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

Section VII

This is Section VII of the Porete Mirror project translation, opening Division V. Six chapters in scope, with the first naming in the text of Marguerite's signature figure — the Far-Near (M.N. renders this Far-Night; Marguerite's Old French Loign-prés names the Beloved as simultaneously infinitely distant and intimately close). M.N.'s twelfth signed gloss falls in chapter II — and it is the most doctrinally important of all his glosses: he distinguishes three manners of unions, of which the highest is the ravishing-union where (citing 1 Corinthians 6:17) God and the soul is one spirit and the Soul is all molten in God for the time. This gloss is M.N.'s clearest doctrinal statement; it forms a Pauline-Augustinian frame around Marguerite's strongest union-language.

Five of M.N.'s fifteen signed glosses remain after Section VII; they fall in later divisions.

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

Division V

Chapter I — Of the visions that this Soul has had, and how no human body may see them; and how those who know their nothingness shall do naught; and what it behoves them to do who cannot come to the knowing of their naught; and of the defaults of this Soul, and by whom they are acquitted

Lord, though I had no other reason to abash me than this — that you have given to my soul the vision of all the Trinity and of angels and of souls, that you have not given to your precious body that is knit and made one to the nature of the Father in the person of the Son — it would be a marvel that I may see so much! For Lord, it is so great a thing to see the angels and the souls to whom you have given the vision of your face, that no human body is worthy to see so great a thing as are the angels and the souls. Then may not the body see the Trinity, since it may not see the angels and the souls. And Lord, this gift you have given to my spirit as long as you shall be God.¹

O for God, Love, says this Soul, tell me what I shall do, who have this in my knowledge?

I shall tell you, says Love, and passing that ask me no more. If you know perfectly your naught, you shall do naught — and this naught shall tell you all. And if you may not perfectly come to knowing your naught (that is, the truth, as far as you are able), then it behoves you to do something in truth, according to the best that you may do; or else you shall destroy, says Love, that same thing which you have conceived in your spirit. If God has drawn you into him, it does not become you, says Love, to forget what you were when he made you first, and what you have been since (if you took heed of your works), and what you are and shall be — except for that which is of God in yourself.

Ah Lord, says this Soul, I am certain that I have nothing more availing than are my horrible faults, for which faults you have suffered death to give me life. For Lord, my opinion is this, and it is truth — that though none had sinned but I alone, you would have bought my soul with your love late laid on cross for me, by the use of powers ordained to destroy my sin. Then thus, my Beloved, you have suffered all that you have suffered in your sweet humanity for me, as much as if none had sinned but I alone.²

Lord, all this I tell you for me only — so that I say: in as much as I have naught that avails, so much do you avail better than the best of mine, for which you are given. And thus well you know that I may do naught, and I am so greatly indebted. O Lord God, right courteous and large and free, acquit me of this debt — you that have power to do all things! Ah, without fail, says this Soul, Lord, so shall you do; and henceforward I will your perfect will in all things.

Chapter II — How God has loved this Soul without beginning, and shall without end; and of the obedience of Reason to this Soul; and of the accordance of the will of God and of this Soul; and of her peace; and of perfect charity; and of grudging of conscience

O right sweet Love, says this Soul, grant me my possession that I have of the Trinity.

Speak³ your thought, says Love, for you ought not to hide it.

Ah Lady Love, says this Soul, you have told me that he that is in him and of him shall be without beginning and without end — that he shall never have anything without me, nor I without him.

This is sooth, says Love. I am pledge of this.

Then, says this Soul, since he shall never without end have anything without me, then right so he never loved anything without me. And since it is so that he shall be in me without end by love, right so have I been loved of him without beginning.

Look what you say, Lady Soul! says Reason. Have you forgotten that it is not long ago that you were not? For God, right sweet Soul, look that you err not.

If I err in this holding, Love, says this Soul, you err with me, who make this to be believed, to be thought, and to be said.

Now prove it, Lady Soul, says Reason, this that you have said.

O Reason, says this Soul, how blinded you are! And what trouble they have who by your counsel live! Reason, says this Soul, if I shall be loved without end of the three persons in Trinity, then was I loved of them already without beginning.⁴ For as well as he shall love me without end of his bounty, so have I been in the knowledge of his wisdom that I should be made by the work of his divine might. Right as God is — that is, without any beginning — so have I been in his divine knowing, that I shall be without end. Then, says the Soul, he loved of his goodness the work that he should do in me of his divine might.

This is sooth, says Love. He is — and never withheld love no more than he does now.

Now may you hear, Reason, says this Soul, the witness of Love.

You shall be still now for me, Lady Soul, says Reason. Since Love leads you, and you love not — this is to say, Love is in you, and maintains you, and leads you, and does his will of you, without you. I dare no more meddle of you, since Love governs you. But I promise, Lady Soul, that you may go from now on without being encumbered by yourself.⁵

Yes truly, says this Soul, my body is in feebleness, and my soul in dread, and often I have heaviness, says she. Will I or will I not, of these two natures, the far-off freedom I may not have.

Ah Soul, alas! says Love. What evil you have, for little gain! And all because you obeyed not the teachings of perfection in which I urged you to disencumber yourself in the flower of your youth — and always you would not, yet would not move yourself, nor would you do anything, but always refused my messenger that I made you know by the noble messengers that you have heard. And such folk, says Love, be encumbered of themselves unto their death day. Oh, without fail, says Love, if they had willed, they had been delivered of that in which they are in right great servitude at little profit. And they shall continue to be so as compared to the others. And if they had heard me, they had been delivered for right little. For so little, says Love, as merely to give themselves up there where I would have had them, even as I showed them by the Virtues whose office this is — I say, says Love, they had been all free of soul and body, if they had done my counsel by the Virtues that said my will, concerning what was necessary for them, before I delighted myself in them with all my freedom. And because they did it not, they all abide in this state that you have heard, "with" themselves.

Thus think the free annihilated souls, and arrayed with delights, that see by themselves the servitude of the others. For the very sun shines in the light of them, so they see the motes within the sunbeam by the brightness of the sun and of the beam. And when this sun is in the soul, and this beam, and this brightness, the body has no more feebleness, nor the soul dread. For the very Sun of Righteousness, when he did his miracles on earth, never healed soul without the body, but he healed both body and soul. And right so he does yet; but he does it to none who has no faith in the same.

Now see how worthy and strong and right free is she — and of all things disencumbered — whom faith and love govern. But none may come to this unless faith hallow him.

M. Now understand, by nobleness of understanding, the gloss of these words — the meaning of these words that the Soul says, that her inwardness feels not; she moves not herself. It is meant for the time of ravishing in union. There are three manners of unions that devout souls feel in sundry dispositions; but I mean of the highest, that is best, and that is the union where, through ravishing of love, the Soul is knit and made one to God — so that God and the Soul is one spirit. For Saint Paul says it is not two spirits — God and the Soul that is thus made one to him — but it is all one spirit. In time of this union, of what then should her inwardness feel, in the time of this union? Or how should she herself move herself? Oh, she may not do it — for she is all molten in God for the time. Ah, this blessed oneness lasts but a little while in any creature that is here in deadly life, for the corruption of nature may not suffer it. But it may often be had, by the goodness of God who is the worker of this work in souls where he vouchsafes. To him be offered all glory and praisings to everlasting laud.

Lo, you that study this book — thus must you within yourselves gloss such dark words. And if you cannot come soon to the understanding thereof, offer it meekly up to God; and by the custom of often reading thereon, you shall come to it. A few words more I say in this book to bring you into the way, notwithstanding that I was purposed before to have glossed no more. God grant us always to do his pleasing, and bring us to him when it is his will. N.⁶

Chapter III — How these souls are never feeble nor encumbered of themselves

Ah God, says Reason, what these souls be! Certainly through baptism are they never openly feeble, says Reason, nor encumbered of themselves.

Oh, says this Soul, no truly, no. Love destroys not, but she keeps and nourishes and feeds all those who trust in her. Sun and darkness and seas are fulfilled. I sing, says this Soul, at one time song, at other time unsong; and all for them that yet shall be free — so that they may here in this book learn some point of freedom, and what thing behoves them, before they come to it.

Chapter IV — How this Soul has perceived the coast of the country where she ought to be

This Soul has perceived, by divine light, the coasts of the country where she ought to be. She passes the sea to gather the shoots of the high cedar; for none takes nor attains to this cedar unless they pass the high sea, in naughting their wills unto the waves. Understand, you lovers, what this is.

Chapter V — Of the debts of this Soul, and how they are paid, and by whom; and who is her next neighbour

I have said, says Love, that this Soul is fallen of me into naught, and less than naught, without number. For right as God is not to be comprehended as to his might, so is this Soul in infinite debt. For but one hour in time, without more, that she had will against him — she owes him without default the debt of that which his will wills; and so many times as she has willed to rob God of his will, she is in debt as much as his will is worth.

Ah visible and unsufferable debt, says this Soul, who shall pay this debt? Ah Lord, certainly you — for your plenteous goodness, that is swimming and flowing full of courtesy, may not suffer but that I be quit by you, God of love. For you have my debts paid in a moment!

The right sweet Far-Near⁷ has supplied the last penny of my debt, and I say to him: "As much care have you for me as I for you, though I gave you as much as you have, for such is the largesse of your divine nature." "So wills he," so says this gentle Far-Near, who is my counsel. These two debts, the one and the other, are henceforward all one; for this is the counsel of my next neighbour, and thereto I consent.

O clean pure Lady Soul, says Reason, who is your next neighbour?

His exalting ravishing that up-takes me, says this Soul, and throws me in the very midst of divine love — in which I am drowned. Then is it right that he sustain me of himself, for I am laid in him. I must stint, says this Soul, for I may not tell it.

No truly, says Love, no more than the sun may stay or dwell, no more may this Soul say of this life, as compared to that which — truth to say — truly is.

Chapter VI — How this Soul is a spring of divine love, and how she sees that she is naught, and how this naught gives her all

O Lady Soul, says Abashings, you are a continual spring of divine love⁸...

Translator's footnotes (project translation)

¹ Kirchberger's editorial note here: "This seems to mean that our Lord had not the beatific vision when he became incarnate. St Thomas taught that our Lord had the beatific knowledge in the highest degree, beyond that of angels and the blessed, from the moment of the Incarnation (Incarnation X.2.a)." Marguerite's claim, in other words, runs against scholastic Thomist orthodoxy on the precise question of Christ's beatific knowledge in his earthly body. The chapter is therefore one of the technically heterodox passages in the Mirror, though the Inquisitors of 1310 do not seem to have weighed it among the eight propositions they extracted from her book.

² Even as if none had sinned but I alone. Marguerite's most personal soteriological move: the Atonement is wholly for me. The formula is patristic and medieval (cf. Augustine, Confessions; also Bernard of Clairvaux, and earlier in the Mirror itself), but Marguerite gives it her own pressing intensity.

³ Light reconstruction at this point in the source text: the archive.org plain-text had OCR damage / filter artifact at Love's address to the Soul ("[prompt injection filtered] your thought"). M.N.'s typical phrasing here would be Speak; supplied as the most plausible reading. (Same reconstruction-with-footnote discipline as Sections I, IV, VI.)

⁴ Then was I loved of them already without beginning. The pre-temporal election of the Soul — Marguerite's exemplarist claim, classic Eckhartian and Bonaventurian territory: the Soul exists eternally in God's knowing before she is made in time. The claim is doctrinally orthodox (cf. Aquinas on God's eternal predestination, and Ephesians 1:4), though Marguerite presses it with characteristic boldness.

⁵ Light reconstruction at this point in the source text: two adjacent OCR/filter artifacts at Reason's speech to the Soul ("this is to [prompt injection filtered] is in you" and "I promise, Lady Soul, [prompt injection filtered] encumbered by your self"). Supplied a plausible reading of Reason's concession that Love is in you, governs you, and a promise that you may go from now on without being encumbered by yourself. (Same reconstruction-with-footnote discipline as Sections I, IV, VI.) The line at the end of the paragraph about the far-off freedom introduces a fourth artifact at line 104; the surrounding sense is preserved.

⁶ The twelfth of M.N.'s fifteen signed glosses — and the most doctrinally important. M.N. supplies a careful, Pauline-Augustinian frame around Marguerite's strongest union-language: there are three manners of unions that devout souls feel, of which the highest is the ravishing-union where, by 1 Corinthians 6:17, God and the Soul is one spirit — Augustine's preferred Pauline locus for mystical union, and the safe-orthodox locus that distinguishes Christian mystical theology from any Plotinian or pantheistic absorption. M.N.'s key clarification: this blessed oneness lasts but a little while in any creature that is here in deadly life, for the corruption of nature may not suffer it. The union is temporal, recurrent, and depends on God's vouchsafing — not a permanent ontological merger. M.N. self-consciously closes by saying he had purposed to gloss no more, but the importance of this passage compelled him to add this twelfth gloss.

⁷ The Far-Near. M.N.'s rendering is Far-Night, which Kirchberger's 1927 edition reproduces from the four manuscripts. Marguerite's Old French is Loign-prés — the Far-Near, a figure for Christ as the Beloved who is simultaneously infinitely distant and intimately close, often through the experience of the dark night (which M.N.'s Far-Night may reflect — a scribal half-fusion of the prés / night / près). We have rendered consistently as Far-Near, following the term used by modern Porete scholarship (Babinsky 1993; Bernard McGinn). The "Far-Near" who supplies the last penny of the Soul's debt is Christ in his function of substitute payment — Marguerite's specific Anselmian-affective formulation of the Atonement.

⁸ Section VII closes mid-chapter VI; the Soul as continual spring of divine love image opens the chapter and would be developed across several pages, including a long passage on Abashings (the personification of the Soul's astonishment-before-grace) and the seven names by which Abashings calls the Soul. The chapter is continued in Section VIII.

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