Chapter VIII
RICHARD OF ST. VICTOR
tion. See, I beg you, how when nature is questioned and Scripture consulted, they speak in one and the same sense with equal agreement. And so ecstasy of the mind divinely inflamed can and is accustomed to come from only the boiling up of burning desire, as we have previously said above.
Chapter VIII That the first mode of ecstasy sometimes comes from both effervescent devotion and a divine showing added to it Also, sometimes this kind of alienation of mind comes from the mutual coming together of the longing of a burning soul and some marvelous mirror of divine showing— something we are able to gather from Abraham's first going out, concerning which we have said something above.
For what does Scripture say concerning him? "The Lord appeared to him as he sat in the valley of Mamre, as he sat in the doorway of his tent in the heat of the day. And when he raised his eyes, three men appeared standing before him. When he saw them, he ran from the doorway of his tent to meet them"
(Gen.
18:1-2).
If by the tent we understand the dwelling place of the human mind, what will a going out of this sort be except ecstasy of the human mind? For truly, we are led outside ourselves in two ways: At one time we are outside ourselves, but we descend below ourselves; at another time we are outside ourselves, but we are raised above ourselves. In the former we are taken captive by mundane things; in the latter we are brought back to supermundane things. But just as there is a twofold going out, so there is also a twofold return. From both goings out we return as it were to the dwelling place of our usual life, when after worldly labors or, preferably, after a manifestation of celestial contemplations, we bring the eyes of our mind back to the consideration of our morals, and through investigating our innermost being we examine by studious reconsideration what sort of person we are ourselves. That which is read concerning the prodigal son in the Gospel is rightly understood with regard to the first return since when he returned to himself, he said, "How many of the hired servants in my father's
THE MYSTICAL ARK
house abound with bread, while I perish with hunger in this place?" (Luke 15:17). But no less rightly do we understand with regard to the second return what we read in another place concerning the Apostle Peter. "When Peter returned to himself he said:
Now I know truly that the Lord sent his angel" (Acts 12:11). Behold, in both cases it is read, "When he returned to himself." But why this, unless first of all they were seen to have gone out from themselves? For one is led far from himself into a distant region; the other, by angelic leading, is raised by alienation of mind above the common state of human possibility. And so in the first going out, he descends to the lowest; in the second, he is raised up to the highest. In the first we are removed from the Lord; in the second we approach near to the Lord.
Therefore, what is the meaning of the going out by which Abraham is met by the Lord except the ecstasy of the human mind by which the mind, when carried up above itself, is lifted up into the secrets of divine contemplation?
If we seek the cause of his going out we will quickly find it.
For the vision that appeared exteriorly undoubtedly drew him to exterior things. However the cause of the divine appearance is hinted at secretly in that the Lord is said to have appeared to him as he was sitting in the door of his tent in the very heat of the day. Certainly you see that the heat of the day was very hot when the Lord appeared to him. What,
I ask, is this heat of the day, except the boiling up of ardent longing? And so, that love which loves darkness, the love, I say, which hates light, ought not to be called "heat of the day." However, we know that "He who does evil, hates the light; however he who does the truth comes to the light so that his works may be made manifest, since they have been done in God" (John 3:20-21). And so what else does that heat of the day mean except burning love of truth, longing for truth and the supreme good? At that time the patriarch burned, as it were, with a heat of such a kind that finally it drove him away from his household and forced him to sit in the doorway at leisure, to be unpreoccupied, to see, and without doubt to perceive the sought-for and wished-for breeze of divine aspiration and to moderate his longing by the breath of that one. Consider,
I ask you, how that heat from which he then boiled up drew him to that place from which he was able to catch sight of those three persons