Greco-Christian stream·Beguine Mystics·The Flowing Light of the Godhead — Books I-VII (complete)·Book III

Book III

This is the largest of Mechthild's seven books — almost 12,000 words of Middle Low German, with 24 chapters whose centre is Chapter X, the passio of the loving soul in thirty parts: Mechthild's most sustained meditation on the soul's mimetic conformity to Christ's passion. Book III also contains: the long cosmological opening (Chapter I, on the nine choirs, Mary's throne above the Seraphim, John the Baptist filling Lucifer's broken-off place, and the unbaptized children); the doctrinally weighted question of whether the Virgin could have sinned (Chapter IV); the creation-of-Adam-and-Eve narrative as a discussion within the Trinity (Chapter IX); the 168 pawnings and the freeing of seventy thousand souls from purgatory (Chapter XV); Mechthild's own claim that her book is illuminated by five prophets — Moses, David, Solomon, Jeremiah, Daniel (Chapter XX); and the graphic three-part hell-vision (Chapter XXI), with sixteen categories of damned and Lucifer's garment woven of foulness.

A word on Chapter XXI. Mechthild's hell-vision divides hell into three vertical regions: Christians at the bottom (with the heaviest torments, because they had the most light and rejected it), Jews in the middle, heathens at the top (lightest torments, because they did not have access to the gospel). This is standard high-medieval Christian thinking about post-mortem reward and punishment scaled to revelation; it is not Mechthild's invention. I render the chapter as Mechthild wrote it. The medieval framework is preserved; readers will judge it as they will.

Two other passages in Chapter XXI deserve advance flagging. The chapter title speaks of sixteen kinds of damned, but the body lists fifteen specific categories (the prideful, sodomites, the false-holy, the usurer, the robber, the thief, the unchaste, the unbelieving teachers, the greedy, the murderers, the hateful, the gluttonous, the slothful, the wrathful, the sinful musician); the title-vs-body mismatch is a feature of the Alemannic source, not of the translation, and is footnoted in place. (Chapter XIII has the same title-vs-body sixteen-vs-fifteen mismatch — sixteenfold love in the title, fifteen kinds of love in the body — and is footnoted similarly.) The image of Lucifer's new garment after the last judgment, woven from "the dung of all foul sins that ever a person or angel brought into knowing," is one of Mechthild's most bodily-grotesque images, and is rendered as such.

The translator's-note glossary anchors established in Books I and II apply unchanged here. New anchors for Book III: köpf extends from Book II's golden chalices to the cup of gall (Chapter XV); kapfer (copper) appears in Chapter XXIV in the gold-and-copper contrast (false love is copper that contaminates gold); bruch (the breach, the rank-vacancy left by Lucifer's fall) is rendered "breach" or "broken-off place" throughout Chapter I.

Latin and German liturgical fragments preserved untranslated: Puer natus est nobis (Chapter XV, the Christmas-Mass introit), XXX partes habet (Chapter X title, retained as Mechthild's Latin self-gloss), Ave Maria (Chapter XXI). Marginal scribal notes from Morel's edition (Gregorius exponit at Chapter I; two lines from Ovid in a later scribal hand at Chapter III) are footnoted.

This is the third part of this book.

I. Of the heavenly kingdom, of the nine choirs, who shall fill the breach. Of the throne of the apostles and Saint Mary, where Christ sits. Of the reward of preachers, martyrs, and maidens, and of the unbaptized children.

The soul said thus to her longing: Ah, go forth and see where my Beloved is. Tell him I would love.

Then longing journeyed swiftly hence — for she is by nature swift — and came to the heights and called: Great Lord, open and let me in. Then said the householder: What do you want, that you burn so sorely?

Lord, I make known to you, my Lady cannot long live thus; were you to flow, then she might soar, for the fish cannot long live upon the sand and remain fresh.

Go back; I will not let you in unless you bring me the hungry soul whom I love above all things.

When the messenger now returned and the soul learned her Lord's will, ah, how lovingly she received it! She rose up in a gentle drawing and in a delightful flight.

Then there came to meet her two angels¹ swiftly armed, whom God sent her from heart-loving love, and they said to her: Lady Soul, what do you want so far hence? You are yet clothed with the dark earth. Then she said: Ah, lords, hold your peace, and greet me a little better. I would journey to love. The nearer you sink to the earth, the more you hide your sweet heavenly glance; and the higher I climb, the more clearly I shine. Then they took the soul between them and bore her joyously hence.

When the soul saw the angels' land, which is near and known without danger, then was heaven shown her, and she stood and her heart melted, and she looked upon her Beloved and said: Lord, when I see you, I must praise you in marvellous wisdom. Where am I?

I am come now, lost in you. Yet I cannot think of the earth, nor of any of my heart-sorrow. I had purposed, when I should see you, to lament much to you from the earth; now your gaze, Lord, has slain me, for you have lifted me wholly above my nobility.

Then she knelt down and thanked him for his grace, and took her crown from her head and set it upon the rose-coloured scars of his feet, and desired this — that she might come close to him. Then he took her under his divine arms, and laid his fatherly hand upon her breasts, and looked upon her face. Mark whether she was there kissed. In that kiss she was raised up into the highest height, above all the choirs of angels.

The least truth that I have there seen, heard, and known, the highest wisdom that was ever named in this earth does not equal.

I have there seen unheard-of things, as my confessors say, though I am unlearned in Scripture. Now I fear God if I am silent, and I fear unknowing people if I speak. Most dear people, what can I do, that this happens to me and has often happened? In humble simplicity and in exiled poverty and in pressed-down disgrace, God has shown me his wonders. There I saw the shaping and ordering of God's house, which he himself with his mouth has built. In it he set the dearest, whom he has made with his hands. The shape of the house is called the heaven; the choirs therein are called the kingdom; therefore one says together: heavenly kingdom.

The heavenly kingdom has end in its ordering, but in its being no end shall ever be found. The heaven goes about the choirs, and between the heaven and the bodily choirs are ordered the worldly sinners, ever close to the choirs in height, when they amend and convert themselves. The choirs are so refined and holy and lordly that without chastity and love and the renouncing of all things no one comes into them; for all who fell out of them were holy, and so must those be holy who come in again. All westborn² and children of six years fill the breach²³ no higher than into the sixth choir. From there up to the Seraphim the maidens shall fill the breach, who defiled themselves with childlike will, though the deed never came to pass, and who cleansed themselves afterward in confession. They cannot, however, recover the loss; they have lost the purity. The purely spiritual maidens shall, after the last day, fill the breach above the Seraphim, where Lucifer and his nearest were cast out from.

Lucifer at one time committed three mortal sins — hatred, pride, and greed — which struck the choir so swiftly into the eternal abyss that one might pronounce Alleluia. Then the whole kingdom shook, and all the pillars of the heavenly kingdom trembled. Then certain of the others fell. That exile is still empty and unoccupied; no one is in it. And it is so pure in itself, and plays in bliss to God's honour. Above the exile is God's throne vaulted with the divine power in blossoming, shining, fiery clarity, and goes down to meet the heaven from the Cherubim, so that God's throne and the heaven are one lordly house; and there the exile and the nine choirs are enclosed within.

Above God's throne there is no more than God, God, God — immeasurable great God. High in the throne one sees the mirror of the Godhead, the image of the manhood, the light of the Holy Spirit; and one knows how the three are one God, and how they join in one. More I cannot speak of this.

Lucifer's breach shall John the Baptist fill, and his honour he shall possess in the sweet exile above the Seraphim, and all the purely spiritual maidens with him, who are still kept for the exile. At the throne of our Lady Saint Mary no breach is to be filled, for she has with her Child healed all human wounds — those who themselves grant grace, that they would and could keep it. Her Son is God, and she is goddess;³ no one can equal her. The apostles dwell next-to nearest to God in the throne and have the exile from the Seraphim as their reward, after the purity they bore. John the Baptist is also a prince in the throne. The angels dwell no higher than in the Seraphim. Above that all humans must be. The holy martyrs and God's preachers and the spiritual lovers come into the choirs, although they are not maidens. Yes, they come into the Cherubim with honour.

There have I seen, unsought, the preachers' reward as it shall yet happen. Their stools are wondrous; their reward is singular.

The foremost stools are two burning lights, which signify love and the holy image and the faithful preaching. The arm-rest of the stools is so soft, free, and in delightful rest so sweet that more than one can say it answers the strong obedience to which they here were subject.

Their feet are adorned with manifold precious gems, so fair that I should truly rejoice were so lordly a crown given to me. That have they been given in return for their labour, which here lies at their feet.

O preachers, how reluctantly you now move your tongues, and how grudgingly you bend your ears to the sinner's mouth!

I have seen before God that in the heavenly kingdom it shall happen that a breath shall shine out of your mouth, which shall rise out of the choirs before the throne and shall praise the heavenly Father for the wisdom which he laid upon your tongue, and shall magnify the Son for his honoured fellowship — for he himself was a preacher — and shall thank the Holy Spirit for his grace, for he is a master of all gifts. Then God's preachers and the holy martyrs and the loving maidens shall raise themselves up, for to them the greatest honour is given in singular garment, in bodily song, and in marvellous chaplets which they bear to God's honour.

The maidens' garment is white as lilies. The preachers' garment is fiery sun-bright. The martyrs' garment is shining rose-red, for they suffered with Jesus the bloody death. The maidens' chaplet is of many colours. The martyrs' crown is greatly manifest. The preachers' chaplet is wholly of flowers — these are the words of God, by which they came into the great honour.

Thus go these three blessed throngs in the play before the holy Trinity in a sweet round-dance.

Then there flows out to them, against them, out from God, a threefold playful flood which fulfils their mood, that they sing the truth with joys without labour, as God has laid upon them.

Thus sing the preachers: O chosen Lord, we have followed your mild goodness in willing poverty, and have herded into the fold your senseless sheep, which your hired shepherds let go out of the rightful way.

Thus sing the martyrs: Lord, your guiltless blood has fulfilled our death, that we are companions of your martyrdom.

The blessed who now soar in heaven and live there so blissfully are all wrapped in one light, and are flowed through with one love, and are united in one will. Yet they have not the worth which the honoured stools bear. They rest in God's power and flow into the bliss and hold themselves in God's drawing as the air in the sun — but after the last day, when God will have his evening meal, they shall set stools for the brides to meet their Bridegroom, and love shall come to love, body to soul, and possess then the full lordship in the eternal honour.

O you delightful Lamb and lovely Youth, Jesus, child of the heavenly Father — when you raise yourself up and pass through all the choirs and beckon lovingly to the maidens, they follow you praiseworthily into the most lordly place, of which I cannot speak. How they then play with you and consume your love-delight in themselves — that is so heavenly a sweetness and so lordly a unity that I know no like to it. The widows shall also follow in lordly delight, and in sweet beholding shall be content in the highest, since they must look upon how the Lamb joins to the maidens. The married couples shall also look lovingly upon each other, as far as their nobility allows it. For the more one sates oneself here with earthly things, the more we must do without the heavenly bliss there.

The choirs all have a singular shining in their glow, and the heaven has its own. The shining is so rare and lordly that I neither must nor may write it. To the choirs and to the heaven much worth is given by God; yet I can say a little word of each. It is no more than as much as a bee may bear of honey on its foot out of a full hive.

In the first choir is delightfulness, the highest that they have of all the gifts. In the second choir, gentleness. In the third choir, lovingness. In the fourth, sweetness; in the fifth, joyfulness. In the sixth, noble fragrance. In the seventh is richness. In the eighth, worth. In the ninth, the burning of love. In the sweet exile is pure holiness.

The highest in the throne is mighty honour, and the strong lordship. The highest over all that was ever in heaven is the marvelling. The highest there is, is that they may behold what now is and ever shall be.

Ah, the lordly cathedral,¹⁹ and the sweet eternity, and the mighty looking-through of all things, and the singular secret which between God and each soul without ceasing passes! It lies in such lordly tenderness that, had I the wisdom of all humans and the voice of all angels, I could not bring it forth!

The unbaptized children under five years dwell in a singular worth which God has prepared for them out of his kingdom.

They are not in their shape grown of thirty years, for they were not Christian with Christ. They have no crowns; God can give them nothing as reward. He has yet given them his goodness, that they live in great comfort. The highest they have is the fulness of grace. They sing thus: We praise him who has made us, although we have never seen him. Might we suffer pain, then would we ever complain; no, we shall hold ourselves well.

Now certain people may marvel how I, sinful person, can bear it that I write such speech. I tell you in truth: had God seven years ago not taken hold of my heart with a singular gift, I would still be silent and would never have done it. Now from God's goodness it has never been any harm to me; that comes from the mirror of my open wickedness, which stands rightly open against my soul, and from the nobility of grace, which lies in the rightful gift of God.

Yet the higher the soul is climbed, the more must the body in words and bearing receive less praise. One should not lament the body's trouble before your eyes either, for it is by nature a coward. One must hold it as an old pensioner who can no longer serve at court, so one gives him alms only for the love of God. This is truly profitable, for: the nobler the dog, the firmer the collar.

Now, dear Lord, this speech will I commend to your mild goodness, and beg, dearest of mine, with a sighing heart and weeping eyes and exiled soul, that no Pharisee may ever read it; and I beg you, dear Lord, more — that your children may receive this speech as you, Lord, in the rightful truth have given it out.

II. How the soul praises God in seven things, and God awaits her with the salve.

O sweet Jesus, fairest form unhidden in distress and in love for my exiled soul, I praise you with that same love, in distress and in love, with the fellowship of all creatures. This delights me above all things. Lord, you are the sun of all eyes, you are the joy of all ears, you are the voice of all words, you are the strength of all uprightness, you are the teaching of all wisdom, you are the love in all living, you are the ordering of all being.

There God praised the loving soul praiseworthily, and it delighted him sweetly thus: You are a light before my eyes, you are a lyre before my ears, you are a voice in my words, you are a meaning in my uprightness, you are an honour in my wisdom, you are a love in my living, you are a praise in my being.

Lord, you are love-sick at all times after me, that you have shown well in yourself. You have written me in your book of the Godhead, you have painted me on your loving manhood, you have engraved me on your side, on your hands and on your feet. Ah, allow me, dearest one, to anoint you. "Yes, where would you take the salve, dear-heart?" Lord, I would tear my soul's heart in two and would lay you therein; then no balm could you give me so lovely as without ceasing to soar in your soul. Lord, if you would take me home with you, then would I ever be your physician.⁴ "Yes, I will. Yet my faithfulness bids you wait, my love bids you labour, my patience bids you keep silence, my distress bids you suffer poverty, my disgrace bids you bear, my longing bids you lament distress, my victory bids you go forth in all the virtues, my end bids you bear much.⁵ Of this you have honour, when I unload your great burden."

III. A lament that the soul is a maiden, and of God's love.

SOUL: O Lord, what a poor soul she is, and exiled, who in this earth is a maiden of your love! Ah, who will help me lament how woe it is to her — for she does not herself know what she lacks, what it is.

LOVE: Lady Bride, you speak in love's book to your body that it should flee from you.⁶ Inform me carefully, Lady, how this has come to you. For I would rather die, could that happen to me, in pure love, than to bid God depart from me in dark wisdom. When I would lordly play with my Beloved, no wisdom need teach me any distinction. But when I labour in other things with my five senses, I would gladly that she should bring me the holy Mass. Hear me, dear playmate.⁷ I was joyfully drunken in love; therefore I spoke tenderly of him. But when I become over-drunken, I cannot think of my Beloved, for love watches over me — what she will, that must be, and what God consoles himself with, that I venture; for if he takes my body from me, the soul is his.

Will you go with me into the wine-cellar? Then must you have great cost. Have you a thousand marks' worth, that you have spent in one hour.

If you will drink the wine unmixed, then you spend ever more than you have, and the host cannot pour you full. Then you become poor and naked and despised by all those who would rather rejoice in the puddle than spend their treasure in the high wine-cellar.

You must also suffer this, that they envy you, who go with you into the wine-cellar. O, how often they will despise you, because they dare not bear so great a cost; they will have water mixed with the wine.

Dear Lady Bride, in the tavern I would gladly spend all that I have and let myself be drawn through the coals of love and beaten with the brands of disgrace, that I may often go into the blessed wine-cellar. Here I will gladly choose, for I cannot lose at love. Therefore he who torments and despises me — he pours me of the host's wine that he himself has drunk.

Of the wine I become so drunken that I become truly attached to all creatures. That seems to me, after my human ignobility and after my acquired wickedness, that no human has so evilly done against me that he should commit any sin against me, wretched. Therefore I may not work my injury upon my enemy. Yet I know well, they can break God's commandment also in me.

Dear playmate, when it happens that one opens the wine-cellar, then must you go in the street hungry, poor, naked, and so despised that you have nothing left of the food of Christian living but the faith. If you can then love, you will never perish.

Lady Bride, I have a hunger for the heavenly Father. By it I forget all sorrow. And I have a thirst for his Son which takes from me all earthly delight. And I have of both their spirits such a distress which passes above the Father's wisdom that I may grasp, and above the Son's labour that I may endure, and above the Holy Spirit's comfort that may happen to me.

Whoever is captured by this distress must be hung eternally, unfreed, in God's bliss.

IV. How our Lady Saint Mary could have sinned and could not — the Holy Spirit teaches this.

Mary, lordly empress, God's mother and my Lady, I was asked by you whether you could have sinned like other humans, when you were on this sinful earth. Now the Holy Spirit has informed me — who knows, Lady, all your secret — that you could have sinned, for you were a fully made human from God, in all womanly nature and in all maidenly shape, and you were not lame in your nature. This makes the chastity that you long kept before God noble and precious.

But Lady, noble goddess above all pure humans, you also could not have sinned. That you had not from yourself, for the heavenly Father shielded your childhood with the foresight of his old choosing; and the Holy Spirit bound your youth with the fulness of his new love; and Jesus passed through your body as the dew through the flower, so that your chastity was never touched. And the strength of the holy Trinity had so pressed in upon your nature that it durst not nor could move humanly before its Creator. And the eternal Wisdom of the almighty Godhead had given you, Lady, a shadow, in which you kept your human life, that you might suffer pain without sin, and that your blossoming manhood in the sun of the mighty Godhead might not vanish. In the shadow you bore Jesus humanly and raised him motherly. But, Lady, in the Father's message and in the Holy Spirit's conceiving and in the Son's word — Lady, the fire of the Godhead and the light of the Holy Spirit and the wisdom of the Son were so great in you that you could little feel the shadow. God knows, Lady, after that you had to cool yourself in exile with poverty, with discomfort, and with many a heart-heaviness. Yet you remained in your heart, in good works, greatly fiery from the fire that burns without kindling and without help, in itself. That has, Lady, shone through your walls, and has driven all darkness out of your house.

V. How the soul laments that she hears neither Mass nor the hours, and how God praises her in ten things.

Thus an exiled soul lamented, when God had cast her from his lordly love and loved her with great pain. O woe, how grievously a rich man can suffer when after lordly riches he is shown into great poverty! And she said: Ah Lord, now I am very poor in my sick body and very exiled in my poor soul. So, Lord, in spiritual ordering, no one reads your hours before me, nor does anyone serve your holy office of the Mass before me.

Then spoke the loving mouth which has wholly wounded my soul, with his great words — which I never worthily heard, like this: You are my longing, a sweet wonder of mine. You are a sweet cooling of my breast. You are a strong kiss of my mouth. You are a joyful joy of my finding. I am in you and you are in me. We can be no nearer, for we two have flowed into one and are poured into one form; so we shall remain eternally unwearied.

Ah, dear one, why do you speak to me so near? Indeed, I dare never joyfully think of these words while the dead hound, my body, stinks without ceasing with sorrow next to me, and my other enemies burn so constantly next to me. And, Lord, I do not know in my senses how it shall go at my end. Yet in your gaze alone I know nothing of grief; so have you, Lord, taken me from myself, and have stolen yourself into me. What you have promised me must come to pass, and must yet come to your praise.

Thus our Lord answered: My deep reaching, my wide journeying, my high longing, my long waiting — I must yet teach you: The noble maidens cost their breeding much. They must constrain themselves in all their members, and must often tremble before their breeding-mistress.

So is it given to my brides on earth in their body. I was on earth wholly enclosed for love of you with distress, and my enemies grimly bore my death before my eyes in their hands, and I suffered in shame much poverty. Over that I trusted my Father with uncountable goodness. By this you shall direct your mood.

VI. If you would rightly follow God, you must have seven things.

Whoever would follow God in faithful labour must not stand still; he should journey often. He should think what he was in sin and how he is now in the virtues, and what he may yet become in falling. He should lament and praise and pray night and day. When the faithful bride awakens, she thinks of her Beloved; if she cannot have him then, it goes to a weeping. Ah, how often this happens to God's brides spiritually.

VII. Of seven open enemies of our blessedness, who make seven harms.

Uselessness is in us a very harmful habit, and evil habit harms us also in all places, and earthly greed extinguishes in us the holy word of God, and the evil strife of self-will works in us many a harmful murder, and enmity of the heart drives the Holy Spirit out of us, and wrathful mind takes God's secrecy from us, and the false holiness can never stand, and the pure love of God can vanish from no one. If we will not avoid these enemies, they will take from us more than the heavenly kingdom; for there is a pre-heavenly kingdom that we live here secretly. If we grant these enemies their cunning and their power over us, they will rob us of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, and they will extinguish in us the true light of true love of God. They will also bind our eyes — the eyes of holy knowing — and lead us blinded into the seven mortal sins. Where then goes the road, but into the eternal abyss?

VIII. Of seven things that all priests should have.

The heavenly Father has told me seven things that every priest of God should have at himself, and said: They should be guiltless in themselves, and the vessel shall be perfect. Is there any doubt of this, then one should leave it and not do it. They should lay all fear from them, and shall forget the Jewish law, and shall eat my Lamb alive, and shall drink his blood sighing — then may they rightly think of his great suffering. But if he is guilty in himself, then my children eat the bread of heaven and Judas journeys to hell. And if the vessel which belongs to the Mass is not perfect, then God's table stands empty and the children's food is taken from them. But if they come at the altar into the distress of their body, it is better that they pour their own blood than mine.

IX. Of the beginning of all things which God has created.

Ah Father of all goodness, I, unworthy M.,⁸ thank you for all faithfulness, that you have drawn me with it out of myself into the wonder. So, Lord, that I have in your whole Trinity heard and seen the high council which before our time has happened, when you, Lord, were enclosed in yourself alone, and your uncountable bliss was shared with no one.

Then the three Persons shone so beautifully into one that each shone through the others, and yet was wholly in one.

The Father was adorned in himself in manly mind of almightiness, and the Son was equal to the Father in uncountable wisdom, and the Holy Spirit equal in both in full generosity. Then the Holy Spirit played the Father a play with great generosity, and struck up the holy Trinity, and said to him: Lord dear Father, I will give you out of yourself a mild counsel, and we will not longer be unfruitful. We will have a created kingdom, and you shall form the angels after me, that they are one spirit with me, and the other shall be the H. (human).

For, dear Father, this is called joy alone, that one be in great mindful regard²⁴ and in uncountable bliss before your eyes esteemed.

Then said the Father: You are one spirit with me, that you counsel and will; that pleases me. When the angel was made, you know well how it happened. Were the angel's fall avoided, the human⁹ had to be made anyway. The Holy Spirit shared with the angels his generosity, that they should serve us and rejoice in all our blessedness. Then the eternal Son spoke with great breeding: Dear Father, my nature should also bring forth fruit. Now we will begin wonders, and we will form the H. after me, although I foresee great sorrow; I must yet love the H. eternally. Then said the Father: Son, a mighty delight stirs me also in my divine breast, and I sing wholly of love. We will become fruitful, that one may love us again and that one may know our great honour a little. I will make for myself a bride who shall greet me with her mouth and wound me with her gazing; then first it shall go to a loving.

Then the Holy Spirit said to the Father: Yes, dear Father, the bride will I bring to bed for you. Then said the Son: O Father, I shall yet die of love, you know it well; yet we shall in great holiness joyfully begin these things. Then the holy Trinity inclined itself to the shaping of all things, and made us body and soul in uncountable love. Adam and Eve were formed and noble-natured after the eternal Son, who without beginning is born from his Father. Then the Son shared with Adam his heavenly wisdom and his earthly power,

so that he had in perfect love true knowing and holy senses and might command all earthly creatures. That is now to us very precious.

Then God gave to Adam from heart-loving love a well-bred, noble, dainty maiden, who was Eve, and shared with her his loving wedded breeding, which he himself bears to his Father's honour. Their bodies should be pure, for God created in them no shameful members; and they were clothed with angelic garment. Their children they should win in holy love, as the sun shining-playful into the water and yet the water unbroken remains. But when they ate the forbidden food, then they became shamefully shaped in body, as still shows in us. Had the holy Trinity created us thus angelic, we could never be ashamed of his noble nature in his shaping.

The heavenly Father shared with the soul his divine love and said: I am God of all gods, you are goddess of all creatures, and I give you my hand-troth that I never reject you. If you will not lose yourself, then my angels shall serve you without end. I will give you my Holy Spirit as a chamberlain, that you may unknowingly fall into no mortal sin, and I give you free choice. Love above all loves, now look about you carefully.

You shall keep a small commandment, that you may think that I am your God. The soul — the very pure food which God had promised them in paradise — that should in great holiness with their bodies remain. But when they ate the unpleasing food which did not fit their pure bodies — when they had eaten — they were so full of the poison that they lost the angels' purity and forgot their maidenly chastity.

Then the soul cried in great darkness many a year for her Beloved with exiled voice, and called:

Ah Lord, Beloved, where is your over-sweet love gone? How sorely have you cast off your noble Queen!²⁰ (This is the prophets' meaning.) Great Lord, how can you bear this long distress that you do not kill our death! You will yet be born. But, Lord, all your deed is yet perfect, as is also your wrath.

Then a high counsel arose again in the holy Trinity. Then said the eternal Father: My labour grieves me, for I had to my holy Trinity given so praiseworthy a bride that the highest angels should be her servant-men. Yes, were Lucifer also remained in his honour, she should have been his goddess. For to her alone was the bride-bed given. Now she would no longer be equal to me. Now she is mis-shaped and ghastly-formed. Who should take this foulness into himself?

Then the eternal Son knelt before his Father and said: Dear Father, that will I be — if you will give me your blessing. I will gladly take to me the bloody manhood, and I will anoint the H.'s wounds with the blood of my innocence, and will bind all human suffering with a cloth of exiled disgrace until my end; and I will repay you, dear Father, the H.'s guilt with human death. Then said the Holy Spirit to the Father: O almighty God, we will have a fair procession, and will with great honour journey unmingled from this height down. I am yet Mary's chamberlain before now. — Then the Father inclined himself in great love to their united will, and said to the Holy Spirit: You shall bear my light before my dear Son into all the hearts which he with my words shall move; and Son, you shall take up your cross. I will journey with you all your ways, and I will give you a pure maiden as a mother, that you may bear the ignoble manhood the more lordly. Then the fair procession went with great joys down into the temple of Solomon, where the almighty God would for nine months be lodged.

X. Of the passion of the loving soul which she has from God; how she rises and journeys into heaven. Vere XXX partes habet.¹⁰

In true love the loving soul is betrayed, in sighing after God. She is sold in holy sorrow after his love. She is sought with the throng of manifold tears after her dear Lord, whom she would have so gladly. She is captured in the first knowing, when God kisses her with sweet union. She is gripped with many a holy thought of how she shall slay her flesh that she does not waver. She is bound with the power of the Holy Spirit, and her bliss is very manifold. She is slapped with great weakness, that she cannot enjoy the eternal light without ceasing. She is brought before judgment in trembling shame, because God of her sin-spots is so often estranged from her. She also answers all things holily and cannot bear that she should occupy herself wickedly with anyone. She is struck on the ear before judgment, when the devils spiritually assail her. She is sent to Herod, when she knows herself worthless and unworthy and despises herself with the great lords of all her thoughts. To Pilate she is given back, when she must care for earthly things. She is cried out against, struck with great pain, when she must turn to her body. She is unclothed with the purple of fair love. She is sweetly crowned with manifold faithfulness, when she desires that God should never reward her of all her trouble — no, only to the highest of his praise. She is mocked with holy vanity, when she so far in God forgets that she loses earthly wisdom. Then one kneels for her in great disgrace, when she lays herself in the little humility under all creatures' feet. Her eyes are bound with her body's ignobility, for she lies so sorely captured in her darkness. She bears her cross on a sweet way, when she truly gives herself to God in all pains.

Her head is struck with a reed, when one likens her great holiness to a fool's. She is so fast nailed on the cross with the hammer of strong love's pour that all creatures cannot draw her away again. She also thirsts greatly on the cross of love, for she would gladly drink the pure wine of all God's children.

Then come they all together and pour out to her the gall. Her body is killed in the living love, when her spirit is raised above all human senses.

After this death she journeys to hell with her power and comforts the sorrowful souls with her prayer out of God's goodness, without her body's knowing. She is pierced by a blind one²⁵ of innocent love through her side with a sweet spear; there flows out of her heart many a holy teaching.

She hangs also high in the sweet air of the Holy Spirit, against the eternal sun of the living Godhead on the cross of high love, which becomes utterly dry of all earthly things. So she is then taken in a holy ending from her cross. Then she says: Father, receive my spirit. Now it is all fulfilled. She is laid in a closed grave of deep humility, when she ever holds herself the unworthiest among all creatures. She rises again on an Easter day, when she with her Beloved has had in the lordly bride-bed a sweet love-lament. Then her young Lord consoles her in the morning with Mary, when she receives from God the true certainty that God has consumed all her sin in the contrition of love. She comes to her disciples again with closed doors, when her five senses so often denied the holy God-teaching. So she goes out from Jerusalem of holy Christendom with many a virtuous throng. Then the body becomes troubled, which with all its being according to all its ignobility would gladly take all its will. Then she says: I am your master, you should follow me and obey in all things. Did I not journey to my Father, you would remain like fools. She also journeys into the heaven, when in holy transformation God takes from her all earthly things. She is received in a white cloud of holy shielding, when she journeys lovingly and joyously returns without any trouble. Then come the angels back and comfort the men of Galilee, when we think on God's chosen friends and on their holy image. This martyrdom suffers every soul who in holy tempering of all her doing is truly flowed through with true love of God.

XI. Between God and the loving soul all things are beautiful.

When the loving soul looks in the eternal mirror, she says: Lord, between you and me all things are beautiful; and between the devil and his bride, the damned soul, all things are horrible and so ghastly that when she thinks on the loving Jesus she trembles, and all her hell-pain is renewed.

XII. You shall praise, thank, desire, and pray. Of the lantern and the light.

Ah, dear Lord, how poor I was when I could not think on all these words, nor pray, nor love. Then I cried to you with my exiled senses and said thus: Ah, dear Lord, with what shall I now honour you? Then you said to the unworthiest whom you have ever made: You shall praise me for my faithful shielding. You shall thank me for my mild gifts. You shall desire my holy wonder. You shall pray for a good end.

Then the soul asked with noble words: Most dear, what wonder shall I desire? This I must from now on write weeping. May God help me, lowliest of people, that I remain with Jesus. — Then my Beloved said: I will set the light upon the lantern, and on all the eyes that look on the light a singular ray shall shine into the eye of their knowing from the light. Then the soul asked with great submission, without fear: Most dear, how shall the lantern be? Then our Lord said: I am the light, and your breast is the lantern.

XIII. Of sixteenfold love.¹³

The mild love from holy mercy drives out empty honour and the wicked weakness.

The true love from divine wisdom brings sufficiency and drives out the unpraiseworthy greed.

Humble love from holy simplicity alone conquers pride and brings the soul with power into holy true knowledge.

The steady love from good customs can not exercise any falseness.

The great love from bold deed knows in all things good counsel.

The experiencing love from God's secrecy blinds this earth without labour.

The bound love from holy custom rests never and yet lives in itself without labour.

The longing love from great overflow lies wholly still and to her all things are bitter save God alone.

The crying love from noble impatience is never silent and has blessedly forgotten all guilt.

The tongue-of-love from God's teaching bows herself gladly to a child.

The fair love from high power — the soul becomes hungry, and the body becomes old.

The lovely love from open gift extinguishes the sour heart's lament.

The hidden love bears precious treasure of good will in holy deed.

The clear love from playing flood gives the soul sweet distress; she also kills her without death.

The fierce love from over-power — that is the one no one can bear.

XIV. Of two false virtues; whoever dwells in them lives by lies.

I have a master, that is the Holy Spirit, who teaches me very gently what I will, and the rest he keeps for me. Now he speaks thus:

Wisdom without the founding of the Holy Spirit becomes at last a mountain of high mood.

The peace without the bond of the Holy Spirit becomes very soon an empty raving.

Humility without the fire of love becomes at last a manifest falseness.

The justice without the depth of God's humility — that becomes in its place a horrible hatred.

Poverty with steady greed — that is in itself a sinful excess.

The horrid fear with true guilt brings dreadful impatience.

Fair bearing with wolf's senses — the wise know it quickly.

Holy longing of whole truth happens to no one without labour.

Divine living without strife turns to useless things, much bearing.¹¹

The presumptuous virtue without God's gift becomes silenced with the high mood.

Fair promise without faithful deed — that is falseness and the devil's counsel.

Good comfort without true certainty of the soul and of the Holy Spirit's deed — that becomes at the last end an unjoyful death.

Great patience without the inclining of the heart in God — that is a hidden guilt; for all who in all things do not hang on God's truth must fall from the eternal God with great shame.

The love without the mother of humility and without the father of holy fear — that is, before all virtues, orphaned.¹²

XV. With eight virtues you shall go to God's table. With the 168 pawnings a person frees seventy thousand souls from the dreadful purgatory, which is manifold.

You very foolish beguines, how brazen you are that you do not tremble before our almighty Judge when you so often receive God's body with a blind habit! Now, I am the least among you; I must be ashamed, blaze, and tremble. On a high feast I was so abashed that I dared not receive him, because in my best clothing²⁶ I was disgusted before his eyes. Then I prayed my very dear that he would show me his honour in this. Then he said: Truly, if you go before me with humble sorrow and with holy fear, then must I follow you as the high flood of the deep mills. But if you come toward me with the blossoming longing of flowing love, then must I taste of you and touch you with my divine nature as my one queen. I must reveal myself, if I would truly bring forth God's goodness. That truly hindered me no more than a hot oven would be hindered when one would shove it full of white loaves. Then I went to God's table in a noble throng. They watched over me very faithfully and yet held me in great peril. Truth drew me, fear scolded me, shame scourged me, contrition condemned me, longing pulled me, love led me, the Christian faith shielded me, the true meaning prepared me to all good things, and all my good works waved weapons over me. The mighty God received me, his pure manhood united itself with me, his Holy Spirit comforted me.

Then I said: Lord, now you are mine, for you are given to me today, and also at the place where one says: Puer natus est nobis.¹⁵ Now I desire, Lord, your praise and not your profit, such that today your lordly body may come to the poor souls as comfort. You are truly mine; now, Lord, you shall be today the captives' pawning.

Then she gained so great power that she led him with her strength, and they came to so horrible a place as my eye ever saw — so hideous, a bath made and mixed of fire and pitch, of slime, smoke, and stench. A thick dark mist passed over it like a black hide drawn over. There lay the souls within like toads in the mud. Their shape was like humans'; they were yet spirits and had the devil's likeness in them. They boiled and roasted together. They cried, and had countless sorrow over their flesh which had so deeply made them fall. The flesh had blinded their spirit; for that they most cooked. Then said the human's spirit: Lord, how many are these poor ones? You are my true pawning; you must yet have mercy. Then said our Lord: They are without number, and you cannot grasp their number, while your flesh shall have an earthly part with you. They have all been broken vessels, and have on earth forgotten spiritual life. They are of all lives and from all lands.

Then the merciful spirit asked: Ah, dear Lord, where are the recluses? I see none of them here. Then our Lord answered: Their sins were secret; now they are in this depth alone with the devils, bound. Then the human's soul grieved very greatly, and laid herself on her dear Lord's arms and desired powerfully, labouring lovingly, and said: Most dear, you know well what I desire. Then said our Lord: You have brought me with rightness; I shall not leave them unrelieved.

There stood about her a very great throng of devils, who tended them in the unblessed bath. These were also beyond my counting, who rubbed them and washed them²¹ and devoured them and gnawed them and beat them with fiery scourges. Then the human's spirit said to them: Hear, you sin-devourers,²⁹ look at the pawning — is it not so precious that it suffices you? Then they all shook in horrible shame, and said: Yes, now they journey from here. How miserable we are! We must acknowledge the truth to you. Then our Lord gave a sweet wish to the poor souls out of his divine heart. Then they rose out with great joys and love. Then the strange soul said: Ah dear Lord, where shall they now turn? Then he said: I will bring them to a flowering mountain, where they shall find more bliss than I can speak of. Then our Lord served them and was their chamberlain and their dear companion. Then our Lord told me that they were seventy thousand. Then the soul asked, how long had their pain been. Then our Lord said: For thirty years they came not to their bodies, and ten years they should yet be in pain, were not so noble a pawning given for them. The devils fled, they dared not take it. Most dear, said the soul again, how long shall they be here? Then our Lord answered and said: As long as it seems good to us.

XVI. After the gift follows the scourge, and after the disgrace, honour.

This soul reminds our Lord of his old words thus: Lord, you have said that there is no gift upon this earth that has not a scourge upon it. That have you said to me before with your own mouth, and have fulfilled it to me at many an hour. You said to me also more than six years ago that spiritual people would still despise me greatly. They do so now diligently, and have often done so wickedly. Is this, Lord, the wonder that I should desire? Then our Lord answered me and said: My Father gave me the power of his truth and gave me the knowledge of his holiness, and after that he gave me very much disgrace. But after that he gave me great honour and uncountable worth. So will I give you my holy Trinity.

XVII. Of a spiritual person's purgatory, of his fivefold help out of the pain, and of the nobility of the Preaching Order.

In pain I have also seen a spiritual man; of whom I had a good opinion during his life. I prayed three months for his soul with heart-loving pain, that it might never happen to me that I should see his distress until evening on the last day.

When he gave up his spirit, he was quickly shown to me in my prayer that I made for the poor souls. I saw him alone, and he could not show me his pain. He was of pale colour in a white mist. Then I asked: Alas, why are you not in heaven? Then he answered with hidden words in contrite shame, and he read a book all weeping, and all the words seemed bright; that smoked above him, and besides all the books which he had ever read. Then he said: I was much too dear to the world in thought, words, and bearing. Two dragons lay at his feet, who sucked from him all the comfort he should have received from holy Christendom against the sickly¹⁶ obedience — that he without necessity wished to go after his own will and not after his prelate's teaching. I asked him: Where are your enemies who often torment you? Then he answered: Out of the nobility of my Order, no devil could ever touch me. I had a great battle in my body, and I had a will to a thing which, had it been fulfilled, would have been very useless. Therefore God did not let me live longer. I burn in myself; my own will must torment me. Then I asked: Alas, tell me, with what can one help you? Then he said: Whoever for me a year, every day, makes a hundred genuflections and twelve disciplines and many tears with a contrite heart out of pure eyes — that should be my penance and would be. Masses should also be read. Ah, tell maidens and priests that they will pray for me. The end of my pain will I not tell you, for I do not want to grieve my brothers with it. Now go from me. Then he took the devil's likeness on himself and burned and became silent toward me.

XVIII. Of the knight's battle with full weapons against desire.

I prayed for a person, as I was asked, that God would take from him the body's stirring, which yet happens without sin, when evil will does not bring it about. Then our Lord said: Be silent. Would it please you that you were a knight with full weapons and of noble craft and with true man-power and with nimble hands, that he was free and neglected his Lord's honour and forfeited the rich pay and the noble peal of praise — both, that the Lord and the knight in the lands should hold? But where there were an untried man who never came from foulness to battle, who would go into princes' tournaments — his life would soon be taken from him. Therefore must I spare the people who so easily come to falling. Those I let strive with the children, that they may win a flower-chaplet as reward.

XIX. Of two kinds of poor people: the lovingly poor and the painfully poor.

I have seen two kinds of poor people. The one are lovingly poor and ever have anxiety that they may have too much of this poor earth. The others are without their thanks very painfully poor, and they run ever about and have great anxiety that they may not have enough of this poor earth. To this our Lord answers and says: The painfully poor stand in my justice, for, had they many earthly things, they would not love me back lovingly nor holily know me; therefore must I gain them with the hardest. To the lovingly poor I give more than they dare desire, for I cannot suffer the dust on them — that they should burden themselves too much with earthly things. And I desire that their heart ever stand open toward me, and that without hindrance and without ceasing I may shine and gleam through them.

XX. Of five prophets who illuminate this book.

Our Lord has promised me that he will illumine this book with five lights: Moses' great secrecy and his holy labour and singular disgrace which he bore without guilt, and his lordly signs, and his sweet teaching, and the chosen love-speech which he often made to the eternal God on the high mountain. That shall all be one light, and God has given and will give it to me, that through it I may go without guilty shame in the shielding of all my enemies' wicked cunning, and may soar lovingly. As Moses did with his friends through the Red Sea. And Pharaoh and his friends,

they shall not follow us too far. O woe, how they are drowned in this sea! Ah, have mercy, dear Lord, that our enemies are converted!

King David is in this book the second light with the Psalter, in which he teaches us and laments, asks, admonishes, and praises God.

Solomon's words shine and his works do not, for he himself is darkened, in the book Canticles, where the bride is so drunkenly bold-found, and the Bridegroom speaks to her so very lordly: You are all fair, my friend, and there is no spot in you.

Jeremiah shines also his part, when he speaks of our Lady's secrecy.

For God had told me thus, that he had pure chastity, the heights of love, and that he suffered the martyrdom in Christian faith, for whom he never saw with his fleshly eyes.²²

Daniel shines also in marvellous wisdom that God of grace gave him among all his enemies the food in soul and in body. Just so has it happened to me, unworthy, in my distresses.

My enemies have a little seen of this and cannot bear it; therefore they give me many a pain.

XXI. Of hell, how it has three parts. How Lucifer and sixteen kinds of people are tormented. There is no help for them. Of Lucifer's garment.¹⁴

I have seen a city — its name is the eternal hatred. It is built in the lowest abyss of manifold stones of the mortal sins. Pride was the first stone, as on Lucifer well showed.

Disobedience, evil greed, overeating, unchastity — these were four stones very heavy, which our father Adam first sent there.

Wrath, falseness, and manslaughter — these three stones Cain brought.

Lying, betrayal, despair, who make themselves bodiless¹⁷ — with these four stones, the poor Judas also murdered himself.

The sin of Sodom and false holiness — these are the lordly corner-stones which on the work are laid.

This city is built many a year. Woe to all who send their help there! The more they send there henceforth, when they themselves come after, they shall be received with the greater harm.

The city is so inverted, that ever the highest are ordered into the lowest and ignoblest place. Lucifer sits in the lowest abyss with his guilt bound, and from him flow without ceasing out of his fiery heart and out of his mouth all the sins, pain, sickness, and shame in which hell, purgatory, and this earth are so miserably caught.

In the lowest part of hell the fire and the darkness and stench and freezing and all kinds of pain are greatest, and there the Christian people are ordered according to their works. In the middle part all kinds of pain are more moderate. There the Jews are ordered according to their works. In the uppermost part of hell all kinds of pain are least, and there the heathen are ordered according to their works.

The heathen lament thus: Alas, had we had a law, we would not eternally have this horrible woe!

The Jews lament also thus: Alas, had we followed God in Moses' teaching, we would not be damned so sorely!

The Christians lament still more that they have lost the great honour through self-will which Christ with great love had chosen for them.

Lucifer they look upon without ceasing in great sorrow, and must openly with all their guilt naked go before him. O woe, how shamefully they will be received by him! He greets them horribly and speaks bitterly: "You cursed with me, what joys did you seek here?¹⁸ You never heard anything good said of me; how then could you please yourselves so well?"

So he grasps the prideful first and presses them under his tail and speaks thus: I am not so sunk that I would not still have power over you. All the sodomites journey through his throat and dwell in his belly. When he draws his old breath, then they journey into his belly; but when he coughs, they journey out again. The false holy he sets in his lap and kisses them very horribly and says: You are my companions. I was also dressed in fair falseness; thence are you all deceived. The usurer he gnaws without ceasing, and reproaches him that he was never merciful. The robber he robs himself, and commits him then to his fellows that they may hunt him and beat him and have no mercy on him. The thief hangs by his feet and is in hell a lantern-vessel; the wretched yet do not see the better for it. Those who here have been unchaste with each other must lie bound before Lucifer in such fashion; but if anyone comes there alone, then the devil is his companion.

The unbelieving masters sit before Lucifer's feet, that they may rightly look upon their unclean god. He also disputes with them, that they must be put to shame. The greedy he devours, for he ever wanted to have more. When he has swallowed him then, he eats him through his tail. The murderers must stand bloody before him and must receive fiery sword-strokes from the devil. Those who here practice fierce hatred — they must there be his bath-vessel,²⁷ and hang ever before his nose. Those who here practice gluttony and over-drinking so diligently must with eternal hunger stand before Lucifer and eat glowing stones. Their drink is sulphur and pitch. There is all sour given for sweet again, we see what we here practice. The slothful is there with all pains laden. The wrathful is there beaten with fiery scourges. The very poor minstrel, who with high mood can make sinful vanity, weeps in hell more tears than all the water that is in the sea.

I saw under Lucifer the bottom of hell — that is a hard black flint stone, which shall bear the work for ever and ever. Although hell has neither bottom nor end, yet it has in its ordering both depth and end.

How hell burns and rages in itself, and how the devils strike together with the souls, and how they boil and roast, and how they swim and wade in the stench and the mire, and in the worms and in the slime, and how they bathe in sulphur and pitch — that they themselves, nor any creature, can ever fully speak. When I from God's grace without labour had seen this distress, I, poor one, was so woe from the stench and from the unearthly heat that I could not sit nor walk, and was for three days without power over all my five senses, like a person whom the thunder has struck. My soul yet suffered no distress there, for she had not brought the sickness with her which is called the eternal death. Yet were it possible that a pure soul were therein, it would be to her an eternal light and a great comfort. For the guiltless soul must by nature ever shine and gleam, for she is born out of the eternal light without pain. But if she takes on herself the devil's likeness, then she loses her fair light.

Whether to the eternal hell from prayer, from alms, the damned can come a single comfort, that have I not heard, for they are steadily in such fierce mood that they shudder at all good.

After the last day, Lucifer shall put on a new garment that has grown in itself out of the dung of all foul sins that ever a person or angel brought into knowing, for he is the first vessel of all sin.

Then he shall be unbound, and yet his fierceness and his frightfulness in all souls and in all devils are so mingled that one nowhere misses his presence.

He shall then at hours yawn himself so great, and his snout shall be so wide for him, that with one breath of his breathing he swallows in the devils, Jews, and heathens. Yet they have their full reward in his belly, and their singular feast-day. Woe then to soul and body! That a human mouth cannot speak of this! That is all nothing against the uncountable distress that there happens to them. For truly, I cannot bear it that I think on it as long as one can pronounce Ave Maria. O woe, so horrible is it there!

Hell has a head above which is so monstrous and has in it many a horrible eye, from which the flames break forth, and that catch all the poor souls who dwell in the outer fortress,²⁸ where God took Adam and our other fathers from. That is now the greatest purgatory into which a sinner can come. There have I seen bishops, regents, and great lords in long distress with uncountable suffering. All who come there — God has hardly taken the eternal hell from them, for I have found no one there who at his end ever spoke a pure confession with his fleshly mouth. When the outer senses were taken from them by the nature of death, the body lay still; even then soul and body had one will. Then they had lost the earthly darkness; then God gave them in the school-purgatory knowledge. Alas, how narrow is there the way to the heavenly kingdom! Then the fellowship of body and soul still spoke thus, undivided: True God, have mercy on me, my sins are truly sorrowful to me. That is a short hour, in which God has secretly found again many an openly lost soul. I have not found that this ever happened to a person who had not done some good with good will. The devils carry the defiled souls from the body to purgatory, for the pure angels cannot touch them, while in a clarity they do not shine equal to them.

A soul can yet on earth have help from friends, that the devils preserve them well, that the devils ever drive at them. Is she greatly guilty, she must yet have other pain; that she may all the better bear, than when she would be captured by the devils and without ceasing held in mockery.

When our holy fathers journeyed to hell — what they brought with them was true hope in Christian faith with holy God-love and many a humble virtue and faithful labour. All journeyed to hell, yet they were ready for the heavenly kingdom; nothing could afflict them in hell that they brought with them — that must burn there. That was love, which shall eternally burn in all God's children.

They came not yet to the heavenly kingdom. This has God so measured: what we with us bear hence, that we must there drink and eat. But the neglecters who with such great sins now unconverted journey from here, they cannot have it without being damned to evil. There before hell's mouth, where at all hours Lucifer's breath strikes out with all pain and goes through them so miserably, the poor are so sorely united in the flame and in the manifold fierceness as the very blessed are united in the sweet known God-love.

I saw there of women no more than the high princesses, who here all kinds of sin alike with the princes loved.

Hell has also above on its head a mouth. It stands open at all hours. All who come into this mouth, from them the eternal death is never taken.

XXII. I have heard of God's mercy, of his temptation and his justice.

I have heard and seen so immeasurable a mercy from God that I said: Lord, how can this happen?

Yet your justice is your mercy's companion; how is your goodness so great?

Then our Lord spoke a very faithful word thus: I tell you by my divine faithfulness that more are there in holy Christendom who from the mouth journey to the heavenly kingdom than they who journey into the eternal hell.

Justice yet has steadily her power. What with guilt is gone before her, that is from me never taken from her. I will at first as a Father come to the burdened soul. Have I ever heard anything good undoubted of her, that comes from the great temptation which I have toward my children.

Then said the soul: Ah, most dear, would you tell me your temptation, that your delight and my longing may agree?

Then our Lord said: Now hear how I am tempted. My goodness and my generosity, my faithfulness and my mercy compel me so sorely that I let them flow over the mountains of pride and over the valleys of humility and over the bushes of distance and over the simple ways of purity.

And yet more strongly does my goodness compel me than the evil person's ill-temper does him. And yet greater is my justice than all the devils' wickedness.

Then said the soul: Lord, your justice fits you so right well in the living truth that she gives me uncountable joy without heart-sorrow. Wherever she also strikes, yet truth rejoices.

XXIII. The strength of longing takes away words. God cannot do without maidens. To embrace God's countenance and overcome his desire — a thousand deaths.

Whoever burns in the mighty fire of love cannot bear that he should cool himself with sins anywhere lightly. Ah, dear one, when shall it delight you of that of which I delight? Thus an exiled soul spoke, and the dear one answered her and said as if he did not know what she would. Of what does it delight you? Then she said: Lord, the strength of longing has taken from me the voice of words. Then he said: The maidens cannot well woo, for their shame is by nature noble. Then she lamented: O woe, Lord! You are yet too long strange to me. Could I, Lord, win you with sorcery so that you could not rest but with me — ah, then would it go to a loving; then would you bid me journey out with senses. Then he answered and said thus:

O you unstained dove, now grant me this, that I must spare you; this earth cannot yet do without you.

Then she said: Ah Lord, might it happen to me at one hour that I might gaze on you after my heart's wish and embrace you with my arms, your divine love-delights must pass through my soul, as far as that can yet happen in a person on earth! What I would suffer after that was never seen by human eyes; yes, a thousand deaths were as nothing. I am, Lord, so woe after you; now I will stand in faithfulness. Can you, Lord, bear it, let me long sorrowfully go after you. I know well: you, Lord, must yet have the first delight after me.

XXIV. Two kinds of people are commanded two kinds of spirit. From God and from the devil. Of sevenfold love.

Now I will write to you of a true spiritual sister and of a worldly Beguine, who speak together thus. The spiritual sister speaks from the true light of the Holy Spirit without heart-sorrow; but the worldly Beguine speaks from her flesh with Lucifer's spirit, in horrible labour. Two kinds of spiritual people are upon this earth; to them is born two kinds of spirit. God offers his Holy Spirit to the pure spirits who here live in faithful holy meaning of all their being. There come two pure natures together; that is called the fire of the Godhead and the flowing wax of the loving soul. Is there then a pure wick of steady humility, then there becomes a fair light from which one can see far away. O loving soul, then you become so rich that no one can impoverish you; even if you are poorest. From humility one becomes rich, from well-bred good customs one becomes noble and well-born, from love one becomes fair and praiseworthy, from disgrace one becomes very high in God raised. Of this think, spiritual sister, and let no one drive you from your good customs; so may you remain holy.

The devil also offers his spirit to the spirits who with hatred and high-minded greed are ready to the worst. They know not where love bears all goodness; they become so poor from wicked hatred and from the devil's grip that it were impossible that they should ever find or follow God's love.

The faithful love has to God a steady praise. The longing love does to pure hearts many a sweet distress. The seeking love is for itself alone. The known love gives itself to all creatures in common. The shining love is yet mingled with sorrow. The silent love enjoys without labour; O what she works in stillness, that the body does not know! The pure love is in God alone still, for they have both one will, and there is no creature so noble that she may hinder it.

This has Knowing written out of the eternal book. Gold is often spotted with copper very sorely; so does the falseness and the empty honour; this destroys all virtues from the human's soul.

The ignoble soul to whom transient things are so dear that of love she never trembled, and to whom God never spoke lovingly within her — O woe, to her all this life is night.

Here ends the third part of this book.

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