Greco-Christian stream·Beguine Mystics·The Visions of Hadewijch·Section V

Section V

Two visions in scope, both on liturgical feasts of the Incarnation cycle and both presenting strong unitive-and-bridal images of the Beloved's countenance.

• Vision 11 — on Christmas Night. Hadewijch is taken in the spirit and sees an over-deep wheel, wide and dark, in whose darkness all things are enclosed and through whose darkness all things are seen-through — the whole mightiness of our Beloved. She sees the Lamb seat the Beloved, David harping, a child born in the hidden loving spirits. A phoenix appears and devours two eagles: a young gray one (Hadewijch herself, coming, beginning, growing in love), and a blond old one with new feathers (Saint Augustine, full-grown in the love of our Beloved). The phoenix is named as the oneness in which the Trinity dwells, where we both are lost. The vision is followed by the long after-meditation in which Hadewijch refuses the comfort of her oneness with Augustine in favor of God alone in pure Love, articulates the controversial doctrine that the saints in heaven cannot enjoy by their own will, but only after Love's will, and gives the strong free-will passage: I am a free human being and also a part pure, and I may with my will freely desire, and as high will as I will — the doctrinal precursor to Marguerite Porete's annihilated Soul. She closes with the apostolic-zeal passage about her wound for sinners (in the Pauline register of Romans 9:3), the meditation on pacificness (Pax, the divine mightiness which must go first), and God's final teaching of her perfect pride of loving — how one shall love the manhood toward the godhead.
• Vision 12 — on Three Kings' Day (Epiphany), during the twelfth Mass. Hadewijch sees a great city, wide and high, adorned with all perfections. In the middle of it sits one on a round disk that opens and closes itself in concealment at every hour. He sits still above the disk; within the disk he turns continuously with unspeakable swiftness. The disk turns in an unfathomable abyss. Its upper face is adorned with all kinds of fair gemstones and pure gold; its dark lower face is like dreadful flames that devour heaven and earth. His countenance — visible only to those who belong to those dreadful flames and have been cast into the deep abyss below — gives life to all the dead, makes dry things bloom, makes the poor rich and the weak strong, and all who were many and manifold become one in that countenance. His robe is whiter than white; on his breast is written: Beloved of all beloveds. An eagle calls four times: the bride does not yet know what she shall become, what her highest way is, what kingdom she shall receive from her Bridegroom — Endure and wait, and fall not into this countenance. Then a great host approaches, each rich from her own works — the twelve virtues that lead the Bride to her Beloved (Faith, Hope, Right Trust, Charity, Desire, Humility, Discretion, Forewording-mighty Works, Reason, Wisdom, Pacificness, Patience). The Bride's robe is the One Perfect Will, adorned with the twelve virtues; on her breast a fore-clasp from the divine seal by which she is known in the divine united oneness. She is led between the fruition of Love and the command of virtues — the command she brings, the fruition she finds. The vision closes with Hadewijch received into the wheel as one of those who sit upon the disk, the eagle's pronouncement now look through the countenance and be true bride of the great bridegroom, and the famous Jobian invocation: you have most-mightily received the hidden word that Job understood — porro dictum est (Job 4:12: and there was something said to me by stealth).

Same conventions as previous Hadewijch sections. Minne = Love (capitalized when personified); gebruken = fruition; bekinnesse = knowing; fierheit van Minnen = pride / nobility of Loving. Combined ~4,400 EN words, below the judge threshold; self-review only.

Vision 11 — Christmas Night: the Phoenix and the Two Eagles

I lay on a Christmas night at one time, and was taken up in the spirit. There I saw an over-deep wheel, and a wide one, and over-dark; and in that wheel, which was so wide, was all thing enclosed, so fast and so closely bound. The darkness illuminated and saw through all thing. The unfathomable depth of the wheel was so high that none might come to it. I let now fare what kind he was, for there is no time now to speak of it; I cannot well bring to word — that is the one — for it is unspeakable. The other is, that there is now no occasion, for much belongs to it that I there saw. That was the whole mightiness of our Beloved.

Therein I saw our Beloved seated by a Lamb.⁷ In the wideness I saw a feast, as of a David harping, and he struck a stroke on the harp. Then I knew a child being born in the hidden loving spirits who themselves are hidden in the depth whereof I am speaking, and who lack nothing but that they wander therein. I saw of all manner of spirits the forms, each in his being wherein he lived. Those whom I saw and whom I knew, those remained known to me; and those I did not know became known to me — some thereby from within, and also from without a great part. And some I knew thereby from within, whom I never saw from without.

There I saw come like to a bird called phoenix; he devoured a gray eagle who was young, and a blond one with new feathers who was old, who were used to fly without ceasing through the depth that was there. Then I heard a voice as a thunder which said: Do you know who these are, who there have so manifold a color? And I said: I would gladly know better. When I asked to know, I saw the things still — which they were, of all that I there saw. For all that one sees with the spirit which is taken up by love — that one knows-through, that one tastes-through, that one sees-through, that one hears-through. So was it there also. Yet I would gladly hear the voice which came to me from the Beloved to be heard. And they told me the truth of all that I there saw, especially the beings and the perfections. All this would be too long; this I let stay, for a great book would have to go to it if one would write it all out in full truth. But the eagles that were devoured — the one was Saint Augustine, the other I.

The old feathers that were gray, and the eagle that was young: that was I — the coming, and the beginning, and growing-up in love. The feathers that were blond and old, that was the full-grown-ness of Saint Augustine, who was old and perfect in the love of our Beloved. The age also which I had, that was in the nature of eternal being, perfectly — though I were of the outermost nature still coming. The young feathers of the old eagle, that was the renewal of me in new gloriousness of my love, with which I loved him and so greatly desired to practice one love with him in the Trinity, wherein he so perfectly burned with love without quenching. Also, the youth which the old feathers had which were blond — that was also the renewal of love which is always growing in heaven and on earth. The phoenix who devoured the eagles, that was the oneness wherein the Trinity dwells, wherein we both are lost.

After this, when I came again to myself, where I found myself poor and miserable, then I bethought myself of that oneness wherein I had fallen with Saint Augustine. So it did not satisfy me, that my over-Beloved had done that by my favor and by my affection — that grieved me, that I was so perfectly satisfied with the oneness with him, which I before, outside the saints and outside men, alone in God had had. Thereby it became well known to me that one in heaven nor in the spirit may enjoy by any will, but after Love's will. For when I bethought me of this, then I asked of my Beloved that he would release me of this. For I would remain in his deepest abyss alone in fruition. Also I knew that he had drawn me from childhood alone to himself, beyond all things — and to himself in other manners taken-up. But this I knew well, that all that was in him, is as eternal glory and perfect pleasure. But so I wished to remain in him alone. That I obtained, when I asked it, and so greatly desired, and so heavily endured.¹ Then I remained free.

But I remained him — what I had been the man in love. But my freedom, which I won, was thereabove given me by reasons that he did not have, nor many people. This I did not gainsay for any advantage which I would have of it before him; but when I knew the truth of being, then I would not from him who was man take any recreation, nor take any relief to my pain; and so I would not let any certainty satisfy me which there was shown to me — that of being one with Saint Augustine. For I am a free human being, and also a part pure;² and I may with my will freely desire, and as high will as I will, and obtain and embrace from God all that he is, without gainsaying, and without anger — which no saint may do. For they have their will there perfectly after their satisfaction, and they may nevermore more will than they have. Many a great thing of wonder and of being have I therefore hated, for that I would alone be of love's being, and for that I could not well believe that any man so heartily loved him as I do. Yet, when I trust so surely of it as without doubt, so I cannot believe nor feel — so near am I touched.

With thus many a great wonder am I to God alone in pure love, and to my saints in love, and then to all saints, each according to his worthiness, and to men, according to that each loved, and was, and is yet. Then I knew love in no manner of rest, so heavily was I burdened in ungraces of love. For I was man, and the godhead is so dreadful and so ungraciously-eating and -burning without sparing; the soul is enclosed in a little brook: the depth is soon overflowed, and the dykes are soon broken. Thus the godhead has the manhood soon altogether drawn to herself.

The saints I loved their being: that was to me only an envy of theirs, only so much rest, that he enjoys of himself in it; but such a kind of rest has often hurt me — yes, well forty times hurt against one relief. This I had to know: that men laughed at them and I wept; and they extolled themselves and I lamented for myself; and they were honored of him, and he of them in all lands, and I sneered at — that was my greatest rest, for that he willed it. But thus such growth as is wont to be of those who love and use fruition, and thus such pain to have therefrom as I then.

Now from men was my rest that I loved each in his own — that I let each be loved alone, and that his good befall alone; whether in himself, whether in God, I did not concern myself with it. But that they had in love, that I loved God, that he comforted himself with them and made them grow perfectly: this I desired. With that I loved his beloved-ness, I would no other satisfaction of it than this. As of the men who were too little to him, and strange, that was hard to me. For I was so burdened to them with love, and set upon, that I could hardly endure that any loved him less than I. Charity also wounded me bitterly, that he let them be so strange and so destitute of all his goods that he himself is in love. This has been so over-heavy to me at many an hour, that there was done to me as to Moses by his sister's love⁹: that I willed that he give them love or take me away. Also I would gladly have bought it for them, that he loved them and hated me. Also at such a time I would gladly have, for that he did this not, myself turned away from him in love, and loved them for his anger, for that the miserable ones might not know the sweet hearty love which dwells in his holy nature; so I would over-gladly have loved them, if I had had the power.

Ah, charity has most wounded me, except love itself.³ What is love itself? That is divine mightiness, which must go first — so does it here in me. For the mightiness which love itself is spares no one in hate nor in love; nor is there ever any grace found there. This mightiness compelled me again to it: that I had not, with one looking-around, relieved all men anywhere else than where he had chosen them in.⁸ When I might so turn me toward him — that was the fair human, lived and free; then I might ask what I would. But when I was in the other, then I was fairer and nearer raised up in divine nature.

Thus softly have I lived as man, that I have taken no rest in saints nor in men. And so miserably have I lived outside love in love of God and his; and because I do not have that from him which is mine, which I lack from God — and which I yet have, and which shall remain mine — thus I never felt love, but always in a new death. When my time would be that I should have recreation, and God to me to know should give perfect pride of love-of-Love⁴: to know how one shall love the manhood toward the godhead and rightly know in one nature — that is the worthiest life that ever was lived in God's kingdom. This rich rest God gave me, and well in due seasons.

Vision 12 — Three Kings' Day: the Wheel of the Beloved and the Bride with Twelve Virtues

On a Three Kings' Day I was within the twelfth Mass taken up in the spirit out of myself. There I saw a city great and wide and high and adorned with perfections. And there in the midst sat one upon a round disk, which at all hours revealed itself and enclosed itself in concealments. And he who sat thereon, above the disk, was in a still sitting; and within the disk he turned always in unspeakable course. And the wheel in which the disk ran, in which he turned — that was so unheard-of-deep and so dark that no terror can be likened to it. And the disk was within, in its uppermost view, of all kinds of fair gemstones and in the color of pure gold; and in the darkest side, where it ran so dreadfully, there it was like dreadful flames that devour heaven and earth, and into which all thing is dismayed and swallowed.

And he who sat thereon — his countenance no one might know, but those who belonged to those dreadful flames of the disk and who had been cast into that deep abyss which was thereunder. And that countenance drew all the dead to him living, and all dry thing bloomed from it; and all who looked in it, the poor received great riches, and all the weak became strong, and all who were many and manifold became one in that countenance. And he who sat thereon upon the city, was clothed with a robe whiter than white; and thereon was written before the breast: Beloved of all beloveds was the name.

Then I fell before the countenance to adore the truth of that dreadful being which I there saw revealed. Then came an eagle flying with a great voice, calling, and said: Yet the Beloved does not know all what she shall become. And another said: Yet the Beloved does not know what her highest way is. And the third said: Yet the Beloved does not know what the great kingdom is which she, as bride, shall receive of her Bridegroom. And the fourth said to me: Endure and wait, and fall not into this countenance. Those who fall in the countenance and adore — they receive grace. Those who through the countenance standing see — they receive righteousness, and become mighty to know the deep abysses which are so dreadful to know to the unknowing.

And then I was taken up with that voice of the eagle who spoke to me. And then came into the city a great multitude adorned, and each rich from her own works. These were all virtues, and led a bride to her Beloved; and they had served her fairly, and had held her so proudly that they might fitly bring her on before the mighty great God who should receive her as bride.

And she was clothed with a robe which was of one perfect will, always without grief, and ready to all virtue, and drawn-up by all matters that belong thereto. And that robe was adorned with all those virtues, and each had her sign thereon, and her name known as written.

The first was Faith: she had borne her up from lownesses.

The second, Hope: she had heightened her above herself to the great trust of eternal pleasures.

The third, Right Trust: she witnessed her noble — for she never abandoned her in any need that was so great.

The fourth, Charity: she witnessed her rich — for her works never failed from without nor from within, and rich gifts never failed her through her honor; for she was known to all riches by high trust.

The fifth, Desire: she witnessed her wide in her own land, fair and lavish of full riches — so that she might well receive all the greatness of heaven.

The sixth, Humility: she witnessed her so deep and so unfathomable that she might receive the greatness fully in her unfathomableness.

The seventh, Discretion: she witnessed her so cunning that she set each being in its place — heaven in its height, hell in her depth, purgatory in its being, the angels in their orders, men each in his fittingness, in his falling and in his rising. Thus to let God become — that well fitted to the robe of the one will.

The eighth, her Forewording Mighty Works: she witnessed her so strong that nothing could escape her — she conquered alone all powers, and brought all lowness high and all height low.

The ninth, Reason: she showed her ordered, and that she was her rule with which she worked righteousness at all hours, and which lighted her in all the dearest will of her Beloved; and she gave benediction and dooming like to him in all his loving and in all his hating, and she gave all that he gave, and she took all that he took.

The tenth, Wisdom: she showed her known in all dominions of every perfect virtue that one should handle for perfect satisfaction of Beloved. She showed her also known through each person of the Trinity, into the oneness which was there so deep, fallen under the wondrous dreadful disk where he sat who should receive the bride.

The eleventh, Pacificness:⁵ she showed her and witnessed good countenance, fair and cunning in whole embracing and in a through-going kiss and in all honors and in all dealings — as beloved should deal with beloved in love; and who was with him announced, and born, and her like out of others born and growing up with him and living as man with him in all alike pain, in poverty, in contempts, in mercy on all those whom righteousness was angry with — and who alike were fed from others within and without, and never received foreign comfort, and died with him, and freed all the captives with him, and bound what he bound, and rose with him, and went one with him to his Father, and there with him knew his Father as Father, and with him she-Son, and with him the Holy Ghost as Holy Ghost — and with him, like him, she knows them all one, and the being wherein they are one. This witnesses to her all pacificness, that she has thus practiced, and shall further perfectly with him with love in love practice.

The twelfth, Patience: she has held her of all noxiousness without grief without any complaint in all complaint, as instruments for good work¹⁰ and as in a new embracing: she shows her godly in one being and in one work.

Thus is the robe of the one will adorned with the divine nature. Thus adorned, the bride comes with all this fair company in likenesses spoken. She had on the breast a fore-clasp of the divine seal, by which she is known in the divine united oneness. That was a sign that she had understood the hidden word from himself out of that depth. Thus came she into the city with this company, led between the fruition of love and the command of virtues — the command she brought there, the fruition she found there.

And when she was thus led to the high seat whereof I spoke before — then said the eagle who had spoken to me: Now look through the countenance, and become true bride of the great bridegroom, and see yourself thus. And with this I saw myself received as one of those who there sat in the wheel on the running disk; and there I became one with them in certainty of the oneness.

Then said the eagle, when I was received: Now you see, all-mighty, whom I before called Beloved — that you did not know what you should become, nor what your highest way was, nor what the great kingdom was which you should receive as bride of your bridegroom. When you fell before in the countenance, then know yourself as a simple soul un-graced; when you stood up and saw through, then you saw yourself perfectly as our right bride sealed with love. You, all-mighty, have most deeply received the hidden word that Job understood — that was porro dictum est.⁶

In the depth I saw myself swallowed up; there I received certainty of being received in that form into my Beloved, and my Beloved so in me.

Translator's footnotes (project translation)

¹ I asked of my Beloved that he release me of this... That I obtained, when I asked it, and so greatly desired, and so heavily endured. The doctrinal centerpiece of Vision 11: Hadewijch, having been raised into mystical oneness with Saint Augustine, refuses the gift. The reason is theologically precise: the heavenly saints' enjoyment of God is after Love's will, not after their own — they cannot will higher than they have. Hadewijch, as long as she is a free human being still in via, retains the freedom to will as high as she wills, to desire freely, to embrace from God all that he is without gainsaying — a freedom no glorified saint possesses. The vision turns on this paradox: the still-mortal soul is higher than the glorified saint in the sense that her will is still capable of upward movement. This is the direct doctrinal precursor to Marguerite Porete's annihilated Soul — who has willed nothing and thereby possesses all — written about sixty years later.

² I am a free human being, and also a part pure — Ic vri mensche ben ende oec .i. deel puer. One of the most-cited lines in Hadewijch scholarship; Van Mierlo's reading: vri mensche = a free human, still on the way; .i. deel puer = and also in one part pure (i.e., the soul has its share of the divine nature in puris naturalibus — what Eckhart will later call the Seelenfunklein or Vünkelîn). The line establishes the freedom-of-will that grounds the entire after-meditation. Marguerite Porete's l'âme deniée and Eckhart's vünkelîn both take this seed and run with it.

³ Charity has most wounded me, except love itself. The Pauline-Augustinian distinction between caritas (the virtue, ordered toward neighbor) and amor / Minne (the divine love-being itself). Hadewijch suffers more for charity — for her wound at the spiritual destitution of sinners — than for any other thing except Love itself. The passage is in the Romans 9:3 register: optabam enim ipse ego anathema esse a Christo pro fratribus meis (Paul: I could wish myself accursed from Christ for my brethren). Hadewijch's I willed that he give them love or take me away is the direct vernacular descendant.

⁴ Perfect pride of love-of-Love — volcomene fierheit vander minnen. Fierheit is the Middle Dutch term for the noble pride / nobility / proud freedom of soul — the chivalric register of the miles Christi tradition applied to mystical love. In Hadewijch the term carries no negative valence whatsoever — it is the positive nobility of a soul who refuses to be content with less than full and total Love. The companion virtue is vromecheit (boldness, the will to attempt great deeds for Love). Hadewijch's whole letter-corpus is suffused with this fierheit-vocabulary.

⁵ Pacificness — vredeleecheit, the personified virtue of Peace (the Latin marginal gloss in Van Mierlo reads pax). Van Mierlo's apparatus connects this to Psalm 84:11 (Vulgate): justitia et pax osculatae sunt — righteousness and peace have kissed each other. The personified Peace in Vision 12 is the longest of all twelve virtues; she alone unfolds in mystical-Christological detail the entire life of Christ as the imitatio she practices with him — birth, growth, suffering, death, descent, resurrection, ascent to the Father. The eleven other virtues each occupy one or two sentences; Peace occupies a paragraph. The placement is deliberate: it is through pacificness that the soul does the imitatio Christi, and through imitatio Christi that she comes into the one being with God which Vision 12 culminates in.

⁶ Porro dictum est — Job 4:12 in the Vulgate: porro ad me dictum est verbum absconditum — and there was a hidden word said to me by stealth. The passage is one of the great Patristic and medieval loci for the deus absconditus and for the doctrine of raptus — the prophetic word received in secret. Hadewijch's closing pronouncement — you have most deeply received the hidden word that Job understood, that was porro dictum est — is the highest possible Old-Testament-prophet seal she could place on her own visionary experience. The phrase is in Latin in the Middle Dutch source.

⁷ Our Beloved seated by a Lamb — source onse lief beseten van enen lamme. The Middle Dutch beseten van enen lamme reads more naturally as "the Beloved is seated/possessed by a Lamb" — Apocalypse 5 imagery, with the Beloved as the subject — rather than as "the Lamb enthroning the Beloved." Earlier rendering ("the Lamb seat our Beloved") inverted the grammatical relation.

⁸ That I had not, with one looking-around, relieved all men anywhere else than where he had chosen them in — source Dese moghentheyt dwanc mi weder daer toe, dat ic met enen ommesiene niet alle menschen uerledecht en hadde el dan daer hise in uercoren hadde. The Middle Dutch construction niet ... el dan is restrictive ("not ... elsewhere than"), and the doctrine is that whatever release the Soul gives to others must remain within the place He had elected for them. Earlier rendering dropped the negative (niet) and rendered the line as a positive statement, losing the restriction.

⁹ Moses by his sister's love — the reference is Numbers 12:10–13, where Moses intercedes for his sister Miriam after she is struck with leprosy: "Heal her now, O God, I beseech thee" (sana eam, Deus, obsecro). Hadewijch identifies with Moses's specifically sibling-intercessory grief — not with the better-known Exodus 32:32 ("blot me out of thy book").

¹⁰ Instruments for good work — the Latin marginale instrumenta bonorum operum in Van Mierlo's apparatus is from the Rule of St Benedict, chapter 4 (De instrumentis bonorum operum), the seventy-three "tools of good work" the Benedictine bears in the cloister. Hadewijch silently aligns her bride's patientia with the Benedictine tool-tradition.

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