Greco-Christian stream·Beguine Mystics·The Mirror of Simple Souls·Section XI

Section XI

This is Section XI of the Porete Mirror project translation. Two chapters in scope, closing the central doctrinal stretch of Division XIII. M.N.'s thirteenth signed gloss falls in chapter V — a brief but important clarification of Marguerite's word summe, by which she means the Soul's knowledge of God's goodness (M.N. identifies the summe with the Holy Ghost's working in her and the gift of free will).

The two chapters together work out one of the Mirror's most theologically dense doctrines: the freedom of the will under God's bounty. Marguerite argues, with considerable subtlety, that God himself may not take the will from her against her will — for the will is given freely, by bounty, and God's power cannot override his goodness without unmaking the gift. The proverb that the righteous man falls seven times a day (Proverbs 24:16) is then carefully glossed: the falling is not voluntary transgression but bodily inclination, by the legacy of Adam; the will of the righteous, kept free, refuses consent. Marguerite's summe — the knowledge of God's goodness — is what holds the will free against the inclination.

The same conventions apply: light modernization with archaic verb endings and pronouns normalized; Marguerite's technical vocabulary preserved (annihilated, Simple, the personified speakers); M.N.'s glosses footnoted in place; formal LLM-as-judge deferred per session-budget.

Division XIII (continued)

Chapter IV — Of three beholdings that one should have to come to peace; and how we should not set little by a default done against God

Now for God, says this Soul, behold what he has done, and what he does, and what he shall do. Then shall you have peace, stillness, and rest of peace in peace, and of such peace as is raised above corruption, if you dwell in the risen peace. Ah God, what great words these are! Whoever should understand the truth of the gloss?

Ah God, says the Understanding of the Soul naughted, am I not enough in prison of corruption, where I am obliged to be, will I or nil I — though I allow me not to the cart of correction?¹ Oh, what a great pity it is when wickedness has the victory over goodness!

Right so it is of body and of spirit. The spirit is made of God; the body is formed of God. Now these two natures are joined and knit together by nature and by justice, in corruption. In the fount of baptism, these two natures are put together without corruption, by the divine justice that has made these two natures. And when a fault overcomes this complexion and this new creation, which is made of the divine goodness — this seems not a little thing, however little that fault may be. And then this fault troubles us unto bitterness, and drives to a madness against ourselves (though it is not willful); it is not a little thing, this, since it pleases not the divine will but displeases him.²

Ah God, says Knowing of Divine Light, who is he that dare call this little? He who calls it little, I hold he was never well illuminated, nor never shall be, unless he amend him; for he has greatly offended in this, that he puts the displeasing of our Lord in such reckless heed.

Chapter V — How it is understood that the righteous man falls seven times a day

It is much to say of such a servant that serves his lord well at all points, in all things that he knows that which might best please the will of his lord.

Oh, says this Soul who helps herself by this same thing, now I have some of that which holy writ says — that the righteous man falls seven times a day.³ He is well enlightened who understands that this is not a case for correction.⁴ For the word "correction" is used when men fall into fault by the consenting of their will; and corruption is the fleshliness of the complexion of our bodies.

It seems else, by this tale, that I have not free will, if I must sin against my will seven times a day. It is not so with God's grace, says this Soul, for it must be that God is not God, if Virtues are taken from me against my will. For no more than God may sin, who cannot will it, no more may I sin if my will will it not — by such freedom as my summe⁵ has given of his pure bounty by love.

M. The summe of this Soul is the knowing that she has of the goodness of God; and this goodness of God, which is the Holy Ghost, works in her, and gave her free will. N.⁶

And if I willed it, why should he not suffer it? Else should his power take from me freedom. But his goodness may not suffer his power to unfree me of free will in no wise. This is how: no power takes from me my will, if my will will not assent thereto. Now has his goodness, by pure bounty, given me free will. By bounty he has not given me a greater thing of all that he has made. For me he presents this to me, which he has made of his courtesy; and if he take it again, he does me no wrong. But my free will freely has given it me, that he may not take from me unless it please my will. The support of the love of his bounty has given me this nobility by love. Then may not the strength of evil take from me the freedom of my will, if I will not. Thus you may see how freely he has given me my will.

I have said here before, says this Soul, that he has given me no more but my free will. How may one understand by this saying that he has not given me all? Since he has given me nothing but free will, it breaks the other things; but so has he given me that he may nothing withhold from me. For Love asks that — else it were not love of the Beloved, unless it were of such a kind. For in this, that he has given me free will of his pure bounty, he has given me all — if my will will it; he holds nothing from me, I am thereof sure.

Ah, how for God? says Dread.

In this, says this Soul, that I give him freely my will, without any withholding, purely for his bounty, and because of his sole will — just as he gave it me of his gift, for a profit to me, of his divine bounty. Now I have said, says this Soul, that God would not be God, if my will were taken from me against my will. This is sooth: that there is nothing more certain than this — that God is not God, if my will be taken from me, except my will will it. This is full far from that which is said: that the righteous falls seven times a day into a case for correction.

But I shall tell you, says Truth, what it means, this that Holy Church says — that the righteous man falls seven times a day. This is to understand: when the will of the righteous has given the inclination, without any actual transgression, to fulfil the fault. For by the inclination of the sin of Adam, the body is frail, and inclining to faults; for it inclines oft to tend towards a lesser thing than is the goodness of God; and this holy writ calls "falling," for so it is. But the righteous keeps himself from consenting to the fault, which might increase by such inclination. So that his falling — in which the righteous falls by inclination aforesaid — is more virtue to him than vice, because of the will that dwells free, by rejecting the fault, as it is said before. Now may you understand how the righteous falls from high to low, and how that falling, though it be low, is more virtue than vice.

Now understand: since it is so that the righteous falls seven times a day, then must it be that he rises seven times; or he may not, of the falling seven times, arise. He is blessed that often falls; for he is such a one that comes truly from thence whither none goes, unless he have the name of righteous. But more righteous is he that always abides where stableness is — but this may not always be had, as long as the Soul has company of the body in this world. But this falling makes not peace to be less, by troubling the conscience, so that the Soul lives not in peace by the gifts that are given her from above. So may not the Virtues be against Virtues but above them. If this may not be, then were God subject to his Virtues, and the Virtues should be against the Soul. But they have being from our Lord, for the profit of the Soul.

Translator's footnotes (project translation)

¹ The cart of correction. Kirchberger's editorial note: "do not willingly submit to the punishment of the cart of correction — i.e., to be dragged through the streets in the public criminal's cart, or beaten at the cart's tail." A medieval punishment-image. Marguerite uses it to ask: am I not already imprisoned in the body's corruption (will I or nil I) without taking on the additional punishment of voluntary penance?

² Kirchberger's editorial note: "the whole passage is very obscure. The author explains that since baptism remedies the corruption of original sin, we naturally feel distressed at any further actual sin however venial; but this distress should not be allowed to drive us to 'a bitter spirit against ourselves'; nevertheless, even a venial sin is not a small matter, since it displeases God." Marguerite's pastoral move is double-edged: do not minimize even venial sin (for it displeases God), but do not let the distress over it turn into bitter self-flagellation either.

³ Proverbs 24:16 — septies cadit iustus. The Vulgate text. The proverb was a stock medieval commonplace for the unavoidable lapses of even the righteous in this life; Marguerite uses it to defend her doctrine of the freed will against the obvious objection (if the righteous fall seven times a day, how can the will be truly free?).

⁴ Not a case for correction. Marguerite uses legal-canonical vocabulary: a case for correction is an actual transgression requiring penance. The falling in Proverbs 24:16 is not, on Marguerite's reading, a causa correctionis — it is the inclination of corrupted nature, which the freed will refuses to consent to. The classic Augustinian distinction between concupiscentia (the inclination, not in itself sinful in the baptized) and consensus (the willing assent, which is what makes the inclination into actual sin).

⁵ The summe. Marguerite's Old French is somme — literally "sum, totality." M.N. preserves it as summe and gives the gloss immediately following. Marguerite uses summe to mean the Soul's knowing of God's goodness — that is, the Soul's sum, her total grasp of who God is. The pun is that the summe is also the summa — the Highest, the One who is the sum of all.

⁶ The thirteenth of M.N.'s fifteen signed glosses. A brief but theologically important clarification: Marguerite's summe is identified by M.N. with the Holy Ghost's working in the Soul, and with the gift of free will. The gloss locks the summe into orthodox Trinitarian doctrine (it is the Spirit who gives free will, not some impersonal divine fund) and forestalls a possible reading that would make the summe a quasi-Plotinian One. The fourteenth and fifteenth M.N. glosses fall in later divisions.

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