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

Book IV

This is the longest of the seven books in MS Einsiedeln 277, with twenty-eight chapters running to roughly thirteen thousand words of Alemannic Middle Low German. Three chapters carry the weight of the volume.

Chapter II is Mechthild's most autobiographical passage in the whole Flowing Light. She tells of being first greeted by the Holy Spirit in her twelfth year (so c. 1219 if her birth-date is c. 1207); of the thirty-one years of daily grace that followed; of leaving home into a strange town for love of God; of the angel from the Seraphim and the angel from the Cherubim who came as her chaperones in the wonders; of the two devils — the great deceiver who came in angelic clothing and offered to be worshipped in exchange for honour, and the second devil who broke peace and prompted hidden unchastity; of her own confessor (likely Heinrich of Halle, OP) commanding her at God's command to write this book.

Chapter XII is Mechthild's most sustained dark-night-of-the-soul material. The bride who is united with God rejects all creatures' comfort, sinks deliberately beneath the damned souls for God's honour, encounters Unbelief and Steadfastness in turn, is comforted in steady estrangement-from-God (stete vrömedunge), and finally receives the visit of Pain itself as a chamberlain who shall not be allowed into the heavenly kingdom because Pain was born of Lucifer's heart.

Chapter XXVII is the apocalyptic centrepiece — the most extended end-times prophecy in the whole Flowing Light. Mechthild describes a future small order of Preachers who will continue Christ's gospel after the present Preaching Order's failure, dressed in white and red and gold, carrying an ivory-handled staff with the Passion carved into one side and the Ascension into the other; the rise of the Antichrist among the worldly princes with gold and false wisdom; the persecution and martyrdom of the holy preachers; and finally the return of Enoch and Elijah from the earthly paradise where they were taken at the end of their days, to confront Antichrist before the last judgment. The closing scene of mothers and children chosen for martyrdom rather than apostasy is rendered as Mechthild wrote it. The medieval framework is preserved; readers will judge it as they will, including the role this chapter played in later prophetic traditions.

Other named figures in Book IV: - Brother Heinrich (Ch XXII) — likely Heinrich von Halle OP, the Dominican who was Mechthild's spiritual director at Magdeburg and who at God's command (Ch II) compiled her writing into book form. The chapter narrates his Easter-day death and forty-hour purgatory. - Brother Baldwin (Ch XXVI) — a Dominican companion known otherwise from Mechthild's writing alone; the chapter records God's consolation to him in his obedience-burdened state. - Saint Dominic (Chs XX, XXI, XXII) — the founder of the Order of Preachers. Mechthild's Marian devotion to Dominic is one of the strongest in the thirteenth-century Dominican-Beguine spiritual matrix. - Saint John the Evangelist (Ch XXIII) — Mechthild reports having seen John's body "with the eyes of my unworthy soul," "in great bliss buried above all transient things," intact and waiting.

Latin preserved untranslated and footnoted: Ego sum Jesus (Ch III); Te deum laudamus (Ch XII); Credo in deum (Ch XXVII).

Morel marginal annotations referenced: Anno Domini MCCLVI (1256) at Ch XXVI; l. a. c. 21 (libro 2 [a?] capitulo 21) at Ch XXV (a cross-reference within the Flowing Light itself).

The Books I-III glossary anchors apply unchanged. Kapfer (copper) recurs in Ch XVIII in the gold-vs-copper image of Book III; bruch does not appear in Book IV.

This is the fourth part of this book.

I. Five things the pure maidens shall have.

If you would adorn your maidenhood which God has so greatly honoured — since for love of one he became the Maiden's son — ah, think what this means, then must you humbly be silent and lovingly bear sorrow, and in all places all your days keep maidenly shame. So may you be saved in chastity. Maiden, what God will give you — he will be to you a fair Youth, and will tread the heavenly round-dance with you.

O I, wretched lame hound! I limp also with the others. Try how I mean this: the pure maidens' rebuke is none of mine.

II. This book is from God. The soul praises herself in many things. To her are given two angels and two evil devils, and twelve virtues strive against the flesh.¹²

In all my life-days, before I began this book, even if anyone from God could have spoken one single word into my soul, I would have been one of the simplest persons that ever appeared in spiritual life. Of the devil's wickedness I knew nothing; the world's weakness I knew nothing; spiritual people's falseness was also unknown to me. May one speak this to God's honour and for the book's sake?

I, unworthy sinner, was greeted by the Holy Spirit in my twelfth year, so flowingly-sorely, that to me on all days it was as if I could never bear it, that I could ever incline myself to a great daily sin. The very dear greeting was every day and made me lovingly sorrowful. Of all worldly sweetness and honour the same grows daily yet. This happened over one and thirty years.³

I knew of God no more than the Christian belief alone, and that I steadily pursued, that my heart should become pure. God himself is my witness of this, that I never asked him with will nor with desire that he should give me these things which are written in this book. I never thought either that it could happen to a person. While I was at my [home] days and with my distant friends, to whom I was always the dearest, then had I no notion of these things. Then I had long desired that I might without my guilt be despised. Then I journeyed, for love of God, into a city where no one was my friend, except one person alone.⁴ Before that same one I had anxiety that my holy disgrace and the pure love of God should be moderated for me. Then God let me nowhere alone, and brought me into so loving sweetness, in so holy knowing and in so incomprehensible wonder, that I could little enjoy earthly things. Then my spirit was first brought out of my prayer between the heaven and the air.

There I saw with my soul's eyes in heavenly clouds the fair manhood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and I knew him in his lordly face: the holy Trinity, the Father's eternity, the Son's labour, the Holy Spirit's sweetness.

Then I saw the angel to whom I was committed in baptism, and my devil. Then our Lord said: I will take this angel from you, and will give you two in his place, who shall care for you in these wonders. When the soul saw the two angels — O how sorely she in humble powerlessness was startled, and laid herself on the feet of our Lord and thanked him and lamented to him sorely, that she was so unworthy that such princes should be her chamberlains. One angel was from the Seraphim, and he is a love-burner, and to the well-bred soul a holy lantern-bearer. The other angel was from the Cherubim; he is a keeper of the gifts, and orders the wisdom in the loving soul.

Then our Lord let two devils come forward, who were great masters and were taken out of Lucifer's school, and had themselves seldom come out. When the soul saw the very horrible devils, she trembled a little, and rejoiced toward our Lord, and yet received them gladly. The one devil is a deceiver in fair angelic garment. O what trickery at first he laid before me! He came at one hour during Mass from the height down and said: Now I am very fair; would you worship me? Then the soul answered: One should worship God alone in all good and in all distress. Then he said: Would you yet look up to see who I am? Then beneath the air there showed a fair false brightness, which has misled many a heretic, and he said: In the throne upon the chair you alone should be the highest maiden, and I the fairest youth beside you. Then she said again: He would not be wise who, coming well to the best, would yet take the worst. Then he said: Now you will not give yourself to me — you are so holy and I so humble — I will yet worship you. Then she said: No grace is given you for that, that you worship a puddle. Then he showed painted the five wounds on feet and on hands and said: Now you see well who I am; if you would live by my counsel, I will give you great honour. You should tell people this grace; thus much good would come of it. Then she said, and was very irritated by his useless news; yet she heard it gladly so that she might be the wiser: You say to me that you are God; now tell me, who then is he who at this very hour is in the hands of the true priest at the living God's body? Then he would go away, and she said:

In the almighty God I admonish you, that you now hear me. I know your meaning well; should I tell all people my heart, it should please for a little while, so that you would diligently pursue that the play must be broken up. That you would do because I should fall into doubt and into sadness and into unbelief and into unchastity, and afterward into eternal heart-sorrow. And therefore you also do it, that I should suppose myself holy, because you come thus to me. Yes, you very old deceiver, while God stands by me you lose all your labour.

Then he cried: Weapons over your sorcery! Let me journey from you now; I will never trouble you.

The other devil who was given to me — he is a peace-breaker and a master of holy⁵ unchastity. Yet God has so forbidden him that he himself cannot come to me. He sends me perverted people as messengers, who pervert good things in me, and take from me what they can with words of my honour. He also aims for it, when good people are gathered together and speak any uselessness in unchaste fashion, so that I, poor one, cannot remain there untroubled. That has never happened to me.

In one night I was in the first sleep in my prayer, when this same devil came journeying in the air and took very great heed of the sinful earth. He was great as a giant, he had a short tail and a crooked nose; his head was great as a tub; and out of his mouth came journeying fiery sparks veiled in black flame. Then he laughed with false fierceness a very horrible voice. Then the soul asked him what he laughed at, what he sought, and what he tended. Then he answered and said: I rejoice that, since I myself cannot torment you, I find so many who appear angels and gladly do it for me — they torment you. Now he says again: I am the chamberlain of spiritual people, and I seek in them two kinds of weakness which most quickly part them from God; that is holy or hidden unchastity. When a person in a holy life seeks their flesh's comfort without right necessity and in all their five senses, then they become unchaste — that is gross and slack — and the true love of God grows cold. The other is hidden hatred in open two-facedness; that is to me so useful a sin — wherever I find it unconverted by sleep,⁶ there is my winning, for this is a foundation of long wickedness and a loss of all holiness.

Then the soul said: Now you have by nature nothing good in you; how is it that you can lay forth this useful speech before your wickedness? Then he said: Wherever I turn, God has me so fast in his hands that I can do nothing unless he show me to it.

I, unblessed person! I had in my first childhood committed such great sins that, had I remained without contrition and without confession, I had to be ten years in purgatory. Now, dear Lord, when I die, I will gladly through your love be tormented yet in it.

This I speak not of myself; Love bids me speak it. When I came to spiritual life and from the world took leave, then I looked upon my body; then was it greatly armed against my poor soul with great fulness of strong flesh and with the full power of nature. Then I saw well that he was my enemy; and also I saw that if I would escape eternal death, I must strike myself against it; it must come to a striving. Then I looked also at my soul's weapons; that was the lordly martyrdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, with which I armed myself. Then I had to stand steadily in great fear, for all my enemies struck great defending-blows upon my body — that was sighing, weeping, confessing, fasting, keeping vigil, contemplating, blows,⁷ and praying steadily.

These were the weapons of my soul, with which I overcame the body so sorely that for twenty years there was never a time when I was not weary, sick, and weak — at first from contrition and from sorrow, after that from good longing and from spiritual labour, and on top of that many a heavy sick-day by nature. Hereto came the mighty fifth,⁸ and so afflicted me with these wonders that I could not for shame keep silent of it. Alone, then was I in my simplicity very sorrowful. Then I said: Ah, mild God, what have you seen in me? You know well that I am a fool, a sinful and very poor person in body and in soul. These things you should give to wise people, that you might be praised through them. Then our Lord weighed himself against me, poor one, very greatly, and asked me one question: Now tell me, are you mine? — Yes today, I desire that from you. — Must I then not do with you what I will? — Yes, dearest-heart, very gladly, even should I come to nothing. — Then our Lord said: You shall follow me and trust me in these wonders, and you shall also long be sick, and I myself will tend you, and all that you need for body and for soul I will give you.

Then I went poor, trembling, in humble shame to my confessor and told him this speech, and asked for his teaching. Then he said I should journey forward joyfully; God, who had drawn me, should well watch over me. Then he commanded that of which I often am ashamed with weeping; for my great unworthiness stands open before my eyes — namely, that he commanded a base woman to write this book out of God's heart and mouth.⁹

Thus this book is lovingly come from God and is not taken from human senses.

III. The sinners fall from God in three gifts of wisdom. Of the stone. Of the maidens' praise — that is Christendom.

As one stills the dear child, so one strikes the wicked one. So does our dear Lord, and speaks thus: He who has nothing good in him will never come into my kingdom, and he who cannot become satisfied with transient things shall be sated with the eternal hunger. And woe to him who has the goods that stick on his heart, and who would set himself over other people; he shall fall from me into the bottomless valley. To this answers the holy knowing, that God has given us three kinds of gifts in true wisdom, with which we shall sate ourselves and guard against all our harm.

The first is priestly wisdom and Christian teaching, as God has shown me in great honour. I saw with the true eyes of my eternity, in sweet bliss without labour, a stone, which was like to a fitted mountain and was grown by itself, and had formed onto itself all kinds of colour and smelt very sweetly of noble heavenly roots. Then I asked the very sweet stone, who he was. Then he said thus: Ego sum Jesus.¹⁰ Then I came lovingly out of myself, and leaned my head on him. Then I saw that on his outside was enclosed all darkness, and within he was filled with the eternal light.

Upon the stone stood the fairest Maiden that was ever seen, save our dear Lady Saint Mary; yet she is her playmate. Her feet are adorned with a stone called jasper. The stone has so great power that it drives wicked greed from the feet of her longing. It gives also pure taste and stirs up the holy hunger. It drives all darkness from the eyes. This precious stone is the Christian faith.

The Maiden stood upon two feet — the one is the bond, the other the loosing in holy power — which all believing Christian priests have. She bears in her foremost hand a chalice with red wine, which she alone drinks in uncountable bliss; the angels never taste of it. That is the eternal Son's blood, which fills her mood so deeply that she gives us very many a sweet teaching. In her left hand she has a fiery sword, which hangs all full of golden bells; they sound so sweet that all who come to her must reach for the holy Trinity.

Then I asked the Maiden, how was it that she bore her sword in the left hand and the chalice in the right hand? Then she said: I shall threaten; for on every person's last day, God strikes his stroke. I shall also pour out his blood with my front hand, as Christ is named to his Father's honour. She has also a great power in her hands, with which she draws to her all that God has chosen, and casts away from her all that has given itself to the devil. Ah, she bears so fair a face that I can look upon her ever the better. Oil flows from her throat, that is mercy, the salve of sin. She has also in her mouth golden teeth, with which she chews the heavenly grain — that is the prophets' sayings. Honey drips from her tongue, which the swift bees, the holy apostles, have sucked from the sweetest field-flowers. She bears before her mouth blossoming roses, and her nostrils are stopped with sweet violets. She bears on her forehead the green-white lilies, which signify: she is a mother of widows, a friend of the married, and an honour of all maidens. Her eyes play with bliss like the white-green dawn, where the playing sun drives itself. And as her eyes are by nature threefold and yet whole, so it is shaped concerning the holy Trinity. The white signifies the Father, the green the Son, the small sun the Holy Spirit.

When they look upon one another from the heart, no greater joy can happen.

This Maiden also bears upon her head a crown which is wrought from red gold. That is the high counsel and the holy deed which one has from the holy masters.

This crown is like to a battlemented stronghold. Before it lies a great poor host, and they have a very faithless lord — that is the devil and his followers, who are poor and faithless. In the crown dwells a praiseworthy host in full power with rich defence. They have a faithful lord — that is Jesus our Redeemer, who shows the converted ever to the defence and the labouring in the wine-cellar. In this crown lies a threefold crown, where the strong must dwell within. They who tend the great love must be shields and watchmen, if the lowest are to be saved.

In the crown is also a tower. The blessed who would dwell upon it need not come into much strife. But none may come up there unless from love all his earthly will is taken from him. The crown has above on its battlements many a noble precious stone. These are those who from hence have journeyed to the heavenly kingdom.

In this Maiden's heart within I saw a living fountain spring. To it they brought the heathen children, who were all leprous and blind. Above this fountain stood a very spiritual man; no one else could touch them — that was John the Baptist. He washed in the fountain the children, that they should become seeing and beautifully well.

Then I asked the Maiden, who she was. She said, I am the one whom you love so dearly, and I am your playmate. I am the holy Christendom. And we both have one Bridegroom. This is the blessed priests' Maiden, whom they so often look upon lovingly.

The second wisdom is from natural senses; with this one can both — lose and win. In this wisdom dwell many perverted lay-people and false priests and swift spiritual people. No person ever becomes so holy that he can fully guard himself from these three. So evil is their mind, that they pervert all goodness. No one becomes spiritual from this gift, unless he be a fool for God's love; for pure holy simplicity is a mother of the true God-wisdom. What avails it that a prudent man have many pennies, and yet purchase nothing but hunger and thirst, and long disgrace, and on top of that eternal heart-sorrow!

The third wisdom is from grace, and she sets herself right in all God's gifts. She never becomes so rich that she dares to equate herself with the least creature. About her discomfort she never grieves; she rejoices alone in God's will. She also cannot bear that a single virtue should remain locked out of her door.

IV. Of two unequal ways: one goes down to hell, the other climbs up to heaven.

The riches of transient things are a faithless guest; the holy poverty bears before God a precious load.

Vanity thinks not of her harm; steadiness is full-laden with all virtues.

Foolishness pleases itself alone; wisdom can never teach to the full.

Wrath brings into the soul great darkness; the holy gentleness has all grace assured.

Pride will ever be the best; humility cannot rest, she must give herself to all creatures in service.

Empty honour is before God deaf and blind; the guiltless disgrace sanctifies all God's children.

Falseness has the fairest gleam; perfectness is despised by the highest people.

Greed has ever a peevish mouth; the blessed measure has ever a sweet ground.

Laziness loses rich treasure; the holy diligence seeks not its comfort too much.

Faithlessness gives ever false counsel; whole faithfulness never neglects good deed.

True spirituality cannot avenge herself on anyone; the uncultivated heart will ever break the peace.

Good devotion can do no evil; evil will is subject to no one.

Wickedness has by nature an evil ground; divine grace has a loving face and a sweet mouth.

Worldly lords are gladly noteworthy; the spiritual soul will ever otherwise.

Hidden fierceness has a smooth mouth; the open love-fellowship has the God-discovery.

Faithless peril dwells very near hatred; holy mercy shall alone stand with God.

Lies are outside fair and inside horribly made; yet they are very lovingly received by their companions.

Truth is cast out for her unnoteworthy nature; all who love her must with Jesus suffer many a disgrace.

Hatred rages ever without ceasing; love burns without pain — to her, from all sorrow, it is better.

Wicked envy hates God's generosity; the pure heart full of love rejoices in all blessedness.

Slander shames itself before neither people nor God, who yet hears and sees all things.

Doubt is a horrible fall; true hope holds all together.

False comfort never becomes glad; true guilt grieves him so.

Hereafter said our dear Lord, when he had shown me this, very swiftly thus: He who thinks how good I am, holds himself fast to me. To this help us, Lord, through your own honour!

V. Our coming sin-fall, earthly being, the heavenly kingdom, God's gift — shall stand open before our eyes.

Lord, my guilt, by which I have lost you, stands before my eyes like the greatest mountain, and has made long darkness between me and you, and eternal distance from you and from me.¹¹ Ah, Love above all loves, draw me again into you.

But Lord, the coming fall stands also before my eyes, like a fiery dragon's mouth, which at all times would gladly swallow me. Ah my one good, now help me, that I may unstained flow into you.

Lord, my earthly being stands before my eyes like a dry field on which little good is grown. Ah, sweet Jesus Christ, now send me the sweet rain of your manhood, and the hot sun of your living Godhead and the mild dew of the Holy Spirit, that I may lament away my heart-sorrow.

Lord, your eternal kingdom stands open before my eyes like the noblest wedding-feast and the greatest high-time and the longest banquet. Ah, my dear, there shall you without ceasing join to yourself your love-delighting bride.

Lord, all your gifts which I have received from you stand before my eyes like an exile's ear-slap upon me, for hindering me here is the highest poison.

Thus answers God, who gives all: Your mountain shall melt in love. Your enemies shall gain no part in you. Your field has hot suns shining through it, and your fruit yet remains unspoiled, and in my kingdom you shall be a new bride, and there will I give you a sweet mouth-kiss. All my Godhead shall soar through your soul, and my threefold eyes shall ever without ceasing play in your twofold heart. Where then has your darkness remained? Should you pray a thousand years, I would not give you a sigh thither.

VI. God's choosing no one can disturb. True contrition has absolution from God's grace and is without purgatory.

A troubled person asked that I pray for him, which I did with fear without myself. Then God heard me with his looking, with his words and with his true voice, and said thus: There is no lamb so white nor so pure but that it must be pressed for the wool; and my choosing no one can destroy — that have I shown him in three things. The first, that I was merciful upon his guilt; the second, that I have given him my grace; the third, that I would never let faithless people work any power upon him. Then I lamented for him thus: Lord, he yet fears greatly that you have not wholly forgiven him his guilt. Thus God answered: That were impossible. Whoever is sorry for his sins, I forgive him them; and whoever sorrows for them with grief, to him I give my grace; and whoever sorrows so for them that he would give his life rather than do them again, and remains so steady — to him is no pain levied for the guilt after this life, unless he do great daily sin, and to him who is unconverted is wound (sic).¹²

VII. How a free soul speaks to God in whole love.

Lord, because I have been subject to all creatures, you have drawn me above all things to you; and because, Lord, I have no earthly treasure, I have no earthly heart. Since you, Lord, are my treasure, you are also my heart, and you are alone my good, and I am unsteady in all things.

VIII. Of God's body, the sick, the forsaken, and of his strength.

That a sick person who is forsaken cannot receive God's body — in this I was so simple that with my senses and with my faith I could not fully settle myself, for one cannot lose God except only through sins. Then my soul, in united love, asked our Lord how it stood. Then our Lord answered thus: You are right, he cannot lose me except through sins; but his body can through weakness lose my body. In these words I saw in the holy Trinity this gloss: When we receive God's body, then the Godhead unites itself with our guiltless soul, and God's manhood mingles itself with our horrible body, and so the Holy Spirit makes his dwelling in our faith. This blessed union we shall keep with great watching.

IX. Of the priests' fourfold offering.

After this our Lord told me that the priests shall receive their offering at four places and nowhere else: from the altar, from confession, with God's body, [and] for[?] the sick. But the sick one shall offer for the anointing according to his place, and according to his free will. And in the field he shall take what one will give him there. The priest shall not choose and shall not demand, but what the sick one has offered, all that shall he receive — from grace and not from right.

X. Of the laity's offering according to their place.

The laity who offer shall guard themselves in their offering as carefully against wicked stinginess as the priest shall guard himself against swift greed — this is necessary to us both. For the layman shall offer with great love and with a laughing soul God in his mild hand. The priest shall receive it from God's hands with humble fear and trembling heart, and shall give it back to God praiseworthily in all his doing. For this earthly good is roguish when one takes it; but it is very free when one gives it.

XI. How Christians shall conduct themselves toward the Jews in four things.

After this God taught me how Christians shall conduct themselves toward Jews. One shall not keep their law. One shall not dwell with them. One shall also not be overnight with them. One shall buy and sell with them without friendly fellowship and without false greed.¹³

XII. How the bride, who is united with God, rejects all creatures' comfort save God's alone, and how she sinks from the pain.

Thus speaks God's bride, who has dwelled in the closed treasure-chamber of the whole holy Trinity. Ah, stand aside and go from me, all creatures; you do me woe and you cannot console me. The creatures say: why? The bride says: My Beloved is gone from me in my sleep, where I rested in his union. "Can this fair world and all the good things it has not console you?" No, I see the serpent of falseness, whose false cunning devours all the lust of this world. I see also the hook of greed in the bait¹⁴ of ignoble sweetness, with which she catches many. "Can the heavenly kingdom not console you?" No — it would be in itself dead, but for the living God. "Now, Lady Bride, can the saints not console you?" No, were they to part from the through-flowing of the living Godhead, they would weep more sorely than I, for they have come over me and dwell deeper in God. "Can God's Son ever console you?"

Yes — I ask him whether we will go into the flower of the holy knowing, and I beg him very gladly that he unlock to me the playing flood which soars in the holy Trinity, of which the soul alone lives. Should I be consoled according to my nobility, then God's breath shall draw me into himself without labour; for the playing sun of the living Godhead shines through the clear water of the joyful manhood, and the sweet delight of the Holy Spirit is come out of them both. That has taken from me all that dwells beneath the Godhead. Nothing tastes to me except God alone; I am marvellously dead.

Of this taste I will most often gladly do without, that he may be marvellously praised. For, when I, unworthy person, cannot with my might praise God, then I send all creatures to court and bid them praise God for me with all their wisdom, with all their love, with all their beauty and with all their longing — as they were unspoiled by God created — and also with all their voice as they now sing. When I see this great praise, then is it nowhere woe to me.

I also cannot bear that a single consolation should touch me, save only my Beloved alone. My earthly friends I love in a heavenly fellowship, and my enemies I love in a holy sorrow after their blessedness. God has enough of all things — except only the touch of the soul, which he never has enough of.

When this wonder and this comfort had endured eight years,¹⁵ then God would too greatly console me above my soul's nobility. Ah no, dear Lord, raise me not so high! Thus spoke the unworthy soul: it is to me too good in the lowest part; there will I ever very gladly be for your honour. Then the poor one fell down beneath the condemned and beneath the cursed souls, and it seemed to her too good. Then our Lord followed her after, in such fashion as those who were in the lowest joy could bear. For God shines in all according as they are here sanctified in love and ennobled in virtues. Saint John says: we shall see God as he is. That is true; but the sun shines after the weather. Manifold kinds of weather are under the sun in the earth; so is manifold dwelling in the heavenly kingdom. But however I can bear and see him, so is he to me.

Then said our Lord: how long will you be here? The bride: Ah, give way to me, dear Lord, and let me sink further for your honour. Hereafter came both, soul and body, in so great darkness that I lost the knowing and the light, and of God's secrecy I knew nothing, and the very blessed Love also took her own street. Then said the soul: Where are you now, Lady Faithfulness? I now will commit you the office of Love, and you shall keep God's honour in me. Below that, this Lady-chamberlain to her Lady found herself with so holy suffering and so joyful waiting, that I lived without trouble. Then came Unbelief and surrounded me round about with a great darkness, and called me with so great fierceness that I was startled before her voice; and she said: Were this grace from God, he would not have denied himself to you so sorely.

Then said the soul: Where are you now, Lady Steadfastness? Bid the true Faith come to me. Then said the Father from the heavenly kingdom to the soul: Think of what you have experienced and seen, when nothing was between you and me. Then said the Son: Think what your body has suffered for my pains. Then said the Holy Spirit: Think of what you have written. Then both, soul and body, answered with the true belief of steadfastness: As I have believed, loved, enjoyed, and known, so will I unchanged journey from here.

Hereafter came the steady estrangement of God, and so surrounded the soul that the blessed soul said: Welcome, very blessed estrangement! Well am I that I ever was born, that you, Lady, shall now be my chamberlain — for you bring me unwonted joy and incomprehensible wonder and on top of that unbearable sweetness! But Lord, the sweetness shall you lay from me, and let me have your estrangement. Ah, well am I, dear God, that I must bear her after the moving of love, for in the keeping¹⁷ of my soul. Hereto I desired that all creatures praise our Lord with Te deum laudamus.¹⁶ That they would not do, and turned their backs to me. Then the soul became immeasurably glad and said this same: That you now despise me and turn your backs to me — look, and well am I! This praises immeasurably our Lord. Now it bears upon his honour through me, for now God is wondrously with me, since estrangement is more burdensome to me than he himself. This the soul knew well, that when God would console her in the greatest estrangement. Then she said: Think, Lord, what I am, and hold yourself from me. Then our Lord said to me: Grant me this, that I may cool with you the heat of my Godhead, the longing of my manhood, and the delight of the Holy Spirit. To this she answered: Yes, Lord, in such measure that to you, Lord, it alone be well thereby, and not to me.

Hereafter came the bride into so great darkness that her body sweated and cramped in the pain. Then she was asked by people that she should be a messenger for them to God. Then I said: Lady Pain, this I command to you — that you release me now, for now you are the highest in me. Then Pain raised herself from the soul and from the body like a dark shining, and journeyed¹⁸ to God with wise senses, and called with a great voice: Lord, you know well what I wish. Then our Lord met her before the kingdom's gate and said: Welcome, Lady Pain. You are the closest garment I bore on my body in the earth, and the whole world's disgrace was my highest outer garment. However sorely I loved you there, you yet do not come in here. But this maiden — if she will do two things, I will give her two things in return. She shall be steadily breeded and wise, so as to help your being her messenger; and so will I give her my embrace and my heart-union. Then said Pain thus: Lord, I make many blessed and yet am not myself blessed, and I consume many a holy body and am myself wicked, and I bring many to the heavenly kingdom, and never come there myself. To this our Lord answered thus: Pain, you were not born out of the heavenly kingdom; therefore you cannot enter back into it. But you were born out of Lucifer's heart; there shall you go in again, and shall with him dwell eternally.

Ah, blessed estrangement from God, how lovingly am I bound with you! You make my will steady in the pain, and you make sweet to me the heavy long waiting in this poor body. The more I keep company with you, the more God greater and more wondrously falls upon me. Lord, I cannot sink from you in the depth of unmixed humility —

alas, that I might lightly slip from you in pride.³⁷ But the deeper I sink, the sweeter I drink.

XIII. The scripture of this book is seen, heard, and experienced in all members.

I neither can nor may write, unless I see it with the eyes of my soul and hear it with the ears of my eternal spirit and experience in all members of my body the power of the Holy Spirit.

XIV. Of the holy Trinity, of the birth, and of the name of Jesus Christ, and of the human's nobility.

I saw and see three Persons in the eternal height, before God's Son was conceived in Saint Mary's body. There they were known and beheld in distinction by all the holy angels in their wholeness and in their name, and how the three were one God. However their eyes were, they yet saw neither bone nor flesh nor colour nor the lordly name Jesus. This was wondrously hidden in the eternal Father's breast. They named the Father the uncreated eternal God, the Son the unbegun Wisdom. The Spirit of them both they named the right art of truth. The very angels of the highest council, who hang against the love of the Godhead in one draw of the breath of the whole Trinity, served and looked upon the blissful counsel when God became God-human. Gabriel bore the name of Jesus alone with the greeting down. To him was neither bone nor flesh nor blood given. The second Person was ever the eternal Son, although he had not yet put on manhood; he was ever ours and was never given to us, until Gabriel did the message. Had the second Person before the message been our Redeemer, he should have had a beginning;¹⁹ that never was. The same second Person was one nature with Adam's manhood, before Adam debased himself with sins. Although Adam's nature was broken and changed and his part ever more lost, yet God never refused him; therefore could we and may we still return. God has kept his noble loving nature wholly, and therefore could not contain himself. God cast Lucifer at once from him into the eternal prison; but Adam he followed after, and asked him where he was, and brought him back to the way. Lucifer had only one nature in God; when he broke it, he could never come back.

The human has full nature in the holy Trinity, and him God reached out to make with his divine hands. When he lost the very holy labour at us, then he was forced in himself with a threefold delight. Therefore he willed to bring us back with his feet and with his own hands, that we might have so great a union with him. Were the human in paradise remained, God should have been visibly with him at hours, and should have greeted his soul and gladdened the body. Thus I saw God come from heaven into paradise, like a great angel. The same nature still compels God that he greets us here with knowing, and with holy inwardness, as far as we are with holy virtues and with true innocence prepared.

When I think that the divine nature has now in herself bone and flesh, body and soul, then I raise myself with great joy far above my worth. But the angel is in a certain manner formed after the holy Trinity; yet he is a pure spirit. The soul is with her flesh alone the house before the heavenly kingdom, and sits beside the eternal householder, most equal to himself. There plays eye into eye, and there flows spirit into spirit, and there touches hand to hand, and there speaks mouth to mouth, and there greets heart in heart. Thus the householder honours beside his side the housewife. But the princes and the service-lords — these are the holy angels, whom the householder has before his eyes. All the service and all the praise that the angels tend is given to the housewife with the householder. Ever afterward, as we are here rich in holy virtues, so are our service-men noble.

XV. The right pure love has four things. If you give yourself to God, then God gives himself also to you.

The right pure love of God has four things in her, which rest never. The first is the growing longing; the second the flowing torment; the third the burning experiencing of soul and of body; the fourth a steady union bound with great watching. To this no one can come, unless he do a whole exchange with God — so that you give to God all that is yours, inward and outward; then he gives you truly all that is his, inward and outward.

When the blessed hour is passed in which God has done to the loving soul his over-lordly comfort, ah, then the lover is so well moved that to her all things seem good that bring woe to strange souls. If you are then peevish, you are in great anxiety — unless the devil has anointed you.

XVI. The great love has more than ten stages and two kinds of lament.

After this the great love has its nature: it flows not with tears, but it burns in the great heaven-fire. Therein it flows farthest, and yet stands in itself stillest. It climbs to God nearest and stays in itself smallest. It grasps the most and keeps the least.

O most blessed Love, where are those who know you? They are wholly burnt in the holy Trinity; they dwell not in themselves. These blessed can never fall into mortal sin. Why? They are flowed-through with God and embraced so sorely; the more they are tested, the stronger they become. Why? The longer they are here in the strife and love, the nobler God thinks them and the baser and more wretched they themselves seem. Why? The holier the love, the greater the anxiety; and the more comforted, the steadier the fear. But the loving soul cannot fear horribly, but she fears nobly.

Two things I can never lament away: the one, that God is so greatly forgotten in the world; the other, that spiritual people are so imperfect. Hereby must many a fall happen, for perfect people never fall.

XVII. Of a lady who was gladly at court, of her devil who advised her seven wickednesses.

A lady had given herself [to spiritual life] and would yet serve at court. Then I asked for her with all my power, both day and night, for I saw her harm so great that, after this life, were she there remaining, she must miserably be the devil's companion.

She loved her lordship too greatly, and held herself not to God's honour; but she ordered the useless arrogance and had ever before her eyes the noble bearing of her lord and her lady.

After this came a great devil — fiery, raging, black, with spikes and with horns, with glass-eyes,²⁰ and stood before me. I feared him not, yet I blessed myself and fell asleep. Then he rolled upon me like a sack full of water and tormented me so sorely that I sought grace from our Lord. Then there came a white angel to my help, who was from the fourth choir of angels, and was the same lady's guardian. Him I asked who this enemy was and what he showed me. Ah, then said the lovely angel with heavenly voice: It is one of the worst devils that hell can produce, and has the office of binding together the hearts of people who would yet be good, with hurtful love; and he torments you because you would drive him from this lady. Ah, shall he torment me long? — No, God will thus show his goodness. Hereafter the devil came again and shot upon me with fiery arrows which shot at me hellish pain in body and soul. Then I said: All that God permits you, do to me. Then the devil shook and said: Now you give yourself humbly to the pain, now I lose all my power. Then the soul said: By the living God I admonish you that you tell me your name and what your office is at this lady. — My name? Yes, that I will not tell you, for it could harm me too greatly. You must on the last day [know it]. I tend in her the grim arrogance and the swift wisdom and the strong greed, and I am called wrathful peevishness, which disturbs spiritual hearts.

XVIII. The spiritual person is like an animal in thirty things of its nature.

Thus a troubled soul laments and spoke wretchedly to her Beloved: Ah Lord, I have long desired two things, which I am not yet granted. The one is a faithful spiritual life. Alas, dear-heart, that is all stayed by the way. The other is a holy end; for it I rejoice so greatly that I lose my sorrowful seriousness. To this answered our Lord and showed me a base unnoteworthy little animal²¹ and said: See, this little animal you are like.

Then I saw how the animal was bred on an island in the sea, from the slime that exhales out of the sea, between the hot sun and the sea. So that the sun was the animal's father, and the sea his mother, and the slime his material.

So Adam was from God's power on the earth from weak material made. This animal signifies true spiritual people. When the person receives a spiritual spirit, he is bred with the hot Godhead and is conceived in his mother, God's manhood; then his material is the Holy Spirit, who consumes his sinful nature in all things. This animal grows toward the true sun. So does the spiritual person who has received God's spirit. He is so noble a seed; he grows and germinates unto the blessed person's end.

This animal eats no more. It has a great tail, which is full of honey, and sucks it every day. It has also golden hairs which ring so sweetly when it sucks, that the sweet voice and the joyful sound feed in its heart, and the body is fed by the drink of the sweet honey. This tail is the holy people's end, which they with good works and with steady virtues joyfully and wisely have before their eyes, and yet gladly bear great faithfulness in long waiting. The golden hairs — that is the noble God-love, which through the loving heart rings into the noble soul. Well is he who ever became a person, who experiences this rightly.

This animal has yet a natural delight — that it should drink of the sea through an useless thirst; then it can never recover unless it lets the bitter sea-water out and gives it back. So it stands with us sinners. When we drink the puddle of the world and use our flesh's ignobility according to the counsel of the wicked spirit — alas! — then we are given over to ourselves by ourselves. Would we yet ever recover, then must we forsake ourselves and give back the world's guilt.

This animal has great ears that stand open to it toward heaven, and it listens for the birds' song; it flees the horrible animals and fears the earthly serpents. So does truly the loving soul: she steadily flees evil fellowship, and hates false wisdom, and her ears are ready to hear God's wisdom.

This animal has a noble mind. It cannot remain in the sea when the sea rages and the water roars. It loves also chastity and runs upon the highest mountain that it knows, and chooses there the fairest tree, and climbs upon it with joyful labour, and embraces then the high trunk; and so it rests with great love in high freedom. So does the loving soul: to her bitter is the emptiness, and she sorely flees transience, which like water passes away. She knows also well how with great virtues and with holy labours she shall run upon the highest mountain of the fair heavenly kingdom. So she climbs further in grace without labour upon the fairest tree of the holy Godhead; there she embraces the high trunk and is herself embraced by the holy Trinity.

This animal has also two sharp horns, with which it defends its body with so great wisdom that it goes free from all animals. O loving soul, what understands you of this well! You drive away the devil from you with God's wisdom, and live in holy purity free from all sins.

This animal has two fair human eyes, which flow full of tears for the fair mountain, where it would gladly be. O loving soul, how fair are the eyes of your knowing, since you have seen into the eternal mirror, and to you the sweet tears are lovingly ready; yet you gladly suffer the sinful sea's bitterness.

This animal has a pure mouth and a pure tongue. It also has no teeth; it cannot grin or bite. The loving person has also a useful mouth: he teaches and admonishes at all hours gladly, and his tongue is from all harmful words drawn and bound. He has also no biting teeth; he ever gladly consoles the troubled. He has no fierceness, save only against sin and against God's disgrace; yes, no pain is so woe to him. The animal's mouth is open above and small below. The greatness of our mouth is the incomprehensible praise that we shall offer God with the fellowship of all creatures, in all our doing and in all things, at all hours. The lowest part of our mouth speaks too gladly of the sinful earth. O woe of all speaking! What shall become of the false holy, who with holy people's gifts falsely nourish their sinful body, and bear themselves rightly as if they had experienced all in the right God-truth? The faithful God, who alone has loved the truth, must keep his pure friends from them.

This animal has swift feet and has no voice; it is in itself still. The same nature has the well-bred soul; in the highest love she is both — swift and still.

This animal's hide and hair is of ignoble colour, for it is dingy and base to behold. None hunts it for its present beauty; but after its death, when other animals rot, its hide becomes so noble and its hair so many-coloured that all the highest who can have it bear its hide for the noblest of sables. Perfect people's peace and their useful customs and their holy teaching, that we regard alas too little while they are alive; but after their death, when we sinners come into distress, and then think how holily they lived and how faithfully they warned us, we come into sinful shame that we were so strange to them. Then their life becomes a fair sable, which we sinners before our eyes bear very beautifully in our heart. But beside their blessed body we fear ever the unworthy copper,³⁸ that we cannot touch this noble gold.

This animal's flesh one eats on Friday. It also dies not, unless it be struck dead by the sea's enemies. Holy people's life is all of Friday, for they fast always from sins, and they eat not the forbidden food, but live according to divine fashion. The great waves of the storming love make them die to all things and live to God alone — yes, then first are all things hers alone with God in common in love; then her love has useful powers in God's praise toward all things.

This animal's bones are like a noble fish's spine; from them one makes fair jewels which noble people for their honour bear. How noble a jewel it is that a holy body be love-full and free of sins, God shows us in his dearest friends, as we find the true signs at them. God has given us in his holy friends many a useful jewel; if we praise him not for it, then we cannot become one of the holy whom one lifts here up from the earth. This animal's name spoken in German means all-useful. Well is he who ever became a person, who has this name before God!

XIX. The office of the blessed Love is manifold.

O blessed Love, that without beginning was your office and is still — that you bind God and the human's soul together. That be your office without end. Greeted be you, my Lady, and ward off that I lament not to my fair Lord about you.

If he would too long be from me, I should freeze too sorely; ward this off, heart-Lady, Queen! You have me into God led astray, that I am blessedly bound.²⁴ O my Lady Love, help me, that I may pass away in his arms, in which I am captured. Yet will I gladly suffer death's pain in my sinful body. Love, you have the greatest power before all virtues forever. For this will I thank God: you take from me many a heart-ache. I have no more virtues. He serves with his own virtues. That were heavier to me than death — that I should do any good without my Lord. All that I speak from love, alas, I dare not claim for myself; rather God means all those by it whom he in his heart has chosen.²² To whom this belongs, he experiences it well; love makes empty hearts full. But when we become full of wrong and bitterness, then is to us love's play very unready. Good night, Love, as I would sleep. Alleluia.

XX. Of six virtues of Saint Dominic.²⁵²³

On Saint Dominic's day I prayed our Lord for the Preaching Order in common. Then our dear Lord pleased that he himself came to me, and brought Saint Dominic, whom I love above all saints. (I ask) whether I dare speak. (Then) said our Lord: Dominic, my son, had on earth four things at himself, which all priors should have at themselves. He loved his brothers so lovingly that he could never bear to trouble them with the things that came from his own self-will. The second, that he often spoiled his food for his brothers' help and love, that young brothers should not turn back to the world, and that the old should not fail in the way. The third, that he with holy wisdom gave them the example that they for God should be measured in all their being and in all their customs and in all their need. The fourth, that he was so merciful that he would never burden his dear brothers with any penance that the Order did not show him according to the guilt. But said our Lord: Yet I tell you two things. When Dominic laughed, he laughed with true sweetness of the Holy Spirit; and when he wept, he wept with so great faithfulness that he ever bore all his brothers foremost in his longing before my eyes, and on top of that with all might the holy Christendom. The simple laughter without emptiness can be evil, of which I know nothing.

XXI. For sixteen things God loves the Preaching Order.

Hereafter said our dear Lord thus: Two things I love so greatly in the Preaching Order, that my divine heart laughs at them without ceasing. The one is the holiness of their life. The other is the great usefulness of the holy Christendom. To this they greet my holy Trinity with seven things, which speak thus: Mighty sighing, heart-deep weeping, living longing, hard discipline, sorrowful exile, faithful humility, joyful love. But said our Lord: They also honour my three names with seven things outwardly: in praiseworthy song, with true preaching, with right absolving, with loving consoling, with friendly helping, with holy example, and also they are a healing band of the holy Christian faith. Further said our heart-dear Lord thus: Their alms, that they give to the poor for my love, that is so holy that the poor people's sins which they feel are diminished, and that also the devil can nowhere remain where one eats of their alms. This comes from the holiness of their pleasing poverty. Ah, eternal fountain of the Godhead, from which I have flowed out and all things — I, unworthy creature, praise you with all that is under you, that I, Lord, am thus comforted by you. Amen.

XXII. Of fourfold crown of Brother Heinrich, and of the worthiness of Saint Dominic.²⁶

In the Preaching Order a brother died on a high Easter day, when he had preached, sung Mass, and given the people our Lord's holy body. And when he had fulfilled all his duty, he bade himself be anointed, and journeyed toward the night.²⁷ When he was buried, a person went to his body and greeted both, soul and body. This she tended at all times after spiritual people's death. And then God made in her soul a divine high-time. And so was his soul shown to her in God's embrace in great honour. Then she saw well that his honour was not yet perfect, and asked our Lord how long he would be thus, and whether he had suffered any purgatory. Then our Lord said: He shall be thus for forty hours; that was seven days and seven nights.

He had inclined himself on God's breast in uncountable delight toward the spiritual inwardness, which was here to him very unready; and so swiftly he came there without pain, as a mother her dear child out of the ashes has taken into her lap.

Then he said: Tell my sister, I will console her within forty days with God. That happened. She died fourteen nights afterward.

Then he invited me to his high-time as he should receive his honour. For it all the heavenly host prepared itself and they ordered themselves in a fair procession. Saint Dominic came with a whole throng, who were all preachers, who had passed from this earth, and they bore all golden wreaths; each as noble as they in the Order were holy. Saint Dominic brought toward Brother Heinrich a shining crown, which played in its glance so fair as the sun in its brightest tone. That he gave him from God as reward, that he had followed his holy example in the Preaching Order.

Saint Dominic is before the others uncountably fair, for he has from every brother singular worth as reward.

I saw him singularly clothed with three kinds of worth. He bears a white garment of inborn²⁸ chastity, on top of that a green garment of growing God-wisdom, and on top of that an unsprinkled red garment, for he suffered martyrdom spiritually. They have a heart-token of the Order's worth, which no one ever bears. A fair banner goes before him, which all follow who here stand at his counsel. Our Lord sat in his almightiness and crowned this brother with three kinds of worth. That was simple obedience, willing poverty, steady unnoteworthiness.

Then Brother Heinrich thanked our Lord thus: I thank you, Lord, for your finding and for your preserving and increase. Then he bowed to our Lord and turned to his brothers. Then said Saint Dominic: Be welcome, dear son, now enter into the honour of your Lord, alleluia.²⁹

That to me this grace might be granted and this might happen — that was singular because for God I was in exile and from God's friends steadily wickedly despised.

XXIII. Of Saint John the Evangelist's burial.

Saint John the Evangelist's body I have seen truly with the eyes of my unworthy soul. He lies in great bliss and buried above all transient things and the shape of the eternal kingdom. His body has now received so much of the divine eternity that it shines like a fiery Christ-image. He lies just so lovingly humanly-shaped, as if he were in a heavenly jubilus spiritually fallen asleep. His eyebrows alone are brown, and he has his eyes closed and lies upon his back. Beneath him, above him, and round about him is all bright; and ever at seven hours come the holy angels to the body with praiseworthy song which sounds thus: holy pure, simply wise, from the heart dear to God. Sweeter way has the song than a thousand strings or harp-sound. Between his body and the shape of the heavenly kingdom there is no more than a thin wall like an egg's shell, and yet it is so eternally fast that no body can pass through there until the last day.

XXIV. How God in the heavenly kingdom receives souls, and how he crowns three kinds of people, and how he greets, adorns, praises, and thanks them.

The heavenly kingdom has many fair gates and yet has none. The manifold gates is the lordly distinguished reward with which God receives every soul, and the whole heaven opens itself to meet the blessed God-bride. God comes down through all the choirs, to meet the soul, and after him follows all the heavenly host, all according to the beauty she can receive in reward. So journeys³⁰ the soul, glad out of purgatory or out of this exile; so follow her also very many fair angels. In the heaven's gate the two lovers come together, God and the soul. His noble looking, with which he receives her, has so great power upon her that she can never more think of her harm nor of any of her heart-sorrow.

A common crown of the kingdom comes upon her head in the gate, that is God's will; with that he leads her lordly in. Therefore it is called the kingdom's crown. To the corrupt sinner unto his end, to whom God sends contrition, is no other worth as reward. God crowns three kinds of people with his fatherly hands: maidens, widows, and the married. As he has received them with all praise, then he crowns them. The widows and those in marriage our Lord crowns sitting in his almighty honour; but for the maidens he rises and crowns them standing, like an imperial young lord. He greets them inwardly with his living Godhead; he honours them outwardly with his almighty manhood; he adorns them with his Holy Spirit's generosity. He rewards them also without end with his whole Trinity, in order in his kingdom for all that they bring with them. He thanks them especially that they wished to come, and they praise God truly, that he has taken the eternal death from them.

XXV. How our presence shall be in the heavenly kingdom, in purgatory, and in hell.

Our presence is now in the heavenly kingdom rightly. As we now here are clothed with the virtues and adorned and through-flowed with the holy God-love, so we are now there manifest to all the blessed, and they praise God and rejoice over us as if we now with them were there. What yet comes upon us, they do not foresee; rather, that we grow in nobility and in clarity and climb up in height. This happens to the blessed who are still here from hour to hour. Hereby the saints' and the angels' bliss is increased. O woe, when we sink into great daily sin, then our fair heaven-glance is quenched. Then the angels mourn and the saints beg of our dear Lord that we may convert and again become pure.

Our presence is also in purgatory, as quickly as we here earn it. That brings woe to all who are there. They cannot, however, help us, for they themselves are melting miserably. There is many a poor soul in such-fashioned purgatory with such-fashioned guilt that she cannot know whether she shall ever be freed. Why? They would not confess with their fleshly mouth. How they nevertheless can be saved, that we have found in another place.³¹

The sinner's presence is also manifest in hell. To him God's mercy follows after, so that they are today there, tomorrow they are companions of the angels. Thus our presence journeys out and in toward the heavenly kingdom, into purgatory, and into the unblessed hell, according as we with self-will join ourselves.

XXVI. Of God's comfort to a troubled Brother Baldwin.³²

A brother in the Preaching Order, who was so greatly burdened with a good office in obedience — as many a one is — that he lost his youthful might and lost his manly strength; yet he did it with good will. Then I asked our Lord that he would turn his grace to him. Our Lord showed himself to me and said: I heard and saw thus all the labour that he suffers, and that he reads and writes; that shall all from my love sing my praise before my eternal company thus: Great God, eternal, mighty, marvellous, alleluia! And I will lift his head up and all his might, as I have done not only by nature but also greatly by grace.³³

XXVII. Of the end of the Preaching Order, of Antichrist, of Elijah and Enoch.

The Preaching Order was greatly assailed by false masters, and by many a swift sinner. Then I asked our dear Lord that he would in them shield his own honour. Then said God: As long as I will have them, no one can destroy them. Then I asked: Ah, dear Lord, shall the Order stand until the end of the world? Then our Lord said: Yes, they shall be until the end of the world. But there shall come people of a certain kind, who shall earlier despise them — so that the people who then come shall be wiser and more powerful and poorer of earthly need and more fiery from the Holy Spirit, through the exiled distress that shall then come upon the holy Christendom.

Then I saw these people and their clothes and their life, and also that of them was a great multitude. They have no more than two garments, the inner is white and the outer red, after the pure manhood of our Lord and after his holy death. Their hair and their beard remain on them so long as it grows. Their belt is made from the bast of an olive tree, after the holy mercy which they bear toward the despised Christendom. They go all barefoot; but in lands where it freezes, they bear red shoes with white straps and no hose. They wash their heads in summer themselves in the woods with water; in winter not, for they have no dwelling of their own. They are in all places guests and suffer many a trouble. They have neither house nor court, silver nor gold preserved anywhere. Each one goes with a staff, which is white painted (and) red. The staff has a crook, which is one span long and is of ivory. By the ivory they shall be chaste and in all things pure. The staff is white and red — by it they think on Christ's death. On one side of the staff our Lord's martyrdom is engraved, on the other side his ascension. The staff must they have at them in all places, when they eat or sleep, pray or preach, or sing Mass, or hear confession. And where they let the staff out of their hand, there must they thrust it into the earth before their eyes, that they may steadily look upon Christ's martyrdom.

When their road is thirty miles long, where they must go for usefulness or distress, then must two of them lead an ass with them. When they at times ride, they cannot bear their staff by their side, but must bear it upright in the hand before themselves like a God-cross. Therefore must they ride the base animal, that they may be made like God in humility; and also their feet become so woe to them that for distance they cannot fully go. But the shoes they bear, that may last no longer than from All Saints' Day to Saint Peter's day when he was made Pope.³⁵

They shall ask no one for a house or for clothes; but as one does not protect them with bread, so shall they ask for it humbly, and shall eat and drink among common people all the food they give them, except meat alone. They shall also fast no more than what Christendom commands, and shall so lodge that they may pray and sleep apart from people under a separate roof.

As the people come to know and look upon this holy life, then shall they be so greatly bettered by it that they gladly with great love give them their necessities willingly. They shall also not be in lodging with any widow. The people shall wash their hard feet with great inwardness and shall greatly thank God that they wander and anoint the orphaned Christendom, as Mary Magdalene did our Lord. They anoint them after — that shall men's-names do (sic), for they are not God. As the people see that their clothes are too weak, then they give them new. Much would one gladly give them; they shall not take it, but they advise mercifully to give in all useful places.

Their great chapter is held twice in the year, for usefulness and need of Christendom — in summer in the woods, in winter in the city upon the burghers' council-house. Whoever will journey into this Order, he shall have for himself two kinds of book. Out of the greatest book he shall preach. The first that is written on the book is Credo in deum,³⁶ and after that it is all masterly sermons, all ordered with the Christian faith. Out of the smallest book he shall keep his hours yearly to our Lord. The first master who shall raise this life shall be the king's son from Rome. His name spoken in German before God means Alleluia. To him the Pope shall give his next power, and after that he himself chooses and receives from the Pope this life. Then all high masters give themselves with him; they shall be no younger than twenty-four years. They also receive no one unless he be sound and have learned at high school, and they all must be priests, confessors, and high chosen teachers. The first master they shall call their prince, and he shall go four brothers strong, for the Christian faith is most often tested at him. And the fourteen shall have one master among them, whom they shall call their guardian, and he shall go three brothers strong. Their power is very great, for no bishop is their companion. Where they come, there is preaching, hearing confession and singing Mass and reading unforbidden to them. In every bishopric there shall be seven of them, after the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit; in an archbishopric thirteen, after our Lord's holy convent. In Rome there shall be thirty, after the blessed purchase³⁴ that was given on Christ. In Jerusalem shall there be most, where Jesus for us bore the death.

Their lesser chapter they shall have every three weeks, after the whole union of the holy Trinity, with five brothers after the image of the holy five wounds, or with seven, after the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, and afterwards as many as can come together. Whenever they eat or drink, while that the eldest in the Order shall speak something of Christ's transformation and of his holy life, and the others shall be silent.

I saw also their beds, how they shall lie upon the straw between two white woollen cloths, and one pillow is given them under their head, which lies upon the lower cloth, upon the straw. Their loins shall never sit nor lie softly, for they shall all their days be sound until the holy martyrdom, as Christ did. But every old master who has been very useful and from age cannot fully hold out until the end of the Order — if he becomes weak or sick, one shall lay him softly and hold him lovingly, for they can still give the very holy counsel; and of the best food shall they then live.

This holy life shall stand in good peace thirty years. In the meantime these shall so greatly enlighten and teach Christendom that no one shall be turned from Christian belief by unlearned simplicity. Alas, then shall come the distress. Then comes the Antichrist, and gives himself over to the worldly princes with gold and with the noblest gem, and with bottomless false cunnings — which are now very dear to them. Therefore they follow him very gladly and say he is their god and their lord, and give him great escort, their seals and their letters. O woe, then he comes to spiritual power, where he finds also the greed and brings such great false wisdom that the Bishops and Provosts and the priests all fall short. Then these blessed brothers offer their lives for sale and preach very greatly Christian belief, and give a true absolution of all sins to all who in Christian belief in true contrition die — that they shall be saved without purgatory. Through this, since these holy brothers have walked so holily before the people, many a holy martyr shall be made with them. Many a Jew and certain wise heathens shall from these brothers receive the holy baptism and Christian belief. This shall so greatly displease Antichrist that he shall lay his great command and heavy compulsion upon all those who go to their preaching. He who then goes there and stands with them is a blessed man.

Then the distress arises. Then the good separate themselves from the wicked, and renounce the body and all that they have. Then come Antichrist's messengers, and pierce first the holy preacher for his Christian teaching with an iron staff; thereon must God's dear one hang and wind, to the poor God-children. So they bear him between them spitted, the holy man for all the world in common; the good weep. So he sings with the Holy Spirit's voice: Credo in deum; and consoles and calls: Follow me, holy God-children. All who then follow him are captured, and their eyes bound, and they are beaten with scourges and driven like sheep in the robbery into a place where a great water goes. There one strikes off all their blessed heads and casts them into the water. Where the water is not, they are driven onto the field and martyred there. God gives the wicked in their sense to bind the eyes of the good, that they cannot in their captivity see the great adornment and the immeasurable lordship and honour which the unblessed have from Antichrist their lord — through which they would the better stand, since they are also people as they. The blessed preacher they take dead and set him very high in the same place where he spoke the God-word and was martyred.

Those who afterward will preach the Christian belief must be living martyrs and high holy. The Antichrist's power is so great that no one is his companion. As the Pope can no longer strive against him, then he turns to the holy brothers and suffers what they suffer. Then come to their help Enoch and Elijah, who are now in the sweet paradise, and live there with soul and with body in the same bliss, and eat the same food that was given Adam, before he within remained. They must also in God's obedience avoid the same tree that Eve and Adam ate the apples of when they broke God's commandment. This tree I have seen; it is not great, and its fruit is outwardly very fair and delightful like a rose, but inwardly it is by nature very sour. That signifies the bitter harm of sin, which God never granted a person. Because this fruit is so unbearable to the noble person, that it is still our poison, God laid his commandment upon it; for he never created the person discomfort.

In the last distress, when these blessed brothers have so long comforted the common people that no one good is left, unless he have through God suffered the martyrdom — then live yet these brothers most. So is their guiltless distress so great, so is their prayer so holy, that then first God sends them Enoch and Elijah, who then console them and lead them from the woods, and they go and preach and prepare themselves to death. These two lords, who then are come out of paradise, are by divine truth so wise that they drive about Antichrist with power. They say to him rightly who he is, and from what might his signs are, and how he is come, and what an end he shall take. As the perverted hear this — how unblessed a god is given them through their great greed and through their delight in many a wickedness which God knows at their heart — then many a noble man and many a fair woman converts themselves, who from Christendom had followed Antichrist.

So must the blessed be martyred, for to Antichrist is then in the earth the greatest power given. He bids men gather all the husbands he can prove in Christian belief. So one prepares upon the street boiling pans, and drives them all together there, and sends after their wives and after their fair children. So one bids the men choose, whether they would rather keep in unbelief the fair wife and the dear children, riches and honour — or believe in Christ, in the pans boil, and lose their bodies. Then say the men: Ah, dear wife and child, think not of me, but think that you are Christian, and offer God one body — so we sunder not. Then one binds the men's feet and hands and casts them into the pans. Then the women and children also say: Lord Jesus, O Mary's child, for your love we will gladly suffer the same distress. Then one makes a pit full of fire; into it one casts the children and mothers, and casts upon them fire, wood, and straw, and burns them thus.

The angel leads Enoch and Elijah out of paradise. The brightness and the bliss which they now have on their bodies must all remain there. When they look upon the earth, they are startled, like men who look upon the sea and fear how they shall pass over. So they take on the earthly glow, and must become mortal humans. So they eat honey and figs and drink water mixed with wine, and their spirit is also fed by God.

XXVIII. Of fivefold power of love. Through weakness and people's falseness one must keep silence of the truth.

This book is begun in love; it shall also end in love. For nothing is so wise nor so holy nor so fair nor so strong nor so perfect as Love. Then said our Lord Jesus Christ: Speak, Father, I will now be silent, as you were silent in the mouth of your Son all burning through the weakness of the people; and my manhood spoke all trembling through the falseness of the world, for it rewarded me with the bitter death.

Here ends the fourth part of this book.

JSON: /api/sources/beguine-mystics/mechthild-flowing-light/vol-4-01-flowing-light-book-4.json