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Seven Manners

The text below is translated from the Middle Dutch Seven manieren van minne, Beatrijs van Nazareth's only surviving treatise in her own language, as critically edited by Léonce Reypens and Jozef Van Mierlo from three manuscript witnesses in 1926. The treatise is the earliest substantial work of Middle Dutch mystical prose; Beatrijs (c. 1200–1268), a Cistercian nun and later prioress at the abbey of Onze-Lieve-Vrouw van Nazareth near Lier, composed it in the late 1230s or early 1240s as a description, in seven graded stages, of holy love's progress in the soul.

A small set of recurring terms has been anchored to English equivalents throughout. Minne is rendered "Love" when she appears as a personified agent, "love" when the affect is meant. Brudegom is "Bridegroom" (Christ); bruut is "bride" (the soul). Manieren is "manners" — the standard reception term. Sonder enich waeromme is rendered "without any why," and the why is left italicized: this is the exact locution which Meister Eckhart will later pick up as sunder warumbe, and Beatrijs's use of it precedes Eckhart by half a century. Orewoet — Beatrijs's word for the storm of divine love that overcomes the body and the senses — is preserved untranslated, italicized, and glossed at first appearance. Lantscap der ewelicheit — Beatrijs's coined phrase for the soul's homeland — is rendered "the country of eternity," not smoothed into "heaven."

Beatrijs writes in prose throughout. She does not pursue the visionary set-piece register of Hadewijch or the lyric-and-dialogue mixture of Mechthild; her instrument is a careful, theologically precise spiritual itinerary, organized around the soul's relationship to Love as agent. Where she gathers her cadences into bravura listings — the seven-fold consumption in manner 4, the catalogue of paradoxical states in manner 7, the house-mistress image in manner 6 — the English preserves the parallel construction. The two Latin citations from Beatrijs's text (Philippians 1:23, Augustine Confessions) are reproduced first in Latin, then in Beatrijs's own Middle Dutch paraphrase rendered to English.

The two complete modern English translations — Eric Colledge (in Petroff, Medieval Women's Visionary Literature, 1986) and Oliver Davies (in Bowie, Beguine Spirituality, 1990) and the Roger De Ganck translation embedded in The Life of Beatrice of Nazareth (Cistercian Studies 122, 1991) — are all in copyright and remain the standard scholarly references; readers should consult them where precise scholarly engagement with Beatrijs is in view.

The English follows Reypens-Van Mierlo's composite text and silently absorbs the editorial supplements that the 1926 edition marks in angle brackets < > (passages where the H or W manuscript fills gaps left by scribal omission in the editorial base B); reproducing the brackets in the English would make the text unreadable, but the reader should know they are present in the underlying Middle Dutch and have been incorporated without flag.

Of the Seven Manners of Holy Love

Seven are the manners of love, which come from the Highest and turn back again to the Supreme.⁰

The first manner

The first is a longing that comes working out of love. It must long reign in the heart before it can well drive out all that resists it; and it must work with strength and with skill, and grow valiantly in this state of being.

This manner is a longing that comes surely out of love — that is, that the good soul, who would faithfully serve Our Lord and valiantly follow him and truly love him, is drawn into the longing to attain and to dwell in the purity, and in the freedom, and in the nobility wherein she was made by her Creator after his image and after his likeness, which is a hard thing to love and to keep.

In this she desires to lead her whole life, and with this to work and to grow and to climb into a greater highness of love, and into a nearer knowing of God, up to that fullness unto which she has been made complete and called by God. Toward this she strives early and late, and so she gives herself over wholly. And this is her asking, and her learning, and her petitioning to God, and her pondering: how she may come to this, and how she may attain the nearness to that likeness of Love, in all the adornment of the virtues, and in all the purity of love's most intimate nobility.

This soul often examines earnestly what she is, and what she should be, and what she has, and what her longings still lack. And with all her diligence, and with great longing, and with all the skill she can muster, she labors to guard herself and to shun all that may burden her, or hinder her in such works as these; and her heart never rests, nor does it cease from seeking, and from asking, and from learning, and from drawing into herself and holding onto all that may help her and further her in love.

This is the greatest earnestness of the soul who is placed here, and who must here work and labor greatly, until the day when she has, with earnestness and with faithfulness, obtained from God that she may henceforth, without hindrance of past misdeeds, serve love with a fiery conscience, and with pure spirit, and with clear understanding.

Such a manner of longing — of so great a purity and nobility — comes surely out of love, and not out of fear. For fear makes one work and suffer, do and refrain, out of dread of Our Lord's wrath, and of the judgment of that righteous Judge, and of eternal vengeance, or of temporal plagues. But Love is alone working and standing toward purity, and toward highness, and toward the supreme nobility, as she herself is in her own self — being, having, and enjoying. And such work as this she teaches to those who keep watch over her.

The second manner

At times she has yet another manner of love — that is, that she undertakes to serve Our Lord for nothing, only out of love, without any why and without any reward of grace or of glory. And just as a maiden who serves her lord out of great love, and without reward, and is content that she may serve him and that he allows her to attend on him, so does she long, out of love, to serve Love — without measure and beyond measure, and beyond human sense and reason, with all the service of faithfulness.

When she is in this, she is so burning in her longing, so ready in service, so light in toil, so soft in hardship, so glad in trouble — that with all that she is, she desires to do him kindness; and it is so delightful to her that she finds anything to do or to suffer in love's service, and for his honor.

The third manner

Another manner of love the good soul has at certain times, wherein much pain and much woe are bound up: that is, that she longs to do enough for Love, and to follow Love in all honor, and in all service, and in all obedience, and in all submission to Love.

This longing is at times stirred up most stormily in the soul; and then with strong longing she lays hold of every deed to be done and every suffering to be followed — all to be suffered and to be borne, and all her works to be carried out for Love without sparing and without measure.

In this she is wholly ready in all service, and willing and undaunted in toil and in pains — yet she remains unsatisfied and unfulfilled in all her works. But above all, this is her greatest pain: that, for all her great longing, she cannot do enough for Love, and that so much must be left undone in her for Love.

She knows well that this is beyond human work, and beyond all her power to accomplish — for what she longs for is impossible, and beyond the being of all creatures: that is, that she alone might do as much as all the people of the earth-realm, and as all the spirits of the heaven-realm, and as all that is creature above and below, and uncountable times more, in service and in love and in honor, according to the worthiness of Love. And because so much is left undone for her in works, this she would fill up with her whole will and with strong longing. But that cannot satisfy her.

She knows well that this longing is far beyond her power to fulfill, and beyond human reason, and beyond all sense — and yet she cannot moderate herself, nor restrain, nor quiet herself. She does all that she can: she thanks and praises Love; she works and toils for Love; she sighs and longs for Love; she gives herself wholly over to Love, and all her work is completed in Love.

All this gives her no rest. And it is a great pain to her that she must long for what she cannot attain; and so she must abide in heaviness of heart, and dwell in displeasure. And it is to her as if she were dying while still alive, and while dying felt the pain of hell. Her whole life is hellish — without grace and without gladness — from the dreadfulness of that anxious longing, which she can neither do enough for, nor quiet, nor still.

In this pain she must abide until the time when Our Lord comforts her and sets her in another manner of love, and of longing, and into still nearer knowing of him. And then she must work according to what is given her by Our Lord.

The fourth manner

Yet again Our Lord uses to give another manner of love — sometimes in great well-being, sometimes in great delight — of which we now mean to speak.

Sometimes it happens that Love is sweetly awakened in the soul, and rises up gladly, and stirs herself in the heart, without any assistance from human works. And then the heart is so tenderly touched by Love, and so longingly drawn into Love, and so heartily seized by Love, and so strongly mastered by Love, and so dearly embraced in Love, that she is wholly overcome by Love.

In this she feels a great nearness to God, and a wondrous clarity, and a marvelous splendor, and a noble freedom, and an exquisite sweetness, and a great mastery of strong love, and an overflowing fullness of great delight. And then she feels that all her senses are made holy in love, and her will has become love, and that she is so deeply sunken and swallowed up in the abyss of Love, and herself has wholly become love.

The beauty of Love has eaten her up; the power of Love has consumed her; the sweetness of Love has drowned her; the greatness of Love has swallowed her; the nobility of Love has embraced her; the purity of Love has adorned her; and the highness of Love has drawn her up — and so united her in herself that she must wholly belong to Love, and can attend to nothing else than Love.

When she thus feels herself in this overflowing of well-being and in this great fullness of heart, her spirit altogether sinks down into love, and her body slips away from her, her heart melts, and all her strength fails. And she is so utterly overcome by love that she can hardly bear herself, and is often no longer in command of her limbs and all her senses.

And just as a vessel that is full, when it is stirred, quickly overflows and bubbles over — so she too is suddenly and deeply touched, and wholly overcome by the great fullness of her heart, so that often she must break out against her will.

The fifth manner

It happens at times also that Love is strongly awakened in the soul, and stormily rises up with great roaring and with great frenzy, as though she would forcibly break the heart, and tear the soul out of itself and above itself into the working of love and into the dearth of love.^0a And boldly is the soul drawn into the longing to fulfill the great works and the pure works of Love — or to take her share in the manifold demands of Love. Or else she longs to rest in the sweet embraces of love, and in love's longed-for well-being, and in the delight of possessing — so that her heart and her senses are longing for this, and earnestly seeking it, and heartily intending it.

When she is in this, she is so strong in spirit, and apprehending much in her heart, and more valiant in body, and swifter in her works, and most active inwardly and outwardly — so that it seems to her that everything in her is at work, and busy with itself, even though she is altogether still outside. And with this she feels so strong a striving within, and so great an attachment to love, and much restlessness in her longing, and many a woe of great displeasure; or she feels heaviness from the very great feeling of love itself, without any why; or because she is, in a peculiar way, in petition with longing for love; or out of displeasure at love's unattainability.

Meanwhile Love becomes so immoderate, and so overflowing in the soul, when she so strongly and so wildly stirs herself in the heart, that it seems to the soul that her heart is sorely wounded many times over — and that the wounds are renewed and made more sore daily, in painful sorrows and in renewed present-ness.^1a And so it seems to her that her veins open up, and her blood boils, and her marrow drains away, and her bones grow weak, and her breast burns, and her throat dries up — so that her face and all her limbs feel the heat from within, and the orewoet¹ of love. She also feels at times that an arrow goes often through her heart up to her throat, and onward to her brain, as though she would lose her wits.

And just as a devouring fire draws all into itself, and consumes whatever it can overmaster — so she feels that Love is at work within her in frenzy, without sparing and without measure, drawing all into her and consuming it. And by this she is sorely wounded, and her heart deeply weakened, and all her strength undone. Her soul is fed, and her love nourished, and her spirit hanging suspended — for Love is so high above all comprehensibility that the soul can attain no fruition of her.

And from this sorrow she sometimes longs to break the bond — not to tear the unity of love², but because she is so utterly constrained by Love's bond, and so overcome by Love's immoderateness, that she can keep no measure according to reason, nor exercise reason with the senses, nor spare herself with measure, nor endure according to wisdom. The more is given her from above, the more she is asking for; and the more is shown to her, the more she hangs in longing to come nearer to the light of truth, and of purity, and of nobility, and of the fruition of love. And always she is more and more drawn out and stretched — and not satisfied, nor contented.

That same thing which most tramples upon her and wounds her — that same is what most heals her and soothes her; and that which strikes the wound the most deeply — that alone gives her health.

The sixth Love³

When the bride of Our Lord has come further on, and has climbed higher into greater profit, she feels yet another manner of love, in a nearer being and in a higher knowing. She feels that Love has overcome all her adversaries within her, and has mended what was lacking, and mastered the senses, and adorned nature, and increased and exalted her being — and has become wholly the mistress of herself, without contradiction, so that Love possesses her heart in security, and may enjoy it in rest, and works in it in freedom.

When she is in this, all things seem to her small, and light to do and to leave undone, to suffer and to bear, what belongs to the worthiness of Love; and so it is gentle to her to exercise herself in love. Then she feels a divine power, and a clear purity, and a spiritual sweetness, and a longed-for freedom, and a discerning wisdom, and a gentle evenness toward Our Lord — and a nearness to God.

And then she is like a house-mistress who has well-ordered her house, and wisely arranged it, and beautifully appointed it, and providently guarded it, and prudently watched over it, and works in it with discernment; and she lets in and lets out, and does and refrains according to her will. Just so is it with this soul: she is love, and Love reigns in her — reigning mightily and powerfully, working and resting, doing and leaving undone, outside and within, according to her will.

And just as a fish swims in the wideness of the flood, and rests in the depth; and as a bird flies boldly in the spaciousness and in the highness of the air — even so she feels her spirit walking freely in the wideness and in the depth, and in the spaciousness and in the highness of Love.

The might of Love has drawn the soul, and led her, and guarded her, and protected her; and Love has given her prudence and wisdom, sweetness and the strength of Love. Yet Love has hidden the soul's own might until the time when she has climbed into a greater highness, and has wholly become free of herself, and Love reigns more masterfully within her.

Then Love makes her so bold and so free that she fears neither men nor the devil, neither angel nor saint — nor God himself — in all her doing or refraining, in working or in resting; and she feels well that Love is so awake within her, and so greatly at work in the rest of the body as in much labor; she knows well and feels that Love does not lie in toil nor in pains in those in whom she reigns.

But all who would come to Love must seek her in fear, and follow her in faithfulness, and exercise themselves in love with longing; and they may not spare themselves in great toil, nor in much pain, nor in the suffering of hardship, nor in the bearing of scorn; and they must hold every small thing to be great — until the time when they come to this point: that Love reigns within them; Love who works love's masterful work, and who makes all things small, and all toil soft, and sweetens all pain, and pays every debt.

This is freedom of conscience, and sweetness of heart, and goodness of the senses, and nobility of the soul, and highness of the spirit, and the beginning of eternal life. This is, even here, an angelic life; and after this follows the eternal life — which God in his goodness grant to us all.

The seventh manner

Yet the blessed soul has another manner of higher love, which gives her no small work within. That is, that she is drawn above humanity in love, and above human sense and reason, and above all the works of our heart — and is drawn alone, with eternal love, into the eternity of love; and into the incomprehensibility, into the wideness, and the untouchable highness; and into the deep abyss of the Godhead, which is wholly in all things and remains incomprehensible above all things; and which is unchanging, all-being, all-powerful, all-comprehending, and all-mightily working.

In this the blessed soul is so tenderly sunken in love, and so strongly drawn in longing, that her heart is melting away and restless within her; her soul flowing and faint with love; her spirit hanging in frenzy from strong longing. And to this all her senses draw — that she wills to be in the fruition of love. This she earnestly petitions from God, and this she heartily seeks from God, and this she must greatly long for. For Love lets her be neither quieted nor rested, nor abiding in any peace.

Love draws her upward and holds her down; she sweetens her in a moment and torments her again; she gives death and brings life; she gives health, and wounds again. She makes the soul mad, and then wise again. So she draws her into a higher state of being; so she has climbed in spirit above time into eternity, and is exalted above the gifts of love into the eternity of love which is beyond time. And she is lifted above human manner in love, and above her own nature in longing to be there above.

There is her being, and all her will, her longing and her love: in the sure truth, and in the pure clarity, and in the noble highness, and in the marvelous beauty, and in the sweet fellowship of the supernal spirits — who all flow with overflowing love, who are in the clear knowing and in the having and in the fruition of their love.

Meanwhile her longing wandering is up there among the spirits, and most of all among the burning seraphim in the great Godhead; and in the high Trinity is her loving rest and her delightful dwelling.

She seeks him in his majesty; she follows him there, and gazes upon him with heart and with spirit. She knows him; she loves him; she longs for him so greatly, that she cannot regard either saints or men, neither angels nor any creatures, except with a common love in him with whom she loves them all. Him alone has she chosen in love above all, and under all, and within all — so that with all the longing of her heart, and with all the strength of her spirit, she longs to see him, and to have him, and to enjoy him.

For this reason the earth-realm is to her a great exile, and a strong prison, and a heavy torment. The world she scorns; the earth-realm grows hateful to her; and what belongs to the earth-realm can neither soothe her nor satisfy her. And it is a great pain to her, that she must be so far off, and seem so strange. Her exile she cannot forget; her longing cannot be quieted; her yearning torments her grievously; and by this she is afflicted and tormented beyond measure and without mercy.

Therefore she is in great yearning and in strong longing, to be released from this exile and to be unbound from this body; and so she says at times, with a sore heart, as the Apostle did who said: Cupio dissolui et esse cum Christo⁴ — that is, "I long to be unbound, and to be with Christ."

Just so is the soul in strong longing and in sorrowful restlessness to be released, and to live with Christ — not from distress at the present time, nor from fear of trouble to come, but only out of holy love and eternal love. So she longs ardently, and faintingly, and with great yearning, to come into the country of eternity, and into the glory of fruition.

Her yearning is in her great and strong, and her restlessness heavy and hard, and her pain unutterably great that she suffers from longing. Yet she must live in hope; and hope makes her gasp and grieve.

O holy longing of love, how strong is your power in the loving soul! It is a blessed passion and a sharp torment, a long-drawn pang and a murdering death and a dying life.

Up above she cannot yet come; here below she can neither rest nor endure; and from yearning she cannot bear even to think of him; and to do without him gives her, from longing, that very pain. And so she must live in great trouble.

Therefore it is that she neither can nor will be comforted, as the prophet says: Rennuit consolari anima mea, et cetera⁵ — that is, "My soul refuses to be comforted." So she often refuses all comfort, from God himself and from his creatures — for whatever rests come to her from them, this strengthens her love the more, and draws her longing into a higher state of being, and renews her yearning to attend on love, and to be in the fruition of love, and to live without delight in exile. And so she remains unfed and unrested in every gift, because she must still go without the present-presence of her Love.

This is a most toilsome life, for she will not be comforted here, unless she has obtained that which she so unceasingly seeks.

Love has drawn her, and led her, and taught her to walk love's ways; and she has followed her faithfully — often in great toil and in many works; in great yearning and in strong longing; in much restlessness and in great displeasure; in woe and in well-being, and in many a pang; in seeking and in petitioning, and in lacking and in having; in climbing and in hanging; in following and in pursuing; in distress and in care; in fear and in sorrow; in fainting and in failing; in great faithfulness and in much faithlessness; in joy and in grief — so she is ready to suffer. In death and in life she wills to attend to love; and in the feeling of her heart she suffers many a smart; and for love's sake she longs to win that country.

And when she has searched out herself wholly in this exile, then in glory is all her refuge. For this is rightly Love's work: that she longs for the nearest being, and follows after the nearest being, wherein she may most attend on love. Therefore she wills always to follow Love, to know Love and to enjoy Love — and this cannot happen to her in this exile. Therefore she wills to journey homeward, to where she has set her dwelling, and where all her longing is directed, and where she rests in love and in longing. For she knows well: there shall every hindrance be done away, and she shall be lovingly received by Love.

There shall she gaze ardently upon him whom she has so tenderly loved; and she shall have him for her eternal good, him whom she has so faithfully served; and she shall enjoy him in full delight, him whom she has often embraced in her soul with love. And there shall she enter into the joy of her Lord, as Saint Augustine says: Qui in te intrat, intrat in gaudium domini sui, et cetera⁶ — that is, "He who enters into you, O Lord, enters into the joy of his Lord; and he shall not be afraid of him, but shall have him most fully in the most full."

There the soul is united with her Bridegroom, and becomes wholly one spirit with him⁷, in inseparable faithfulness and in eternal love.

And whoever has exercised himself in the time of grace shall enjoy him in eternal glory, where one shall attend to nothing other than praising and loving.

To this may God bring us all. Amen.

Translator's footnotes

⁰ From the Highest and turn back again to the Supreme — the Middle Dutch reads vten hoegsten ende keren weder ten ouersten, where hoegsten and ouersten are both superlatives of high / up (deliberately near-tautological in Beatrijs's source, marking the circular movement from the highest back to the same highest). The English renders them with two distinct words to avoid mere repetition, but the source's two superlatives are synonymous; the opening proposition states the treatise's circular structure rather than naming two distinct termini.

^0a Into the dearth of love. — MS B (the editorial base of Reypens-Van Mierlo 1926) reads gebreken ("lack, dearth"); the H manuscript (the Limburgsche Sermoenen witness) reads gebruken ("fruition") in the apparatus at the same locus — a substantive textual divergence rather than a spelling variant. The B reading places the soul "in the working of love and in the lack of love" — the Hadewijchian gebreken/dearth dialectic in which privation drives the soul upward. The H reading would place the soul "in the working of love and in the fruition of love" — a quite different theological geometry that would anticipate the V–VII climax in gebruken. The English follows B (the editor's preferred reading).

^1a In renewed present-ness — Middle Dutch in nuer iegenwordicheiden, literally "in new present-ness / in renewed present-time." The wounds remain perpetually fresh, never receding into past pain; the literal calque is preserved here for the source's strangeness, though a more idiomatic rendering would be "in ever-present immediacy."

¹ Orewoet — Beatrijs's word for the storm of divine love. Often glossed by translators as "wildness," "fury," or "frenzy" of love, but no English equivalent quite captures the term, which is technical in the Beguine and Brabant mystical tradition and is used in the same sense by Hadewijch. The word denotes both the frenzied movement of love itself and the soul's bodily-and-spiritual experience of being seized by it. Preserved in the original throughout.

² To break the bond — not to tear the unity of love. Beatrijs is theologically precise here: the soul in her overflowing wants relief from the intensity of the bond, not from the union itself. The Latin paraphrase in the Vita Beatricis preserves this careful distinction, indicating that the early reception read this clause as load-bearing.

³ The sixth Love. The manuscript heading reads Die seste minne — "the sixth love" — rather than Die seste maniere ("the sixth manner") which the other six headings use. This is a manuscript variation across the three witnesses; we preserve the variation rather than smoothing it.

⁴ Cupio dissolui et esse cum Christo — Philippians 1:23 (Vulgate). Beatrijs's Middle Dutch rendering follows immediately.

⁵ Rennuit consolari anima mea — Psalm 76:3 (Vulgate; Psalm 77:2 in the Hebrew numbering). Beatrijs's Middle Dutch rendering follows.

⁶ Qui in te intrat, intrat in gaudium domini sui — Augustine, Confessions IX.10. Beatrijs paraphrases freely; her doublet "the most fully in the most full" (alre best in den alre besten) renders the superlative without close Latin parallel. Her Middle Dutch also interpolates a vocative o here ("O Lord") into the Augustinian sentence — o here die in-gheet in di ("O Lord, [he] who enters into you") — which Augustine's original does not have; the English preserves the vocative as a parenthetical "O Lord" within the clause.

⁷ "Becomes wholly one spirit with him" — unus spiritus, 1 Corinthians 6:17. The Vulgate qui adhaeret Domino unus spiritus est echoes throughout the Beguine corpus; Beatrijs holds this Pauline formula at the close of her treatise as the formal name of the union she has described.

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