Chapter IV
RICHARD OF ST. VICTOR
ulating? For what one person calls a watchtower, another calls a lookout. Whether they are public or private lookouts, we are accustomed to raise up watchtowers so that when looking out from them we can see imminent dangers long beforehand. So we raise up as it were a spiritual watchtower, the grace of contemplation, so that we may be able to anticipate the ambush of tempters. However, it is one thing to ascend and set up a watchtower; it is another thing to stand on it and even to fix one's position. The former is by the acquisition of a skill; the latter is by the exercise of a skill. However, in as much as we are commanded "to consider vigorously," who does not see how this pertains to that third mode of our enlarging:
"Send into Cedar and consider vigorously." Indeed it is rightly said and taught that the capacity of the mind increases and is enlarged by the vigor of consideration and attention. And so, if you pursue carefully you will be enlarged more and more to a greater perfection of keensightedness by means of these three stages of advancement.
There is great enlargement of the mind in these things; but no less is there delight.
Chapter IV Concerning raising up of the mind^ by what stages it is accustomed to rise up
No less does that mode of contemplating which occurs by the raising up of the mind increase according to three stages. For when divinely inspired and irradiated by that light of heaven, human understanding is raised up: sometimes above knowledge, sometimes above activity and sometimes even above nature. Raising up of the mind ascends above knowledge when any one of us learns from a divine showing any such thing that goes beyond the mode of our own knowledge and understanding. Raising up of the mind is raised above activity when human understanding is divinely illuminated with respect to that for which none of its own knowledge suffices, neither that knowledge which it has at the present nor that which it is capable of acquiring by any activity of its own. The inner recess of the mind is enlarged above nature when human understanding, being breathed upon by divine inspiration, passes
THE MYSTICAL ARK
completely beyond the mode of human nature and the bounds of human activity, not only of individuals but generally. The soul of a speculative person is lifted up above knowledge when it experiences what is said: "Let a person ascend to a high heart, and God will be exalted" (Ps. 63:7, 8). God is exalted in the glance of the raised-up soul when, by God's showing, something is manifest to it concerning the loftiness of divine majesty that seems to go so far beyond the mode of knowledge it possesses. For indeed, that loftiness of Divinity which has nothing in itself by which it is capable of increasing or being exalted has the power of increasing daily in our knowing and of appearing more sublime in the viewings of our contemplation.
The mind that has been raised up is carried even higher above the activity of the mind when what is said is fulfilled in it: "He spread out his wings and took them and carried them on his shoulders"
(Deut.
32:11). Certainly it does not belong to human activity to go on a journey through the air. But although we are not able to fly, we are able to be carried by the wings of those supporting us. And so it seems to be above activity but not above nature to make a journey through the air. And so the contemplative soul ascends above the limits of its own activity when the divine esteem, by the manifestation of His secrets and, as it were, by spreading out and raising up His wings, carries the soul even higher to that summit of supereminent knowledge to which it would not be able to go at all by its own activity. But the Prophet sighed for this raising up of the mind that certainly transcends, so it seems, the mode of human nature, when he said: "Who will give me wings like a dove, and I will fly and be at rest?" (Ps. 54:7). What the Lord foretold by Isaiah has a reference to the same: "Those who trust in the Lord shall renew strength; they shall receive wings like eagles"
(Isa.
40:31).
Without doubt, it is above human nature to have wings and to fly to the heights whenever one wills. However, what does it mean to receive wings against nature, as it were, unless it means to possess on account of virtue a certain marvelous efficacy of contemplating, by which when you wish you can penetrate, on the wing of your keen-sightedness, into the difficult things of secret knowledge and into places inaccessible to all human activity? And so, we truly begin to be winged creatures when, after having received in this the gift of grace divinely given, we transcend the bounds of the human condition by the flight of our contemplation.
Every kind of
RICHARD OF ST. VICTOR
prophecy, if it happens without alienation of mind, seems to pertain to this third stage of raising up. For is it not above human nature to see concerning past things that do not now exist; to see concerning future things that do not yet exist; to see concerning present things that are absent from the senses; to see concerning the secrets of another's heart that are not subject to any sense whatsoever; to see concerning divine things that are above sense? It still remains for us to seek this: Namely the causes by which ecstasy of the human mind is accustomed to happen and also the stages by which it is accustomed to increase.
Chapter V That ecstasy of the human mind is accustomed to be produced by a threefold cause It seems to me that we are carried away into alienation of mind by three causes. For it is now according to greatness of devotion, now according to greatness of wonder, now according to greatness of exultation, that the mind is completely unable to restrain itself and, being elevated above itself, goes over into alienation. The human mind is elevated above itself by greatness of devotion when it is kindled from below by so great a fire of longing for heaven that the flame of inner love increases beyond a human mode. When the soul has been liquefied according to the similitude of wax and thinned out to a resemblance with smoke, it is released by this flame from its former state, raised to supernal things and sent forth into the heights. By greatness of wonder the human soul is led above itself when, as it is irradiated by divine light and suspended in wonder at supreme beauty, it is shaken with such overpowering awe that it is utterly driven out of its state.
In the manner of flashing lightning, the more deeply the soul is cast down into the depths by despising itself with regard to that invisible beauty, the more sublimely, the more quickly it is elevated to sublime things when it rebounds by means of the desire of highest things and is carried away above itself. By greatness of joy and exultation, the mind of man is alienated from itself when, after drinking of—nay after having become completely inebriated by—that inner abun-