Chapter III
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made whiter than snow (Ps.
50.9) and crowned with glory and honor, He became beautiful not only among the sons of men but also among the spirits of angels and He was such a man as the angels long to look upon (1 Pet.
1:12). Do you not see how great is this grace for which one labors so willingly with so much longsuffering and which is acquired with so much labor and possessed with so much joy? Certainly Moses spoke of this grace in many places in his writings in language which has a deeper sense, but here in a mystical description he separates it more fully when he divides it according to kinds.
Chapter III Concerning the particular nature of contemplation and in what it dijfers from meditation and thinking However, so that we may be able to comprehend more fitly and distinguish more correctly those things which must be said about contemplation, we first ought to inquire by determining and defining what it is in itself and how it differs from thinking and meditation.
It ought to be known that we regard one and the same object in one way by means of thinking, we examine it in another way by means of meditation and we marvel at it in another way by means of contemplation. These three differ very much from each other in mode, even though at some times they come together with respect to an object, since concerning one and the same object, thinking proceeds in one way, meditation in another way, and contemplation in a quite different way. By means of inconstant and slow feet, thinking wanders here and there in all directions without any regard for arriving. Meditation presses forward with great activity of soul, often through arduous and rough places, to the end of the way it is going. Contemplation, in free flight, circles around with marvelous quickness wherever impulse moves it. Thinking crawls; meditation marches and often runs; contemplation flies around everywhere and when it wishes suspends itself in the heights. Thinking is without labor and fruit; in meditation there is labor with fruit; contemplation continues without labor but with
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fruit. In thinking there is wandering; in meditation, investigation; in contemplation, wonder. Thinking is from imagination; meditation, from reason; contemplation, from understanding.
Behold, these three: imagination, reason, understanding.
Understanding occupies the highest place; imagination, the lowest; reason, the middle. Everything that is subject to the lower sense is also necessarily subject to the higher sense. Thus, it is evident that all things that are grasped by the imagination, as well as many other things that are above it, are grasped by reason.
Similarly, those things which imagination and reason grasp, as well as things which they are not able to grasp, are perceived by the understanding. Thus, see how widely a ray of contemplation that illuminates everything expands itself. It often happens that with regard to a single thing, one person may be engaged with it by means of thinking; another, by means of meditation; and a third, by means of contemplation. Although they do not go by a different route, nevertheless they go by a different motion. Thinking always passes from one thing to another by a wandering motion; meditation endeavors perseveringly with regard to some one thing; contemplation diffuses itself to innumerable things under one ray of vision. For through understanding, the chamber of the mind is enlarged to a measureless size so that it is suitable for grasping many things, and the fine point of the soul of the contemplative is sharpened so that it is sharp-sighted for penetrating subtle things.
For contemplation cannot exist at all without a certain liveliness of understanding. Just as it is by means of the understanding that the eye of the mind is fixed on corporeal things, so also it is agreed that it is enlarged by the same power in order to grasp such an infinity of things under one vision of corporeal things. And then as often as the soul of the contemplative is enlarged with a view toward lower things, as often as it is raised up with a view toward highest things, as often as it is sharpened with respect to inscrutable things, as often as it is carried away with marvelous quickness and almost without delay by innumerable things, it ought not to be doubted that this happens by means of a certain power of the understanding. These things have been said for the sake of those people who consider these inferior things unworthy either to be perceived by the understanding or to pertain everywhere to contemplation. Nevertheless, that which considers
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lofty matters where the soul makes use of the pure understanding is especially called contemplation. However, contemplation is always concerned with things, whether manifest in their nature, known intimately by means of study, or perceived from a divine showing.
Chapter IV The definition^ individually, of contemplation, meditation and thinking
And so it seems that it can be defined thus: Contemplation is the free, more penetrating gaze of a mind, suspended with wonder concerning manifestations of wisdom; or certainly as it was determined by a distinguished theologian of our time who defined it in these words: Contemplation is a penetrating and free gaze of a soul extended everywhere in perceiving things; but meditation is a zealous attention of the mind, earnestly pursuing an investigation concerning something. Or thus: Meditation is the careful gaze of the soul employed ardently in a search for truth; thinking, however, is the careless looking about of a soul inclined to wandering. And so it seems that it is a shared characteristic of the essence of these three, as it were, that they are a kind of sight of the soul.
For when nothing is observed by the mind, not one of these can be named or said to exist. However, it is a shared characteristic of contemplation and meditation to be employed concerning beneficial things, and to be engaged principally—nay continually— in the pursuit of wisdom and knowledge.
But certainly in this they usually differ greatly from thinking, which is accustomed to relax at almost every moment in improper and frivolous things, and without any restraint of discretion to rush or to go headlong into everything. In truth it is a shared characteristic of contemplation and thinking that they move about here and there by a certain kind of free motion and according to a spontaneous command and are not impeded from the impulse of their going about by any difficult hindrance. However, in this they differ greatly from meditation, the pursuit of which is always, with whatever labor of activity and difficulty of soul, to grasp any lofty things whatsoever, to break through obstructions, to penetrate into hidden things. Nevertheless, it often happens that