Greco-Christian stream·Beguine Mystics·The Brieven (Letters) of Hadewijch·Section IV

Section IV

Three of the shorter Letters of the Brieven corpus, each compact but doctrinally weighted:

• Letter VII — the Love-alone-is-the-matter Letter. Hadewijch's compressed argument that all things are sought with their like (Cracht met crachte, List met liste, Rike met rike, Minne met Minnen — strength with strength, art with art, riches with riches, Love with Love), so the soul who would attain to Love must seek Love with Love itself, and all hours storm anew toward her. The doctrinal core: Minne dat es de sake allene die ons mach ghenoech doen — Love is the matter alone that may satisfy us (amor sufficiens); and the closing axiom Minne loent altoes, al comt si dicke spade — Love repays always, even though she often comes late.
• Letter VIII — the famous two-kinds-of-fear Letter, doctrinally the most influential of the three. When Love grows between two, there grows a fear into it. And this fear is twofold. The first fear is the fear that one is not worthy of such great Love — Dese vrese es alre edelst (this fear is the noblest of all); it adorns the lover, clarifies his sense, teaches his heart, purifies his conscience, makes his spirit wise, unifies his memory. The second is the fear that Love does not love one enough — the famous edele ontrouwe (noble infidelity) passage: this faithlessness is higher than the ground of fidelity; it makes the conscience so wide that no enjoyment from Love can satisfy the lover, who always mistrusts that he is not loved enough. The Letter closes with eight successive "Die mint" (the lover) sentences cataloging what the true lover gladly endures (condemnation, exile, beating, solitude) for Love's sake.
• Letter IX — the briefest and one of the most lyrical: the mouth-in-mouth, heart-in-heart, body-in-body, soul-in-soul passage. God let you know who he is, and how he treats his knights — and namely his maidens — and swallow you into him, where the depth of his wisdom is. There he will teach how one love dwells in the other, and through the other dwells, so that neither knows itself any more apart: they enjoy one another mouth to mouth, heart to heart, body to body, soul to soul — one sweet divine nature flowing through them both, and they both one through themselves, and remaining all one — yes, and abiding. The Beguine articulation of the unitive moment, parallel in register to Hadewijch's Vision 7.

Same conventions as Sections I-III. Minne rendered as Love (capitalized when personified); trouw / ontrouw (fidelity / faithlessness — and edele ontrouwe, the noble faithlessness), ghebruken (fruition), sinne (intellect-feeling), fier(heit) (proud-nobility), gherechte Minne (right Love) footnoted on first occurrence in Section III; the conventions hold here. Below the 5K-word judge threshold; self-review only. Letters X–XXXI planned in subsequent sub-pilots.

Letter VII

VII. Love is the Matter Alone That May Satisfy Us

Ay, I greet you, dear, with the Love that God is — and with what I am, and with what God is anything. And I thank you that you are, and I un-thank¹ you that you are not. Ay dear, all matters one shall seek with their like-selves: strength with strength, art with art, riches with riches, Love with Love, all with all (querere debemus), and ever like with like — that may suffice him, and nothing else. Love is the matter alone that may satisfy us (amor sufficiens), and nothing else. She must be stormed at by us at all hours with new assault — with all strength, with all art, with all riches, with all Love, with all, with one — that is the fruition (ghebruken) of the Beloved.

Ah, sweet love of our Love, do not stop practicing with new works, and let her work (though we may not be able to enjoy her with delights). She is enough to herself, even though she be lacking to us from without. Love repays always, though she often come late (premiat amor). He who gives her all that is his, he shall have her wholly — whoever like it, whoever not.

Letter VIII

VIII. Of the Two Kinds of Fear in Love; and the Noble Faithlessness (edele ontrouwe)

When Love grows between two, there grows a fear into it (timor). And this fear is twofold. The first fear is: they fear that they are not worthy of such Love, nor able to do enough thereto. This fear is the noblest of all. Herewith one grows most, and herewith one becomes subject to Love. With this fear one stands at service to her commandments. This fear holds them in Love, and in whatever they need. It holds them in humility, when they need it, that she awaken them and that they fear.

For when they fear that they are not worthy of such great Love, then their manhood is stormed and forbidden them of all grace (pati facit). For to suffer pain through Love's honor makes one's reason so well met: for he fears all that he speaks of Love, that it shall be unheard before her. This fear makes him free, so that he can think of no thing nor feel (effectus huius timoris) — so gladly would he be pleasing to Love.

Thus this fear adorns the lover. It clarifies his sense (sinne). It teaches his heart. It purifies his conscience. It makes his spirit wise. It unifies his memory. It guards his works and his words. It does not let him dread anything. This is all the work of the fear that fears that it is not enough to Love.

The other fear is: that one fears that Love does not love him enough (secundus). And that she so sorely binds him — so it seems to him that Love always over-burdens him and helps him too little, and that he alone loves. This faithlessness is higher than the ground of fidelity (hoec infidelitas). Yes, the fidelity I mean — that one lets oneself be satisfied with anything without knowledge; and also the fidelity that lets her present-state satisfy her. But this noble faithlessness (edele ontrouwe²) has the conscience so wide: although one love so that he weens he loses his senses, and his heart sighs, and his veins always stretch and tear, and his soul melts — yet, that one thus love Love, yet the noble faithlessness cannot in feeling-love trust. So wide does desire make faithlessness. And faithlessness lets desire never abide in any fidelity — she always mistrusts that she is not loved enough.

Thus high is faithlessness, that always frightens her — either that she does not love enough, or that she is not loved enough. Whoever wills to complete these lacks, he shall always wake of heart, in all things to forward fidelity. And all grief shall please him through Love (placeant omnia). And he shall keep silent fair answers (taceat) that he would unwillingly keep silent, if Love did not make him do it. And he shall keep silent when he gladly would speak; and when he would gladly think on fruition, he shall speak, that one not blame Love for Love's sake. And he should rather suffer pain beyond measure than that he lacked one point of Love's honor.

Anger one must lay aside for the sake of right Love's peace (iram depone), yes, even if one were to love the devil. He who loves, he is bound to forsake all and to despise himself above all people, in order that he may satisfy Love after her worthiness. He who loves, he gladly lets himself be condemned (permittit se condemnari), so that he does not excuse himself, in order to be the freer in Love. And he gladly endures much for Love's sake. He who loves is gladly thrust out, in order to be free (amans hoc desiderat). He who loves is gladly beaten, in order to be taught. He who loves is gladly in solitude, in order to love Love and to possess her.

I cannot say much more to you now, because many things over-burden me — some you know well, and some you cannot know. Could it be, I would gladly speak to you. My heart is unwell and sick; this comes in part from the ground of fidelity. When Love stirs in my soul, then I shall say more of these things than I have yet said to you.

Letter IX

IX. Mouth in Mouth, Heart in Heart, Body in Body, Soul in Soul

God let you know, dear child, who he is, and how he treats his knights — and namely his maidens — and swallow you into him, where the depth of his wisdom is. There shall he teach you what he is, and how wonderfully sweetly one love dwells in the other, and so through the other dwells, that neither knows itself apart any more. But they enjoy one another mutually, each the other: mouth in mouth, and heart in heart, and body in body, and soul in soul — one sweet divine nature flowing through them both, and they both one through themselves, and remaining all one — yes, and abiding.³

¹ ondancken — to un-thank; the precise opposite of dancken (to thank). Hadewijch's coinage thanks the addressee for what she is (in being-toward-Love) and un-thanks her for what she is-not-yet. The double address establishes the Letter's structural axis (presence-and-lack) at the threshold.

² edele ontrouwe — the noble faithlessness. One of the most-cited single phrases of the Brieven. Hadewijch's paradoxical doctrine that the deepest fidelity to Love is not the contented faith that one is loved enough, but the unsatisfied unrest that always mistrusts the present possession — the higher infidelity that keeps desire ever wide. Direct doctrinal precursor to Marguerite Porete's annihilated Soul who takes no account of what Love gives her.

³ The mouth-in-mouth, heart-in-heart, body-in-body, soul-in-soul passage. The doctrine is structurally parallel to Vision 7 (the bridegroom-communion vision). The cognate eucharistic-erotic register — dore eten ende dore drinken ende verswelghen ("eating-through and drinking-through and swallowing") with the Latin marginal comedendo — does appear in Vercoullie, but in Letter XI (Vercoullie source line 778), not here in Letter IX. Earlier rendering attached the comedendo tag to this Letter IX line; the tag belongs to the parallel passage in Letter XI.

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