Chapter VII
THE MYSTICAL ARK
forms itself into the figure of heavenly and winged animals and transfigures itself into an image of them? Certainly it is first necessary that one be accustomed to walking in heavenly places with dwellers in heaven and never again descend to earthly undertakings and the care of external things (except for the duty of obedience or the office of charity only) before he dares to attempt those angelic ecstasies into the lofty secret places of divine incomprehensibility.
Chapter VII That a man strives in vain for these contemplative ecstasies unless he is aided by divine showings Hence I think it is easily considered how much the superior dignity of this last, superexcellent work goes beyond the other things mentioned above. By a certain emulation of its activity this work imitates the archangelic sublimity of that supreme hierarchy in the angels. Think, I beg you, how excellent this is, that it draws into itself by means of imitation a similitude of that order of spiritual beings which adheres without mediation to the supreme light and sees face to face, without a mirror and without an enigma.
I ask, of what sort is that human understanding which strives daily for those contemplative ecstasies of supercelestial souls and on account of the good pleasure of divine esteem is raised up at some time for contemplating the mighty works of the supreme majesty?
Who is suited for this? Who is found to be a worthy artisan for this work unless divine grace precedes and follows him? In short, it is one thing to make the ark; it is another thing to form the cherubim.
We can know and prove daily by proofs from experience, nor is it foreign to our senses, what it is to put the ark together, cover it with gold, surround it with the crown, and add the cover. But who has seen or might be able to see cherubim? But how shall
I represent that form which I am not capable of seeing?
I think that Moses would not have been capable of representing that unless he had learned it earlier by means of a showing. For this reason it was said to him: "Observe, so that you may make everything just as it has been shown to you on the mountain" (Exod.
25:9). And so, first
RICHARD OF ST. VICTOR
Moses is led up on the mountain and it is made manifest to him by means of a showing; afterward he should be able to come to know what he ought to perceive concerning such a working. And so it is necessary to ascend to a high heart and by ecstasy of mind learn further from a showing from the Lord, what that is for which one must sigh and strive and to what condition of sublimity one ought to accustom and arrange his soul. For if he has once been allowed to enter into that light-streaming glory of angelic sublimity and if he has been worthy to enter into that manifestation of divine rays—by what secret longings, by what deep sighs, by what indescribable lamentations do we think that he who is such a person presses onward? With what continual recollection, with what pleasant wonder do we believe that he reexamines the brilliance he has seen and turns it over in the mind by longing for it, sighing for it and contemplating it until, at last, at some time he is transformed "in the same image from light to light, as by the Spirit of the Lord" (2
Cor.
3:18). He says "by the Spirit of the Lord," not by his own. If one wishes to make beaten work and to form the cherubim, in this business the best kind of skill presses on by sighs and lamentations, as we have already said above. For what does it mean to produce our work by means of striking other than by means of great contrition of heart to obtain from the kindness of the Lord that for which no one can suffice by himself? Yet on that account let no one consider these things of which we now speak to be equal with the works mentioned earlier, or believe that they differ very little from each other because they have a common material and are both made from gold. Surely if any metal more precious than gold could have been discovered, doubtless from it this angelic form would have been made. And so the supereminence of its worth is commended much more on account of form than material. And so we are commanded to make the cherubim and to form images not of human beings nor even any angels whatsoever but of superexcellent spirits so that the worth of these last speculations might shine forth better out of such a figurative adumbration.