Thus they arrive at that eternal image after which they were created, and contemplate G.o.d and all things without distinction, in a simple beholding, in Divine glory. This is the loftiest and most profitable contemplation to which men attain in this life." Tauler, in his sermon for the Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity, says: "The kingdom is seated in the inmost recesses of the spirit. When, through all manner of exercises, the outward man has been converted into the inward reasonable man, and thus the two, that is to say, the powers of the senses and the powers of the reason, are gathered up into the very centre of the man"s being,--the unseen depths of his spirit, wherein lies the image of G.o.d,--and thus he flings himself into the Divine Abyss, in which he dwelt eternally before he was created; then when G.o.d finds the man thus firmly down and turned towards Him, the G.o.dhead bends and nakedly descends into the depths of the pure waiting soul, and transforms the created soul, drawing it up into the uncreated essence, so that the spirit becomes one with Him. Could such a man behold himself, he would see himself so n.o.ble that he would fancy himself G.o.d, and see himself a thousand times n.o.bler than he is in himself, and would perceive all the thoughts and purposes, words and works, and have all the knowledge of all men that ever were." Suso and the _German Theology_ use similar language.
The idea of deification startles and shocks the modern reader. It astonishes us to find that these earnest and humble saints at times express themselves in language which surpa.s.ses the arrogance even of the Stoics. We feel that there must be something wrong with a system which ends in obliterating the distinction between the Creator and His creatures. We desire in vain to hear some echo of Job"s experience, so different in tone: "I have heard Thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth Thee; _therefore_ I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." The proper effect of the vision of G.o.d is surely that which Augustine describes in words already quoted: "I tremble, and I burn. I tremble, in that I am unlike Him; I burn, in that I am like Him." Nor is this only the beginner"s experience: St. Paul had almost "finished his course" when he called himself the chief of sinners. The joy which uplifts the soul, when it feels the motions of the Holy Spirit, arises from the fact that in such moments "the spirit"s true endowments stand out plainly from its false ones"; we then see the "countenance of our genesis," as St. James calls it--the man or woman that G.o.d meant us to be, and know that we could _not_ so see it if we were wholly cut off from its realisation. But the clearer the vision of the ideal, the deeper must be our self-abas.e.m.e.nt when we turn our eyes to the actual. We must not escape from this sharp and humiliating contrast by mentally annihilating the self, so as to make it impossible to say, "Look on this picture, and on _this_." Such false humility leads straight to its opposite--extreme arrogance. Moreover, to regard deification as an accomplished fact, involves, as I have said (p. 33), a contradiction. The process of unification with the Infinite _must_ be a _progressus ad infinitum_. The pessimistic conclusion is escaped by remembering that the highest reality is supra-temporal, and that the destiny which G.o.d has designed for us has not merely a contingent realisation, but is in a sense already accomplished. There are, in fact, two ways in which we may abdicate our birthright, and surrender the prize of our high calling: we may count ourselves already to have apprehended, which must be a grievous delusion, or we may resign it as unattainable, which is also a delusion.
These truths were well known to Tauler and his brother-mystics, who were saints as well as philosophers. If they retained language which appears to us so objectionable, it must have been because they felt that the doctrine of union with G.o.d enshrined a truth of great value.
And if we remember the great Mystical paradox, "He that will lose his life shall save it," we shall partly understand how they arrived at it. It is quite true that the nearer we approach to G.o.d, the wider seems to yawn the gulf that separates us from Him, till at last we feel it to be infinite. But does not this conviction itself bring with it unspeakable comfort? How could we be aware of that infinite distance, if there were not something within us which can span the infinite? How could we feel that G.o.d and man are incommensurable, if we had not the witness of a higher self immeasurably above our lower selves? And how blessed is the a.s.surance that this higher self gives us access to a region where we may leave behind not only external troubles and "the provoking of all men," but "the strife of tongues"
in our own hearts, the chattering and growling of the "ape and tiger"
within us, the recurring smart of old sins repented of, and the dragging weight of innate propensities! In this state the will, desiring nothing save to be conformed to the will of G.o.d, and separating itself entirely from all lower aims and wishes, claims the right of an immortal spirit to attach itself to eternal truth alone, having nothing in itself, and yet possessing all things in G.o.d. So Tauler says, "Let a man lovingly cast all his thoughts and cares, and his sins too, as it were, on that unknown Will. O dear child! in the midst of all these enmities and dangers, sink thou into thy ground and nothingness. Let the tower with all its bells fall on thee; yea, let all the devils in h.e.l.l storm out upon thee; let heaven and earth and all the creatures a.s.sail thee, all shall but marvellously serve thee; sink thou into thy nothingness, and the better part shall be thine."
This hope of a real transformation of our nature by the free gift of G.o.d"s grace is the _only_ message of comfort for those who are tied and bound by the chain of their sins.
The error comes in, as I have said before, when we set before ourselves the idea of G.o.d the Father, or of the Absolute, instead of Christ, as the object of imitation. Whenever we find such language as that quoted from Ruysbroek, about "rising above all distinctions," we may be sure that this error has been committed. Mystics of all times would have done well to keep in their minds a very happy phrase which Irenaeus quotes from some unknown author, "He spoke well who said that the infinite (_immensum_) Father is _measured_ (_mensuratum_) in the Son: _mensura enim Patris Filius_.[276]" It is to this "measure," not to the immeasureable, that we are bidden to aspire.
Eternity is, for Tauler, "the everlasting Now"; but in his popular discourses he uses the ordinary expressions about future reward and punishment, even about h.e.l.l fire; though his deeper thought is that the hopeless estrangement of the soul from G.o.d is the source of all the torments of the lost.
Love, says Tauler, is the "beginning, middle, and end of virtue." Its essence is complete self-surrender. We must lose ourselves in the love of G.o.d as a drop of water is lost in the ocean.
It only remains to show how Tauler combats the fantastic errors into which some of the German mystics had fallen in his day. The author of the _German Theology_ is equally emphatic in his warnings against the "false light"; and Ruysbroek"s denunciation of the Brethren of the Free Spirit has already been quoted. Tauler, in an interesting sermon[277], describes the heady arrogance, disorderly conduct, and futile idleness of these fanatics, and then gives the following maxims, by which we may distinguish the false Mysticism from the true.
"Now let us know how we may escape these snares of the enemy. No one can be free from the observance of the laws of G.o.d and the practice of virtue. No one can unite himself to G.o.d in emptiness without true love and desire for G.o.d. No one can be holy without becoming holy, without good works. No one may leave off doing good works. No one may rest in G.o.d without love for G.o.d. No one can be exalted to a stage which he has not longed for or felt." Finally, he shows how the example of Christ forbids all the errors which he is combating.
The _Imitation of Christ_ has been so often spoken of as the finest flower of Christian Mysticism, that it is impossible to omit all reference to it in these Lectures. And yet it is not, properly speaking, a mystical treatise. It is the ripe fruit of mediaeval Christianity as concentrated in the life of the cloister, the last and best legacy, in this kind, of a system which was already decaying; but we find in it hardly a trace of that independence which made Eckhart a pioneer of modern philosophy, and the fourteenth century mystics forerunners of the Reformation. Thomas a Kempis preaches a Christianity of the _heart_; but he does not exhibit the distinguishing characteristics of Mysticism. The t.i.tle by which the book is known is really the t.i.tle of the first section only, and it does not quite accurately describe the contents of the book.
Throughout the treatise we feel that we are reading a defence of the recluse and his scheme of life. Self-denial, renunciation of the world, prayer and meditation, utter humility and purity, are the road to a higher joy, a deeper peace, than anything which the world can give us. There are many sentences which remind us of the Roman Stoics, whose main object was by detachment from the world to render themselves invulnerable. Not that Thomas a Kempis shrinks from bearing the Cross. The Cross of Christ is always before him, and herein he is superior to those mystics who speak only of the Incarnation. But the monk of the fifteenth century was perhaps more thrown back upon himself than his predecessors in the fourteenth. The monasteries were no longer such homes of learning and centres of activity as they had been. It was no longer evident that the religious orders were a benefit to civilisation. That indifference to human interests, which we feel to be a weak spot in mediaeval thought generally, and in the Neoplatonists to whom mediaeval thought was so much indebted, reaches its climax in Thomas a Kempis. Not only does he distrust and disparage all philosophy, from Plato to Thomas Aquinas, but he shuns society and conversation as occasions of sin, and quotes with approval the pitiful epigram of Seneca, "Whenever I have gone among men, I have returned home less of a man." It is, after all, the life of the "sh.e.l.l-fish,"
as Plato calls it, which he considers the best. The book cannot safely be taken as a guide to the Christian life as a whole. What we do find in it, set forth with incomparable beauty and unstudied dignity, are the Christian graces of humility, simplicity, and purity of heart.
It is very significant that the mystics, who had undermined sacerdotalism, and in many other ways prepared the Reformation, were shouldered aside when the secession from Rome had to be organised. The Lutheran Church was built by other hands. And yet the mystics of Luther"s generation, Carlstadt and Sebastian Frank, are far from deserving the contemptuous epithets which Luther showered upon them.
Carlstadt endeavoured to deepen the Lutheran notion of faith by bringing it into closer connexion with the love of G.o.d to man and of man to G.o.d; Sebastian Frank developed the speculative system of Eckhart and Tauler in an original and interesting manner. But speculative Mysticism is a powerful solvent, and Protestant Churches are too ready to fall to pieces even without it. "I will not even answer such men as Frank," said Luther in 1545; "I despise them too much. If my nose does not deceive me, he is an enthusiast or spiritualist, who is content with nothing but Spirit, spirit, spirit, and cares not at all for Bible, Sacrament, or Preaching." The teaching which the sixteenth century spurned so contemptuously was almost identical with that of Eckhart and Tauler, whose names were still revered. But it was not wanted just then. It was not till the next generation, when superst.i.tious veneration for the letter of Scripture was bringing back some of the evils of the unreformed faith, that Mysticism in the person of Valentine Weigel was able to resume its true task in the deepening and spiritualising of religion in Germany.
But instead of following any further the course of mystical theology in Germany, I wish to turn for a few minutes to our own country. I am the more ready to do so, because I have come across the statement, repeated in many books, that England has been a barren field for mystics. It is a.s.sumed that the English character is alien to Mysticism--that we have no sympathy, as a nation, for this kind of religion. Some writers hint that it is because we are too practical, and have too much common sense. The facts do not bear out this view.
There is no race, I think, in which there is a richer vein of idealism, and a deeper sense of the mystery of life, than our own. In a later Lecture I hope to ill.u.s.trate this statement from our national poetry. Here I wish to insist that even the Mysticism of the cloister, which is the least satisfying to the energetic and independent spirit of our countrymen, might be thoroughly and adequately studied from the works of English mystics alone. I will give two examples of this mediaeval type. Both of them lived before the Reformation, near the end of the fourteenth century; but in them, as in Tauler, we find very few traces of Romish error.
Walter Hilton or Hylton[278], a canon of Thurgarton, was the author of a mystical treatise, called _The Scale (or Ladder) of Perfection_. The following extracts, which are given as far as possible in his own words, will show in what manner he used the traditional mystical theology.
There are two lives, the active and the contemplative, but in the latter there are many stages. The highest state of contemplation a man cannot enjoy always, "but only by times, when he is visited"; "and, as I gather from the writings of holy men, the time of it is very short."
"This part of contemplation G.o.d giveth where He will." Visions and revelations, of whatever kind, "are not true contemplation, but merely secondary. The devil may counterfeit them"; and the only safeguard against these impostures is to consider whether the visions have helped or hindered us in devotion to G.o.d, humility, and other virtues.
"In the third stage of contemplation," he says finely, "reason is turned into light, and will into love."
"Spiritual prayer," by which he means vocal prayer not in set words, belongs to the second part of contemplation. "It is very wasting to the body of him who uses it much, wounding the soul with the blessed sword of love." "The most vicious or carnal man on earth, were he once strongly touched with this sharp sword, would be right sober and grave for a great while after." The highest kind of prayer of all is the prayer of quiet, of which St. Paul speaks, "I will pray with the understanding also[279]." But this is not for all; "a pure heart, indeed, it behoveth him to have who would pray in this manner."
We must fix our affections first on the humanity of Christ. Since our eyes cannot bear the unclouded light of the G.o.dhead, "we must live under the shadow of His manhood as long as we are here below." St.
Paul tells his converts that he first preached to them of the humanity and pa.s.sion of Christ, but afterwards of the G.o.dhead, how that Christ is the power and wisdom of G.o.d[280].
"Christ is lost, like the piece of money in the parable; but where? In thy house, that is, in thy soul. Thou needest not run to Rome or Jerusalem to seek Him. He sleepeth in thy heart, as He did in the ship; awaken Him with the loud cry of thy desire. Howbeit, I believe that thou sleepest oftener to Him than He to thee." Put away "distracting noises," and thou wilt hear Him. First, however, find the image of sin, which thou bearest about with thee. It is no bodily thing, no real thing--only a lack of light and love. It is a false, inordinate love of thyself, from whence flow all the deadly sins.
"Fair and foul is a man"s soul--foul without like a beast, fair within like an angel." "But the sensual man doth not bear about the image of sin, but is borne by it."
The true light is love of G.o.d, the false light is love of the world.
But we must pa.s.s through darkness to go from one to the other. "The darker the night is, the nearer is the true day." This is the "darkness" and "nothing" spoken of by the mystics, "a rich nothing,"
when the soul is "at rest as to thoughts of any earthly thing, but very busy about thinking of G.o.d." "But the night pa.s.seth away; the day dawneth." "Flashes of light shine through the c.h.i.n.ks of the walls of Jerusalem; but thou art not there yet." "But now beware of the midday fiend, that feigneth light as if it came from Jerusalem. This light appears between two black rainy clouds, whereof the upper one is presumption and self-exaltation, and the lower a disdaining of one"s neighbour. This is not the light of the true sun." This darkness, through which we must pa.s.s, is simply the death of self-will and all carnal affections; it is that dying to the world which is the only gate of life.
The way in which Hilton conceives the "truly mystical darkness" of Dionysius is very interesting. As a psychical experience, it has its place in the history of the inner life. The soul _does_ enter into darkness, and the darkness is not fully dispelled in this world; "thou art not there yet," as he says. But the psychical experience is in Hilton _entirely dissociated_ from the metaphysical idea of absorption into the Infinite. The chains of Asiatic nihilism are now at last shaken off, easily and, it would seem, unconsciously. The "darkness"
is felt to be only the herald of a brighter dawn: "the darker the night, the nearer is the true day." It is, I think, gratifying to observe how our countryman strikes off the fetters of the time-honoured Dionysian tradition, the paralysing creed which blurs all distinctions, and the "negative road" which leads to darkness and not light; and how in consequence his Mysticism is sounder and saner than even that of Eckhart or Tauler. Before leaving Hilton, it may be worth while to quote two or three isolated maxims of his, as examples of his wise and pure doctrine.
"There are two ways of knowing G.o.d--one chiefly by the imagination, the other by the understanding. The understanding is the mistress, and the imagination is the maid."
"What is heaven to a reasonable soul? Nought else but Jesus G.o.d."
"Ask of G.o.d nothing but this gift of love, which is the Holy Ghost.
For there is no gift of G.o.d that is both the giver and the gift, but this gift of love."
My other example of English Mysticism in the Middle Ages is Julian or Juliana of Norwich,[281] to whom were granted a series of "revelations" in the year 1373, she being then about thirty years old.
She describes with evident truthfulness the manner in which the visions came to her. She ardently desired to have a "bodily sight" of her Lord upon the Cross, "like other that were Christ"s lovers"; and she prayed that she might have "a grievous sickness almost unto death," to wean her from the world and quicken her spiritual sense.
The sickness came, and the vision; for they thought her dying, and held the crucifix before her, till the figure on the Cross changed into the semblance of the living Christ. "All this was showed by three parts--that is to say, by bodily sight, and by words formed in my understanding, and by ghostly sight.[282]" "But the ghostly sight I cannot nor may not show it as openly nor as fully as I would." Her later visions came to her sometimes during sleep, but most often when she was awake. The most pure and certain were wrought by a "Divine illapse" into the spiritual part of the soul, the mind and understanding, for these the devil cannot counterfeit. Juliana was certainly perfectly honest and perfectly sane. The great charm of her little book is the sunny hopefulness and happiness which shines from every page, and the tender affection for her suffering Lord which mingles with her devotion without ever becoming morbid or irreverent.
It is also interesting to see how this untaught maiden (for she shows no traces of book learning) is led by the logic of the heart straight to some of the speculative doctrines which we have found in the philosophical mystics. The brief extracts which follow will ill.u.s.trate all these statements.
The crucified Christ is the one object of her devotion. She refused to listen to "a proffer in my reason," which said, "Look up to heaven to His Father." "Nay, I may not," she replied, "for Thou art my heaven.
For I would liever have been in that pain till Doomsday than to come to heaven otherwise than by Him." "Me liked none other heaven than Jesus, which shall be my bliss when I come there." And after describing a vision of the crucifixion, she says, "How might any pain be more than to see Him that is all my life and all my bliss suffer?"
Her estimate of the value of means of grace is very clear and sound.
"In that time the custom of our praying was brought to mind, how we use, for lack of understanding and knowing of love, to make [use of]
many means. Then saw I truly that it is more worship to G.o.d and more very delight that we faithfully pray to Himself of His goodness, and cleave thereto by His grace, with true understanding and steadfast by love, than if we made [use of] all the means that heart can think. For if we made [use of] all these means, it is too little, and not full worship to G.o.d; but in His goodness is all the whole, and _there_ faileth right nought. For this, as I shall say, came into my mind. In the same time we pray to G.o.d for [the sake of] His holy flesh and precious blood, His holy pa.s.sion, His dearworthy death and wounds: and all the blessed kinship, the endless life that we have of all this, is His goodness. And we pray Him for [the sake of] His sweet mother"s love, that Him bare; and all the help that we have of her is of His goodness." And yet "G.o.d of His goodness hath advanced means to help us, full fair and many; of which the chief and princ.i.p.al mean is the blessed nature that He took of the maid, with all the means that go afore and come after which belong to our redemption and to endless salvation. Wherefore it pleaseth Him that we seek Him and worship Him through means, understanding and knowing that He is the goodness of all. For the goodness of G.o.d is the highest prayer, and it cometh down to the lowest part of our need. It quickeneth our soul, and bringeth it on life, and maketh it for to wax in grace and virtue. It is nearest in nature and readiest in grace; for it is the same grace that the soul seeketh, and ever shall seek till we know verily that He hath us all in Himself beclosed."
"After this our Lord showed concerning Prayers. In which showing I see two conditions signified by our Lord; one is rightfulness, another is a.s.sured trust. But oftentimes our trust is not full; for we are not sure that G.o.d heareth us, as we think because of our unworthiness, and because we feel right nought; for we are as barren and dry oftentimes after our prayers as we were before.... But our Lord said to me, "I am the ground of thy beseechings: first, it is My will that thou have it; and then I make thee to wish for it; and then I make thee to beseech it, and thou beseechest it. How then should it be that thou shouldest not have thy beseeching?" ... For it is most impossible that we should beseech mercy and grace and not have it. For all things that our good Lord maketh us to beseech, Himself hath ordained them to us from without beginning. Here may we see that our beseeching is not the cause of G.o.d"s goodness; and that showed He soothfastly in all these sweet words which He saith: "I am the ground." And our good Lord willeth that this be known of His lovers in earth; and the more that we know it the more should we beseech, if it be wisely taken; and so is our Lord"s meaning. Merry and joyous is our Lord of our prayer, and He looketh for it; and He willeth to have it; because with His grace He would have us like to Himself in condition as we are in kind.
Therefore saith He to us "Pray inwardly, although thou think it has no savour to thee: for it is profitable, though thou feel not, though thou see not, yea, though thou think thou canst not.""
"And also to prayer belongeth thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is a true inward knowing, with great reverence and lovely dread turning ourselves with all our mights unto the working that our good Lord stirreth us to, rejoicing and thanking inwardly. And sometimes for plenteousness it breaketh out with voice and saith: Good Lord! great thanks be to Thee: blessed mote Thou be."
"Prayer is a right understanding of that fulness of joy that is to come, with great longing and certain trust.... Then belongeth it to us to do our diligence, and when we have done it, then shall we yet think that it is nought; and in sooth it is. But if we do as we can, and truly ask for mercy and grace, all that faileth us we shall find in Him. And thus meaneth He where He saith: "I am the ground of thy beseeching." And thus in this blessed word, with the Showing, I saw a full overcoming against all our weakness and all our doubtful dreads."
Juliana"s view of human personality is remarkable, as it reminds us of the Neoplatonic doctrine that there is a higher and a lower self, of which the former is untainted by the sins of the latter. "I saw and understood full surely," she says, "that in every soul that shall be saved there is a G.o.dly will that never a.s.sented to sin, nor ever shall; which will is so good that it may never work evil, but evermore continually it willeth good, and worketh good in the sight of G.o.d....
We all have this blessed will whole and safe in our Lord Jesus Christ." This "G.o.dly will" or "substance" corresponds to the spark of the German mystics.
"I saw no difference," she says, "between G.o.d and our substance, but, as it were, all G.o.d. And yet my understanding took, that our substance is _in_ G.o.d--that is to say, that G.o.d is G.o.d, and our substance a creature in G.o.d. Highly ought we to enjoy that G.o.d dwelleth in our soul, and much more highly, that our soul dwelleth in G.o.d.... Thus was my understanding led to know, that our soul is _made_ Trinity, like to the unmade Blessed Trinity, known and loved from without beginning, and in the making oned to the Maker. This sight was full sweet and marvellous to behold, peaceable and restful, sure and delectable."
"As anent our substance and our sense-part, both together may rightly be called our soul; and that is because of the oneing that they have in G.o.d. The worshipful City that our Lord Jesus sitteth in, it is our sense-soul, in which He is enclosed, and our natural substance is beclosed in Jesus, sitting with the blessed soul of Christ at rest in the G.o.dhead." Our soul cannot reach its full powers until our sense-nature by the virtue of Christ"s pa.s.sion be "brought up to the substance." This fulfilment of the soul "is grounded in nature. That is to say, our reason is grounded in G.o.d, which is substantial Naturehood; out of this substantial Nature mercy and grace spring and spread into us, working all things in fulfilling of our joy: these are our ground, in which we have our increase and our fulfilling. For in nature we have our life and our being, and in mercy and grace we have our increase and our fulfilling."
In one of her visions she was shown our Lord "scorning the fiend"s malice, and noughting his unmight." "For this sight I laught mightily, and that made them to laugh that were about me. But I saw not Christ laugh. After this I fell into graveness, and said, "I see three things: I see game, scorn, and earnest. I see game, that the fiend is overcome; I see scorn, in that G.o.d scorneth him, and he shall be scorned; and I see earnest, in that he is overcome by the blissful pa.s.sion and death of our Lord Jesus Christ, that was done in full earnest and with sober travail.""
Alternations of mirth and sadness followed each other many times, "to learn me that it is speedful to some souls to feel on this wise." Once especially she was left to herself, "in heaviness and weariness of my life, and irksomeness of myself, that scarcely I could have pleasure to live.... For profit of a man"s soul he is sometimes left to himself; although sin is not always the cause; for in that time I sinned not, wherefore I should be so left to myself; for it was so sudden. Also, I deserved not to have this blessed feeling. But freely our Lord giveth when He will, and suffereth us to be in woe sometime.
And both is one love."
Her treatment of the problem of evil is very characteristic. "In my folly, often I wondered why the beginning of sin was not letted; but Jesus, in this vision, answered and said, "Sin is behovable,[283] but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well." In this naked word _sin_ our Lord brought to my mind generally all that is not good.... But I saw not sin; for I believe it had no manner of substance, nor any part of being, nor might it be known but by the pain that is caused thereof; and this pain ...
purgeth and maketh us to know ourself, and ask mercy. In these same words ("all shall be well") I saw an high and marvellous privity hid in G.o.d." She wondered _how_ "all shall be well," when Holy Church teacheth us to believe that many shall be lost. But "I had no other answer but this, "I shall save my word in all things, and I shall make all thing well."" "This is the great deed that our Lord G.o.d shall do; but what the deed shall be, and how it shall be done, there is no creature beneath Christ that knoweth it, ne shall wit it till it is done."
"I saw no wrath but on man"s party," she says, "and that forgiveth He in us. It is the most impossible that may be, that G.o.d should be wroth.... Our life is all grounded and rooted in love.... Suddenly is the soul oned to G.o.d, when it is truly peaced in itself; for in Him is found no wrath. And thus I saw, when we be all in peace and love, we find no contrariousness, nor no manner of letting, through that contrariousness which is now in us; nay, our Lord G.o.d of His goodness maketh it to us full profitable." No visions of h.e.l.l were ever showed to her. In place of the hideous details of torture which some of the Romish visionaries describe almost with relish, Juliana merely reports, "To me was showed none harder h.e.l.l than sin."
Again and again she rings the changes on the words which the Lord said to her, "I love thee and thou lovest Me, and our love shall never be disparted in two." "The love wherein He made us was in Him from without beginning; in which love," she concludes, "we have our beginning, and all this shall be seen in G.o.d without end."
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 257: The indebtedness of the fourteenth century mystics to Eckhart is now generally recognised, at any rate in Germany; but before Pfeiffer"s work his name had been allowed to fall into most undeserved obscurity. This was not the fault of his scholars, who, in spite of the Papal condemnation of his writings, speak of Eckhart with the utmost reverence, as the "great," "sublime," or "holy" master.]