffering fully to permeate and assimilate to -itself all the semi-voluntary wishes and habits of the soul; and that -this permeation takes place among conditions in which the soul’s acts -are too little resisted and too certain of success to be constituted -meritorious. We can take Catherine’s beautiful Plunge-conception as -indicating the kind of operation effected in and by the soul, at and -through the momentary vision of God. And we can feel convinced that -it is ever, in the long run, profoundly dangerous to try to clarify -and simplify doctrines beyond or against the scope and direction of -the analogies of Nature and of Grace, which are ever so dynamic and -organic in type: for the poor and simple, as truly as the rich and -learned, ever require, not to be merely taken and left as they are, but -to be raised and trained to the most adequate conceptions possible to -each.--It is, in any case, very certain that the marked and widespread -movement of return to belief in a Middle State is distinctly towards a -truly Purgative Purgatory, although few of these sincere truth-seekers -are aware, as is Dr. Anrich, that they are groping after a doctrine -all but quite explained away by a large body of late Scholastic and -Neo-Scholastic theologians.[274] - -(4) Yet it is very satisfactory to note how numerous, and especially -how important are, after all is said, the theologians who have -continued to walk, in this matter, in the footsteps of the great -Alexandrines. St. Gregory of Nyssa teaches a healing of the soul in the -beyond and a purification by fire.[275] St. Augustine says that “fire -burns up the work of him who thinketh of the things of this world, -since possessions, that are loved, do not perish without pain on the -part of their possessor. It is not incredible that something of this -sort takes place after this life.”[276] - -St. Thomas declares most plainly: “Venial guilt, in a soul which -dies in a state of grace, is remitted after this life by the purging -fire, because that pain, which is in some manner accepted by the -will, has, in virtue of grace, the power of expiating all such guilt -as can co-exist with a state of grace.” “After this life … there can -be merit with respect to some accidental reward, so long as a man -remains in some manner in a state of probation: and hence there can be -meritorious acts in Purgatory, with respect to the remission of venial -sin.”[277]--Dante (_d._ 1321) also appears, as Father Faber finely -notes, to hold such a voluntary, immanental Purgatory, where the poet -sees an Angel impelling, across the sea at dawn, a bark filled with -souls bent for Purgatory: for the boat is described as driving towards -the shore so lightly as to draw no wake upon the water.[278] - -Cardinal Bellarmine, perhaps the greatest of all anti-Protestant -theologians (_d._ 1621) teaches that “venial sin is remitted in -Purgatory _quoad culpam_,” and that “this guilt, as St. Thomas rightly -insists, is remitted in Purgatory by an act of love and patient -endurance.”[279] St. Francis of Sales, that high ascetical authority -(_d._ 1622), declares: “By Purgatory we understand a place where souls -undergo purgation, for a while, from the stains and imperfections which -they have carried away with them from this mortal life.”[280] - -And recently and in England we have had Father Faber, Cardinal Manning, -and Cardinal Newman, although differing from each other on many other -points, fully united in holding and propagating this finely life-like, -purgative conception of purgatory.[281] - - -7. _A final difficulty._ - -One final point concerning a Middle State. In the Synoptic tradition -there is a recurrent insistence upon the forgiveness of particular -sins, at particular moments, by particular human and divine acts of -contrition and pardon. In the Purgatorial teaching the stress lies -upon entire states and habits, stains and perversities of soul, and -upon God’s general grace working, in and through immanently necessary, -freely accepted sufferings, on to a slow purification of the complete -personality. As Origen says: “The soul’s single acts, good or bad, go -by; but, according to their quality, they give form and figure to to -the mind of the agent, and leave it either good or bad, and destined -for pains or for rewards.”[282] - -The antagonism here is but apparent. For the fact that a certain -condition of soul precedes, and that another condition succeed, each -act of the same soul, in proportion as this act is full and deliberate, -does not prevent the corresponding, complimentary fact that such acts -take the preceding condition as their occasion, and make the succeeding -condition into a further expression of themselves. Single acts which -fully express the character, whether good or bad, are doubtless rarer -than is mostly thought. Yet Catherine, in union with the Gospels and -the Church, is deeply convinced of the power of one single act of Pure -Love to abolish, not of course the effects outward, but the reflex -spiritual consequences upon the soul itself, of sinful acts or states. - -Catherine’s picture again, of the deliberate Plunge into Purgatory, -gives us a similar heroic act which, summing up the whole soul’s active -volitions, initiates and encloses the whole subsequent purification, -but which itself involves a prevenient act of Divine Love and mercy, to -which this act of human love is but the return and response. Indeed, -as we know, this plunge-conception was but the direct projection, -on to the other-world-picture, of her own personal experience at -her conversion, when a short span of clock-time held acts of love -received and acts of love returned, which transformed all her previous -condition, and initiated a whole series of states ever more expressive -of her truest self.--Act and state and state and act, each presupposes -and requires the other: and both are present in the Synoptic pictures, -and both are operative in the Purgatorial teaching; although in the -former the accounts are so brief as to make states and acts alike look -as though one single act; and, in the latter, the descriptions are so -large as to make the single acts almost disappear behind the states. - - -V. CATHERINE AND HEAVEN--THREE PERPLEXITIES TO BE CONSIDERED. - -We have found a truly Purgational Middle state, with its sense of -succession, its mixture of joy and suffering, and its growth and -fruitfulness, to be profoundly consonant with all our deepest spiritual -experiences and requirements. But what about Heaven, which we must, -apparently, hold to consist of a sense of simultaneity, a condition -of mere reproductiveness and utterly uneventful finality, and a state -of unmixed, unchanging joy?--Here again, even if in a lesser degree, -certain experiences of the human soul can help us to a few general -positions of great spiritual fruitfulness, which can reasonably -claim an analogical applicability to the Beyond, and which, thus -taken as our ultimate ideals, cannot fail to stimulate the growth of -our personality, and, with it, of further insight into these great -realities. I shall here consider three main questions, which will -roughly correspond to the three perplexities just indicated. - - -1. _Time and Heaven._ - -Our first question, then, is as to the probable character of man’s -happiest ultimate consciousness,--whether it is one of succession or -of simultaneity: in other words, whether, besides the disappearance of -the category of space (a point already discussed), there is likely to -be the lapse of the category of time also.--And let it be noted that -the retention of the latter sense for Hell, and even for Purgatory, -does not prejudge the question as to its presence or absence in Heaven, -since those two states are admittedly non-normative, whereas the latter -represents the very ideal and measure of man’s full destination and -perfection. - -(1) Now it is still usual, amongst those who abandon the ultimacy -of the space-category, simultaneously to drop, as necessarily -concomitant, the time-category also. Tennyson, among the poets, does -so, in his beautiful “Crossing the Bar”: “From out our bourne of Time -and Place, the flood may bear me far”; and Prof. H. J. Holtzmann, -among speculative theologians, in criticising Rothe’s conception of -man as a quite ultimately spacial-temporal being, treats these two -questions as standing and falling together.[283]--Yet a careful study -of Kant’s critique of the two categories of Space and Time suffices -to convince us of the indefinitely richer content, and more ultimate -reality, of the latter. Indeed, I shall attempt to show more fully in -the next Chapter, with the aid of M. Henri Bergson, that mathematical, -uniform clock-time is indeed an artificial compound, which is made up -of our profound experience of a duration in which the constituents -(sensations, imaginations, thoughts, feelings, willings) of the -succession ever, in varying degrees, overlap, interpenetrate, and -modify each other, and the quite automatic and necessary simplification -and misrepresentation of this experience by its imaginary projection on -to space,--its restatement, by our picturing faculty, as a perfectly -equable succession of mutually exclusive moments. It is in that -interpenetrative duration, not in this atomistic clock-time, that our -deeper human experiences take place. - -(2) But that sense of duration, is it indeed our deepest apprehension? -Dr. Holtzmann points out finely how that we are well aware, in our -profoundest experiences, of “that permanently incomprehensible -fact,--the existence of, as it were, a prism, through which the -unitary ray of light, which fills our consciousness with a real -content, is spread out into a colour-spectrum, so that what, in itself, -exists in pure unitedness” and simultaneity, “becomes intelligible to -us only as a juxtaposition in space and a succession in time. Beyond -the prism, there are no such two things.” And he shows how keenly -conscious we are, at times, of that deepest mode of apprehension and -of being which is a Simultaneity, an eternal Here and Now; and how -ruinous to our spiritual life would be a full triumph of the category -of time.[284] - -But it is St. Augustine who has, so far, found the noblest expression -for the deepest human experiences in this whole matter of Duration and -Simultaneity, as against mere Clock-Time, although, here as with regard -to Space, he is deeply indebted to Plotinus. “In thee, O my soul, I -measure time,--I measure the impression which passing events make -upon thee, who remainest when those events have passed: this present -impression then, and not those events which had to pass in order to -produce it, do I measure, when I measure time.” “The three times,” -tenses, “past, present, and future … are certain three affections in -the soul, I find them there and nowhere else. There is the present -memory of past events, the present perception of present ones, and the -present expectation of future ones.” God possesses “the splendour of -ever-tarrying Eternity,” which is “incomparable with never-tarrying -times,” since in it “nothing passes, but the content of everything -abides simply present.” And in the next life “perhaps our own thoughts -also will not be flowing, going from one thing to another, but we shall -see all we know simultaneously, in one intuition.” St. Thomas indeed is -more positive: “All things will,” in Heaven, “be seen simultaneously -and not successively.”[285] - -(3) If then, even here below, we can so clearly demonstrate the -conventionality of mere Clock-Time, and can even conceive a perfect -Simultaneity as the sole form of the consciousness of God, we cannot -well avoid holding that, in the other life, the clock-time convention -will completely cease, and that, though the sense of Duration is -not likely completely to disappear, (since, in this life at least, -this sense is certainly not merely phenomenal for man, and its -entire absence would apparently make man into God), the category of -Simultaneity will, as a sort of strong background-consciousness, -englobe and profoundly unify the sense of Duration. And, the more -God-like the soul, the more would this sense of Simultaneity -predominate over the sense of Duration. - - -2. _The Ultimate Good, concrete, not abstract._ - -Our second question concerns the kind and degree of variety in unity -which we should conceive to characterize the life of God, and of the -soul in its God-likeness. Is this type and measure of all life to be -conceived as a maximum of abstraction or as a maximum of concretion; -as pure thought alone, or as also emotion and will; as solitary and -self-centred, or as social and outgoing; and as simply reproductive, or -also as operative? - -(1) Now it is certain that nothing is easier, and nothing has been -more common, than to take the limitations of our earthly conditions, -and especially those attendant upon the strictly contemplative, and, -still more, those connected with the technically ecstatic states, as so -many advantages, or even as furnishing a complete scheme of the soul’s -ultimate life. - -As we have already repeatedly seen in less final matters, so here once -more, at the end, we can trace the sad impoverishment to the spiritual -outlook produced by the esteem in which the antique world generally -held the psycho-physical peculiarities of trances, as directly -valuable or even as prophetic of the soul’s ultimate condition; the -contraposition and exaltation, already on the part of Plato and -Aristotle, of a supposed non-actively contemplative, above a supposed -non-contemplatively active life; the largely excessive, not fully -Christianizable, doctrines of the Neo-Platonists as to the Negative, -Abstractive way, when taken as self-sufficient, and as to Quiet, -Passivity, and Emptiness of Soul, when understood literally; and the -conception, rarely far away from the ancient thinkers, of the soul as a -substance which, full-grown, fixed and stainless at the first, requires -but to be kept free from stain up to the end. - -And yet the diminution of vitality in the trance, and even the -inattention to more than one thing at a time in Contemplation, are, -in themselves, defects, at best the price paid for certain gains; the -active and the contemplative life are, ultimately, but two mutually -complementary sides of life, so that no life ever quite succeeds in -eliminating either element, and life, _caeteris paribus_, is complete -and perfect, in proportion as it embraces both elements, each at -its fullest, and the two in a perfect interaction; the Negative, -Abstractive way peremptorily requires also the other, the Affirmative, -Concrete way; the Quiet, Passivity, Emptiness are really, when -wholesome, an incubation for, or a rest from, Action, indeed they are -themselves a profound action and peace, and the soul is primarily a -Force and an Energy, and Holiness is a growth of that Energy in Love, -in full Being, and in creative, spiritual Personality. - -(2) Now on this whole matter the European Christian Mystics, strongly -influenced by, yet also largely developing, certain doctrines of the -Greeks, have, I think, made two most profound contributions to the -truths of the spirit, and have seriously fallen short of reality in -three respects. - -The first contribution can, indeed, be credited to Aristotle, whose -luminous formulations concerning Energeia, Action, (as excluding -Motion, or Activity), we have already referred to. Here to _be_ is -to _act_, and Energeia, a being’s perfect functioning and fullest -self-expression in action, is not some kind of movement or process; -but, on the contrary, all movement and process is only an imperfect -kind of Energeia. Man, in his life here, only catches brief glimpses of -such an Action; but God is not so hampered,--He is ever completely all -that He can be, His Action is kept up inexhaustibly and ever generates -supreme bliss; it is an unchanging, unmoving Energeia.[286]--And St. -Thomas echoes this great doctrine, for all the Christian schoolmen: “A -thing is declared to be perfect, in proportion as it is in act,”--as -all its potentialities are expressed in action; and hence “the First -Principle must be supremely in act,” “God’s Actuality is identical with -His Potentiality,” “God is Pure Action (_Actus Purus_).”[287]--Yet it -is doubtless the Christian Mystics who have most fully experienced, and -emotionally vivified, this great truth, and who cease not, in all their -more characteristic teachings, from insisting upon the ever-increasing -acquisition of “Action,” the fully fruitful, peaceful functioning of -the whole soul, at the expense of “activity,” the restless, sterile -distraction and internecine conflict of its powers. And Heaven, for -them, ever consists in an unbroken Action, devoid of all “activity,” -rendering the soul, in its degree, like to that Purest Action, God, -who, Himself “Life,” is, as our Lord declared, “not the God of the dead -but of the living.”[288] - -And the second contribution can, in part, be traced back to Plato, -who does not weary, in the great middle period of his writings, from -insisting upon the greatness of the nobler passions, and who already -apprehends a Heavenly Eros which in part conflicts with, in part -transcends, the Earthly one. But here especially it is Christianity, -and in particular Christian Mysticism, which have fully experienced -and proclaimed that “God” is “Love,” and that the greatest of all the -soul’s acts and virtues is Charity, Pure Love. And hence the Pure -Act of God, and the Action of the God-like soul, are conceived not, -Aristotle-like, as acts of pure intelligence alone, but as tinged -through and through with a noble emotion. - -(3) But in three matters the Mystics, as such and as a whole, have, -here especially under the predominant influence of Greek thought, -remained inadequate to the great spiritual realities, as most fully -revealed to us by Christianity. The three points are so closely -interconnected that it will be best first to illustrate, and then to -criticise them, together. - -(i) Aristotle here introduces the mischief. For it is he who in his -great, simply immeasurably influential, theological tractate, Chapters -VI to X of the Twelfth Book of his _Metaphysic_, has presented to us -God as “the one first unmoved Mover” of the Universe, but Who moves it -as desired by it, not as desiring it, as outside of it, not as also -inside it. God here is sheer Pure Thought, Noēsis, for “contemplation -is the most joyful and the best” of actions. And “Thought” here -“thinks the divinest and worthiest, without change,” hence “It thinks -Itself, and the Thinking is a Thinking of Thought.”[289] We have here, -as Dr. Caird strikingly puts it, a God necessarily shut up within -Himself, “of purer eyes than to behold, not only iniquity but even -contingency and finitude, and His whole activity is one act of pure -self-contemplation.” “The ideal activity which connects God with the -world, appears thus as in the world and not in God.”[290] - -(ii) Now we have already allowed that the Mystics avoid Aristotle’s -elimination of emotion from man’s deepest action, and of emotion’s -equivalent from the life of God. But they are, for the most part, much -influenced in their speculations by this intensely Greek, aristocratic, -intellectualist conception, in the three points of a disdain of the -Contingent and Historical; of a superiority to volitional, productive -energizing; and of a presentation of God as unsocial, and as occupied -directly with Himself alone. We have already studied numerous examples -of the first two, deeply un-Christian, errors as they have more or -less influenced Christian Mysticism; the third mistake, of a purely -Transcendental, Deistic God, is indeed never consistently maintained -by any Christian, and Catherine, in particular, is ever dominated by -the contrary great doctrine, adumbrated by Plato and fully revealed by -Our Lord, of the impulse to give Itself intrinsic to Goodness, so that -God, as Supreme Goodness, becomes the Supreme Self-giver, and thus the -direct example and motive for our own self-donation to Him. Yet even -so deeply religious a non-Christian as Plotinus, and such speculative -thinkers as Eriugena and Eckhart (who certainly intended to remain -Christians) continue all three mistakes, and especially insist upon a -Supreme Being, Whose true centre, His Godhead, is out of all relation -to anything but Himself. And even the orthodox Scholastics, and St. -Thomas himself, attempt at times to combine, with the noblest Platonic -and the deepest Christian teachings, certain elements, which, in -strictness, have no place in an Incarnational Religion. - -(iii) For, at times, the fullest, deepest Action is still not -conceived, even by St. Thomas, as a Harmony, an Organization of all -Man’s essential powers, the more the better. “In the active life, -which is occupied with many things, there is less of beatitude than -in the contemplative life, which is busy with one thing alone,--the -contemplation of Truth”; “beatitude must consist essentially in the -action of the intellect; and only accidentally in the action of the -will.”[291] God is still primarily intelligence: “God’s intelligence -is His substance”; whereas “volition must be in God, since there is -intelligence in Him,” and “Love must of necessity be declared to be -in God, since there is volition in Him.”[292] God is still, in a -certain sense, shut up in Himself: “As He understands things other -than Himself, by understanding His own essence, so He wills things -other than Himself, by willing His own goodness.” “God enjoys not -anything beside Himself, but enjoys Himself alone.”[293]--And we get, -in correspondence to this absorption of God in Himself, an absorption -of man in God, of so direct and exclusive a kind, as, if pressed, to -eliminate all serious, permanent value, for our soul, in God’s actual -creation of our fellow-creatures. “He who knoweth Thee and creatures, -is not, on this account, happier than if he knows them not; but he is -happy because of Thee alone.” And “the perfection of Love is essential -to beatitude, with respect to the Love of God, not with respect to -the Love of one’s neighbour. If there were but one soul alone to -enjoy God, it would be blessèd, even though it were without a single -fellow-creature whom it could love.”[294] - -(iv) And yet St. Thomas’s own deeply Christian sense, explicit sayings -of Our Lord or of St. Paul, and even, in part, certain of the fuller -apprehensions of the Greeks, can make the great Dominican again -uncertain, or can bring him to entirely satisfactory declarations, -on each of these points. For we get the declaration that direct -knowledge of individual things, and quasi-creative operativeness are -essential to all true perfection. “To understand something merely -in general and not in particular, is to know it imperfectly”; Our -Lord Himself has taught us that “the very hairs of your head are all -numbered”; hence God must “know all other individual things with -a distinct and proper knowledge.”--And “a thing is most perfect, -when it can make another like unto itself. But by tending to its -own perfection, each thing tends to become more and more like God. -Hence everything tends to be like God, in so far as it tends to be -the cause of other things.”[295]--We get a full insistence, with St. -Paul, (in I Cor. xiii), upon our love of God, an act of the will, -as nobler than our cognition of Him; and with Plato and St. John, -upon God’s forthgoing Love for His creatures, as the very crown and -measure of His perfection. “Everything in nature has, as regards its -own good, a certain inclination to diffuse itself amongst others, as -far as possible. And this applies, in a supreme degree, to the Divine -Goodness, from which all perfection is derived.” “Love, Joy, Delight -can be predicated of God”; Love which, of its very essence “causes -the lover to bear himself to the beloved as to his own self”: so that -we must say with Dionysius that “He, the very Cause of all things, -becomes ecstatic, moves out of Himself, by the abundance of His loving -goodness, in the providence exercised by Him towards all things -extant.”[296] - -(v) And we get in St. Thomas, when he is too much dominated by the -abstractive trend, a most interesting, because logically necessitated -and quite unconscious, collision with certain sayings of Our Lord. For -he then explains Matt. xviii, 10, “their,” the children’s, “Angels -see without ceasing the face of their Father who is in Heaven” as -teaching that “the action (_operatio_), by which Angels are conjoined -to the increate Good, is, in them, unique and sempiternal”; whereas his -commentators are driven to admit that the text, contrariwise, implies -that these Angels have two simultaneous “operations,” and that their -succouring action in nowise disturbs their intellectual contemplation. -Hence, even if we press Matt. xxii, 30, that we “shall be as the Angels -of God,” we still have an organism of peaceful Action, composed of -intellectual, affective, volitional, productive acts operating between -the soul and God, and the soul and other souls, each constituent and -object working and attained in and through all the others. - -(vi) Indeed all Our Lord’s Synoptic teachings, as to man’s ultimate -standard and destiny, belong to this God-in-man and man-in-God type -of doctrine: for there the two great commandments are strictly -inseparable; God’s interest in the world is direct and detailed,--it -is part of His supreme greatness that He cares for every sparrow that -falls to the ground; and man, in the Kingdom of God, will sit down -at a banquet, the unmistakable type of social joys.--And even the -Apocalypse, which has, upon the whole, helped on so much the conception -of an exclusive, unproductive entrancement of each soul singly in -God alone, shows the deepest emotion when picturing all the souls, -from countless tribes and nations, standing before the throne,--an -emotion which can, surely, not be taken as foreign to those souls -themselves.[297] But, indeed, Our Lord’s whole life and message become -unintelligible, and the Church loses its deepest roots, unless the -Kingdom of God is, for us human souls, as truly a part of our ultimate -destiny as is God Himself, that God who fully reveals to us His own -deepest nature as the Good Shepherd, the lover of each single sheep and -of the flock as a whole.[298] - -(4) We shall, then, do well to hold that the soul’s ultimate beatitude -will consist in its own greatest possible self-realization in its -God-likeness,--an Action free from all Activity, but full of a knowing, -feeling, willing, receiving, giving, effectuating, all which will -energize between God and the soul, and the soul and other souls,--each -force and element functioning in its proper place, but each stimulated -to its fullest expansion, and hence to its deepest delight, by the -corresponding vitalization of the other powers and ends, and of other -similar centres of rich action. - - -3. _The pain-element of Bliss._ - -And our third, last question is whether our deepest this-life -apprehensions and experiences give us any reason for holding that a -certain equivalent for what is noblest in devoted suffering, heroic -self-oblivion, patient persistence in lonely willing, will be present -in the life of the Blessed. It would certainly be a gain could we -discover such an equivalent, for a pure glut of happiness, an unbroken -state of sheer enjoyment, can as little be made attractive to our most -spiritual requirements, as the ideal of an action containing an element -of, or equivalent for, devoted and fruitful effort and renunciation can -lose its perennial fascination for what is most Christian within us. - -(1) It is not difficult, I take it, to find such an element, which we -cannot think away from any future condition of the soul without making -that soul into God Himself. The ultimate cause of this element shall -be considered, as Personality, in our next Chapter: here I can but -indicate this element at work in our relations to our fellow-men and -to God.--Already St. Thomas, throughout one current of his teaching, -is full of the dignity of right individuality. “The Multitude and -Diversity of natures in the Universe proceed directly from the -intention of God, who brought them into being, in order to communicate -His goodness to them, and to have It represented by them. And since -It could not be sufficiently represented by one creature alone, He -produced many and diverse ones, so that what is wanting to the one -towards this office, should be supplied by the other.”[299] Hence the -multiplication of the Angels, who differ specifically each from all -the rest, adds more of nobility and perfection to the Universe, than -does the multiplication of men, who differ only individually.[300] And -Cardinal Nicolas of Coes writes, in 1457 A.D., “Every man is, as it -were, a separate species, because of his perfectibility.”[301] As Prof. -Josiah Royce tells us in 1901, “What is real, is not only a content of -experience and the embodiment of a type; but an individual content of -experience, and the unique embodiment of a type.”[302] - -(2) Now in the future beatitude, where the full development of this -uniqueness in personality cannot, as so often here, be stunted or -misapplied, all this will evidently reach its zenith. But, if so, -then it follows that, although one of the two greatest of the joys of -those souls will be their love and understanding of each other,--this -love and trust, given as it will be to the other souls, in their full, -unique personality, will, of necessity, exceed the comprehension of -the giving personalities. Hence there will still be an equivalent for -that trust and venture, that creative faith in the love and devotion -given by us to our fellows, and found by us in them, which are, here -below, the noblest concomitants and conditions of the pain and the -cost and the joy in every virile love and self-dedication.--There -is then an element of truth in Lessing’s words of 1773: “The human -soul is incapable of even one unmixed emotion,--one that, down to its -minutest constituent, would be nothing but pleasurable or nothing but -painful: let alone of a condition in which it would experience nothing -but such unmixed emotions.”--For, as Prof. Troeltsch says finely in -1903, “Everything historical retains, in spite of all its relation to -absolute values, something of irrationality,”--of impenetrableness to -finite minds, “and of individuality. Indeed just this mixture is the -special characteristic of the lot and dignity of man; nor is a Beyond -for him conceivable in which it would altogether cease. Doubt and -unrest can indeed give way to clear sight and certitude: yet this very -clarity and assurance will, in each human soul, still bear a certain -individual character,” fully comprehensible to the other souls by love -land trust alone.[303] - -(3) And this same element we find, of course, in a still greater -degree,--although, as I shall argue later on, our experimental -knowledge of God is greater than is our knowledge of our -fellow-creatures,--in the relations between our love of God and our -knowledge of Him. St. Thomas tells us most solidly: “Individual -Being applies to God, in so far as it implies Incommunicableness.” -Indeed, “_Person_ signifies the most perfect thing in nature,”--“the -subsistence of an individual in a rational nature.” “And since the -dignity of the divine nature exceeds every other dignity, this name -of Person is applicable, in a supreme degree, to God.” And again: -“God, as infinite, cannot be held infinitely by anything finite “; -and hence “only in the sense in which comprehension is opposed to -a seeking after Him, is God comprehended, _i.e._ possessed, by the -Blessed.” And hence the texts: “I follow, if that I may apprehend, -seeing that I also am apprehended” (Phil. iii, 12); “then shall I -know even as I am known” (1 Cor. xiii, 12); and “we shall see Him as -He is” (1 John iii, 2): all refer to such a possession of God. In the -last text “the adverb ‘as’ only signifies ‘we shall see His essence’ -and not ‘we shall have as perfect a mode of vision as God has a mode -of being.’”[304]--Here again, then, we find that souls loving God in -His Infinite Individuality, will necessarily love Him beyond their -intellectual comprehension of Him; the element of devoted trust, of -free self-donation to One fully known only through and in such an act, -will thus remain to man for ever. St. John of the Cross proclaimed this -great truth: “One of the greatest favours of God, bestowed transiently -upon the soul in this life, is its ability to see so distinctly, and -to feel so profoundly, that … it cannot comprehend Him at all. These -souls are herein, in some degree, like to the souls in heaven, where -they who know Him most perfectly perceive most clearly that He is -infinitely incomprehensible; for those that have the less clear vision, -do not perceive so distinctly as the others how greatly He transcends -their vision.”[305] With this teaching, so consonant with Catherine’s -experimental method, and her continuous trust in the persistence of the -deepest relations of the soul to God, of the self-identical soul to the -unchanging God, we can conclude this study of her Eschatology. - - - - -CHAPTER XIII - -THE FIRST THREE ULTIMATE QUESTIONS. THE RELATIONS BETWEEN MORALITY, -MYSTICISM, PHILOSOPHY, AND RELIGION. MYSTICISM AND THE LIMITS OF HUMAN -EXPERIENCE AND KNOWLEDGE. MYSTICISM AND THE NATURE OF EVIL - - -I take the ultimate questions involved in the religious positions -which are taken up by Catherine, and indeed by the Christian Mystics -generally, and which we have studied in the preceding two chapters, -to be four. In the order of their increasing difficulty they are: the -question as to the relations between Morality, Mysticism, Philosophy, -and Religion; that as to the Limits of Human Knowledge, and as to the -special character and worth of the Mystics’ claim to Trans-subjective -Cognition; that as to the Nature of Evil and the Goodness or Badness -of Human Nature; and that as to Personality,--the character of, and -the relations between, the human spirit and the Divine Spirit. The -consideration of these deepest matters in the next two chapters will, I -hope, in spite of its inevitable element of dimness and of repetition, -do much towards binding together and clarifying the convictions which -we have been slowly acquiring,--ever, in part, with a reference to -these coming ultimate alternatives and choices. - - -I. THE RELATIONS BETWEEN MORALITY AND MYSTICISM PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. - -Now the first of these questions has not, for most of the more -strenuous of our educated contemporaries, become, so far again, a -living question at all. A morally good and pure, a socially useful and -active life,--all this in the sense and with the range attributed to -these terms by ordinary parlance: this and this alone is, for doubtless -the predominant public present-day consciousness, the true object, -end, and measure of all healthy religion; whatever is alongside of, -or beyond, or other than, or anything but a direct and exclusive -incentive to this, is so much superstition and fanaticism. According to -this view, at least one half of Catherine’s activity at all times, and -well-nigh the whole of it during her last period, would be practically -worthless. Thus only certain elements of such a life would be retained -even for and in religion, and even these would be bereft of all that -has hitherto been held to be their specifically religious sense and -setting. - - -1. _Kant’s non-mystical religion._ - -It is doubtless Kant who, among the philosophers, has been the most -consistent and influential in inculcating such non-Mystical Religion. -“Religion,” he says in 1793, “is, on its subjective side, the cognition -of all our duties as so many Divine Commandments.” “The delusion that -we can effect something, in view of our justification before God, by -means of acts of religious worship, is religious superstition; and -the delusion that we can effect something by attempts at a supposed -intercourse with God, is religious fanaticism.… Such a feeling of the -immediate presence of the Supreme Being, and such a discrimination -between this feeling and every other, even moral, feeling, would -imply a capacity for an intuition, which is without any corresponding -organ in human nature.… If then a Church doctrine is to abolish or -to prevent all religious delusion, it must,--over and above its -statutory teachings, with which it cannot, for the present, entirely -dispense,--contain within itself a principle which shall enable it to -bring about the religion of a pure life, as the true end of the whole -movement, and then to dispense with those temporary doctrines.”[306] - -It is deeply instructive to note how thoroughly this, at first sight, -solid and triumphant view, has not only continued to be refuted by the -actual practice and experience of specifically religious souls, but how -explicitly it is being discredited by precisely the more delicately -perceptive, the more truly detached and comprehensive, students and -philosophers of religion of the present day,--heirs, let us not forget -in justice to Kant, of the intervening profound development of the -historical sense, and of the history and psychology of religion.--Thus -that most vigorous, independent thinker, Prof. Simmel of Berlin, -writes in 1904: “Kant has, I think, simply passed by the essentials -of religion,--that is to say, of that reality which historically bears -the name of religion. Only the reflection, that the harmony of complete -happiness with complete morality is producible by a Divine Being -alone, is here supposed to lead us to believe in such a Being. There -is here a complete absence of that direct laying hold of the Divine -by our souls, because of our intrinsic needs, which characterizes -all genuine piety. And the religious sense is not recognized as an -organism with a unity of its own, as a growth springing from its own -root. The entirely specific character of religion, which is resolvable -neither into morality nor into a thirst after happiness: the direct -self-surrender of the soul to a higher reality, the giving and taking, -the unification and differentiation,--that quite organic unity of the -religious experience, which we can but most imperfectly indicate by -a multiplicity of some such, simultaneously valid, antitheses: this, -there is no evidence to show, was ever really known to Kant. What -was religion for Augustine and Francis of Assisi, he was unable to -reproduce in himself; indeed religion, of this type, he readily rejects -as fanaticism. Here lay the limit both of his own nature and of his own -times.”[307] - -The rich mind of Prof. Troeltsch is, perhaps, more entirely just: “As -Kant’s theory of knowledge is throughout dependent upon the state of -contemporary psychology, so also is his theory of religious knowledge -dependent upon the psychology of religion predominant in his day. -Locke, Leibniz, Pascal had already recognized the essentially practical -character of all religion; and since their psychology was unable to -conceive the ‘practical’ otherwise than as the moral, it had looked -upon Religion as Morality furnished forth with its metaphysical -concomitants. And as soon as this psychology had become the very -backbone of his conception of Religion, Morality gained an entirely -one-sided predominance over Kant’s mind,--considerably, indeed, beyond -his own personal feelings and perceptions.” For he remains deeply -penetrated by “the conceptions of Regeneration and Redemption; the idea -of divine Grace and Wisdom, which accepts the totality of a soul’s -good disposition in lieu of that soul’s ever defective single good -works; the belief in a Providence which strengthens the Good throughout -the world against Evil; adoring awe in face of the majesty of the -Supersensible”: and “all these” conceptions “are no more simply moral, -they are specifically religious thoughts.”[308] - -Such a fuller conception of religion is admirably insisted on by that -penetrating philosopher and historian of philosophy, Prof. Windelband: -“Actual Religion, in its complete reality, belongs to all the spheres -of life, and yet transcends them all, as something new and _sui -generis_. It is first an interior life--an apprehending, cognizing, -feeling, willing, accomplishing. But this accomplishing leads it on to -being also an exterior life: an acting out, according to their various -standards, of such feeling and willing; and an outward expression of -that inner life in general, in ritual acts and divine worship. Yet -this worship takes it beyond the little circle of the individual, and -constitutes the corporate acts of a community, a social, external -organization with visible institutions. And yet Religion ever claims to -be more than the whole series of such empirical facts and doings, it -ever transcends mere earthly experience, and is an intercourse with the -inmost nature and foundation of all reality; it is a life in and with -God, a metaphysical life. All these elements belong to the complete -concept of actual religion.”[309] I would add, that they each stimulate -the other, the external, _e.g._ being not only the expression of the -awakened internal, but also the occasion of that awakening. - -And the great Dutch scholar, Prof. C. P. Tiele, unexcelled in the -knowledge of the actual course taken by the great religions of the -world, declares: “All progress, not only in Morality, but also in -Science, Philosophy, Art, necessarily exerts an influence upon that -of Religion. But … Religion is not, on that account, identical with -Ethics any more than with Philosophy or Art. All these manifestations -of the human spirit respond to certain needs of man; but none of them, -not even Morality, is capable of supplying the want which Religion -alone can satisfy.… Religion differs from the other manifestations -of the human mind” in this, that whereas “in the domain of Art, the -feelings and the imagination predominate; in that of Philosophy, -abstract thought is paramount”; and “the main object of Science is to -know accurately, whilst Ethics are chiefly concerned with the emotions -and with the fruit they yield: in Religion all these factors operate -alike, and if their equilibrium be disturbed, a morbid religious -condition is the result.”[310] - - -2. _Ritschlian modification of Kant’s view._ - -It is deeply interesting to note the particular manner in which Kant’s -impoverishment of the concept of religion has been in part retained, in -part modified, by the Ritschlian school,--I am thinking especially of -that vigorous writer, Prof. Wilhelm Hermann. - -(1) If in Kant we get the belief in God derived from reflection -upon Goodness and Happiness, and as the only possible means of -their ultimate coalescence: in Hermann we still get the Categorical -Imperative, but the thirst for Happiness has been replaced by the -historic figure of Jesus Christ. “Two forces of different kinds,” -he says, “ever produce the certainty of Faith: the impression of an -Historic Figure which approaches us in Time; and the Moral Law which, -when we have heard it, we can understand in its Eternal Truth. Faith -arises, when a man recognizes, in the appearance of Jesus, that symbol -of his own existence which gives him the courage to recognize in the -Eternal, which claims him in the Moral Imperative, the source of true -life for his own self.”[311]--And these two sole co-efficients of -all entirely living religion are made to exclude, as we have already -seen, especially all Mysticism from the life of Faith. “True, outside -of Christianity, Mysticism will everywhere arise, as the very flower -of the religious development. But a Christian is bound to declare the -mystical experience of God to be a delusion. Once he has experienced -his elevation, by Christ alone, above his own previous nature, he -cannot believe that another man can attain the same result, simply by -means of recollection within his own self.… We are Christians precisely -because we have struck, in the person of Jesus, upon a fact which is -incomparably richer in content than the feelings that arise within -ourselves.” “Only because Christ is present for us can we possess -God with complete clearness and certainty.” And, with Luther,--who -remained, however, thoroughly faithful to the Primitive and Mediaeval -high esteem for the Mystical element of religion;--“right prayer is -a work of faith, and only a Christian can perform it.” And, more -moderately: “We have no desire to penetrate through Christ on to -God: for we consider that in God Himself we still find nothing but -Christ.”[312] - -(2) Now it is surely plain that we have here a most understandable, -indeed respectable, reaction against all empty, sentimental -Subjectivism, and a virile affirmation of the essential importance -of the Concrete and Historical. And, in particular, the insistence -upon the supreme value and irreplaceable character and function of -Christ is profoundly true.--Yet three counter-considerations have -ever to be borne in mind. - -(i) It remains certain that we do not know, or experience anything, -to which we can attribute any fuller reality, which is either purely -objective or purely subjective; and that there exists no process of -knowing or experiencing such a reality which would exclude either the -objective or the subjective factor. “Whatever claims to be fully real,” -either as apprehending subject or as apprehended object, “must be an -individual … an organic whole, which has its principle of unity in -itself.” The truly real, then, is a thing that has an inside; and the -sharp antithesis drawn, although in contrary directions, by Aristotle -and by Kant, between the Phenomenal and the Intelligible worlds, does -not exist in the reality either of our apprehending selves, or of our -apprehended fellow-men, or God.[313]--But Hermann is so haunted by the -bogey-fear of the subjective resonance within us being necessarily -useless towards, indeed obstructive of, the right apprehension -of the object thus responded to, that he is driven to follow the -will-o’-the-wisp ideal of a pure, entirely exclusive objectivity. - -(ii) Bent on this will-o’-the-wisp quest of an exclusive objectivity, -he has to define all Mysticism in terms of Exclusive Mysticism, and -then to reject such an aberration. “Wherever the influence of God upon -the soul is sought and found solely in an interior experience of the -individual soul, in an excitation of the feelings which is supposed -directly to reveal the true nature of this experience, _viz._ in a -state of possession by God, and this without anything exterior being -apprehended and held fast with a clear consciousness, without the -positive content of some mental contemplation setting thoughts in -motion and raising the spiritual level of the soul’s life; _there_ is -Mystical Piety.”[314] - -Now it is, of course, true that false Mysticism does attempt such an -impossible feat as the thing at which Hermann is thus aiming. But, even -here, the facts and problems are again misstated. Just now the object -presented was everything, and the apprehending subject was nothing. -Here, on the contrary, the apprehension by the subject is pressed to -the degree of requiring the soul to remain throughout reflexly aware of -its own processes. - -Already in 1798 Kant had, in full acceptance of the great distinction -worked out by Leibniz in the years 1701-1709, but not published till -1765, declared: “We can be mediately conscious of an apprehension as to -which we have no direct consciousness”; and “the field of our obscure -apprehensions,--that is, apprehensions and impressions of which we are -not directly conscious, although we can conclude without doubt that we -have them,--is immeasurable, whereas clear apprehensions constitute but -a very few points within the complete extent of our mental life.”[315] -This great fact psychologists can now describe with greater knowledge -and precision: yet the observations and analyses of Pierre Janet, -William James, James Ward and others, concerning Subconsciousness, -have but confirmed and deepened the Leibnizian-Kantian apprehensions. -Without much dim apprehension, no clear perception; nothing is more -certain than this. - -And it is certain, also, that this absence of reflex consciousness, of -perceiving that we are apprehending, applies not only to impressions -of sensible objects, or to apprehensions of realities inferior -in richness, in interiority, to our own nature, but also, indeed -especially, to apprehensions of realities superior, in dignity and -profundity of organization, to our own constitution. When engrossed -in a great landscape of Turner, the Parthenon sculptures, a sonata of -Beethoven, Dante’s _Paradiso_; or when lost in the contemplation of the -seemingly endless spaces of the heavens, or of the apparently boundless -times of geology; or when absorbed in the mysterious greatness of -Mind, so incommensurable with matter, and of Personality, so truly -presupposed in all these appreciations yet so transcendent of even -their collectivity--we are as little occupied with the facts of our -engrossment, our self-oblivion, our absorption, or with the aim and -use of such immensely beneficial self-oblivion, as we are, in our -ordinary, loosely-knit states, occupied with the impression which, -nevertheless, is being produced upon our senses and mind by some small -insect or slight ray of light to which we are not giving our attention, -or which may be incapable of impressing us sufficiently to be thus -attended to and clearly perceived.[316] And, as in the case of these -under-impressions, so in that of those over-impressions, we can often -judge, as to their actual occurrence and fruitfulness, only from their -after-effects, although this indirect proof will, in each case, be of -quite peculiar cogency.--All this leaves ample room for that prayer -of simple quiet, so largely practised by the Saints, and indeed for -all such states of recollection which, though the soul, on coming -from them, cannot discover definite ideas or picturings to have been -contained in them, leave the soul braced to love, work, and suffer -for God and man, beyond its previous level. Prof. William James is -too deeply versed a Psychologist not fully to understand the complete -normality of such conditions, and the entire satisfactoriness of such -tests.[317] - -(iii) And finally, it is indeed true that God reveals Himself to us, -at all fully, in Human History alone, and within this history, more -fully still, in the lives and experiences of the Saints of all the -stages of religion, and, in a supreme and normative manner, in the life -and teaching of Jesus Christ; that we have thus a true immanence of -the Divine in the Human; and that it is folly to attempt the finding -or the making of any shorter way to God than that of the closest -contact with His own condescensions. Yet such a wisely Historical and -fully Christian attitude would be imperilled, not secured, by such an -excessive Christocentrism, indeed such _Panchristism_, as that of Prof. -Hermann. - -We shall indeed beware of all indifferentist levelling-down of the -various religions of the world. For, as Prof. Robertson Smith, who -knew so well the chief great religions, most wisely said, “To say -that God speaks to all men alike, and gives the same communication -directly to all without the use of a revealing agency, reduces religion -to Pure Mysticism. In point of fact it is not true of any man that -what he believes and knows of God, has come to him directly through -the voice of nature and conscience.” And he adds: “History has not -taught us anything in true religion to add to the New Testament. Jesus -Christ still stands as high above us as He did above His disciples, -the perfect Master, the supreme head of the fellowship of all true -religion.”[318] - -Yet we must equally guard against making even Our Lord into so -exclusive a centre and home of all that is divine, as to cause Him -to come into an entirely God-forsaken, completely God-forgetting -world, a world which did not and could not, in any degree or manner -whatsoever, rightly know, love, or serve God at all; and against so -conceiving the religion, taught and practised by Him, as to deprive it -of all affinity with, or room for, such admittedly universal forces -and resultants of the human soul and the religious sense as are dim -apprehension, formless recollection, pictureless emotion, and the -sense of the Hiddenness and Transcendence of the very God, Who is also -Immanent and Self-Revealing, in various degrees and ways, in every -place and time. Indeed, these two forces: the diffused Religiosity and -more or less inchoate religion, readily discoverable, by a generous -docility, more or less throughout the world of human souls, and the -concentrated spirituality and concrete, thoroughly characteristic -Religion, which has its culmination, after its ample preludings in the -Hebrew Prophets, in the Divine-Human figure and spirit of Jesus Christ: -are interdependent, in somewhat the way in which vague, widely spread -Subconsciousness requires, and is required by, definite, narrowly -localized Consciousness in each human mind. Precisely because there -have been and are previous and simultaneous lesser communications -of, and correspondences with, the one “Light that enlighteneth every -man that cometh into the world”; because men can and do believe -according to various, relatively preliminary, degrees and ways, in God -and a Providence, in Sin and Contrition, without a knowledge of the -Historic Christ (although never without the stimulation of some, often -world-forgotten, historic personality, and ever with some real, though -unconscious approximation to His type of life and teaching), therefore -can Christ be the very centre, and sole supreme manifestation and -measure of all this light. Not only can Christ remain supreme, even -though Moses and Elijah, Amos and Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel; and -indeed, in their own other degrees and ways, Plato and Plotinus, -Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, Gautama Buddha and Rabbi Akiba be all -revered as God-loved and God-loving, as, in various amounts, truly, -spiritually great: but only thus can His central importance be fully -realized. - -There is certainly much in Our Lord’s own attitude, as we have already -found, to demand such a view; and Clement of Alexandria, Origen and St. -Justin Martyr have emphasized it continually. And there is no necessary -Naturalism here--for the position is entirely compatible with the -profoundest belief in the great truth that it is Grace which everywhere -produces the various degrees of God-pleasing religion to be found -scattered throughout the world. Father Tyrrell has admirably said: -“God’s salutary workings in man’s heart have always been directed, -however remotely, to the life of Grace and Glory; of ‘the Order of mere -nature,’ and its exigencies, we have no experimental knowledge … In the -present order, Theism is but embryonic Christianity, and Christianity -is but developed Theism: ‘purely natural’ religion is what might have -been, but never was.”[319] - -(3) Now this must suffice as a sketch of the relations between -(Historical) Religion and Mysticism, and will have shown why I cannot -but regret that so accomplished a scholar as Prof. Morice Jastrow -should class all and every Mysticism, whether Pure or Mixed, as -so far forth a religious malady; why I rejoice that so admirably -circumspect an investigator as Prof. C. P. Tiele should, (in the -form of a strenuous insistence upon the apprehension, indeed the -ontological action of, the Infinite, by and within the human spirit, -as the very soul and mainspring of Religion), so admirably reinforce -the fundamental importance of the Mystical apprehensions; why I most -warmly endorse Prof. Rauwenhoff’s presentment of Mysticism as, with -Intellectualism and Moralism, one of the three psychological forms -of religion, which are each legitimate and necessary, and which each -require the check of the other two, if they are not to degenerate each -into some corruption special to the exclusive development of that -particular form; and why I cordially applaud the unequalled analysis -and description by Prof. Eucken of the manner in which “Universal -Religion” is at work, as an often obscure yet (in the long run) most -powerful leaven, throughout all specifically human life,--Sciences, -Art, Philosophy, and Ethics, calling for, and alone satisfied with, the -answering force and articulation of “Characteristic Religion,” each -requiring and required by the other, each already containing the other -in embryo, and both ever operating together, in proportion as Man and -Religion attain to their fulness.[320] - - -3. _Hermann’s impossible simplification concerning philosophy._ - -But what shall we say as to the relations between Religion and -Philosophy? Here again Hermann is the vigorous champion of a very -prevalent and plausible simplification. “There exists no Theory of -Knowledge for such things as we hold to be real in the strength of -faith. In such religious affirmations, the believer demolishes every -bridge between his conviction and that which Science can recognize as -real.” Indeed Hermann’s attitude is here throughout identical with that -of his master, Albrecht Ritschl: Metaphysics of any and every kind -appear everywhere, to both writers, as essentially unnecessary, unreal, -misleading, as so much inflation and delusion of soul.--Yet this again -is quite demonstrably excessive, and can indeed be explained only as an -all but inevitable recoil from the contrary metaphysical excesses of -the Hegelian school. - -(1) Since the culmination of that reaction, “it has,” as Prof. H. -J. Holtzmann, himself so profoundly historical and so free from -all extreme metaphysical bent, tells us, “become quite impossible -any further to deny the metaphysical factors which had a share in -constituting such types of New Testament doctrine as the Pauline and -Joannine. Indeed, not even if we were to reduce the New Testament to -the Synoptic Gospels and the Acts on the one hand, and to the Pastoral -Epistles, the Epistle of James and the Apocalypse on the other hand, -would the elements which spring from speculative sources be entirely -eliminated. And since, again, the Old Testament religion, in its last -stage, assimilated similarly metaphysical materials from the East -and from the West; since Mohammedanism, in its Persian and Indian -branches, did the same with regard to the older civilized religions of -Middle and Eastern Asia; since also these latter religions received -a speculative articulation in even the most ancient times, so that -they are both Philosophy and Religion simultaneously: we are forced -to ask ourselves, whether so frequent a concomitant of religion is -satisfactorily explicable as a mere symptom of falsification or decay.” -And whilst answering that the primary organ for religion is Feeling -and Conscience, he points out how large an amount of Speculation was, -nevertheless, required and exercised by a St. Augustine, even after his -unforgettable experiences of the sufferings attendant upon Sin, and of -their cure by Grace alone.[321] - -(2) The fact is that, if man cannot apprehend the objects,--the -historic and other facts,--of Religion, without certain subjective -organs, dispositions, and effects, any more than can all these -subjective capacities, without those objects, produce religious -convictions and acts, or be waked up into becoming efficient forces: -neither can man thus experience and effect the deepest foundations and -developments of his own true personality in and through contact with -the divine Spirit, without being more or less stimulated into some -kind of, at least rudimentary, Philosophy as to these his profoundest -experiences of reality, and as to their rights and duties towards the -rest of what he is and knows. - -(3) Indeed his very Religion is already, in itself, the profoundest -Metaphysical Affirmation. As the deeply historical-minded Prof. Tiele -admits: “Every man in his sound senses, who does not lead the life of -a half-dormant animal, philosophizes in his own way”; and “religious -doctrine rests on a metaphysical foundation; unless convinced of the -reality of a supersensual world, it builds upon sand.”[322] Or as Prof. -Eucken, the most eloquent champion of this central characteristic -of all vital religion, exclaims: “If we never, as a matter of fact, -get beyond merely subjective psychological processes, and we can -nowhere trace within us the action of cosmic forces; if we in no case -experience through them an enlargement, elevation, and transformation -of our nature: then not all the endeavours of its well-meaning friends -can preserve religion from sinking to the level of a mere illusion. -Without a universal and real principle, without hyper-empirical -processes, there can be no permanence for religion.”[323] - -(4) Some kind of philosophy, then, will inevitably accompany, follow, -and stimulate religion, were it only as the, necessarily ever -inadequate, attempt at giving a fitting expression to the essentially -metaphysical character of belief in a super-sensible world, in God, in -man’s spiritual capacities and in God’s redemption of man. Not because -the patient analysis of the completer human personalities, (as these -are to be found throughout the length and breadth of history), requires -the elimination of a wholesome Mysticism and a sober Metaphysic from -among the elements and effects of the fullest Manhood and Religion; but -because of the ever serious difficulties and the liability to grave -abuses attendant upon both these forces, the inevitably excessive -reactions against these abuses, and the recurrent necessity of -remodelling much of the theory and practice of both, in accordance with -the growth of our knowledge of the human mind, (a necessity which, at -first sight, seems to stultify all the hyper-empirical claims of both -these forces): only because of this have many men of sense and goodness -come to speak as though religion, even at its fullest, could and should -get on without either, contenting itself to be a somewhat sentimental, -Immanental Ethics. - -(5) Yet, against such misgivings, perhaps the most immediately -impressive counter-argument is the procession, so largely made up -of men and of movements not usually reckoned as exclusively or -directly religious, whose very greatness,--one which humanity will -not let die,--is closely interwoven with Mystical and Metaphysical -affirmations. There are, among philosophers, a Spinoza and a Leibniz, -a Fichte, Hegel, Schopenhauer, a Trendelenburg and a Lotze, with the -later stages of a John Mill, a Littré, and a Herbert Spencer; among -poets, a Pindar and Aeschylus, a Lucretius and Vergil, a Lessing and a -Goethe, a Wordsworth and a Browning; among historians, a Thucydides and -a Tacitus, a St. Simon and de Tocqueville, a Carlyle, a Jacob Grimm, -a Droysen and a Ranke; among scientists, a Copernicus and a Kepler, a -Newton, a Lyell, indeed, largely still, also a Darwin; and among men of -action, a Moltke and a Gordon, a Burke and a von Stein. Shear any of -these men of their Mystical and Metaphysical elements, and you will -have shorn Samson of his locks. - -And if we can frame a contrary list of men of force and distinction, -who have represented an un- or even an anti-Mystical and -anti-Metaphysical type: Caesar and Hannibal, Napoleon and Bismarck, -Voltaire and Laplace, Hume and Bentham, Huxley and Mommsen, we must -ever remember the complex truth as to the Polarity of Life,--the strict -necessity of the movement towards an intensely close contact with -empirical reality, as well as of the movement back to recollection; -the frequent sickliness of the recollective movement, as found in the -average practice of life, which cannot but produce a reaction and -contrary excess; and hence the legitimacy of what this second type -has got of positiveness and of corrective criticism. Yet here too the -greatness will consist directly in what these men are and have, not -in what they are not; and wherever this their brutal-seeming sense of -the apparent brutalities of life is combined with an apprehension of a -higher world and of a deeper reality, _there_ something fuller and more -true has been attained than is reached by such strong but incomplete -humanity alone. - - -4. _Religion and Morality, their kinship and difference._ - -And, finally, as to Religion and Morality, we should note how that the -men, who deny all essential connection between Religion and Mysticism -and Religion and Philosophy, ever, when they do retain Religion at -all, tend to identify it with Morality, if not as to the motives, yet -as to the contents of the two forces. And yet it is not difficult to -show that, if the relation between Religion and Morality is closer than -that between Religion and Philosophy, though not as intimate as is that -between Historical-Institutional Religion and Mysticism: Religion and -Morality are nevertheless not identical. - -(1) This non-identity is indicated by the broad historical fact that, -though the development of Religion tells upon that of Morality, and -_vice versa_: yet that the rate of development of these two forces is -practically never the same, even in one and the same soul, still less -in any one country or race. In each case we get various inequalities -between the two developments, which would be impossible, were the two -forces different only in name. - -We reach again the same conclusion, if we note, what Dr. Edward Caird -has so well pointed out, “the imperfection of the subjective religion -of the prophets and psalmists of Israel,”--who nevertheless already -possessed a very advanced type of profoundly ethical religion,--“shown -by its inability to overcome the legal and ceremonial system of -worship to which it was opposed”; as, “in like manner, Protestantism -… has never been able decisively to conquer the system of Rome.”[324] -For this, as indeed the failure of Buddhism to absorb and supersede -Hindooism, evidently implies that Religion cannot find its full -development and equilibrium in an exclusive concentration upon Morality -Proper, as alone essential; and hence that complete Religion embraces -other things besides Morality. - -Once more we find non-identity between the very Ethics directly -postulated by Religion at its deepest, and the Ethics immediately -required by the Family, Society, the State, Art, Science, and -Philosophy. As Prof. Troeltsch admirably puts it, “the special -characteristic of our modern consciousness resides in the insistence -both upon the Religious, the That-world Ends, _and_ upon the Cultural, -This-World Ends, which latter are taken as Ends-in-themselves: it -is precisely in this combination that this consciousness finds its -richness, power, and freedom, but also its painful interior tension -and its difficult problems.” “As in Christian Ethics we must recognize -the predominance of an Objective Religious End,--for here certain -relations of the soul to God are the chief commandments and the supreme -good,--so in the Cultural Ends we should frankly recognize objective -Moral Ends of an Immanental kind.” And in seeking after the right -relations between the two, we shall have to conclude that “Ethics, for -us, are not, at first, a unity but a multiplicity: man grows up amongst -a number of moral ends, the unification of which is his life’s task and -problem, and not its starting-point.” And this multiplicity “is” more -precisely “a polarity in human nature, for it contains two poles--that -of Religious and that of Humane Ethics, neither of which can be ignored -without moral damage, but which, nevertheless, cannot be brought under -a common formula.” “We can but keep a sufficient space open for the -action of both forms, so that from their interaction there may ever -result, with the least possible difficulty, the deepening of the Humane -Ends by the Christian Ethics, and the humanizing of the Christian End -by the Humane Ethics, so that life may become a service of God within -the Cultural Ends, and that the service of God may transfigure the -world.”[325] - -We can perceive the difference between the two forces most clearly -in Our Lord’s life and teaching--say, the Sermon on the Mount; in -the intolerableness of every exegesis which attempts to reduce the -ultimate meaning and worth of this world-renewing religious document to -what it has of literal applicability in the field of morality proper. -Schopenhauer expressed a profound intuition in the words: “It would be -a most unworthy manner of speech to declare the sublime Founder of the -Christian Religion, whose life is proposed to us as the model of all -virtue, to have been the most reasonable of men, and that his maxims -contained but the best instruction towards an entirely reasonable -life.”[326] - -(2) The fact is that Religion ever insists, even where it but seems -to be teaching certain moral rules and motives as appropriate to this -visible world of ours, upon presenting them in the setting of a fuller, -deeper world than that immediately required as the field of action and -as the justification of ordinary morality. Thus whilst, in Morality -Proper, the concepts of Responsibility, Prudence, Merit, Reward, -Irretrievableness, are necessarily primary; in Religious Ethics the -ideas of Trust, Grace, Heroism, Love, Free Pardon, Spiritual Renovation -are, as necessarily, supreme. And hence it is not accidental, although -of course not necessary, that we often find men with a keen religious -sense but with a defective moral practice or even conception, and men -with a strong moral sense and a want of religious perception; that -Mystics, with their keen sense for one element of religion, so often -seem, and sometimes are, careless of morality proper; and that, in such -recent cases (deeply instructive in their very aberrations) as that of -Nietzsche, we get a fierce anti-Moralism combined with a thirst for -a higher and deeper world than this visible one, which not all its -fantastic form, nor even all Nietzsche’s later rant against concrete -religion, can prevent from being essentially religious.[327] - -(3) We have then, here, the deepest instance of the law and -necessity which we have, so often, found at the shallower levels of -the spirit’s life. For here, once more, there is one apprehension, -force, life,--This-world Morality,--which requires penetration and -development, in nowise destruction, by another, a deeper power, -That-world Ethics and Religion. Let the one weaken or blunt the edge -and impact of the other, and it has, at the same time, weakened itself. -For here again we have, not a Thing which simply exists, by persistence -in its dull unpenetratingness and dead impenetrability, but a Life, -growing by the incorporation and organization, within its ampler range, -of lesser lives, each with its own legitimate autonomy. - - -II. MYSTICISM AND THE LIMITS OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCE. - -But have not even the most sober-minded of the Partial Mystics greatly -exceeded the limits of human knowledge, more or less continuously, -throughout their conclusions? Is Kant completely in the wrong? And are -not the Positivists right in restricting all certain cognition to the -experiences of the senses and to the Mathematico-Physical Sciences -built upon those experiences? And, again, is there such a thing at all -as specifically Mystical Experience or Knowledge? And, if so, what is -its worth?--I must keep the elaboration of the (ultimately connected) -question, as to the nature of the realities experienced or known--as -to the human spirit and the Divine Spirit, and their inter-relations, -hence as to Pantheism and Personality--for the next chapter, and can -here but prepare the ground for it, by the elucidation of certain -important points in general Epistemology, and of the more obvious -characteristics of Mystical apprehension. - - -1. _Positivist Epistemology an error._ - -As regards general Epistemology, we may well take up the following -positions. - -(1) We cannot but reject, with Prof. Volkelt, as a mere vulgar error, -the Positivist limitation of trans-subjectively valid knowledge to -direct sense-perception and to the laws of the so-called Empirical -Sciences. For, as he shows conclusively, the only fact which is -absolutely indubitable, is that of the bare occurrence of our (possibly -utterly misleading) sensations and impressions. Some of these are, it -is true, accompanied by a certain pressure upon our minds to credit -them with trans-subjective validity; and the fact of this (possibly -quite misleading) pressure is itself part of our undeniable experience. -Yet we can, if we will, treat this pressure also as no more than a -meaningless occurrence, and not as evidencing the trans-subjective -reality which it seems to indicate. No man, it is true, has ever -succeeded in consistently carrying out such a refusal of assent,--since -no scepticism is so thorough but that it derives its very power, -against the trans-subjective validity of some of the impressions -furnished with trans-subjective pressure, from an utterly inconsistent -acceptance, as trans-subjectively valid, of other impressions furnished -with a precisely similar trans-subjective intimation. Yet the fact -remains that, in all such cases of trans-subjective pressure, the -mind has “an immediate experience of which the content is precisely -this, that we are justified in proceeding with these concepts into -what is absolutely beyond the possibility of being experienced by -us.” “Positivistic Cognition,” to which no man, Positivist included, -can systematically restrict himself, “abides absolutely within the -immediately experienced. Logical Cognition,” which every man practises -surreptitiously if not avowedly, “exceeds experience at every step, -and conceptually determines what is absolutely incapable of being -experienced, yet the justification for this kind of cognition is, here -also, an immediately experienced certitude.”[328] - -We have, “then, immediately experienced presentations which of -themselves already constitute a knowledge,--our first knowledge, -and the only one possessed of absolute indubitableness.” And some -of these presentations “are accompanied by a kind of immediate -certainty or revelation that, in some way, they reach right into the -Thing-in-Itself, that they directly express something objectively -valid, present in that Thing-in-Itself”; and “this pressure ever -involves, should the contradictory of what it enunciates be admitted as -objectively existent, the self-destruction of objective reality.”--“And -this pressure can, in any one case, be resisted by the mind; an act of -endorsement, of a kind of faith, is necessary on the part of the mind: -for these presentations, furnished with such pressure, do not transform -themselves into the Things-in-Themselves directly,--we do not come to -see objective reality simply face to face.”[329] And we find thus that -“_in principle_ the entire range of reality, right down to its last -depths, lies open to cognition, proceeding according to the principle -of the necessities of thought. For he who recognizes this principle, -thereby admits that the necessities of thought have trans-subjective -significance, so that, if any affirmation concerning the ultimate -reasons and depths of Reality can be shown to be necessary in thought, -this affirmation possesses as rightful a claim to trans-subjective -validity, as any determination, necessary in thought, which concern -only such parts of the Thing-in-Itself as are the nearest neighbours to -our sense-impressions concerning it. Everywhere our principle leaves us -only the question whether thought, as a matter of fact, does or does -not react, under the given problems, with the said logical constraint -and pressure.”[330] - -(2) We can next insist upon how we have thus already found that the -acquisition of even so rudimentary an outline of Reality, as to be -ever in part presupposed in the attacks of the most radical sceptics, -necessarily involves a certain emotive disposition and volitional -action. And, over and above this partially withholdable assent, such -quite elementary thinking will also ever require the concomitant -energizing of the picturing faculty. And again, the more interior and -spiritual are this thinking’s subject-matters, the more will it be -permeated by, and be inseparable from, deep feeling. It is then all -man’s faculties conjoined, it is the whole man, who normally thus -gives, without reflecting on it, his all, to gain even this elementary -nucleus of certainty as to Reality. “Even receptivity,” as Prof. Ward -well says, “is activity”; for even where non-voluntary, it is never -indifferent. “Not mere receptivity, but conative or selective activity, -is the essence of subjective reality.” Or, with Prof. Volkelt: “Purely -isolated thought,”--which, in actual life ever more or less of a -fiction, is not rarely set up by individuals as an ideal,--“is, however -intensified and interiorized, something ever only formal, something, in -the final resort, insignificant and shadowy.”--And, concurrently with -the recognition of this fact, man will come to find that “the ultimate -Substance or Power of and in the world,”--that objective reality which -is the essential counterpart to his own subjective reality,--“is -something possessed of a true, deep content and of a positive aim, -and alive according to the analogy of a willing individual. The -world would thus be a Logical Process only in the sense that this -concrete fundamental Power is bound by the ideal necessity of its own -nature.”[331] - -(3) And again, I would note with Volkelt how Kant, owing to his -notoriously intense natural tendency to universal Dualism, never -admits, even as a point for preliminary settlement, the possibility -that our subjective conceptions of Objective Reality may have some true -relation to that Reality. His professed ignorance as to the nature -of that Reality changes instantaneously, quite unbeknown to himself, -into an absolutely unvarying, negative knowledge concerning that -Reality,--he simply _knows_ that it is _utterly heterogeneous_ to our -conception of it. Thus he finds the view that “God has implanted into -the human mind certain categories and concepts of a kind spontaneously -to harmonize with things,” to be “the most preposterous solution that -we could possibly choose.”[332] Thus the epistemological difference -between Presentation and Thing-in-Itself becomes a metaphysical -exclusion of each by the other. And yet we know of no fact, whether -of experience or of thought, to prevent something which is _my_ -presentation existing also, in so far as it is the content of that -presentation, outside of this presentment. Indeed Psychology and -Epistemology have, driven by every reason and stopped by none, more and -more denied and refuted this excessive, indeed gratuitous, Dualism. - -As Prof. Henry Jones well puts it: “The hypothesis that knowledge -consists of two elements which are so radically different as to be -capable of description only by defining each negatively in terms of -the other, the pure manifold or differences of sense, and a purely -universal or relative thought,” breaks down under the fact that “pure -thought and the manifold of sense pass into each other, the one proving -meaningless and the other helpless in its isolation.” These elements -“are only aspects of one fact, co-relates mutually penetrating each -other, distinguishable in thought, but not separable as existences.” -Hence we must not “make logical remnants do the work of an intelligence -which is never purely formal, upon a material which is nowhere a pure -manifold”: for “the difference between the primary data of thought -on the one hand, and the highest kinds of systematized knowledge on -the other, is no difference … between a mere particular and a mere -universal, or a mere content and a mere form; but it is a difference -in comprehensiveness of articulation.” However primary may be the -distinction of subjective and objective, “we are not entitled to -forget the unity of the reality in which the distinction takes place.” -If we begin with the purely subjective, we must doubtless end there; -but then, in spite of certain, never self-consistent, philosophical -hypotheses, “the purely subjective is as completely beyond our reach as -the purely objective.”[333] - -Prof. Ward indeed pushes the matter, I think rightly, even a step -further. He points out how readily, owing to the ambiguous term -“consciousness,” “we confound experience with knowledge”; but holds -that experience is the wider term. “Knowledge must fall within -experience, and experience extend beyond knowledge. Thus I am not -left to infer my own being from my knowing.… Objective reality is -immediately ‘given,’ or immediately ‘there,’ not inferred.” But the -subjective reality is not immediately given, immediately there. -“There is no such parallelism between the two.… The subjective factor -in experience is not _datum_ but _recipiens_: it is not ‘there’ but -‘here’; a ‘here’ relative to that ‘there.’”[334] Nothing of this, -I think, really conflicts with the positions we have adopted from -Volkelt, since “experience” is evidently used here in a sense inclusive -of the presentations, the trans-subjective pressure and the endorsement -of the latter’s estimations,--the three elements which, according also -to Volkelt, form an organism which even the most daring subjectivism -can never consistently reject. At most, the term “experience” is more -extended in Prof. Ward, since it includes all three elements, than in -Prof. Volkelt, who restricts it to the two first. - -(4) And further, we must take care to find room for the only unforced -explanation of the wondrous fact that “although,” as Dr. Volkelt -strikingly says, “the various schools of philosophy “--this is largely -true of those of theology also,--are “in part essentially determined -by historical currents, forces which follow other standards than -those of logical necessity”: yet “these points of view and modes -of thought, thus determined by” apparently non-logical “history, -subserve nevertheless logical necessity, indeed represent its” slow, -intermittent, yet real “progressive realization.” The explanation is -that “the forces of history are, unbeknown to themselves, planned, -in their depths, for agreement with the necessities and ends of -thought and of truth.” “And thus the different spheres” and levels -“of spiritual life and endeavour appear as originally intended for -each other, so that each sphere, whilst consciously striving only -after its own particular laws and standards, in reality furthers -the objects of the rest.” For “only the operative presence of such -an original, teleological inter-relation can explain how historic -forces, by their influence upon, and determination of, philosophical -thinking, can, instead of staining and spoiling it by the introduction -of religious, artistic, political, and other motives, actually -advance it most essentially.”[335]--Here then we get a still further -enlargement of the already wide range of interaction, within the human -mind, between forces which, at first sight, appear simply external -to, indeed destructive of, each other; and a corresponding increase -in the indications of the immense breadth, depth, and closeness -of inter-penetration characterizing the operative ground-plan, -the pre-existing Harmony and Teleology of the fundamental forces -of Reality. Thus once more man’s spirit appears as possessed of a -large interiority; and as met, supported and penetrated, by a Spirit -stupendously rich in spiritual energy. - -(5) And finally, let us never forget that “the only experience -immediately accessible to us” men, “is our own; this, in spite of -its complexity, is the first we know.”[336] And this means that we -have direct experience and anything like adequate knowledge, (because -knowledge from within,) not of things, but of mind and will, of -spiritual life struggling within an animal life; and that in face, -say, of plant-life, and still more of a pebble or of a star, we have a -difficulty as to an at all appropriate and penetrative apprehension, -which, if opposite to, is also in a sense greater than, the difficulty -inherent to our apprehension of God Himself. For towards this latter -apprehension we have got the convergent testimony of certain great, -never quite obliterable facts without us and within ourselves. - -There is the upward trend, the ever-increased complexity of -organization, the growing depth and interiority in the animate -world,--Plant-Life itself being already, very probably, possessed of a -vague consciousness, and Man, at the other end of the scale, summing up -the tendency of the whole series in a deep self-consciousness which, at -the same time, makes him alone keenly aware of the great difference, -in the midst of the true kinship, between himself and the humbler -members of that one world. For Natural Selection can but describe the -results and explain part of the method of this upward trend, but cannot -penetrate to its ultimate cause and end. - -There is, again, the great, deep fact of the mutually necessary, -mutually stimulating presence and interaction, within our own mental -and spiritual life, of sense-impressions, imaginative picturings, -rational categories, emotional activities, and volitional acts; -and, again, of subject and object; and, once more, of general, -philosophic Thought and the contingencies of History. For the -immanental inter-adaptation and Teleology, that mysteriously link -together all these, profoundly disparate-seeming, realms and forces -is far too deep-down, it too much surprises, and exacts too much of -us, it too much reveals itself, precisely at the end of much labour -of our own and in our truest and most balanced moods, as the mostly -unarticulated presupposition and explanation of both the great cost -and the rich fruitfulness of every approximately complete actuation of -all our faculties, each with and in the others, and in and with their -appropriate objects, to be permanently ruled out of court as mere -sentimentalism or baseless apologetic. - -And there is the deepest fact of all, the one which precisely -constitutes the specific characteristic of all true humanity, the sense -of mental oppression, of intolerable imprisonment inflicted by the -very idea of the merely contingent, the simply phenomenal and Finite, -and the accompanying noble restlessness and ready dwarfing of all -man’s best achievements by the agent’s own Ideal of Perfection. For -this latter sense is, precisely in the greater souls, so spontaneous -and so keen, so immensely operative in never leaving our, otherwise -indolent and readily self-delusive, self-complacent race fully and -long satisfied with anything that passes entirely away, or that -is admittedly merely a subjective fancy, even though this fancy be -shared by every member of the human race; and this sense operates so -explosively within Sceptics as well as Dogmatists, within would-be -Agnostic Scientists as well as in the most Intellectualist Theologians; -it so humbles, startles, and alone so braces, sweetens, widens, indeed -constitutes our humanity: as to be unforcedly explicable only by -admitting that man’s spirit’s experience is not shut up within man’s -own clear analysis or picturing of it; that it is indefinitely wider, -and somehow, in its deepest reaches, is directly touched, affected, in -part determined, by the Infinite Spirit Itself. “Man never knows how -anthropomorphic he is,” says Goethe. Yes, but it was a man, Goethe, -it is at bottom all men, in proportion as they are fully, sensitively -such, who have somehow discovered this truth; who suffer from its -continuous evidences, as spontaneously as from the toothache or from -insomnia; and whose deepest moments give them a vivid sense of how -immensely the Spirit, thus directly experienced by their spirit, -transcends, and yet also is required by and is immanent in, their keen -sense of the Finitude and Contingency present throughout the world of -sense-perception and of clear intellectual formulation. - -(6) With Plato and Plotinus, Clement of Alexandria and St. Augustine, -St. Bernard, Cardinal Nicolas of Coes and Leibniz in the past; with -Cardinal Newman, Professors Maurice Blondel and Henri Bergson, -Siegwart, Eucken, Troeltsch and Tiele, Igino Petrone and Edward Caird, -in the present; with the explicit assent of practically all the great -Mystics of all ages and countries, and the implicit instinct, and at -least partial, practical admission, of all sane and developed human -souls; we will then have to postulate here, not merely an intellectual -reasoning upon finite data, which would somehow result in so operative -a sense of the Infinite; nor even simply a mental category of -Infinitude which, evoked in man by and together with the apprehension -of things finite, would, somehow, have so massive, so explosive an -effect against our finding satisfaction in the other categories, -categories which, after all, would not be more subjective, than itself: -but the ontological presence of, and the operative penetration by -the Infinite Spirit, within the human spirit. This Spirit’s presence -would produce, on occasion of man’s apprehension or volition of things -contingent and finite, the keen sense of disappointment, of contrast -with the Simultaneous, Abiding, and Infinite.--And let the reader note -that this is not Ontologism, for we here neither deduce our other ideas -from the idea of God, nor do we argue from ideas and their clarity, but -from living forces and their operativeness. - -We thus get man’s spirit placed within a world of varying degrees of -depth and interiority, the different levels and kinds of which are -necessary, as so many materials, stimulants, obstacles, and objects, -for the development of that spirit’s various capacities, which -themselves again interact the one upon the other, and react upon -and within that world. For if man’s experience of God is not a mere -discursively reasoned conclusion from the data of sense, yet man’s -spirit experiences the Divine Spirit and the spirits of his fellow-men -on occasion of, and as a kind of contrast, background, and support -to, the actuation of his senses, imagination, reason, feeling, and -volition, and, at least at first and in the long run, not otherwise. - - -2. _No distinct faculty of Mystical apprehension._ - -Is there, then, strictly speaking, such a thing as a specifically -distinct, self-sufficing, purely Mystical mode of apprehending Reality? -I take it, _distinctly not_; and that all the errors of the Exclusive -Mystic proceed precisely from the contention that Mysticism does -constitute such an entirely separate, completely self-supported kind of -human experience.--This denial does not, of course, mean that soul does -not differ quite indefinitely from soul, in the amount and kind of the -recollective, intuitive, deeply emotive element possessed and exercised -by it concurrently or alternately with other elements,--the sense of -the Infinite within and without the Finite springing up in the soul on -occasion of its contact with the Contingent; nor, again, that these -more or less congenital differences and vocations amongst souls cannot -and are not still further developed by grace and heroism into types of -religious apprehension and life, so strikingly divergent, as, at first -sight, to seem hardly even supplementary the one to the other. But it -means that, in even the most purely contingent-seeming soul, and in its -apparently but Institutional and Historical assents and acts, there -ever is, there never can fail to be, _some_, however implicit, however -slight, however intermittent, sense and experience of the Infinite, -evidenced by at least some dissatisfaction with the Finite, except as -this Finitude is an occasion for growth in, and a part-expression of, -that Infinite, our true home. And, again, it means, that even the most -exclusively mystical-seeming soul ever depends, for the fulness and -healthiness of even the most purely mystical of its acts and states, -as really upon its past and present contacts with the Contingent, -Temporal, and Spacial, and with social facts and elements, as upon its -movement of concentration, and the sense and experience, evoked on -occasion of those contacts or of their memories, of the Infinite within -and around those finitudes and itself. - -Only thus does Mysticism attain to its true, full dignity, which -consists precisely in being, not everything in any one soul, but -something in every soul of man; and in presenting, at its fullest, the -amplest development, among certain special natures with the help of -certain special graces and heroisms, of what, in some degree and form, -is present in every truly human soul, and in such a soul’s every, at -all genuine and complete, grace-stimulated religious act and state. -And only thus does it, as Partial Mysticism, retain all the strength -and escape the weaknesses and dangers of would-be Pure Mysticism, as -regards the mode and character of Religious Experience, Knowledge, and -Life. - - -3. _The first four pairs of weaknesses and strengths special to the -Mystics._ - -I take the Mystic’s weaknesses and strengths to go together in pairs, -and that there are seven such pairs. Only the first four shall be -considered here; the fifth and the last two couples are reserved -respectively for the following, and for the last section, of this -chapter. - -(1) The Mystic finds his joy in the recollective movement and moments -of the soul; and hence ever tends, _qua_ Mystic, to ignore and neglect, -or to over-minimize, the absolutely necessary contact of the mind and -will with the things of sense. He will often write as though, could he -but completely shut off his mind from all sense-perceptions,--even of -grand scenery, or noble works of art, or scenes of human devotedness, -suffering, and peace,--it would be proportionately fuller of God.--Yet -this drift is ever more or less contradicted by his practice, often -at the very moment of such argument: for no religious writers are -more prolific in vivid imagery derived from noble sensible objects -and scenes than are the Mystics,--whose characteristic mood is an -intuition, a resting in a kind of vision of things invisible.--And -this contradiction is satisfactory, since it is quite certain that -if the mind, heart, and will could be completely absorbed, (from the -first or for any length of time), in the flight from the sensible, -it would become as dangerously empty and languid concerning things -invisible themselves as, with nothing but an outgoing occupation -with the sensible, it would become distracted and feverish. It is -this aversion from Outgoing and from the world of sense, of the -contemporaneous contingencies environing the soul, that gives to -Mysticism, as such, its shadowy character, its floating above, rather -than penetrating into, reality,--in contradiction, where this tendency -becomes too exclusive, to the Incarnational philosophy and practice of -Christianity, and indeed of every complete and sound psychology. - -And yet the Incoming, what the deep religious thinker -Kierkegaard has so profoundly analyzed in his doctrine of -“Repetition,”[337]--recollection and peaceful browsing among the -materials brought in by the soul’s Outgoing,--is most essential. Indeed -it is the more difficult, and, though never alone sufficient, yet ever -the more centrally religious, of the two movements necessary for the -acquisition of spiritual experience and life. - -(2) Again, the Mystic finds his full delight in all that approximates -most nearly to Simultaneity, and Eternity; and consequently turns -away, _qua_ Mystic, from the Successive and Temporal presented by -History.--Yet here also there are two movements, both necessary for -man. He will, by the one, once more in fullest sympathy with the grand -Christian love of lowliness, strive hard to get into close, and ever -closer, touch with the successivenesses of History, especially those -of Our Lord’s earthly life and of His closest followers. Without this -touch he will become empty, inflated, as St. Teresa found to be the -case with herself, when following the false principle of deliberate and -systematic abstraction from Christ’s temporal words and acts: for man’s -soul, though it does not energize in mere Clock-Time, cannot grow if -we attempt to eliminate Duration, that interpenetrative, overlapping -kind of Succession, which is already, as it were, halfway to the -Simultaneity of God. It is this aversion from Clock-Time Succession and -even from Duration which gives to Mysticism, as such, its remarkable -preference for Spacial images, and its strong bent towards concepts of -a Static and Determinist type, profoundly antagonistic though these -are to the Dynamic and Libertarian character which ever marks the -occasions and conditions for the acquiring of religious experience. - -And yet, here again, the Mystic is clinging, even one-sidedly, to the -more central, more specifically religious, of the two movements. For -it is certain that God is indeed Simultaneous and Eternal; that it -is right thus to try and apprehend, what appears to us stretched out -successively in time, as simultaneously present in the one great Now -of God; and that our deepest experiences testify to History itself -being ever more than mere process, and to have within it a certain -contribution from, a certain approximation to and expression of, -Eternity. - -(3) And again, the Mystic finds his joy in the sense of a Pure -Reception of the Purely Objective; that God should do all and should -receive the credit of all, is here a primary requirement.--And yet -all penetrating Psychology, Epistemology, and Ethics find this very -receptivity, however seemingly only such, to be, where healthy and -fruitful, ever an action, a conation of the soul,--an energizing and -volition which, as we have seen, are present in its very cognition of -anything affirmed by it as trans-subjective, from a grain of sand up to -the great God Himself. This antipathy to even a relative, God-willed -independence and power of self-excitation, gives Mysticism, as such, -its constant bent towards Quietism; and hence, with regard to the -means and nature of knowledge, its tendency to speak of such a purely -spiritual effect as Grace, and such purely spiritual beings as the -Soul and God, as though they were literally sensible objects sensibly -impressing themselves upon the Mystic’s purely passive senses. This -tendency reinforces the Mystic’s thirst for pictorial, simultaneous -presentation and intuition of the verities apprehended by him, but is -in curious contradiction to his even excessive conceptions concerning -the utter separateness and difference from all things material of all -such spiritual realities.--And yet, here too, it is doubtless deeply -important ever to remember, and to act in accordance with, the great -truth that God Himself is apprehended by us only if there be action -of our own, and that, from elementary moral dispositions right up to -consummate sanctity, the whole man has ever to act and will more and -more manysidedly, fully, and persistently. - -But the corresponding, indeed the anterior and more centrally -religious, truth here is, that all this range of our activity could -never begin, and, if it could, would lose itself _in vacuo_, unless -there already were Reality around it and within it, as the stimulus -and object for all this energizing,--a Reality which, as Prof. Ward -has told us with respect to Epistemology, must, for a certain dim but -most true experience of ours, be simply given, not sought and found. -And indeed the operations of Grace are ever more or less penetrating -and soliciting, though nowhere forcing, the free assent of the natural -soul: we should be unable to seek God unless He had already found -us and had thus, deep down within ourselves, caused us to seek and -find Him. And hence thus again the most indispensable, the truest -form of experience underlies reasoning, and is a kind of not directly -analyzable, but indirectly most operative, intuition or instinct of the -soul. - -(4) And yet the Mystic, in one of his moods (the corresponding, -contradictory mood of a Pantheistic identification of his true self -with God shall be considered in our next chapter), finds his joy in -so exalting the difference of nature between himself and God, and the -incomprehensibility of God for every finite intelligence, as,--were -we to press his words,--to cut away all ground for any experience or -knowledge sufficient to justify him in even a guess as to what God is -like or is not like, and for any attempt at intercourse with, and at -becoming like unto, One who is so utterly unlike himself. - - -4. _Criticism of the fourth pair, mystical “Agnosticism.”_ - -Now this acutely paradoxical position, of an entire certainty as to -God’s complete difference from ourselves, has been maintained and -articulated, with a consistency and vividness beyond that of any -Mystic known to me, by that most stimulating, profound, tragically -non-mystical, religious ascetic and thinker, the Lutheran Dane, Sören -Kierkegaard (1813-1855). His early friend, but philosophical opponent, -Prof. Höffding, describes him as insisting that “the suffering incident -to the religious life is necessarily involved in the very nature of the -religious relation. For the relation of the soul to God is a relation -to a Being utterly different from man, a Being which cannot confront -man as his Superlative and Ideal, and which nevertheless is to rule -within him.” “What, wonder, then,” as Kierkegaard says, “if the Jew -held that the vision of God meant death, and if the Heathen believed -that to enter upon relations with God was the beginning of insanity?” -For the man who lives for God “is a fish out of water.”[338]--We have -here what, if an error, is yet possible only to profoundly religious -souls; indeed it would be easy to point out very similar passages in -St. Catherine and St. John of the Cross. Yet Höffding is clearly in -the right in maintaining that “Qualitative or Absolute difference -abolishes all possibility of any positive relation.… If religious zeal, -in its eagerness to push the Object of religion to the highest height, -establishes a yawning abyss between this Object and the life whose -ideal It is still to remain,--such zeal contradicts itself. For a God -who is not Ideal and Exemplar, is no God.”[339] - -Berkeley raised similar objections against analogous positions of the -Pseudo-Dionysius, in his Alciphron in 1732.[340] Indeed the Belgian -Jesuit, Balthazar Corderius, has a very satisfactory note on this -matter in his edition, in 1634, of the Areopagite,[341] in which -he shows how all the negative propositions of Mystical Theology, -_e.g._ “God is not Being, not Life,” presuppose a certain affirmative -position, _e.g._ “God is Being and Life, in a manner infinitely more -sublime and perfect than we are able to comprehend”; and gives reasons -and authorities, from St. Jerome to St. Thomas inclusive, for holding -that some kind and degree of direct confused knowledge (I should -prefer, with modern writers, to call it experience) of God’s existence -and nature is possessed by the human soul, independently of its -reasoning from the data of sense. - -St. Thomas’s admissions are especially striking, as he usually -elaborates a position which ignores, and would logically exclude, -such “confused knowledge.” In his _Exposition and Questions on the -Book of Boetius on the Trinity_, after arguments to show that we know -indeed _that_ God is, but not _what_ He is,--at most only what He is -not, he says: “We should recognize, however, that it is impossible, -with regard to anything, to know whether it exists, unless, in some -way or other, we know _what_ it is, either with a perfect or with a -confused knowledge.… Hence also with regard to God,--we could not -know whether He exists, unless we somehow knew _what_ He is, even -though in a confused manner.” And this knowledge of _what_ He is, is -interestingly, because unconsciously, admitted in one of the passages -directed to proving that we can but know _that_ He is. “In our earthly -state we cannot attain to a knowledge of Himself beyond the fact that -He exists. And yet, among those who know _that_ He is, the one knows -this more perfectly than the other.”[342] For it is plain that, even -if the knowledge of the existence of something were possible without -any knowledge of that thing’s nature, no difference or increase in -such knowledge of the thing’s bare existence would be possible. The -different degrees in the knowledge, which is here declared to be one -concerning the bare existence of God, can, as a matter of fact, exist -only in knowledge concerning His nature. I shall have to return to this -great question further on. - -Here I would only point out how well Battista Vernazza has, in her -_Dialogo_, realized the importance of a modification in such acutely -dualistic statements as those occasionally met with in the _Vita_. For, -in the _Dialogo_, the utter qualitative difference between God and the -Soul, and the Soul and the Body, which find so striking an utterance -in one of Catherine’s moods, is ever carefully limited to the soul’s -sinful acts and habits, and to the body’s unspiritualized condition; so -that the soul, when generous and faithful to God’s grace, can and does -grow less and less unlike God, and the body can, in its turn, become -more and more an instrument and expression of the soul. A pity only -that Battista has continued Catherine’s occasional over-emphasis in the -parallel matter of the knowledge of God: since, even in the _Dialogo_, -we get statements which, if pressed, would imply that even the crudest, -indeed the most immoral conception of God is, objectively, no farther -removed from the reality than is the most spiritual idea that man can -attain of Him. - -It would indeed be well if the Christian Mystics who, since about -500 A.D., are more and more dependent for their formulations upon -the Areopagite, had followed, in this matter, not his more usual -and more paradoxical, but his exceptional, thoroughly sober vein -of teaching,--that contained in the third chapter of his _Mystical -Theology_, where he finds degrees of worth and approximation among the -affirmative attributions, and degrees of unfitness and distance among -the negative ones. “Are not life and goodness more cognate to Him than -air and stone? And is He not further removed from debauchery and wrath, -than from ineffableness and incomprehensibility”?[343] But such a scale -of approximations would be utterly impossible did we not somehow, at -least dimly, experience or know _what_ He is. - -We shall then have to amend the Mystic’s apparent Agnosticism on three -points. We shall have to drop any hard and fast distinction between -knowledge of God’s Existence and knowledge of His Nature, since both -necessarily more or less stand and fall together. We shall have to -replace the terms as to our utter ignorance as to what He is, by terms -expressive of an experience which, if not directly and independently -clear and analyzable to the reflex, critical reason, can yet be shown -to be profoundly real and indefinitely potent in the life of man’s -whole rational and volitional being. It is this dim, deep experience -which ever causes our reflex knowledge of God to appear no knowledge at -all. And we shall reject any absolute qualitative difference between -the soul’s deepest possibilities and ideals, and God; and shall, in -its stead, maintain an absolute difference between God and all our -downward inclinations, acts, and habits, and an indefinite difference, -in worth and dignity, between God and the very best that, with His -help, we can aim at and become. With regard to every truly existent -subject-matter, we can trace the indefinitely wider range and the more -delicate penetration possessed by our dim yet true direct contact and -experience, as contrasted with our reflex analysis concerning all -such contacts and experiences; and this surplusage is at its highest -in connection with God, Who is not simply a Thing alongside of other -things, but the Spirit, our spirit’s Origin, Sustainer, and End, “in -whom we live and move and have our being.” - - -III. MYSTICISM AND THE QUESTION OF EVIL. - - -_Introductory: Exclusive and Inclusive Mysticism in Relation to -Optimism._ - -The four couples of weaknesses and corresponding strong points -characteristic of Mysticism that we have just considered, and the fact -that, in each case, they ever spring respectively from an attempt to -make Mysticism be the all of religion, and from a readiness to keep -it as but one of the elements more or less present in, and necessary -for, every degree and form of the full life of the human soul: make -one wish for two English terms, as useful as are the German names -“Mystik” and “Mystizismus,” for briefly indicating respectively “the -legitimate share of Feeling in the constitution of the religious life, -and the one-sidedness of a religion in which the Understanding and the -Will,” and indeed also the Memory and the Senses, with their respective -variously external occasions, vehicles, and objects, “do not come to -their rights,” as Prof. Rauwenhoff well defines the matter.[344] I -somehow shrink from the term “Mysticality” for his “Mystizismus”; and -must rest content with the three terms--of “Mysticism,” as covering -both the right and the wrong use of feeling in religion; and of “True” -or “Inclusive Mysticism,” and of “Pseudo-” or “Exclusive Mysticism,” -as denoting respectively the legitimate, and the (quantitatively or -qualitatively) mistaken, share of emotion in the religious life. - -Now the four matters, which we have just considered, have allowed us -to reach an answer not all unlike that of Nicolas of Coes, Leibniz, -and Hegel,--one which, if it remained alone or quite final, would, in -face of the fulness of real life, strike us all, nowadays, as somewhat -superficial, because too Optimistic and Panlogistic in its trend. The -fifth set of difficulties and problems now to be faced will seem almost -to justify Schopenhauer at his gloomiest. Yet we must bear in mind that -our direct business here is not with the problem of Evil in general, -but only with the special helps and hindrances, afforded by Inclusive -and by Exclusive Mysticism respectively, towards apprehending the true -nature of Evil and turning even it into an occasion for a deeper good. -In this case the special helps and hindrances fall under three heads. - - -1. _Mysticism, too optimistic. Evil positive, but not supreme._ - -(1) First of all, I would strongly insist upon the following great -fact to which human life and history bear witness, if we but take and -test these latter on a large scale and with a patient persistency. -It is, that not the smoother, easier times and circumstances in the -lives of individuals and of peoples, but, on the contrary, the harder -and hardest trials of every conceivable kind, and the unshrinking, -full acceptance of these, as part of the price of conscience and of -its growing light, have ever been the occasions of the deepest trust -in and love of God to which man has attained. In Jewish History, the -Exile called forth a Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and the profound ideal of -the Suffering Servant; the persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes raised -up a Judas Maccabaeus; and the troubles under the Emperor Hadrian, a -Rabbi Akiba. And in Christian History, the persecutions from Nero to -Robespierre have each occasioned the formation of heroic lovers of -Love Crucified. And such great figures do not simply manage to live, -apart from all the turmoil, in some Mystic upper region of their own; -but they face and plunge into the very heart of the strife, and get -and give spiritual strength on occasion of this closest contact with -loneliness, outrage, pain, and death. And this fact can be traced -throughout history. - -Not as though suffering automatically deepens and widens man into -a true spiritual personality,--of itself it does not even tend to -this; nor as though there were not souls grown hard or low, or -frivolous or bitter, under suffering,--to leave madness and suicide -unconsidered,--souls in which it would be difficult to find any -avoidable grave fault. But that, wherever there is the fullest, -deepest, interiority of human character and influence, _there_ can -ever be found profound trials and sufferings which have been thus -utilized and transfigured. It is doubtless Our Lord’s uniquely full -and clear proclamation of this mysterious efficacity of all suffering -nobly borne; above all it is the supreme exemplification and fecundity -of this deepest law of life, afforded and imparted by His own -self-immolation, that has given its special power to Christianity, -and, in so doing, has, more profoundly than ever before or elsewhere, -brought home to us a certain Teleology here also,--the deepest ever -discovered to man. For though we fail in our attempts at explaining -how or why, with an All-knowing, All-powerful, and All-loving God, -there can be Evil at all, we can but recognize the law, which is ever -being brought home to us, of a mysterious capacity for purification and -development of man’s spiritual character, on occasion and with the help -of trouble, pain, and death itself. - -(2) Now all this, we must admit, is practised and noted, directly and -in detail, only by the Ascetical and the Outward-going elements in -Religion; whereas Mysticism, as such, is optimistic, not only as is -Christianity, with respect to the end, but, in practice, with regard -to the actual state of things already encircling it as well. For so -careful a selection and so rigorous an abstraction is practised by -Mysticism, as such, towards the welter of contingencies around it, that -the rough shocks, the bitter tonics, the expansive birth-pangs of the -spirit’s deeper life, in and by means of the flux of time and sense, -of the conflict with hostile fellow-creatures, and of the claimfulness -of the lower self, are known by it only in their result, not in their -process, or rather only as this process ebbs and fades away, in such -recollective moments, into the distance. - -No wonder, then, that Mysticism, as such, has ever tended to deny -all positive character to Evil. We have already found how strongly -this is the case with the prince of Mystic philosophers, Plotinus. -But even St. Augustine, with his massive experience, and (in his -other mood) even excessive realization, of the destructive force of -Evil and of the corrupt inclinations of man’s heart, has one whole -large current of teaching expressive of the purely negative character -of Evil. The two currents, the hot and concrete, and the cold and -abstract one, appear alternately in the very _Confessions_, of 397 -A.D. There, ten years after his conversion, he can write: “All things -that are corrupted, are deprived of good. But, if they are deprived -of all good, they will cease to exist.… In so far, then, as they -exist, they are good.… Evil is no substance.” Notwithstanding such -Neo-Platonist interpretations, he had found Evil a terribly powerful -force; the directly autobiographical chapters of this same great book -proclaim this truth with unsurpassable vividness,--he is here fully -Christian.[345] And in his unfinished work against the Pelagianizing -Monk Julianus, in 429 A.D., he even declares--characteristically, -whilst discussing the Origin of Sin: “Such and so great was Adam’s sin, -that it was able to turn (human) nature itself into this evil.” Indeed, -already in 418, he had maintained that “this wound” (of Original Sin) -“forces all that is born of that human race to be under the Devil, so -that the latter, so to speak, plucks the fruit from the fruit-tree of -his own planting.”[346] - -Pseudo-Dionysius, writing about 500 A.D., has evidently no such -massive personal experience to oppose to the Neo-Platonic influence, -an influence which, in the writings of Proclus (who died 485 A.D.), is -now at its height. “Evil,” he says, “is neither in Demons nor in us, -as an existent (positive) evil, but (only) as a failure and dearth of -the perfection of our own proper goods.”[347] He says this and more of -the same kind, but nothing as to the dread power of Evil. St. Thomas -Aquinas (who died in 1271 A.D.) is, as we know, largely under the -influence of the Negative conception: thus “the stain of sin is not -something positive, existent in the soul.… It is like a shadow, which -is the privation of light.”[348] - -Catherine, though otherwise much influenced by the Negative conception, -as _e.g._ in her definition of a soul possessed by the Evil Spirit -as one suffering from a “privation of love,” finds the stain of sin, -doubtless from her own experience, to be something distinctly positive, -with considerable power of resistance and propagation.[349]--Mother -Juliana of Norwich had, in 1373, also formulated both conceptions. “I -saw not Sin, for I believe it hath no manner of substance, nor no part -of being”: Neo-Platonist theory. “Sin is so vile and so mickle for to -hate, that it may be likened to no pain.… All is good but Sin, and -naught is evil but Sin”: Christian experience.[350] - -Eckhart had, still further back (he died in 1327 A.D.), insisted much -that “Evil is nothing but privation, or falling away from Being; not -an effect, but a defect”:[351] yet he also finds much work to do in -combating this somehow very powerful “defect.”--Not till we get to -Spinoza (who died in 1677) do we get the Negative conception pushed -home to its only logical conclusion: “By Reality and Perfection, I mean -the same thing.… All knowledge of Evil is inadequate knowledge.… If the -human mind had nothing but adequate ideas, it would not form any notion -of Evil.”[352] - -(3) As regards the Christian Mystics, their negative conception -of evil, all but completely restricted as it was to cosmological -theory, did those Mystics themselves little or no harm; since their -tone of feeling and their volitional life, indeed a large part of -their very speculation, were determined, not by such Neo-Platonist -theories, but by the concrete experiences of Sin, Conscience, and -Grace, and by the great Christian historical manifestation of the -powers of all three.--It is clear too that our modern alternative: -“positive-negative,” is not simply identical with the scholastic -alternative: “substantial-accidental,” which latter alternative is -sometimes predominant in the minds of these ancient theorizers; and -that, once the question was formulated in the latter way, they were -profoundly right in refusing to hypostatize Evil, in denying that there -exists any distinct thing or being wholly bad.--Yet it is equally -clear how very Greek and how little Christian is such a preoccupation -(in face of the question of the nature of Evil) with the concepts -of Substance and Accident, rather than with that of Will; and how -strangely insufficient, in view of the tragic conflicts and ruins of -real life, is all, even sporadic, denial, of a certain obstructive -and destructive efficacy in the bad will, and of a mysterious, direct -perversity and formal, intentional malignity in that will at its worst. - -(4) On these two points it is undeniable that Kant, (with all -his self-contradictions, insufficiencies, and positive errors on -other important matters), has adequately formulated the practical -dispositions and teachings of the fully awakened Christian -consciousness, and hence, pre-eminently, of the great Saints in the -past, although, in the matter of the perverse will, the Partial Mystics -have, even in their theory, (though usually only as part of the -doctrine of Original Sin), largely forestalled his analysis. “Nowhere -in this our world, nowhere even outside it, is anything thinkable as -good without any reservation, but the good will alone.” “That a corrupt -inclination to evil is rooted in man, does not require any formal -proof, in view of the clamorous examples furnished to all men by the -experience of human behaviour. If you would have such cases from the -so-called state of nature, where some philosophers have looked for the -chief home of man’s natural goodness, you need only compare, with such -an hypothesis, the unprovoked cruelties enacted in Tofoa, New Zealand -… and the ceaseless scenes of murder in the North-Western American -deserts, where no human being derives the slightest advantage from -them,--and you will quickly have more than sufficient evidence before -you to induce the abandonment of such a view. But if you consider that -human nature is better studied in a state of civilization, since there -its gifts have a better chance of development,--you will have to listen -to a long melancholy string of accusations: of secret falseness, even -among friends; of an inclination to hate him to whom we owe much; of -a cordiality which yet leaves the observation true that ‘there is -something in the misfortune of even our best friend which does not -altogether displease us’: so that you will quickly have enough of the -vices of culture, the most offensive of all, and will prefer to turn -away your look from human nature altogether, lest you fall yourself -into another vice,--that of hatred of mankind.”[353] - -It is sad to think how completely this virile, poignant sense of the -dread realities of human life again disappeared from the teachings of -such post-Kantians as Hegel and Schleiermacher,--in other important -respects so much more satisfactory than Kant. As Mr. Tennant has well -said, in a stimulating book which, on this point at least, voices -the unsophisticated, fully awakened conscience and Christian sense -with refreshing directness, “for Jesus Christ and for the Christian -consciousness, sin means something infinitely deeper and more real than -what it can have meant for Spinoza or the followers of Hegel.”[354] -Here again we have now in Prof. Eucken, a philosopher who, free from -ultimate Pessimism, lets us hear once more those tones which are alone -adequate to the painful reality. “In great things and in small, there -exists an evil disposition beyond all simple selfishness: hatred and -envy, even where the hater’s self-interest is not touched; an antipathy -to things great and divine; a pleasure found in the disfigurement or -destruction of the Good.… Indeed the mysterious fact of Evil, as a -positive opposition to Good, has never ceased to occupy the deepest -minds.… The concept of moral guilt cannot be got rid of, try as we -may.”[355] - -(5) And yet even with regard to this matter, Mysticism represents a -profound compensating truth and movement, which we cannot, without -grave detriment, lose out of the complete religious life. For in life -at large, and in human life and history in particular, it would be -sheer perversity to deny that there is much immediate, delightful, -noble Beauty, Truth, and Goodness; and these also have a right to -the soul’s careful, ruminating attention. And it is the Mystical -element that furnishes this rumination.--Again, “it is part of the -essential character of human consciousness, as a Synthesis and an -organizing Unity, that, as long as the life of that consciousness -lasts at all, not only contrast and tension, but also concentration -and equilibrium must manifest themselves. Taking life’s standard from -life itself, we cannot admit its decisive constituent to lie in tension -alone.”[356] And it is the Mystical mood that helps to establish this -equilibrium.--And finally, deep peace, an overflowing possession and -attainment, and a noble joy, are immensely, irreplaceably powerful -towards growth in personality and spiritual fruitfulness. Nothing, -then, would be more shortsighted than to try and keep the soul from a -deep, ample, recollective movement, from feeding upon and relishing, -from as it were stretching itself out and bathing in, spiritual air and -sunshine, in a rapt admiration, in a deep experience of the greatness, -the beauty, the truth, and the goodness of the World, of Life, of God. - - -2. _Mysticism and the Origin of Evil._ - -The second hindrance and help, afforded respectively by Exclusive and -by Inclusive Mysticism in the matter of Evil, concerns the question of -its Origin. - -(1) Now it appears strange at first sight that, instead of first -directly realizing and picturing the undeniable, profoundly important -facts of man’s interior conflict, his continuous lapses from his own -deepest standard, and his need of a help not his own to become what -he cannot but wish to be, and of leaving the theory as to how man -came by this condition to the second place; the Mystics should so -largely,--witness Catherine--directly express only this theory, and -should face what is happening _hic et nunc_ all but exclusively under -the picture of the prehistoric beginnings of these happenings, in the -state of innocence and the lapse of the first man. For men of other -religious modalities have held this doctrine as firmly as the Mystics, -yet have mostly dwelt directly upon the central core of goodness and -the weakness and sinfulness to be found in man; whilst the Mystics -had even less scruple than other kinds of devout souls in embodying -experimental truths in concepts and symbols other than the common ones. - -(2) I think that, here again, it was the Neo-Platonist literary -influence, so strong also on other points with the Mystics of the -past, and a psychological trend characteristic of the Mystical habit -of mind, which conjoined thus to concentrate the Mystics’ attention -upon the doctrines of Original Justice and of a First Lapse, and -to give to these doctrines the peculiar form and tone taken on by -them here. We have noted, for instance, in the case of Catherine -herself, how powerfully her thought and feeling, as to the first -human soul’s first lapse into sin, is influenced by the idea of each -human soul’s lapse into a body; and we have found this latter idea -to be, notwithstanding its echoes in the Deutero-Canonical Book of -Wisdom and in one non-doctrinal passage in St. Paul, not Christian -but Neo-Platonist. Yet it is this strongly anti-body idea that could -not fail to attract Mysticism, as such.--And the conception as to the -plenary righteousness of that first soul before its lapse, which she -gets from Christian theology, is similarly influenced, in her theorized -emotion and thought, by the Neo-Platonist idea of every soul having -already existed, perfectly spotless, previous to its incarnation: -a view which could not but immensely attract such a high-strung -temperament, with its immense requirement of something fixed and -picturable on which to rest. Thus here the ideal for each soul’s future -would have been already real in each soul’s past. In this past the soul -would have been, as it were, a mirror of a particular fixed size and -fixed intensity of lustre; its business here below consists in removing -the impurities adhering to this mirror’s surface, and in guarding it -against fresh stains. - -(3) Now it is well known how it was St. Augustine, that mighty and -daring, yet at times ponderous, intellect, who, (so long a mental -captive of the Manichees and then so profoundly influenced by -Plotinus,) was impelled, by the experiences of his own disordered -earlier life and by his ardent African nature, to formulate by far the -most explicit and influential of the doctrines upon these difficult -matters. And if, with the aid of the Abbé Turmel’s admirable articles -on the subject, we can, with a fairly open mind, study his successive, -profoundly varying, speculations and conclusions concerning the Nature -and Origin of Sin,[357] we shall not fail to be deeply impressed with -the largely impassable maze of opposite extremes, contradictions and -difficulties of every kind, in which that adventurous mind involved -itself.--And to these difficulties immanent to the doctrine,--at -least, in the form it takes in St. Augustine’s hands,--has, of course, -to be added the serious moral danger that would at once result, -were we, by too emphatic or literal an insistence upon the true -guiltiness of Original sin, to weaken the chief axiom of all true -morality--that the concurrence of the personality, in a freely-willed -assent, is necessarily involved in the idea of sin and guilt.--And -now the ever-accumulating number and weight of even the most certain -facts and most moderate inductions of Anthropology and Ethnology are -abolishing all evidential grounds for holding a primitive high level -of human knowledge and innocence, and a single sudden plunge into a -fallen estate, as above, apparently against, all our physiological, -psychological, historical evidences and analogies, (which all point -to a gradual rise from lowly beginnings), and are reducing such a -conception to a pure postulate of Theology. - -Yet Anthropology and Ethnology leave in undisturbed possession the -great truths of Faith that “man’s condition denotes a fall from the -Divine intention, a parody of God’s purpose in human history,” and that -“sin is exceedingly sinful for us in whom it is a deliberate grieving -of the Holy Spirit”; and they actually reinforce the profound verities -that “the realization of our better self is a stupendously difficult -task,” and as to “Man’s crying need of grace, and his capacity for -a gospel of Redemption.”[358] But they point, with a force great in -proportion to the highly various, cumulatively operative, immensely -interpretative character of the evidence,--to the conclusion that -“Sin,” as the Anglican Archdeacon Wilson strikingly puts it, “is … -the survival or misuse of habits and tendencies that were incidental -to an earlier stage of development.… Their sinfulness would thus lie -in their anachronism, in their resistance to the … Divine force that -makes for moral development and righteousness.” Certainly “the human -infant” appears to careful observers, as Mr. Tennant notes, “as simply -a non-moral animal,” with corresponding impulses and propensities. -According to this view “morality consists in the formation of the -non-moral material of nature into character …”; so that “if goodness -consists essentially in man’s steady moralization of the raw material -of morality, its opposite, sin, cannot consist in the material awaiting -moralization, but in the will’s failure to completely moralize it.” -“Evil” would thus be “not the result of a transition from the good, but -good and evil would” both alike “be voluntary developments from what -is ethically neutral.”[359] Dr. Wilson finds, accordingly, that “this -conflict of freedom and conscience is precisely what is related as -‘the Fall’ _sub specie historiae_.” Scripture “tells of the fall of a -creature from unconscious innocence to conscious guilt. But this fall -from innocence” would thus be, “in another sense, a rise to a higher -grade of being.”[360] - -(4) It is, in any case, highly satisfactory for a Catholic to remember -that the acute form, given to the doctrine of Original Sin by St. -Augustine, has never been finally accepted by the Catholic Roman -Church; indeed, that the Tridentine Definition expressly declares that -Concupiscence does not, in strictness, possess the nature of Sin, but -arises naturally, on the withdrawal of the _donum superadditum_,--so -that Mr. Tennant can admit, in strictest accuracy, that “in this -respect, the Roman theology is more philosophical than that of -the Symbols of Protestant Christendom.”[361] It is true that the -insistence upon “Original Sin” possessing somehow “the true and proper -nature of Sin” remains a grave difficulty, even in this Tridentine -formulation of the doctrine; whilst the objections, already referred -to as accumulating against the theory in general, retain some of -their cogency against other parts of this decree.--Yet we have here -an impressive proclamation of the profoundest truths: the spiritual -greatness of God’s plan for us, the substantial goodness of the -material still ready to our hand for the execution of that plan, and -His necessary help ever ready from the first; the reality of our lapse, -away from all these, into sin, and of the effects of such lapse upon -the soul; the abiding conflict between sense and spirit, the old man -and the new, within each one of us; and the close solidarity of our -poor, upward-aspiring, downward-plunging race, in evil as well as in -good. - -(5) And as to the Christian Mystics, their one particular danger -here,--that of a Static Conception of man’s spirit as somehow -constituted, from the first, a substance of a definite, final size and -dignity, which but demands the removal of disfiguring impurities, is -largely eliminated, even in theory, and all but completely overcome -in practice, by the doctrine and the practice of Pure Love. For -in “Charity” we get a directly dynamic, expansive conception and -experience: man’s spirit is, at first, potential rather than actual, -and has to be conquered and brought, as it were, to such and such -a size and close-knitness of organization, by much fight with, and -by the slow transformation of, the animal and selfish nature. Thus -Pure Love, Charity, Agape, has to fight it out, inch by inch, with -another, still positive force, impure love, concupiscence, Eros, -in all the latter’s multiform disguises. Here Purity has become -something intensely positive and of boundless capacities for growth; -as St. Thomas says, “Pure Love has no limit to its increase, for it -is a certain participation in the Infinite Love, which is the Holy -Spirit.”[362]--In this utterly real, deeply Christian way do these -Mystics overcome Neo-Platonist static abstractions, and simultaneously -regain, in their practical theory and emotional perception, the great -truth of the deep, subtle force of Evil, against which Pure Love has to -stand, in virile guard, as long as earth’s vigil lasts. And the longest -and most difficult of these conflicts is found,--here again in utterly -Christian fashion,--not in the sensual tendencies proceeding from the -body, but in the self-adoration, the solipsism of the spirit. We have -found this in Catherine: at her best she ever has something of the -large Stoic joy at being but a citizen in a divine Cosmopolis; yet but -Love and Humility, those profoundest of the Christian affections, have -indefinitely deepened the truth of the outlook, and the range of the -work to be done, in and for herself and others. - -(6) Yet even apart from Pure Love, Mysticism can accurately be said to -apprehend an important truth when, along its static line of thought -and feeling, it sees each soul as, from the first, a substance of a -particular, final size. For each soul is doubtless intended, from the -first, to express a particular thought and wish of God, to form one, -never simply replaceable member in His Kingdom, to attain to a unique -kind and degree of personality: and though it can refuse to endorse and -carry out this plan, the plan remains within it, in the form of never -entirely suppressible longings. The Mystic, then, sees much here also. - - -3. _The warfare against Evil. Pseudo-Mysticism._ - -The third of the relations between Mysticism and the conception and -experience of Evil requires a further elucidation of an important -distinction, which we have already found at work all along, more or -less consciously, between the higher and the lower Mysticism, and their -respective, profoundly divergent, tempers, objects, and range. - -(1) Prof. Münsterberg discriminates between these two Mysticisms with -a brilliant excessiveness, and ends by reserving the word “Mysticism” -for the rejected kind alone. “As soon as we speak of psychical -objects,--of ideas, feelings, and volitions,--as subject-matters of our -direct consciousness and experience, we have put before ourselves an -artificial product, a transformation, to which the categories of real -life no longer apply.” In this artificial product causal connections -have taken the place of final ends. But “History, Practical Life, -… Morality, Religion have nothing to do with these psychological -constructions; the categories of Psychology,” treated by Münsterberg -himself as a Natural, Determinist Science, “must not intrude into their -teleological domains. But if,” on the other hand, “the categories -belonging to Reality,” which is Spiritual and Libertarian, “are forced -on to the psychological system, a system which was framed” by our -mind “in the interest of causal explanation, we get a cheap mixture, -which satisfies neither the one aim nor the other. Just this is the -effect of Mysticism. It is the personal, emotional view applied, -not to the world of Reality, where it fits, but to the Physical and -Psychological worlds, which are constructed by the human logical will, -with a view to gaining an impersonal, unemotional causal system.… -The ideals of Ethics and Religion … have now been projected into the -atomistic structure” (of the Causal System), “and have thus become -dependent upon this system’s nature; they find their right of existence -limited to the regions where ignorance of Nature leaves blanks in the -Causal System, and have to tremble at every advance which Science -makes.” It is to this projection alone that Münsterberg would apply -the term “Mysticism,” which thus becomes exclusively “the doctrine -that the processes in the world of physical and psychical objects -are not always subject to natural laws, but are influenced, at times, -in a manner fundamentally inexplicable from the standpoint of the -causal conception of Nature.… Yet, the special interest of the Mystic -stands and falls here with his conviction that, in these extra-causal -combinations,” thus operative right within and at the level of this -causal system, “we have a” direct, demonstrable “manifestation of a -positive system of quite another kind, a System of Values, a system -dominated, not by Mechanism, but by Significance.”[363] - -(2) Now we have been given here a doubtless excessively antithetic and -dualistic picture of what, in actual life, is a close-knit variety in -unity,--that interaction between, and anticipation of the whole in, the -parts, and that indication of the later stages in the earlier,--which -is so strikingly operative in the order and organization of the various -constituents and stages of the processes and growth of the human mind -and character, and which appears again in the Reality apprehended, -reproduced, and enriched by man’s powers. - -Even in the humblest of our Sense-perceptions, there is already a -mind perceiving and a Mind perceived; and, in the most abstract -and artificial of our intellectual constructions, there is not -only a logical requirement, but also, underlying this requirement -as this cause’s deepest cause, an ever-growing if unarticulated -experience and sense that only by the closest contact with the most -impersonal-seeming, impersonally conceived forces of life and nature, -and by the deepest recollection within its own interior world of -mind and will, can man’s soul adequately develop and keep alive, -within itself, a solid degree and consciousness of Spirit, Free-will, -Personality, Eternity, and God. Thus, in proportion as he comes more -deeply to advance in the true occasions of his spirit’s growth, does -man still further emphasize and differentiate these two levels: the -shallower, spacial-temporal, mathematico-physical, quantitative and -determinist aspect of reality and level of apprehension; and the -deeper, alone at all adequate, experience of all the fuller degrees -of Reality and effectuations of the spirit’s life, with their -overlapping, interpenetrating Succession, (their Duration), and their -Libertarianism, Interiority, and Sense of the Infinite. He thus -emphasizes both levels, because the determinist level is found to be, -though never the source or direct cause, yet ever a necessary awakener -and purifier of the Libertarian level. - -Strictly within the temporal-spacial, quantitative method and level, -indeed, we can nowhere find Teleology; but if we look back upon these -quantitative superficialities from the qualitative, durational and -personal, spiritual level and standpoint, (which alone constitute -our direct experience), we find that the quantitative, causal level -and method is everywhere inadequate to exhaust or rightly to picture -Reality, in exact proportion to this reality’s degree of fulness and of -worth. From the simplest Vegetable-Cell up to Orchids and Insectivorous -Plants; from these on to Protozoans and up, through Insects, Reptiles, -and Birds, to the most intelligent of Domestic Animals; from these on -to Man, the Savage, and up to the most cultured or saintly of human -personalities: we have everywhere, and increasingly, an inside, an -organism, a subject as well as object,--a series which is, probably -from the first, endowed with some kind of dim consciousness, and which -increasingly possessed of a more and more definite consciousness, -culminates in the full self-consciousness of the most fully human man. -And everywhere here, though in indefinitely increasing measure, it is -the individualizing and historical, the organic and soul-conceptions -and experiences which constitute the most characteristic and important -truths and reality about and in these beings. For the higher up we -get in this scale of Reality, the more does the Interior determine -and express itself in the Exterior, and the more does not only kind -differ from kind of being, but even the single individual from the -other individuals within each several kind. And yet nowhere, not even -in free-willing, most individualized, personal Man do we find the -quantitative, determinist envelope simply torn asunder and revealing -the qualitative, libertarian spirit perfectly naked and directly -testable by chronometer, measuring-rod, or crucible. The spirit is thus -ever like unto a gloved hand, which, let it move ever so spontaneously, -will ever, in the first instance, present the five senses with a glove -which, to their exclusive tests, appears as but dead and motionless -leather. - -(3) Now we have already in Chapter IX studied the contrasting -attitudes of Catherine and her attendants towards one class of such -effects,--those attributed to the Divine Spirit,--and hence, in -principle, towards this whole question. Yet it is in the matter of -phenomena, taken to be directly Diabolic or Preternatural, that a -Pseudo-Mysticism has been specially fruitful in strangely materialistic -fantasies. As late as 1774 the _Institutiones Theologiae Mysticae_ -of Dom Schram, O.S.B., a book which even yet enjoys considerable -authority, still solemnly described, as so many facts, cases of -Diabolical _Incubi_ and _Succubae_. Even in 1836-1842 the layman -Joseph Görres could still devote a full half of his widely influential -_Mystik_ to “Diabolical Mysticism,”--witchcraft, etc.; a large space -to “Natural Mysticism,”--divination, lycanthropy, vampires, etc.; and -a considerable part of the “Divine Mysticism,” to various directly -miraculous phenomenalisms. The Abbé Ribet could still, in his _La -Mystique Divine, distinguée de ses Contrefaçons Diaboliques_, of 1895, -give us a similarly uncritical mixture and transposition of tests -and levels. But the terrible ravages of the belief in witchcraft in -the later Middle Ages, and, only a few years back, the humiliating -fraud and craze concerning “Diana Vaughan,” are alone abundantly -sufficient to warn believers in the positive character of Evil away -from all, solidly avoidable, approaches to such dangerous forms of this -belief.[364] - -(4) Yet the higher and highest Mystical attitude has never ceased -to find its fullest, most penetrating expression in the life and -teaching of devoted children of the Roman Church,--several of whom -have been proclaimed Doctors and Models by that Church herself. And by -a conjunction of four characteristics these great normative lives and -teachers still point the way, out of and beyond all false or sickly -Mysticism, on to the wholesome and the true. - -(i) There is, first, the grand trust in and love of God’s beautiful, -wide world, and in and of the manifold truth and goodness present -throughout life,--realities which we have already found rightly to -be dwelt on, in certain recollective movements and moments, to the -momentary exclusion of their positively operative, yet ever weaker, -opposites. “Well I wote,” says Mother Juliana, “that heaven and earth, -and all that is made, is great, large, fair and good”; “the full-head -of joy is to behold God in all,” and “truly to enjoy in Our Lord, is a -full lovely thanking in His sight.”[365] This completely un-Manichaean -attitude,--so Christian when held as the ultimate among the divers, -sad and joyful, strenuous and contemplative moods of the soul,--is -as strongly present in Clement of Alexandria, in the Sts. Catherine -of Siena and of Genoa, in St. John of the Cross, and indeed in the -recollective moments of all the great Mystics. - -(ii) There is, next, a strong insistence upon the soul having to -transcend all particular lights and impressions, in precise proportion -to their apparently extraordinary character, if it would become strong -and truly spiritual. “He that will rely on the letter of the divine -locution, or on the intellectual form of the vision, will necessarily -fall into delusion. ‘The letter killeth, the spirit quickeneth’; we -must therefore reject the literal sense, and abide in the obscurity -of faith.” “One desire only doth God allow in His presence, that of -perfectly observing His law and carrying the Cross of Christ.… That -soul, which has no other aim, will be a true ark containing the true -Manna, which is God.” “One act of the will, wrought in charity, is -more precious in the eyes of God, than that which all the visions -and revelations of heaven might effect.” “Let men cease to regard -these supernatural apprehensions … that they may be free.”[366] Here -the essence of the doctrine lies in the importance attached to this -transcendence, and not in the particular views of the Saint concerning -the character of this or that miraculous-seeming phenomenon to be -transcended. - -(iii) And this essential doctrine retains all its cogency, even though -we hold the strict necessity of a contrary, alternating movement -of definite occupation with the Concrete, Contingent, Historical, -Institutional, in thought and action. For this occupation will be with -the normal, typical means, duties, and facts of human and religious -life; and, whilst fully conscious of the Supernatural working in and -with these seemingly but natural materials, will, with St. Augustine, -pray God to “grant men to perceive in little things the common-seeming -indications of things both small and great,” and, with him, will see a -greater miracle in the yearly transformation of the vine’s watery sap -into wine, and in the germination of any single seed, than even in that -of Cana.[367] - -(iv) And then there is, upon the whole, a tendency to concentrate, at -these recollective stages, the soul’s attention upon Christ and God -alone. “I believe I understand,” says Mother Juliana, “the ministration -of holy Angels, as Clerks tell; but it was not shewed to me. For -Himself is nearest and meekest, highest and lowest, and doeth all. -God alone took our nature, and none but He; Christ alone worked our -salvation, and none but He.”[368] And thus we get a wholesome check -upon the Neo-Platonist countless mediations, of which the reflex is -still to be found in the Areopagite. God indeed is alone held, with -all Catholic theologians, to be capable of penetrating to the soul’s -centre, and the fight against Evil is simplified to a watch and war -against Self, in the form of an ever-increasing engrossment in the -thought of God, and in the interests of His Kingdom. “Only a soul -in union with God,” says St. John of the Cross, “is capable of this -profound loving knowledge: for this knowledge is itself that union.… -The Devil has no power to simulate anything so great.” “Self-love,” -says Père Grou, “is the sole source of all the illusions of the -spiritual life.… Jesus Christ on one occasion said to St. Catherine -of Siena: ‘My daughter, think of Me, and I will think of thee’: a -short epitome of all perfection. ‘Wheresoever thou findest self,’ says -the _Imitation_, ‘drop that self’: the soul’s degree of fidelity to -this precept is the true measure of its advancement.”[369] The highly -authorized _Manuel de Théologie Mystique_ of the Abbé Lejeune, 1897, -gives but one-sixth of its three-hundred pages to the discussion of -all quasi-miraculous phenomena, puts them all apart from the substance -of Contemplation and of the Mystical Life, and dwells much upon -the manifold dangers of such, never essential, things. The French -Oratorian, Abbé L. Laberthonnière, represents, in the _Annales de -Philosophie Chrétienne_, a spirituality as full of a delicate Mysticism -as it is free from any attachment to extraordinary phenomena. The same -can be said of the Rev. George Tyrrell’s _Hard Sayings_ and _External -Religion_. And the Abbé Sandreau has furnished us with two books of the -most solid tradition and discrimination in all these matters.[370] - -(5) And we should, in justice, remember that the Phenomenalist -Mysticism, objected to by Prof. Münsterberg and so sternly transcended -by St. John of the Cross, is precisely what is still hankered after, -and treated as of spiritual worth, by present-day Spiritualism. Indeed, -even Prof. James’s in many respects valuable _Varieties of Religious -Experience_ is seriously damaged by a cognate tendency to treat -Religion, or at least Mysticism, as an abnormal faculty for perceiving -phenomena inexplicable by physical and psychical science. - -(6) And finally, with respect to the personality of Evil, we must not -forget that “there are drawings to evil as to good, which are not mere -self-temptations, … but which derive from other wills than our own; -strictly, it is only persons that can tempt us.”[371] - - - - -CHAPTER XIV - -THE TWO FINAL PROBLEMS: MYSTICISM AND PANTHEISM. THE IMMANENCE OF GOD, -AND SPIRITUAL PERSONALITY, HUMAN AND DIVINE - - -INTRODUCTORY. - -_Impossibility of completely abstracting from the theoretical form in -the study of the experimental matter._ - -We now come to the last two of our final difficulties and problems--the -supposed or real relations between Inclusive or Exclusive Mysticism -and Pantheism; and the question concerning the Immanence of God and -Spiritual Personality, Human and Divine. - -(1) A preliminary difficulty in this, our deepest, task arises from -the fact that, whereas the evidences of a predominantly individual, -personal, directly experimental kind, furnished by every at all deeply -religious soul, have hitherto been all but completely overlooked -by trained historical investigators, in favour of the study of the -theological concepts and formulations accepted and transmitted by -such souls, now the opposite extreme is tending to predominate, as in -Prof. William James’s _Varieties of Religious Experience_, 1902, or -in Prof. Weinel’s interesting study, _The Effects of the Spirit and -of the Spirits in the Sub-Apostolic Age_, 1899. For here, as Prof. -Bousset points out in connection with the latter book, we get an all -but complete overlooking of the fact that, even in the most individual -experience, there is always some intellectual framework or conception, -some more or less traditional form, which had previously found lodgment -in, and had been more or less accepted by, that soul; so that, though -the experience itself, where at all deep, is never the mere precipitate -of a conventionally accepted traditional intellectual form, it is -nevertheless, even when more or less in conflict with this form, never -completely independent of it.[372]--Yet though we cannot discriminate -in full detail, we can show certain peculiarities in the traditional -Jewish, Mohammedan, Christian Mysticism to be not intrinsic to the -Mystical apprehensions as such, but to come from the then prevalent -philosophies which deflected those apprehensions in those particular -ways. - -(2) In view then of this inevitable inter-relation between the -experimental, personal matter and the theoretical, traditional form, -I shall first consider the Aristotelian and Neo-Platonist conceptions -concerning the relations between the General and the Particular, -between God and Individual Things, as being the two, partly rival yet -largely similar, systems that, between them, have most profoundly -influenced the intellectual starting-point, analysis, and formulation -of those experiences; and shall try to show the special attraction and -danger of these conceptions for the mystically religious temperament. -I shall next discuss the conceptions as to the relations between -God and the individual personality,--the Noûs, the Spirit, and the -Soul,--which, still largely Aristotelian and Neo-Platonist, have even -more profoundly commended themselves to those Mystics, since these -conceptions so largely met some of those Mystics’ requirements, and -indeed remain still, in part, the best analysis procurable. I shall, -thirdly, face the question as to any intrinsic tendency to Pantheism in -Mysticism as such, and as to the significance and the possible utility -of any such tendency, keeping all fuller description of the right -check upon it for my last chapter. And finally, I shall consider what -degree and form of the Divine Immanence in the human soul, of direct -Experience or Knowledge of God on the part of man, and of “Personality” -in God, appear to result from the most careful analysis of the deepest -religious consciousness, and from the requirements of the Sciences and -of Life. - - -I. RELATIONS BETWEEN THE GENERAL AND THE PARTICULAR, GOD AND INDIVIDUAL -THINGS, ACCORDING TO ARISTOTLE, THE NEO-PLATONISTS, AND THE MEDIEVAL -STRICT REALISTS. - - -1. _Aristotle, Plato, Plotinus, Proclus._ - -(1) With regard to the relations between the General and Particular, -we should note Aristotle’s final perplexities and contradictions, -arising from his failure to harmonize or to transcend, by means of -a new and self-consistent conception, the two currents, the Platonic -and the specifically Aristotelian, which make up his thought. For, -with him as with Plato, all Knowledge has to do with Reality: hence -Reality alone, in the highest, primary sense of the word, can form -the highest, primary object of Knowledge; Knowledge will be busy, -primarily, with the Essence, the Substance of things. But with him, as -against Plato, every substance is unique, whence it would follow that -all knowledge refers, at bottom, to the Individual,--individual beings -would form, not only the starting-point, but also the content and -object of knowledge.--Yet this is what Aristotle, once more at one with -Plato, stoutly denies: Science, even where it penetrates most deeply -into the Particular, is never directed to individual things as such, -but always to General Concepts; and this, not because of our human -incapacity completely to know the Individual, as such, but because the -General, in spite of the Particular being better known to us, is more -primitive and more knowable, as alone possessing that Immutability -which must characterize all objects of true knowledge.[373] The true -Essence of things consists only in what is thought in their Concept, -which concept is always some Universal; yet this Universal exists only -in Individual Beings, which are thus declared true Substances: here -are two contentions, the possibility of whose co-existence he fails -to explain. Indeed at one time it is the Form, at another it is the -Individual Being, composed of Form and Matter, which appears as real; -and Matter, again, appears both as the Indefinite General and as the -Cause of Individual Particularity.[374] - -(2) Now Plato had indeed insisted upon ascending to even greater -abstraction, unity, and generality, as the sure process for attaining -to the truth of things; and had retained what is, for us, a strangely -unpersonal, abstract element, precisely in his highest concept, since -God here is hardly personal, but the Idea of Good, a Substance distinct -from all other things, yet not, on this account, an Individual. Yet -Plato’s profoundly aesthetic, social, ethical, above all religious, -consciousness forced him to the inconsistency of proclaiming that, as -the Sun is higher than the light and the eye, so the Good is higher -than (mere) Being and Knowledge; and this Supreme Idea of the Good -gives to things their Being, and to the understanding its power of -Cognition, and is the Cause of all Rightness and Beauty, the Source -of all Reality and Reason, and hence, not only a final, but also an -efficient Cause,--indeed _the_ Cause, pure and simple.[375] In the -_Philebus_ he tells us explicitly that the Good and the Divine Reason -are identical; and in the _Timaeus_ the Demiurge, the World-Former, -looks indeed to the Image of the World, in order to copy it: yet the -Demiurge is also himself this image which he copies.[376] We thus -still have a supreme Multiplicity in Unity as the characteristic of -the deepest Reality; and its chief attribute, Goodness, is not the -most abstract and aloof, but the most rich in qualities and the most -boundlessly self-communicative: “He was good, so he desired that all -things should be as like unto himself as possible.”[377] And Aristotle, -(although he places God altogether outside the visible world, and -attributes to Him there one sole action, the thinking of his own -thought, and one quasi-emotion, intellectual joy at this thinking), -still maintains, in this shrunken form, the identity of the Good and of -the Supreme Reason, Noûs, and a certain Multiplicity in Unity, and a -true self-consciousness, within Him. - -(3) It is Plotinus who is the first expressly to put the Godhead,--in -strict obedience to the Abstractive scheme,--beyond all Multiplicity, -hence above the highest Reason itself, for reason ever contains at -least the duality of Subject thinking and of Object thought; above -Being, for all being has ever a multitude of determinations; and above -every part and the totality of All Things, for it is the cause of them -all. The Cause is here ever outside the effect, the Unity outside the -Multiplicity, what is thought outside of what thinks. The First is -thus purely transcendent,--with one characteristic exception: although -above Being, Energy, Thought, and Thinking, Beauty, Virtue, Life, It -is still the Good; and because of this, though utterly self-sufficing -and without action of any kind, It, “as it were,” overflows, and -this overflow produces a Second.[378] And only this Second is here -the Noûs, possessed of what Aristotle attributes to the First: it is -no sheer Unity, “all things are together there, yet are they there -discriminated”: it is contemplative Thinking of itself; it is pure and -perfect Action.[379] - -(4) And Proclus who, through the Pseudo-Dionysius, is the chief -mediator between Plato and Plotinus on the one hand, and the Medieval -Mystics and Scholastics on the other, is, with his immense thirst for -Unity, necessarily absorbed by the question as to the Law according -to which all things are conjoined to a whole. And this Law is for him -the process of the Many out of the One, and their inclination back to -the One; for this process and inclination determine the connection -of all things, and the precise place occupied by each thing in that -connection. All things move in the circle of procession from their -cause, and of return to it; the simplest beings are the most perfect; -the most complex are the most imperfect.[380] - - -2. _The Anti-Proclian current, in the Areopagite’s view._ - -Now in the Pseudo-Dionysius we find an interesting oscillation between -genuine Neo-Platonism, which finds Beings perfect in proportion to the -fewness and universality of their attributes, although, with it, he -inconsistently holds Goodness,--the deepest but not the most general -attribute,--to be the most perfect of all; and Aristotelianism at its -richest, when it finds Beings perfect according to the multiplicity -and depth of their attributes. Dionysius himself becomes aware of the -dead-lock thence ensuing. “The Divine name of the Good is extended -to things being and to things not being,”--a statement forced upon -him by his keeping, with Plato and Plotinus, Goodness as the supreme -attribute, and yet driving home, more completely than they, their first -principle that Generality and Perfection rise and sink together. “The -Name of Being is extended to all things being” and stretches further -than Life. “The name of Life is extended to all things living” and -stretches further than Wisdom. “The Name of Wisdom is extended,” only, -“to all the intellectual, and rational, and sensible.” - -But if so, “for what reason do we affirm,” (as he has been doing in -the previous sections), “that Life,” the less extended, “is superior -to (mere) Being,” the more extended? “and that Wisdom,” though less -extended, “is superior to mere Life,” the more extended? And he answers -in favour of depth and richness of attributes. “If any one assumed -the intellectual to be without being or life, the objection might hold -good. But if the Divine Minds,” the Angels, “both are above all other -beings, and live above all other living creatures, and think and know -above sensible perception and reasoning, and aspire beyond all other -existent and aspiring beings, to … the Beautiful and Good: then they -encircle the Good more closely.” For “the things that participate more -in the one and boundless-giving God, are more … divine, than those that -come behind them in gifts.”[381] And with abiding truth he says: “Those -who place attributes on That which is above every attribute, should -derive the affirmation from what is more cognate to It; but those who -abstract, with regard to That which is above every abstraction, should -derive the negation from what is further removed from It. Are not, -_e.g._, Life and Goodness more cognate to It than air and stone? And is -It not further removed from debauch and anger than from ineffableness -and incomprehensibility?”[382] - -But more usually Dionysius shows little or no preference for any -particular attribution or denegation; all are taken to fall short so -infinitely as to eliminate any question as to degrees of failure. “The -Deity-Above-All … is neither Soul nor Mind, neither One nor Oneness, -neither Deity nor Goodness.”[383] God is thus purely transcendent. - - -3. _Continuators of the Proclian current._ - -The influence of the Areopagite was notoriously immense throughout -the Middle Ages,--indeed unchecked,--along its Proclian, Emanational, -Ultra-Unitive current,--among the Pantheists from the Christian, -Mohammedan and Jewish camps. - -(1) Thus Scotus Eriugena (who died in about 877 A.D.) insists: “In -strict parlance, the Divine Nature Itself exists alone in all things, -and nothing exists which is not that Nature. The Lord and the Creature -are one and the same thing.” “It is its own Self that the Holy Trinity -loves, sees, moves within us.” One of his fundamental ideas is the -equivalence of the degrees of abstraction and those of existence; he -simply hypostatizes the logical table.[384] Eriugena was condemned. - -(2) But the Pseudo-Aristotelian, really Proclian, _Liber de Causis_, -written by a Mohammedan in about 850 A.D., became, from its -translation into Latin in about 1180 A.D. onwards, an authority among -the orthodox Scholastics. It takes, as “an example of the (_true_) -doctrine as to Causes, Being, Living-Being, and Man. Here it is -necessary that the thing Being should exist first of all, and next -Living-Being, and last Man. Living-Being is the proximate, Being is -the remote cause of Man; hence Being is in a higher degree the cause -of Man than is Living-Being, since Being is the cause of Living-Being, -which latter again is the cause of Man.” … “Being, (of the kind) -which is before Eternity, is the first cause.… Being is more general -than Eternity.… Being of the kind which is with and after Eternity, -is the first of created things.… It is above Sense, and Soul, and -Intelligence.”[385] - -(3) The Mohammedan Avicenna, who died in 1037 A.D., is mostly -Aristotelian in philosophy and Orthodox in religious intention, and, -translated into Latin, was much used by St. Thomas. Yet he has lapses -into pure Pantheism, such as: “The true Being that belongs to God, -is not His only, but is the Being of all things, and comes forth -abundantly from His Being. That which all things desire is Being: -Being is Goodness; the perfection of Being is the perfection of -Goodness.”[386] - -(4) And the Spanish Jew, Ibn Gebirol (Avicebron), who died about 1070 -A.D., is predominantly Proclian, but with a form of Pantheism which, in -parts, strikingly foreshadows Spinoza. His masterly _Fons Vitae_, as -translated into Latin, exercised a profound influence upon Duns Scotus. -“Below the first Maker there is nothing but what is both matter and -form.” “All things are resolvable into Matter and Form. If all things -were resolvable into a single root,” (that is, into Form alone), “there -would be no difference between that one root and the one Maker.” There -exists a universal Matter and a universal Form. The first, or universal -Matter, is a substance existing by itself, which sustains diversity, -and is one in number: it is capable of receiving all the different -kinds of forms. The universal Form is a substance which constitutes the -essence of all the different kinds of forms.… By means of the knowledge -of this universal Form, the knowledge of every (less general) form is -acquired,--is deduced from it and resolved into it.” “Being falls under -four categories, answering to: whether it is, what it is, what is its -quality, and why it is: but, of these, the first in order of dignity -is the category which inquires whether it is at all.”[387] We thus -get again the degree of worth strictly identical with the degree of -generality. - - -4. _Inconsistencies of Aquinas and Scotus._ - -(1) St. Thomas, the chief of the orthodox Scholastics, has embodied -the entire Dionysian writings in his own works, but labours -assiduously--and successfully, as far as his own statements are -concerned--to guard against the Pantheistic tendencies special to -strict Realism. Yet it is clear, from his frequent warnings and -difficult distinctions regarding the double sense of the proposition, -“God is sheer Being,” and from the ease with which we find Eckhart, -an entirely consistent Realist, lapse into the Pantheistic sense, how -immanent is the danger to any severe form of the system.[388] And he -fails to give us a thoroughly understandable and consistent account -as to the relations between the General and the Particular, between -Form and Matter, and between these two pairs of conceptions. Thus -“Materia signata,” matter, as bearing certain dimensions, “is the -principle of individuation”:[389] yet this _quantum_ is already an -individually determined quantity, and _this_ determination remains -unexplained. And certain forms exist separately, without matter, in -which case each single form is a separate species; as with the Angels -and, pre-eminently, with God.--Yet, as already Duns Scotus insisted, -Aquinas’ general principle seems to require the non-existence of pure -forms as distinct beings, and the partial materiality of all individual -beings.[390] - -(2) And Duns Scotus teaches, in explicit return to Avicebron, that -every created substance consists of matter as well as of form, and that -there is but one, First Matter, which is identical in every particular -and derivative kind of matter. The world appears to him as a gigantic -tree, whose root is this indeterminate matter; whose branches are -the transitory substances; whose leaves the changeable accidents; -whose flowers, the rational souls; whose fruit are the Angels: and -which God has planted and which He tends. Here again the order of -Efficacity,--with the tell-tale exception of God,--is identical with -that of Generality.[391] - - -5. _Eckhart’s Pantheistic trend._ - -But it is Eckhart who consistently develops the Pantheistic trend of -a rigorous Intellectualism. The very competent and strongly Thomistic -Father Denifle shows how Eckhart strictly followed the general -scholastic doctrine, as enunciated by Avicenna: “In every creature -its Being is one thing, and is from another, its Essence is another -thing, and is not from another”; whereas in God, Being and Essence are -identical. And Denifle adds: “Eckhart will have been unable to answer -for himself the question as to what, in strictness, the ‘Esse’ is, in -distinction from the ‘Essentia’; indeed no one could have told him, -with precision.… Eckhart leaves intact the distinction between the -Essence of God and that of the creature; but, doubtless in part because -of this, he feels himself free,--in starting from an ambiguous text -of Boetius,--to break down the careful discriminations established by -St. Thomas, in view of this same text, between Universal Being, Common -to all things extant, and Divine Being, reserved by Aquinas for God -alone.”[392] “What things are nearer to each other, than anything that -_is_ and Being? There is nothing between them.” “Very Being,” the Being -of God, “is the actualizing Form of every form, everywhere.” “In one -word,” adds Denifle, “the Being of God constitutes the formal Being of -all things.”[393] The degrees of Generality and Abstract Thinkableness -are again also the degrees of Reality and Worth: “the Eternal Word -assumed to Itself, not this or that human being, but a human nature -which existed bare, unparticularized.” “Being and Knowableness are -identical.” - -When speaking systematically Eckhart is strictly Plotinian: “God -and Godhead are as distinct as earth is from heaven.” “The Godhead -has left all things to God: It owns nought, wills nought, requires -nought, effects nought, produces nought.” “Thou shalt love the Godhead -as It truly is: a non-God, non-Spirit, non-Person … a sheer, pure, -clear One, severed from all duality: let us sink down into that One, -throughout eternity, from Nothing unto Nothing, so help us God.” “The -Godhead Itself remains unknown to Itself.” “It is God who energizes and -speaks one single thing,--His Son, the Holy Ghost, and all creatures.… -Where God speaks it, there it is all God; here, where man understands -it, it is God and creature.”[394] No wonder that the following are -among the propositions condemned by Pope John XXII in 1329: “God -produces me as His own Being, a Being identical, not merely similar”; -and, “I speak as falsely when I call God (the Godhead) good, as if I -call white, black.”[395] - - -6. _The logical goal of strict Realism._ - -This series of facts, which could be indefinitely extended, well -illustrates the persistence of “the fundamental doctrine common to all -forms of Realism,--of the species as an entity in the individuals, -common to all and _identical_ in each, an entity to which individual -differences adhere as accidents,” as Prof. Seth-Pattison accurately -defines the matter. “Yet when existence is in question, it is the -individual, not the universal, that is real; and the real individual -is not a compound of species and accidents, but is individual to the -inmost fibre of his being.” Not as though Nominalism were in the right. -For “each finite individual has its” special “place in the one real -universe, with all the parts of which it is inseparably connected. But -the universe is itself an individual or real whole, containing all -its parts within itself, and not a universal of the logical order, -containing its exemplifications under it.”[396] And, above all, minds, -spirits, persons,--however truly they may approximate more and more -to certain great types of rationality, virtue, and religion, which -types are thus increasingly expressive of God’s self-revealing purpose -and nature,--are ever, not merely numerically different, as between -one individual and the other, but, both in its potentialities and -especially in its spiritual actualization, no one soul can or does take -the place of any other. - -And if we ask what there is in any strict Realism to attract the -Mystical sense, we shall find it, I think, in the insistence of -such Realism upon Unity, Universality, and Stability. Yet in so -far as Mysticism, in such a case Exclusive Mysticism, tends to oust -the Outgoing movement of the soul, it empties these forms of their -Multiple, Individual, and Energizing content. Inclusive Mysticism may -be truly said alone to attain to the true Mystic’s desires; for only -by the interaction of both movements, and of all the powers of the -soul, will the said soul escape the ever-increasing poverty of content -characteristic of the strict Realist’s pyramid of conceptions; a -poverty undoubtedly antagonistic to the secret aspiration of Mysticism, -which is essentially an apprehension, admiration, and love of the -infinite depths and riches of Reality--of this Reality no doubt present -everywhere, yet in indefinitely various, and mutually complementary and -stimulative forms and degrees. And the readiness with which Mysticism -expressed itself in the Nominalist Categories,--distinctly less -adequate to a healthy, Partial Mysticism than the more moderate forms -of Realism,--shows how little intrinsic was the link which seemed to -bind it to a Realism of the most rigorous kind. - - -II. RELATIONS BETWEEN GOD AND THE HUMAN SOUL. - -In taking next the question as to the relations between God and the -Human Soul, we shall find our difficulties increased, because, here -especially, the Philosophers and even the Biblical Writers have, -with regard to religious experience, used expressions and furnished -stimulations of a generally complex and unclarified, intermittent, -and unharmonized kind; and especially because certain specifically -religious experiences and requirements have operated here with a unique -intensity, at one time in a Pantheistic, at another in a more or less -Deistic direction. The reader will specially note the points in the -following doctrines which helped on the conception that a certain -centre or highest part of the soul is God, or a part of God, Himself. - - -1. _Plato and Aristotle. “The Noûs.”_ - -(1) Plato teaches the pre-existence and the post-existence -(immortality) of the soul, as two interdependent truths. In his -earlier stage, _e.g._ the _Phaedrus_, he so little discriminates, in -his argument for immortality, between the individual soul and the -World-Soul, as to argue that “the Self-Moving” Soul generally “is the -beginning of motion, and this motion,” (specially here in connection -with the human soul), “can neither be destroyed nor begotten, since, -in that case, the heavens and all generation would collapse.” Yet -individual souls are not, according to him, emanations of the -World-Soul; but, as the particular ideas stand beside the Supreme Idea, -so do the particular souls stand beside the Soul of the Whole, in a -distinct peculiarity of their own.[397]--And again, since the soul -has lapsed from a purer, its appropriate, life into the body, and has -thus no original, intrinsic relation to this body, the activity of the -senses, indeed in strictness even that of the emotions, cannot form -part of its essential nature. Only the highest part of the soul, the -Reason, _Noûs_, which, as “sun-like, God-like,” can apprehend the sun, -God, is one and simple, as are all the ideas, immortal; whereas the -soul’s lower part consists of two elements,--the nobler, the irascible, -and the ignobler, the concupiscible passions. But how the unity of the -soul’s life can co-exist with this psychical tritomy, is a question -no doubt never formulated even to himself by Plato: we certainly have -only three beings bound together, not one being active in different -directions.[398] - -(2) Aristotle, if more sober in his general doctrine, brings some -special obscurities and contradictions. For whilst the pre-existence -of the soul, taken as a whole, is formally denied, and indeed its very -origin is linked to that of the body, its rational part, the Noûs, -comes into the physical organism from outside of the matter altogether, -and an impersonal pre-existence is distinctly predicated of it,--in -strict conformity with his doctrine that the Supreme Noûs does not -directly act upon, or produce things in, the world.[399] - - -2. _St. Paul. The “Spirit.”_ - -But it is St. Paul who, in his Mystical outbursts and in the systematic -parts of his doctrine, as against the simply hortatory level of -his teaching, gives us the earliest, one of the deepest, and to -this hour by far the most influential, among the at all detailed -experiences and schemes, accepted by and operative among Christians, -as to the relations of the human soul to God. And here again, and -with characteristic intensity, certain overlapping double meanings -and conceptions, and some vivid descriptions of experiences readily -suggestive of the divinity of the soul’s highest part, repeatedly -appear. - -(1) In the systematic passages we not only find the terms _Psyche_, -“Soul,” for the vital force of the body; and _Noûs_, (“Mind,”) -“Heart,” and “Conscience,” for various aspects and functions of -man’s rational and volitional nature: but a special insistence upon -_Pneuma_, “Spirit,” mostly in a quite special sense of the word. -Thus in 1 Cor. ii, 14, 15, we get an absolute contrast between the -psychic or sarkic, the simply natural man, and the Pneumatic, the -Spiritual one, all capacity for understanding the Spirit of God being -denied to the former. The Spiritual thus appears as itself already -the Divine, and the Spirit as the exclusive, characteristic property -of God, something which is foreign to man, apart from his Christian -renovation and elevation to a higher form of existence. Only with the -entrance of faith and its consequences into the mind and will of man, -does this transcendent Spirit become an immanent principle: “through -His Spirit dwelling in you.”[400]--Hence, in the more systematic -Pauline Anthropology, _Pneuma_ cannot be taken as belonging to man’s -original endowment. Certainly in 1 Cor. ii, 11, the term “the spirit -of a man” appears simply because the whole passage is dominated by a -comparison between the Divine and the human consciousness, which allows -simultaneously of the use of the conversely incorrect term, “the mind -of God,”--here, v. 16, and in Rom. xi, 34. And the term “the spirit -of the world,” 1 Cor. ii, 12, is used in contrast with “the Spirit of -God,” and as loosely as the term “the God of this world,” is applied, -in 2 Cor. iv, 4, to Satan.--Only some four passages are difficult to -interpret thus: _e.g._ “Every defilement of flesh and of spirit” (2 -Cor. vii, 1); for how can God, Spirit, be defiled? Yet we can “forget -that our body is a temple of the Holy Spirit,” 1 Cor. vi, 19; and its -defilement can “grieve the Holy Spirit” (Eph. iv, 30).[401] - -And note how parallel to his conception of this immanence of the -transcendent Spirit is St. Paul’s conception, based upon his personal, -mystical experience, of the indwelling of Christ in the regenerate -human soul. Saul had indeed been won to Jesus Christ, not by the -history of Jesus’ earthly life, but by the direct manifestation of -the heavenly Spirit-Christ, on the way to Damascus: whence he teaches -that only those who know Him as Spirit, can truly “be in Christ,”--an -expression formed on the model of “to be in the Spirit,” as in Mark -xii, 36, and Apoc. 1, 10. - -(2) And then these terms take on, in specifically Pauline Mystical -passages, a suggestion of a local extension and environment, and -express, like the corresponding formulae “in God,” “in the Spirit,” the -conception of an abiding within as it were an element,--that of the -exalted Christ and His Divine glory. Or Christ is within us, as the -Spirit also is said to be, so that the regenerate personality, by its -closeness of intercourse with the personality of Christ, can become -one single Spirit with Him, 1 Cor. vi, 17. “As the air is the element -in which man moves, and yet again the element of life which is present -within the man: so the Pneuma-Christ is for St. Paul both the Ocean -of the Divine Being, into which the Christian, since his reception -of the Spirit, is plunged,” and in which he disports himself, “and a -stream which, derived from that Ocean, is specially introduced within -his individual life.”[402] Catherine’s profound indebtedness to this -Mystical Pauline doctrine has already been studied; here we are but -considering this doctrine in so far as suggestive, to the Mystics, -of the identity between the true self and God,--an identity readily -reached, if we press such passages as “Christ, our life”; “to live is -Christ”; “I live, not I, but Christ liveth in me.”[403] - - -3. _Plotinus._ - -Some two centuries later, Plotinus brings his profound influence to -bear in the direction of such identification. For as the First, the -One, which, as we saw, possesses, for him, no Self-consciousness, -Life, or Being, produces the Second, the Noûs, which, possessed of -all these attributes, exercises them directly in self-contemplation -alone; and yet this Second is so closely like that First as to be -“light from light”: so does the Second produce the Third, the Human -Psyche, which, though “a thing by itself,” is a “godlike (divine) -thing,” since it possesses “a more divine part, the part which is -neighbour to what is above, the Noûs, with which and from which Noûs -the Psyche exists.”--The Psyche is “an image of the Noûs”: “as outward -speech expresses inward thought, so is the Psyche a concept of the -Noûs,--a certain energy of the Noûs, as the Noûs itself is an energy -of the First Cause.” “As with fire, where we distinguish the heat that -abides within the fire and the heat that is emitted by it … so must we -conceive the Psyche not as wholly flowing forth from, but as in part -abiding in, in part proceeding from the Noûs.”[404] - -And towards the end of the great Ninth Book of the Sixth Ennead, he -tells how in Ecstasy “the soul sees the Source of Life … the Ground of -Goodness, the Root of the Soul.… For we are not cut off from or outside -of It … but we breathe and consist in It: since It does not give and -then retire, but ever lifts and bears us, so long as It is what It is.” -“We must stand alone in It and must become It alone, after stripping -off all the rest that hangs about us.… There we can behold both Him and -our own selves,--ourselves, full of intellectual light, or rather as -Pure Light Itself, having become God, or rather as being simply He … -abiding altogether unmoved, having become as it were Stability Itself.” -“When man has moved out of himself away to God, like the image to its -Prototype, he has reached his journey’s end.” “And this is the life of -the Gods and of divine and blessed men … a flight of the alone to the -Alone.”[405] - - -4. _Eckhart’s position. Ruysbroek._ - -(1) Eckhart gives us both Plotinian positions--the God-likeness and -the downright Divinity of the soul. “The Spark (_das Fünkelein_) -of the Soul … is a light impressed upon its uppermost part, and an -image of the Divine Nature, which is ever at war with all that is not -divine. It is not one of the several powers of the soul.… Its name -is Synteresis,”--_i.e._ conscience. “The nine powers of the soul are -all servants of that man of the soul, and help him on to the soul’s -Source.”[406]--But in one of the condemned propositions he says: “There -is something in the soul which is Increate and Uncreatable; if the -whole soul were such, it would be (entirely) Increate and Uncreatable. -And this is the Intellect,”--standing here exactly for Plotinus’s -Noûs.[407] - -(2) Ruysbroek (who died in 1381) combines a considerable fundamental -sobriety with much of St. Paul’s daring and many echoes of Plotinus. -“The unity of our spirit with God is of two kinds,--essential and -actual. According to its essence, our spirit receives, in its -innermost highest part, the visit of Christ, without means and without -intermission; for the life which we are in God, in our Eternal Image, -and that which we have and are in ourselves, according to the essence -of our being … are without distinction.--But this essential unity of -our spirit with God has no consistency in itself, but abides in God and -flows out from and depends on Him.” The actual unity of our spirit with -God, caused by Grace, confers upon us not His Image, but His Likeness, -“and though we cannot lose the Image of God, nor our natural unity with -Him,--if we lose His Likeness, His Grace, Christ, who, in this case, -comes to us with mediations and intermissions, we shall be damned.”[408] - - -5. _St. Teresa’s mediating view._ - -St. Teresa’s teachings contain interesting faint echoes of the old -perplexities and daring doctrines concerning the nature of the Spirit; -but articulate a strikingly persistent conviction that the soul holds -God Himself as distinct from His graces, possessing thus some direct -experience of this His presence. “I cannot understand what the mind -is, nor how it differs from the soul or the spirit either: all three -seem to me to be but one, though the soul sometimes leaps forth out -of itself, like a fire which has become a flame: the flame ascends -high above the fire, but it is still the same flame of the same fire.” -“Something subtle and swift seems to issue from the soul, to ascend -to its highest part and to go whither Our Lord will … it seems a -flight. This little bird of the spirit seems to have escaped out of -the prison of the body.” Indeed “the soul is then not in itself … it -seems to me to have its dwelling higher than even the highest part of -itself.”[409]--“In the beginning I did not know that God is present in -all things.… Unlearned men used to tell me that He was present only by -His grace. I could not believe that.… A most learned Dominican told me -He was present Himself … this was a great comfort to me.” “To look upon -Our Lord as being in the innermost parts of the soul … is a much more -profitable method, than that of looking upon Him as external to us.” -“The living God was in my soul.” And even, “hitherto” up to 1555, “my -life was my own; my life, since then, is the life which God lived in -me.”[410] - - -6. _Immanence, not Pantheism._ - -St. Teresa’s teaching as to God’s own presence in the soul points -plainly, I think, to the truth insisted on by the Catholic theologian -Schwab, in his admirable monograph on Gerson. “Neither speculation nor -feeling are satisfied with a Pure Transcendence of God; and hence the -whole effort of true Mysticism is directed, whilst not abolishing His -Transcendence, to embrace and experience God, His living presence, -in the innermost soul,--that is, to insist, in some way or other, -upon the Immanence of God. Reject all such endeavours as Pantheistic, -insist sharply upon the specific eternal difference between God and -the Creature: and the Speculative, Mystical depths fade away, with -all their fascination.”[411] Not in finding Pantheism already here, -with the imminent risk of falling into a cold Deism, but in a rigorous -insistence, with all the great Inclusive Mystics, upon the spiritual -and moral effects, as the tests of the reality and worth of such -experiences, and, with the Ascetical and Historical souls, upon also -the other movement--an outgoing in some kind of contact with, and -labour at, the contingencies and particularities of life and mind--will -the true safeguard for this element of the soul’s life be found.[412] - - -III. MYSTICISM AND PANTHEISM: THEIR DIFFERENCES AND POINTS OF LIKENESS. - -But does not Mysticism, not only find God in the soul, but the soul -to be God? Is it not, as such, already Pantheism? Or, if not, what is -their difference? - - -1. _Plotinus and Spinoza compared._ - -Now Dr. Edward Caird, in his fine book, _The Evolution of Theology in -the Greek Philosophers_, 1904, tells us that “Mysticism is religion in -its most concentrated and exclusive form; it is that attitude of mind -in which all other relations are swallowed up in the relation of the -soul to God”; and that “Plotinus is the Mystic _par excellence_.”[413] -And he then proceeds to contrast Plotinus, the typical Mystic, with -Spinoza, the true Pantheist. - -“Whether” or not “Spinoza, in his negation of the limits of the finite, -still leaves it open to himself to admit a reality in finite things -which is _not_ negated,” and “to conceive of the absolute substance -as manifesting itself in attributes and modes”: “it is very clear -that he does so conceive it, and that, for all those finite things -which he treats as negative and illusory in themselves, he finds in -God a ground of reality … which can be as little destroyed as the -divine substance itself.” “God, _Deus sive Natura_, is conceived as -the immanent principle of the universe, or perhaps rather the universe -is conceived as immanent in God.”--Thus to him “the movement by which -he dissolves the finite in the infinite, and the movement by which he -finds the finite again in the infinite, are equally essential. If for -him the world is nothing apart from God, God is nothing apart from His -realization in the world.” This is true Pantheism.[414] - -But in Plotinus the _via negativa_ involves a negation of the finite -and determinate in all its forms; hence here it is impossible to find -the finite again in the infinite. The Absolute One is here not immanent -but transcendent.[415] “While the lower always has need of the higher, -the higher is regarded as having no need” for any purpose “of the -lower”; and “the Highest has no need of anything but Itself.” “Such -a process cannot be reversed”: “in ascending, Plotinus has drawn the -ladder after him, and left himself no possibility of descending again. -The movement, in which he is guided by definite and explicit thought, -is always upwards; while, in describing the movement downwards, he -has to take refuge in metaphors and analogies,” for the purpose of -indicating a purely self-occupied activity which only accidentally -produces an external effect, _e.g._, “the One as it were overflows, and -produces another than itself.”[416] “Thus we have the strange paradox -that the Being who is absolute, is yet conceived as in a sense external -to the relative and finite, and that He leaves the relative and finite -in a kind of unreal independence.” “On the one side, we have a life -which is nothing apart from God, and which, nevertheless, can never be -united to him, except as it loses itself altogether; and, on the other -side, an Absolute, which yet is not immanent in the life it originates, -but abides in transcendent isolation from it.… It is this contradiction -which … makes the writings of Plotinus the supreme expression of -Mysticism.”[417] - -Now I think, with this admirable critic, that we cannot but take -Spinoza as the classical representative of that parallelistic -Pantheism to which most of our contemporary systems of psycho-physical -parallelism belong. As Prof. Troeltsch well puts it, “we have here a -complete parallelism between every single event in the physical world, -which event is already entirely explicable from its own antecedents -within that physical world, and every event of a psychical kind, -which, nevertheless, is itself also entirely explicable from its own -psychical antecedents alone.” And “this parallelism again is but two -sides of the one World-Substance, Which is neither Nature nor Spirit, -and Whose law is neither natural nor spiritual law, but Which is Being -in general and Law in general.” In this one World-Substance, with its -parallel self-manifestations as extension and as thought, Spinoza -finds the ultimate truth of Religion, as against the Indeterminist, -Anthropomorphic elements of all the popular religions,--errors which -have sprung, the Anthropomorphic from man’s natural inclination to -interpret Ultimate Reality, with its complete neutrality towards -the distinctions of Psychical and Physical, by the Psychic side, as -the one nearest to our own selves; and the Indeterminist from the -attribution of that indetermination to the World-Substance which, even -in Psychology, is already a simple illusion and analytical blunder. - -“It is in the combination,” concludes Professor Troeltsch, “of such a -recognition of the strict determination of all natural causation, and -of such a rejection of materialism (with its denial of the independence -of the psychic world), that rests the immense power of Pantheism at -the present time.”[418] On the other hand, the supposed Pantheistic -positions of the later Lessing, of Herder, Goethe and many another -predominantly aesthetic thinker, must, although far richer and more -nearly adequate conceptions of full reality, be assigned, _qua_ -Pantheism, a secondary place, as inconsistent, because already largely -Teleological, indeed Theistic Philosophies. - - -2. _Complete Pantheism non-religious; why approached by Mysticism._ - -Now the former, the full Pantheism, must, I think, be declared, with -Rauwenhoff, to be only in name a religious position at all. “In its -essence it is simply a complete Monism, a recognition of the _Pan_ in -its unity and indivisibility, and hence a simple view of the world, not -a religious conception.”[419]--Yet deeply religious souls can be more -or less, indeed profoundly, influenced by such a Monism, so that we can -get Mystics with an outlook considerably more Spinozist than Plotinian. -There can, _e.g._, be no doubt as to both the deeply religious temper -and the strongly Pantheistic conceptions of Eckhart in the Middle Ages, -and of Schleiermacher in modern times; and indeed Spinoza himself is, -apart from all questions as to the logical implications and results -of his intellectual system, and as to the justice of his attacks upon -the historical religions, a soul of massive religious intuition and -aspiration. - -But further: Mystically tempered souls,--and the typical and -complete religious soul will ever possess a mystical element in its -composition,--have three special _attraits_ which necessarily bring -them into an at least apparent proximity to Pantheism. - -(1) For one thing Mysticism, like Pantheism, has a great, indeed (if -left unchecked by the out-going-movement) an excessive, thirst for -Unity, for a Unity less and less possessed of Multiplicity; and the -transition from holding the Pure Transcendence of this Unity to a -conviction of its Exclusive Immanence becomes easy and insignificant, -in proportion to the emptiness of content increasingly characterizing -this Oneness. - -(2) Then again, like Pantheists, Mystics dwell much upon the strict -call to abandon all self-centredness, upon the death to self, the loss -of self; and in proportion as they dwell upon this self to be thus -rejected, and as they enlarge the range of this petty self, do they -approach each other more and more. - -(3) And lastly, there is a peculiarity about the Mystical habit of -mind, which inevitably approximates it to the Pantheistic mode of -thought, and which, if not continuously taken by the Mystic soul -itself as an inevitable, but most demonstrable, inadequacy, will -react upon the substance of this soul’s thought in a truly Pantheistic -sense. This peculiarity results from the Mystic’s ever-present double -tendency of absorbing himself, away from the Successive and Temporal, -in the Simultaneity and Eternity of God, conceiving thus all reality -as partaking, in proportion to its depth and greater likeness to -Him, in this _Totum Simul_ character of its ultimate Author and -End; and of clinging to such vivid picturings of this reality as -are within his, this Mystic’s reach. Now such a Simultaneity can be -pictorially represented to the mind only by the Spacial imagery of -co-existent Extensions,--say of air, water, light, or fire: and these -representations, if dwelt on as at all adequate, will necessarily -suggest a Determinism of a Mathematico-Physical, Extensional type, -_i.e._ one, and the dominant, side of Spinozistic Pantheism.--It is -here, I think, that we get the double cause for the Pantheistic-seeming -trend of almost all the Mystical imagery. For even the marked -Emanationism of much in Plotinus, and of still more in Proclus,--the -latter still showing through many a phrase in Dionysius,--appears in -their images as operating upon a fixed Extensional foundation: and -indeed these very overflowings, owing to the self-centredness and -emptiness of content of their Source, the One, and to their accidental -yet automatic character, help still further to give to the whole -outlook a strikingly materialistic, mechanical, in so far Pantheistic, -character. - - -3. _Points on which Mysticism has usefully approximated to Pantheism._ - -And yet we must not overlook the profound, irreplaceable services that -are rendered by Mysticism,--provided always it remains but one of two -great movements of the living soul,--even on the points in which it -thus approximates to Pantheism. These services, I think, are three. - -(1) The first of these services has been interestingly illustrated by -Prof. A. S. Pringle Pattison, from the case of Dr. James Martineau’s -writings, and the largely unmediated co-existence there of two -different modes of conceiving God. “The first mode represents God -simply as another, higher Person; the second represents Him as -the soul of souls. The former, Deistic and Hebraic, rests upon an -inferential knowledge of God, derived either from the experience of -His resistance to our will through the forces of Nature, or from that -of His restraint upon us in the voice of Conscience,--God, in both -cases, being regarded as completely separated from the human soul, and -His existence and character apprehended and demonstrated by a process -of reasoning.--The second mode is distinctly and intensely Christian, -and consists in the apprehension of God as the Infinite including -all finite existences, as the immanent Absolute who progressively -manifests His character in the Ideals of Truth, Beauty, Righteousness, -and Love.” And Professor Pattison points out, with Professor Upton, -that it was Dr. Martineau’s almost morbid dread of Pantheism which was -responsible for the inadequate expression given to this Mystical, or -“Speculative” element in his religious philosophy. For only if we do -not resist such Mysticism, do we gain and retain a vivid experience of -how “Consciousness of imperfection and the pursuit of perfection are -alike possible to man only through the universal life of thought and -goodness in which he shares, and which, at once an indwelling presence -and an unattainable ideal, draws him on and always on.” “Personality -is” thus “not ‘unitary’ in Martineau’s sense, as occupying one side -of a relation, and unable to be also on the other. The very capacity -of knowledge and morality implies that the person … is capable of -regarding himself and all other beings from what Martineau well names -‘the station of the Father of Spirits.’”[420] - -I would, however, guard here against any exclusion of a seeking -or finding of God in Nature and in Conscience: only the contrary -exclusion of the finding of God within the soul, and the insistence -upon a complete separation of Him from that soul, are inacceptable in -the “Hebraic” mood. For a coming and a going, a movement inwards and -outwards, checks and counter-checks, friction, contrast, battle and -storm, are necessary conditions and ingredients of the soul’s growth in -its sense of appurtenance to Spirit and to Peace. - -(2) A further service rendered by this Pantheistic-seeming -Mysticism,--though always only so long as it remains not the only or -last word of Religion,--is that it alone discovers the truly spiritual -function and fruitfulness of Deterministic Science. For only if Man -deeply requires a profound desubjectivizing, a great shifting of the -centre of his interest, away from the petty, claimful, animal self, -with its “I against all the world,” to a great kingdom of souls, in -which Man gains his larger, spiritual, unique personality, with its -“I as part of, and for all the world,” by accepting to be but one -amongst thousands of similar constituents in a system expressive of the -thoughts of God; and only if Mathematico-Physical Science is specially -fitted to provide such a bath, and hence is so taken, with all its -apparently ruinous Determinism and seeming Godlessness: is such Science -really safe from apologetic emasculation; or from running, a mere -unrelated dilettantism, alongside of the deepest interests of the soul; -or from, in its turn, crushing or at least hampering the deepest, the -spiritual life of man. Hence all the greater Partial Mystics have got -a something about them which indicates that they have indeed passed -through fire and water, that their poor selfishness has been purified -in a bath of painfully-bracing spiritual air and light, through which -they have emerged into a larger, fuller life. And Nicolas of Coes, -Pascal, Malebranche are but three men out of many whose Mysticism and -whose Mathematico-Physical Science thus interstimulated each other and -jointly deepened their souls. - -We shall find, further on, that this purificatory power of such Science -has been distinctly heightened for us now. Yet, both then and now, -there could and can be such purification only for those who realize -and practise religion as sufficiently ultimate and wide and deep to -englobe, (as one of religion’s necessary stimulants), an unweakened, -utterly alien-seeming Determinism in the middle regions of the -soul’s experience and outlook. Such an englobement can most justly -be declared to be Christianity driven fully home. For thus is Man -purified and saved,--if he already possesses the dominant religious -motive and conviction,--by a close contact with Matter; and the Cross -is plunged into the very centre of his soul’s life, operating there a -sure division between the perishing animal Individual and the abiding -spiritual Personality: the deathless Incarnational and Redemptive -religion becomes thus truly operative there. - -(3) And the last service, rendered by such Mysticism, is to keep -alive in the soul the profoundly important consciousness of the -prerequisites, elements and affinities of a Universally Human kind, -which are necessary to, and present in, all Religion, however -definitely Concrete, Historical and Institutional it may have become. -Such special, characteristic Revelations, Doctrines and Institutions, -as we find them in all the great Historical Religions, and in their -full normative substance and form in Christianity and Catholicism, can -indeed alone completely develop, preserve and spread Religion in its -depth and truth; yet they ever presuppose a general, usually dim but -most real, religious sense and experience, indeed a real presence and -operation of the Infinite and of God in all men. - -It is, then, not an indifferentist blindness to the profound -differences, in their degree of truth, between the religions of -the world, nor an insufficient realization of man’s strict need of -historical and institutional lights and aids for the development and -direction of that general religious sense and experience, which make -the mind revolt from sayings such as those we have already quoted from -the strongly Protestant Prof. Wilhelm Hermann, and to which we can -add the following. “Everywhere, outside of Christianity, Mysticism -will arise, as the very flower of the religious development. But -the Christian must declare such Mystical experience of God to be a -delusion.” For “what is truly Christian is _ipso facto_ not Mystical.” -“We are Christians because, in the Humanity of Jesus, we have struck -upon a fact which is of incomparably richer content, than are the -feelings that arise within our own selves.” Indeed, “I should have -failed to recognize the hand of God even in what my own dead father -did for me, had not, by means of my Christian education, God appeared -to me, in the Historic Christ.”[421]--As if it were possible to -consider Plato and Plotinus, in those religious intuitions and feelings -of theirs which helped to win an Augustine from crass Manichaeism -to a deep Spiritualism, and which continue to breathe and burn as -part-elements in countless sayings of Christian philosophers and -saints, to have been simply deluded, or mere idle subjectivists! As if -we could apprehend even Christ, without some most real, however dim and -general, sense of religion and presence of God within us to which He -could appeal! And as if Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the Maccabaean Martyrs, -and many a devoted soul within Mohammedanism or in Brahmanic India, -could not and did not apprehend something of God’s providence in their -earthly father’s love towards them! - -No wonder that, after all this, Hermann can,--as against Richard Rothe -who, in spite of more than one fantastic if not fanatical aberration, -had, on some of the deepest religious matters, a rarely penetrating -perception,--write in a thoroughly patronizing manner concerning -Catholic Mysticism. For this Mysticism necessarily appears to him not -as, at its best, the most massive and profound development of one type -of the ultimate religion,--a type in which one necessary element of all -balanced religious life is at the fullest expansion compatible with a -still sufficient amount and healthiness of the other necessary elements -of such a life,--but only as “a form of religion which has brought out -and rendered visible such a content of interior life as is capable of -being produced within the limits of Catholic piety.”[422] The true, -pure Protestant possesses, according to Hermann, apparently much less, -in reality much more,--the Categorical Imperative of Conscience and the -Jesus of History, as the double one-and-all of his, the only spiritual -religion.--Yet if Christianity is indeed the religion of the Divine -Founder, Who declared that he that is not against Him is for Him; or -of Paul, who could appeal to the heathen Athenians and to all men for -the truth and experience that in God “we live and move and have our -being”; or of the great Fourth Gospel, which tells us that Christ, -the True Light, enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world, a -light which to this hour cannot, for the great majority, be through -historic knowledge of the Historic Christ at all; or of Clement of -Alexandria and of Justin Martyr, who loved to find deep apprehensions -and operations of God scattered about among the Heathen; or of Aquinas, -who, in the wake of the Areopagite and others, so warmly dwells upon -how Grace does not destroy, but presupposes and perfects Nature: then -such an exclusive amalgam of Moralism and History, though doubtless a -most honest and intelligible reaction against opposite excesses, is -a sad impoverishment of Christianity, in its essential, world-wide, -Catholic character. - -Indeed, to be fair, there have never been wanting richer and more -balanced Protestant thinkers strongly to emphasize this profound -many-sidedness and universality of Christianity: so, at present, -in Germany, Profs. Eucken, Troeltsch, Class, Siebeck and others; -and, in England, Prof. A. S. P. Pattison and Mr. J. R. Illingworth. -In all these cases there is ever a strong sympathy with Mysticism -properly understood, as the surest safeguard against such distressing -contractions as is this of Hermann, and that of Albrecht Ritschl before -him. - - -4._ Christianity excludes complete and final Pantheism._ - -And yet, as we have repeatedly found, Christianity has, in its -fundamental Revelation and Experience, ever implied and affirmed such a -conception of Unity, of Self-Surrender, and of the Divine Action, as to -render any Pantheistic interpretation of these things ever incomplete -and transitional. - -(1) The Unity here is nowhere, even ultimately, the sheer Oneness -of a simply identical Substance, but a Unity deriving its very -close-knitness from its perfect organization of not simply identical -elements or relations. - -The Self-Surrender here is not a simply final resolution, of -laboriously constituted centres of human spiritual consciousness and -personality, back into a morally indifferent All, but a means and -passage, for the soul, from a spiritually worthless self-entrenchment -within a merely psycho-physical apartness and lust to live, on to a -spiritual devotedness, an incorporation, as one necessary subject, into -the Kingdom of souls,--the abiding, living expression of the abiding, -living God. - -And, above all, God’s Action is not a mechanico-physical, determinist, -simultaneous Extension, nor even an automatic, accidental, unconscious -Emanation, but, as already Plato divined,--an intuition lost again by -Aristotle, and, in his logic, denied by Plotinus,--a voluntary outgoing -and self-communication of the supreme self-conscious Spirit, God. For -Plato tells us that “the reason why Nature and this Universe of things -was framed by Him Who framed it, is that God is good … and desired -that all things should be as like Himself as it was possible for them -to be.”[423] Yet this pregnant apprehension never attains here to its -full significance, because the Divine Intelligence is conceived only as -manifesting itself in relation to something given from without,--the -pre-existing, chaotic Matter. And for Aristotle God does not love this -Givenness; for “the first Mover moves” (all things) only “as desired” -by them: He Himself desires, loves, wills nothing whatsoever, and -thinks and knows nothing but His own self alone.[424] And in Plotinus -this same transcendence is still further emphasized, for the Absolute -One here transcends even all thought and self-consciousness. - -(2) It is in Christianity, after noble preludings in Judaism, that we -get the full deliberate proclamation, in the great Life and Teaching, -of the profound fact,--the Self-Manifestation of the Loving God, the -Spirit-God moving out to the spirit-man, and spirit-man only thus -capable of a return movement to the Spirit-God. As Schelling said, “God -can only give Himself to His creatures as He gives a self to them,” -and, with it, the capacity of participating in His life. We thus get -a relation begun and rendered possible by God’s utterly prevenient, -pure, _ecstatic_ love of Man, a relation which, in its essence -spiritual, personal and libertarian, leaves behind it, as but vain -travesties of such ultimate Realities, all Emanational or Parallelistic -Pantheism, useful though these latter systems are as symbols of the -Mathematico-Physical level and kind of reality and apprehension. -Yet this spiritual relation is here, unlike Plotinus’s more or less -Emanational conception of it, not indeed simply invertible, as Spinoza -would have it, (for Man is ontologically dependent upon God, whereas -God is not thus dependent upon Man), but nevertheless largely one of -true mutuality. And this mutuality of the relation is not simply a -positive enactment of God, but is expressive, in its degree and mode, -of God’s intrinsic moral nature. For God is here the Source as well -as the Object of all love; hence He Himself possesses the supreme -equivalent for this our noblest emotion, and is moved to free acts of -outgoing, in the creation and preservation, the revelation to, and -the redemption of finite spirits, as so many successive, mutually -supplementary, and increasingly fuller expressions and objects of this -His nature. “God is Love”; “God so loved the world, as to give His -only-begotten Son”; “Let us love God, for God hath first loved us”; “if -any man will do the will of God, he shall know of the doctrine if it be -from God”: God’s Infinity is here, not the negation of the relatively -independent life of His creatures, but the very reason and source of -their freedom.[425] - -In the concluding chapter I hope to give a sketch of the actual -operation of the true correctives to any excessive, Plotinian or -Spinozistic, tendencies in the Mystical trend, especially when -utilizing Mathematico-Physical Science at the soul’s middle level; and -of History at the ultimate reaches of the soul’s life. - - -IV. THE DIVINE IMMANENCE; SPIRITUAL PERSONALITY. - - -1. _Panentheism._ - -As to our fourth question, the Divine Immanence and Personality, -our last quotations from St. Teresa give us, I think, our true -starting-point. For it is evident that, between affirming the simple -Divinity of the innermost centre of the soul, and declaring that the -soul ever experiences only the Grace of God, _i.e._ certain created -effects, sent by Him from the far-away seat of His own full presence, -there is room for a middle position which, whilst ever holding the -definite creatureliness of the soul, in all its reaches, puts God -Himself into the soul and the soul into God, in degrees and with -results which vary indeed indefinitely according to its good-will -and its call, yet which all involve and constitute a presence ever -profoundly real, ever operative before and beyond all the soul’s own -operations. These latter operations are, indeed, even possible only -through all this Divine anticipation, origination, preservation, -stimulation, and, at bottom,--in so far as man is enabled and required -by God to reach a certain real self-constitution,--through a mysterious -Self-Limitation of God’s own Action,--a Divine Self-Restraint. - -There can be little doubt that such a _Panentheism_ is all that -many a daring, in strictness Pantheistic, saying of the Christian, -perhaps also of the Jewish and Mohammedan, Mystics aimed at. Only the -soul’s ineradicable capacity, need and desire for its Divine Lodger -and Sustainer would constitute, in this conception, the intrinsic -characteristic of human nature; and it is rather the too close -identification, in feeling and emotional expression, of the desire -and the Desired, of the hunger and the Food, and the too exclusive -realization of the deep truth that this desire and hunger do not cause, -but are themselves preceded and caused by, their Object,--it is the -over-vivid perception of this real dynamism, rather than any _a priori_ -theory of static substances and identities--which, certainly in many -cases, has produced the appearance of Pantheism. - -And again it is certain that we have to beware of taking the apparent -irruption or ingrafting,--in the case of the operations of Grace,--of -an entirely heterogeneous Force and Reality into what seems the already -completely closed circle of our natural functions and aspirations, -as the complete and ultimate truth of the situation. However utterly -different that Force may feel to all else that we are aware of within -ourselves, however entirely unmeditated may seem its manifestations: -it is clear that we should be unable to recognize even this Its -difference, to welcome or resist It, above all to find It a response to -our deepest cravings, unless we had some natural true affinity to It, -and some dim but most real experience of It from the first. Only with -such a general religiosity and vague sense, from a certain contact, -of the Infinite, is the recognition of definite, historical Religious -Facts and Figures as true, significant, binding upon my will and -conscience, explicable at all. - - -2. _Aquinas on our direct semi-consciousness of God’s indwelling._ - -St. Thomas, along one line of doctrine, has some excellent teachings -about all this group of questions. For though he tells us that “the -names which we give to God and creatures, are predicated of God” -only “according to a certain relation of the creature to God, as its -Principle and Cause, in which latter the perfections of all things -pre-exist in an excellent manner”: yet he explicitly admits, in one -place, that we necessarily have some real, immediate experience of the -Nature of God, for that “it is impossible, with regard to anything, -to know whether it exists,”--and he has admitted that natural reason -can attain to a knowledge of God’s bare existence,--“unless we somehow -know what is its nature,” at least “with a confused knowledge”; whence -“also with regard to God, we could not know whether He exists, unless -we somehow knew, even though confusedly, what He is.”[426]--God, though -transcendent, is also truly immanent in the human soul: “God is in all -things, as the agent is present in that wherein it acts. Created Being -is as true an effect of God’s Being, as to burn is the true effect of -fire. God is above all things,--by the excellence of His nature, and -yet He is intimately present within all things, as the cause of the -Being of all.”--And man has a natural exigency of the face-to-face -Vision of God, hence of the Order of Grace, however entirely its -attainment may be beyond his natural powers: “There is in man a natural -longing to know the cause, when he sees an effect: whence if the -intellect of the rational creature could not attain to the First Cause -of things,”--here in the highest form, that of the Beatific vision of -God--“the longing of its nature would remain void and vain.”[427] - -But it is the great Mystical Saints and writers who continuously have, -in the very forefront of their consciousness and assumptions, not a -simply moral and aspirational, but an Ontological and Pre-established -relation between the soul and God; and not a simply discursive -apprehension, but a direct though dim Experience of the Infinite -and of God. And these positions really underlie even their most -complete-seeming negations, as we have already seen in the case of the -Areopagite. - - -3. _Gradual recognition of the function of subconsciousness._ - -Indeed, we can safely affirm that the last four centuries, and even -the last four decades, have more and more confirmed the reality and -indirect demonstrableness of such a presence and sense of the Infinite; -ever more or less obscurely, but none the less profoundly, operative -in the innermost normal consciousness of mankind: a presence and sense -which, though they can be starved and verbally denied, cannot be -completely suppressed; and which, though they do not, if unendorsed, -constitute even the most elementary faith, far less a developed -Historical or Mystical Religion, are simply necessary prerequisites to -all these latter stimulations and consolidations. - -(1) As we have already found, it is only since Leibniz that we -know, systematically, how great is the range of every man’s Obscure -Presentations, his dim Experience as against his Clear or distinct -Presentations, his explicit Knowledge; and how the Clear depends even -more upon the Dim, than the Dim upon the Clear. And further discoveries -and proofs in this direction are no older than 1888.[428] - -(2) Again, it is the growing experience of the difficulties and -complexities of Psychology, History, Epistemology, and of the apparent -unescapableness and yet pain of man’s mere anthropomorphisms, that -makes the persistence of his search for, and sense of, Objective Truth -and Reality, and the keenness of his suffering when he appears to -himself as imprisoned in mere subjectivity, deeply impressive. For the -more man feels, and suffers from feeling himself purely subjective, -the more is it clear that he is not merely subjective: he could never -be conscious of the fact, if he were. “Suppose that all your objects -in life were realized … would this be a great joy and happiness -to you?” John Stuart Mill asked himself; and “an irrepressible -self-consciousness distinctly answered ‘No.’”[429] Whether in bad -health just then or not, Mill was here touching the very depths of -the characteristically human sense. In all such cases only a certain -profound apprehension of Abiding Reality, the Infinite, adequately -explains the keen, operative sense of contrast and disappointment. - -(3) And further, we have before us, with a fulness and delicate -discrimination undreamed of in other ages, the immense variety, -within a certain general psychological unity, of the great and small -Historical Religions, past and present, of the world. Facing all this -mass of evidence, Prof. Troeltsch can ask, more confidently than -ever: “Are not our religious requirements, requirements of Something -that one must have somehow first experienced in order to require It? -Are they not founded upon some kind of Experience as to the Object, -Which Itself first awakens the thought of an ultimate infinite meaning -attaching to existence, and Which, in the conflict with selfishness, -sensuality and self-will, draws the nobler part of the human will, -with ever new force, to Itself?” “All deep and energetic religion is -in a certain state of tension towards Culture, for the simple reason -that it is seeking something else and something higher.”[430] And -Prof. C. P. Tiele, so massively learned in all the great religions, -concludes: “‘Religion,’ says Feuerbach, ‘proceeds from man’s wishes’ …; -according to others, it is the outcome of man’s dissatisfaction with -the external world.… But why should man torment himself with wishes -which he never sees fulfilled around him, and which the rationalistic -philosopher declares to be illusions? Why? surely, because he cannot -help it.… The Infinite, very Being as opposed to continual becoming -and perishing,--or call It what you will,--_that_ is the Principle -which gives him constant unrest, because It dwells within him.” And -against Prof. Max Müller,--who had, however, on this point, arrived at -a position very like Tiele’s own,--he impressively insists that “the -origin of religion consists,” not in a “perception of the Infinite,” -but “in the fact that Man _has_ the Infinite within him.”--I would -only contend further that the instinct of the Infinite awakens -simultaneously with our sense-perceptions and categories of thinking, -and passes, together with them and with the deeper, more volitional -experiences, through every degree and stage of obscurity and relative -clearness. “Whatever name we give it,--instinct; innate, original, -or unconscious form of thought; or form of conception,--it is the -specifically human element in man.”[431] But if all this be true, then -the Mystics are amongst the great benefactors of our race: for it is -especially this presence of the Infinite in Man, and man’s universal -subjection to an operative consciousness of it, which are the deepest -cause and the constant object of the adoring awe of all truly spiritual -Mystics, in all times and places. - - - - -CHAPTER XV - -SUMMING UP OF THE WHOLE BOOK. BACK THROUGH ASCETICISM, SOCIAL RELIGION, -AND THE SCIENTIFIC HABIT OF MIND, TO THE MYSTICAL ELEMENT OF RELIGION. - - -I now propose to conclude, by getting, through three successively -easier matters, back to the starting-point of this whole book, -and, in doing so, to sum up and delimitate, more and more clearly, -the practical lessons learnt during its long course. These three -last matters and points of observation shall be Asceticism, -Institutionalism, and Mental Activity and Discipline, or the Scientific -Habit--all three in their relation to the Mystical Element of Religion. - - -I. ASCETICISM AND MYSTICISM. - -Now in the matter of Asceticism, we can again conveniently consider -three points. - - -1. _Ordinary Asceticism practised by Mystics._ - -There is, first, the (generally severe) Asceticism which is ever -connected with at least some one phase, an early one, of every genuine -Mystic’s history, yet which does not differ essentially from the direct -training in self-conquest to which practically all pre-Protestant, and -most of the old Protestant earnest Christians considered themselves -obliged. - -(1) Now it is deeply interesting to note how marked has been, off -and on throughout the last century and now again quite recently, -the renewal of comprehension and respect for the general principle -of Asceticism, in quarters certainly free from all preliminary bias -in favour of Medieval Christianity. Schopenhauer wrote in 1843: -“Not only the religions of the East but also genuine Christianity -shows, throughout its systems, that fundamental characteristic of -Asceticism which my philosophy elucidates.… Precisely in its doctrines -of renunciation, self-denial, complete chastity, in a word, of -general mortification of the will, lie the deepest truth, the high -value, the sublime character of Christianity. It thus belongs to the -old, true, and lofty ideal of mankind, in opposition to the false, -shallow, and ruinous optimism of Greek Paganism, Judaism and Islam.” -“Protestantism, by eliminating Asceticism and its central point, the -meritoriousness of celibacy, has, by this alone, already abandoned the -innermost kernel of Christianity.… For Christianity is the doctrine -of the deep guilt of the human race … and of the heart’s thirst after -redemption from it, a redemption which can be acquired only through the -abnegation of self,--that is, through a complete conversion of human -nature.”[432]--And the optimistically tempered American Unitarian, -the deeply versed Psychologist, Prof. William James, tells us in -1902: “In its spiritual meaning, Asceticism stands for nothing less -than for the essence of the twice-born philosophy.” “The Metaphysical -mystery, that he who feeds on death, that feeds on men, possesses life -supereminently, and meets best the secret demands of the Universe, -is the truth of which Asceticism has been the faithful champion. The -folly of the cross, so inexplicable by the intellect, has, yet, its -indestructible, vital meaning.… Naturalistic optimism is mere syllabub -and sponge-cake in comparison.”[433] - -(2) Indeed, the only thing at all special to Mysticism, in its attitude -towards this general principle and practice of Asceticism, is that -it ever practises Asceticism as a means towards, or at least as the -make-weight and safeguard of, Contemplation, which latter is as -essentially Synthetic, and, in so far, peaceful and delightful, as the -former is Analytic, polemical and painful; whereas non-Mystical souls -will practise Asceticism directly with a view to greater aloofness -from sin, and greater readiness and strength to perform the various -calls of duty. And hence, if we but grant the legitimacy of the general -principle of ordinary Asceticism, we shall find the Mystical form of -this Asceticism to be the more easily comprehensible variety of that -principle. For the Mystic’s practice, as concerns this point, is more -varied and inclusive than that of others, since he does not even tend -to make the whole of his inner life into a system of checks and of -tension. The expansive, reconciling movement operates in him most -strongly also, and, where of the right kind, this expansive movement -helps, even more than the restrictive one, to purify, humble, and -deepen his heart and soul. - - -2. _God’s Transcendence a source of suffering._ - -There is, however, a second, essentially different source and kind of -suffering in some sorts and degrees of Mysticism, and indeed in other -_attraits_ of the spiritual life, which is deeply interesting, because -based upon a profound Metaphysical apprehension. Although, at bottom, -the opposite extreme to Pantheism, it readily expresses itself, for -reasons that will presently appear, in terms that have a curiously -Pantheistic colour. - -(1) St. John of the Cross writes in 1578: “It is a principle of -philosophy, that all means must … have a certain resemblance to the -end, such as shall be sufficient for the object in view. If therefore -the understanding is to be united to God, … it must make use of -those means which can effect that union, that is, means which are -most like unto God.… But there is no essential likeness or communion -between creatures and Him, the distance between His divine nature and -their nature is infinite. No creature therefore … nothing that the -imagination may conceive or the understanding comprehend … in this life -… can be a proximate means of union with God,” for “it is all most -unlike God, and most disproportionate to Him.” “The understanding … -must be pure and empty of all sensible objects, all clear intellectual -perceptions, resting on faith: for faith is the sole proximate and -proportionate means of the soul’s union with God.”[434] - -Now it is certain, as we have already found, that the awakened human -soul ever possesses a dim but real experience of the Infinite, and -that, in proportion as it is called to the Mystical way, this sense -will be deepened into various degrees of the Prayer of Quiet and of -Union, and that here, more plainly than elsewhere, will appear the -universal necessity of the soul’s own response, by acts and the habit -of Faith, to all and every experience which otherwise remains but -so much unused material for the soul’s advance. And it is equally -certain that St. John of the Cross is one of the greatest of such -contemplatives, and that neither his intuition and actual practice, -nor even his sayings, (so long as any one saying belonging to one -trend is set off against another belonging to the other trend), -contravenes the Christian and Catholic positions.--Yet it cannot be -denied that, were we to press his “negative way” into becoming the only -one; and especially were we to take, without discount, such a virtual -repudiation, as is furnished by any insistence upon the above words, -of any essential, objective difference in value between our various -apprehensions of Him and approaches to Him: the whole system and -_rationale_ of External, Sacramental and Historical Religion, indeed of -the Incarnation, in any degree and form, would have to go, as so many -stumbling-blocks to the soul’s advance. For the whole principle of all -such Religion implies the profound importance of the Here and the Now, -the Contingent and the Finite, and of the Immanence of God, in various -degrees and ways, within them. - -Indications of this incompatibility, as little systematically realized -here as in the Areopagite, are afforded by various remarks of his, -belonging in reality to another trend. Thus, immediately before his -denial of any essential likeness or communion between any creature and -God, he says: “It is true that all creatures bear a certain relation to -God and are tokens of His being, some more, some less, according to the -greater perfection of their nature.” And of Our Lord’s sacred Humanity -he says: “What a perfect living image was Our Saviour upon earth: yet -those who had no faith, though they were constantly about Him, and saw -His wonderful works, were not benefited by His presence.”[435] But even -here the immense importance, indeed downright necessity for Faith, -of such external and historical stimuli, objects and materials,--in -the latter instance all this at its very deepest,--remains -unemphasized, through his engrossment in the necessity of Faith for the -fructification of all these things. - -In other places this Faith appears as though working so outside of all -things imageable, as to have to turn rapidly away from all picturings, -as, at best, only momentary starting-points for the advanced soul. -“Let the faithful soul take care that, whilst contemplating an -image, the senses be not absorbed in it, whether it be material or -in the imagination, and whether the devotion it excites be spiritual -or sensible. Let him … venerate the image as the Church commands -and lift up his mind at once from the material image to those whom -it represents. He who shall do this, will never be deluded.”[436] -Here, again, along the line of argument absorbing the saint in this -book, there is no fully logical ground left for the Incarnational, -Historical, Sacramental scheme of the Infinite immanent in the finite, -and of spirit stimulated in contact with matter, with everywhere the -need of the condescensions of God and of our ascensions by means of -careful attention to them. - -Sören Kierkegaard, that deep solitary Dane, with so much about him -like to Pascal the Frenchman, and Hurrell Froude the Englishman, and -who, though Lutheran in all his bringing up, was so deeply attracted -by Catholic Asceticism, has, in recent times (he died in 1855), pushed -the doctrine of the qualitative, absolute difference between God and -all that we ourselves can think, feel, will or be, to lengths beyond -even the transcendental element,--we must admit this to be the greatly -preponderant one,--in the great Spaniard’s formal teaching. And it -is especially in this non-Mystical Ascetic that we get an impressive -picture of the peculiar kind of suffering and asceticism, which results -from such a conviction to a profoundly sensitive, absorbedly religious -soul; and here too we can, I think, discover the precise excess and -one-sidedness involved in this whole tendency. Professor Höffding, -in his most interesting monograph on his friend, tells us how “for -Kierkegaard, … the will gets monopolized by religious Ethics from the -very first; there is no time for Contemplation or Mysticism.” “To tear -the will away,” Kierkegaard himself says, “from all finite aims and -conditions … requires a painful effort and this effort’s ceaseless -repetition. And if, in addition to this, the soul has, in spite of all -its striving, to be as though it simply were not, it becomes clear -that the religious life signifies a dedication to suffering and to -self-destruction. What wonder, then, that, for the Jew, death was the -price of seeing God; or that, for the Gentile, the soul’s entering -into closer relations with the Deity meant the beginning of madness?” -For “the soul’s relation to God is a relation to a Being absolutely -different from Man, who cannot confront him as his Superlative or -Ideal, and who, nevertheless, is to rule in his inmost soul. Hence a -necessary division, ever productive of new pains, is operative within -man, as long as he perseveres in this spiritual endeavour.… A finite -being, he is to live in the Infinite and Absolute: he is there like a -fish upon dry land.”[437] - -Now Prof. Höffding applies a double, most cogent criticism to this -position.--The one is religious, and has already been quoted. “A -God Who is not Ideal and Pattern is no God. Hence the contention -that the Nature of the Godhead is, of necessity, qualitatively -different from that of Man, has ever occasioned ethical and religious -misgivings.”--And the other is psychological. “Tension can indeed be -necessary for the truth and the force of life. But tension, taken -by itself, cannot furnish the true measure of life. For the general -nature of consciousness is a synthesis, a comprehensive unity: not only -contrast, but also concentration, must make itself felt, as long as the -life of consciousness endures.”[438] - -It is deeply interesting to note how Catherine, and at bottom St. John -of the Cross and the Exclusive Mystics generally, escape, through -their practice and in some of their most emphatic teachings, from -Kierkegaard’s excess, no doubt in part precisely because they _are_ -Mystics, since the exclusive Mystic’s contemplative habit is, at -bottom, a Synthetic one. Yet we should realize the deep truth which -underlies the very exaggerations of this one-sidedly Analytic and -Ascetical view. For if God is the deepest ideal, the ultimate driving -force and the true congenital element and environment of Man, such as -Man cannot but secretly wish to will deliberately, and which, at his -best, Man truly wills to hold and serve: yet God remains ever simply -incompatible with that part of each man’s condition and volition which -does not correspond to the best and deepest which that Man himself sees -or could see to be the better, _hic et nunc_; and, again, He is ever, -even as compared with any man’s potential best, infinitely more and -nobler, and, though here not in simple contradiction, yet at a degree -of perfection which enables Him, the Supreme Spirit, to penetrate, as -Immanent Sustainer or Stimulator, and to confront, as Transcendent -Ideal and End, the little human spirit, so great in precisely this its -keen sense of experienced contrast. - -Catherine exhibits well this double relation, of true contradiction, -and of contrast, both based upon a certain genuine affinity between -the human soul and God. On one side of herself she is indeed a -veritable fish out of water; but, on the other side of her, she is a -fish happily disporting itself in its very element, in the boundless -ocean of God. On the one side, snapping after air, in that seemingly -over-rarified atmosphere in which the animal man, the mere selfish -individual, cannot live; on the other side, expanding her soul’s -lungs and drinking in light, life, and love, in that same truly rich -atmosphere, which, Itself Spirit, feeds and sustains her growing -spiritual personality. And the _Dialogo_, in spite of its frequently -painful abstractness and empty unity, has, upon the whole, a profound -hold upon this great doctrine. - -Yet it is in Catherine’s own culminating intuition,--of the soul’s -free choice of Purgatory, as a joyful relief from the piercing pain of -what otherwise would last for ever,--the vividly perceived contrast -between God’s purity and her soul’s impurity, that we get, in the -closest combination, indeed mutual causation, this double sense of -Man’s nearness to and distance from, of his likeness and unlikeness to -God. For only if man is, in the deepest instincts of his soul, truly -related to God, and is capable of feeling, (indeed he ever actually, -though mostly dimly, experiences,) God’s presence and this, man’s -own, in great part but potential, affinity to Him: can suffering be -conceived to arise from the keen realization of the contrast between -God and man’s own actual condition at any one moment; and can any -expectation, indeed a swift vivid instinct, arise within man’s soul -that the painful, directly contradictory, discrepancy can and will, -gradually though never simply automatically, be removed. And though, -even eventually, the creature cannot, doubtless, ever become simply -God, yet it can attain, in an indefinitely higher degree, to that -affinity and union of will with God, which, in its highest reaches and -moments, it already now substantially possesses; and hence to that -full creaturely self-constitution and joy in which, utterly trusting, -giving itself to, and willing God, it will, through and in Him, form -an abidingly specific, unique constituent and link of His invisible -kingdom of souls, on and on. - - -3. _Discipline of fleeing and of facing the Multiple and Contingent._ - -But there is a third attitude, peculiar (because of its preponderance) -to the Mystics as such, an attitude in a manner intermediate between -that of ordinary Asceticism, and that of the Suffering just described. -The implications and effects of, and the correctives for, this third -attitude will occupy us up to the end of this book. I refer to the -careful turning-away from all Multiplicity and Contingency, from -the Visible and Successive, from all that does or can distract and -dissipate, which is so essential and prevailing a feature in all -Mysticism, which indeed, in Exclusive Mysticism, is frankly made into -the one sole movement towards, and measure of, the soul’s perfection. - -(1) It is true that to this tendency, when and in so far as it has -come so deeply to permeate the habits of a soul as to form a kind of -second nature, the name Asceticism cannot, in strictness, be any more -applied; since now the pain will lie, not in this turning away from all -that dust and friction, but, on the contrary, in any forcing of the -soul back into that turmoil. And doubtless many, perhaps most, souls -with a pronouncedly mystical _attrait_, are particularly sensitive to -all, even partial and momentary, conflict. Yet we can nevertheless -appropriately discuss the matter under the general heading of -Asceticism, since, as a rule, much practice and sacrifice go to build -up this habit; since, in every case, this Abstractive Habit shares -with Ordinary Asceticism a pronounced hostility to many influences and -forces ever actually operative within and around the undisciplined -natural man; and since, above all, the very complements and correctives -for this Abstractiveness will have to come from a further, deeper and -wider Asceticism, to be described presently. - -(2) As to Ordinary Asceticism and this Abstractiveness, the former -fights the world and the self directly, and then only in so far as they -are discovered to be positively evil or definitely to hinder positive -good; it is directly attracted by the clash and friction involved in -such fighting; and it has no special desire for even a transitory -intense unification of the soul’s life: whereas the Abstractiveness -turns away from, and rises above, the world and the phenomenal self; -their very existence, their contingency, the struggles alive within -them, and their (as it seems) inevitably disturbing effect upon the -soul,--are all felt as purely dissatisfying; and an innermost longing -for a perfect and continuous unification and overflowing harmony of its -inner life here possess the spirit. - -(3) Now we have just seen how a movement of integration, of -synthesizing all the soul’s piecemeal, inter-jostling acquisitions, -of restful healing of its wounds and rents, of sinking back, (from -the glare and glitter of clear, and then ever fragmentary perception, -and from the hurry, strain and rapidly ensuing distraction involved -in all lengthy external action), into a peaceful, dim rumination and -unification, is absolutely necessary, though in very various degrees -and forms, for all in any way complete and mature souls.--And we have, -further back, realized that a certain, obscure but profoundly powerful, -direct instinct and impression of God in the soul is doubtless at work -here, and, indeed, throughout all the deeper and nobler movements of -our wondrously various inner life. But what concerns us here, is the -question whether the _complete_ action of the soul, (if man would -grow in accordance with his ineradicable nature, environment, and -specific grace and call), does not as truly involve a corresponding -counter-movement to this intensely unitive and intuitive movement -which, with most men, and in most moments of even the minority of men, -forms but an indirectly willed condition and spontaneous background of -the soul. - -(4) We have been finding, further, that all the Contingencies, -Multiplicities and Mediations which, one and all, tend to appear to the -Mystic as so many resistances and distractions, can roughly be grouped -under two ultimate heads. These intruders are fellow-souls, or groups -of fellow-souls,--some social organism, the Family, Society, the State, -the Church, who provoke, in numberless degrees and ways, individual -affection, devotion, distraction, jealousy, as from person towards -person. Or else the intruders are Things and Mechanical Laws, and these -usually leave the Mystic indifferent or irritate or distract him; but -they can become for him great opportunities of rest, and occasions for -self-discipline. - -Yet this distinction between Persons and Things, (although vital for -the true apprehension of all deeper, above all of the deepest Reality, -and for the delicate discrimination between what are but the means and -what are the ends in a truly spiritual life), does not prevent various -gradations within, and continuous interaction between, each of these -two great groups. For in proportion as, in the Personal group, the -Individual appears as but parcel and expression of one of the social -organisms, does the impression of determinist Law, of an impersonal -Thing or blind Force, begin to mix with, and gradually to prevail -over, that of Personality. And in proportion as, in the Impersonal -group, Science comes to include all careful and methodical study, -according to the most appropriate methods, of any and every kind of -truth and reality; and as it moves away from the conceptions of purely -quantitative matter, and of the merely numerically different, entirely -interchangeable, physical happenings, (all so many mere automatic -illustrations of mechanical Law), on, through the lowly organisms of -plant-life, and the ever higher interiority and richer consciousness of -animal life, up to Man, with his ever qualitative Mind, and his ever -non-interchangeable, ever “effortful,” achievements and elaborations -of types of beauty, truth and goodness in Human History,--does Science -itself come back, in its very method and subject-matter, ever more -nearly, to the great personal starting-point, standard and ultimate -motive of all our specifically human activity and worth. - -(5) Indeed, the two great continuous facts of man’s life, first that -he thinks, feels, wills, and acts, in and with the help or hindrance -of that profoundly material Thing, his physical body, and on occasion -of, and with regard to, the materials furnished by the stimulations and -impressions of his senses; and again, that these latter awaken within -him those, in themselves, highly abstract and Thing-like categories of -his mind which penetrate and give form to these materials; are enough -to show how close is the pressure, and how continuous the effect, of -Things upon the slow upbuilding of Personality. - -(6) Fair approximations to these two kinds of Things, with their quite -irreplaceable specific functions within the economy of the human mental -life,--the intensely concrete and particular Sense-Impressions, and -the intensely abstract and general Mental Categories,--reappear within -the economy of Characteristic Religion, in its Sacraments and its -Doctrine. And conversely, there exists, _in rerum natura_, no Science -worth having which is not, ultimately, the resultant of, and which does -not require and call forth, on and on, certain special qualities, and -combinations of qualities, of the truly ethical, spiritual Personality. -Courage, patience, perseverance, candour, simplicity, self-oblivion, -continuous generosity towards others and willing correction of even -one’s own most cherished views,--these things and their like are -not the quantitative determinations of Matter, but the qualitative -characteristics of Mind. - -(7) I shall now, therefore, successively take Mysticism in its attitude -towards these two great groups of claimants upon its attention, -the Personal and the Impersonal, even though any strictly separate -discussion of elements which, in practice, ever appear together, cannot -but have some artificiality. And an apparent further complication will -be caused by our having, in each case, to contrast what Mysticism would -do, if it became Exclusive, with what it must be restricted to doing, -if it is to remain Inclusive, _i.e._ if it is to be but one element -in the constitution of that multiplicity in unity, the deep spiritual -Personality. The larger Asceticism will thus turn out to be a wider and -deeper means towards perfection than even genuine Mysticism itself, -since this Asceticism will have to include both this Mysticism and the -counter movement within the one single, disciplined and purified life -of the soul. - - -II. SOCIAL RELIGION AND MYSTICISM. - - -_Introductory: the ruinousness of Exclusive Mysticism._ - -Prof. Harnack says in his _Dogmengeschichte_: “An old fairy tale tells -of a man who lived in ignorance, dirt and wretchedness; and whom God -invited, on a certain day, to wish whatsoever he might fancy, and it -should be given him. And the man began to wish things, and ever more -things, and ever higher things, and all these things were given him. -At last he became presumptuous, and desired to become as the great God -Himself: when lo, instantly he was sitting there again, in his dirt and -misery. Now the history of Religion,--especially amongst the Greeks -and Orientals,--closely resembles this fairy tale. For they began by -wishing for themselves certain sensible goods, and then political, -aesthetic, moral and intellectual goods: and they were given them all. -And then they became Christians and desired perfect knowledge and a -super-moral life: they even wished to become, already here below, as -God Himself, in insight, beatitude and life. And behold, they fell, -not at once indeed, but with a fall that could not be arrested, down -to the lowest level, back into ignorance, dirt and barbarism.… Like -unto their near spiritual relations, the Neo-Platonists, they were at -first over-stimulated, and soon became jaded, and hence required ever -stronger stimulants. And in the end, all these exquisite aspirations -and enjoyments turned into their opposite extreme.”[439] - -However much may want discounting or supplementing here, there is, -surely, a formidable amount of truth in this picture. And, if so, is -Mysticism, at least in its Dionysian type, not deeply to blame? And -where is the safeguard against such terrible abuses? - -Now Prof. Harnack has himself shown us elsewhere that there is a sense -in which Monasticism should be considered eternal, even among and for -Protestants. “Monasticism,” he says plaintively, in his account of the -first three centuries of Protestantism, “even as it is conceivable -and necessary among Evangelical Christians, disappeared altogether. -And yet every community requires persons, who live _exclusively_ for -its purposes; hence the Church too requires volunteers who shall -renounce ‘the world’ and shall dedicate themselves entirely to the -service of their neighbour.”[440]--And again, scholars of such breadth -of knowledge and independence of judgement as Professor Tiele and -his school, insist strongly upon the necessity of Ecclesiastical -Institutions and Doctrines. The day of belief in the normality, -indeed in the possibility for mankind in general, of a would-be quite -individual, entirely spiritual, quite “pure” religion, is certainly -over and gone, presumably for good and all, amongst all competent -workers.--Nor, once more, can the general Mystical sense of the -unsatisfying character of all things finite, and of the Immanence of -the Infinite in our poor lives, be, in itself, to blame: for we have -found these experiences to mingle with, and to characterize, all the -noblest, most fully human acts and personalities.--But, if so, what -are the peculiarities in the religion of those times and races, which -helped to produce the result pictured in the _Dogmengeschichte?_ - -Now here, to get a fairly final answer, we must throw together -the question of the ordinary Christian Asceticism and that of the -Abstraction peculiar to the Mystics; and we must ask whether the -general emotive-volitional attitude towards Man and Life,--the -theory and practice as to Transcendence and Immanence, Detachment -and Attachment, which, from about 500 A.D. to, say, 1450 _A.D._, -predominantly preceded, accompanied, and both expanded and deflected -the specific ally Christian and normally human experience in Eastern -Christendom, were not (however natural, indeed inevitable, and in -part useful for those times and races), the chief of the causes -which turned so much of the good of Mysticism into downright harm. At -bottom this is once more the question as to the one-sided character of -Neo-Platonism,--its incapacity to find any descending movement of the -Divine into Human life. - - -1. _True relation of the soul to its fellows. God’s “jealousy.”_ - -Let us take first the relation of the single human soul to its -fellow-souls. - -(1) Now Kierkegaard tells us: “the Absolute is cruel, for it demands -_all_, whilst the Relative ever continues to demand _some_ attention -from us.”[441] And the Reverend George Tyrrell, in his stimulating -paper, _Poet and Mystic_, shows us that, as regards the relations -between man’s love for man and man’s love for God, there are two -conceptions and answers in reply to the question as to the precise -sense in which God is “a jealous God,” and demands to be loved alone. -In the first, easier, more popular conception, He is practically -thought of as the First of Creatures, competing with the rest for Man’s -love, and is here placed alongside of them. Hence the inference that -whatever love they win from us by reason of their inherent goodness, -is taken from Him: He is not loved perfectly, till He is loved alone. -But in the second, more difficult and rarer conception, God is placed, -not alongside of creatures but behind them, as the light which shines -through a crystal and lends it whatever lustre it may have. He is -loved here, not apart from, but through and in them. Hence if only -the affection be of the right kind as to mode and object, the more -the better. The love of Him is the “form,” the principle of order and -harmony; our natural affections are the “matter” harmonized and set in -order; it is the soul, they are the body, of that one Divine Love whose -adequate object is God in, and not apart from, His creatures.[442] Thus -we have already found that even the immensely abstractive and austere -St. John of the Cross tells us: “No one desires to be loved except -for his goodness; and when we love in this way, our love is pleasing -unto God and in great liberty; and if there be attachment in it, there -is greater attachment to God.” And this doctrine he continuously, -deliberately practises, half-a-century after his Profession, for he -writes to his penitent, Donna Juana de Pedrazas in 1589: “All that is -wanting now, is that I should forget you; but consider how that is to -be forgotten which is ever present to the soul.”[443] - -But Father Tyrrell rightly observes: “To square this view with the -general ascetic tradition of the faithful at large is exceedingly -difficult.”[444] Yet I cannot help thinking that a somewhat different -reconciliation, than the one attempted by him,[445] really meets all -the substantial requirements of the case. - -(2) I take it, then, that an all-important double law or twin fact, or -rather a single law and fact whose unity is composed of two elements, -is, to some extent, present throughout all characteristically human -life, although its full and balanced realization, even in theory -and still more in practice, is ever, necessarily, a more or less -unfulfilled ideal: viz. that not only there exist certain objects, -acts, and affections that are simply wrong, and others that are simply -right or perfect, either for all men or for some men: but that there -exist simply no acts and affections which, however right, however -obligatory, however essential to the perfection of us all or of some -of us, that do not require, on our own part, a certain alternation -of interior reserve and detachment away from, and of familiarity and -attachment to, them and their objects. This general law applies as -truly to Contemplation as it does to Marriage. - -And next, the element of detachment which has to penetrate and purify -simply all attachments,--even the attachment to detachment itself,--is -the more difficult, the less obvious, the more profoundly spiritual -and human element and movement, although only on condition that ever -some amount of the other, of the outgoing element and movement, and -of attachment, remains. For here, as everywhere, there is no good and -operative yeast except with and in flour; there can be no purification -and unity without a material and a multiplicity to purify and to unite. - -And again, given the very limited power of attention and articulation -possessed by individual man, and the importance to the human community -of having impressive embodiments and examples of this, in various -degrees and ways, universally ever all-but-forgotten, universally -difficult, universally necessary, universally ennobling renunciation: -we get the reason and justification for the setting apart of men -specially drawn and devoted to a maximum, or to the most difficult -kinds, of this renunciation. As the practically universal instinct, -or rudimentary capacity, for Art, Science, and Philanthropy finds its -full expression in artists, scientists, philanthropists, whose specific -glory and ever necessary corrective it is that they but articulate -clearly, embody massively and, as it were, precipitate what is dimly -and intermittingly present, as it were in solution, throughout the -consciousness and requirements of Mankind; and neither the inarticulate -instinct, diffused among all, would completely suffice for any one of -the majority, without the full articulation by a few, nor the full -articulation by this minority could thrive, even for this minority -itself, were it not environed by, and did it not voice, that dumb -yearning of the race at large: so, and far more, does the general -religiosity and sense of the Infinite, and even its ever-present -element and requirement of Transcendence and Detachment, seek and call -forth some typical, wholesomely provocative incorporation,--yet, here, -with an even subtler and stronger interdependence, between the general -demand and the particular supply. - -And note that, if the minority will thus represent a maximum of -“form,” with a minimum of “matter,” and the majority a maximum of -“matter,” with a minimum of “form”: yet some form as well as some -matter must be held by each; and the ideal to which, by their mutual -supplementations, antagonisms, and corrections, they will have more -and more to approximate our corporate humanity will be a maximum of -“matter,” permeated and spiritualized by a maximum of “form.” If it -is easy for the soul to let itself be invaded and choked by the wrong -kind of “matter,” or even simply by an excess of the right kind, so -that it will be unable to stamp the “matter” with spiritual “form”; the -opposite extreme also, where the spiritual forces have not left to them -a sufficiency of material to penetrate or of life-giving friction to -overcome, is ever a most real abuse. - - -2. _Ordinary Ascesis corrected by Social Christianity._ - -Now it is very certain that Ordinary Asceticism and Social Christianity -are, in their conjunction, far less open to this latter danger than is -the Mystical and Contemplative Detachment. For the former combination -possesses the priceless conception of the soul’s personality being -constituted in and through the organism of the religious society,--the -visible and invisible Church. This Society is no mere congeries of -severally self-sufficing units, each exclusively and directly dependent -upon God alone; but, as in St. Paul’s grand figure of the body, an -organism, giving their place and dignity to each several organ, each -different, each necessary, and each influencing and influenced by all -the others. We have here, as it were, a great living Cloth of Gold, -with, not only the woof going from God to Man and from Man to God, -but also the warp going from Man to Man,--the greatest to the least, -and the least back to the greatest. And thus here the primary and -full Bride of Christ never is, nor can be, any individual soul, but -only this complete organism of all faithful souls throughout time and -space; and the single soul is such a Bride only in so far as it forms -an operative constituent of this larger whole.--And hence the soul of a -Mystical habit will escape the danger of emptiness and inflation if it -keeps up some,--as much indeed as it can, without permanent distraction -or real violation of its special helps and call,--of that outgoing, -social, co-operative action and spirit, which, in the more ordinary -Christian life, has to form the all but exclusive occupation of the -soul, and which here, indeed, runs the risk of degenerating into mere -feverish, distracted “activity.” - -I take the right scheme for this complex matter to have been all but -completely outlined by Plato, in the first plan of his _Republic_, and -indeed to have been largely derived by Christian thinkers from this -source; and the excessive and one-sided conception to have been largely -determined by his later additions and changes in that great book, -especially as these have been all but exclusively enforced, and still -further exaggerated, by Plotinus and Proclus. As Erwin Rhode finely -says of this later teaching of Plato: “It was at the zenith of his -life and thinking that Plato completed his ideal picture of the State, -according to the requirements of his wisdom. Over the broad foundation -of a population discriminated according to classes, (a foundation -which, in its totality and organization, was to embody the virtue of -justice in a form visible even from afar, and which formerly had seemed -to him to fulfil the whole function of the perfect State), there now -soars, pointing up into the super-mundane ether, a highest crown and -pinnacle, to which all the lower serves but as a substructure to render -possible this life in the highest air. A small handful of citizens, -the Philosophers, form this final point of the pyramid of the State. -In this State, ordered throughout according to the ends of ethics, -these Philosophers will, it is true, take part in the Government, not -joyously, but for duty’s sake; as soon, however, as duty permits, -they will eagerly return to that super-mundane contemplation, which -is the end and true content of their life’s activity. Indeed, in -reality, the Ideal State is now built up, step by step, for the ‘one -ultimate’ purpose of preparing an abode for these Contemplatives, of -training them in their vocation, the highest extant, and of providing -a means for the insertion of Dialectic, as a special form of life and -the highest aim of human endeavour, into the general organism of the -earthly, civilized life. ‘The so-called virtues’ all here sink into the -shade before the highest force of the soul, the mystic Contemplation -of the Eternal.… To bring his own life to ripeness for its own -redemption, _that_ is now the perfect sage’s true, his immediate duty. -If, nevertheless, he has still to bethink himself of acting upon and of -moulding the world the virtues will spontaneously present themselves to -him: for he now possesses Virtue itself; it has become his essential -condition.”[446] - -It is truly impressive to find here, in its most perfect and most -influential form, that ruinously untrue doctrine of the separation of -any one set of men from the mass of their fellows, and of Contemplation -from interest in other souls, taking the place, (in the same great -mind, in the same great book), of the beautifully humble, rich, and -true view of a constant, necessary interchange of gifts and duties -between the various constituents of a highly articulated organism, a -whole which is indefinitely greater than, and is alone the full means, -end and measure of, all its several, even its noblest, parts.--Yet the -Christian, indeed every at all specifically religious, reader, will -have strongly felt that the second scheme possesses, nevertheless, at -least one point of advantage over the earlier one. For it alone brings -out clearly that element of Transcendence, that sense and thirst of the -Infinite, which we have agreed upon as the deepest characteristic of -man. And if this point be thus true and important, then another,--the -making of Contemplation into a special vocation,--can hardly be -altogether incorrect. - -But if this is our judgment, how are we to harmonize these two points -of Plato’s later scheme with the general positions of the earlier -one. Or, rather, how are we to actuate and to synthesize our complex -present-day requirements and duties, Christian and yet also Modern, -Transcendental and yet Immanental too? For if we have any delicately -vivid sense of, and sympathy with, the original, very simple, intensely -transcendental, form and emphasis of the Christian teaching, and any -substantial share in the present complex sense of obligation to various -laws and conceptions immanent in different this-world organizations and -systems: we shall readily feel how indefinitely more difficult and deep -the question has become since Plato’s, and indeed since the Schoolmen’s -time. - - -3. _Preliminary Pessimism and ultimate Optimism of Christianity._ - -Now I think it is Prof. Ernst Troeltsch who has most fully explicitated -the precise centre of this difficulty, which, in its acuteness, is a -distinctly modern one, and the direction in which alone the problem’s -true solution should be sought. - -(1) “The chief problem of Christian Ethics,” he says, “is busy,” not -with the relation between certain subjective means and dispositions, -but “with the relation between certain objective ends, which have, in -some way, to be thought together by the same mind as so many several -objects, and to be brought by it and within it to the greatest possible -unity. And the difficulty here lies in the fact, that the sublunar -among these ends are none the less moral ends, bearing the full -specific character of moral values,--that they are ends-in-themselves, -and necessary for their own sakes, even at the cost of man’s natural -happiness; and yet that they operate in the visible world, and adhere -to historical formations which proceed from man’s natural constitution, -and dominate his earthly horizon; whilst the Super-worldly End cannot -share its rule with any other end. Yet the special characteristic -of modern civilization resides precisely in such a simultaneous -insistence upon the Inner-worldly Ends, as possessing the nature of -ends-in-themselves, and upon the Religious, Super-worldly End: it is -indeed from just this combination that this civilization derives its -peculiar richness, power, and freedom, but also its painful, interior -tension and its difficult problems.” - -(2) The true solution of the difficulty surely is that “Ethical life is -not, in its beginnings, a unity but a multiplicity: man grows up amidst -a number of moral ends, whose unification is not his starting-point -but his problem. And this multiplicity can be still further defined -as the polarity of two poles, inherent in man’s nature, of which the -two chief types proceed respectively from the religious and from -the inner-worldly self-determination of the soul,--the polarity of -Religious, and that of Humane Ethics, neither of which can be dispensed -with without moral damage, yet which cannot be brought completely under -a common formula. On this polarity depends the richness, but also the -difficulty, of our life, since the sublunar ends remain, to a large -extent, conditioned by the necessities and prerequisites of their own -special subject-matters, and since only on condition of being thus -recognized as ends in themselves, can they attain to their morally -educative power.”[447] - -(3) Or, to put the same matter from the point of view of definitely -Christian experience and conviction: “The formula, for the specific -nature of Christianity, can only be a complex conception,--the special -Christian form,” articulation and correction, “of the fundamental -thoughts concerning God, World, Man and Redemption which,” with -indefinite variations of fulness and worth, “are found existing -together in all the religions. And the tension present in this -multiplicity of elements thus brought together is of an importance -equal to that of the multiplicity itself; indeed in this tension -resides the main driving-force of Religion. Christianity” in particular -“embraces a polarity within itself, and its formula must be dualistic; -it resembles, not a circle with one centre, but an ellipse with two -focuses. For Christianity is,” unchangeably, “an Ethics of Redemption, -with a conception of the world both optimistic and pessimistic, both -transcendental and immanental, and an apprehension both of a severe -antagonism and of a close interior union between the world and God. It -is, in principle, a Dualism, and yet a Dualism which is ever in process -of abolition by Faith and Action. It is a purely Religious Ethic, which -concentrates man’s soul, with abrupt exclusiveness, upon the values of -the interior life; and yet, again, it is a Humane Ethic, busy with the -moulding and transforming of nature, and through love bringing about -an eventual reconciliation with it. At one time the one, at another -time the other, of these poles is prominent: but neither of them may be -completely absent, if the Christian outlook is to be maintained.--And -yet the original germ of the whole vast growth and movement ever -remains an intensely, abruptly Transcendent Ethic, and can never simply -pass over into a purely Immanental Ethic. The Gospel ever remains, -with all possible clearness and keenness, a Promise of Redemption, -leading us, away from the world, from nature and from sin, from earthly -sorrow and earthly error, on and on to God; and which cannot allow -the last word to be spoken in this life. Great as are its incentives -to Reconciliation, it is never entirely resolvable into them. And the -importance of that classical beginning ever consists in continuously -calling back the human heart, away from all Culture and Immanence, to -that which lies above both.”[448] - -(4) We thus get at last a conception which really covers, I think, -all the chief elements of this complex matter. But the reader will -have noted that it does so by treating the whole problem as one of -Spiritual Dynamics, and not of Intellectual Statics. For the conception -holds and requires the existence and cultivation of three kinds of -action and movement in the soul. There are, first, the various centres -of human energy and duty of a primarily This-world character, each -of which possesses its own kind and degree of autonomy, laws, and -obligations. There is, next, the attempt at organizing an increasing -interaction between, and at harmonizing, (whilst never emasculating -or eliminating), these various, severally characteristic, systems of -life and production into an ever larger ultimate unity. And, lastly, -there is as strong a turning away from all this occupation with the -Contingent and Finite, to the sense and apprehension of the Infinite -and Abiding. And this dynamic system is so rich, even in the amount of -it which can claim the practice of the majority of souls, as to require -definite alternations in the occupations of such souls, ranging thus, -in more or less rhythmic succession, from earth to Heaven and from -Heaven back again to earth. - -(5) And so great and so inexhaustible is this living system, even by -mankind at large, that it has to be more or less parcelled out amongst -various groups of men, each group possessing its own predominant -_attrait_,--either to work out one of those immanental interests, say -Art, Natural Science, Politics; or to fructify one or more of these -relatively independent interests, by crossing it with one or more of -the others; or to attempt to embrace the whole of these intra-mundane -interests in one preliminary final system; or to turn away from this -whole system and its contents to the Transcendent and Infinite; or -finally to strive to combine, as far as possible, this latter Fleeing -to the Infinite with all that former Seeking of the Finite.--We shall -thus get specialists within one single domain; and more many-sided -workers who fertilize one Science by another; and philosophers of -Science or of History, or of both, who strive to reach the _rationale_ -of all knowledge of the Finite and Contingent; and Ascetics and -Contemplatives who, respectively, call forth and dwell upon the sense -and presence of the Infinite and Abiding, underlying and accompanying -all the definite apprehensions of things contingent; and finally, the -minds and wills that feel called to attempt as complete a development -and organization as possible of all these movements. - - -4. _Subdivision of spiritual labour: its necessity and its dangers._ - -And yet all the subdivision of labour we have just required can avoid -doing harm, directly or indirectly, (by leading to Materialism, -Rationalism, or Fanaticism, to one or other of the frequent but ever -mischievous “Atomisms”), only on condition that it is felt and worked -_as_ such a subdivision. In other words, every soul must retain and -cultivate some sense of, and respect for, the other chief human -activities not primarily its own. For, as a matter of fact, even the -least rich or developed individual requires and practises a certain -amount, in an inchoate form, of each and all of these energizings; and -he can, fruitfully for himself and others, exercise a maximum amount -of any one of them, only if he does not altogether and deliberately -neglect and exclude the others; and, above all, if, in imagination and -in actual practice, he habitually turns to his fellow-men, of the other -types and centres, to supplement, and to be supplemented by, them. - -It will be found, I think, that the quite undeniable abuses that have -been special to the Ascetic and Contemplative methods and states, -have all primarily sprung from that most plausible error that, if -these energizings are, in a sense, the highest in and for man, then -they can, at least in man’s ideal action and condition, dispense with -other and lower energizings and objects altogether. Yet both for man’s -practice here and even for his ideal state in the hereafter, this is -not so. There is no such thing,--either in human experience or in the -human ideal, when both are adequately analyzed and formulated,--as -discursive reasoning, without intuitive reason; or clear analysis and -sense of contrast, without dim synthesis and a deep consciousness of -similarity or continuity; or detachment of the will from evil, without -attachment of the higher feelings to things good; or the apprehension -and requirements of Multiplicity, without those of Unity; or the vivid -experience of Contingency, Mutation, and the Worthlessly Subjective, -without the, if obscure yet most powerful, instinct of the Infinite -and Abiding, of the true Objective and Valuable Subjective. Thus, for -humanity at large entirely, and for each human individual more or less, -each member of these couples requires, and is occasioned by, the other, -and _vice versa_. - -The maxims that follow from this great fact are as plain in reason, -and as immensely fruitful in practice, as they are difficult, though -ever freshly interesting, to carry out, at all consistently, even in -theory and still more in act. For the object of a wise living will now -consist in introducing an ever greater unity into the multiplicity of -our lives,--up to the point where this unity’s constituents would, -like the opposing metals in an electric battery, become too much alike -still to produce a fruitful interaction, and where the unity would, -thus and otherwise, become empty and mechanical; and an ever greater -multiplicity into the unity,--up to the point where that multiplicity -would, seriously and permanently, break up or weaken true recollection; -and in more and more expanding this whole individual organism, by its -insertion, as a constituent part, into larger groups and systems of -interests. The Family, the Nation, Human Society, the Church,--these -are the chief of the larger organizations into which the inchoate, -largely only potential, organism of the individual man is at first -simply passively born, yet which, if he would grow, (not in spite of -them, a hopeless task, but by them), he will have deliberately to -endorse and will, as though they were his own creations. - - -5. _Mystics and Spiritual Direction._ - -It is interesting to note the special characteristics attaching to the -one social relation emphasized by the medieval and modern varieties of -Western Catholic Mysticism; and the effect which a larger development -of the other chief forces and modalities of the Catholic spiritual life -necessarily has upon this relation. I am thinking of the part played -by the Director, the soul’s leader and adviser, in the lives of these -Mystics,--a part which differs, in three respects, from that of the -ordinary Confessor in the life of the more active or “mixed” type of -Catholic. - -(1) For one thing, there is here a striking variety and range, in the -ecclesiastical and social position of the persons thus providentially -given and deliberately chosen. The early German Franciscan Preacher, -Berthold of Regensburg, owes his initiation into the Interior Life to -his Franciscan Novice-Master, the Partial Mystic, David of Augsburg, -whose writings still give forth for us their steady light and genial -warmth; the French widowed noblewoman and Religious Foundress, St. -Jane Frances de Chantal, is helped on her course to high contemplation -by the Secular Priest and Bishop, St. Francis de Sales; the French -Jesuit, Jean Nicolas Grou, is initiated, after twenty-four years’ -life and training in his Order, by the Visitation Nun, Soeur Pélagie, -into that more Mystical spirituality, which constitutes the special -characteristic of his chief spiritual books; the great Spaniard, St. -Teresa herself, tells us how “a saintly nobleman … a married layman, -who had spent nearly forty years in prayer, seems to me to have been, -by the pains he took, the beginning of salvation to my soul”--“his -power was great”; and the English Anchorite, Mother Juliana of Norwich, -“a simple, unlettered creature,” seems to have found no special leader -on to her rarely deep, wide, and tender teachings, but to have been -led and stimulated, beyond and after her first general Benedictine -training, by God’s Providence alone, working through the few and quite -ordinary surroundings and influences of her Anchorage at Norwich.[449] -It would be difficult to find anything to improve in this noble liberty -of these great children of God; nor would a larger influence of the -other modalities necessarily restrict this ample range. - -(2) Again, the souls of this type seem, for the most part, to realize -more fully and continuously than those of the ordinary, simply active -and ascetical kind, that the “blind obedience” towards such leaders, so -often praised in their disciples and penitents, is, where wholesome -and strengthening, essentially a simple, tenacious adherence, during -the inevitable times of darkness and perplexity, to the encouragements -given by the guide to persevere along the course and towards the truths -which this soul itself saw clearly, often through the instrumentality -of this leader, when it was in light and capable of a peaceful, -deliberate decision. For however much the light may have been given it -through this human mediation, (and the most numerous, and generally -the most important, of our lights, have been acquired thus through -the spoken, written, or acted instrumentality of fellow-souls),--yet -the light was seen, and had (in the first instance), to be seen, by -the disciple’s own spiritual eye; and it is but to help it in keeping -faithful to this light (which, in the first and last instance, is God’s -light and its own) that the leader stands by and helps. But, given -this important condition, there remains the simple, experimental fact -that, not only can and do others often see our spiritual whereabouts -and God’s _attrait_ for us more clearly than we do ourselves, but such -unselfseeking transmission and such humbly simple reception of light -between man and man adds a moral and spiritual security and beauty to -the illumination, (all other conditions being equal and appropriate), -not to be found otherwise. It is interesting to note the courageous, -balanced, and certainly quite unprejudiced, testimony borne to these -important points, by so widely read, and yet upon the whole strongly -Protestant, a pair of scholars, as Miss Alice Gardner and her very -distinguished brother, Professor Percy Gardner.[450] - -(3) And finally, the souls of this type have, (at least for the two -purposes of the suscitation of actual insight, and for bearing witness -to this, now past, experience during the soul’s periods of gloom), -often tended,--in Western Christendom and during Medieval and still -more in Modern times,--to exalt the office and power of the Director, -in the life of the soul of the Mystical type, very markedly beyond the -functions, rights and duties of the ordinary Confessor in the spiritual -life of the ordinary Catholic. - -Indeed they and their interpreters have, in those times and places, -often insisted upon the guarantee of safety thus afforded, and upon the -necessity of such formal and systematic mediation, with an absoluteness -and vehemence impossible to conciliate with any full and balanced, -especially with any at all orthodox, reading of Church History. For -this feature is as marked in the condemned book of Molinos and of most -of the other Quietists, as it is in such thoroughly approved Partial -Mysticism as that of Père Lallemant and Père Grou: hence it alone -cannot, surely, render a soul completely safe against excesses and -delusions. And this feature was markedly in abeyance, often indeed, -for aught we know, completely wanting, at least in any frequent and -methodic form, in the numerous cases of the Egyptian and other Fathers -of the Desert: hence it cannot be strictly essential to all genuine -Contemplation in all times and places. - -(4) The dominant and quite certain fact here seems to be that, in -proportion as the Abstractive movement of the soul is taken as -self-sufficient, and a Contemplative life is attempted as something -substantially independent of any concrete, social, and devotional helps -and duties, the soul gets into a state of danger, which no amount -of predominance of the Director can really render safe; whereas, in -proportion as the soul takes care to practise, in its own special -degree and manner, the outgoing movement towards Multiplicity and -Contingency, (particular attention to particular religious facts and -particular service of particular persons), does such right, quite -ordinary-seeming, active subordination to, and incorporation within, -the great sacred organisms of the Family, Society, and the Church, -or of any wise and helpful subdivision of these, furnish material, -purgation and check for the other movement, and render superfluous any -great or universal predominance of Direction. St. Teresa is, here also, -wonderfully many-sided and balanced. Just as she comes to regret having -ever turned aside from Christ’s Sacred Humanity, so too she possesses, -indeed she never loses, the sense of the profoundly social character of -Christianity: she dies as she had lived, full of an explicit and deep -love for the Kingdom of God and the Church. - - -6. _Mysticism predominantly Individualistic._ - -Yet it is clear that the strong point of the Mystics, as such, does not -lie in the direction of the great social spirituality which finds God -in our neighbour and in the great human organizations, through and in -which, after all, man in great part becomes and is truly man. They are, -as such, Individualistic; the relation between God and the individual -soul here ever tends to appear as constituted by these two forces -alone. A fresh proof, if one were still wanting, that Mysticism is but -one of the elements of Religion,--for Religion requires both the Social -and the Individual, the Corporate and the Lonely movement and life. - -It is truly inspiring to note how emphatic is the concurrence of -all the deepest and most circumspect contemporary Psychology, -Epistemology, Ethics, and History and Philosophy of the Sciences and -of Religion, in these general conclusions, which find, within the slow -and many-sided growth and upbuilding of the spiritual personality, a -true and necessary place and function for all the great and permanent -capabilities, aspirations and energizings of the human soul. Thus no -system of religion can be complete and deeply fruitful which does not -embrace, (in every possible kind of healthy development, proportion -and combination), the several souls and the several types of souls -who, between them, will afford a maximum of clear apprehension and -precise reasoning, _and_ of dim experience and intuitive reason; of -particular attention to the Contingent (Historical Events and Persons, -and Institutional Acts and Means) _and_ of General Recollection and -Contemplation and Hungering after the Infinite; and of reproductive -Admiration and Loving Intellection, _and_ of quasi-creative, truly -productive Action upon and within Nature and other souls, attaining, by -such Action, most nearly to the supreme attribute, the Pure Energizing -of God. - -Thus Pseudo-Dionysius and St. John of the Cross will, even in their -most Negative doctrines, remain right and necessary in all stages of -the Church’s life,--on condition, however, of being taken as but one -of two great movements, of which the other, the Positive movement, -must also ever receive careful attention: since only between them is -attained that all-important oscillation of the religious pendulum, -that interaction between the soul’s meal and the soul’s yeast, that -furnishing of friction for force to overcome, and of force to overcome -the friction, that material for the soul to mould, and in moulding -which to develop itself, that alternate expiration and inspiration, -upon which the soul’s mysterious death-in-life and life-in-death so -continuously depends. - - -III. THE SCIENTIFIC HABIT AND MYSTICISM. - - -_Introductory. Difficulty yet Necessity of finding a True Place and -Function for Science in the Spiritual Life._ - -Now it is certain that such an oscillatory movement, such a -give-and-take, such a larger Asceticism, built up out of the alternate -engrossment in and abstraction from variously, yet in each case -really, attractive levels, functions and objects of human life and -experience, is still comparatively easy, as long as we restrict it -to two out of the three great groups of energizings which are ever, -at least potentially, present in the soul, and which ever inevitably -help to make or mar, to develop or to stunt, the totality of the -soul’s life, and hence also of the strictly spiritual life. The -Historical-Institutional, and the Mystical-Volitional groups and -forces, the High-Church and the Low-Church trend, the Memory- and -the Will-energies, do indeed coalesce, in times of peace, with the -Reason-energy, though, even then, with some difficulty. But in times -of war,--on occasion of any special or excessive action on the part of -this third group, the Critical-Speculative, the Broad-Church trend, -and the energizing of the Understanding,--they readily combine against -every degree of the latter. It is as though the fundamental vowels A -and U could not but combine to oust the fundamental vowel I; or as if -the primary colours Red and Blue _must_ join to crush out the primary -colour Yellow. - -Indeed, it is undoubtedly just this matter of the full and continuous -recognition of, and allocation of a special function to, this third -element within the same great spiritual organism which englobes the -other two, which is now the great central difficulty and pressing -problem of more or less every degree and kind of religious life. For -the admission of this third element appears frequently to be ruinous to -the other two; yet the other two, when kept away from it, seem to lose -their vigour and persuasive power.--And yet it is, I think, exactly -at this crucial point that the conception of the spiritual life as -essentially a Dynamism, a slow constitution of an ever fuller, deeper, -more close-knit unity in, and by means of, the soul’s ineradicable -trinity of forces, shows all its fruitfulness, if we but work down to a -sufficiently large apprehension of the capacities and requirements of -human nature, moved and aided by divine grace, and to a very precise -delimitation of the special object and function of Mysticism. - - -1. _Science and Religion: each autonomous at its own level; and, thus, -each helpful to the other._ - -Erwin Rhode has well described Plato’s attitude towards Science -and Mysticism respectively, and towards the question of their -inter-relation. “The flight from the things of this World is, for -Plato, already in itself an acquisition of those of the Beyond, and -an assimilation to the Divine. For this poor world, that solicits our -senses, the philosopher has, at bottom, nothing but negation. Incapable -as it is of furnishing a material that can be truly known, the whole -domain of the Transitory and Becoming has no intrinsic significance -for Science as understood by him. The perception of things which are -ever merely relative, and which simultaneously manifest contradictory -qualities, has its sole use in stimulating and inviting the soul to -press on to the Absolute.”[451] - -Here we should frankly admit that the soul’s hunger for the Infinite -is, as the great Athenian so deeply realized, the very mainspring of -Religion; and yet we must maintain that it is precisely this single -bound away, instead of the ever-repeated double movement of a coming -and a going, which not only helped to suppress, or at least gravely -to stunt, the growth of the sciences of external observation and -experiment, but (and this is the special point,--the demonstrable -other side of the medal,) also, in its degree, prevented religion from -attaining to its true depth, by thus cutting off, as far as Plato’s -conviction prevailed, the very material, stimulation, and in part the -instruments, for the soul’s outgoing, spiritualizing work, together -with this work’s profound reflex effect upon the worker, as a unique -occasion for the growth and self-detachment of the soul. - -Now the necessity for such a first stage and movement, which, as far -as possible both immanental and phenomenalist, shall be applied and -restricted to the special methods, direct objects, and precise range -of each particular Science, and the importance of the safeguarding of -this scientific liberty, are now clearly perceived, by the leading men -of Religion, Philosophy, Psychology and Physics, in connection with -the maintenance and acquisition of sincere and fruitful Science.--It -is also increasingly seen that, even short of Religion, a second, -an interpretative, an at least Philosophical stage and movement is -necessary for the full explicitation of Science’s own assumptions and -affinities. And the keeping of these two movements clearly distinct or -even strongly contrasted, is felt, by some far-sighted Theologians, -to be a help towards securing, not only a candid attitude of Science -towards its own subject matters, but also a right independence of -Philosophy and Theology towards the other Sciences. Thus Cardinal -Newman has brought out, with startling force, the necessarily -non-moral, non-religious character of Physico-Mathematical Science, -taken simply within its direct subject-matter and method. “Physical -science never travels beyond the examination of cause and effect. -Its object is to resolve the complexity of phenomena into simple -elements and principles; but when it has reached those first elements, -principles and laws, its mission is at an end; it keeps within that -material system with which it began, and never ventures beyond the -‘flammantia moenia mundi.’ The physicist as such will never ask himself -by what influence, external to the universe, the universe is sustained; -simply because he is a physicist. If, indeed, he be a religious man, -he will, of course, have a very different view of the subject; … and -this, not because physical science says anything different, but simply -because it says nothing at all on the subject, nor can do by the very -undertaking with which it set out.” Or, as he elsewhere sympathetically -sums up Bacon’s method of proceeding: “The inquiry into physical causes -passes over for the moment the existence of God. In other words, -physical science is, in a certain sense, atheistic, for the very reason -that it is not theology.”[452] - - -2. _Science builds up a preliminary world that has to be corrected by -Philosophy and Religion, at and for their deeper levels._ - -The additional experience and analysis of the last half-century -apparently forces us, however, to maintain not only that -Physico-Mathematical Science, and all knowledge brought strictly to -the type of that Science, does not itself pronounce on the Ultimate -Questions; but that this Science, as such, actually presents us with a -picture of reality which, at the deeper level even of Epistemology and -of the more ultimate Psychology, and still more at that of Religion, -requires to be taken as more or less artificial, and as demanding, not -simply completion, but, except for its own special purposes, correction -as well. Thus we have seen how M. Bergson finds Clock-Time to be an -artificial, compound concept, which seriously travesties Duration, the -reality actually experienced by us; and Space appears as in even a -worse predicament. M. Emil Boutroux in France, Dottore Igino Petrone -in Italy, Profs. Eucken and Troeltsch in Germany, Profs. James Ward -and Pringle Pattison in Great Britain, and Profs. William James, Hugo -Münsterberg and Josiah Royce in America are, in spite of differences -on other points, united in insistence upon, or have even worked out -in much detail, such a distinction between the first stage and level -of Determinist, Atomistic, Inorganic Nature and our concepts of it, -and the second stage and level of Libertarian, Synthetic, and Organic -Spiritual Reality, and our experience of it. And the penetrating -labours of Profs. Windelband, Rickert, and others, towards building up -a veritable _Organon_ of the Historical Sciences, are bringing into -the clearest relief these two several degrees of Reality and types -of Knowledge, the Historical being the indefinitely deeper and more -adequate, and the one which ultimately englobes the other.[453] - -A profoundly significant current in modern philosophy will thus be -brought, in part at least, to articulate expression and application. -This current is well described by Prof. Volkelt. “German philosophy -since Kant reveals, in manifold forms and under various disguises, the -attempt to recognize, in Epistemology, Metaphysics, and Ethics, such -kinds of Certainty, such domains of Being, such human Volitions and -Values, as lie beyond reason, constitute a something that it cannot -grasp, and are rooted in some other kind of foundation. In variously -struggling, indeed stammering utterances, expression is given to the -assurance that not everything in the world is resolvable into Logic -and Thought, but that mighty resisting remainders are extant, which -perhaps even constitute the most important thing in the world.… Such a -longing after such a Reality can be traced in Hamann, Jacobi, Herder, -in Novalis, Friedrich Schlegel, the youthful Schleiermacher, and Jean -Paul. Indeed, even in Hegel, the adorer of Reason, the movement of -Negation, which is the very soul of his philosophy, is, at bottom, -nothing but the Irrational,” the Super-Rational, “element violently -pressed into the form of Reason; and again the single Thing, the This, -the Here and the Now, are felt by him as … a something beyond Reason. -And has not the Irrational found expression in Kant, in his doctrines -of the unconditional Liberty of the Will and of Radical Evil? In the -later Schelling and his spiritual relatives the Irrational has found -far more explicit recognition; whilst Schopenhauer brings the point -to its fullest expression. Yet even Nietzsche still possesses such an -element, in his doctrine of the ‘Over-Man.’”[454] And in England we -find this same element, in various degrees and in two chief divergent -forms, in the Cambridge Platonists, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Thomas -Hill Green on the one hand; and in Bishop Butler and Cardinal Newman on -the other hand. - -We can thus point to much clear recognition, or at least to a -considerable influence, of the profound truth that Science and Wisdom -can each prosper and help and supplement the other, only if each -possesses a certain real autonomy, a power fully to become and to -remain itself, and, in various degrees and ways, to stimulate, check -and thwart the other. And this truth ever presupposes, what human -experience, in the long run, proves to be a fact,--that the different -kinds, spheres, and levels of man’s apprehension, and of the total -reality thus apprehended by him, are already immanently planned each -for the other, within a great, largely dormant system of the world. -Thus Man can and should call this congenital inter-relatedness into -ever more vigorous and more fruitful play; whereas, if it were not -already present deep within the very nature of things, no amount of -human effort or ingenuity could ever evoke or insert it. Prof. Volkelt -has, as we have seen, illustrated this great fact very strikingly, -with regard to the relation extant between the apparently sheer -contingencies of human History and the requirements of Philosophy, of -normative thought and ideal truth. Yet a similar inter-connection can -be traced elsewhere, between any other two or more levels and spheres -of wholesome and permanent human apprehension and action, in their -relation to various degrees and kinds of reality, as this environs man -or inheres in him. - - -3. _Necessity of the “Thing-element” in Religion._ - -But let us note that the recognition, of an at all emphatic, systematic -kind, of such inter-relatedness is, so far, almost limited to the -moods and persons preoccupied with the right claims of Science or of -Philosophy upon each other or upon the remainder of Life; and is, as -yet, all but wanting, when Life is approached from the side of the -specifically Religious requirements and of the Spiritual consolidation -of man’s soul. Yet here especially, at by far the most important point -of the whole matter, the unique place and significance of Science can -now be very clearly grasped. - -Indeed it is deeply interesting to note how largely the fundamental -characteristics of Catholicism really meet, or rather how they strictly -require, some such vivid conception and vigorous use of the Determinist -Thing and of its level for the full constitution of our true depth, -our Spiritual Personality itself. If we take, _e.g._, the criticisms -addressed, by so earnest and acute a mind as the intensely Protestant -Emile Sulze, to the whole Thing-Element and -Concept, as these are at -work in the Catholic practice and position, we shall find his sense of -the difference between Thing and Spirit to be as enviably keen, and his -idea of the end and ultimate measure of Religion to be as sound and -deep, as his conception of the means towards developing Religion and -the Spirit is curiously inadequate. - -(1) “Personality,” says Sulze, “is, for Religion and Morality, the -supreme Good, of which the source is in God, and the end, the fruit, -and the manifestation is in Man.”[455] This I take to be profoundly -true, especially if we insist upon Perfect Personality being Supreme -and Perfect Spirit; and, again, upon our imperfect personality -and spirit as possessed of certain profound affinities to, and as -penetrable and actually moved by, that Perfect Spirit. - -(2) “The value of Personality nowhere finds a full recognition in -Catholicism; Catholicism indeed is Pantheism.” Now this harsh judgment -is based upon two sets of allegations, which, though treated by Sulze -as of the same nature, are, I would submit, essentially different, and -this because of their definitely different places and functions in the -Catholic system. - -“The Impersonal Godhead, the bond which unites the three Persons, -stands above the Persons. Hence those who took religion seriously had -to lose themselves, pantheistically, in the abyss of the Divinity. -And in Christ the Person was even looked upon as the product of -two Natures, the Divine and the Human, hence of two Impersonal -Forces.”[456] Here two peculiarities in the early Conciliar Definitions -are emphasized, which were doubtless as helpful, indeed necessary, -for the apprehension of the great abiding truths thus conveyed to the -Graeco-Roman mind, as they are now in need of reinterpretation in the -light of our greater sensitiveness to the difference, in character and -in value, which obtains between the concept of Spirit and Personality -and that of Substances and Things. - -But Sulze continues, without any change in the kind or degree of his -criticism: “Impersonal miraculous means, created by the Hierarchy, are -put by it in the place of the sanctifying mutual intercourse of the -children of God.” “Christianity, torn away from the religious and moral -life, became thus a special, technical apparatus, without any religious -or spiritual worth. Ecclesiastical Christianity has become a Pantheism, -Materialism, indeed Atheism.”[457] We have so continuously ourselves -insisted upon the profound danger, and frequently operative abuse, of -any and all complete apartness between any one means, function, or -_attrait_ of the spiritual life and the others, that we can, without -any unfairness, restrict ourselves here to the attack upon the general -acceptation of Impersonal means as helps towards the constitution of -Personality. Now Sulze’s principle here,--that only directly personal -means can help to achieve the end of Personality,--is most undoubtedly -false, unless Mathematico-Physical Science is also to be ruled out -of life, as necessarily destructive of, or at least as necessarily -non-conductive to, Personality. - -(3) Indeed Sulze himself tells us, most truly, that, “for Religion -also, Science is a bath of purification”; and that “Doctrine and the -Sacraments are aids, in the hands of Christ and of the Community, -towards representing the riches of their interior life and offering -these to believing hearts.”[458] This latter pronouncement is, however, -still clearly insufficient. For if there is a double truth which, -at the end of well-nigh five centuries, ought to have burnt itself -indelibly into the mind and conscience of us all, it is, surely, -the following. On the one hand, Man, unless he develops a vigorous -alternating counter-movement, ever grows like to the instruments of -his labour and self-development, and hence, whilst busy with Things, -(whether these be Natural Happenings and their Sciences, or Religious -Institutions and Doctrines), he inclines to become, quite unawares, -limited and assimilated to them,--himself thus a Thing among Things, -instead of, through such various Things, winning an ever fuller -apprehension of and growth in Spiritual Personality. Yet, on the -other hand, without such a movement of close contact with the Thing, -(both the intensely concrete, the Here and Now Contingency, and the -profoundly Abstract, the stringent Universal Law) and without the -pleasure and pain derived from the accompanying sense of contraction -and of expansion, of contrast, conflict, supplementation and -renovation,--there is no fullest discipline or most solid growth of the -true spiritual Personality. - -(4) Thus Science, as Sulze himself clearly sees, not merely aids us -to represent and to communicate our personality acquired elsewhere, -but the shock, friction, contrast, the slow, continuous discipline, -far more, beyond doubt, than any positive content furnished by such -science, can and should constitute an essential part of the soul’s -spiritual fertilization. And similarly, if we move on into the directly -religious life, the Sacramental contacts and Doctrinal systems (the -former so intensely concrete, the latter often so abstract,) are -not simply means towards representing and transmitting spirituality -acquired elsewhere: but they are amongst the means, and, in some form -and degree, the necessary, indeed actually universal means, towards -the awakening and developing and fulfilling of this our spiritual -personality. - - -4. _Three possible relations between Thing and Thought, Determinism and -Spirit._ - -It remains no doubt profoundly true that, with the awakening of the -Mystical sense, will come a more or less acute consciousness of an at -least superficial and preliminary, difference between this sense, with -its specific habits and informations, and those means and forms, in -part so contingent and external, in part so intensely abstract and yet -so precise. But it is equally certain that such a soul, and at such a -stage, even as it continues to require, in some respects more than -ever, for its general balanced development, some of the irreplaceable -discipline and manly, bracing humiliation of the close external -observation and severe abstract generalization of Science: so also -does it continue to require, for the deepening of the spirit and for -the growth of creatureliness, the contact with religious Things,--the -profoundly concrete Sacraments and the intensely abstract Doctrines of -the religious community. - -(1) In one of Trendelenburg’s most penetrating essays, he shows us -how, between blind Force and conscious Thought,--if we presuppose -any tendency towards unity to exist between them,--there can be but -three possible relations. “Either Force stands before Thought, so that -Thought is not the primitive reality, but the result and accident of -blind Force; or Thought stands before Force, so that blind Force is not -itself the primitive reality, but the effluence of Thought; or finally, -Thought and Force are, at bottom, only one and the same thing, and -differ only in our mind’s conception of them.” And only one of these -three positions can, by any possibility, be the true one: hence their -internecine conflict.[459] - -(2) Now Religion, in its normal, central stream, stands most -undoubtedly for Thought before Force, the second, the Theistic view. -And yet it would be profoundly impoverishing for our outlook and -practice, and would but prepare a dangerous reaction in ourselves or -others, were we ever to ignore the immense influence, in the history, -not only of philosophical speculation, but even of religious feeling -and aspiration, not indeed of the first, the Materialist, view, (which -owes all its strength to non-religious causes or to a rebound against -religious excesses), but of the third, the Pantheistic, Monistic, view, -whose classical exponent Spinoza will probably remain unto all time. - -(3) If we examine into what constitutes the religious plausibility and -power of this view, we shall find, I think, that it proceeds, above -all, from the fact that, only too often, the second, the Theistic view -and practice, leaves almost or quite out of sight the purification -and slow constitution of the Individual into a Person, by means of -the Thing-element, the apparently blind Determinism of Natural Law -and Natural Happenings. Yet nothing can be more certain than that we -must admit and place this undeniable, increasingly obtrusive, element -and power _somewhere_ in our lives: if we will not own it as a means, -it will grip us as our end. The unpurified, all but merely natural, -animal, lustful and selfish individual man, is far too like to the -brutes and plants, indeed even to the inorganic substances that so -palpably surround him, for it not to be a fantastic thought to such -thinkers as Spinoza, (and indeed it would be an excessive effort to -himself,) to believe that he is likely, taken simply in this condition, -to outlast, and is capable of dominating, the huge framework of the -visible world, into which his whole bodily and psychical mechanism -is placed, and to which it is bound by a thousand ties and closest -similarities: his little selfish thinkings cannot but seem mere bubbles -on a boundless expanse of mere matter; all creation cannot, surely, -originate in, depend from, and move up to, a Mind and Spirit in any way -like unto this trivial ingenuity. - -(4) It is true, of course, that Spinoza ended,--as far as the logic -of his system went,--by “purifying” away not only this animal -Individualism, but Spiritual Personality as well, and this because he -takes Mathematico-Physical concepts to be as directly applicable and as -adequate to Ultimate Reality as are the Ethico-Spiritual categories. -We have then to admit that even so rich and rare, so deeply religious -a spirit as Spinoza could insist upon purification by the “preliminary -Pantheism,” and yet could remain, in theory, the eager exponent of -an ultimate Pantheism. Like the Greeks, he not only passes through -a middle distance, a range of experience which appears dominated -by austere Fate and blind Fortune, but finds Fate even in ultimate -Reality. Whilst, however, the Greeks often thought of Fate as superior -even to the Gods, Spinoza finds Ultimate Reality to be neither Nature -nor Spirit, but simply Being in General, with a Law which is neither -Natural nor Spiritual Law, but Law in general. This General Being and -General Law then bifurcate, with the most rigorous determinism and -complete impartiality, step by step, into parallel and ever co-present -manifestations of Nature and of Spirit, and of their respective laws, -which, though different, are also each strictly determined within their -own series.[460] - -(5) But Spinoza’s error here undoubtedly lies in his _de facto_ -violent bending (in spite of this theoretical Parallelism) of all -Knowledge, Reality, and Life, under the sole Mathematico-Physical -categories and method; and in the insistence upon attaining to ultimate -Truth by one single bound and with complete adequacy and clearness. -And the greatness here consists in the keen and massive sense of three -profound truths. He never forgets that Mathematico-Physical Science -is rigidly determinist, and that it stands for a certain important -truth and penetrates to a certain depth of reality. He never ceases -to feel how impure, selfish, petty is the natural man, and how pure, -disinterested, noble, can and should be the spiritual personality. And -he never lets go the sense that, somehow, that science must be able to -help towards this purification. - -(6) Now these three truths must be preserved, whilst the -Mathematico-Physical one-sidedness and the “one-step” error must -be carefully eliminated. And indeed it is plain that only by such -elimination can those truths operate within a fully congenial -system. For only thus, with a dissimilarity between the Ultimate, -Libertarian, Spiritual Reality, and the Intermediate, Determinist, -Physico-Mathematical Range, can we explain and maintain the pain, not -only of the selfish but also of the true self, in face the Mere Thing; -and only thus is all such pain and trouble worth having, since only -thus it leads to the fuller development and the solid constitution of -an abiding, interior, mental and volitional Personality. - - -5. _Purification of the Personality by the impersonal._ - -Prof. H. J. Holtzmann has got an eloquent page concerning the kind of -Dualism which is more than ever desirable for souls, if they would -achieve a full and virile personality in this our day. “It would appear -to be the wiser course for us to recognize the incompatibility between -merely natural existence and truly personal life, just as it is, in -its whole acute non-reconciliation; to insert this conflict into our -complete outlook on to Life in its full breadth and depth, and to find -the harmonization in God the Infinite, in whom alone such parallels can -meet, and not deliberately to blind our right eye or our left, in order -to force that outlook into one single aspect,--a degree of unification -which, when achieved in this violent manner, would mean for us, at the -same time, a point of absolute inertia, of eternal stagnation.” And -he then shows how it is precisely the interaction within our minds, -feelings, and volitions, of, on the one hand, the boundless world -of nature, with its majestic impersonality, and on the other hand, -the inexhaustible, indefinitely deeper realm of personal life, as it -appears within the stream of human history, which is best adapted -to give us some fuller glimpses of the greatness of God and of the -specific character of religion.[461] - -The religious imagination, mind, heart, and will,--that is to say, -the complete, fully normal human being at his deepest,--has thus been -more and more forced, by an increasingly articulated experience of -the forces and requirements of actual life, to hold and to practise, -with ever-renewed attempts at their most perfect inter-stimulation and -mutual supplementation, a profoundly costing, yet immensely fruitful, -trinity in unity of convictions on this point. - -In every time, place, and race, man will continue to be or to become -religious, in proportion to his efficacious faith in, and love of, -the overflowing reality and worth of the great direct objects of -religion,--God and the soul, and their inter-relation in and through -the Kingdom of God, the Church, and its Divine-Human Head,--the whole -constituting God’s condescension towards and immanence in man, and -man’s response and orientation towards the transcendent God. - -And again, in every age, place, and race, man will be or will become -deeply religious, in proportion to the keenness with which he realizes -the immense need of spiritual growth and purification for his, at best, -but inchoate personality. - -But,--and this third point we must admit, in the precise extension and -application given to it here, to be characteristically modern,--man -will, (if he belongs to our time and to our Western races, and is -determined fully to utilize our special circumstances, lights and -trials, as so many means towards his own spiritualization), have -carefully to keep in living touch with that secondary and preliminary -reality, the Thing-world, the Impersonal Element, Physical Science and -Determinist Law. He will have to pass and repass beneath these Caudine -forks; to plunge and to replunge into and through this fiery torrent; -and, almost a merely animal individual at the beginning and on this -side of such docile bendings and such courageous plungings, he will, -(if he combines them with, and effects them through, those two other, -abiding and ultimate, directly religious convictions), straighten -himself up again to greater heights, and will come forth from the -torrent each time a somewhat purer and more developed spiritual person -than he was before such contraction and purgation. - - -6. _This position new for Science, not for Religion._ - -Yet even this third point has, if we will but look to its substantial -significance and religious function, been equivalently held and -practised ever since the Twice-Born life, the deeper religion, has been -lived at all. - -(1) The Ascetic’s self-thwarting, and the Mystic’s self-oblivion and -seeking after Pure Love, what are they but the expressions of the very -same necessities and motives which we would wish to see fully operative -here? For we are not, of course, here thinking of anything simply -intellectual, and fit only for the educated few. Any poor laundry-girl, -who carefully studies and carries out the laws of successful washing, -who moves, in alternation, away from this concentration on the Thing, -to recollection and increasingly affective prayer and rudimentary -contemplation, and who seeks the fuller growth of her spirit and of -its union with God, in this coming and going, to and from the Visible -and Contingent, to and from the Spiritual and Infinite, and in what -these several levels have of contrast and of conflict; or any lowly -farm-labourer or blacksmith or miner, who would proceed similarly with -his external determinist mechanical work, and with his deeply internal -requirements and spiritual growth and consolidation: would all be -carrying out precisely what is here intended. - -(2) As a matter of fact, the source of such novelty, as may be -found here, is not on the side of religion, but on that of science. -For the conception of Nature of the ancient Greek Physicists, and -indeed that of Aristotle, required to be profoundly de-humanized, -de-sentimentalized: a rigorous mathematical Determinism and soulless -Mechanism became the right and necessary ideal of Physical Science. -But, long before the elaboration of this concept of the ruthless Thing, -and of its blind Force, Our Lord had, by His Life and Teaching, brought -to man, with abidingly unforgettable, divine depth and vividness, the -sense of Spirit and Personality, with its liberty and interiority, its -far-looking wisdom and its regenerating, creative power of love. And -for some thirteen centuries after this supreme spiritual revelation -and discovery, that old anthropomorphic and anthropocentric conception -of the Physical Universe continued, well-nigh unchanged, even among -the earlier and middle schoolmen, and was readily harmonized with -that Spiritual world. Yet they were harmonized, upon the whole, by a -juxtaposition which, in proportion as the conception of Nature became -Determinist and Mechanical, has turned out more and more untenable; -and which, like all simple juxtapositions, could not, as such, have -any spiritually educative force. But Spiritual Reality has now,--for -those who have become thoroughly awake to the great changes operated, -for good and all, in man’s conception of the Physical Universe during -now three centuries,--to be found under, behind, across these Physical -Phenomena and Laws, which both check and beckon on the mind and soul of -man, in quest of their ultimate mainstay and motivation. - -(3) And let us note how much some such discipline and asceticism is -required by the whole Christian temper and tradition, and the weakening -of some older forms of it. - -During the first three generations Christians were profoundly sobered -by the keen expectation of Our Lord’s proximate Second Coming, and -of the end of the entire earthly order of things, to which all their -natural affections spontaneously clung; and again and again, up to -well-nigh the Crusading Age, this poignant and yet exultant expectation -seized upon the hearts of Christians. And then, especially from St. -Augustine’s teaching onwards, an all-pervading, frequently very severe, -conviction as to the profound effects of Original Sin, a pessimistic -turning away from the future of this sublunar world, as leading up -to the great Apostacy, and a concentration upon Man’s prehistoric -beginnings, as incomparably eclipsing all that mankind would ever -achieve here below, came and largely took the place, as the sobering, -detaching element in Christianity, of the vivid expectation of the -Parousia which had characterized the earlier Christian times. - -Clearly, the Parousia and the Original Sin conception have ceased to -exercise their old, poignantly detaching power upon us. Yet we much -require some such special channel and instrument for the preservation -and acquisition of the absolutely essential temper of Detachment -and Other-Worldiness. I think that this instrument and channel of -purification and detachment--if we have that thirst for the More and -the Other than all things visible can give to our souls, (a thirst -which the religious sense alone can supply and without which we are -religiously but half-awake)--is offered to us now by Science, in the -sense and for the reasons already described. - - -7. _Three kinds of occupation with Science._ - -Let the reader note that thus, and, I submit, thus only, we can and -do enlist the religious passion itself on the side of disinterested, -rightly autonomous science. For thus the harmony between the different -aspects and levels of life is not, (except for our general faith in -its already present latent reality, and in its capacity for ultimate -full realization and manifestation), the static starting-point or -automatically persisting fact in man’s life; but it is, on the -contrary, his ever difficult, never completely realized goal,--a goal -which can be reached only by an even greater transformation within the -worker than within the materials worked upon by him,--a transformation -in great part effected by the enlargement and purification, incidental -to the inclusion of that large range of Determinist Thing-laws and -experiences within the Spirit’s Libertarian, Personal life. - -It is plain that there are three kinds and degrees of occupation with -Things and Science, and with their special level of truth and reality; -and that in proportion as their practice within, and in aid of, the -spiritual life is difficult, in the same proportion, (given the soul’s -adequacy to this particular amount of differentiation and pressure)--is -this practice purifying. And though but few souls will be called to -any appreciable amount of activity within the third degree, all souls -can be proved, I think, to require a considerable amount of the first -two kinds, whilst mankind at large most undoubtedly demands careful, -thorough work of all three sorts. - -The first kind is that of the man with a hobby. His directly religious -acts and his toilsome bread-winning will thus get relieved and -alternated by, say, a little Botany or a little Numismatics, or by any -other “safe” science, taken in a “safe” dose, in an easy, _dilettante_ -fashion, for purposes of such recreation. This kind is already in -fairly general operation, and is clearly useful in its degree and way, -but it has, of course, no purificatory force at all. - -The second kind is that of the man whose profession is some kind -of science which has, by now, achieved a more or less secure place -alongside of, or even within, religious doctrines and feelings,--such -as Astronomy or Greek Archaeology. Here the purification will be in -proportion to the loyal thoroughness with which he fully maintains, -indeed develops, the special characteristics and autonomy both of -these Sciences, as the foreground, part-material and stimulation, and -of Religion, as the groundwork, background and ultimate interpreter -and moulder of his complete and organized life; and with which he -makes each contribute to the development of the other and of the -entire personality, its apprehensions and its work. This second kind -is still comparatively rare, doubtless, in great part, because of the -considerable cost and the lifelong practice and training involved in -what readily looks like a deliberate complicating and endangering of -things, otherwise, each severally, simple and safe. - -And the third kind is that of him whose systematic mental activity -is devoted to some science or research, which is still in process of -winning full and peaceful recognition by official Theology,--say, -Biological Evolution or Biblical Criticism. Here the purification will, -for a soul capable of such a strain, be at its fullest, provided such a -soul is deeply moved by, and keeps devotedly faithful to, the love of -God and of man, of humble labour and of self-renouncing purification, -and, within this great ideal and determination, maintains and -ameliorates with care the methods, categories and tests special both to -these sciences and investigations, and to their ultimate interpretation -and utilization in the philosophy and life of religion. For here there -will, as yet, be no possibility of so shunting the scientific activity -on to one side, or of limiting it to a carefully pegged-out region, -as to let Religion and Science energize as forces of the same kind -and same level, the same clearness and same finality; but the Science -will here have to be passed through, as the surface-level, on the way -to Religion as underlying all. What would otherwise readily tend to -become, as it were, a mental Geography, would thus here give way to -what might be pictured as a spiritual Geology. - - -8. _Historical Science, Religion’s present, but not ultimate, problem._ - -The reader will have noted that, for each of these three stages, I have -taken an Historico-Cultural as well as a Mathematico-Physical Science, -though I am well aware of the profound difference between them, both as -to their prerequisites and method, and their aim and depth. And, again, -I know well that, for the present, the chief intellectual difficulty -of Religion, or at least the main conflict or friction between the -Sciences and Theology, seems to proceed, not from Physical Science but -from Historical Criticism, especially as applied to the New Testament, -so that, on this ground also, I ought, apparently, to keep these two -types of Science separate.--Yet it is clear, I think, that, however -distinct, indeed different, should be the methods of these two sorts of -Science, they are in so far alike, if taken as a means of purification -for the soul bent upon its own deepening, that both require a slow, -orderly, disinterested procedure, capable of fruitfulness only by -the recurring sacrifice of endless petty self-seekings and obstinate -fancies, and this in face of that natural eagerness and absoluteness -of mind which strong religious emotions will, unless they too be -disciplined and purified, only tend to increase and stereotype. - -The matters brought up by Historical Criticism for the study and -readjustment of Theology, and for utilization by Religion, are indeed -numerous and in part difficult. Yet the still more general and -fundamental alternatives lie not here, but with the questions as to the -nature and range of Science taken in its narrower sense,--as concerned -with Quantity, Mechanism, and Determinism alone. - -If Science of this Thing-type be all that, in any manner or degree, we -can apprehend in conformity with reality or can live by fruitfully: -then History and Religion of every kind must be capable of a strict -assimilation to it, or they must go. But if such Science constitute -only one kind, and, though the clearest and most easily transferable, -yet the least deep, and the least adequate to the ultimate and -spiritual reality, among the chief levels of apprehension and of life -which can be truly experienced and fruitfully lived by man; and if the -Historical and Spiritual level can be shown to find room for, indeed to -require, the Natural and Mechanical level, whilst this latter, taken -as ultimate, cannot accommodate, but is forced to crush or to deny, -the former: then a refusal to accept more than can be expressed and -analyzed by such Physico-Mathematical Science would be an uprooting and -a discrowning of the fuller life, and would ignore the complete human -personality, from one of whose wants the entire impulse to such Science -took its rise. - -As a matter of fact, we find the following three alternatives. - -Level all down to Mathematico-Physical Science, and you deny the -specific constituents of Spirituality, and you render impossible the -growth of the Person out of, and at the expense of, the Individual. -Proclaim the Person and its Religion, as though they were static -substances adequately present from the first, and ignore, evade or -thwart that Thing-level and method as far as ever you can, and you -will, in so far, keep back the all but simply animal Individual from -attaining to his full spiritual Personality. But let grace wake up, -in such an Individual, the sense of the specific characteristics of -Spirituality and the thirst to become a full and ever fuller Person, -and this in contact and conflict with, as well as in recollective -abstraction from, the apparently chance contingencies of History and -Criticism, and the seemingly fatalistic mechanisms of Physics and -Mathematics: and you will be able, by humility, generosity, and an -ever-renewed alternation of such outgoing, dispersive efforts and of -such incoming recollection and affective prayer, gradually to push out -and to fill in the outlines of your better nature, and to reorganize it -all according to the Spirit and to Grace, becoming thus a deep man, a -true personality. - -Once again: take the intermediate, the Thing-level as final, and you -yourself sink down more and more into a casual Thing, a soulless Law; -Materialism, or, at best, some kind of Pantheism, must become your -practice and your creed.--Take the anterior, the Individual-level as -final, and you will remain something all but stationary, and if not -merely a Thing yet not fully a Person; and if brought face to face -with many an Agnostic or Pantheist of the nobler sort, who is in -process of purification from such childish self-centredness by means -of the persistently frank and vivid apprehension of the Mechanical, -Determinist, Thing-and-Fate level of experience and degree of truth, -you will, even if you have acquired certain fragmentary convictions and -practices of religion, appear strangely less, instead of more, than -your adversary, to any one capable of equitably comparing that Agnostic -and yourself--you who, if Faith be right, ought surely to be not less -but more of a personality than that non-believing soul. - -But take the last, the Spiritual, Personal level as alone ultimate, -and yet as necessarily requiring, to be truly reached and maintained, -that the little, selfish, predominantly animal-minded, human being -should ever pass and repass from this, his Individualistic plane -and attitude, through the Thing-and-Fate region, out and on to the -“shining table-land, whereof our God Himself is sun and moon”: and -you will, in time, gain a depth and an expansion, a persuasive force, -an harmoniousness and intelligibleness with which, everything else -being equal, the Pantheistic or Agnostic self-renunciation cannot -truly compare. For, in these circumstances, the latter type will, at -best, but prophesy and prepare the consummation actually reached by -the integrational, dynamic religiousness, the Individual transformed -more and more into Spirit and Person, by the help of the Thing and of -Determinist Law. Freedom, Interiority, Intelligence, Will, Grace, and -Love, the profoundest Personality, a reality out of all proportion -more worthy and more ultimate than the most utterly unbounded universe -of a simply material kind could ever be, thus appear here, in full -contradiction of Pantheism, as ultimate and abiding; and yet all -that is great and legitimate in Pantheism has been retained, as an -intermediate element and stage, of a deeply purifying kind. - - -9. _Return to Saints John of the Cross and Catherine of Genoa._ - -And thus we come back to the old, sublime wisdom of St. John of the -Cross, in all that it has of continuous thirst after the soul’s -purification and expansion, and of a longing to lose itself, its -every pettiness and egoistic separateness, in an abstract, universal, -quasi-impersonal disposition and reality, such as God here seems -to require and to offer as the means to Himself. Only that now we -have been furnished, by the ever-clearer self-differentiation of -Mathematico-Physical Science, with a zone of pure, sheer Thing, mere -soulless Law, a zone capable of absorbing all those elements from out -of our thought and feeling which, if left freely to mingle with the -deeper level of the growing Spiritual Personality, would give to this -an unmistakably Pantheistic tinge and trend. Hence, now the soul will -have, in one of its two latter movements, to give a close attention to -contingent facts and happenings and to abstract laws, possessed of no -direct religious significance or interpretableness which, precisely -because of this, will, if practised as part of the larger whole of -the purificatory, spiritual upbuilding of the soul, in no way weaken, -but stimulate and furnish materials for the other movement, the one -specially propounded by the great Spaniard, in which the soul turns -away, from all this particularity, to a general recollection and -contemplative prayer. - -And we are thus, perhaps, in even closer touch with Catherine’s -central idea,--the soul’s voluntary plunge into a painful yet joyous -purgation, into a state, and as it were an element, which purges away, -(since the soul itself freely accepts the process), all that deflects, -stunts, or weakens the realization of the soul’s deepest longings,--the -hard self-centredness, petty self-mirrorings, and jealous claimfulness, -above all. For though, in Catherine’s conception, this at first both -painful and joyful, and then more and more, and at last entirely, -joyful, ocean of light and fire is directly God and His effects upon -the increasingly responsive and unresisting soul: yet the apparent -Thing-quality here, the seemingly ruthless Determinism of Law, in -which the little individual is lost for good and all, and which only -the spiritual personality can survive, are impressively prominent -throughout this great scheme. And though we cannot, of course, take the -element and zone of the sheer Thing and of Determinist Law as God, or -as directly expressive of His nature, yet we can and must hold it, (in -what it is in itself, in what it is as a construction of our minds, -and in its purificatory function and influence upon our unpurified but -purifiable souls), to come from God and to lead to Him. And thus here -also we escape any touch of ultimate Pantheism, without falling into -any cold Deism or shallow Optimism. For just because we retain, at the -shallower level, the ruthlessly impersonal element, can we, by freely -willed, repeated passing through such fatalistic-seeming law, become, -from individuals, persons; from semi-things, spirits,--spirits more and -more penetrated by and apprehensive of the Spirit, God, the source and -sustainer of all this growth and reality. - -And yet, let us remember once more, the foreground and preliminary -stage to even the sublimest of such lives will never, here below at -least, be abidingly transcended, or completely harmonized with the -groundwork and ultimate stage, by the human personality. Indeed our -whole contention has been that, with every conceivable variation of -degree, of kind, and of mutual relation, these two stages, and some -sort of friction between them, are necessary, throughout this life, -for the full development, the self-discipline, and the adequate -consolidation, at the expense of the childish, sophistic individual, of -the true spiritual Personality. - - - - -IV. FINAL SUMMARY AND RETURN TO THE STARTING-POINT OF THE WHOLE -INQUIRY: THE NECESSITY, AND YET THE ALMOST INEVITABLE MUTUAL HOSTILITY, -OF THE THREE GREAT FORCES OF THE SOUL AND OF THE THREE CORRESPONDING -ELEMENTS OF RELIGION. - - -Our introductory position as to the three great forces of the soul, -with the corresponding three great elements of religion, appears, then, -to have stood the test of our detailed investigation. For each of these -forces and corresponding elements has turned out to be necessary to -religion, and yet to become destructive of itself and of religion in -general where this soul-force and religious element is allowed gravely -to cripple, or all but to exclude, the other forces and elements, and -their vigorous and normal action and influence. - - -1. _Each of these three forces and elements is indeed necessary, but -ruinously destructive where it more or less ousts the other two._ - -(1) The psychic force or faculty by which we remember and picture -things and scenes; the law of our being which requires that -sense-impressions should stimulate our thinking and feeling into -action, and that symbols, woven by the picturing faculty out of these -impressions, should then express these our thoughts and feelings; and -the need we have, for the due awakening, discipline and supplementation -of every kind and degree of experience and action, that social -tradition, social environment, social succession should ever be before -and around and after our single lives: correspond to and demand the -Institutional and Historical Element of Religion. This element is as -strictly necessary as are that force and that law. - -Yet if this force and need of the soul, and this religious element -are allowed to emasculate the other two primary soul-forces and needs -and the religious elements corresponding to them, it will inevitably -degenerate into more or less of a Superstition,--an oppressive -materialization and dangerous would-be absolute fixation of even quite -secondary and temporary expressions and analyses of religion; a ruinous -belief in the direct transferableness of religious conviction; and a -predominance of political, legal, physically coercive concepts and -practices with regard to those most interior, strong yet delicate, -readily thwarted or weakened, springs of all moral and religious -character,--spiritual sincerity and spontaneity and the liberty of -the children of God. We thus get too great a preponderance of the -“Objective,” of Law and Thing, as against Conviction and Person; of -Priest as against Prophet; of the movement from without inwards, as -against the movements from within outwards. - -The Spanish Inquisition we found to be probably the most striking -example and warning here. Yet the Eastern Christian Churches have -doubtless exhibited these symptoms, if less acutely, yet more -extensively and persistently. And the Protestant Reformation-Movement, -(even in the later lives of its protagonists, Luther, Zwingli, and -Calvin), much of orthodox Lutheranism and Calvinism, and some forms and -phases of Anglican Highchurchism and of Scotch Presbyterianism, show -various degrees and forms of a similar one-sidedness. In Judaism the -excesses in the Priestly type of Old Testament religion, especially -as traceable after the Exile, and their partial continuation in -Rabbinism, furnish other, instructive instances of such more or less -partial growth,--the Pharisees and the Jerusalem Sanhedrin being here -the fullest representatives of the spirit in question. The classical -Heathen Roman religion was, throughout, too Naturalistic for its, -all but exclusive, externalism and legalism to be felt as seriously -oppressive of any other, considerable element of that religion. And -much the same could doubtless be said of Indian Brahmanism to this -day. But in orthodox Mohammedanism we get the truly classical instance -of such a predominance, in all its imposing strength and terrible, -because all but irremediable, weakness--with its utterly unanalytic, -unspeculative, unmystical, thing-like, rock-solid faith; its detailed -rigidity and exhaustive fixity; its stringent unity of organization -and military spirit of entirely blind obedience; its direct, quite -unambiguous intolerance, and ever ready appeal to the sword, as the -normal and chief instrument for the propagation of the spirit; and its -entirely inadequate apprehension of man’s need of purification and -regeneration in all his untutored loves, fears, hopes and hates. - -(2) Then there is the soul-force by which we analyze and synthesize, -and the law of our being which requires us to weigh, compare, combine, -transfer, or ignore the details and the evidential worth of what has -been brought home to us through the stimulation of our senses, by our -picturing faculty and memory, and by means of our Social, Historical, -and Institutional environment, and which orders us to harmonize all -these findings into as much as may be of an intelligible whole of -religion, and to integrate this religious whole within some kind of, -at least rough, general conception as to our entire life’s experience. -And this force and law are answered by the Critical-Historical and -Synthetic-Philosophical element of religion. We thus get Positive -and Dogmatic Theology. And this element is as humanly inevitable and -religiously necessary as is that soul-force and law. - -Yet here again, if this force, law, and element are allowed -superciliously to ignore, or violently to explain away, the other kinds -of approaches and contributions to religious truth and experience, -special to the other two soul-forces and religious elements, we shall -get another destructive one-sidedness, a Rationalistic Fanaticism, -only too often followed by a lengthy Agnosticism and Indifference. -Whilst the Rationalist Fanaticism lasts, everything will doubtless -appear clear and simple to the soul, but then this “everything” will -but represent the merest skimmings upon the face of the mighty deep -of living, complete religion,--a petty, artificial arrangement by the -human mind of the little which, there and then, it can easily harmonize -into a whole, or even simply a direct hypostatizing of the mind’s own -bare categories. - -The worship of the Goddess of Reason at Notre-Dame of Paris we found to -be here, perhaps, the most striking instance. Yet Rationalist excesses, -varying from a cold Deism down to an ever short-lived formal Atheism, -and the lassitude of a worldly-wise Indifferentism, are traceable -within all the great religions. Thus a large proportion of the educated -members of the ancient Graeco-Roman world were, from the Sophists and -the Second Punic War onward, stricken with such a blight. The Sadducees -are typical of this tendency among the Jews for some two centuries. -The tough persistence of a mostly obscure current of destructive -free-thought throughout Western Europe in the Middle Ages shows well -the difficulty and importance of a mental and spiritual victory over -these forces of radical negation, and of not simply driving them -beneath the surface of society. And the ready lapse of the most daring -and intense of the Medieval, Jewish and Christian, Scholastics into a -thoroughly Pantheistic Panlogism, points to the prevalence, among these -circles, of a certain tyranny of the abstractive and logical faculty -over the other powers and intimations of the soul.--Unitarianism again -is, in its origins and older form, notwithstanding its even excessive -anti-Pantheism, strongly Scholastic in its whole temper and method, and -this without the important correctives and supplementations brought -to that method by the largely Mystical and Immanental Angel of the -Schools. The greater part of the “Aufklärung”-Movement was vitiated -by an often even severer, impoverishment of the whole conception of -religion. And, in our day, the Liberal movements within the various -Christian bodies, and again among Brahmanic religionists in India, -rarely escape altogether from ignoring or explaining away the dark -and toilsome aspects of life, and the inevitable excess of all deep -reality, and indeed of our very experience of it, above our clear, -methodical, intellectual analysis and synthesis of it. Too often and -for too long all such groups have inclined to assimilate all Experience -to clear Knowledge, all clear Knowledge to Physico-Mathematical -Science, all Religion to Ethics, and all Ethics to a simple belief -in the ultimacy of Determinist, Atomistic Science. The situation is -decidedly improving now; History and Culture are being found to have -other, more ultimate categories, than are those of Mathematics and -Physics, and to bring us a larger amount of reality, and Ethics and -Religion are discovered to be as truly distinct as they are closely -allied and necessary, each to the deepest development of the other. - -(3) The faculty and action of the soul, finally, by which we have an -however dim yet direct and (in its general effects) immensely potent, -sense and feeling, an immediate experience of Objective Reality, of -the Infinite and Abiding, of a Spirit not all unlike yet distinct from -our own, Which penetrates and works within these our finite spirits -and in the world at large, especially in human history; and by which -we will, and give a definite result and expression to, our various -memories, thinkings, feelings, and intuitions, as waked up by their -various special stimulants and by the influence of each upon all the -others: is met by the Mystical and the directly Operative element of -Religion. And here again we have a force and law of the human spirit, -and a corresponding element of religion, which can indeed be starved -or driven into a most dangerous isolation and revolt, but which are -simply indestructible. - -The Apocalyptic Orgies of the Münster Anabaptists we found to be -perhaps the most striking illustration of the dire mischief that can -spring from this third group of elemental soul-forces, when they ignore -or dominate the other two. Yet some such Emotional Fanaticism can be -traced, in various degrees and forms, throughout all such religious -groups, schools, and individuals as seriously attempt to practise Pure -Mysticism,--that is, religious Intuition and Emotion unchecked by the -other two soul-forces and religious elements, or by the alternation of -external action and careful contact with human Society and its needs -and helps, Art and Science, and the rest. - -Thus we find that, after the immense, luxuriant prevalence of an -intensely intuitive, emotional, tumultuously various apprehension -and manifestation of religion during the first two generations -of Christians, and even after the deep, wise supplementation and -spiritualization of this element by St. Paul, who in his own person so -strikingly combined the Institutional, Rational and Intuitive-Emotional -forces and elements, this whole force and element rapidly all but -disappeared for long from Western Christian orthodoxy. And Montanism -in still early times, and, during the very height of the Middle -Ages, the Waldensian and Albigensian movements--all predominantly -intuitive, enthusiastic, individualist--appear as so many revolutionary -explosions, threatening the whole fabric of Christendom with -dissolution. The “Eternal Gospel” movement of Abbot Joachim, on -the other hand, gives us the intuitional-emotive element in a more -purified, institutionally and rationally supplemented form. - -Again we find that, for a while, in reaction from an all but hopelessly -corrupt civilization, the Fathers of the Desert attained in many cases, -by means of an all but Exclusive Mysticism, to a type of sanctity -and to the inculcation of a lesson which the Church has gratefully -recognized. We have to admit that many of the Italian, French and -Spanish Quietists of the Seventeenth Century were no doubt excessively, -or even quite unjustly, suspected or pursued, as far at least as their -own personal motives and the effect of their doctrines upon their own -characters were concerned; and that the general reaction against even -the proved, grave excesses of some of these men and women, went often -dangerously far in the contrary direction. Indeed even the fierce -fanaticism of the Dutch-Westphalian Apocalyptic Intuitionists can but -excuse, not justify, the policy of quite indiscriminately ruthless -extermination pursued by Luther, Zwingli and Calvin, and by their -official churches after their deaths, towards any and all Illuminism, -however ethically pure and socially operative. The “Society of Friends” -which, measured by the smallness of its numbers, has given to the world -an astonishingly large band of devoted lovers of humankind, is a living -witness to the possibility of such an Illuminism. - -And we can note how the sane and solid, deep and delicate constituents, -which had existed, mixed up with all kinds of fantastic, often -hysterical and anti-moral exaltations, within most of those all but -purely Intuitionist circles, gradually found their escape away into all -sorts of unlikely quarters, helping to give much of their interiority -and religious warmth, not only to various, now fairly sober-minded, -Nonconformist Protestant bodies on the Continent, in England and -America, but also to the more religious-tempered and more spiritually -perceptive among modern philosophers--such as Spinoza, Kant, Fichte, -Schleiermacher, Schelling and Fechner. - -Within the Jewish world, we get much of this element at its noblest -and at its worst, in the true and false Prophets respectively; then -among the Essenes, for the times between the Maccabean resistance and -the revolt of Bar Cochba; and later on in the Kabbala. The Mohammedans -still furnish the example of the Sufi-movement. The Classical Heathen -world produced the Neo-Platonist and the Mithraic movements; and we can -still study, as a living thing, the Buddhist Mysticism of Thibet. - -We have then, here too, something thoroughly elemental, which requires -both persistent operative recognition and a continuous and profound -purification and supplementation by becoming incorporated within a -large living system of all the fundamental forces of the soul, each -operating and operated upon according to the intrinsic nature and -legitimate range of each. - - -2. _Each element double; endless combinations and conflicts._ - -We have also found that these three forces and elements are each -double, and that collisions, but also most fruitful interactions, can -and do obtain between even these yoke-fellows: between Institutionalise -and History,--the Present and the Past, a direct Sense-Impression and -Picture and a Memory; between Criticism and Construction,--Analysis -and acuteness of mind, and Synthesis and richness and balance of -imagination, head, heart, and will; and between Mysticism and Action, -as respectively Intuitive and quiescent and Volitional and effortful. - -And both the three forces and elements as a whole, and the single -members of each pair, can and do appear in every possible variety of -combination with, and of opposition against, the others, although -there is a special affinity between the Critical-Speculative and the -Intuitive-Volitional pairs (in combination against the Sense-and-Memory -pair); between the Sense-and-Memory pair and the single member of -Action; and between the single members of Speculation and of Intuition. -Yet, ultimately, not any one pair or member can bear its fullest fruit, -without the aid of all the others; and there is not one that, in actual -human nature, does not tend to emasculate, or to oust as much as -possible from the soul, the other pairs or single members. - - -3. _Our entire religious activity but one element of our complete -spirit-life._ - -And we have noted further, how even the fullest development in -any one soul of all these three couples of specifically religious -activities--even supposing that they could be developed to their -fullest, without any participation in and conflict with other degrees -and kinds of life and reality--do not, by any means, exhaust the range -of even the simplest soul’s actual energizings. - -(1) For over and beyond the specifically religious life--though this, -where genuine, is ever the deepest, the central life--every soul lives, -and has to live, various other lives. And indeed--and this is the -point which specially concerns religion--the soul cannot attain to its -fullest possible spiritual development, without the vigorous specific -action and differentiation of forces and functions of a not directly -religious character, which will have to energize, each according -to its own intrinsic nature, within the ever ampler, and ever more -closely-knit, organization of the complete life of the soul. - -(2) And within this complete life, the three pairs of religious forces -and elements each possess their own special affinities and antipathies -for certain of the forces and elements which constitute the other, -less central organizations of man’s marvellously rich activity. -The Historical-Institutional element of Religion has necessarily -a special affinity for, and borrows much of its form from, social, -legal, political history and institutions of a general kind. The -Critical-Speculative element of religion is necessarily cognate to, and -in a state of interchange with, the general historical criticism and -philosophical insight attained during the ages and amongst the races in -which any particular religion is intellectually systematized. And the -Mystical-Operative element is necessarily influenced by, and largely -utilizes the general emotive and volitional gifts and habits, peculiar -to the various ages and peoples within which this double religious -element is in operation. - -(3) It is thus abundantly clear how greatly a work so manifold in its -means, and so harmonious in its end, requires, if it is to come to -a considerable degree of realization, that single souls, and single -classes and types of souls, should have around them a large and varied -Historical and Institutional, a Social life both of a specifically -religious and of a general kind, and that, within this large ambit of -the actualized religion of others and of the still largely potential -religion of their own souls, they shall develop and be helped to -realize their own deepest spiritual capacities and _attrait_. They -will have to develop these special capabilities to the utmost degree -compatible with some practice of the other chief elements of religion, -with a continuous respect for and belief in the necessity of the other -types of soul, and with a profound belief in, and love of, the full, -organized community of all devoted souls, which builds up, and is built -up by, all this variety in unity. The Kingdom of God, the Church, will -thus be more and more found and made to be the means of an ever more -distinct articulation, within an ever more fruitful interaction, of -the various _attraits_, gifts, vocations, and types of souls which -constitute its society. And these souls in return will, precisely -by this their articulation within this ampler system, bring to this -society an ever richer content of variety in harmony, of action and -warfare within an ever deeper fruitfulness and peace. - - -4. _Two conditions of the fruitfulness of the entire process._ - -Yet even the simplest effort, within this innumerable sequence and -simultaneity of activities, will lack the fullest truth and religious -depth and fruitfulness, unless two experiences, convictions and motives -are in operation throughout the whole, and penetrate its every part, -as salt and yeast, atmosphere and light penetrate, and purify and -preserve our physical food and bodily senses. - -The vivid, continuous sense that God, the Spirit upholding our poor -little spirits, is the true originator and the true end of the whole -movement, in all it may have of spiritual beauty, truth, goodness -and vitality; that all the various levels and kinds of reality and -action are, in whatever they have of worth, already immanently -fitted to stimulate, supplement and purify each other by Him Who, an -Infinite Spiritual Interiority Himself, gives thus to each one of us -indefinite opportunities for actualizing our own degree and kind of -spiritual possibility and ideal; and that He it is Who, however dimly -yet directly, touches our souls and awakens them, in and through all -those minor stimulations and apprehensions, to that noblest, incurable -discontent with our own petty self and to that sense of and thirst for -the Infinite and Abiding, which articulates man’s deepest requirement -and characteristic: this is the first experience and conviction, -without which all life, and life’s centre, religion, are flat and -dreary, vain and philistine. - -And the second conviction is the continuous sense of the ever -necessary, ever fruitful, ever bliss-producing Cross of Christ--the -great law and fact that only through self-renunciation and suffering -can the soul win its true self, its abiding joy in union with the -Source of Life, with God Who has left to us, human souls, the choice -between two things alone: the noble pangs of spiritual child-birth, of -painful-joyous expansion and growth; and the shameful ache of spiritual -death, of dreary contraction and decay. - -Now it is especially these two, ever primary and supreme, ever deepest -and simplest yet most easily forgotten, bracing yet costing, supremely -virile truths and experiences--facts which increasingly can and -ever should waken up, and themselves be vivified by, all the other -activities and gifts of God which we have studied--these two eyes -of religion and twin pulse-beats of its very heart, that have been -realized, with magnificent persistence and intensity, by the greatest -of the Inclusive Mystics. - -And amongst these Mystics, Caterinetta Fiesca Adorna, the Saint -of Genoa, has appeared to us as one who, in spite of not a little -obscurity and uncertainty and vagueness in the historical evidences for -her life and teaching, of not a few limitations of natural character -and of opportunity, and of several peculiarities which, wonderful to -her _entourage_, can but perplex or repel us now, shines forth, in -precisely these two central matters, with a penetrating attractiveness, -rarely matched, hardly surpassed, by Saints and Heroes of far more -varied, humorous, readily understandable, massive gifts and actions. -And these very limits and defects of her natural character and -opportunities, of her contemporary disciples and later panegyrists, -and of our means for studying and ascertaining the facts and precise -value of the life she lived, and of the legend which it occasioned, -may, we can hope, but help to give a richer articulation and wider -applicability to our study of the character and necessity, the limits, -dangers and helpfulness of the Mystic Element of Religion. - - - - -INDEX - - -(_Some corrections of mistakes in names and references, as given in the -foregoing work, have been silently effected in the following Index_) - - -I. OF SUBJECT-MATTERS - - Abelard, I. 61 - - Absorptions of St. Catherine, I. 226-229 - - Acarie, Madame, I. 89 - - Acquasola, Genoa, I. 144, 145 _n._ 1, 168 - - Action (reflex), its three elements, I. 57-58 - - Adorni Family, I. 96, =101=, 102 - various, I. 102, 145 _n._ 1, 151, 153-155, 173, 300, 327, 377 - - Adorno, Giuliano, I. =101=, =102=, 103, 138, 145 _n._ 1, =149=, 153, - 173, 187, 225, 296, 297 _n._ 1, 300, 307, 308, 309, 311, 313, - 325 _n._ 1, 377, 378, 379, 382, 386, 388, 394, 454, 455; II. 29, 74 - he becomes a Tertiary of the Order of St. Francis, I. 130 - his bankruptcy, I. 128-129 - character, I. 102 - conversion, I. 129 - his death, I. 149-156, 379 - his illness, I. 149 _n._ 1. - his life in the little house within the Hospital, I. 129-131 - his monument, I. 297 _n._ 1 - his natural daughter, I. 129 - his will, I. =151-152=, 378-379 - moves into the Hospital, I. 141, 142 - sells his palace, I. 148 _n._ 1 - - Adorno Palazzo, I. 108, 128, 148, 327, 377, 379, 403 - - Aeschylus, II. 189, 271 - - Afer, Victorinus, I. 266 _n._ 3 - - Affinities, human, furthered by Mysticism, II. 331-335 - - After-life beliefs, in Asiatic countries, II. 183-185 - in Greece, II. 185-189 - of the Jews, II. 189-191 - problems, ethico-practical difficulties of, II. 197-199 - historical difficulties of, II. 182-194 - philosophical difficulties of, II. 194-197 - - After-life, its forecasts in St. Catherine, II. 200-203 - Plato’s influence on them, II. 203-211 - - Agnosticism (Mystical), criticism of, II. 287-296 - - Agrigentum, II. 188 - - Aix, Cathedral of, and triptych, I. 96 - - Akiba, Rabbi, II. 233, 268, 292 - - Alacoque, St. Marie Marguerite, II. 42, 56, 58 - - Albigensian movement, II. 391 - - Alcantara, St. Peter of, II. 143 - - Alexander VI, Pope (Borgia), I. 95 - VII, Pope (Chigi), II. 168 _n._ 1 - - Alexandrian School, I. 61 - - Alfred, King, II. 44 - - Aloysius, St. Gonzaga, I. 88 - - Alvarez, Venerable Balthazar, S.J., I. 64 - - Ambrosian Library, Milan, I. 411 _n._ 1, 466 - - America, II. 370, 392 - - Amos, II. 189, 268 - - Anabaptists, I. 9, 63; II. 391 - their orgies, I. 10, 340; II. 391 - - Anaxagoras, I. 12 - - Andrew, Monastery of St., Genoa, I. 325 _n._ 2 - - Andrewes, Anglican Bp. Lancelot, I. 63 - - Angelica Library, Rome, I. 411 _n._ 1 - - Angelo, Castel S., Rome, I. 327 - of Chiavasso, Blessed, O.S.F., I. 116 - - Anglican Highchurchism, II. 63, 388 - - Anglicanism, its three elements, I. 8, 9, 63 - - Anguisola, Donna Andronica, I. 359, 361, 363, 364, 403, 413, 416 - - Animal-life, St. Catherine’s sympathy with, I. 163, 164 - - Anjou, Charles I. of, I. 96 - Margaret of, I. 96 - René of, King of Naples, I. 96 - - Annunciation, Church of the, Sturla, I. 451 - - Annunziata in Portorio, Church of Sma., Genoa, I. 98 _n._ 1 (99), 130, - 201 _n._ 3, 297 _n._ 1, 313, 325 _n._ 1 - Monastery of, I. 319, 325 - - Annunziata, Piazza della Sma., Genoa, I. 102 - - Anselm, St., Archbishop, I. 78; II. 142, 181 - - Anthony, St., I. 373 - - Antiochene School, I. 61 - - Antiochus Epiphanes, II. 292 - - Antonietta (servant), I. 149, 153, 226 - - Apocalypse, II. 269 - - Apollo Katharsios, II. 93 - - Apostles, I. 27, 389 - - Apprehension, Mystical, no distinct faculty of, II. =283-284= - - Arc, Jeanne d’, Ven., II. 47 - - Archives, Archiepiscopal, of Genoa, I. 411 _n._ 1 - of the Cathedral Chapter, Genoa, I. 384 - - Archivio di Stato in Genoa, I. 153 _n._ 1, 172, 176 _n._ 1, 2, - 378 _n._ 1, 379 _n._ 1, 381 _n._ 1, 203 _n._ 1, 213; II. 10 _n._ 1. - - Argentina, del Sale (de Ripalta), I. 149, 151, 162 _n._ 2 (163), - =169-171=, 173, 175, 197 _n._ 4 (198), 210 _n._ 1, 213 _n._ 1, - =215-219=, 223, 226, 297 _n._ 1, 298, 299, 367, 310-312, =313=, - =314=, 387-389, 402, =452=, =453=, 464; II. 4, 26 - adopted by St. Catherine, I. 170, 171 - her fate, I. 313, 314 - much alone with St. Catherine in 1510, she helps on growth of - legends, I. 203; II. 4, 26, 197 _n._ 4 (198), 203, 209, 210 _n._ 1, - 219, 452, 453 - wills of, I. 313, 381 - - Arias, Francisco, S.J., I. 89 - - Aristotle, I. 7, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 41, 42; II. 131, 132, 194, 203, 249, - 250, 252, 264, 310, 311, 312, 320, 324, 379 - his conception of “Unmoving Energy,” II. =131=, =132=, 250 - of the Noûs, II. 32 - of God as sheer abstract Thought, II. 251 - his general doctrine, I. 19-23 - - Arnold, Dr. Thomas, of Rugby, I. 63 - - Ars, Curé d’, the Bl. J. B. Vianney, II. 143 - - Arvenza, on the Riviera, I. 318 - - Asceticism and Mystical abstractiveness, II. 348-349 - ordinary and social Christianity, II. 355-358 - ordinary, as practised by Mystics, II. 341-343 - - Asia Minor, II. 188 - - Assyria, II. 185 - - Atman, II. 183 - - Augsburg, David of, O. S. F., II. 363 - - Augustine, St., I. 61, 100; II. 117, 129, 131, 142, 205, 211, 212, 213, - 214, 215, 261, 266 _n._ 3, 270, 282, 298, 380 - on Evil as negative, II. 293 - on fire of Hell, II. 216 - on mitigation of sufferings of the Lost, II. 225 - on Purgatory, II. 216, 217 - on soul’s Rest between death and resurrection, II. 211, 212 - on Original Sin, II. 298-301 - on God and the soul as out of Space, II. =212=, =213= - on Time and Eternity, II. 165 _n._, =248= - - Augustinian Canonesses, I. 103 _n._ 1; II. 62 - Canons, I. 103 _n._ 1 - - Augustinianesses, Chapel of the, Genoa, I. 109, 170 - - Avicebron, _see_ Gebirol Ibn - - Avicenna, II. 317 - - Avignon exile, I. 94 - - Azzolini, Cardinal, I. 305 - dei Manfredi, cavaliere, I. 99 _n._ - - - Babylonia, II. 185 - - Bacon, Francis, II. 369 - - Baius, condemnation of, II. 242 - - Balilla, via, Genoa, I. 129 - - Ballerini, Father Antonio, S. J., I. 121 - - Bar Cochba, revolt of, II. 392 - - Barnabites, I. 340 - - Baronius, Cardinal, I. 318 - - Basil, St., II. 166 - - Beethoven, L. von, II. 27, 42, 265 - - Beguards, II. 131 _n._ 1 - - Bellarmine, Cardinal, S.J., I. 88 - - Bell’Huomo, G., S.J., II. 144 - - Benedetta Lombarda, servant, I. 130, 149, 153, 172, 176, 226, - =311=, =312=, 317, 379 - - Benedict XIV, Pope (Lambertini), I. 136, 253 - St., I. 104, 127, 240, 460 - - Benedictines, I. =63=, =64=, 103 _n._ 1, 373; II. 161, - 363 - - Bentham, Jeremy, II. 272 - - Bergson, Henri, Professor, II. 247, 282, 370 - - Bernard, St., of Clairvaux, I. 7, 61, 69; II. 242, 182 - Claude, II. 192 - - Bernières-Louvigny, Jean de, II. 141 - - Bernouilli, Dr. C. A., I. 373 - - Berulle, Venerable Cardinal de, I. 88, 317 - - Bible, Catherine’s love of the, I. 258 - - Biographies, religious, the three attitudes possible concerning, - I. =374-375= - - Biography, religious, laws regulating its growth, I. =371= - - Bismarck, Otto von, II. 272 - - Bliss, its “pain”-element, II. =255= - - Blondel, Prof. Maurice, II. 282 - - Body, Catherine’s view concerning it, and the elements of this view, - II. 123-126 - dualistic view concerning it, ever only pragmatic, II. =126-129= - dualistic view, un-Catholic, II. 126, 127 - its valuation in the N. T., II. 122-123 - - Boerio, Maestro G. B., I. 200, 201 _n._ 3, 202, 208, 217, 218, 389, 451, - 464; II. 14, 15, 17 - Don Giovanni, I. 201 _n._ 3 (202), 208, 451 - - Boetius, II. 317 - - Bollandists, I. 372 - - Bona, Cardinal, Cistercian, I. 88 - - Boniface VIII, Pope (Gaetani), II. 83 - his Bull “Unam Sanctam,” I. 94 - - Bosco Bartolomeo, I. 130 - - Bossuet, Bishop J. B., I. 64, 89; II. 141, 161, 162, 171, 173 - - Boudon, Archdeacon H. M., II. 141 - - Bousset, Prof. W., on individual experience and traditional form, II. 309 - - Brahman, II. 183 - - Brahmanism, II. 388 - its three elements, I. 60 - - Brescia, Hospital in, I. 322 - Vincenzo da, painter, I. 99 - - Bridgettines, Convent of the, Genoa, I. 312 - - Browning, Robert, II. 57, 108, 223, 227, 271 - - Buddha, Gautama, I. 71; II. 184, 268 - - Buddhism, II. 183, 184, 273 - its three elements, I. 60 - - Buddhist Mysticism, II. 392 - - Bunyan, John, his works, I. 63 - - Burke, Edmund, II. 271 - - Burmah, II. 183 - - Burnet, Anglican Bishop Gilbert, II. 145 - - Busenbaum, Hermann, S. J., I. 121 - - Butler, Anglican Bishop Joseph, II. 371 - - - Caesar, II. 272 - - Caird, Professor Edward, II. 91 _n._ 1, 282 - - Cajetanus, Thomas de Vio, Cardinal, O.P., II. 162 - - Callisto da Piacenza, Padre, I. 323, 324 - - Calvin, I. 341, 414, 415; II. 117, 118, 388, 392 - _Institutio Religionis Christianæ_ I. 340 - Calvinism, I. 9, 63 - early stages of, I. 339-341 - - Cambridge Platonists, the, II. 371 - - Camillus of Lellis, St., I. 129 _n._ 2 - - Campanaro Family, of Genoa, I. 101 - - Campion, Blessed Edmund, S.J., I. 64; II. 129 - - Campofregoso, Paolo, of Genoa, I. 101 - - Canada, II. 141 - - _Canticle of Canticles_, I. 258, 356 - its imagery dear to V. Battista Vernazza, I. 111, 356, 432 - remote from St. Catherine’s mind, I. 229, 258, 432; - II. 100, 101, 107 - - Capuchins, I. 311, 340, 341 - - Caraccioli, Cardinal, Archbishop of Naples, II. 139 - - Caraffa, Cardinal, _see_ also Paul IV. (Pope), I. 327, 340 - - Carenzio, Don Jacobo, 155 _n._ 1, 175, 202, 204 _n._ 1, 213, 216, 217, - 295, 299, 301, =307-309=, 310 _n._ 1, 384, 464; II. 26 - his fate, I. 307-309 - - Carenzio, Don Jacobo, his funeral, I. 381 - - Carlyle, Thomas, II. 271 - - Cassian, I. 78 - - Cassino, Monte, I. 103 _n._ 1 - - Castagneto, Brigidina, I. 175 - - Catherine, of Alexandria, St., I. 97, 348 - - Catherine of Genoa, St. (Caterinetta Fieschi Adorno), I. 86, 95, 97, - 98 _n._ 1, 100, 101, 102, 103, 103 _n._ 1, 104, 105, 111, 112, - 113, 123, 151, 168, 169, 170, 171, 338, 339, 376, 382, 387, 388, - 389; II. 42, 50, 56, 58, 63, 64, 96, 97, 98, 109, 131, 136, 142, - 146, 170, 172, 206, 208, 209, 218, 288, 289, 297, 298, 304, 306, - 395, 396 - - Catherine, St., her AFTER-LIFE CONCEPTIONS, II. 199-218 - her apparitions after death, I. 216, 218 - her external appearance, I. 97 - ecclesiastical approbation of her doctrine, I. 255, 256, 413, - =448=, =449=, 464 - and Argentina del Sale, I. 170, 171, 203, 209, 210, 213, 217, 298 - her BAPTISM, I. 97 - and Baptism, I. 436; II. 76 - her birth, I. 93, 97 - her breadth of sympathy and unsuspiciousness, II. 83, 84 - her brothers, I. 97, 167, 172, 176 - her burial, I. 296, 297 - her burial-place, shifting of, I. 152, =185-187=, 213 - and business, I. 154, 186 - the three CATEGORIES of her teaching, ‘In,’ ‘Out,’ ‘Over,’ - I. 273-276 - her codicils of 1503, I. 168, 169, 380 - of 1508, I. 175, 176, 380 - of 1510, I. 212-214, 380 - colours, her sensitiveness to, I. 208, 210, 298; II. 17, 24 - compared with St. Augustine, II. 211-214, 216, 225, 248, 293, 294 - with Clement and Origen of Alexandria, II. 219, 234-236 - with Pseudo-Dionysius, II. 90-101, 205, 236 - with the Joannine writings, II. 79-90 - with St. John of the Cross, II. 257, 258, 346, 347, 385, 386 - with the Pauline writings, I. 140; II. 63-79, 322 - with Plato, II. 66, 201-211, 235, 251 - with Plotinus, II. 204, 322, 323 - with Proclus, II. 204, 205, 294, 313 - with the Synoptic Gospels, II. 122-124, 153-158 - with St. Teresa, II. 288, 289, 324, 325 - with St. Thomas Aquinas, I. 120; II. 162-164, 222-224, 301, - 337, 338 - with Ven. Battista Vernazza, I. =332-366=, 408, 409, 423, - 429-433 - with Ettore Vernazza, I. 317-323, 328, 329, 331-335 - and Confession, I. 109, =117-121=, 158, 159, =424-427= - and her Confessor (Don Marabotto), I. 155-158, 184, 185, 193-196, - 455-457 - her Conversion, I. 104-109, 403-406, 458-462; II. 29-31 - Cross and Passion, her attitude towards, I. 108, 109, 205, 209, 210, - =403-406=, 409, =411-413=, 452, 453 - Cultus, her popular, I. 301-303, 332, 335, 394 - her DEATH, I. 215, 216 - her Deed of Cession, 1456, I. 376, 377 - her _Deposito_, I. 98 _n._ - her desire for death, I. 183, 184, 192, 210 - for life, I. 200-202 - for human sympathy, I. 195 - and the Devil, I. 124, 125, 205, 206, 264; II. 36, 37 - men devoted to her spirit, I. 89, 90 - her DIALOGO, _see_ Vita (D) in Index II - her _Dicchiarazione, see_ Vita (T) in Index II - her doctrine presented in theological order, I. 257, 260-294 - dualistic tendencies in, considered, II. 121-129 - her ECSTATIC states, I. 161, 162, 226, 229; II. 34 - and the H. Eucharist, I. 113, 114, 116, 204, 208, 214, 240, 241, - 288, 289, 263; II. =87=, =88= - her attitude towards Evil, I. 266-270; II. 294 - her FASTS, I. 135-139, 155; II. 34 - her Father, I. 96, 97, 101 - and Tommasa Fiesca, I. 131, 132, 168, 169, 174 - GROWTH, her spiritual, I. 112, 113, =236-239= - and HEAVEN, I. 159-161; II. =246-258= - and Hell, I. 281-288; II. =218-230= - her attitude towards historical and institutional religion, I. 190, - 204, 206, =239-241= - and the Hospital _Chronici_, I. 173, 174 - and the Hospital _Pammatone_, I. 129-131, 141-143, 175, 202 - and her husband, I. 102-104, 129, 152, 153 - hysteriform appearances in her health, II. 20, 21, 23-25 - her fundamental difference from hysteria-patients, II. =25-27= - her ILLNESS, during last days, I. 207, 214; II. 13 - during last months, I. 193; II. 9, 10 - and Indulgences, I. 123-126, 202 - and intercessory prayer, I. 127 - and invocation of saints, I. 104, 127 - LESSONS of her life, I. 244-246 - Life, conceptions of, in, II. 88-90 - her literary obligations, I. 234-238; II. 62-110, 203-211 - Pure Love, her doctrine of, I, 108, =139-141=, =159-161=, 262, 263, - 265, 266 - her practice of, I. 116, 144, 170, 184, 185, 187, 197 - and MARRIAGE, I. 101, 223-225, 246, 248, 249 - her Marriage-settlement, I. 377 - materialization of her experiences and ideas, I. 218, 219 - matron of Hospital, I. 143, 147, 148 - and her NEPHEWS, I. 154, 167, 171, 176, 213 - and her Nieces, I. 154, 167, 172, 173 - ORIGINALITY of her doctrine, I. =246-250=, 347 - and PAIN, physical and psycho-physical, 196-198, 198-200; II. 10, 11 - her penitence, I. 109-112, 131-134 - the periods of her convert life, I. 111, 112, 112 _n._ 1, 118, 119, - 138, 390-393 - first period, I. 128-131 - second period, I. 128-140 - third period, I. 157-159, 175, 176 - and physicians, I. 200, 201, 208, 211, 212 - pictures, her care for religious, I. 99, =168=, =169=, 188, 189, - 191; II. 29, 30 - portraits of, I. 98 _n._ i, 301 - her possessions at time of her death, I. 297-299 - her psycho-physical peculiarities, in themselves, I. 176-181, 193, - 196-200; II. 10-13, 17-21 - her attitude towards them, I. 164, 165, 211, 212; II. 16, =35-39= - and Purgatory, I. 283-294; II. =230-246= - and prayer of QUIET, I. 227 - her quietistic-sounding sayings, I. =236=, =237=, 265, 266, 271, 279 - causes of her apparent quietism, II. =34-36= - her RELICS, I. 98, _n._ 1, 300-304 - her Rigoristic trend, I. 342 - her “SCINTILLA”-experience, I. 187-191, 451 - and Holy Scripture, I. 258 - her self-knowledge, I. 164, 165, =206=, =207=, 247; II. 14, 15 - her extreme sensitiveness, I. 176-181, 207-209 - “Serafina,” I. 161, 262 - and her servants, I. 148, 149, 161, 162, 169, 171, 172, 175, 176, - 217; II. 26 - and her sister, I. 100, 105, 167 - social interests in 1506, I. 172-174 - in 1506-1510, I. 175-176 - Spirit, the, her conception of, II. =67-69=, =84=, 320-322 - symbols used by,: air and flying, I. 189; II. 103 - arrow and wounding, I. 97; II. 105, 106 - bread and eating or being devoured, I. 288, 289, =270= - cork under water, I. 275 - dog and his master, I. 263 - drops, liquid, I. 159, 160, 189; II. 52 - fountain, I. 189, 260, 261 - fragments and table, I. 277 - heat and cold, I. 194, 197; II. 109 - light, rays of the sun, and fire, sparks of, I. 178-180, 187, - 188, 269, 276, =290-292=; II. 94, 95, 323 - motes, spots, stains, rust, I. 189, 267; II. 236, =238=, =239= - nakedness and garments, I. =275=, =276=, 290-292, 428, 432; - II. 77, 78, 98, 123, =209=, =210= - places and abiding in them, I. =277=, =278=; II. =69=, =70=, - 77, =80=, =81=, 212, 213, 322 - the plunge, I. 268, =284=, =285=, 332; II. 70, 89, =207=, - =208=, 385 - prison, exile, I. 273, 274; II. 105, 126, 239 - the (golden) rope, I. 432; II. 92, 93 - water (the sea) and drowning, I. =274=, =275=; II. 103, 106, - =108=, =109=, 322 - symbols used by her, why material and extensional, not personal - and successive, I. 237-239, =245-247=; II. =39=, =40=, =100=, =101=, - 285, 286, 330, 331, 349, 350 - her TEACHING, general character of, I. 229-234 - fortunate circumstances of, I. 255, 256 - her special temperament, I. 220-223 - and Thobia, I. 129, 153, 169 - her times, I. 94, 95 - and Transcendence, I. 274-277; II. =100= - and UNCTION, Extreme, I. 195, 197, 204, 206 - Union, her thirst for absolute, I. 116, 159-161, 263, =265=, - =266=, 269-271, 280 - and Battista VERNAZZA, I. 149, 337 - and Ettore Vernazza, I. 145-147, 191-193, 203, 204, 226, 331-335, - =453-455= - veracity of her mind, I. 119 - her VISION of the Bleeding Christ, I. =107-109=, 181, 209, 239, - 403, 405, 418, =460-462=, 466 _n._ 2; II. 31, 32, 71 - WARFARE, method of her spiritual, II. =34-39= - and the two ways, negative and positive, I. 276-280 - words, her last, I. 216, 465 - her Wills, i, I. 152, 153, 377-378 - ii, I. 152-154, 380 - iii, I. 172-174, 380 - iv, I. 172-173, 174, 176, 185-187, 202, 203, 308, 380 - her wills in general, I. 297-299; II. 26 - her “writings” not her composition, I. 87, 407, 433, 447, 448, =466= - her YOUTH, I. 99-101 - of Siena, I. 87, 94, 306, 341, 382; II. 42, 47, 306, 307 - - Catholicism, its three elements, I. 63-64 - - Catholic mind, its characteristics, I. =122-123= - - Caussade, Père de, S.J., II. 143 - - Censor, Dominican, the, of the _Vita_, I. 372, =413=, 464 - - Centurione, Adam, Lord, I. 385 - Ginetta, Lady, I. 385 - Orientina, Donna, I. 385, 391 - - Cesarini, Cardinal, I. 305 - - Chantal, St. Jane Frances de, II. 142, 143, 363 - - Child, the, its apprehension of religion, I. 51 - - China, II. 182, 183 - - Chios, Isle of, I. 101, 151; II. 27, 83 - - Christian conception of life, I. 48-49 - doctrine (survey of), I. =25-28= - its three N. T. presentations, I. =28-39= - - Christianity, conflicts between its Intuitive-Emotional and its other - elements, I. =70-77= - excludes Pantheism, II. 334-335 - its preliminary Pessimism and ultimate Optimism, II. 358-361 - its three elements, II. 61 - in the Humanist Renaissance, I. 62 - the Middle Ages, I. 61-62 - the Protestant Reformation, I. 62-63 - - Christina, Queen of Sweden, I. 305, 305 _n._ 1 - - Christofero of Chiavari, I. 168, 298 - - _Chronici_, Spedale dei, Genoa, I. =173=, =174=, 317, 319, 326, 327, 333; - II. 10 - Protectors of, I. 318, 326 - Sindaco of, I. 319 - - Chroniclers of St. Catherine, rivalry between them, I. 216 - - Chronicles, Books of, David in, I. 373 - - Church, the, her life and spirit, I. 123 - - Cibo Donna Maddalena (born Vernazza), I. 322 - - Cicero, Don Blasio, I. 152 - - Clement of Alexandria, I. 61, 78; II. 131, 142, =166=, =219=, =235=, 239, - 268, 282, 306, 333 - - Clement XI, Pope (Albani), II. 131, 161 - Fénelon’s letter to, I. 69 - X, Pope (Altieri), I. 305 - XII, Pope (Orsini), I. 306 - his Bull of Catherine’s Canonization, I. 466 - - Cogoleto, on Riviera, I. 318 - - Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, II. 371 - - Collino, Padre Serafino, C.R.L., I. 364, 366 - - Colonna, Vittoria, I. 341, 342 _n._ 2 - - Chrysostom, St. John, II. 225 - - Columbus, Christopher, I. 94, 146 - - Confucianism, II. 182, 183 - - Confucius, II. 183 - - Constance, Council of, I. 94, 342 - - Constantinople, I. 94 - - Contarini, Gaspar, Cardinal, I. 342 _n._ 2 - - Contemplation and Social Christianity, II. =355-358= - - _Conversione_-booklet, I. 449, 464 - - _Convertite_ the, Genoa, I. 327 - - Corsica, I. 156 - - Counter-reformation, I. 62 - - Covenant, Book of the, I. 373 - - Criticism, of the writings of Saints, how far allowed, I. 254 and foll. - - Croton, II. 188 - - Crusading Age, the, II. 380 - - Cynic school, I. 23 - - Cyprian, St., II. 43 - - Cyrenaic school, I. 23 - - - Dante, II. 165, 265 - - Darwin, Charles, II. 271 - - David, three stages of his biography, I. 373 - - Delphi, II. 187 - - Demeter, II. 97 - - Democritus, II. 12 - - Descartes, René, I. 7, 40, 317 - his apprehension of law, I. 40 - - Determinism, its place in the spiritual life, II. 330, 331, =369-379=, - 385, 386 - - Deuteronomy, Book of, Moses in, I. 373 - - Developments, partial, of the Gospel-Ideal, II. 116-120 - - de Vere, Aubrey, paraphrases the _Trattato_, I. 89 - - _Dialogo_ of St. Catherine, see _Vita e Dottrina_ - - Diano, Castello of, on Riviera, I. 308, 309 - - _Dicchiarazione_-booklet, I. 464, and see _Vita_ (T) - - Dionysiac sect, II. 188 - - Dionysius (Pseudo-) Areopagite, I. 163 _n._, 177, 256, 259, 266 _n._ 3; - II. 63, 109, 131, 142, 205, 211, 288, 307, 313, 329, 333, 344, 366 - and Catherine, II. =90-101= - Catherine’s direct knowledge of, II. 258, 259 - his conception of God’s general action, II. 91-94 - Deification, II. 99, 100 - the soul’s reaction, II. 94-99 - his influence in Middle Ages, II. 314-317 - Neo-Platonism in, II. 91-99, 294, 312, 313 - Platonism, in, II. 93, 94, 96, 97, 101 - - Diotima, in Plato’s _Symposium_, St. Catherine compared to, I. 257 - - Direction, spiritual, its advantages, II. 364 - - Disciple, the Beloved, symbol of, I. 111 - - Domenico, Monastero Nuovo di S., Genoa, I. 132, 168, 174, 451 - de Ponzo, Padre, O.S.F., I. 140 _n._ 4 - - Dominicans, I. =63=, =64=, 253, 413, 464; II. 52, 53 _n._ 1, 316, - 317, 324 - - Doria, Andrea, Admiral, I. 93, 104-146 - other members of family, I. 96, 376 - - Draco, laws of, II. 87 - - Drexel, Jeremias, S.J., I. 89 - - Droysen, J. G., II. 271 - - Dualism, as regards body, II. 121-129, 289, 298 - and question of Evil, II. =290-308= - unconscious, in Kant’s Epistemology, II. 278 - - - Eberhard, Father, O.P., II. 52 - - Ecclesiastes, II. 189 - - Eckhart, Meister, his Deistic tendencies, II. 252 - on Evil as purely negative, II. 294 - on Godhead as distinct from God, II. 317, 318 - Father Denifle, on, II. 317 - - Ecstasies, difficulty in testing them, I. 161, 162; II. 49-51 - of St. Catherine, I, 139-140, 226-229; II. 34 - - Ecstasy, in Dionysius, II. 95, 96 - in Plotinus and Proclus, I. 24; II. 95, 96 - - Ecstatics, their psycho-physical organisation, II. =40-47= - - Egypt, II. 185, 233 - - Eleatic philosophers, II. 188 - - Eleazar, Rabbi, II. 153 - - Eleusinian Mysteries, II. 185, 187, 189 - - Elijah, II. 268 - - Eliot, George, II. 199 - - Elohist, the, writer, and figure of Moses, I. 373 - - Embriaco, Guilielmo, I. 100 - - Emmerich, Anne Catherine, I. 334, 335 - - Emotional-intuitive element in Religion, I. 8-10 - in the various Churches, I. 8-10 - in Christian Religion, its exclusiveness, I. =73-79= - its danger and yet necessity, I. 6, 59, 60; II. =260-263=, =387-393= - - Emotional-intuitive personalities, movements and races, I. 6-7 - - Empedocles, I. 11; II. 188 - - _Energeia_, Aristotle’s great contribution, II. 250-251 - - England, I. 62, 63, 65, 200; II. 371, 392 - - Epictetus, II. 268 - - Epicurean school, I. 23 - - Epistles, Pastoral, II. 269 - - Epopteia, the Eleusinian, II. 97 - - Erasmus of Rotterdam, I. 311, 340; II. 119 _n._ 1 - - Eschatology, Catherine’s simplifications of it, II. =211-218= - - Esparta, Father Martin, S.J., II. 144 - - _Essays and Reviews_, I. 63 - - Essenes, I. 61; II. 392 - - Este, Eleonora d’, I. 341 - - Estius, William, II. 63 _n._ 2 - - Eucken, Prof. R., II. 63 _n._ 2, 282, 333, 370 - on Evil as positive, II. 296 - hyper-empirical processes as a _sine qua non_ for religion, - II. 270, 271 - “universal” religion and “characteristic” religion, II. 296 - - Euripides, II. 189 - - Evangelicalism, I. 8-10; II. 392 - - Evil denied by extreme Mysticism, II. 292-293 - its origin and Mysticism, II. =279-302= - Mysticism and the warfare against, II. 302-308 - positive but not supreme, II. =291-297= - positive conceptions of, II. 304, 305 - - Experience not directly transmissible, I. 4-5 - of the human race, I. 6-7 - personal, its influence upon our convictions, I. 4 - - Experiences, distinguished from their expression, and their analysis, - II. =130-134= - - Experimental matter and theoretical form, II. 308-309 - - Ezekiel, II. 189, 220, 268, 292, 332 - his ecstasies and psycho-physical peculiarities, II. =45-46= - his individualistic trend, II. 189, 220 - - - Faber, Frederick, Father, I. 65 - - Falconi, Juan, II. 146 - his _Alfabeto_ and _Lettera_ II. 143, 144 - - Falconieri, St. Juliana, I. 306; II. 56 - - Fasts, Catherine’s, II. 33 - end of, II. 148 - - Fechner, G. T., II. 392 - - Felicitas, St., I. 361 - - Fénelon, I. 64, 68, 89; II. 138, 141, 142, 143, =160-162=, 174, 177 - his condemnation, the questions to which it applies, II. =165-169= - on need of Metaphysics in Theology, II. 181 - on “Passivity,” II. 141, 142 - works of, distinction between them, II. 160, 161 - - Ferrara, Duchess of (Renée de Valois), I. 340, 341 - - Ferretto, Dottore Augusto, I. 125 _n._ 1, 152 _n._ 1, 155 _n._ 1, - 172 _n._ 2, 176 _n._ 1, 2; 203 _n._ 1, 213 _n._ 1, 378 _n._ 1, - 381 _n._ 1 - - Feuerbach, Ludwig, II. 332 - - Fichte, J. G., II. 271, 392 - - Ficino Marsilio, his translation of Dionysius’ works, I. 259 - - Fiesca, Adorna Caterinetta, _see_ Catherine, St. - - Fiesca, Francesca, I. 376, 377 - Maria, B., I. 176, 302 - Tommasa Suor, I. =131=, =132=, 143, 217, 259, 384, 387, 457, 464; - II. 62, 175 - possible contributions to the _Vita_, by, I. 457 - death of, I. 381 - life and works (upon the Areopagite and the Apocalypse), I. 132 - - Fieschi, Battista, I. 153, 154, 172 - Family, I. 95-97, 101, 157, 303 - Francesco, I. 125, 213, 315 - Giorgio, Cardinal, I. 102 - Giovanni, I. 97, 153, 154, 377, 378 - death of, I. 167 _n._ 3 (168), 172 - sons of, I. 167 - Cardinal, I. 125, 126 - Jacobo, I. 149 _n._ 1; 153, 167 _n._ 3 (168), 376, 384 - death of, I. 172 - his daughters, I. 167, 379 - Limbania, I. 97, 100, 105, 153, 167, 172, 186, 321, 379; II. 62 - Lorenzo, I. 97, 153, 154, 167 _n._ 3 (168), 172, 187, 215, 299, - 370, 377 - Cardinal, I. 302 - Luca, Cardinal, I. 96 - Maria, I. 153, 154, 167, 172 - Marietta, I. 146 - Napoleone, Cardinal, I. 102 - Nicolò, Cardinal, I. 96 - Roberto dei, I. 95 - - Fieschi, Sinibaldo de, _see_ Innocent IV, Pope - - Fiesco, Emmanuele, I. 175 - - Fisher, Bishop John, Blessed, I. 340 - - Florence, Council of, II. 226 - decisions concerning Purgatory, II. 217, 242 - - Fontana, Padre, Barnabite, II. 226 - - France, I. 64, 94; II. 148 - - Franchi, de’, Archbishop, I. 306 - Tobia dei, I. 102 - - Francis, St., of Assisi, I. 8, 65, 389; II. 42, 47, 261 - his life and legend, I. 372 - - Franciscans, I. =61=, =64=, 130, 140 _n._ 4, 385, 386, 389, 390; - II. 105, 106, 109, 143, 144, 316, 317, 363 - - Francis, St., de Sales, I. 88; II. 142, 143, 363 - - Frank, Sebastian, I. 63 - - Fregosi Family, Genoa, I. 96, 101 - - Ottaviano, Doge, I. 327, 329, 330 - - Friendship, St. Catherine’s attitude concerning, I. 225, 226 - - Fust, Printer, I. 94 - - - Galilei, Galileo, I. 7 - - Gamaliel, II. 63 - - Ganymede, II. 187 - - Gardner, Prof. P. and Miss A. on Confession and Direction, - II. 364 _n._ 1 - - Gemiluth Chasadim, II. 153 - - General, its relation to Particular according to Greek philosophy, - I. 10-25; II. =310-319= - - Geneva, I. 9 - - Genoa, I. 96, 100-102, and _passim_ - position and climate, I. 93 - Republic of, I. 303, 305, 306, 449 - - Genoese Republic, I. 203 - the people, their character, I. 93-94 - - George, Bank of Saint, I. 125, 152, 153, 169, 172, 318, 326 _n._ 1, - 330, 365, 376, 379 - cartulary of the, I. 149 _n._ 1, 365, 379 - - Germano, Borgo San, Genoa, I. 145 _n._ 1 - - Germany, I. 62, 94; II. 370 - - Geronimo of Genoa, Fra, O.P., I. 253, 413, 464 - - Gerson, John, Chancellor of Paris, I. 62, 94, 342 - - Gertrude, Saint, I. 64 - - Giovo, Angelo L., Prot. Ap., I. 93, 172 _n._ 1, 208 _n._ 2, 297 _n._ 1, - 395, 396 - - _Giuseppine_, Genoa, I. 327 - - Giustiniano, Agostino, Bishop, his account of St. Catherine’s life, - remains and biography, I. 382-384 - - Gnosticism, approximations and antagonisms to, in Fourth Gospel, II. 81, - 82 - - God as supremely concrete, II. 249, 255 - natural conformity between, and all rational creatures, I. 261 - hunger after, I. 263 - His illumination of souls, I. 270-271 - His way of winning souls, I. 271-272 - co-operation of the living, and the living soul, I. 73 - ever apprehended in His relation to ourselves, II. =169-170= - as the _Actus Purus_, II. 80, 81, 131, 132 - the essence of things, I. 256, 266 - Unity and Trinity of, I. 66-67 - various conceptions concerning His relations with the human soul, - II. 319-325 - God’s “anger” and offendedness, I. 292; II. 69, 70 - “ecstasy,” I. 260, 262, 352; II. 95, 96, =254= - immanence, I. 276, 280; II. 280-284, =287-290=, 324, 325, 330, - =336-340= - “jealousy,” II. 353, 355 - transcendence, I. 276, 280 - - Goethe, II. 229, 271, 327 - - Gordon, Charles, General, I. 89; II. 271 - - Görres, Joseph von, and question of true Mysticism, II. 315 - - Gospels, pre-Pauline and Pauline, apprehensions in the, II. 117-118 - - Gospels, the, _see_ John, St., Evangelist, and Synoptic Gospels - - Grace and Free Will, I. =69=, =70=; II. 141, 142, =174= - - Graces, Interior, I. 263, 265 - - Grasso, Don Giacomo C., I. 299 _n._ 1 - - Greece, II. 185, 191, 192 - - Greeks, I. =10-25=, 151, 155, 246, 259; II. 83, 90-101, 131, 132, - 185-189, 205-211, 294, 310-314, 319, 320, 325-327, 333, 356-358, - 389 - - Green, Thomas Hill, II. 371 - - Gregory I, the Great, Pope, Saint, I. 64 - VII, Pope (Hildebrand), I. 64 - St., of Nazianzum, II. 166, 181 - of Nyssa, I. 61; II. 31, 166 - - Grimm, Jacob, II. 271 - - Grisell, Hartwell, I. 98 _n._ 1 (99) - - Grou, Père J. N., S.J., I. 64; II. 143, 363, 365 - combines deep mystical life and critical labours, II. =138= - - Gutenberg (John Gensfleisch), I. 94 - - Guyon, Madame la Mothe, II. 138, 143, 175 - - - Hadrian, Emperor, II. 292 - V, Pope (Fieschi), I. 95 - VI, Pope (Dedel), I. 340 - - Hamann, J. C., II. 371 - - Hannibal, II. 272 - - Heaven and Pure Love according to St. Catherine’s conception, - I. =159-160= - and Time; concreteness; and pain, II. =247-258= - - Hecker, Father Isaac, I. 89; II. 58 - - Hedley, Bishop J. C., O.S.B., on the condemnation of Fènelon, II. 161 - - Hegel, G. W. F., II. 271, 291, 296, 371 - - Hegelian school, II. 269 - - Hell, St. Catherine and, II. =218-230= - disposition of souls in, II. 221-225 - endlessness of, II. 227-230 - fire of, II. 215-218 - mitigation of its pains, II. 225-227 - St. Catherine’s doctrine concerning, I. =281-283= - - Hellenism, I. =11-25= - its qualities, I. 48 - its three religious elements, I. 60 - - Henry VI, of England, I. 96 - VII, of England, I. 200, 201, and _n._ 2 - VIII, of England, I. 311 - - Hensel, Luise, I. 334 - - Heraclitus, I. 11, 12; II. 188 - his doctrine, I. 4, 11 - - Herder, J. G., II. 327, 371 - - Hermann, Prof. Wilhelm, II. 263, 264, 265 - impossible simplification of religion, II. =269-272= - Panchristism of, II. 266 - - Heroes, Cultus of, II. 187 - - Hezekiah, II. 190 - - Hildegard of Bingen, St., I. 64 - - Hindooism, II. 273 - - Historical element of Religion, its division, I. 85 - science, _see_ Science - - Hobbes, Thomas, I. 7 - - Höffding, Prof. Harald, on religious “Agnosticism,” II. =287=, =288= - - Holtzmann, Prof. H., on retaining vivid sense both of determinist - physical law and of libertarian spiritual life, II. =377=, =378= - on Conditional Immortality, II. 229 - on Metaphysical factors in N. T. writings, II. =269=, =270= - - Holtzmann, Prof. H., on category of time, as secondary in man’s spiritual - life, II. =247=, =248= - - Hume, David, II. 272 - - Hus, John, I. 94 - - Huxley, Prof. Thomas, II. 272 - - Huysmans, J. K., II. 56 - - Hylozoism, I. 12 - - Hysteria, St. Catherine’s condition only superficially like, II. =22-27= - three popular errors concerning, II. 22, 23 - - - Ignatius, of Antioch, St., I. 219 _n._ 2; II. 43, 133 _n._ - of Loyola, St., I. =68, 80=; II. 142 - - Illingworth, Rev. J. B., II. 333 - - Illuminists, I. 9 - - Imagery, Battista Vernazza’s, I. 409, 432 - St. Catherine dominates her own imagery, I. 237, 238 - St. Catherine’s imagery, I. 266-268, 270, 277, 284-285, 287-293 - compared to B. Vernazzas, I. 409, 432 - - Immanence, Divine, II. 287-290, =336-340= - facts indicative of the, II. =280-284= - in V. Battista Vernazza, I. 352; II. 289 - St. Catherine, I. 261-263; II. 347 - St. Paul, II. 70 - Plotinus, II. 92, 96 - St. Teresa, II. =324=, =325= - St. Thomas, II. 288, 289, =337=, =338= - recent thinkers, I. 270, 271, =339-340= - - Immortality, belief in, among great Eastern religions, II. 181-185 - its beginnings amongst Greeks and Jews, II. 185-191 - morbid, character of the Greek beginnings, II. 191-194 - philosophical and ethical difficulties of, II. =194-199= - - Imperiali, Cardinal, I. 305 - - Incarnational doctrine, I. 369; II. 136, 139, 194, 195, 237, 238, - =253-255=, 343, 344, =355-357=, 395, 396 - - Incorruption of St. Catherine’s body, I. 302 and _n._ 2 - - India, II. 183, 332 - - Individual, the, its apparent power over the emotions and the will, - I. 3-6; - its power derived from expressing the Abiding and Personal, - =I. 367-370= - - Individuality, right, of every soul, II. =255=, =256= - - Indulgences, St. Catherine’s assertions about them, I. 123-124 - authenticity of, I. 124 - St. Catherine’s attitude towards them, I. 124-125 - the Congregation of Rites on St. Catherine’s attitude towards - indulgences, I. 125-126 - - Innocent IV, Pope (Fieschi), I. 95 - XI. Pope (Odescalchi), I, 253, 305; II. 140, 144, 168 _n._ 1 - - Inquisition, Roman, I. 341 - Spanish, I. 72; II. 380 - - Intellectual element of Religion, its division, I. 85-86 - personalities, movements and races, I. 6-7 - gaps in, stopped by the Emotional-volitional element, I. 7 - - Intercommunication, will-moving, between men, its conditions, I. 367-370 - - Interiorization, the soul’s, of God, I. 263 - - Intuitionists, Dutch-Westphalian Apocalyptic, I. 63; II. 392 - - Invocation of Saints, by St. Catherine, I. 240 - her attitude concerning it, I. 126-127 - - Isolation, moral and spiritual, I. 5-6 - - Isaiah, I. 258; II. 189, 268 - - Italy, I. 65, 94, 259, 311, 315, 341; II. 29, 270, 370 - Quietism in, II. 148 - - - Jacobi, F. H., II. 371 - - Jacopone, da Todi, I. 130, 163 _n._, 177, 234, 235, 255, 258, 259, 275, - 386; II. 62, 63, 83, 205 - his _Lode_, their influence upon Catherine’s conceptions, - II. =102-110= - Neo-Platonism in, II. 104, 109 - Platonism in, II. 103-105, 109 - - Jahvist and Elohist writings, Moses in, I. 373 - - Jamblichus, I. 6 - - James, Saint, _Epistle of_, II. 116, 269 - Prof. William, II. 6, 265 - on psychical normality and fruitfulness of formless recollection, - II. =266= - on pace of conversion, as primarily a temperamental matter, II. 30 - - Janet, Pierre, Professor, II. 265 - on three popular errors concerning Hysteria, II. 22, 23 - hysterical peculiarities registered by him, II. 23-25 - - Japan, II. 183 - - Jean Baptiste de la Salle, St., I. 78 - - Jean, François St. Regis, S.J., I. 306 - - Jean Paul Friedrich Richter, II. 371 - - Jeremiah, II. 189, 190, 268, 292, 332 - - Jerome, St., I. 78 - - Jesuits, I. =63=, =64=, 121; II. 129, 142, 144, 162, 170 _n._, 225, 226, - 241, 242, 245, 288, 307 - - Jesus Christ, compared with Buddha and Mohamed, I. 71 - His Cross, its necessity for the soul’s fullest life, I. 82; - II. 331, =360=, =361=, 395 - multiplicity within unity of His action and interests, I. =25-28= - His place in teaching of V. Battista Vernazzo, I. 359, 360, 405, - 406, 413 - St. Catherine, I. 108, 109, 209, =239-241=, 360, 412, 413; - II. 70-74, 77, 79-83, 85 - Joannine writings, II. 80, 81 - St. Paul, II. 71, 72, 76-79, 158, 159 - in conception of Prof. W. Hermann, II. 263-268, 332 - His teaching, primarily not moral, but religious, II. =274= - on Pure Love, II. 153-158 - its Petrine, Pauline, Joannine presentations, II. 28-39 - - Jews, II. =189-191=, 194, 213, 214, 220, 224, 233, 234, 239, 315, 316 - - Joachim, Abbot, II. 391 - - Job, II. 189 - - John, St. Damascene, II. 225 - St., Evangelist; the Joannine writings, I. 223, 234, 235, 258, 353, - 374; II. 62, 63, 116, 202, 205, 253 - and organized Ecclesiastical Christianity, II. 83, 84 - and St. Paul, II. 80, 82, 85, 87, 88 - and the Synoptic Gospels, II. =81-86=, =116=, =117= - and other systems, II. 79, 80, 81-83 - on God, Salvation, Sacraments, Last Things, compared with St. - Catherine’s teachings, II. =84-90= - - John, St., on Pure Love, II. 160 - the Baptist, St., I. 65, 97 - chapel of, Cathedral, Genoa, I. 77, 161 - the Beheaded, Company of, I. 327, 328, 430 - XXII, Pope (Duèse), II. 318 - St., of the Cross, I. 67, 87, 180, 247; II. 50, 59, 142, 143, 146, - 147, 288, 306-308, 346, 366 - on right attachment, II. =353= - on faith, as sole proportionate means of union with God, II. 343, - 348 - on a loving knowledge producible by God’s aid alone, II. 307 - on perception of God’s incomprehensibleness, II. =257=, =258= - on the true test of perfection, II. =51= - his helpfulness towards finding place for temper of determinist - science within the spiritual life, II. 385 - his predominant theory requires continuous remembrance of his - practice and occasional description of the soul’s other movement, - II. =343-345= - - Josephus, II. 233 - - Jowett, Benjamin, I. 63 - - Judaism, II. 79 - its three elements, I. =61=; II. 388, 389, 392 - - Judas Maccabaeus, II. 233, 292 - - Juliana, Mother, of Norwich, on Eternal Punishment, II. 218, 219 - on negative character of Evil, II. 394 - and Direction, II. 363 - her Christian optimism, II. =305=, =306= - - Julianus, Monk, Pelagianizer, II. 293 - - Julius II, Pope (Rovere), I. 94, 146, 155 - - Justina, Benedictine, Congregation of St., Padua, I. 103 _n._ 1 - - Justin, St., Martyr, II. 268, 333 - - - Kabbala, II. 392 - - Kant, Immanuel, I. 43; II. 27, 42, 168, 179, 247, 261, 264, 275, 295, 370, - 371, 392 - deepens contrast between quantitative science and qualitative - spiritual life, I. 43 - his defective religious sense, II. =260-262= - on disinterested religion, II. 177-179 - his dualistic assumption in epistemology, II. 278 - on Evil as positive and radical, II. =295=, =296= - on obscure apprehensions, II. 265 - - Keble, Rev. John, I. 63 - - Kempen, Thomas of, I. 62 - - Kepler, Johann, I. 7; II. 27 - - Kierkegaard Sören, his radical Asceticism, II. 345, 346, 353 - on God’s utter difference from Man, II. =287=, =288= - on “Repetition,” II. 285 - - Knowledge, its three constituents, I. 54-57 - - - Laberthonnière, Abbé L., _Annales de Philosophie Chrétienne_, 1905, 1906, - II. 307 - - Lallemant, Louis, Pére, S.J., I. 64; II. 365 - - Lancisius, Nicolas, S.J., I. 89 - - Laplace, P. S. de, II. 272 - - Lateran, Fourth Council of, I. 120, 121 - - Laud, William, Anglican Archbishop, I. 63 - - Laurence, St., quarter of, Genoa, I. 377 - - Lavagna, on Riviera, I. 95 - - Lazaretto, Genoa, I. 332 - - Lazzaro, S., Genoa, I. 406 - poor of, I. 145 _n._ 1 - - Leibniz, I. 42, 113; II. 145, 177, 231, 261, 271, 282, 291 - on dim Presentations, II. =338= - on Pure Love, II. =176= - his share in development of modern scientific spirit, I. =42=, =43= - - Leo X (Medici), Pope, I. 259, 311, 321, 322 - _Bull “Exurge Domine,”_ I. 340, 448 - - Lessing, G. E., II. 271, 327 - on soul’s incapacity for any unmixed emotion, II. =256= - on Purgatory, II. 231 - - Leucippus, I. 11 - - Library, University, of Genoa, I. 171 _n._ 1, 172 _n._ 1 - - Life, Spiritual, three stages of, I. =241-244= - - Liguria, I. 96 - - Ligurians, I. 96 - - Limbania, Beata, of Genoa, I. 97, 100 - - Littré, Emil, II. 271 - - Locke, John, II. 261 - - Loisy, Alfred, Abbé, II. 360 _n._ 1 - - Lombard, Peter, I. 120; II. 325 _n._ 3 - - Lomellini family, Genoa, I. 327 - - Lorenzo, Cathedral of S., Genoa, I. 97, 101, 320 - Piazza S., I. 97 - - Lost, mitigation of sufferings of the, II. 225-227 - perversion, their total moral, II. =221-225= - - Lotze, Hermann, II. 271 - - Louis XII, King of France, I. 340 - XIV, King of France, I. 305 - St., King of France, I. 361 - - Love, of God and of oneself, I. 262-263 - Pure, I. 261 - according to St. Catherine’s conception, I. 159-160 - according to the New Testament, I. =153-159= - acts, single, of, II. =163-164= - pleasurableness that follows them, II. =170-172= - relation of, to Contemplative Prayer, II. 172 - and its cognate problems, II. =169-174= - Catherine’s, I. 140-141 - controversy concerning, II. =160-169= - distinction from Quietism, II. 151-181 - exactingness of, I. 268-269 - Fénelon on, II. 161, 165 - the Joannine writings on, II. 160 - Kant on, II. 177 - Leibniz on, II. 176 - Our Lord’s teaching concerning, II. =153-158= - St. Paul on, II. =158-160= - three rules of, according to St. Catherine, I. 138-139 - Spinoza’s view concerning, II. 175, 176 - state of, II. =165-169= - St. Thomas Aquinas on, II. =162-165=, 301 - - Loyola, St. Ignatius of, I. 68, 80; II. 142 - - Lucretius, II. 271 - - Lugo, John Cardinal de, S.J., I. 121 - - Lukardis, Venerable Sister, Cistercian, II. 52, 53, 54, 55, 58 - - Luke, St., I. 351, 374 - _Acts of the Apostles_, I. 162, 374; II. 269 - _Gospel according to_, I. 223 - and St. Paul, II. 157, 158 - - Lunga, Signora, I. 329 - - Luther, I. 9, 62, 63, 95, 340, 412, 448; II. =117-119=, 263, 388, 392 - Theses of, I. 252, 311, =448= - - Lutheranism, I. 9; II. 388 - early stages of, I. 339-341 - - Lyell, Sir Charles, II. 271 - - - Maccabean Heroes, I. 373 - resistance, I. 392 - - Maccabees, First and Second Books of, the, the Maccabean heroes in, - I. 373 - - “Maestà” (triptych), I. =168=, 172, 181, 239, 298 - - Magdalen, Mary, St., I. 110, 170 - - Maldonatus, Juan, S.J., I. 64 - - Malebranche, Nicholas, Père, I. 63; II. 331 - - _Mandiletto_, Compagnia del, I. 154, 332 - - Manichaeans, II. 221, 289 - - Manichaeism, II. 230 - - Manning, H. E., Cardinal, I. 89 - - Manuscripts, Genoese, of the _Vita_, I. 93 - - Manuscript “A” (University Library), I. 112 _n._ 1, 159 _n._ 1, - 162 _n._ 3 (163), 166, 188 _n._ 1, 197 _n._ 2, 214, 304, 434, - 435, 442, 451 - additions and variations of, as compared with Printed _Vita_, - I. =384-394= - and Argentina del Sale, I. 387 - characteristics of, I. 396 - authentic contributions of, I. =387-388= - date and scribe of, I. 385 - modification from a tripartite to a quadripartite scheme, - I. =390-394= - - Manuscript “B” (Archives of the Cathedral-chapter), I. 162 _n._ 3 (163), - 166, 188, 197 _n._ 2, 214, 396, 412, 415, 442 - dependence from MS. “A”, I. 394 - its divisions, I. 394-395 - its very primitive heading, I. =394= - - Manuscript “C” (University Library), differences from MSS. A and B, - origin and attribution, I. 395-396 - - “Maona” Company, Genoa, I. 151 - - Marabotti, various, I. 156, 157 - - Marabotto Cattaneo, Don, I. 90, 98 _n._ 1, 110, 117 _n._ 2, 118, 119, - 120, 121 _n._ 3, 135 _n._ 1, 140 _n._ 4, 147 _n._ 1, =156-159=, - 162 _n._ 3 (163), 166, 172, 173, 175, 176, =185=, =186=, 187, 191, - 193, 204 _n._ 1, 207, 213, 216, 217, 218, 225, 252, 256, 264, 296, - 299, 300, 301, 308, 309, 313, 314, 356, 371, 384, 390, 393, =415=, - =416=, =419=, =421=, 431, 432, 447, 448, 449, 450, 451, 454, 455, - =463=, =464=; II. 9, =15=, =17=, =25=, =26= - attitude concerning Catherine, I. 218 - character of, I. =157= - Catherine’s confessor, I. =157-158= - contributions to _Vita_-proper, I. 392-394, =455-457= - contributions to _Dicchiarazione_ (_Trattato_), I. 447-448 - death of, I. 381 - family, I. 156-157 - fate of, I. 310-311 - first relations with Catherine, I. 155-156 - influence and work concerning Catherine, I. 193-196 - misunderstandings, I. 120 _n._ 1 - scruples, I. 194-195 - scent-impression from his hand, I. 184-185 - will of, I. 381 - - Marco del Sale, I. 127, 203, 388, 402 - story of his death, I. =169-171= - - Marcus Aurelius, Emperor, II. 268 - - Maria delle Grazie, Santa, Genoa, church and convent of, I. =99-101=, - 132, 143, 170, 186, 319, 321, 325, 339, 365, 366 n. 2, =395=, 460; - II. 205 - - Maria delle Grazie Vecchia, S., church of, Genoa, I. 170 - - Maria di Castello, church of S., Genoa, I. 100, 101, 366 _n._ 1 - - Marie de l’Incarnation, the Ven., Ursuline, II. 141 - - Mariola Bastarda, servant, I. 149, 153, 161, 162 _n._ 3 (163), 172, 175, - 176, 216, 217, 226, =310-313=, 379, 381, 384, 457 - - Mark, Bishop of Ephesus, II. 225 - - Mark, St., Gospel according to, I. 67, 257, 374 - - Marriage, Catherine’s attitude concerning, I, 223-225; II. 124 - settlement, Catherine’s, I. 337 - Church teaching concerning, II. =128-129= - - Martineau, Dr. James, II. 329, 330 - - Martin St., of Tours, I. 373 - - Mary, Blessed Virgin, I. 99, 127, 168, 338, 426, 432 - (Tudor), Queen of England, I. 95 - (Stuart), Queen of Scots, I. 366 - - Matthew, St., Gospel according to, I. 374 - Levi, Apostle, I. 374 - - Maurice, Frederic Denison, II. 227 - - Mazone, Giovanni, painter, I. 98 _n._ 1 (99) - - Mazzini, Giuseppe, I. 97 - - Megaric School, I. 23 - - Melanchthon, and his _Loci_, I. 341 - - Menelaus, II. 186 - - Mercier, D. Cardinal, _Critériologie Générale_, II. 7 _n._ 1 - - Merovingian Saints, I. 373 - - Metaphysics and Religion, II. 181, 262, =269-272= - - Micah, Prophet, II. 189 - - Michael Angelo Buonarotti, I. 94 - - Milan, Dukes of, I. 96 - - Milano, Carlo da, painter, I. 98 _n._ 1 (99) - - Mill, John Stuart, I. 51; II. 227, 271 - - Misericordia, Donne della, Genoa, I. 130, 131, 401, 402 - Office of, Genoa, I. 152, 154, 319 - - Missione Urbana, Biblioteca della, Genoa, I. 98 _n._ 1, 125 _n._ 1, - 167 _n._ 3 (168), 171 _n._ 1 (172), 202 _n._ 2, 203 _n._ 1, - 208 _n._ 2, 3; 296 _n._ 1, 297 _n._ 1, 299 _n._ 1, 301 _n._ 1, - 308 _n._ 1, 309 _n._ 1, 312 _n._ 1, 313 _n._ 1, 381 _n._ 1, 2 - - Mithraic movement, II. 392 - - Mohamed, compared with Christ, I. 71 - - Mohammedanism, II. 270, 388 - its three elements, I. =60-61= - - Mohammedans, II. 392 - - Molinos, Miguel de, I. 253; II. 131 _n._ 1, 141, 145, 365 - his condemnation, its history, motives, limits, II. =136-148= - _Guida Spirituale_, II. 140, 143, 144 - _Breve Trattato_, II. 144 - - Moltke, Field-Marshal von, II. 271 - - Mommsen, Theodor, II. 272 - - Monasticism, the abiding needs met by, II. =352-355= - - Monica, St., I. 361 - - Monism, I. 40; II. 294, 314, 326, =377-379= - - Montanism, II. 391 - - Morality, relations to Mysticism, Philosophy and Religion, II. =259-275= - - More, Sir Thomas, Blessed, I. 62, 340; II. 129 - - Moro, Dottore Tommaso, I. 149, 252, 337, 341, 358, 364, 414, 415; II. 83 - becomes a Calvinist, I. 341-342 - - Moro, Dottore Tommaso, his letter to Battista Vernazza; and her letter - to him, I. 341-342, =342-344= - his return to the Catholic Church, I. 344 - Morone, Giovanni, Cardinal, I. 327, 342 _n._ 2 - - Moses, I. =373=; II. 189, 268 - - Mühlhausen, Father Henry of, O.P., II. 52 - - Multiplicity, within every living Unity, I. =66-70= - difficulty of its maintenance, I. 65, =70-77=; II. 264, =273-275= - needful for all spiritual life, II. =150-152=, 283, 284, 343, 344 - - Münsterberg, Prof. Hugo, II. 308, 370 - - Mysteries, Eleusynian, I. 60; II. 97 - - Mystical Element, its apparent worthlessness but essential importance, - I. 6-10, 48, 49, 50-53, 58-65; II. =260-269= - - Mysticism and Pantheism, II. 325-340 - and the limits of human knowledge, II. 275-290 - and the question of Evil, II. 290-308 - and historical religion, II. 263-269 - Christian, II. 251, 252 - “exclusive” or pseudo-mysticism and “inclusive” or true mysticism, - II. 283, =290-291=, 319 - ruinousness of exclusive, II. 304-308, =351-353= - its place in complete Religion, II. =272-275= - and the scientific habit of mind, II. =367-372= - points on which it approaches Pantheism, II. =329-334= - predominantly individualistic, II. 365-366 - tends to neglect the sensible, the successive, and spiritual - self-excitation, II. =284-287= - - Mystic Saints, II. 142-143 - - Mystics, I. 61, 247 - and spiritual Direction, II. 362-363 - their special weaknesses and strengths, II. =284-289=, =289-295=, - 297, 298, 301, 302, =343-346=, 385, 386 - - - Naples, I. 97 - Hospital in, I. 323, 329 - Kingdom of, I. 96 - Society for escorting culprits to death, I. 323-324 - - Napoleon, II. 41-42, 133, 272 - - Negri Family, Genoa, various members of, I. 97, 100, 377 - - Nelson, Admiral Lord, II. 133 - - Neo-Platonism, in general, I. =23-25=, 61 - its direct influence with St. Augustine, II. =212=, =213=, =248=, - =293= - Pseudo-Dionysius, II. =91-99=, 294, =312=, =313= - Its influence, through Dionysius, with V. Battista Vernazza, - I. =352-354=, 356, 358, 428 - St. Catherine, II. =91-99=, =123-126=, =234-239=, 294 - Jacopone da Todi, II. 104, 108, 109 - Medieval Mystics and Pantheists, II. 131, 147, 314, 315, 317, - 318, 323, 324 - St. Thomas Aquinas, II. =249-252=, 254, 294, 316, 317 - its truth, II. =92=, =248= - its weaknesses and errors, II. 252, =287=, =288=, =293=, =294=, - =351-353= - - Neri, St. Philip, I. 318 - Church of, Genoa, I. 102 - - Nero, Emperor, II. 292 - - Nervous system, late realization of, II. 4, 5 - - “Nettezza,” I. 266 _n._ 3 - - Newman, John Henry, Cardinal, I. 65, 78; II. 371 - _Dream of Gerontius_, I. 89; II. 245 - on Eternal Punishment, II. 230 - on Physical Science, its limited scope and its autonomy, II. =369= - - Newton, John, I. 63 - Sir Isaac, II. 27, 41, 42, 271 - - Nicolas of Coes (Cusanus), Cardinal, I. 62, 78, 96; II. 131, 142, 282, - 291, 331 - - Nicolas V, Pope (Parentucelli), I. 103 _n._ 1 - - Nicolo in Boschelto, S., near Genoa, church and monastery of, I. 103, - 189, 213, 313, 319, 321, 325; II. 274 - - Nietzsche, Friedrich, II. 274 - - Nominalism, I. 61, 62 - - Nonconformists, I. 63; II. 392 - - Nonconformity, I. 8, 9 - - Novara, Luca da, painter, I. 98 _n._ 1 (99) - - - Occam, William of, O.S.F., I. 64 - - Occhino, Bernardino, I. 341, 342 - - Oldenberg, H., on _Nirvana_, II. 183-185 - - Oratory (French), I. 63 - - Orders, Catholic, religious, their three tendencies, I. 64 - - Organic life, the successive stages of, II. 281, 304 - - Origen, I. 6; II. 131, 142, 219, 239, 268 - his _Apocatastasis_--doctrine, II. 225, 228 - on fire of Hell, II. 216 - on an ameliorative Purgatory, II. 234-237 - - Originality, treble, of St. Catherine, I. 246-249 - - Orphic belief, II. 193 - influence, through Plato, upon Christian thought, II. 123, 124, - =235-238= - literature, II. 235 - mysteries, II. 188 - sect, II. 192 - - - Palaeologus, Michael, his confession of faith, II. 242 - - Palladius, _Historia Monachorum_, I. 373 - - Pammatone, Hospital of, I. =129-132=, 142, 145 _n._ 1, 148-153, 169, - 170, 213, 226, 300, 303, 310 _n._ 1, 311, 317, 325-327, 377, 380, - 395, 401, 407; II. 9, 10, 17, 27, 33, 62 - Books, of the, I. 143 _n._ 2, 208 - Cartulary, of, I. 202 _n._ 2, 313 - Church, of the, I. 98 _n._ 1, 152, 202 and _n._ 3, 296, 297 _n._ 1, - 300, 302, 309, 321, 332, 382 - House surgeon, of the, I. 200; II. 14 - Protectors, of the, I. 175, 187, 216, 297, 299, 307 - Book of the Acts of the, I. 172 _n._ 1, 175 _n._ 1 - - Pantheism in Middle Ages, II. 314-318 - useful preliminary, of Inclusive Mystics, II. =329-334= - escaped by full development of scientific habit within shallower - level of a deep spiritual life, II. =374-386= - in Spinoza, secret of its power, II. =326-329= - ultimate, not Christian, nor generally religious, II. =334=, =335= - - Paracelsus, I. 7 - - Paris, II. 389 - University of, I. 62 - - Parker, Rev. James, I. 250, 266 _n._ 3 - - Parmenides, I. 11; II. 188 - his doctrine, I. 11 - - _Parousia_, the, II. 380 - - Parpera, Giacinto, P., Oratorian, I. 92, 390 - - Pascal, I. 78; II. 261, 331 - - Pascoli, Giovanni, II. 199 - - Passivity, _see_ Quietism - - Pattison, A. S. Pringle, II. 329, 330, 333, 370 - - Paul, Saint, I. 111, 256, 265, 320, 363, 361, 373, 453; II. 43, 44, 47, - 80, 82, 87, 122, 124, 125, 129, 131, 142, 181, 186, 209, 237, 253, - 298, 324, 333, 356 - and Joannine writings, II. 84-88 - and Synoptic Gospels, II. 65, =122-125=, =157=, =158= - anthropology of, II. =64-67= - his conceptions of God, II. =69-71= - of Spirit, II. =67-69=, =320-322= - of reconciliation, justification and sanctification, II. 71-74 - ecstasies and psycho-physical peculiarities of, II. 43-44 - Epistles of, I. 162, 234, 235, 258, 353, 374; II. 62, 63, 116, - 202, 205 - Eschatology of, II. 76-79, =209=, =210= - Judaic conceptions of, II. 69, 71, 72 - Platonic influences in, II. 64, =66=, =67=, 69, 122, 123 - and the Risen Christ, II. 71 - Sacramental teachings of, II. 75-76 - Social ethics of, II. =74-75= - IV, Pope (Caraffa), I. 322, 327 - - Pazzi, Maria Magdalena dei, St., II. 42, 56 - - Peasants’ War, I. 10, 311, 340 - - Personality, its purification, II. =377-387= - Spiritual, II. =336-340= - - Petau, Denys, S.J., II. 225 - - Peter, St., I. 67, 374 - Epistles of, II. 116 - - Peters, Margarethe, Lutheran Quietist, II. 139 - - Petrone, Igino, Prof., II. 282, 370 - - Petrucci, Pietro M., Cardinal, II. 140, 141 - his writings, II. 144, 145 - - Pharisees, I. 61, 68; II. 388 - - Philo, I. 61; II. 63, 69, 93, 131, 196, 233 - and the Joannine writings, II. 80, 81 - and St. Paul, II. 69, 70 - - Physicians, and St. Catherine, I. 200, 201, 208, 211, 212 - - Physicists, the ancient Greek, II. 379 - - Pico della Mirandoia, I. 7 - - “Pietà,” picture, I. 181, 209, 239, 460; II. 28 - - Pietism, Protestant, I. 10 - - Pindar, II. 188, 189, 271 - - Pius IV, Pope (Medici), I. 123 - VII, Pope (Chiaramonti), II. 226 - - Plague, in Genoa, 1493, I. 143 - St. Catherine and the, I. 143-145 - Ettore Vernazza and the, I. 330-332 - - Plant-life, Catherine’s sympathy for, I. 163, 164 - probably dimly conscious, II. 281, 304 - - Plato, I. 12, 14, 19, 20, 21, 23, 28, 234, 257, 266 _n._ 3, 353; - II. =66=, =124=, 185 _n._ 2, 186, 188, 192, 193, 196, 199, =202=, - =203=, =204=, 249, 252, 253, 268, 282, 311, 357 - on amelioration by suffering, II. 208, 209 - his earlier and later beliefs as to place of contemplation in - complete life, II. =306-309= - Immortality, II. 186 - his abidingly fruitful combination of four characteristics, - I. =17-19= - on the Heavenly Eros, I. 17; II. 101, 203, 251 - God, how far concrete and ethical in, II. 311, 312 - on God’s goodness as cause of His framing this universe, I. 24; - II. =334= - on the Noûs, II. 319-320 - the Orphic strain in, II. 66, 67, =123-126=, 235, 236 - his five preformations of St. Catherine’s _Trattato_ teachings, - II. =205-211= - his _Republic_, Catherine’s purgatorial picturings compared with, - II. 200, 201 - on the soul’s determinedness and liberty, II. 210, 211 - the soul’s nakedness, II. 209, 210 - the soul’s “places,” II. 205-207 - the soul’s plunge, II. 207, 208 - on Science and Mysticism, respectively, II. 368 - on _Thumos_, II. 203 - - Plotinus, I. 6, 234, 257, 266 _n._ 3; II. 93, 97, 98, 99, 101, 109, 120, - 196, 202, 204, 212, 213, 248, 268, 282, 298, 324, 326, 327, 329, 356 - his doctrine generally, I. =23-25= - on Ecstasy, II. 322, 323 - places Godhead above all multiplicity, II. 312, 313 - on the Henad, the Noûs and the Soul, II. 322, 323 - and Spinoza, II. 325-328 - - Plunge, voluntary of the Soul, I. 249, 250, =284=, =285=; II. 89, =207=, - =208=, =385-386= - - Plutarch, II. 236 - - Poor, Catherine’s love for the, I. 225-226 - - Positivist, Epistemology, II. =275-283= - - Possession, Persons in state of, I. 161, 162 _n._ 3 - - Possessions, Catherine’s, at her death, I. 297-299 - - Poveri, Albergo dei, Genoa, I. 332 - - Prà, near Genoa, I. 102, 103, 128, 129, 186, 313 - - Prayers for the Dead, Jewish, II. 233-234 - - Presbyterianism, II. 388 - - Pre-Socratics, their doctrines, I. 11-12 - - Priestly code, Moses in, I. 373 - - Proclus, I. 234, 257; II. 91, 96, 97, 98, 100, 101, 109, 120, 196, 204, - 205, 211, 294, 356 - doctrine of, I. =23-25=; II. 313, 329, 356 - the Areopagite reproduces directly, not Plotinus but, II. 91, - 96-101, 205 - - Prophets, Hebrew, I. 353 - - Protestantism, II. 273 - continental, I. 8, =62=, =63= - English, I. =8-9= - German, I. 9 - - Proverbs, Book of, Individual retribution in, II. 189 - - Psalms, Book of, St. Catherine and, I. 258 - Future life in, II. 189-191 - David in, I. 373 - - Psycho-physical and temperamental characteristics of St. Catherine during - 1447-1477, II. 28-32 - 1477-1499, II. 32-40 - 1497-1510, II. 9-21 - Aug. 10-27, 1510, I. 204-209 - occasions or expressions, not causes, of Catherine’s doctrine, - I. 211, 212, 260; II. =14-20= - - Psycho-physical and temperamental characteristics of St. Catherine, - inquiry into, difficulty of, II. 7-9 - organism, of St. Catherine, I. 176-181 - peculiarities of great men, II. 41, 42 - peculiarities of ecstatic saints, II. =42-47=, =52-56= - abidingly sure spiritual tests of, applied by great mystical - saints, II. =48-51= - theory, defects and value of ancient, II. 3-6, 47, 48 - - Purgatory, I. 190, 249, 382 - Alexandrine Fathers on, II. 234-236 - Catherine’s conceptions of, harbour two currents of thought, II. 232 - Catherine’s doctrine concerning, I. 179. 189, =283-294=; - II. =230-246= - the three sets of theological “corrections” of, traceable in - Trattato’s text, I. =434-449= - and the New Testament, II. 233, 239, 240 - initial experience and act of the soul in, I. 283-285 - subsequent state of the soul in, I. 285-294 - change of feeling among Protestant thinkers concerning, II. 230-232 - fire of, II. 215-218 - Judaeo-Roman conceptions of, II. 239-245 - Luther’s theses concerning, I. 311, 448 - Orphic conception and, II. 237, 238 - Platonic conception of, II. =206-211= - a truly purging, and Suarez’ simple _Satisfactorium_, II. =240-245= - - “Purità,” I. 266 _n._ 3 - - Puritan excesses, I. 10 - - Pusey, Dr. Edward B., I. 63 - - Pythagoras, II. 188, 192 - - - Quietism, II. 130, 131, 133, 135, 138, 139, 142, 143, 144, 145, 147, 148, - 160, 168 - four aberrations of, II. =136-139= - Rome’s condemnation of, II. 139-143 - distinct from Pure Love question, II. 152, 193 - four needs recognized by, II. =148-150= - Rome’s alleged change of front concerning, II. 143-148 - - - Rabbinism, II. 63, 213, 214, 233, 234, 268, 388 - - Rafael Sanzio, the painter, II. 132, 165 - - Ranke, Leopold von, II. 271 - - Rationalism, I. 8, 9; II. =260-263=, 275, 276, =382-387=, 389, 390 - - Rauwenhoff, Prof. L. W. E., on Mysticism as a necessary form of - religion, II. 268, 269 - - Realism, I. 61, 62 - advantages of, II. =318-319= - Pantheistic trend of strict, II. =314-319= - - Reason, goddess of, II. 389 - - Redactor of _Conversione_-booklet, I. 464 - of _Dicchiarazione_-booklet, I. 464 - 1 of _Vita_-proper, I. 162 _n._ 3, 188 _n._ 1, 372, 414 - 2 of _Vita_-proper, I. 159, 162 _n._ 3, 372 - of _Vita-Dicchiarazione-Dialogo_, I. 464 - - Reformation, Protestant, I. 62, 282, 339-341, 448; II. 232, 388 - - Reform, Franciscan, I. 341 - - Regio, Clerk Regular, criticizes Molinos, II. 144 - - Reinach Salomon, on beginnings of Jewish prayers for the dead, II. 233, - 234 - - Religion and morality, II. =272-275= - apprehension by man of, I. =50-55= - through sense and memory, I. 51 - through Mysticism, I. 53 - through speculation, I. 51-52 - apprehension by St. Catherine of, I. 247 - conflicts between its elements, I. =70-77=; II. 392-393 - difficulties of the subjective element of, II. 112-114 - disinterested, _see_ Love, Pure - emotional-volitional element, its exclusiveness, I. 73-77 - historical, relations with Mysticism, II. 266-268 - institutional element, its exclusiveness, I. 71-73 - relation to Science of, I. 45-48; II. =367-386= - Social, and Mysticism, II. 351-366 - Subjective and Objective elements of, II. 118-120, =263-266=, 270 - the three elements of, I. 50-55; II. =387-396= - and their due proportions, II. 387-388 - continuous concomitance of, I. 53-55 - distribution among men of, I. 58-59 - distribution among religions of, I. 60-65 - multiplicity of each of them, I. 85, 86 - succession in history of, I. 59-60 - - Religious temper, its longing for simplification, I. 65-66 - - Renaissance, humanist, I. 62 - - Renté, Baron de, I. 89 - - Rhode, Erwin, on the Dionysian and Orphic movements, II. 191, 192 - on Plato’s later teaching as to contemplation, II. 356, 357 - - Ribet, Abbé, and question as to true Mysticism, II. 305 - - Riccordo, Padre, da Lucca, I. 136 - - Richelieu, Cardinal, II. 41 - - Rickert, H., his building up an Organon of the Historical Sciences, - II. 370 - - Rig-Veda, II. 183 - - Rigorism among pre-Reformation devoted Catholics, I. 339-342 - touches of, in V. Battista Vernazza, I. 400-407, 422, 431 - St. Catherine, I. 342 - - Rites, Sacred Congregation of, Rome, I. 126, 253, 305, 306 - - Ritschl, Albrecht, and his school; their excessive reaction against - Hegel, II. 263, 269 - - Ritschlian school, II. 263 - - Robespierre, II. 292 - - Rodriguez, Alfonso, Fr., S.J., I. 89 - - Romans, the ancient, I. 93; II. 185, 239, 240 - - Rome, I. 98, 99 _n._ ; 156, 203, 305, 322; II. 185 - Arch-Hospital in, I. 322 - Church of, I. 8, 9, 10, 63; II. 273 - condemns some propositions of Fénelon, II. 160, 162 - condemns Quietism, II. =139-143= - sack of, I. 311 - - Rosmini, Antonio, I. 65, 78 - - Rothe, Richard, II. 229, 332, 333 - - Royce, Josiah, Professor, II. 370 - - Ruysbroek, Johannes, Augustinian Canon-Regular, on the two-fold unity - of our spirit with God, II. 323 - - - Sabatier, Paul, his critical labours in early Franciscan history, I. 372 - - Saccheri, Notary, Genoa, I. 213 - - Sacraments and St. Catherine: - Baptism, I. 436; II. 76, 87 - Holy Eucharist, I. 113-116, 204, 208, 240, 241; II. 19, 87, 88 - Penance, I. 117-123 - Extreme Unction, I. 195, 197, 204, 206 - - Sadducees, I. 61; II. 389 - - Saint-Jure, de, S.J., I. 89 - - Saint-Simon, Duc de, II. 271 - - Saints, canonized, Catholic principles concerning the teaching of, - I. 253-255 - invocation of, Catherine’s, I. 240 - - Samaria, Woman of, I. 188, 189, 406; II. 17 - - Samaritans, I. 27, 38 - - Samuel, Books of, David in, I. 373 - - Sandreau, Abbé A., his sober Mystical doctrine, II. 307 - - Sauli, Cardinal, of Genoa, I. 322, 327 - - Savonarola, Fra Girolamo, contrasted with Luther and Calvin, II. 118 - - Sceptical schools, the, of ancient Greece, I. 23 - - Schelling, W. S. von, II. 335, 371, 392 - - Schiller, Friedrich, his “Fiesco,” I. 96 - - Schism, Papal, I. 95 - - Schlegel, Friedrich von, I. 89, 424; II. 371 - - Schleiermacher, Friedrich, II. 231, 296, 371, 392 - - Scholastics, the, I. 61, 62; II. 162-168, 214, 215, 217, 222-225, 236, - 242, 244, 245, =252-254=, 294, 301, =316=, =317= - - Schopenhauer, Arthur, II. 271, 291, 371 - his appreciation of Asceticism, II. 341, 342 - - Schram, Dom, _Institutiones Theologiae Mysticae_, the Preternatural in, - II. 305 - - Schwab, J. B., on Mysticism requiring the Immanence of God, II. 325 - - Science, character and motives of spirit’s occupation with, I. 40-43 - historical and physical sciences have each their specific method - and level, II. 370, 382, 384 - historical, Religion’s present, but not ultimate, problem, - II. =382-385= - occupation with, three kinds, II. 381-382 - its place and function in man’s spiritual life, I. 43-45, 369, 370; - II. =330=, =331=, =376=, =377= - and Religion, each autonomous at its own level, I. 45-48; II. 368, - 369 - Religion and Metaphysics, I. 39-40 - Religion, and Philosophy, their respective functions, II. 369-372 - to be taken throughout life in a double sense and way, I. 45-47; - II. =374-379= - and Things, and Religious Doctrine and Sacraments, as variously - deep, parallel helps and necessities in man’s spiritual life, - II. =372-379= - novelty of this position very limited, II. =379-381=, 385, 386 - - “Scintilla,” experience of St Catherine, I. 187-190, 451; II. 19 - - Scotland, I. 72 - - Scott, Thomas, the Evangelical, I. 63 - Walter, Sir, his _Anne of Geierstein_, I. 96 - - Scotus, John Duns, I. 64, 78 - Proclus’ indirect influence upon, II. 315, 316 - - Scotus, John, Eriugena, II. 252 - Proclus’ influence upon, II. 314, 315 - - Segneri, Paolo, S.J., I. 89; II. 144 - his critiques of Molinos, II. 144 - - Self-knowledge, persistent in St. Catherine, I. 206-207; II. 14, 15 - - Semeria, --, _Secoli Cristiani della Liguria_, I. 337 - - Sensitiveness, extreme, of Catherine, I. 176-181 - - Sensuousness, lack of, in Catherine, I. 246 - - Shakespeare, _Romeo and Juliet_, I. 101 - - Siegwart, Professor Christian, II. 282 - - Sight, Catherine’s impressions connected with, I. 181 - - Silvestro, Convent of S., Genoa, I. 457 - - Simmel, Georg, Dr., on the specifically religious sense, II. 260, 261 - on religion as _requiring_ that man should seek his own beatitude, - II. 179 - - Simon, the Just, Rabbi, II. 153 - - Simon, Richard, I. 63, 64 - - Simplicity, causes of, Quietists’ inadequate analysis of, II. 134-136 - longing of religious temper for, I. 65-66 - all living, ever constituted in multiplicity, I. =66-70= - - Sin, and the body, according to St. Catherine, I. 230, 235, 236, 264, - 265, 298; II. =123-125= - the Orphics, II. 192, 237 - St. Paul, II. 66, =68=, =69=, 122, 123 - Proclus, II. 98 - the Synoptists, II. 69, =122= - as purely negative, in Ps.-Dionysius, Eckhart, Spinoza, II. 294 - as positive in Kant, Eucken, II. 294-296 - as positive and negative in St. Augustine, St. Thomas, Mother - Juliana, II. 293, 294 - in St. Catherine, II. 235, 294 - original, according to Neo-Platonists, II. =298= - St. Augustine, II. 298, 299 - Tridentine definition concerning, II. 300, 301 - difficulty in doctrine of, and Tennant’s interpretation, - II. =298-300= - value of Mystics’ attitude towards, II. =301=, =302= - - Sixtus IV. (Della Rovere), Pope, I. 94 - - Sixtus V. (Peretti), Pope, I. 366 - - Smell, Catherine’s impressions connected with, I. 180-181 - - Socinianism, I. 9, 342; II. 390 - - Socino, Fausto and Lelio, I. 63, 342 - - Socrates, I. 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 41, 60; II. 64, 186 - doctrine of, I. =12-13= - - Socratic school, I. 23 - - Sophists, I. 12 - - Sophocles, II. 189 - - Sorbonne, the, Paris, II. 325 _n._ 3 - - Soul, according to Aristotle, I. 20, 22 - Plato, I. 16, 17 - Plotinus, I. 24 - and the _Noûs_ in Eckhart, II. 323 - St. Paul, II. 64, 65 - Plotinus, II. 322, 323 - and the spirit in V. Battista, I. 353, 354, 399, 431 - St. Catherine, I. 189; II. 68 - St. Paul, II. =67-69=, =320-322= - St. Teresa, II. 324 - the three forces of, I. 50-53; II. 387-396 - Immanence of God in the, II. 324-325, =336-338= - life of, according to St. Catherine, I. 266-270 - usual succession in, I. 50-55 - its relation to its fellows, II. =353-355= - - Soul, its unity in multiplicity, I. 66 - - Sources, literary of Catherine’s conceptions I. 254, 255, 258-260; - II. =62-110= - difficulties in their utilization, I. 251-253 - - Space, and the soul and spirit, in St. Augustine, II. =212=, =213= - St. Catherine. I. =277=, =278=; II. 69, 70, 77-81, =212=, =213= - Plato, II. 205-207 - Plotinus, II. 248 - St. Thomas, II. 214 - recent writers, II. 247 - - Spain, I. 62, 64, 72, 95, 96, 305; II. 388 - - Spencer, Herbert, II. 271 - - Speyer, Diet of, I. 340 - - Spinola, Archbishop of Genoa, I. 305 - family, and members of, I. 96, 146, 175 - - Spinoza, I. 7, 40-42; II. 169, 197, 198, 271, 296, 315, 326, 327, 375, - 376, 392 - compared with Plotinus, II. 325-328 - on disinterested Religion, II. 175, 176 - doctrine of, I. 41-43 - errors of his speculation, greatness of his intuitions, II. =376=, - =377= - greatest Pure Pantheist, II. 325-327 - Reality and Perfection identical for, II. 294 - - Spirit, Christ as, II. 70, 84, =320=, =321= - God as, II. 84, 322 - the soul as, _see_ under Soul - visitations of the, their suddenness and vehemence, I. 105, 107; - II. 30, 96, 97 - and Space, II. 212, 213 - and Time and Duration, II. =247-249= - - Stanley, Arthur P., Dean, I. 63 - - Stein, Freiherr von, II. 271 - - Stigmata “Spiritual,” legend of St. Catherine’s, the, I. 209 _n._ 1, - 210 _n._ 1, =452=, =453= - - Stoics, I. 23 - - Strata, Battista, Notary, I. 155, 308, 379 - - Strauss, David F., on Purgatory, II. 231 - - Suarez, Francis, Father, S.J., I. 121; II. =241= - - Subconsciousness, late full recognition of, II. 47, 48, 265, =338-340= - often described by Plotinus and St. Augustine, II. 91, 92, 248 - its deepest equivalent in St. Thomas’s “confused knowledge,” - II. =288-289=, 337 - - Sulze, Emile, fails to recognize necessity of Thing-element in religion, - II. =372-374= - - Surin, Jean Joseph, S.J., I. 64, 89; II. 141 - - Suso, Henry, Blessed, Dominican, I. 64, 94 - - Sylvius, Francis, II. 162 - - Synoptic Gospels and St. Catherine, II. 69, 84, 87, 89, =122-126=, - 153-158 - and Joannine writings, II. 84-88 - and St. Paul, II. 65, 122-125, =157-158= - on forgiveness as of single acts, II. 245, 246 - God’s direct interest in world, II. =254=, =255= - Pure Love, II. =153-158= - present most manifold picture of Jesus’ life and teaching, - II. =116-120= - - - Tacitus, II. 271 - - Taigi, Anna Maria, Venerable, I. 78 - - Tarsus, II. 63, 66 - - Tasso, Torquato, I. 341 - - Taste, Catherine’s impressions connected with, I. 180 - - Tauler, John, Dominican, I. 64, 94 - - Taylor, Prof. A. E., his criticism of Kant’s doctrine of Pure Love, - II. 179-180 - - Tennant, Rev. F. R., on Original Sin, II. 299, 300 - - Tennyson, Alfred, I. 112; II. 227, 247 - - Teresa, St., I. 64, 68, 87, 247; II. 5, 27 _n._ 1, 42, 45, 47, 48, 59, - 137, 142, 143, 336, 363, 365 - and Direction, II. 363 - on occupation with our Lord’s Humanity, II. 169, =365= - God’s immanence in the soul, II. =324=, =325= - nerves and muscles, II. 5 - her psycho-physical peculiarities, II. notes to pp. 14-18, 20, 21, - 27, 43, 44 - on soul and spirit, II. 324 - her tests for locutions and visions, =II. 47=, =50= - and social Religion, II. 365 - - Tertullian, on St. Paul’s “thorn,” “stake” in the flesh, II. 43 - prayer for the dead, II. 233, 234 - - Thales, I. 12 - - Theatines, I. 322, 340 - - Thibet, II. 392 - - Thing-element, its necessity in Religion, I. 245-247; II. =372-374=, - =377-381=, 385, 386 - - Thing, three relations of, with thought. II. =374-377= - - Thobia, I. 129, 151, 153, 154, 223, 225, 378, 380; II. 26, 29, 169, 172 - - Thobia’s Mother, I. 151, 153, 154, 172, 176, 225; II. 29 - - Thomas, St., Aquinas, I. 7, 61, 78, 120, 121; II. 142, 162, 181, 217, - 218, 245, 253, 288, 315, 317, 325, 333 - on God as _Actus Purus_, II. 132, 250 - on God’s Being as distinct from His Essence, II. 316, 317 - on the soul’s direct dim knowledge of God, II. =288=, =289=, 337 - on obligation of Confession, I. 120 - on the dispositions of the Lost, II. 222, 223 - on the fire of Purgatory and Hell, II. 217 - on God’s _ecstacy_ and creative acts, as His supreme - self-expression, II. =252-254= - on every soul’s individuality, II. =255=, =256= - on Pure Love, II. =162-168= - on man’s natural exigency of the vision of God, II. =337=, =338= - on term “person” as applicable to God, II. 257, 258 - on the other-world “places,” II. 214 - on Purgatory as truly purgative, II. 244, 245 - on simultaneity of soul’s vision of all things in future life, - II. 248 - St., of Canterbury, I. 372 - - Thomassin, Louis, Oratorian, I. 64 - - Thucydides, II. 271 - - Tiele, C. P., Professor, on the Infinite as present within man, II. 268, - =339=, =340= - necessity for Ecclesiastical Institutions, II. 352 - for metaphysical convictions in Religion, II. 270 - - Tobit, Book of, the Eminent Good Works in, II. 154 - - Toleto, Gaspare, Father, Inquisitor, I. 464 - - Toqueville, Alexis de, II. 271 - - Touch, St. Catherine’s impressions connected with, I. 178-180 - - _Tracts for the Times_, I. 63 - - Transcendence of God, attitude towards, of V. Battista Vennazza, II. 289 - St. Catherine, I. 276, 280; II. =346=, =347= - - Transcendence of God, attitude towards, of St. John of the Cross, - II. =257=, =258=, 343-345 - Sören Kierkegaard, II. 287, 288, =345=, =346= - St. Thomas, II. =257= - recent thinkers, II. 270, 271, 339, 340, =358=, =359= - - Translations of St. Catherine’s relics, I. 300-302, 381 _n._ - - _Trattato_, see _Vita_ (_Dic._ or _T._). - - Trendelenburg, Adolf, on blind Force and conscious Thought, their only - possible relations, II. =375= - - Trent, Council of, on abuses connected with purgatorial doctrines and - practices, II. 232 - on Purgatory, II. =242= - on Original Sin, II. 300 - - Troeltsch, Prof. Ernst, II. 282, 333, 370 - on Christianity as Inner-worldly and Super-worldly, II. =358-360= - abiding individuality of all things historical, II. 256, 257 - Kant’s actual conceptions as more religious than his theory of - religion, II. 261, 262 - the testimony involved in our religious requirements, II. =339= - - Tyrrell, Rev. G., on the possibly _Totum-Simul_ consciousness of the - Lost, II. 230 - the relations between love of God and love of creatures, - II. 354, 355 - purely natural religion, what might have been but never was, - II. =288= - - - Unity, constituted by multiplicity, I. =66-70= - needful for all spiritual life, II. 150 - - Universe, conditions of its power upon human will, I. 3 - - _Upanishads_, the, II. 183 - - Upton, Prof., II. 330 - - Urban VIII, Pope (Barberini), I. 98, 304 - Bull on Cultus of Saints, I. 98 _n._ i (99), 304, 305 - - - Varni, Santo, sculptor, I. 332 - - Vaughan, Diana, II. 305 - - Venice, I. 93, 203 - Hospital in, I. 322 - - Vergil, II. 271 - on the burning out of the soul’s stains, II. 236 - - Vernaccia (Vernazza) Family, I. 146 - - Vernazza, Venerable Battista (Tommasa), I. 91, 117 _n._ 1, 146 _n._ 2, - 217, 252, 253, 316, 321, 322, 325, 327 _n._ 1, 328, 329, 330, 331, - 372, 381, 384, 395, 403, 407, 410, 413, 414, 429, 432, 447, 451, - 453, 454, 457, 461, 462; II. 27, 38 _n._ 1, 48 - and Tommaso Moro, I. 339-344 - author of Dialogo I, I. =407-410= - II, III, I. =429-433= - _Preface_ (ancient) of _Vita_ (probably), I. 416 - birth of, I. 419 - character of, I. 365, 366 - death of, I. =366=, =367=, 366 _n._ 2, 381 - _Colloquies_, I. =344-358=, 416, 433 - compared with Catherine’s doctrine, I. 346-358 - the _Dialogo_, I. 399, 403, 408, 431 - compared to St. Catherine and E. Vernazza, I. 336, 337 - _Dialogo della Beata Caterina_ based practically throughout upon - _Vita-Dicchiarazione_ yet shows everywhere thought, feeling, aims, - information of, I. 397-410, =417-433= - _Letters of_, I. 345 - to Donna Anguisola, I. 359-364 - to Padre Collino (1), I. 316-318, 321-324, 327-331 (2), I. 366 - to Tommaso Moro, I. 342-344 - portrait, I. 366 _n._ 2 - final redactor of _Vita_, _Dicchiarazione_, _Dialogo_, I. 464 - her youth, I. 337-339 - her writings, I. 344, 345 - Catetta (Daniela), I. 166, 321, 325, 339 - Ettore, I. 90, 91, 105 _n._ 1, 114 _n._ 2, 121 _n._ 3, 127, - 140 _n._ 4, 145 _n._ 1, 147 _n._ 1, 150 _n._ 1, 154, 159, 166, - 167, 169, 174, 175, 183 _n._ 1, 187, 191, 193, 202, 213, 216, - 217, 246, 252, 256, 279, 299, 308, 337, 338, 339, 340, 371, 384, - 415, 430, 444, 449, 450, 451, 456, 463, 464; II. 9, 16, 26, 27, 29 - his philanthropic work, its character, I. 319-321, 323, 327 - its effects, I. 364, 365 - in Genoa, _Chronici_, I. 173, 316, 317 - Lazaretto, I. 330, 331 - _Mandiletto_, I. 154, 332 - Prisons, I. 327-329 - his wills, ii, I. 318-321 - iii, I. 166, =324-327= - Ven. Battista and, in general, I. 314-316, 336, 337 - in June 1524, I. =330-332= - traces of their intercourse in _Dialogo_, I. =406=, =407=, - =429-431= - St. Catherine and his absence from her death-bed, I. 202-204, 226 - his authorization to write about her, I. =191-192= - her influence with him, I. 314, 315, 320, 321, 331, 332 - his influence with her, I. 159-161, 191-193 - upon her memory, I. 145, 146, 453-457 - their mutual likeness and unlikeness, I. 314, 315 - his character, I. =146=, =147= - his contributions to St. Catherine’s biography in _Vita_-proper, - I. 166, =453-455=, 464 - in _Trattato_, I. 447, 448 - their general character, I. 147 - daughters of, I. 149, 166, 299, 300, 325, 326 - his death, I. =331=, 381 - his posthumous fame, its unlikeness to Catherine’s, I. 332, 333 - Leo X, Pope, and, I. 322 - Lunga, Señora, and, I. 329, 330 - Manuscript C wrongly attributed to, I. 395, 396 - married life of, I. 316-318, 330 - monuments to, I. 332, 333 - Ginevrina (Maria Archangela), I. 166, 325, 326, 339 - Tommasa, _see_ Vernazza Battista - village, I. 318 - - Vernazzi, clan of, I. 318, 320 - - Vincent, St., de Paul, I. 306 - - Vinci, Leonardo da, School of, I. 98 _n._ 1 (99) - - Visions of St. Catherine’s, I. 181 - - _Vita e Dottrina di S. Caterina_, as in Thirteenth, Ninth Genoese, ed., - _Sordi Muti_, and its three parts, _Vita_-proper, _Dicchiarazione_ - or _Trattato_, _Dialogo_, I. 90, 91 - its additions to MSS. A and B in _Vita_-proper, I. 389, 390, 394, - 451-453 - in _Trattato_, I. 442 - of entire _Dialogo_ I. 389, 395 - its additions to MS. C in _Vita_-proper, I. 396 - of _Dialogo_, Parts II, III, I. 396, 397 - to MSS. A, B, C of Title, Approbation, Preface, Subscription, - I. 411-417 - its changes since first printed edition, 1551, I. 464-466 - final redaction for printing of entire corpus, I. 464 - booklets, evidence for _Conversione-_, _Dicchiarazione-_, - _Passione-_, in about 1512, I. 394, 434, =447-449=, 450, 451, 464 - the _Dialogo_, Part I, I. 396, 397 - its author (Battista Vernazza), I. 407, 410 - compared with _Vita_-proper, I. =399-407= - its authentic contributions, I. 406, 407 - the _Dialogo_, Parts II, III, their author and character, - I. 418, 419, =427-433= - compared with _Vita_-proper, I. 419-424, =424-427= - the _Trattato_ (_Dicchiarazione_), earlier and later part - of, I. 439, 440 - earlier part, its theological glosses, I. =440-442= - later part, its secondary expansions, I. =435-440= - upbuilding of whole, and authorship (predominantly Ettore - Vernazza), I. 447-449 - the _Vita_-proper, original tripartite scheme of, become - quadripartite, I. =390-394= - its great divisions and secondary constituents, I. 453 - age and authorship of retained constituents, I. =453-463= - three tests for discriminating authentic from secondary - sayings, I. 462, 463 - - Volkelt, Johannes, Prof., on immanental inter-relatedness of History and - Philosophy, II. =279=, =280= - dualism in Kant’s Epistemology, II. 278 - fallacy of Positivistic Epistemology, II. =275-278= - ultimate Power in world, alive in analogy to a willing individual, - II. 277, 278 - - - Wagner, Richard, II. 165 - - Waldensian movement, II. 391 - - Ward, James, Prof., II. 265, 287, 370 - on receptivity as activity; experience as wider than knowledge; and - our own experience, the only one immediately accessible to us, - II. =277-280= - - Weinel, Heinrich, on visions and psycho-physical peculiarities in - sub-apostolic times, II. 42, 43, 308 - - White, Edward, on Conditional Immortality, II. 229 _n._ 2 - - Will, the things and conditions that move the human, I. 3, 367-370; - II. 375-385 - - Wilson, Archdeacon Andrew, on the Fall of Man, II. 299-300 - - Windelband, W., Prof., on religion’s various elements including - metaphysical life, II. 262 - - Wisdom, Book of, I. 61 - attitude towards the body in, and St. Paul, I. 234; II. 227 - - Wittenberg, I. 9, 95, 311 - - Wordsworth, William, II. 271 - - Wycliffe, I. 94 - - - Xenophon, I. 28 - - Ximenes, Cardinal Francis, O.S.F., I. 62 - - - Youth, its apprehension of religion, I. 51-52 - - - Zaccaria, F. A., S.J., II. 225 _n._ 2 - - Zedakah, II. 153 - - Zeller, Edward, _Philosophie der Griechen_, I. 11 _n._ 1; II. 320 - - Zeus, II. 93, 187 - - Zwingli, I. 62, 63; II. 119 _n._ 1, 388, 392 - - Zwinglianism, I. 9 - - -II. OF LITERARY REFERENCES - -(_The more general literary references given under names of authors in -Part I_) - - -HOLY SCRIPTURE--OLD TESTAMENT - - Daniel ix. 24; I. 408 - xii. 2; II. 190 - - Ecclesiasticus vii. 17; II. 224 - - Ezekiel i. 1-28, etc.; II. 45 _n._ - iv. 1-3, 7, etc.; II. 45 _n._ - iv. 4-8; II. 45, 46 _n._ - viii. i-ix. 11, etc.; II. 45 _n._ - viii. 16, xi. 13, xxiv. 1; II. 45 _n._ - - Genesis i. 5, iii. 18; II. 89 - xv. 1; I. 348 - - Isaiah vi. 3; I. 352 - xxvi. 1-19; II. 190 - xliii. 10, xliv. 1, xlviii. 10; I. 349 - xlix. 6; I. 351 - - Job xix. 25, 26; II. 190 - - Maccabees, Book of, ii. 43-45; II. 233 - - Psalms lxxiii. (lxxii.) 25; II. 159 - ci. 13; I. 362 - ciii. 13, 14; II. 69 - cix. 31; I. 358 - - Solomon, Cant. v. 10; I. 349 - Prov. viii. 31; I. 360 - Wisd. of., ix. 15; II. 66, 123 - - Tobit, Book of, xii. 8, 9; II. 154 - - -NEW TESTAMENT - - Acts of the Apostles xxvi. 9-10; I. 33 - - John, St., Apocalypse, v. 11; I. 349 - vii. 9; II. 254 - 1 Ep., i. 1; I. 36 - i. 2; I. 37 - iii. 2; II. 82, 257 - iii. 14; I. 39; II. 89 - v. 10; I. 37 - v. 20; I. 39; II. 84 - Gospel according to, i. 4, 5; II. 82 - i. 9-11; II. 79 - i. 14; I. 36 - i. 17; II. 79 - i. 18; I. 358; II. 81 - i. 29; II. 85 - ii. 11; I. 37; II. 86 - ii. 23, 24; I. 38 - iii. 2-5; I. 38 - iii. 16; II. 79-80, 83 - iii. 18; II. 89 - iii. 19; II. 82 - iii. 21; I. 37; II. 79-83, 82 - iii. 31; II. 82 - iii. 34; II. 84 - iii. 36; I. 39 - iv. 18; II. 160 - iv. 24; I. 37; II. 80, 88 - iv. 31; II. 81 - iv. 42; I. 38; II. 79-80 - v. 6; I. 38 - v. 24; II. 88-89, 90 - v. 28-29; I. 36 - vi. 27; II. 88 - vi. 35; I. 37; II. 90 - vi. 44; I. 37; II. 87 - vi. 61, 63; II. 88 - vi. 69; II. 86, 88 - viii. 21; II. 80 - viii. 23; II. 81 - viii. 44; II. 80 - ix. 41; II. 80 - x. 8; II. 80 - x. 38; I. 360 - xiii. 23; I. 358 - xiv. 6; I. 37 - xiv. 10; II. 80 - xiv. 11; I. 38 - xiv. 20-21; I. 39 - xiv. 23; I. 360 - xvii. 1-13; I. 210 _n._ 1 - xvii. 3; II. 82, 90 - xvii. 6; II. 90 - xvii. 8, etc.; II. 82 - xvii. 18; I. 37 - xvii. 21; II. 83 - xviii. 9; I. 362 - xviii. 37; II. 79 - xix. 24; II. 83 - xx. 8; II. 86 - xx. 29; I. 38; II. 86 - - Luke, St., Gospel according to, ii. 32; I. 351 - vi. 33, 34; II. 158 - vi. 38; II. 155 - vii. 47; II. 157 - ix. 23-24; I. 31 - ix. 51-56; I. 27-28 - x. 7; II. 154 - xii. 6; II. 254 - xiv. 27; I. 31 - xvi. 23; I. 358 - xvii. 10; II. 157 - xvii. 33; I. 31 - xx. 34-38; I. 32 - xxii. 3-11; I. 33 - xxii. 15-19; I. 31 - xxvi. 9-18; I. 33 - - Mark, St., Gospel according to, i. 13; II. 122 - iv. 27-28; I. 30 - vii. 14, 15; I. 31 - viii. 34; I. 31 - ix. 30-32; I. 27-28 - ix. 35-36; I. 32 - ix. 38-41 (& Par.); II. 84 - ix. 41; II. 154 - x. 13-16; I. 27-28 - x. 14, 15; I. 32 - x. 21; II. 154 - x. 23; II. 155 - xii. 28-34 (& Par.); II. 254 - xii. 36; II. 322 - xiv. 22-25; I. 31 - xiv. 25; II. 254 - xiv. 38 (& Par.); II. 122 - - Matth., St., Gospel according to, iii. 13-19; I. 31 - v. 3; I. 31 - v. 5; II. 155 - v. 7; II. 154 - v. 8; I. 31; II. 154, 155 - v. 12; II. 154 - v. 17; I. 30 - v. 23; I. 30 - v. 44, 45, 48; II. 157 - vi. 4, 6; II. 154 - vi. 16; I. 30 - vi. 14, 18, 20; II. 154 - vi. 23, 26, 28; I. 30 - vi. 33; II. 157 - x. 29; II. 254 - xii. 24-27; I. 32 - xiii. 30-32; II. 122 - xvi. 24, 25; I. 31 - xvii. 12-14; II. 255 - xviii. 32; II. 154 - xxii. 3; II. 155 - xxii. 11; II. 156 - xxii. 12; II. 155-156 - xxii. 29-33; I. 32 - xxiv. 47; II. 155 - xxv. 10; II. 254 - xxv. 14-30; II. 157 - xxv. 21; II. 155 - xxvi. 26-29; I. 31 - xxxiv. 42; II. 122 - xxxvi. 51, 52; II. 27-28 - - Paul, St., Ep. to Col. i. 15-17; I. 35 - i. 26; I. 34 - ii. 2; I. 34 - iii. 1; I. 35 - iii. 3-4; I. 34 - iii. 4; II. 322 - 1 Ep. to Cor. i. 18; I. 33 - i. 22-25; I. 33 - ii. 6; I. 34 - ii. 10; I. 34 - ii. 11; I. 34; II. 321 - ii. 14, 15; I. 33; II. 321 - iii. 1; I. 34 - iii. 10-15; II. 239 - v. 5; II. 68 - v. 11; II. 67 - vi. 19; II. 72, 321 - vii. 7; II. 43 - x. 3; II. 76 - x. 4; I. 35 - xi. 7; II. 75 - xi. 11; I. 32; II. 75 - xi. 23, 26; I. 32 - xii.; I. 33; II. 65-66 - xiii. 7; II. 160 - xiv.; I. 33 - xiv. 25; II. 65 - xv. 3-8; I. 32 - xv. 19, 32; II. 158 - xv. 35, 53; II. 64 - 2 Ep. to Cor. i. 22; II. 65 - ii. 4; II. 65 - iii. 17; II. 70, 88 - iii. 18; I. 35 - iv. 4; II. 68, 321 - iv. 16; II. 64, 159 - v. 1-4; II. 66, 77, 123 - v. 4; II. 66 - v. 11; II. 73 - vi. 14; II. 73, 77 - vii. 1; II. 68, 73, 321 - x. 10; II. 43 - xii. 9; II. 159 - xiii. 4; II. 78 - xviii. 7-8; II. 43 - Ep. to Eph. i. 10; I. 35 - i. 18; II. 65 - iii. 5; I. 35 - iv. 13; I. 35 - Ep. to Gal. ii. 20; I. 35; II. 322 - iv. 6; II. 65 - iv. 14-15; II. 43 - iv. 30; II. 160 - Ep. to Phil. i. 23; II. 77 - iii. 12; II. 257 - iv. 1; I. 361 - Ep. to Rom. ii. 5; II. 65 - ii. 6; II. 158 - iii.-xi.; I. 32 - v. 5; I. 360; II. 65, 72 - v. 15-19; I. 352 - vi. 6, 8; I. 35 - vi. 12-13; II. 68, 73 - vi. 14; II. 68-69 - vii. 18; II. 123 - vii. 23; II. 65, 68 - vii. 24; II. 123 - viii. 4-13; II. 68-69 - viii. 10; II. 68 - viii. 11; I. 35; II. 321 - viii. 16; II. 68 - viii. 19; II. 74 - viii. 31; II. 159 - viii. 35, 37-39; II. 159 - x. 9; II. 65 - xii. 2; II. 65 - xiii. 11-14; II. 73 - xiv. 14-20; II. 74 - 1 Ep. to Thess. iv. 15, 16; II. 77 - v. 4-8; II. 73 - - Peter, St., 2 Ep. of, iii. 12; II. 239 - - - Abbott, Dr. E. 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Kehrbach: Werke, Berlin, Vol. III.; II. 177, 178 - _Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten_, Werke, Berlin, Vol. IV., - 1903; II. 178, 296 - _Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft_, ed. - Hartenstein, Werke, Berlin, Vol. VI., 1907; II. 260, 296 - - Koch, Dr. Hugo, _Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita_, 1900; II. 91 _n._ 1, 95 - - Krätzschmar, R., Prof., _Das Buch Ezechiel_, 1900; II. 46 - - - Laberthonnière, Abbé L., in _Annales de Philosophic Chrétienne_, 1905, - 1906; II. 307 _n._ 3 - - Leibniz, G. W. (Philosophische Schriften, ed. Gerhardt, 1882-1885). - _Nouveaux Essais sur l’Entendement_, Vol. V.; II. 265, 266, 338 - _Principes de la Nature et de la Grace_, Vol. VI., 1885; II. 176 - - Lejeune, Abbé P., _Manuel de Théologie Mystique_, 1897; II. 307 - - Lessing, G. E., _Leibniz von den Ewigen Strafen_, in Lessing’s, Werke, - ed. Lachmann-Muncker, Vol. XI., 1895; II. 257, 258 - - Lightfoot, Bishop J. B., _St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians_, 1881; - II. 43-44 _n._ 1 - - Loyola, St. Ignatius of, _Testament_, 1900, p. 91, 92; II. 31 - - - Maineri, Padre, S. J., _Vita di S. Caterina_; I. 92, 302, 303 _n._ 1, - 302 _n._ 1 - - Manning, H. E., Cardinal, _Treatise on Purgatory by St. Catherine of - Genoa_, 1886, Appendix; II. 237, 243 - - MS. “A”; I. 112 _n._ 1, 384, 392 - Ch. 7 (of MS.) p. 24; I. 136 _n._ 2 - Ch. 10 (of MS.) 40; I. 390 _n._ 4 - Ch. 15 (of MS.) 87, 88; I. 387 - (of MS.) 92; I. 162 _n._ 3 - Ch. 20 (of MS.) 134; I. 387 - Ch. 24 (of MS.) 160; I. 386-387 - (of MS.) 163; I. 388 - (of MS.) 168; I. 387, 390 _n._ 3 - Ch. 25 (of MS.) 169; I. 388 - (of MS.) 174; I. 402, _n._ 2 - Ch. 29 (of MS.) 193; I. 187 _n._ 1, 387-388 (no. is omitted in MS.) - Ch. 31 (of MS) 198-200; I. 387 - Ch. 42 (of MS.) 329; I. 387 - 348; I. 452 - 361, 363, 364; I. 386 - 366; I. 147 _n._ 1 - 394, 395, 396; I. 412-416 - - MS. “B,” 1 _v_; I. 396 - Ch. 5 (of MS.) f. 2 _r_, _v_; I. 394 - (of MS.) f. 19 _r_; I. 394 - Ch. 24 (of MS.) f. 30 _r_, _v_; I. 395 - - MS. “F”; I. 216 - - Mercier, D., Cardinal, _Critériologie Générale_, ed. 1900; II. 7 _n._ 1 - - Mill, J. 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Alleg._, I. 3; II. 80 - - _Pirke Aboth_, V. 23; II. 154 - - Plato, _Cratylus_; II. 67 - 400 _c_; II. 237 - _Gorgias_, 477 _a_; II. 235 - 523 _b-e_, 525 _b_, _c_, 526 _c_, _d_; II. 208-209 - _Laws_, 904 _a-e_; II. 206 - _Parmenides_, 134 _c_; I. 19 - _Phaedo_, 64, 67 _c_, 69 _c_; I. 18 - 81 _a_, 82 _a_; II. 205 - 81 _c_; II. 66 - 110 _b_-114 _d_; II. 206-208 - _Phaedrus_, 245 _d_; II. 320 - 246 _b_, _c_; II. 103 - 249 _b_; II. 210 - _Philebus_, 22 _c_; II. 312 - _Republic_, II. 10 _c_, V. 460 _c_; II. 186 - II. 364, _b_, _c_, _e_; II. 235 - II. 364 _e_; II. 236 - V. 471 _c_-VIII.; II. 186 - VI. 508 _c_; II. 94, 312 - VII. 517 _b_; II. 312 - VII. 518 _b_; I. 18 - IX 560 _d_-588 _a_; II. 186 - X. 595 _a_-608 _b_; II. 186 - X. 616 _b_, _c_; II. 93 - X. 617 _e_, 619 _e_, 920 _e_; II. 210 - _Symposium_, 197 _a_; II. 104 - 216 _e_; II. 64 - _Theaetetus_, 153 _c_; II. 93, 94 - 168 _a_; I. 18 - 176 _a_; I. 19 - _Timaeus_, 28 _a_, _c_; II. 312 - 29 _e_ seq.; II. 334 - 41 _d_, _e_, 42 _d_; II. 206 - 92 _c_; II. 312 - - Plotinus, _Enneads_, I. vii. 1, 61 _d_; II. 312 - I. viii. 2, 72 _e_; II. 312 - V. i. 3, 6; II. 323 - V. ii.; II. 326 - V. v. 8; II. 95 - VI. viii. 16; II. 312 - VI. ix. 4; II. 192 - VI. ix. 8-9; II. 96 - VI. ix. 9; II. 91 - VI. ix. 9-11; II. 323 - VI. ix. 11; II. 95, 104 - - Proclus, _In Cratylum_, 103, 107; II. 93 - _Institutio Theologica_, c. 31, 35; II. 91 - c. 129; II. 99 - _In Parmenidem_, IV. 34; II. 93, 100 - VI. 52; II. 95 - _In Platonis Alcibidem_, II. 78; II. 93 - Platonic Theology, III. 132; II. 95 - - - Rauwenhoff, L. W. E., Prof., _Religions-philosophie_, Germ. tr., 1894; - II. 269 _n._ 2, 291 _n._ 1, 328 - - Reinach, S., _Cultes, Mythes et Religions_, Vol. I. 1905; II. 233, 234 - - Reumont, Alfred von, _Vittoria Colonna_, 1881; I. 341 _n._ 1 - - Reusch, F. H., _Der Index der verbotenen Bücher_, 1885, Vol. II.; II. 141 - - Rhode, Erwin, _Psyche_, ed. 1898, Vol. I.; II. 185, 188 - Vol. II.; II. 125 _n._ 1, 185, 235, 237, 356, 357, 368 - - Rickert, H., Prof., _die Grenzen der naturwissenschaftlichen - Begriffsbildung_, 1902; II. 370 _n._ - - Royce, Josiah, Prof., _The World and the Individual_, 1901, Vol. II.; - II. 256 _n._ 4 - - Ruysbroek Johannes, “Zierde der geistlichen Hochzeit,” _Vier Schriften_, - ed. Ullmann, 1848, ch. xlvi. 107, 108; II. 324 - - - Sandreau, Abbé A., _L’Etat Mystique_, 1903; _La Vie d’Union à Dieu_, - 1900; II. 307 _n._ 3 - - Schiller, F. C. S., Dr., “Activity and Substance,” in _Humanism_, 1903; - II. 131, 132, 250 _n._ 1 - “The Desire for Immortality,” in same; II. 197 - - Schmöger, K. E., _Leben der gottscligen Anna Katharina Emmerich_, - 1869-70; II. 335 - - Schopenhauer, Arthur, _Die Welt als Wille u. Vorstellung_, ed. Grisebach, - Vol. I., Anhang; II. 274 - Vol. II., bk. iv., ch. 48; II. 342 - - Schwab, J. B., _Johannes Gerson_, 1858; II. 325 - - Schweizer, Albert, _Die Religions-Philosophie Kants_; 1899, II. 177 - - Scotus, John, Eriugena, _De divisione naturae_; II. 314 - _De rerum principio_; II. 316, 317 - - Seneca, L. Annaeus, _Natur. Quaest._, Bk. III. ch. xx. 7, ch. xxx. 7, 8; - II. 240 - - Seth, James, _A Study of Ethical Principles_, 1894; II. 57 _n._ 1, - 180 _n._ 3 - - Simmel, Prof. Georg, _Kant_, 1904; II. 179, 260, 261 - - Smith, W. Robertson, Prof., _The Prophets of Israel_, ed. 1882; II. 267 - - Spinoza, ed. Van Vloten and Land, 1895, _Ethica_, Part II., Defin. - vi., 75; II. 294 - Part IV., Prop. lxiv., Coroll., 225; II. 294 - Part V., Prop. xix., 251; II. 175, 176 - Prop. xli., 264; II. 175, 176 - Prop. xli., Scholion, 265; II. 175, 176 - _Tractatus Theologico-Politicus_, Cap. IV., Vol. II. 3, 4; - II. 175-176 - - Stade, B., Prof., _Biblische Theologie des Alten Testaments_, 1905, - Vol. I.; II. 191 - - Sticker, Fr., Urban, Bollandist, _Life of St. Catherine_, in Acta - Sanctorum, Sept., Vol. V., ed. 1866, 123-195; I. 94, 167 - 183 _b-e_; I. 466 _n._ 2 - 192-196; I. 342 _n._ 1 - - Strata Battista, _Atti Notarili_, in “Archivio di Stato,” Genova; - I. 379 _n._ 1 - - Suarez, Francesco, Fr., S.J., Opera, Vol. IV., Disp. XI., sec. iv., - art. 2; II. 241 - XLVII., sec. 1, art. 6; II. 241 - - Sulze, Emile, _Wie ist der Kampf um die Bedeutung … Jesu zu beendigen?_ - 1901; II. 372, 373 - - - Taylor, A. E., _The Problem of Conduct_, 1901; II. 169, 179-181, 274 - - Tennant, Rev. F. R., _The Origin and Propagation of Sin_, 1902; II. 296, - 299-300 - - Teresa, St., _Life Written by Herself_, Eng. tr., D. Lewis, 1888, Ch. - iv. 17; II. 11 - Ch. v. 23, 27, 28, 29; II. 14; 5, 11; 13, 20; 13 - Ch. vi. 30, 31; II. 10, 11 - Ch. vii. 40, 41; II. 21, 50 - Ch. ix. 57, 58; II. 18 _n._ 1 - Ch. xiii. 86; II. 15 - Ch. xviii. 124, 130; II. 324, 325 - Ch. xix. 136; II. 44 - Ch. xx. 146, 149; II. 324, 44 - Ch. xxii. 162-174: II. 169 - Ch. xxiii. 174; II. 325 - Ch. xxv. 190 _b_, _c_, 192 _c_, 193 _a_, 196 _b_; II. 48-49 - Ch. xxvii. 206; II. 50 - Ch. xxviii. 224; II. 48-49 - Ch. xxix. 231, 234, 235; II. 18; 10; 11, 20, 44 - Ch. xxx. 247; II. 18 - Ch. xxxi. 248, 249, 251; II. 21 - Ch. xxxii. 263; II. 11 - Ch. xxxv. 295; II. 48-49 - Ch. xxxviii. 335; II. 325 - Rel. vii. 408; II. 16 _n._ 1(2), 50 - Rel. viii. 420, 421, 423; II. 5, 44; 324; 20 - Rel. ix. 430, 431; II. 325; 48, 49 - - Thomas Aquinas, St., _De Beatitudine_, ch. iii. 3; II. 151-152 - _De Ente et Essentia_, c. 11; II. 316 - _In libr. Boetii de Trinitate_, ed. Ven. 2, ch. viii. 291 _a_, - 341 _b_, 342 _a_; II. 289, 337 - _In libros Sententiarum_, Sent. II., dist. 30, qu. 1, art. 2; - II. 163 - Sent. III., dist. 30, art. 5; II. 164 - _Summa contra Gentiles_, I. 1-3, c. 70 in fine; I. 81 - Lib. II. c. xciv. inst.; c. xciii; II. 256 - Lib. III. c. xxi. in fine; II. 253 - _Summa Theologica_, I. qu. 4, art. 1 concl.; II. 250 - I. qu. 8, art. 2; II. 338 - I. qu. 12, art. 1 in corp.; II. 257, 338 - I. qu. 12, art. 6 ad 1; II. 257 - I. qu. 12, art. 7, in corp.; II. 257 - I. qu. 12, art. 8 ad 4; II. 253 - I. qu. 12, art. 10, in corp.; II. 248 - I. qu. 13, art. 5, concl., et in corp.; II. 337 - I. qu. 14, art. 2 ad 2; II. 253 - I. qu. 14, art. 4, in corp.; II. 252 - I. qu. 14, art. 8, concl.; II. 253 - I. qu. 14, art. 11 ad. 3 contra et concl.; II. 253 - I. qu. 19, art. 1, concl.; II. 252 - I. qu. 19, art. 2, in corp.; II. 254 - I. qu. 20, art. 1 ad 1 ad 3; II. 254 - I. qu. 20, art. 1, concl.; II. 252 - I. qu. 20, art. 2 ad 1; II. 254 - I. qu. 25, art. 1 ad 2, and concl.; II. 250 - I. qu. 28, art 1, in corp. and ad 2; II. 163 - I. qu. 29, art. 3 ad 2 ad 4, and in corp.; II. 256 - I. qu. 47, art. 1, in corp.; II. 256 - I. ii. qu. 3, art. 2 ad 4; II. 253 - I. ii. qu. 3, art. 2 ad 4, and concl.; II. 252 - I. ii. qu. 28, art. 1 ad 2, and in corp.; II. 163 - I. ii. qu. 86, art. 1 ad 3, and concl.; II. 236, 294 - I. ii. qu. 114, art. 4, in corp.; II. 164 - II. ii. qu. 3, art. 4 ad 4; II. 254 - II. ii. qu. 17, art. 8, in corp.; II. 162 - II. ii. qu. 23, art. 6, concl. and in corp.; II. 163 - III. qu. 85, art. 2 ad 1; II. 164 - III. suppl., qu. 6, art. 3; I. 120, 121 - Suppl., qu. 62, art. 2; II. 127, 128 - Suppl., qu. 69, art. 1 ad 3, and in corp.; II. 214 - Suppl., qu. 69, art. 6, in corp.; _ib._ - Suppl., qu. 69, art. 7, concl.; _ib._ - Suppl., qu. 69, art. 7 ad 9; II. 223 - Append.; qu. 2, art 4, in corp. and ad 4; II. 244 - _App. de Purg._, art. 2, in corp.; II. 214 - - Tiele, C. P., Prof., _Elements of the Science of Religion_, 1897, - Vol. I.; II. 262-263 - Vol. II.; II. 268-270, 340 - - Touzard, Abbé J., “Le Développement de la Doctrine del Immortalité,” - _Revue Biblique_, 1898, pp. 207-241; II. 189 - - Trendelenburg, A., “Ueber den letzten Unterschied d. philos. Systeme,” - _Beiträge z. Philos._ 1855, II. 10; II. 375 - - Troeltsch, Prof. Ernst, “Das Historische in Kant’s - Religions-philosophie,” _Kant Studien_, 1904; II. 261, 262 - “Religions-philosophie,” in _Die Philosophie im Beginn des XXten - Jahrh._, 1904, Vol. I; II. 327, 376 _n._ 1 - “Die Selbständigkeit der Religion,” _Zeitschr. f. Theologie u. - Kirche_, 1895; II. 399 - “Grundprobleme der Ethik,” in _Zeitschr. f. Theologie u. Kirche_, - 1902; II. 127 _n._ 1, 273, 274, 358, 359 - “Geschichts philosophie,” _Theol. Rundschau_, 1893, II. 256, 257 - “Was heisst Wesen des Christenthums?” _Christliche Welt_, 1903; - II. 359, 360 - - Turmel, Abbé Joseph, “Le Dogme du Pêché Originel dans S. Augustin,” - _Rev. d’Hist. et de Litt. Rel._, 1901, 1902; II. 29 _n._ 1 - - Tyrrell, Rev. George, _Hard Sayings_, 1898; I. 89; II. 230 - _Lex Orandi_, 1903; II. 268, 337 _n._ 1 - _The faith of the Millions_, 1901, Vol. II.; II. 353, 354 - - - Ueberweg-Heinze, _Grundriss d. Gesch. d. Philosophie_, Part II., ed. - 1898; II. 314, 316, 317 - - - Vallebona, Sebastiano, _La Perla dei Fieschi_, ed. 1887, I. 129 _n._ 3, - 144, 145 _n._ 1, 337, 338 _n._ 1 - - Vernazza Battista, Ven., _Opere Spirituali, Genova_, 1755, Vol. I. - Preface; I. 100, 117, 344 _n._ 2 - Vol. V. 218-227, _Colloquii_; I. 346-358 - Vol. VI. 192-248, _Letters_; I. 343-344, 359-364, 409 _n._ 1, 2 - - _Vita e Dottrina di S. Caterina da Genova._ Nona Ed. Genovese. Sordi-Muti - (no date). Preface, vii_c_; I. 413, 414 - viii_a_, _b_; _ibid._ - viii_b_; I. 281 - - _Vita_-proper, Cap. I. 3; I. 104 _n._ 1 - 3_c_; I. 127 - Cap. II. 4_a_, _b_, _c_; I. 105 - 4_a_-5_b_; I. 404-406 - 4_a_-5_c_; I. 458-460 - 4_c_-5_a_; I. 107, 108 - 4_c_; I. 108 _n._ 1 - 5_a-c_; _ibid._ - 5_b_; I. 181-412 - 5_b-c_; I. 108 _n._ 2 - 5_c_-6; I. 112, 121 _n._ 3 - 6; I. 118-119 - 6_a_; I. 334 _n._ 1 - 6_b_; I. 118, 412 - 6_c_; I. 397 - Cap. III. 7_a_; I. 114 _n._ 2 - 7_b_; I. 116 - 8_a_; I. 280 - 8-9; I. 115 - 8_c_; I. 263, 273, 280 - 9_b_; I. 180 _n._ 3, 263, 265, 273 - Cap. IV. 10_a_; I. 135 _n._ 1, 136 _n._ 2 - 10_b_; I. 180 _n._ 1 - 11_b_; I. 273 - 11_b-c_; I. 264 - 11_c_; I. 137 _n._ 1 - Cap. V. 12_b_-13_b_; I. 121 _n._ 3 - 13_c_; I. 401 - 14_b_; I. 134 _n._ 2 - Cap. VI. 14_c_; I. 121 _n._ 3, 393 - 15_b_; I. 139, 267, 273, 280 - 15_c_-16_a_; I. 140, 265 - 16_b_; I. 118 _n._ 2, 139 - Cap. VII. 17_b_; I. 140 - 19_b_; I. 274 - Cap. VIII. 20_a_; I. 401 - 20_b_; I. 142 _n._ 2 - 20_c_; I. 143 - 21_a_; I. 407 - 21_a-b_; I. 401 - 21_b_; I. 144, 145 _n._ 1 - 21_c_; I. 143 _n._ 2 - 22_b_; I. 265 - Cap. IX. 22_c_; I. 267, 277 - 23_a_; I. 139, 279 - 23_b_; I. 267, 274 - 23_c_; I. 263, 277 - 24_a_; I. 277, 279 - 24_b_; I. 274 - Cap. X. 25_c_-26_a_; I. 265 - 26_b_; I. 266 - Cap. XI. 27_a_; I. 280 - 28_c_-29_b_; I. 269 - 29_c_; I. 262, 278 - 30_a_; I. 278 - Cap. XII. 30_b_; I. 262 - 31_b_; I. 271 - 31_c_-32_a_; I. 268 - Cap. XIII. 32_c_; I. 409 _n._ 1 - 33_c_-33_b_; I. 261 - 33_b_; I. 283; II. 222 - Cap. XIV. 34_c_; I. 277 - 36_b_; I. 263, 266 - 36_c_; I. 266 - 37; I. 259 - 38_b_-39_a_; I. 282 - 39_b_; I. 162 _n._ 3 - Cap. XV. 39_b_-116_b_; II. 294 - Cap. XVI. 42_a_; I. 270 - 42_b_; I. 269 - 43_c_; I. 269, 278 - Cap. XVII. 47_b_; I. 139, 161, 162 - 47_c_-48_a_; II. 92 - Cap. XVIII. 48_b_; I. 266 - 49_a_; I. 139, 267 - 50_a_; I. 161, 162 - 50_b_; I. 266 - Cap. XIX. 51-52; I. 140 _n._ 4, 141 _n._ 1 - 51_a_-53_b_; I. 390 _n._ 2, 451 - 51_b_; I. 279 - 52_a_; I. 279 - 52_c_-53_a_; I. 272 - 53_b_; I. 265, 276 - Cap. XX. 54_b-c_; I. 272 - 55_c_-56_a_; I. 262 - 56_b_, _c_; I. 123, 124 _n._ 1 - Cap. XXII. 59_c_; I. 274, 275 - Cap. XXIII. 60_c_; I. 280 - 61_a_; I. 262 - 61_c_; I. 277 - 62_a_; I. 259, 387 - Cap. XXIV. 64_b_; I. 287 - Cap. XXV. 66_a_; I. 268 - 66_b_; I. 268 - 67_c_; I. 265 - Cap. XXVI. 69_a_; I. 267 - Cap. XXVII. 71_c_; I. 198 _n._ 1 - 72_b_; I. 162, 163. 164 - Cap. XXIX. 74_b_; I. 263 - 75_b_; I. 268 - 76; I. 387 - 76_a_; I. 272 - 76_c_; I. 262, 275 - 77_a_; I. 275 - 77_b_; I. 277; II. 50 - Cap. XXX. 78_c_; I. 284 - Cap. XXXI. 79_c_; I. 262 - 80_b_; I. 265 - 80_c_-81_a_; I. 263 - 81_b-c_; I. 271 - 82_a_: I. 271 - 82_b_-83_a_; I. 394-395 - 83_a_; I. 259 - Cap. XXXII. 83_c_-84_a_; I. 270 - 86_b_; _ibid._ - 87_a_; _ibid._ - 87_c_; I. 268, 276; II. 50 - Cap. XXXIV. 91_c_; I. 262 - 92_a_; I. 259 - Cap. XXXVI. 94_b_-95_c_; I. 160 - 94_a_; I. 276 - 94_b_-95_c_; I. 455 - 94_c_; I. 159 _n._ 1, 279 - 95_b_; I. 279 - 95_c_; I. 127, 272 - 96_b_; I. 148 _n._ 1 - Cap. XXXVII. 97_b_; I. 140, 148 _n._ 1, 160, 161, 409 _n._ 2 - 97_c_; I. 388 - Cap. XXXVIII. 98-99; I. 166, 183 _n._ 1 - 98_a-b_; I. 183, 454 - 98_a_-99_b_; I. 454-455 - 98_c_; I. 192 _n._ 1 - 99_a_; I. 192 _n._ 1 - Cap. XXXIX. 100_c_-101_b_; I. 455 - 101_a-b_; I. 262 - 103_b_; I. 271 - Cap. XL. 105_c_; I. 147 _n._ 1, 265 - Cap. XLI. 106_a_, _c_; I. 268 - 107_a_; I. 268 - 107_b_; I. 274 - 108_b_; I. 270 - 109_b_; I. 276 - Cap. XLII. 113_b_; I. 164 _n._ 2; II. 10 - 113_c_; I. 274 - 114_a_; I. 269 - Cap. XLIII. 115_a_, _b_; I. 162 _n._ 3, 457 - 115_c_; I. 457 - Cap. XLIV. 116_c_; I. 117 _n._ 2, 118 _n._ 1 - 116_c_-121_b_; I. 390 _n._ 4, 455-456 - 117_b_; I. 118 _n._ 1 - 117_b_-121_b_; I. 451, 455-457 - 118_a_, _b_; I. 158 _n._ 1 - 119_b_; I. 185 _n._ 1 - 119_c_; I. 118, 195 _n._ 1, 391 - 120_a_, _b_; I. 195 _n._ 1 - Cap. XLV. 122_b_, _c_-123_a_; I. 150 _n._ 1 - 122_c_; I. 272, 388 - 123, 124; I. 132 _n._ 3 - 123_b_; I. 167, 402 - 123_b_-124_b_; I. 390 _n._ 3, 457 - 124_b_; I. 387 - Cap. XLVI. 124_b_-125; I. 169-171 - 124_c_; I. 388 - 125_a_; I. 272 - 125_b_; I. 402 _n._ 2 - Cap. XLVII. 127-132; I. 166 - 127_a_, _c_; I. 420 - 129_b_; I. 119 _n._ 2 - 129_c_; I. 164 _n._ 2; II. 4 - 130_a_; I. 164 _n._ 2 - 132_a_; I. 188 _n._ 1 - Cap. XLVIII. 132_b_; 188 _n._ 1 - 133_b_; I. 187 _n._ 1, 188, 450 - 134_a_; I. 164 _n._ 2 - 135_a_; I. 189 _n._ 1 - 135_c_-136_a_; I. 189 _n._ 2 - 136_b_; I. 274 - 138_b_; II. 10 - 138_c_; I. 193 - Cap. XLIX. 139_a_; I. 388 _n._ 1 - 139_a_-140_c_; I. 390 _n._ 4 - 139_c_-140_b_; I. 388 _n._ 1 - 140_a_; I. 194 _n._ 1 - 140_b_, _c_; I. 119-120 - 141_b_-145_b_; I. 204 _n._ 1 - 142_a_, _b_, _c_; I. 197 _n._ 2, 3 - 143_b_; I. 197 n, 4; II. 10 - 144_a_; I. 198 _n._ 2 - 144_b_; I. 281 - 144_c_; I. 434 - 145_c_-146_a_; I. 198 _n._ 3 - 146_c_-147_c_; I. 201 _n._ 3 (202), 390, 451 - Cap. L. 148_c_; I. 204 _n._ 2 - 149_b_; I. 205 _n._ 1; II. 10 - 149_c_; I. 205 _n._ 1 - 151_a_, _b_; I. 205 _n._ 4 - 152_b_-153_c_; I. 204 _n._ 1 - 152_c_; II. 10 - 153_a_; I. 209 _n._ 1 - 154_b_; I. 208 _n._ 3, 390, 451 - 155_a_; I. 209 _n._ 1, 273; II. 10 - 155_b_-156_a_; I. 210 _n._ 1, 389, 412, 452 - 156_b_, _c_; I. 210 _n._ 1 - 157_c_; I. 209 _n._ 1 - 158_a_; I. 209 _n._ 1 - 158_b_; I. 210 _n._ 3 - 158_c_-159_a_; I. 211 - 159_c_; I. 213 _n._ 1 - 160_a_, _b_; I. 214 - 160_c_; I. 215 - 161; I. 387 - 161_a_; I. 215 - Cap. LI. 161_c_-163_a_; I. 216-218 - 162_a_; I. 162 _n._ 3 - Cap. LII. 163_b_-164_a_; I. 218 _n._ 2 - 164_b_, _c_; I. 300 - 165_a_; I. 454-455 - 165_c_; I. 300, 454, 455 - - _Vita-Trattato_, Cap. I. 169_b_; I. 281 - 169_b_-175_c_; I. 435 - 169_b_-184_c_; I. 435-438 - 169_c_-170_a_; I. 286 - 169_c_-170_b_; I. 417 - 169_c_-170_c_; I. 440-442 - 170_b_; I. 283 - Cap. II. 170_c_; I. 287, 291 - 170_c_-171_b_; I. 442-444 - 171_b_; I. 287 - Cap. III. 171_c_; I. 278 - 172_a_; I. 278, 288 - 172_b_; I. 287, 444-445 - Cap. IV. 172_c_; I. 282 - 173_a_; I. 445 - 173_a_, _b_; I. 283 - 173_b_; I. 226; II. 222 - Cap. V. 173_c_, 174_a_; I. 287, 446-447 - Cap. VI. 174_b_; I. 288, 289 - Cap. VII. 175_a_; I. 277, 285 - 175_b_; I. 284 - Cap. IX. 176_a_; I. 284, 285 - Cap. X. 177_b_; I. 284, 287 - Cap. XI. 178_a-b_; I. 438-439 - 178_b_; I. 292, 293 - Cap. XIII. 180_a_-181_c_; I. 437 - 180_b_-181_c_; I. 438-439 - Cap. XVI. 181_c_, 182_b_; I. 438-439 - 182_b_; I. 286, 290 - Cap. XVII. 183_c_; I. 274 - - _Vita-Dialogo_, Part I. 185-225; I. 396-397 - 185_c_-190_c_, 191_a_-198_a_; I. 397 _n._ 1 - Cap. VI. 197_a_; I. 400 - 198_b_-206_b_; I. 398 _n._ 1 - Cap. VIII. 199_c_-202_c_; I. 404 - 201_b_; I. 409 _n._ 2 - 202_c_-208_b_; I. 404-406 - 203_a_; I. 124 - Cap. XI. 208_c_-209_b_; I. 404, 405 - Cap. XII. 209_c_-211_b_; I. 409 _n._ 1 - 207_c_-212_a_; I. 398 _n._ 4 - 211_a_; I. 404-406, 409 _n._ 2 - 211_b_; I. 400, 404-406, 409 _n._ 1, 412 - 211_c_; I. 409 _n._ 1 - Cap. XIII. 212_b_, _c_; I. 398 _n._ 5 - 212_c_; I. 146, 429 - 212_c_-213_a_; I. 406-407 - Cap. XIV. 213_c_-225_c_; I. 398 _n._ 6, 420-421 - Cap. XV. 215_c_-216_a_; I. 399 _n._ 2, 408 _n._ 5 - Cap. XVIII. 220_c_; I. 401, 406-407 - 221_b_; I. 431 - Cap. XIX. 221_c_; 400, 406-407 - 221, 222_a_; I. 402 - 222_b_; I. 406-407 - Cap. XX. 222_c_; I. 401 - 223_c_; I. 400 - Part II. 226_b_-242_b_; I. 419 - 226_c_-241_b_; I. 420 - 227_a_-241_b_; I. 420-421 - Cap. III. 231_a_; I. 430 - 232_b_-245_c_; I. 419 - 232_b_; I. 431 - Cap. V. 234_b_: I. 427 - Cap. IX. 241_b_; I. 427-428 - 241_c_-245_c_; I. 491 - Cap. X. 242_b_; I. 430, 431 - Cap. XI. 245_c_; I. 417 - Part III. Cap. I. 247_b_; I. 432 - 248_c_; I. 430, 432 - 249_a_; I. 430 - Cap. II. 250_a_, _b_; I. 160, 161 - 250_a_-263_c_; I. 422 - 250_b_; I. 430 - Cap. VI. 259_c_; I. 432 - 260_b_; I. 428 - 264_a_-271_a_; I. 423 - Cap. VIII. 264_b_; I. 412, 433 - Cap. IX. 266_a_, _c_; I. 425, 426 - 266_b_; I. 432 - Cap. X. 268_c_; I. 428 - Cap. XI. 269_c_; I. 428 - 270_b_; I. 428 - C. XII. XIII. 271_b_-275_a_; I. 424 - Cap. XIII. 273_a_; I. 429 - 275_a_; I. 429 - - _Vita-Brevi Notizie_ (Maineri), _Traslazione_, 278-282; - I. 306 _n._ 1 - 278_b_, _c_; I. 304 - _Miracoli_, 282_b_; I. 302 - - _Vita Venerabilis Lukardis_, in “Analecta Bollandiana,” XVIII. - 1899; II. 52-55 - - Volkelt, J., Prof., _Erfahrung u. Denken_, 1886; II. 280 - _Kant’s Erkenntnisstheorie_, 1879; I. 56 _n._ 1; II. 276-278 - _Schopenhauer_, 1900; II. 370, 371 - - - Ward, James, Prof., _Naturalism and Agnosticism_, ed. 1905; - II. 196 _n._ 1 - “Mechanism and Morals,” _Hibbert Journal_, Oct. 1905; - II. 197 _n._ 1 - “On the Definition of Psychology,” _Journal of Psych._, Vol. I., - 1904; II. 280 - “Present Problems of Psychology,” (American) _Philosophical Review_, - 1904; II. 277-278 - - Weinel, Prof. H., _Die Wirkungen des Geistes u. der Geister_, 1899, 309; - II. 43 _n._ 1 - - Wesley, John, _Journal_, ed. Parker, 1903; II. 4 _n._ 4 - - Windelband, Prof. W., “Das Heilige,” in _Präludien_, 1903; II. 262 - - - Zeller, Prof. Edward, _Philosophie der Griechen_, Part II. ed. 1879; - I. 312 - Part III., Div. 2, ed. 1881; II. 313 - - - - -FOOTNOTES - - -[1] _Vita_, pp. 143_b_; 149_b_, 159_b_; 153_a_. - -[2] _Ibid._ p. 153_c_. - -[3] _Ibid._ pp. 129_c_, 134_a_. - -[4] I have already traced the steps in the growth of this legend. It -is no doubt this element in the biography which irritated John Wesley, -the man of absolute judgments; although he himself, with shrewd good -sense, indicates its possible secondary origin. “I am sure this was a -fool of a Saint; that is, if it was not the folly of her historian, who -has aggrandized her into a mere idiot” (_Journal_, ed. P. L. Parker, -London, 1903). - -[5] _Vita_, pp. 127_c_, 143_b_, 144_b_. - -[6] _Life_, tr. by D. Lewis, London, ed. 1888, pp. 27, 420. - -[7] _Existence de Dieu_, I, 1, 31: _Œuvres_, ed. Versailles, 1820, Vol. -I, p. 51. - -[8] Pierre Janet, _Automatisme Psychologique_, ed. 1903; _Etat Mental -des Hysteriques_, 2 vols., 1892, 1893. Hermann Gunkel, _Die Wirkungen -des heiligen Geistes_, Göttingen, 1899. Heinrich Weinel, _Die Wirkungen -des Geistes und der Geister_, Freiburg, 1899. William James, _The -Varieties of Religious Experience_, London, 1902. - -[9] Pierre Janet, _op. cit._ Alfred Binet, _Les Altérations de la -Personnalité_, Paris, 1902. M. Th. Coconnier, _L’Hypnotisme Franc_, -Paris, 1897. - -[10] W. James, _op. cit._, especially pp. 1-25. H. Weinel, _op. -cit._, especially pp. 128-137; 161-208. Bernouilli, _Die Heiligen der -Merowinger_, Tübingen, 1900, pp. 2-6. B. Duhm, _Das Geheimniss in der -Religion_, Tübingen, 1896. - -[11] H. Bergson, _Essai sur les Données Immédiates de la Conscience_, -ed. 1898. H. Jones, _The Philosophy of Lotze_, 1895. J. Ward, -_Naturalism and Agnosticism_, 2 vols., 1899. M. Blondel, _l’Action_, -1893. J. Volkelt, _Kant’s Erkenntnisstheorie_, 1879; _Erfahrung und -Denken_, 1886. H. Münsterberg, _Psychology and Life_, 1899. D. Mercier -_Critériologie Générale_, ed. 1900. - -[12] _Vita_, pp. 96_c_; 117_b_; 127_a_; 97_c_, 133_b_ (dated November -11, 1509, in MSS.); 146_b_; 148_a_. - -[13] From my authenticated copies of the original wills in the Archivio -di Stato, Genoa. - -[14] _Vita_, pp. 113_b_, 149_c_; 143_b_, 152_c_; 138_b_, 155_a_. Note -the parallels in St. Teresa’s _Life_, written by herself, tr. D. -Lewis, ed. 1888. P. 234: “When these (spiritual) impetuosities are -not very violent, the soul seeks relief through certain penances; the -painfulness of which, and even the shedding of blood, are no more felt -than if the body were dead.” P. 30: “I was unable to move either arm or -foot, or hand or head, unless others moved me. I could move, however, -I think, one finger of my right hand.” P. 31: “I was paralytic, though -getting better, for about three years.” - -[15] Hyper-aesthesia and sensation of heat: _Vita_, pp. 142_a_, 153_a_. -Increase of movement: _ibid._, and pp. 145_b_, 143_a_, 153_c_, 141_a_. -Loss of speech and sight: pp. 141_b_, 141_c_, 159_c_. Localization of -heat: p. 157_b_. Haemorrhages: 138_c_, 159_c_, 160_a_. Concavities -and jaundice: pp. 144_a_, 153_a_. Spasms: pp. 143_c_, 71_c_, 141_c_, -142_b_. Cf. St. Teresa, _loc. cit._ p. 30: “As to touching me, that was -impossible, for I was so bruised that I could not endure it. They used -to move me in a sheet, one holding one end, and another the other.” P. -31: “I began to crawl on my hands and feet.” P. 263: “I felt myself on -fire: this inward fire and despair.…” P. 17: “The fainting fits began -to be more frequent; and my heart was so seriously affected, that those -who saw it were alarmed.” P. 27: “It seemed to me as if my heart had -been seized by sharp teeth.” P. 235: “I saw, in the Angel’s hand, a -long spear of gold, and at the iron’s point there seemed to be a little -fire. He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart, and -to pierce my very entrails.… The pain is not bodily, but spiritual.” - -[16] Swallow: _Vita_, pp. 149_c_, 150_a_; 159_b_; 159_c_; 150_a_. -Odours and colours: 153_c_, 154_b_. Cf. St. Teresa, _loc. cit._ p. 27: -“I could eat nothing whatever, only drink. I had a great loathing for -food.” P. 43: “I have been suffering for twenty years from sickness -every morning.” P. 30: “There was a choking in my throat … I could -not swallow even a drop of water.” P. 263: “A sense of oppression, of -stifling.” - -[17] Exclamations: _Vita_, pp. 144_a_, 148_b_, 155_a_. Laughter: -_ibid._ 145_c_, 148_b_, 149_b_, 157_c_. Sudden changes of condition: -135_b_, 138_c_, 159_b_. Cf. St. Teresa, _loc. cit._ pp. 28, 29: “That -very night,” Feast of the Assumption, 1537, “my sickness became so -acute that, for about four days, I remained insensible. For a day and a -half the grave was open, waiting for my body. But it pleased Our Lord I -should come to myself. I wished to go to confession at once. Though my -sufferings were unendurable, and my perceptions dull, yet my confession -was, I believe, complete. I communicated with many tears.” - -[18] _Vita_, pp. 71_c_; 145_c_; 147_b_; 159_c_, 159_a_; 127_a_. Cf. -St. Teresa, _loc. cit._ p. 23: “I was in my sister’s house, for the -purpose of undergoing medical treatment--they took the utmost care of -my comfort.” P. 27: “In two months, so strong were the medicines, my -life was nearly worn out.” “The physicians gave me up: they said I was -consumptive.” - -[19] Self-knowledge as to “quietudes”: _Vita_, pp. 153_b_, 157_a_. -Marabotto’s attitude: 139_b_; 141_c_, 143_c_, 149_a_. Relations with -Boerio: 147_c_, 147_b_. Cf. St. Teresa, _loc. cit._ p. 86: “My health -has been much better since I have ceased to look after my ease and -comforts.” - -[20] Remark to Vernazza: _Vita_, pp. 98_c_, 99_a_. Persistence of -intelligence: 141_c_; 159_b_, _c_; 143_a_; 143_c_; 145_b_. Cf. St. -Teresa, _loc. cit._ p. 408: “She” (Teresa herself) “never saw anything -with her bodily eyes, nor heard anything with her bodily ears.” P. -189: “The words of the divine locutions are very distinctly formed; -but by the bodily ear they are not heard.” P. 191: “In ecstasy, the -memory can hardly do anything at all, and the imagination is, as it -were, suspended.” P. 142: “You see and feel yourself carried away, you -know not whither.” P. 187: “I fell into a trance; I was carried out of -myself. It was most plain.” - -[21] Picture: _Vita_, p. 135_a_;. Red and black robes: 154_b_, 156_c_. -Suggestions of odour: 118_c_, 119_a_; 9_c_, 8_a_, 9_b_. Cf. St. Teresa, -_loc. cit_. pp. 57, 58: “One day, I saw a picture of Christ most -grievously wounded: the very sight of it moved me.” P. 247: “I used to -pray much to Our Lord for that living water of which He spoke to the -Samaritan woman: I had always a picture of it with this inscription: -‘Domine, da mihi aquam.’” P. 231: “Once when I was holding in my -hand the cross of my rosary, He took it from me into His own hand. -He returned it; but it was then four large stones incomparably more -precious than diamonds: the five wounds were delineated on them with -the most admirable art. He said to me that for the future that cross -would appear so to me always, and so it did. The precious stones were -seen, however, only by myself.” - -[22] Synchronisms: _Vita_, pp. 148_b_; 150_b_; 152_a_, 160_c_, 161_b_. -Communion and ordinary food: 154_a_, 154_c_, 138_c_; 154_c_. Heats: -“Assalto,” _e.g._ 138_b_, _c_; 143_a_, _c_; “ferita” and “saetta,” -_e.g._ 141_a_, _c_; 145_a_. Their localization: 135_a_, 141_c_; 153_a_; -142_a_, 158_a_. Their psycho-physical character: 135_b_, 144_b_. Thirst -and its suggestion: 149_c_, 159_c_; 76_c_; 152_b_, 135_a_. Paralyses: -134_b_; 149_c_. Cf. St. Teresa, _op. cit._ p. 28: her death-swoon -occurs on evening of the Assumption. P. 235: Heat, piercing of the -heart as by a spear, and a spiritual (not bodily) pain, are all united -in the experience of the heart-piercing Angel. P. 423: “Another prayer -very common is a certain kind of wounding; for it really seems to the -soul as if an arrow were thrust through the heart or through itself. -The suffering is not one of sense, nor is the wound physical; it is in -the interior of the soul.” - -[23] _Vita_, pp. 158_a_; 160_a_. Cf. St. Teresa, _op. cit._ p. 41: “We -saw something like a great toad crawling towards us.… The impression -it made on me was such, that I think it must have had a meaning.” -Contrast, with this naïvely sensible sight and the absence of all -interior assurance, such a spiritual vision as “Christ stood before me, -stern and grave. I saw Him with the eyes of the soul. The impression -remained with me that the vision was from God, and not an imagination” -(pp. 40, 41). Another quasi-sensible sight, with no interior assurance, -or question as to its provenance and value, is given on pp. 248, 249: -“Once Satan, in an abominable shape, appeared on my left hand. I looked -at his mouth in particular, because he spoke, and it was horrible. A -huge flame seemed to issue out of his body, perfectly bright without -any shadow.” Another such impression is recorded on p. 252: “I thought -the evil spirits would have suffocated me one night.… I saw a great -troop of them rush away as if tumbling over a precipice.” - -[24] _Lives of the Saints_, ed. 1898, Vol. X, September 15. - -[25] Pierre Janet, _Etat Mental des Hysteriques_, 2 vols., Paris, 1892, -1894: Vol. II, pp. 260, 261; 280; Vol. I, pp. 225, 63. - -[26] _Ibid._ Vol. I, pp. 63, 225, 226. - -[27] Pierre Janet, _Etat Mental_, Vol. I, pp. 226, 227. - -[28] _Ibid._ Vol. II, pp. 253, 257. - -[29] Pierre Janet, _Etat Mental_, Vol. I, pp. 7, 8, 11, 12, 57, 21. - -[30] _Ibid._ Vol. II, pp. 82, 91; 70, 71. - -[31] _Ibid._ Vol. II. Troubles of movement, pp. 105, 106; of nutrition, -pp. 285, 70, 71; strangulation, heart palpitation, fever heats, p. 282; -haemorrhages and red patches, p. 283; jaundice (_ictère emotionnel_), -p. 287; and note the “ischurie,” p. 283, top, compared with _Vita_, p. -12_a_. - -[32] Pierre Janet, _Etat Mental_, Vol I, p. 140; Vol. II, pp. 14, 72, -165. - -[33] _Ibid._ Vol. I, pp. 218, 219; 158, 159. - -[34] The biographical chapters of Volume I give all the facts and -references alluded to in this paragraph. It would be easy to find -parallels for most of these peripheral disturbances and great central -normalities in St. Teresa’s life. - -[35] Prof. W. James has got some very sensible considerations on the -pace of a conversion (as distinct from its spiritual significance, -depth, persistence, and fruitfulness) being primarily a matter of -temperament: _Varieties of Religious Experience_, 1902, pp. 227-240. - -[36] By the term “visionless,” I do not mean to affirm anything as to -the presence or absence of ideas or mental images during the times so -described, but to register the simple fact, that, for her own memory -after the event, she was, at the time, without any one persistent, -external-seeming image.--Note how St. Ignatius Loyola in his -_Testament_, ed. London, 1900, pp. 91, 92, considered the profoundest -spiritual experience of his life to have been one unaccompanied or -expressed by any vision: “On his way” to a Church near Manresa, “he sat -down facing the stream, which was running deep. While he was sitting -there, the eyes of his mind were opened,” not so as to see any kind of -vision, but “so as to understand and comprehend spiritual things … with -such clearness that for him all these things were made new. If all the -enlightenment and help he had received from God in the whole course of -his life … were gathered together in one heap, these all would appear -less than he had been given at this one time.” - -[37] I would draw the reader’s attention to the very interesting -parallels to many of the above-mentioned peculiarities furnished both -by St. Teresa in her _Life_, _passim_, and by Battista Vernazza in the -Autobiographical statements which I have given here in Chapter VIII. - -[38] The omnipresence of neural conditions and consequences for all and -every mental and volitional activity has been admirably brought out by -Prof. W. James, in his _Varieties of Religious Experience_, 1902, Vol. -I, pp. 1-25. - -[39] H. Weinel’s _Die Wirkungen des Geistes und der Geister im -nachapostolischen Zeitalter, bis auf Irenäus_, 1899, contains an -admirably careful investigation of these things. - -[40] _Life_, written by herself, ed. cit. pp. 235, 423; 136. - -[41] _Ibid._ pp. 149, 420. - -[42] _Ibid._ pp. xxii, 28. - -[43] It is to Dr. Lightfoot’s fine _Excursus in St. Paul’s Epistle to -the Galatians_, ed. 1881, pp. 186-191, that I owe all the Pauline texts -and most of the considerations reproduced above. - -[44] Visions of Jahve’s glory: i, 1-28; iii, 22-27 xl, 1; xliv, 4. The -five other Ecstasies and Visions: viii, 1 foll.; xi, 1 foll.; xxiv, -1 foll.; xxxiii, 22; xxxvii, 1 foll. Second Sight: viii, 16; xi, 13; -xxiv, 1. Representative Actions: iv, 1-3, 7; iv, 4-6, 8; iv, 10; ix, -11-15; xii, 1-16; xii, 17-20; xxi, 11, 12; xxi, 23-32; xxiv, 1-14; -xxiv, 15-27; xxxiii, 22; xxxvii, 15-28. - -[45] The above translation and interpretation is based upon -Krätzschmar’s admirably psychological commentary, _Das Buch Ezechiel_, -Göttingen, 1900, pp. v, vi; 45, 49. But I think he is wrong in taking -that six months’ abnormal condition to have given rise, in Ezekiel’s -mind, to a belief in a previous divine order and to an interpretation -of this order. All the strictly analogical cases of religious ecstasy, -not hysteria, point to a strong mental impression, such as that order -and belief having preceded and occasioned the peculiar psycho-physical -state. - -[46] _Op. cit._ pp. 190_c_; 192_c_, 193_a_. - -[47] See Prof. W. James’s admirable account of these irruptions in his -_Varieties of Religious Experience_, 1902, pp. 231-237. - -[48] _Life_, written by Herself, pp. 190_b_; 196_b_; 224_c_; 295_c_; -413_b_. - -[49] _Vita_, passim; _Life_, ed. cit. pp. 40, 41; 408; 206. _Vita_, pp. -87_c_, 77_b_. - -[50] _Ascent of Mount Carmel_, ed. cit. pp. 159, 163; 264, 265, 102, -195; _Spiritual Canticle_, ed. cit. p. 238; _Ascent_, pp. 26, 27; -_Canticle_, pp. 206, 207. - -[51] Two Confessors of hers are mentioned by her, _Vita_, p. 352: -Fathers Henry of Mühlhausen, and Eberhard of the Friars Preachers. - -[52] _Analecta_, _loc. cit._ p. 310. - -[53] _Analecta_, pp. 311-313. - -[54] _Analecta_, pp. 314, 315. - -[55] _Vita_, _loc. cit._ pp. 317, 319. - -[56] _Vita_, pp. 319, 320. - -[57] _Ibid._, _loc. cit._ pp. 327, 334, 352. - -[58] _The Life of Father Hecker_, by the Rev. Walter Elliott, New York, -1894, pp. 371, 372, 418. - -[59] Robert Browning, in _Rabbi Ben Ezra_, viii; Matthew Arnold, in -_Culture and Anarchy_, 21; Prof. James Seth, in _A Study of Ethical -Principles_, 1894, pp. 260-262; and Prof. Percy Gardner, in _Oxford at -the Cross Roads_, 1903, pp. 12-14, have all admirably insisted upon -this most important point. - -[60] I owe much clearness of conception as to the function of -auto-suggestion and mono-ideism to the very remarkable paper of Prof. -Emil Boutroux, “La Psychologie du Mysticisme,” in the _Bulletin de -l’Institut Psychologique International_, Paris, 1902, pp. 9-26: Engl. -tr. in the _International Journal of Ethics_, Philadelphia, Jan. 1908. -There are also many most useful facts and reflections in Prof. Henri -Joly’s _Psychology of the Saints_, Engl. tr., 1898, pp. 64-117. - -[61] In Chapter XII, § iv, I shall show reason for strongly suspecting -that Catherine possessed some knowledge, probably derived from -an intermediate Christian source, of certain passages in Plato’s -Dialogues. But the influence of these passages can, in any case, only -be traced in her Purgatorial doctrine, and had better be discussed -together with this doctrine itself. - -[62] My chief obligations are here to Prof. H. J. Holtzmann’s _Lehrbuch -der Neutestamentlichen Theologie_, 1897, Vol. II, pp. 1-225: “Der -Paulinismus”; but I have also learnt from Estius and Dr. Lightfoot, and -from my own direct studies in St. Paul, Philo, and Plato. - -[63] _Symposium_, 216_e_. - -[64] 1 Cor. xv, 35-53. - -[65] E. Grafe, “Verhältniss der paulinischen Schriften zur Sapientia -Salomonis,” in _Theol. Abhandlungen Carl von Weizsäcker Gewidmet_, -1892, pp. 274-276. - -[66] “The love of Christ,” Rom. viii, 35, is identical with “the love -of God which is in Christ Jesus,” Rom. viii, 39. “The Spirit of God -dwelleth in you,” Rom. viii, 9; 1 Cor. iii, 16. “I live, not I: but -Christ dwelleth in me,” Gal. ii, 20. - -[67] H. J. Holtzmann, _op. cit._ Vol. II, p. 145. - -[68] Holtzmann, _op. cit._ Vol. II, pp. 151, 152. - -[69] My chief obligations are here again to Dr. H. J. Holtzmann’s -_Neutestamentliche Theologie_, 1897, Vol. II, pp. 354-390; 394-396; -399-401; 426-430; 447-466; 466-521. - -[70] I am much indebted to the thorough and convincing monograph of -the Catholic Priest and Professor Dr. Hugo Koch, _Pseudo-Dionysius -Areopagita in seinen Beziehungen sum Neo-Platonismus und -Mysterienwesen_, Mainz, 1900, for a fuller understanding of the -relations between Dionysius, Proclus, and Plotinus. I have also -found much help in H. F. Müller’s admirable German translation of -Plotinus, a translation greatly superior to Thomas Taylor’s English -or to Bouillet’s French translation. And I have greatly benefited by -the admirable study of Plotinus in Dr. Edward Caird’s _Evolution of -Theology in the Greek Philosophers_, 1904, Vol. II, pp. 210-346. - -[71] _The Divine Names_, iii, I; ix, 4: English translation by Parker, -1897, pp. 49, 50; 106. - -[72] _Institutio Theologica_, c. 35; c. 31. - -[73] _Enneads_, vi, ch. ix, 9. - -[74] _Divine Names_, iii, 1; ix, 4: Parker, pp. 27, 104. - -[75] _Enneads_, vi, ch. ix, 4. - -[76] _Divine Names_, viii, 7: Parker, pp. 98, 99. - -[77] _Vita_, pp. 47_c_, 48_a_. - -[78] _Divine Names_, iii, 1: Parker, pp. 27, 28. - -[79] _In Platonis Alcibiadem_, ii, 78 _seq._ - -[80] _Divine Names_, iv, 1; iv, 5: Parker, pp. 32, 33; 38. - -[81] _In Parmenidem_, iv, 34. _In Cratylum_, pp. 103; 107. - -[82] _Republic_, VI, 508_c_. _Theaetetus_, 153_c_. - -[83] _Heavenly Hierarchy_, xv, 2: Parker, pp. 56, 57. - -[84] _Divine Names_, xi, 1; iv, 2: Parker, pp. 113, 34. _Ad Magnesios_, -viii, 2. - -[85] _Mystic Theology_, iii: Parker, p. 135. - -[86] _Platonic Theology_, III, p. 132. - -[87] _Enneads_, v, ch. v, 8; vi, ch. ix, 11. - -[88] _Divine Names_, iv, 8-10: Parker, pp. 42-45. _In Parmenidem_, vi, -52 (see Koch, p. 152). - -[89] _Divine Names_, i, 1; vii, 3; vii, 1; Mystic Theology, 1; _Divine -Names_, vii, 3: Parker, pp. 2; 91, 92; 87; 130; 91, 92. - -[90] _Divine Names_, iv, 13: Parker, p. 48. - -[91] _Enneads_ vi, ch. ix, 9. - -[92] _Ibid._ vi, ch. ix, 8; ch. vi, 11. - -[93] Parker, p. 142. - -[94] _Enneads_, vi, ch. vii, 36; v, ch. iii, 17; v, ch. v, 7. - -[95] _Symposium_, 210 E. See the admirable elucidations in Rhode’s -_Psyche_, ed. 1898, Vol. I, p. 298; Vol. II, pp. 279; 283, 284. - -[96] _Divine Names_, i, 5: Parker, p. 8. - -[97] _Divine Names_, iv, 6; _Mystic Theology_, i, iii: Parker, pp. 39, -132. - -[98] _In Alcibiadem_, ii, 302. - -[99] _Mystic Theology_, iv, v; _Divine Names_ i, 1: Parker, pp. 136, -137; 1; _In Alcibiadem_, ii, 302. - -[100] _Heavenly Hierarchy_, ch. xv, s. 3: Parker, p. 60. - -[101] _In Alcibiadem_, iii, 75. - -[102] _Divine Names_, iii, 1: Parker, pp. 27, 28. _In Parmenidem_, iv, -68. - -[103] _Divine Names_, i, 5; _Ecclesiastical Hierarchy_, i, 2; _Divine -Names_, ix, 5: Parker, pp. 8, 69, 104. - -[104] _Institutio Theologica_, c. 129. - -[105] _Ecclesiastical Hierarchy_, iii, 3, 7: Parker, p. 97. - -[106] _Divine Names_, i, 6; viii, 3; 5: Parker, pp. 10, 95, 96. - -[107] _In Parmenidem_, iv, 34; v. - -[108] _Divine Names_ viii, 2; iv, 4; iv, 20: Parker, pp. 95, 84, 57. - -[109] _Laude de lo contemplativo et extatico B. F. Jacopone de lo -Ordine de lo Seraphico S. Francesco.…_ In Firenze, per Ser Francesco -Bonaccorsi, MCCCCLXXXX. Only the sheets are numbered; and two Lode -have, by mistake, been both numbered LVIII: I have indicated them by -LVIII_a_ and LVIII_b_ respectively. I have much felt the absence of any -monograph on the sources and character of Jacopone’s doctrine. - -[110] _Enneads_, vi, ch. ix, II. - -[111] _Rabbi Ben Ezra_, XXXI. - -[112] E. Caird, “St. Paul and the Idea of Evolution,” _Hibbert -Journal_, Vol. II, 1904, pp. 1-19. W. Dilthey has shown this by -implication, in his studies of Erasmus, Luther, and Zwingli: _Archiv -für Geschichte der Philosophie_, Vol. V, 1892, especially, pp. 381-385. - -[113] Mark i, 13, and parallels; Matt. xix, 10-12. - -[114] Mark vi, 8; Matt. x, 26-38; viii, 19-22; xiii, 30-32; xxxiv, 42, -and parallels. - -[115] Matt. vii, 13, 14; xviii, 1-5; xvi, 24-28. - -[116] Mark xiv, 38, and parallels. - -[117] Rom. vii, 24, 18. - -[118] 2 Cor. v, 1-4 = Wisd. of Sol. ix, 15. - -[119] See Erwin Rhode’s _Psyche_, ed. 1898, Vol. II, p. 101, n. 2. - -[120] I owe much help towards acquiring this very important conception, -and all the above similes, to Prof. Ernst Troeltsch’s admirable -exposition in his “Grundprobleme der Ethik,” _Zeitschrift f. Theologie -und Kirche_, 1902, pp. 163-178. - -[121] _St. Augustine_, ed. Ben., Vol. X, 590_b_, 613_a_, 1973_c_, etc. -St. Thomas, _Summa Theol._, suppl., qu. 62, art. 2. - -[122] My chief authorities throughout this section have been Bossuet’s -_Instruction sur les Etats d’Oraison_ of 1687, with the important -documents prefixed and appended to it (_Œuvres de Bossuet_, ed. -Versailles, 1817, Vol. XXVII); Fénelon’s chief apologetic works, -especially his _Instruction Pastorale_, his _Letteres en Réponse à -Divers Ecrits ou Mémoires_, his _Lettre sur l’Etat Passif_, and his two -Latin Letters to Pope Clement XI (_Œuvres de Fénelon_, ed. Versailles, -1820, Vols. IV, VI, VIII, and IX); and Abbé Gosselin’s admirably clear, -impartial, cautious, and authoritative _Analyse de la Controverse du -Quiétisme_. I have studied these works, and the condemned propositions -of the Beguards, of Molinos, and of Fénelon, very carefully, and -believe myself to have, in my text, taken up a position identical with -M. Gosselin’s. - -[123] F. C. S. Schiller, Essay “Activity and Substance,” pp. -204-227,--an admirably thorough piece of work, in _Humanism_, 1903. See -his p. 208. - -[124] See Heinrich Heppe, _Geschichte der Quietistischen Mystik_, -Berlin, 1875, p. 521. The obviously strong partisan bias of the author -against Rome,--of which more lower down,--does not destroy the great -value of the large collection of now, in many cases, most rare and -inaccessible documents given, often _in extenso_, in this interesting -book. - -[125] Heppe, _op. cit._ pp. 130-133. - -[126] There is a good article on Petrucci in the Catholic Freiburg -_Kirchenlexikon_, 2nd ed., 1895; and Heppe, in his _Geschichte_, -pp. 135-144, gives extracts from his chief book. Bossuet’s attack, -_Œuvres_, ed. 1817, Vol. XXIX. - -[127] Reusch, _Der Index der verbotenen Bücher_, 1885, Vol. II, pp. -611; 622, 623; 625. - -[128] Gosselin’s _Analyse, Œuvres de Fénelon_, ed. cit. Vol. IV, pp. -xci-xcv. - -[129] Fénelon, _Explication … des Propositions de Molinos_ (_Œuvres_, -Vol. IV, pp. 25-86). Gosselin, _Analyse_ (_ibid._ pp. ccxvi-ccxxiii). - -[130] _Œuvres de Fénelon_, Vol. VIII, pp. 6, 7. - -[131] Heppe, _op. cit._ p. 62. Reusch, _op. cit._ Vol. II, pp. 619, 620. - -[132] I write with these approbations before me, as reprinted in the -_Recueil de Diverses Pièces concernant le Quiétisme_, Amsterdam, 1688. - -[133] _Œuvres de Bossuet_, ed. 1817, Vol. XXVII, pp. 497-502. Heppe, -_op. cit._ pp. 27_g_ n.; 273-281. Denzinger, _Encheiridion_, ed. 1888, -pp. 266-274. - -[134] Reusch, _op. cit._ Vol. II, p. 618 _n._ 1. - -[135] See Heppe, p. 264, n. - -[136] _Recueil de Diverses Pièces_, pp. 61, 62. - -[137] _Varieties of Religious Experience_, 1902, pp. 209, 211. - -[138] _De Beatitudine_, c. 3, 3. - -[139] I have been much helped in my own direct studies of the sources -by W. Bousset’s _Die Religion des Judenthums im Neutestamentlichen -Zeitalter_, 1903; by H. J. Holtzmann’s _Neutestamentliche Theologie_, -1897; and A. Jülicher’s _Gleichnissreden Jesu_, Theil 2, 1899. - -[140] Bousset, pp. 395, 396. - -[141] Ch. xii, 8, 9; see too ch. ii, 2, 7. - -[142] Pirke Aboth, v, 23. - -[143] Matt. v, 12; vi, 4, 6, 18, 20; Mark x, 21; ix, 41; Luke x, 7. - -[144] Matt. v, 7; vi, 14; xviii, 32. - -[145] Matt. v, 5; Luke xiv, 8-11; Matt. x, 39. - -[146] Matt. v, 8. - -[147] Matt. x, 41, 42. - -[148] Matt. xix, 29; Mark x, 23; Luke vi, 38; Matt, xxii, 12; xxv, 21; -xxiv, 47; Luke xii, 37. - -[149] Interesting reasons and parallels for holding the Wedding Garment -to have been the gift of the King, in Bugge’s _Die Haupt-Parabeln -Jesu_, 1900, pp. 316, 317. - -[150] Jülicher, _op. cit._ p. 467. Bugge, _op. cit._ p. 277. - -[151] Matt. vi, 1, 2, 5, 16. - -[152] Matt. vi, 11; xx, 14; Luke xvii, 10; Matt. vi, 33; v, 48, 44, 45; -Luke vii, 47. It seems plain that the Parable of the Two Debtors, which -appears in this last passage, declares how pardon awakens love; and -that the sinful woman’s act and Our Lord’s direct comment on it, which -are now made to serve as that Parable’s frame, demonstrate how love -produces pardon. In my text I have been busy only with the second of -these twin truths. - -[153] Luke vi, 33, 34. - -[154] Rom. ii, 6; 2 Cor. v, 10. - -[155] 1 Cor. xv, 19, 32. - -[156] Gal. iii, 19; 2 Cor. iv, 16; xii, 9; Rom. viii, 31, 35, 37-39; -xiv, 8. - -[157] Ps. lxxiii (lxii), v. 25. I follow Duhm’s restoration of the text. - -[158] 1 Cor. xiii, 13; 8, 7. - -[159] _Œuvres_, ed. Versailles, 1820, Vols. IV to IX. - -[160] _Réponse: Œuvres_, Vol. IV, pp. 119-132; _Instruction: ibid._ pp. -181-308: _Lettre sur l’Oraison_, Vol. VIII, pp. 3-82; _Lettre sur la -Charité_, Vol IX, pp. 3-56; _Epistola II, ibid._ pp. 617-677. - -[161] _The Spiritual Letters of Fénelon_, London, 1892, Vol. I, pp. xi, -xii. - -[162] _Œuvres de Fénelon_, ed. 1820, Vol. IV, pp. lxxix-ccxxxiv. - -[163] _Summa Theologica_, II, ii, qu. 17, art. 8, in corp. - -[164] Comment in II, ii, qu. 23, art. 1. - -[165] _Summa_, II, ii, qu. 23, art. 6, concl., et in corp.; I, ii, qu. -28, art. 1, in corp., et ad 2. See also II, ii, qu. 17, art. 6, in -corp.; qu. 28, art. 1 ad 3; I, ii, qu. 28, art. 1, in corp., et ad 2. - -[166] In Libr. sent. II, dist. 30, qu. 1 ad 2. - -[167] _Summa Theol._, III, qu. 85, art. 2 ad 1; I, ii, qu. 114, art. 4, -in corp. In Libr. sent. III, dist. 30, art. 5. - -[168] Some of the finest descriptions of these profoundly organized -states common, in some degrees and forms, to all mankind, are to be -found in the tenth and eleventh books of St. Augustine’s _Confessions_, -A.D. 397, and in Henri Bergson’s _Essai sur les Données Immédiates de -la Conscience_, 1898. - -[169] _Stromata_, Book IV, ch. vi, 30, 1; ch. iv, 15, 6. - -[170] Proemium in _Reg. Fus. Tract._ n. 3, Vol. II, pp. 329, 330. - -[171] _Summa Theol._, II, ii, qu. 27, art. 3. - -[172] The obligation for all of acts of Pure Love is clearly taught -by the condemnations, passed by Popes Alexander VII and Innocent XI, -upon the opposite contention, in 1665 and 1679: “Homo nullo unquam -vitae suae tempore tenetur elicere actum Fidei, Spei et Charitatis, -ex vi praeceptorum divinorum ad eas virtutes pertinentium.” Note here -how “Charitas” necessarily means Pure Love, since Imperfect Love has -already been mentioned in “Spes.”--“Probabile est, ne singulis quidem -rigorose quinquenniis per se obligare praeceptum charitatis erga Deum. -Tune solum obligat, quando tenemur justificari et non habemus aliam -viam qua justificari possumus.” Here Pure Love is undoubtedly meant -by “Charitas,” since, outside of the use of the sacraments, Pure Love -alone justifies. - -[173] _The Problem of Conduct_, 1901, p. 329, n. - -[174] _Life, written by Herself_, ch. XXII, tr. by David Lewis, ed. -1888, pp. 162-174. - -[175] Deharbe, _op. cit._ pp. 139-179, has an admirable exposition and -proof of this point, backed up by conclusive experiences and analyses -of Saints and Schoolmen. - -[176] See Deharbe’s excellent remarks, _op. cit._ pp. 109, 110, n. - -[177] _Analyse_, _loc. cit._ pp. cxxii, cxxiii, _Lettre sur l’Oraison -Passive_, _Œuvres_, Vol. VIII, p. 47. - -[178] _Analyse_, p. cxxiii. - -[179] _Lettre sur l’Oraison Passive_, _Œuvres_, Vol. VIII, pp. 10; 18, -11, 12; 14, 15; 74. - -[180] _Tractatus Theologico-Politicus_, c. iv, opening of par. 4, -ed. Van Vloten et Land, 1895, Vol. II, p. 4; _ibid._ middle of par. -3, p. 3; _Ethica_, p. v, prop. xli, _ibid._ Vol. I, p. 264; _ibid._ -_Scholion_, p. 265; _ibid._ prop. xix, p. 251; _ibid._ prop. xx, p. -251; _ibid._ prop. xlii, p. 265; _ibid._ prop. xxxvi, p. 261. - -[181] _Die Philosophischen Schriften von Leibniz_, ed. Gebhardt, Vol. -VI, 1885, pp. 605, 606; and quotation in Gosselin’s _Analyse, Œuvres de -Fénelon_, 1820, Vol. IV, pp. clxxviii, clxxvii. - -[182] It is to Schweizer’s admirable monograph, _Die -Religions-Philosophie Kant’s_, 1899, pp. 4-70, that I owe my clear -apprehension of this very interesting doubleness in Kant’s outlook. - -[183] _Loc. cit._ pp. 611, 614, 615, 616. - -[184] Kant’s _Werke_, ed. Berlin Academy, Vol. IV, 1903, pp. 393, 394; -396. - -[185] Kant, 1904, p. 131. - -[186] _The Problem of Conduct_, pp. 336, 337; 329. - -[187] _Ibid._ p. 327. - -[188] See James Seth, _A Study of Ethical Principles_, 1894, pp. -193-236, where this position, denominated there “Eudaemonism,” is -contrasted with “Hedonism,” uniquely or at least predominantly occupied -with the act’s sensational materials or concomitances, and “Rigorism,” -with its one-sided insistence upon the rational form and end of action. - -[189] Taylor, _op. cit._ p. 901. - -[190] _Seconde Lettre à Monsieur de Paris, Œuvres_, Vol. V, pp. 268, -269. _Lettres de M. de Cambrai à un de ses Amis, ibid._, Vol. IV, p. -168. - -[191] Chantepie de la Saussaye, _Lehrbuch der Religions-Geschichte_, -ed. 1905, Vol. I, pp. 69, 73-83. - -[192] Chantepie de la Saussaye, _Lehrbuch der Religions-Geschichte_, -ed. 1887, Vol. I, pp. 248, 249. - -[193] _Ibid._ pp. 358, 373. - -[194] Oldenberg, _Buddha_, ed. 1897, pp. 310-328; especially 313, 314; -316, 317; 327, 328. - -[195] My chief authority here has been that astonishingly living and -many-sided book, Erwin Rhode’s _Psyche_, ed. 1898, especially Vol. II, -pp. 263-295 (Plato); Vol. I, pp. 14-90 (Homer); 91-110 (Hesiod); pp. -146-199 (the Heroes); pp. 279-319, and Vol. II, pp. 1-136 (Eleusinian -Mysteries, Dionysian Religion, the Orphics). The culminating interest -of this great work lies in this last treble section and in the Plato -part. - -[196] _Psyche_, Vol. I, pp. 308, 312. _New Chapters in Greek History_, -1892, pp. 333, 334. - -[197] See also the important study of the Abbé Touzard, _Le -Développement de la Doctrine de l’Immortalité, Revue Biblique_, 1898, -pp. 207-241. - -[198] Charles, _op. cit._ pp. 52, 53; 58; 61; 84; 124, 125; 126-132; -68-77. - -[199] B. Stade, _Biblische Theologie des Alten Testaments_, Vol. I, -1905, p. 184. - -[200] _L’Automatisme Psychologique_, ed. 1903, p. 5. - -[201] W. James, _The Principles of Psychology_, 1891, Vol. II, pp. -442-467. - -[202] See Prof. James Ward’s closely knit proof in his _Naturalism and -Agnosticism_, 2nd ed., 1905, and his striking address, “Mechanism and -Morals,” _Hibbert Journal_, October, 1905. - -[203] “The Desire for Immortality,” in _Humanism_ 1903, pp. 228-249. - -[204] _Op. cit._ Lib. XVIII, c. x, ed. 1559, fol. 3413. - -[205] Neither she nor her friends can have derived these doctrines -from Ficino’s _Theologia Platonica_, Florence, 1482, since precisely -the points in question are quite curiously absent from, or barely -recognizable in, that book. See its cc. x and xi, Book XVIII, on -“the State of the Impure Soul” and “the State of the Imperfect Soul” -respectively: ed. 1559, fol. 340, _v. seq._ See also foll. 318_r_, -319_v_. - -[206] _Phaedo_, 81_a_-82_a_. - -[207] _Laws_, X, 904_a-e_. - -[208] _Timaeus_, 41_d_, _e_; 42_b_, _d_, I have, for clearness’ sake, -turned Plato’s indirect sentences into direct ones; and have taken -the _Timaeus_ after the _Laws_, although it is chronologically prior -to them, because the full balance of his system, (which requires the -originally lofty “place” of each individual soul),--is, I think, -abandoned in the _Laws_: see 904_a_. - -[209] These four passages are all within pp. 110_b_-114_d_ of the -_Phaedo_. - -[210] _Gorgias_, pp. 525_b_, _c_; 526_c_, _d_. - -[211] _Ibid._ p. 523_b-e_. - -[212] 2 Cor. v, 2, 3.--_Vita_, pp. 109_b_, 66_a_, 171_a_. - -[213] _Republic_, X, pp. 617_e_, 619_e_, 920_e_. - -[214] _Phaedrus_, p. 249_b_. - -[215] _Enneads_, III, 4, 5. - -[216] Enarr. in Ps. xxxvi, § 1, n. 10, ed. Ben., col. 375_b_. See also -_Enchiridion_, CIX, _ibid._ col. 402_d_. - -[217] So in the _De Civitate Dei_, Lib. XXI, c. xxvi, n. 4, _ibid._ -col. 1037_d_. - -[218] _Confess._, Lib. I, c. 2, n. 1; X, c. 26; XIII, c. 7. - -[219] _De Genesi ad litt._, Lib. VIII, n. 39, ed. Ben. col. 387_b_; n. -43, col. 389_a_. - -[220] _Ibid._ Lib. XII, n. 32, col. 507_c_. He soon after attempts -to decide in favour of “incorporeal places,” as the other-world -destination of all classes of human souls. - -[221] Esra IV, iv, 35. See also iv, 41; vii, 32, 80, 95, 101. -Apocalypse of Baruch, xxx, 2. - -[222] _Summa Theol._ suppl., qu. 69, art. 1, in corp. et ad 3; art. 6, -in corp.; Appendix de Purgat., art. 2, in corp.; suppl., qu. 69, art 7 -concl. - -[223] _De gratia primi hominis_, XIV. - -[224] Clemens, _Stromata_, VII, 6. Origen, _De Princ._, II, 10, 4. St. -Greg. Nyss., _Orat._, XL, 36. St. Greg. Nazianz., _Poema de Seipso_, I, -546. St. Joann. Damasc., _De Fide Orthod._, cap. ult. - -[225] St. Ambros., _In Lucam_, VII, 205. St. Hieron., Ep. 124, 7; -_Apol. contra Ruf._, II; in Isa. lxv, 24. - -[226] _Liber de Fide_ (413 A.D.), 27, 29; ed. Ben., coll. 313_b_, -314_c_. _De octo Dulcit. quaestm_ (422 A.D.) 12, 13; _ibid._ coll. -219_d_, 220_a_. Repeated in _Enchiridion_ (423 A.D.?), LXIX; _ibid._ -col. 382_b_, _c_. - -[227] _De Purgatorio_, II, 11. - -[228] Denzinger, _Enchiridion_, ed. 1888, No. LXXIII. - -[229] _Theol. Dogm._, Vol. II, num. 206. - -[230] _Œuvres_, ed. Versailles, 1816, Vol. XI, p. 376. - -[231] _Le feu du Purgatoire est-il un feu corporel? op. cit._, 1902, -pp. 263-282; 270. I owe most of my references on this point to this -paper. - -[232] _Sixteen Revelations of Mother Juliana of Norwich_, 1373, ed. -1902, pp. 73, 74, 78. - -[233] _Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life_, 1899, pp. -63, 64. - -[234] _Divine Names_, ch. iv, secs, xxiii, xxiv: Parker, pp. 61-64. - -[235] _Vita_, pp. 173_b_; 33_b_. - -[236] _Summa Theol._, suppl., qu. 69, art. 7 ad 9. - -[237] Dionysius, _Divine Names_, ch. iv, sec. xxiii: Parker, p. 63. St. -Thomas, _Summa Theol._, suppl., qu. 98, art. 1, in corp. - -[238] _Enchiridion_, CX, ed. Ben., col. 403_c_; CXII, col. 404_c_. - -[239] The passages here referred to will be found carefully quoted and -discussed in Petavius’s great _Dogmata Theologica, De Angelis_, III, -viii, 16, 17, with Zaccaria’s important note (ed. Fournials, 1866, Vol. -IV, pp. 119-121). - -[240] _Dogmata Theologica_, Vol. IV, p. 120_b_. See also the -interesting note in the Benedictine Edition of _St. Augustine_, Vol. -VI, col. 403. - -[241] _Vie de M. Emery_, by M. Gosselin, Paris, 1862, Vol. II, pp. -322-324. - -[242] _Vita_ (_Trattato_), p. 173_b_. - -[243] So Atzberger, in Scheeben’s _Dogmatik_, Vol. IV (1903), p. 826. - -[244] _Enigmas of Life_, ed. 1892, p. 255. - -[245] _Divine Names_, ch. iv, secs. 23, 24: Parker, pp, 70, 71. - -[246] 2 Cor. iv, 16. - -[247] See H. J. Holtzmann, Richard Rothe’s _Speculatives System_, 1899, -pp. 110, 111; 123, 124;--Georg Class, _Phänomenologie und Ontologie des -Menschlichen Geistes_, 1896, pp. 220, 221;--and that strange mixture of -stimulating thought, deep earnestness, and fantastic prejudice, Edward -White’s _Life of Christ_, ed. 1876. - -[248] _Grammar of Assent_, 1870, p. 417. _Hard Sayings_, 1898, p. 113. - -[249] G. E. Lessing, “Leibniz von den Ewigen Strafen,” in Lessing’s -_Sämmtliche Werke_, ed. Lachmann-Muncker, 1895, Vol. XI, p. 486. D. F. -Strauss, _Die christliche Glaubenslehre_, 1841, Vol. II, pp. 684, 685. -Carl von Hase, _Handbuch der protestantischen Polemik_, ed. 1864, p. -422. G. T. Fechner, _Die drei Gründe und Motive des Glaubens_, 1863, -pp. 146, 147, 177. G. Anrich, “Clemens und Origenes, als Begründer -der Lehre vom Fegfeuer,” in _Theologische Abhandlungen für H. J. -Holtzmann_, 1902, p. 120. - -[250] W. R. Greg, _Enigmas of Life_, ed. 1892, pp. 256, 257, 259. J. S. -Mill, _Three Essays on Religion_, ed. 1874, p. 211. - -[251] Sess. XXV, Decret. de Purgatorio, med. - -[252] N. Paulus, _Johann Tetzel_ 1899. Brieger’s review, _Theologische -Literatur-Zeitung_, 1900, coll. 117, 118. - -[253] 1 Cor. xv, 29. - -[254] _De Corona_, III, IV. See M. Salomon Reinach’s interesting -paper, “l’Origine des Prières pour les Morts,” in _Cultes, Mythes, et -Religions_, 1905, pp. 316-331. - -[255] W. Bacher, _Die Agada der palästinensischen Amoräer_, Vol. I, -1892, p. 331. - -[256] _Strom._, VII, 26 (Migne, _Ser. Graec_, Vol. IX, col. 541); I, 26 -(_ibid._ Vol. VIII, col. 916); VII, 26 (_ibid._ Vol. IX, col. 540). - -[257] _De Princ._, II, 10, 6. _De Orat._, XXIX, p. 263. - -[258] _Paedag._, I, 8, p. 51; and Plato, _Gorgias_, p. 477_a_. - -[259] I owe here almost everything to the truly classical account in -Rhode’s _Psyche_, ed. 1898, Vol. II, pp. 1-136. - -[260] _Republic_ II, p. 364_b_, _c_, _e_. - -[261] I take these passages from Anrich’s _Clemens und Origenes, op. -cit._ p. 102, n. 5. - -[262] Clemens, _Strom._, V, 3, p. 236. Origen, _Contra Cels._, VII, 13. -Clemens, _Strom._, IV, 24. Origen, _Contra Cels._, IV, 13. - -[263] Dionysius, _Divine Names_, ch. iv, sec. 24: Parker, p. 64. St. -Thomas, _Summa Theol._ I, ii, qu. 86, art. 1 ad 3 et concl. - -[264] _Treatise on Purgatory_, by St. Catherine of Genoa, ed. 1880, p. -31. - -[265] Plato, _Cratylus_, p. 400_c_. _Republic_, II, p. 364_e_. -Euripides, _Orestes_ XXX, _seq._, with Schol. Rhode, _op. cit._ Vol. -II, p. 101, n. 2. - -[266] _Natur. quaest._ III, 28, 7; 30, 7, 8. - -[267] Disp. XI, Sec. iv, art. 2, §§ 13, 10; Disp. XLVII, Sec. i, art 6. - -[268] Scheeben’s _Dogmatik_ Vol. IV, 1903, pp. 856 (No. 93), 723. - -[269] See Abbé Boudhinon’s careful article, “Sur l’Histoire des -Indulgences,” _Revue d’Histoire et de Littérature Religieuses_, 1898, -pp. 435-455, for a vivid illustration of the necessity of explaining -the details of this doctrine and practice by history of the most -patient kind. - -[270] Denzinger, _Enchiridion_, ed. 1888, Nos. 387, 588, 859. - -[271] Denzinger, _ibid._, Hurter, _op. cit._ ed. 1893, Vol. III, p. 591. - -[272] Denzinger, Nos. 778, 951. - -[273] Cardinal Manning in _Treatise_, ed. cit. p. 31. - -[274] _Op. cit._ pp. 119, 120: “The Purgatory of the Catholic Church, -in strictness, bears its name without warrant.” - -[275] _Cat._, cc. viii, 35. - -[276] _De octo Dulcitii quaest._ 12, 13. - -[277] _Summa Theol._, app., qu. 2, art. 4, in corp. et ad 4. - -[278] _Divina Commedia_, Purg. II, 40-42. See Faber, _All for Jesus_, -ed. 1889, p. 361. - -[279] _De Purgatorio_, Lib. I, c. iv, 6; c. xiv, 22. - -[280] _Les Controverses_, Pt. III, ch. ii, art. 1 (end); _Œuvres_, -Annecy, 1892 _seq._, Vol. I, p. 365. - -[281] Faber’s _All for Jesus_, 1853, ch. ix, sec. 4; Cardinal Manning’s -Appendix (B) to Engl. tr. of St. Catherine’s _Treatise on Purgatory_, -1858; Cardinal Newman’s _Dream of Gerontius_, 1865. - -[282] _In Rom._, Tom. II, i, p. 477. - -[283] _Richard Rothe’s Spekulatives System_, 1899, pp. 123, 124. - -[284] _Richard Rothe’s Spekulatives System_, 1899, pp. 69; 74, 75. - -[285] St. Augustine, _Confessions_, Lib. XI, ch. xxvii, 3; ch. xx; ch. -xi. _De Trinit._, Lib. XV, ch. 16, ed. Ben., col. 1492 D.--St. Thomas, -_Summa Theol._, I, qu. 12, art. 10, in corp. - -[286] I am here but giving an abstract of Mr. F. C. S. Schiller’s -admirable essay, “Activity and Substance,” pp. 204-227 of his -_Humanism_, 1903, where all the Aristotelian passages are carefully -quoted and discussed. He is surely right in translating ἠρεμία by -“constancy,” not by “rest.” - -[287] _Summa Theol._, I, qu. 4, art. 1, concl. qu. 25, art. 1 ad 2 et -concl. - -[288] Matt. xxii, 32. - -[289] _Metaphysic_, xii, 1072_b_, 1074_b_. - -[290] E. Caird, _Evolution of Theology in the Greek Philosophers_, 1904 -Vol. II, pp. 12, 16. See here, too, the fine discussion of the other, -rightly immanental as well as transcendental, teaching of Aristotle, -pp. 15, 21. - -[291] _Summa Theol._, I, ii, qu. 3, art. 2 ad 4; art. 4, concl. - -[292] _Ibid._ I, qu. 14, art. 4, in corp.; qu. 19, art. I, concl.; qu. -20, art. I, concl. - -[293] _Summa Theol._, I, qu. 14, art. 11, 3; qu. 14, art. 2, ad 2; I, -ii, qu. 3, art. 2 ad 4. - -[294] _Ibid._ I, qu. 12, art. 8 ad 4; I, ii, qu. 4, art. 8 ad 3. - -[295] _Ibid._ I, qu. 14, art. 8, in corp.; art. 11, contra et concl.; -art. 8, concl.; art. 11, concl.--_Contra Gent._, Lib. III, c. xxi, in -fine. - -[296] _Summa Theol._, II, ii, qu. 3, art. 4, 4; I, qu. 19, art. 2, in -corp.; qu. 20, art. 1 ad 1; ad 3; art. 2 ad 1. - -[297] Mark xii, 28-34 and parallels; Matt, x, 29; Luke xii, 6; Matt, -xxv, 10; Mark xiv, 25 and parallels, and elsewhere; Apoc. vii, 9. - -[298] Matt. xviii, 12-14; Luke xv, 1-10; John x, 11-16 (Ezekiel xxxiv, -12-19). - -[299] _Summa Theol._, I, qu. 47, art. 1, in corp. - -[300] _Summa Theol._, I, qu. 29, art. 3 ad 4; ad 2; in corp. _Contra -Gent._, Lib. II, c. xciv, init.; c. xciii. - -[301] _Excitationum_, Lib. VIII, 604. - -[302] _The World and the Individual_, Vol. II, p. 430. - -[303] G. E. Lessing: _Leibniz von den Ewigen Strafen, Werke_, ed. -Lachmann-Muncker, Vol. XI, 1895, p. 482. E. Troeltsch, _Theologische -Rundschau_, 1893, p. 72. - -[304] _Summa Theol._, I, qu. 12, art. 1, in corp.; art. 7, in corp.; -art. 6 ad 1. - -[305] “A Spiritual Canticle,” stanza vii, 10, in _Works_, transl. by D. -Lewis, ed. 1891, pp. 206, 207. - -[306] _Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft_, Werke, ed. -Hartenstein, 1868, Vol. VI, pp. 252, 274. - -[307] _Kant_, 1904, pp. 129-132. - -[308] _Das Historische in Kant’s Religions-philosophie, Kant-Studien_, -1904, pp. 43, 44. - -[309] “Das Heilige,” in _Präludien_, 1903, pp. 356, 357. - -[310] _Elements of the Science of Religion_, 1897, Vol. I, pp. 274, -275; Vol. II, p. 23. - -[311] _Der Verkehr des Christen mit Gott_, ed. 1892, p. 281. - -[312] _Der Verkehr des Christen mit Gott_, ed. 1892, pp. 27, 28; 230, -231; 262; 23. - -[313] E. Caird, _Development of Theology in the Greek Philosophers_, -Vol. I, pp, 367, 362. The whole chapter, “Does the Primacy belong to -Reason or to Will?” pp. 350-382, is admirable in its richness and -balance. - -[314] _Verkehr des Christen_, pp. 15, 16. - -[315] I. Kant, “Anthropologie,” in _Werke_, ed. Berlin Academy, -Vol. VII, 1907, pp. 135, 136. G. W. Leibniz, “Nouveaux Essais sur -l’Entendement,” in _Die philosophischen Schriften von G. W. L._,” ed. -Gerhardt, Vol. V, 1882, pp. 8, 10; 45, 69, 100, 121, 122. - -[316] All this first clearly formulated by Leibniz, _op. cit._ pp. 121, -122. - -[317] See his _Varieties of Religious Experience_, 1902, pp. 209-211; -242, 243; and elsewhere. - -[318] _The Prophets of Israel_, 1882, pp. 11, 12; 10, 11. - -[319] _Lex Orandi_, 1903, pp. xxix, xxxi. - -[320] M. Jastrow, _The Study of Religion_, 1901, pp. 279-286. C. P. -Tiele, _Elements of the Science of Religion_, 1897, Vol. II, pp. -227-234; L. W. E. Rauwenhoff, _Religions-philosophie_, Germ. tr., ed. -1894, pp. 109-124. R. Eucken, _Der Wahrheitsgehalt der Religion_, 1901, -pp. 59-238; 303-399. There are important points in pp. 425-438, which I -do not accept. - -[321] _Rothe’s Spekulatives System_, 1899, pp. 25, 26. - -[322] _Elements of the Science of Religion_, 1897, Vol. II, pp. 61, 62. - -[323] _Der Kampf um einen geistigen Lebensinhalt_, 1896, p. 309. - -[324] _The Evolution of Religion_, 1893, Vol. II, p. 313. - -[325] “Grundprobleme der Ethik,” in _Zeitschrift für Theologie und -Kirche_, 1902, pp. 164; 166, 167; 172. - -[326] _Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung_, I, Anhang, p. 653. - -[327] A. E. Taylor’s _The Problem of Conduct_, 1901, contains, pp. -469-487, a very vigorous and suggestive study of the similarities and -differences between Morality and Religion, marred though it is by -paradox and impatience. - -[328] J. Volkelt, _Immanuel Kant’s Erkenntnisstheorie_, 1879, pp. 258, -259. - -[329] _Ibid._ pp. 206, 208, 209. - -[330] J. Volkelt, _Immanuel Kant’s Erkenntnisstheorie_, 1879, p. 244. - -[331] James Ward, “Present Problems of Psychology,” in (American) -_Philosophical Review_, 1904, p. 607. J. Volkelt, _Kant’s -Erkenntnisstheorie_, p. 241. - -[332] In a Letter of 1772, _Briefe_, ed. Berlin Academy, Vol. I, 1900, -p. 126. - -[333] H. Jones, _A Critical Account of the Philosophy of Lotze_, 1895, -pp. 102-104; 106, 107; 108, 111. - -[334] _The Present Problems_, pp. 606, 607. - -[335] J. Volkelt, _Erfahrung und Denken_, 1886, p. 485. - -[336] James Ward, “On the Definition of Psychology,” in _Journal of -Psychology_, Vol. I, 1904, p. 25. - -[337] There is a good description of this doctrine in H. Höffding’s -_Sören Kierkegaard_, Stuttgart, 1896, pp. 100-104. - -[338] Höffding’s _Kierkegaard_, pp. 119, 120. - -[339] _Ibid._ p. 123. - -[340] See _Works_, ed. London, 1898, Vol. II, pp. 299-306. - -[341] _Quaestio Mystica_, at the end of the notes to Chapter V of -Dionysius’s _Mystical Theology_, ed. Migne, 1889, Vol. I, pp. 1050-1058. - -[342] _In Librum Boetii de Trinitate_, in D. Thomae Aquinatis _Opera_, -ed. altera Veneta, Vol. VIII, 1776, pp. 341_b_, 342_a_; 291_a_. - -[343] _Mystical Theology_, Dr. Parker, pp. 135, 136. I have somewhat -modified Parker’s rendering. - -[344] _Religions-philosophie_, German tr. ed. 1894, p. 116. His scheme -finds three psychological forms and constituents in all religion, -Intellectualism, Mysticism, Moralism, each with its own advantages and -dangers. - -[345] _Confessions_: “Evil, Negative,” VII, 12, etc. “Evil, Positive,” -VI, 15; VIII, 5, 11, etc. - -[346] _Opus Imperfectum_, III, 56, ed. Ben., Vol. X, col. 1750_b_. -_De Nuptiis et Concupiscentia_, I, 23, _ibid._ col. 625_a_.--M. L. -Grandgeorge, in his memoir _St. Augustin et le Neo-Platonisme_, -1896, gives an interesting collection of such Negative and Positive -declarations, and traces the former to their precise sources in -Plotinus, pp. 126, 127; 130, 131. - -[347] _Divine Names_, ch. iv, sec. xxiv. - -[348] _Summa Theol._, I, ii, qu. 86, art. 1 ad 3. - -[349] _Vita_, pp. 39_b_, 116_b_. - -[350] _Sixteen Revelations_, ed. 1902, pp. 69, 70. - -[351] Meister Ekhart’s “Lateinische Schriften,” published by Denifle, -_Archiv f. Litteratur u. Kirchengeschichte des M. A._, 1886, p. 662. - -[352] _Ethica_, II, def. vi; IV, prop. lxiv et coroll.; ed. Van Vloten -et Land, 1895, Vol. I, pp. 73, 225. - -[353] _Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten_, 1785, _Werke_, ed. -Berlin Academy, Vol. IV, 1903, p. 393. _Religion innerhalb der Grenzen -der reinen Vernunft_, 1793, _Werke_, ed. Hartenstein, Vol. VI, 1868, -pp. 127, 128. - -[354] _The Origin and Propagation of Sin_, 1902, p. 125. - -[355] _Wahrheitsgehalt der Religion_, 1901, pp. 271, 272. - -[356] Prof. Höffding, in his _Sören Kierkegaard_, pp. 130, 131. - -[357] “Le Dogme du Pêché Originel dans S. Augustin,” _Revue d’Histoire -et de Littérature Religieuses_, 1901, 1902. See too F. R. Tennant, _The -Sources of the Doctrine of the Fall and Original Sin_, 1903, which, -however, descends only to St. Ambrose inclusively. - -[358] So F. R. Tennant, _The Origin and Propagation of Sin_, 1902, pp. -131, 110. - -[359] F. R. Tennant, _The Origin and Propagation of Sin_, 1902, pp. 82, -95; 107, 108; 115. - -[360] _Ibid._ p. 83. - -[361] _Ibid._ p. 153. - -[362] _Summa Theol._, II, ii, qu. 24, art. 7, in corp. - -[363] _Psychology and Life_, 1899, pp. 267, 268. _Grundzüge der -Psychologie_, Vol. I, 1900, pp. 170, 171. - -[364] Mr. W. R. Inge, in his useful _Christian Mysticism_, 1899, has -some sharp expressions of disgust against these long-lived survivals -within the Catholic Church. And though his own tone towards Rome in -general belongs also, surely, to a more or less barbaric past, he has -done good service in drawing forcible attention to the matter. - -[365] _Sixteen Revelations_, ed. 1902, pp. 23, 84, 101. - -[366] _Ascent of Mount Carmel_, tr. Lewis, 1891, pp. 159; 26, 27; 195, -265. - -[367] _Confessions_, Bk. XI, ch. xxiii, 1. Tract in Joann. Ev., VIII, -1; XXIV, 1: ed. Ben., Vol. III, 2, coll. 1770 _b_, 1958 _d_. - -[368] _Sixteen Revelations_, ed. cit. p. 210. - -[369] J. N. Grou, _Méditations sur l’Amour de Dieu_, Nouvelle ed. -Perisse, pp. 268, 271. - -[370] L. Laberthonnière, _Annales de Philosophie Chrétienne_, 1905, -1906. G. Tyrrell, _Hard Sayings_, 1898; _External Religion_, 1902. A. -Sandreau, _La Vie d’Union à Dieu_, 1900; _L’Etat Mystique_, 1903. - -[371] M. D. Petre, _The Soul’s Orbit_, 1904, p. 113. - -[372] _Göttinger Gelehrte Anzeigen_, 1901, p. 757. - -[373] Zeller, _Philosophie der Griechen_, II, 2, ed. 1879, pp. 309, 312. - -[374] _Ibid._ p. 348. - -[375] Republic, VI, 508_e_; VII, 517_b_; and Zeller, _ibid._ II, 1, ed. -1889, pp. 707-710. - -[376] _Philebus_, 22_c_; _Timaeus_, 28_a_, _c_; 29_e_, 92_c_ (with the -reading ὅδε ὁ κόσμος … εἰκὼν τοῦ ποιητοῦ). - -[377] _Timaeus_, 29_e_. - -[378] _Enneads_, I, vii, 1, 61_d_; I, viii, 2, 72_e_; VI, viii, 16, -end. See, for all this, Zeller, _Philosophie der Griechen_, III, ii, -ed. 1881, pp. 476-480; 483; 510-414. - -[379] _Enneads_, VIII. ix, 350_b_; VI, 2317, 610_d_; III, ix, 3, 358_a, -b_. - -[380] Zeller, _op. cit._ III, ii, pp. 787-789. - -[381] _Divine Names_, ch. v, sec. 1: tr. Parker, pp. 73-75. - -[382] _Mystical Theology_, ch. iii: Parker, pp. 135, 136. - -[383] _Mystical Theology_, ch. iv, sec. 2: Parker, pp. 136, 137. - -[384] _De Divisione Naturae_, III, 17; I, 78. Ueberweg-Heinze, -_Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie_, Vol. II, ed. 1898, p. 159. - -[385] Secs. 2, 4, ed. Bardenhewer, 1882, pp. 163-166. - -[386] Commentarius, in _Aristotelis Metaphysica_, Tract. VIII, cap. 6, -quoted by Denifle, _Archiv f. Litteratur-u-Kirchengeschichte_, 1886, p. -520. - -[387] Ibn Gebirol, _Fons Vitae_, ed. Bäumker, 1895: IV, 6, pp. 225, -224; V, 22, p. 298; II, 20, pp. 60-61; V, 24, p. 301. - -[388] _De Ente et Essentia_, c. vi. _Summa Theol._, I, qu. 3, art. 4 ad -1; and elsewhere. - -[389] _De Ente et Essentia_, c. ii. - -[390] See Ueberweg-Heinze, _op. cit._ pp. 280, 281. - -[391] _De rerum Principio_, qu. viii. Ueberweg-Heinze, _op. cit._ pp. -295, 296. - -[392] H. S. Denifle, _Meister Eckhart’s Lateinische Schriften_, _loc. -cit._ pp. 489, 490; 540, n. 6. - -[393] _Ibid._ p. 519. - -[394] _Meister Eckhart_, ed. Pfeiffer, 1857, pp. 158, 1; 99, 8; 180, -15; 532, 30; 320, 27; 288, 26; 207, 27. - -[395] Denzinger, _Enchiridion Symbolorum_, ed. 1888, Nos. 437, 455. - -[396] _Hegelianism and Personality_, ed. 1893, pp. 230, 231, and note. - -[397] _Phaedrus_, 245 d; Zeller, _op. cit._ II, 1, ed. 1889, p. 830. - -[398] _Ibid._ pp. 843, 844; 849, 850. - -[399] Pre-existence of the Noûs: _Gen. Anim._, II, 3, 736_b_; _de -Anima_, III, 5, 430_a_; Zeller, _op. cit._ II, 2, ed. 1879, pp. 593, -595. The Supreme Noûs, purely transcendent: _Metaph._, XII, 7-10. But -see Dr. Edward Caird’s admirable pp. 1-30, Vol. II, of his _Evolution -of Theology in the Greek Philosophers_, 1904. - -[400] Rom. viii, 11. See too Rom. viii, 9, 14; 1 Cor. iii, 16; vi, 11; -vii, 40; xii, 3. - -[401] H. J. Holtzmann, _Lehrbuch der N. T. Theology_, 1897, Vol. II, -pp. 9-12; 15-18. - -[402] H. J. Holtzmann, _op. cit._ Vol. II, pp. 79, 80. Johannes Weiss, -_Dic Nachfolge Christi_, 1895, p. 95. - -[403] Col. iii, 4; Phil. i, 21; Gal. ii, 20. - -[404] _Enneads_, V, book 1, cc. 3 and 6. - -[405] _Ibid._ VI, book 9, 9 and 11. - -[406] _Eckhart_, ed. Pfeiffer, pp. 113, 33; 469, 40, 36. - -[407] Denzinger, _op. cit._ No. 454. - -[408] _Vier Schriften von Johannes Ruysbroek_, ed. Ullmann, 1848, pp. -106, 107. - -[409] _Life, written by Herself_, tr. D. Lewis, ed. 1888, pp. 124, 421, -146. - -[410] _Life, written by Herself_, tr. D. Lewis, ed. 1888, pp. 355, 130, -430; 174. - -[411] J. B. Schwab, _Johannes Gerson_, 1858, pp. 361, 362. - -[412] I can find but one, secondary Ecclesiastical Censure of the -doctrine of God’s substantial presence in the soul,--the censure passed -by the Paris Sorbonne on Peter Lombard. The same Sorbonne repeatedly -censured St. Thomas on other points. - -[413] Vol. II, pp. 210, 211. - -[414] _Ibid._ pp. 230, 231. - -[415] _Ibid._ p. 231. - -[416] _Ibid._ pp. 253-257. _Enneads_, V, book ii, i. - -[417] Vol. II, pp. 232, 233. - -[418] “Religions-philosophie,” in _Die Philosophie im Beginn des -zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts_, 1904, Vol. I, pp. 115, 117. - -[419] _Religions-philosophie_, Germ. tr., ed. 1894, p. 140. - -[420] “Martineau’s Philosophy,” _Hibbert Journal_, Vol. I, 1902, pp. -458, 457. - -[421] _Der Verkehr des Christen mit Gott_, ed. 1892, pp. 27, 15, 28, -231. - -[422] _Der Verkehr des Christen mit Gott_, ed. 1892, pp. 20; 19-25. - -[423] _Timaeus_, 29_e_, _seq._ - -[424] _Metaph._, VII, 1072_b_; IX, 1074_b_. - -[425] See Caird, _op. cit._ II, p. 337. - -[426] _Summa Theol._, I, qu. 13, art. 5, concl. et in corp. (See the -interesting note, “The Meaning of Analogy,” in Fr. Tyrrell’s _Lex -Orandi_, 1903, pp. 80-83.) _In Librum Boetii de Trinitate_: D. Thomae -Aquinatis _Opera_, ed. Veneta Altera, 1776, p. 341_b_, 342_a_. - -[427] _Summa Theol._, I, qu. 8, art. 2; qu. 12, art. 1, in corp. - -[428] For Leibniz, see especially his _Nouveaux Essais_, written in -1701-1709, but not published till 1765: _Die Philosophischen Schriften -van G. W. Leibniz_, ed. Gebhardt, Vol. V, 1882, especially pp. 45; 67; -69; 121, 122. For the date 1888, see W. James’s _Varieties of Religious -Experience_, 1902, p. 233. - -[429] _Autobiography_, ed. 1875, pp. 133, 134. - -[430] “Die Selbständigkeit der Religion”: _Zeitschrift f. Theologie u. -Kirche_, 1895, pp. 404, 405. - -[431] _Elements of the Science of Religion_, 1897, Vol. II, pp. 227-231. - -[432] _Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung_, ed. Griesbach, Vol. II, pp. -725, 734, 736. - -[433] _The Varieties of Religious Experience_, 1902, pp. 362, 364. - -[434] _Ascent of Mount Carmel_, tr. David Lewis, ed. 1889, pp. 94, 95, -97. - -[435] _Ascent_, pp. 94; 350. - -[436] _Ascent_, p. 353. - -[437] _Sören Kierkegaard_, von Harald Höffding, Germ. tr. 1896, pp. -116, 118, 120. - -[438] _Ibid._ pp. 122; 130, 131. - -[439] _Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte_, ed. 1888, Vol. II, pp. 413, 414; -417. - -[440] _Das Wesen des Christenthums_, ed. 1902, pp. 180, 181. - -[441] Höffding’s _Kierkegaard_, p. 119. - -[442] _The Faith of the Million_, 1901, Vol. II, pp. 49, 50; 52, 53. - -[443] _Works_, tr. David Lewis, ed. 1889, 1891, Vol. I, p. 308; Vol. -II, p. 541. - -[444] _Op. cit._ p. 53. - -[445] _Ibid._ pp. 55, 56. - -[446] _Psyche_, ed. 1898, Vol. II, pp. 292, 293. - -[447] “Grundprobleme der Ethik”: _Zeitschrift für Theologie und -Kirche_, 1902, pp. 164, 167. - -[448] “Was heisst Wesen des Christenthums?” _Christliche Welt_, -1903, I, coll. 583, 584. The Abbé Loisy has also dwelt, with rare -impressiveness, upon the intensely Other-Worldly character of the first -Christian teaching. - -[449] _Deutsche Mystiker des Mittelalters_, ed. Pfeiffer, Vol. I, -1845, pp. xli, xlii. Any Life of St. Jane F. de Chantal. A. Cadrès, -_Le P. Jean N. Grou_, 1866, pp. 13, 14. St. Teresa’s _Life, written by -Herself_, tr. David Lewis, ed. 1888, pp. 176, 177; 186. _Revelations of -Divine Love, showed to Mother Juliana of Norwich_, ed. 1902, p. 4. - -[450] A. Gardner, “Confession and Direction,” in _The Conflict of -Duties_, 1903, pp. 223-229. P. Gardner, in _The Liberal Churchman_, -1905, p. 266. - -[451] _Psyche_, ed. 1898, Vol. II, p. 289. - -[452] “Christianity and Physical Science” (1855), in _Idea of a -University_, ed. 1873, pp. 432, 433. “University Teaching” (1852), -_ibid._ p. 222. See Mr. R. E. Froude’s interesting paper, “Scientific -Speculation and the Unity of Truth,” _Dublin Review_, Oct. 1900, pp. -353-368. - -[453] W. Windelband, _Geschichte und Naturwissenschaft_, 1894. H. -Rickert, _Kulturwissenschaft und Naturwissenschaft_, 1899. And, -above all, H. Rickert, _Die Grenzen der Naturwissenschaftlichen -Begriffsbildung_, 1902. - -[454] _Schopenhauer_, 1900, pp. 344, 345. - -[455] _Wie ist der Kampf um die Bedeutung … Jesu zu beendigen?_ 1901, -p. 9. - -[456] _Wie ist der Kampf um die Bedeutung … Jesu zu beendigen?_ 1901, -p. 10. - -[457] _Ibid._ pp. 10, 11. - -[458] _Ibid._ pp. 26, 27. - -[459] “Ueber den letzten Unterschied der philosophischen Systeme,” -1847, in _Beiträge zur Philosophie_, 1855, Vol. II, p. 10. - -[460] See the admirably lucid analysis in Prof. Troeltsch’s -“Religions-philosophie,” in _Die Philosophie im Beginn des zwanzigsten -Jahrhunderts_, 1904, Vol. I, p. 116, already referred to further back. - -[461] _Richard Rothe’s Spekulatives System_, 1899, pp. 205, 206. - - -_Richard Clay & Sons, Limited, London and Bungay._ - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Mystical Element of Religion, as -studied in Saint Catherine of Genoa , by Baron Friedrich von Hügel - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MYSTICAL ELEMENT OF RELIGION, VOL 2 *** - -***** This file should be named 50206-0.txt or 50206-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/0/2/0/50206/ - -Produced by Julie Barkley and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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