Chapter XIV
THE MYSTICAL ARK
and the chains of concupiscence are broken by the power of Him who leads forth in fortitude those who have been chained, smashing to pieces bronze gates and shattering iron bars, rising above the constrictions of deep-seated custom and obduracy of mind. Finally, with difficulty, he returns to the palace of his justice, when he wholly gathers himself on the throne of the heavenly dwelling place, so that as for the rest he may be able to sing confidently with his fellow-soldiers and similar triumphant ones: "Our conversation is in heaven" (Phil.
3:20).
Chapter XIV Concerning the distinction of those things that pertain to this speculation
It ought to be known that no measure is prescribed for our crown, but the measure of it is determined in great part by the crown itself, since it is called "crown." For it would not be called crown if it did not encircle and crown the higher part of the ark on all sides. Therefore, it is necessary to extend and enlarge the crown according to the length and width of the ark, so that it can encircle and crown it. So it is evident that, in accord with the dimensions of the ark, the crown is two and one-half cubits long and one and one-half cubits wide. However, we are not able to determine the height with a similar reasoning nor are we able to compare it with the height of the ark. For it would never be called the crown if it covered the whole ark rather than ornamenting only the highest part of it. So as we have already said above, it is the property of this speculation to draw a similitude from visible to invisible things and to rise from the consideration of the former to knowledge of the latter by the assignment of a proposed similitude. Thus, if there were one measurement for both, and if this ark and that crown have precisely the same measurement in length as well as in width, what else ought to be understood in these than that we ought to learn to draw the rational principle of similitudes for the investigation of invisible things from all those things—from all those things,
I say, that we have said pertain to the length or the width of our ark? Now in the speculation of things, as has been said, consideration of
RICHARD OF ST. VICTOR
matter, form and nature pertains to the length of the ark. But the working of nature and of activity pertain to the width of it. And so by means of all these things we ought to and can draw out suitable rational principles of similitudes for the investigation of invisible things. When we have the use of such activity at hand, we have enclosed our ark with a crown as is necessary and proper. Now, it has been said that instruction—human as well as divine— in the consideration of morals pertains to the height of the ark, so that the ark of our understanding seems to have a full cubit from human instruction and one-half a cubit from divine instruction. But why is it that the previously mentioned crown seems to touch only the upper portion of the ark, except that it is evident that human instructions have a very distant and completely foreign similitude to invisible and spiritual things? Who does not know that these things are found in the use of temporal things and not in the figure of eternal things? However any visible works of the Creator have been created and disposed for this, that they may both serve the needs of the present life and also exhibit a shadow of future goods. Whence it is that the working of activity, insofar as it imitates nature, exhibits in itself a shadow of invisible or future things. However, concerning the remainder, the more human instructions are distant from a similitude of invisible things, the more those discovering them thought no such thing in their instruction. Nevertheless, as often as we discover in the former a kind of similitude to the latter things, we should see that perhaps it may not agree with another consideration of those things which we assigned above to the length and width of the ark. However, concerning divine instructions, it should be noted that we ought to understand some things simply and seek nothing in them according to the mystical sense, while some things ought to be employed according to the literal sense, and yet are capable of representing something according to the mystical sense. Thus, because a mystical understanding is sought for in the most sublime commands and according to the most profound understanding, that one-half cubit, which is ascribed to the height of our ark with respect to divine instructions, is adorned in its upper parts by the golden crown. But the adaptation of the similitude in this part does not wholly withdraw from the particular nature of those five considerations mentioned above. For this rea-