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  "work": {
    "slug": "hadewijch-visions",
    "name": "The Visions of Hadewijch"
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      "name": "Beguine Mystics",
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  "chapter": {
    "num": 1,
    "slug": "vol-1-01-vision-1",
    "title": "Section I",
    "of": 6,
    "words": 4376,
    "text": "## Section I\n\nThis is Section I of the project translation of Hadewijch's *Visioenen* — fourteen visions composed by the thirteenth-century Brabant Beguine Hadewijch and preserved in three medieval manuscripts (Ghent University Library 941, Brussels KBR 2877–78, Brussels KBR 2879–80). The text below is **Vision 1** — the *Garden of Virtues* allegory, translated from the Middle Dutch of Jozef Van Mierlo's 1924–25 critical edition (DBNL diplomatic ID `hade002visi01`). Visions 2–14 will follow in subsequent sections.\n\nHadewijch (c. 1200–1270) was the leader of a Beguine house in or around Antwerp; her *Visioenen*, *Brieven* (Letters), *Strofische Gedichten* (Stanzaic Poems), and *Mengeldichten* (Mixed Poems) are foundational to Middle Dutch mystical literature. She wrote at least a generation before Marguerite Porete, who took up many of her terms — *minne*, *orewoet*, and (from her *Brieven* / *Strofische Gedichten*) the *Far-Near* — and a generation before Mechthild of Magdeburg. The standard modern English translation is Mother Columba Hart's 1980 Paulist Press volume, which remains in copyright; this project translation works directly from Van Mierlo's PD Middle Dutch.\n\nA small set of recurring terms is anchored to English throughout. ***Minne*** is rendered **Love** when she appears as a personified agent, **love** when the affect is meant — Hadewijch personifies *Minne* as a courtly Lady to whom the Soul is sworn vassal, far more strongly than Mechthild. ***Ghebruken*** is **fruition** (the Augustinian *fruitio*; Hadewijch's signature word for the goal-state). ***Orewoet*** is preserved untranslated, italicized — Hadewijch's word for the divine love-frenzy, which Beatrice of Nazareth also uses. *Volcomen* / *volmaect* is rendered **perfect** in the technical scholastic sense. *Verstaen / kinnen* is **understand / know**. *Bekinnesse* is **knowing** (the Augustinian *cognitio*). *Volwassen* (a word almost untranslatable into modern English) is rendered **fully grown** or **matured** — the state of the soul after long ascesis in the works of perfection.\n\nVision 1 was composed on **the octave of Pentecost** (Whitsunday + 8 = Trinity Sunday). It is an allegorical setting that frames the doctrinal centerpiece: the *seven trees of perfect virtues*, each carrying its own Latin angelic message, climbing from self-knowledge through humility, perfect will, discernment, wisdom (three levels of three branches each: red-hearted fear, white-hearted purity, golden-hearted love), the chalice of patience, the inverted tree of the knowledge of God, and finally the tree of the *knowledge of Love*, where Christ himself appears enthroned. The discourse Christ gives Hadewijch at the throne — including his teaching that as the Son made man he never used his divinity to ease his own sufferings — is one of the most striking passages in all of medieval mystical writing.\n\nThe same conventions apply as the other Beguine pilots: light modernization with archaic verb endings and pronouns normalized; M.N.-style signed glosses do not apply here (there is no medieval English translator); formal LLM-as-judge review **deferred** per session-budget, consistent with Mechthild V-VI-VII and the Porete sections.\n\n---\n\n## Vision 1 — The Garden of Virtues\n\nIt was on a Sunday — the octave of Pentecost — that they brought our Lord secretly to my bed, because I felt so great an inward drawing of my spirit that I could not contain myself enough outwardly among people to have gone there.<sup>1</sup> And the asking that I had within was to be one with God in fruition. I was too childish for that, and too unmatured, and I had not labored enough nor lived to the measure of so high a worthiness as belonged to it — as was well shown to me then, and as still seems to me.\n\nWhen I had received our Lord, then he received me to himself, so that he took up all my senses beyond all remembering of foreign things, to enjoy himself in oneness. And I was led, as into a meadow — into a plain that was called *the wideness of perfect virtues*. There stood trees, to which I was led; and their names and the natures of their names were shown to me.\n\n**The first tree** had a rotten root which was very brittle, and a very firm trunk; and above it a most lovely beautiful flower, which stood so unfastened that, whenever a storm came, the flower fell and withered. The one who led me was an angel of the Thrones, who have discernment. The angel said: *Human nature, understand and know what this tree is.* And I understood; and he showed me that this was **the knowledge of self**. The rotten root was our brittle nature; the firm trunk, the eternal soul; the lovely flower, the lovely form of human beings, which so quickly is corrupted in an hour.\n\n**The second tree** he led me onward to. It was very low, and had lovely fair leaves intermingled with all kinds of colors that were pleasant to look upon; and above all the lovely leaves hung withered leaves, which covered all the lovely leaves. And the angel said: *Chosen soul and longing one, who from so lowly to so high are drawn, and from so dark erring to so clear, and from poorest to richest — understand what this is.* And he showed me, and I understood: this was **humility** — which, by wise fear (where one recognizes with knowing the greatness of God and one's own lowness) covers all her well-arrayed virtues, because she feels and knows that she lacks the fruition of her Beloved, and therefore knows not how to exalt herself. This is pure humility.\n\n**The third tree** — a great, strong tree, with large broad leaves. The angel said: *O mighty and strong one, who has overcome from the beginning of yourself the mighty and strong God, who was without beginning, and shall with him rule eternity in eternities — read and understand.* And I read, and I understood. In each leaf was written: *I am the power of perfect will; no thing may fail me.*\n\n**The fourth tree** stood next to it, with many branches, large, with all its branches stretched through the other tree. The angel said again: *O wise one, governed by reason — yea, by the reason of the great God — read and understand the wise lesson and the prudent lesson which this overgrowing one teaches.* And I understood that on each leaf was to be read: *I am **discernment**; without me, one may do nothing.*\n\n**The fifth tree** — a most beautiful tree, that had three kinds of branches, and three branches of each kind: three above, three in the middle, three below. And the angel said: *O careful for the adventure of the misfortune of your future — O sighing for the wandering of those who are made for the love of God and stray from him and to other things attain — O dying with the death of your Beloved, which he died — understand these three lowest branches; for through them you have climbed to the highest branches.* And I understood that all the leaves were of sated-green color, sharp and long, and on each leaf was written a heart. And on the three lowest branches all the hearts on each leaf were red to look upon; the middle three had hearts white to look upon; the hearts of the highest three were gold to look upon.\n\nAnd the angel said again: *Pure pillar in the church of the saints, who has kept your body pure of all those things that do not befit the holy temple of God; O innocent one and consoler of every distress, by which the pure will of our great God shall be strengthened and is; O knowing-with-knowings the noble nature of our sweet God, by which you so early chose pure cleanness above all that was and is, and never lacked it an hour — now understand these three middle branches.* And I understood.\n\nAnd the angel said again: *You who seek righteous love in your God alone, in all the ways perfectly that to the holy law belong to be worked — which God has hallowed with his holy life that he lived in it, and with his great commandments and his high counsels; you loving and attending with loving service the holy ways according to the pleasure of the almighty God; you steadfast being in which God always finds trust of righteous love, and shall possess eternally — understand these three highest branches.* And I understood.\n\nThe tree was **wisdom**.\n\nThe first lowest branch, whose leaves bore the red hearts, was **the fear of failing in perfect virtues**. The second was **the fear that too much worthiness should be lacking to God from people, and that so many should wander from the truth that he himself is**. The third was **the fear that every person shall die with the same death by which our Beloved died** — wisely in every and in each virtue, sufficient to die that death at every hour, and to bear that cross, and daily to die upon it, and to die with all those who wander and dying behold.\n\nThe first middle branch, whose leaves bore white hearts, was **purity in the body, in the ways, in the words and works**. The second was **to desire to work in each thing innocently and purely, and to guard one's works as befits our Beloved**. The third was **to remain so pure of all defilement in spirit, in soul, that no lowness from wandering, from pride, from vainglory, from despair, from hoping too much for what one does not yet have, may come therein; and that one fall not into gladness above having, nor into sorrow above lacking, nor fall into affection, nor into any pleasures-of-fullness — until that day on which one has long enough borne love after its fitness, and that it is so fully grown borne, and with fitting works so well fed, that one comes above the bearing of love into that feeling that is much higher than to bear love. For to bear love is favor, longing, desire, service, the exercise of burning will always without ceasing. But to feel love is to think in freedom of love. But to BE love exalts all.**<sup>2</sup>\n\nThe first of the three highest branches, whose leaves bore the golden hearts, was: **with many perfect virtues to seek Love with her alone, where she is wholly to be found**. The second branch was **with love to attend to the high will of God according to his pleasure, by which he makes himself pleasing to each who so lives in him**. The third branch was **the steadfast being by which one is always wholly with Love, leading out of manifold virtues into the one whole virtue, which the loving soul swallows together into one and casts into the abyss, where they shall seek and find the eternal fruition**.\n\nThen he led me forward, where we found a chalice full of blood. And the angel said again: *Great-one with great will — drink, overlooking with sweet rest all unheard pain and all heard pain without wounding.* And I drank. And that was **the chalice of patience**. There I made vow to God to be steadfastly faithful enough in patient trust.\n\nThen he led me forward into the middle of the wideness, where we walked. There stood a tree which had its root upward and its top downward. The tree had many branches. The lowest branches (the top) — the first was **faith**, the second **hope**, by which people begin. And the angel said again: *O mistress, climbing from beginning to end this tree to the deep root of the incomprehensible God — understand how this is the way of the beginners and the perseverance of the perfect.* And I understood that this was **the tree of the knowing of God**, which one begins with faith and completes with love.\n\nBeside that tree stood yet another tree, which had round and broad leaves. And the angel said to me: *Stay here as a captive, until he again sends — he who has bidden you come here — and understand his hidden will, by which he wills to enjoy you. And I go in your mighty service. I have today received of you to be in your service at all hours, until you outgrow me from the ways I have led you, and you, perfectly grown, can follow him, and feel that hidden counsel which our great mighty God shall give you to know at this hour. I go to guard your pure body in the noble worthiness in which I have found it, and will keep it.*\n\nAnd then he said: *Turn yourself away from me, and you shall find him whom you have ever sought, and for whom you have turned away from all earthly and all heavenly things.*\n\nAnd I turned myself from him; and I saw a cross before me standing, like crystal — clearer and whiter than crystal — through which one might see a great wideness. And before the cross I saw a throne standing, like a disc, and it was clearer to look upon than the sun in his clearest power. And under the disc stood **three columns**. The first column was like burning fire. The second was like a stone called *topaz* — which has the nature of gold, and the clarity of the air, and the color of all stones. The third was like a stone called *amethyst*, which has a pellet-like color, after the rose and the violet. And in the midst, under the disc, a wheel turned, so terrible in its turning, and so dreadful to look upon, that heaven and earth might marvel and quake.\n\n**The throne, like a disc, was eternity. The three columns were the three names by which the wretched, who are far from love, understand him. The column like fire is the name of the Holy Ghost. The column like topaz is the name of the Father. The column like amethyst is the name of the Son. The deep wheel — which is so dreadfully dark — is the divine fruition in her hidden storms.**\n\nOn the mighty seat sat the one whom I had sought, and with whom I had desired to be one in fruition. His form was ineffable to any reason. His head was great and wide and curled, of white color, and was crowned with a crown that was like a stone called *sardonyx* (which has three colors: black, white, and red). His eyes were wondrously, ineffably to look upon, and drew all things into him in love. There I cannot put into words, for the uncountable great beauty and oversweet sweetness of that worthy wondrous countenance bereft me of all reason of him in any likeness. And my Beloved gave me himself in the understanding of himself, and in feeling. But when I saw him, I fell at his feet; for I recognized that I had been led the whole way to him, and that still as much was left to live.\n\nAnd he said: *Stand up. For you have arisen in me from the beginning, wholly free and without fall — for you have desired to be one with me, and you have wrought what is right and what is crooked; and you who have so stormed in restlessness, and have the witness of me and of open works which you have wrought in all in which you have grown for my will — and because of your wise works I have sent you the angel of the throne, who is wise to lead the rightful willing soul to perfection. He found you so well guarded within that he led you all the ways he would have shown you as a child, and he gave you so high names that they have adorned you in my countenance.*\n\n*Now I shall let you know what I will of you. I will that you be ready, for my will, for every wretchedness; and I forbid you ever to undertake to hate anything, nor to take vengeance even so much as the open of an eye. Where you should undertake it in any manner, you become the one who would deprive me of my right and undertake my might.*\n\n*I give you yet,* he said, *a new commandment: if you would liken me in the manhood, as you desire of me in the Godhead, so as to enjoy of me — then you shall desire to be poor, wretched, and despised among all people; and all sufferings shall taste sweeter to you than all earthly delights. In no wise let it grieve you; for they shall be inhumanly hard to bear. If you would follow Love after the proud nature she requires of you, my wholeness — then you shall become so strange among people, and so unheard, and so unhappy, that you shall not know where to lodge for one night; and all people shall yet abandon you and forsake you; and none shall consent to wander with you in your distress and in your pain. Of all your being I promise it to you, in your days that you shall live yet a short time; for your hours are not yet come.*<sup>3</sup>\n\n*But I have one thing about which I am vexed with you in one part, that I will show you. You are young of days, and you would have me recognize your body's heavy pain, and the faithfulness of your handwork, and your new will always flowing with charity, and the desires of your heart, and the dying of your senses, and the love of your soul. And all this I recognize. And know also: I lived a pure human being<sup>4</sup>, and my body bore heavy pain, and my hands wrought all faithfulness, and my new will of charity flowed through the whole world among strangers and friends; and my senses died, and my heart desired, and my soul loved; and in all this I bided all my time, until the hour came when my Father took me to himself. You have sometimes said to me: \"I had a good human life, for I had the seven gifts.\" That is true; and not only gifts — but I was myself the gift of the Spirit, which the gifts are called. And you have said, \"My Father was with me\" — that is true; we never parted an hour.*\n\n*But I make known to you a hidden truth about me, which yet openly appeared to those who could understand it: that I never one hour did myself enough by my might in any want in which I was; nor did I ever lay hold of the gifts of my Spirit, except as I obtained them with the pain of suffering, and from my Father (whom I and he were all one, as we now are), before that day on which the hour of my maturity came. I never relieved my distress nor my pain by my perfection.*<sup>5</sup>\n\n*Now you have complained of your wretchedness, and that you do not have from me what you need according to your desire. And I ask you: when did you lack it, since you had the seven gifts of my Spirit? And I ask you: when were you abandoned of my Father in any being, since my Father was always with you, as he was with me, and I with him, when I lived as man? Inasmuch as you are man, so live wretchedly as man. I would have lived in you so perfectly in all virtues on earth, that you in myself in no point would be lacking to me. Have the seven gifts of my Spirit, and the strength and help of my Father in perfect works of virtue, by which one becomes God and remains forever. But feel, as man, all those defects which to man belong, except sin alone. All the pain that to man belongs I tasted — when I lived as man — except sin alone. I never inwardly contented myself by my might without comfort that I was sure of my Father.*\n\n*You have well recognized it: I long lived on earth before they knew me among the people, and before I did miracles. And when I did them, and they better recognized me, then many friends of mine left in the world remained but few. And at my death, well-nigh all those who lived stood far off from me. Therefore let it not grieve you that all people shall abandon you for the sake of perfect love, and because you live in my will. Lovely likenesses and miracles have happened to you of your days more, without need, than to any person born since I died. Miracles and gifts from without, that began to work greatly in you — these you have refused from me, and have stood off from them, and you will not have them. These you gave away for Love, and you will nothing else than me; and for me you have so renounced — and you wish to enjoy me in feeling, which exceeds all.*\n\n*And the count of your days towards that end is yet not lived. I shall, dearest beloved,* he said, *give you myself secretly, when you would have me. For you will not that strangers comfort you nor recognize you; therefore I shall give you understanding of my will, and the art of righteous love, and singularly to feel me, in hours, in storms of love, when you cannot endure without feeling me, and your pain becomes too heavy to you. With understanding you shall wisely work my will in all those who need to know from you my will, which is yet hidden from them. None have you yet lacked, and none shall lack you, until that day when I shall say to you: \"Your work is fully accomplished.\" With love you shall live and endure, and attend to my hidden will, by which you are with me and I with you. And with feeling me, I shall be enough to you, and you to me. Thus work my will with understanding, my most pleasurable beloved. Thus attend to me with love, my nearest fruition-one, in my nearness. Thus shall you enjoy me. This is the tree of those words I have now said to you, which is called the **knowing of Love**.*<sup>6</sup>\n\n*Because so much has been preached to you that lowness should weigh you down, I have shown you myself what I will of you. Sweetly turn back, and do what I have commanded you. When you will, take a leaf of this tree, that is the knowing of my will. And when you are grieved, take from the top a rose, and of her take a leaf — that is love. And when you cannot endure, take from within the rose what is there: that is what I shall give you, the feeling of me. Always you shall have the knowing of my will, and feel love, and at need feel me in fruition.*\n\n*Thus did my Father do for me when I was his Son. He left me in need, and he never abandoned me. I feel him in fruition. And I served those to whom he had sent me. The heart that is so wholly in the rose, that is fruition of love in feeling. To them all, beloved, who do you good and ill — be all one in works of their need. Love shall make you so mighty. Give all, for all is yours.*\n\n---\n\n**Translator's footnotes (project translation)**\n\n<sup>1</sup> The opening is exact: *the octave of Pentecost*, which is Trinity Sunday — a Sunday that medieval liturgy assigned to the explicit contemplation of the Trinity, the same Trinity Hadewijch sees enthroned at the chapter's climax. Van Mierlo notes the date is theologically significant, not incidental.\n\n<sup>2</sup> ***Minne dragen / Minne gevoelen / Minne te sine.*** Hadewijch's signature triple: *to bear Love, to feel Love, to be Love.* The same triple appears in Beatrice of Nazareth's *Seven Manners* (Section IV's *fourth manner*) and reappears repeatedly in later Beguine writing. Hadewijch is the original source. The triadic progression is doctrinally important: bearing love is the affective ascesis (longing, service, burning will); feeling love is the inner-rest in love's company; *being* love is the soul-becomes-Love final state — what Beatrice will call the soul-become-fire, what Marguerite Porete will call the *annihilated* soul.\n\n<sup>3</sup> *Your hours are not yet come.* The Johannine echo (John 2:4, *nondum venit hora mea*; John 7:6; John 7:30) applied to Hadewijch's own life-course. Christ speaks to her with the same idiom by which the Fourth Gospel narrates his own ministry. The implication: Hadewijch's life will follow the Christ-pattern, including its hour-of-fulfillment timing.\n\n<sup>4</sup> ***Suuer mensche*** — pure/true human being. The Christological term Hadewijch uses for the genuinely-human nature Christ assumed; contrast with the divine-nature, which is *gotheit*. The whole long discourse that follows is Christ's exposition of his own Christological self-understanding to Hadewijch.\n\n<sup>5</sup> **One of the most theologically striking statements in all of medieval mystical writing.** Christ tells Hadewijch that, while incarnate, *he never used his divine power to ease his own sufferings* — every gift of the Spirit he received only with the pain of suffering, and from the Father; he never relieved his distress nor his pain *bi miere volcomenheit* (by his perfection / by his completedness). The kenosis-Christology here (cf. Philippians 2:5–11) is unusually strong: Hadewijch's Christ refuses, in his earthly life, to draw on his own divinity even to comfort himself. This is the Christological pattern Hadewijch is then called to imitate.\n\n<sup>6</sup> The tree of the **knowing of Love** is the second of the two final trees (paired with the *knowing of God* a few lines earlier). The doctrinal structure: the seven trees of perfect virtues + the inverted tree of knowledge-of-God + the tree of knowledge-of-Love (= these words of Christ) = ten trees total in the garden. Christ ends the discourse by giving Hadewijch a three-fold pharmacy from the *knowing-of-Love* tree: a leaf for understanding-of-will; a rose-leaf for love-feeling; the rose's interior for fruition-feeling. The image is medical and liturgical (the rose as the locus of communion).",
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