De Operatione Divini Amoris

On the Working of Divine Love

The oration of Lord Johannes Trithemius, Abbot of Sponheim, delivered at Erfurt in the annual chapter on the sixth day before the Kalends of September, in the year of our redemption 1497.

The oration of Lord Johannes Trithemius, Abbot of Sponheim, delivered at Erfurt in the annual chapter on the sixth day before the Kalends of September.

If it were permitted to me, without injury to obedience, most excellent fathers, to avoid this duty of speaking, I would try to excuse myself before you, with many words and in various ways; nor would I, an unskilled man among learned men, take upon myself so arduous an office of speaking, if I could have declined it without sin. For I neither can nor ought to teach men far more learned than myself; and I, a carnal man, blush to speak about the inward conversation of the spirit among very devout men. But since I am a man placed under authority, I am compelled to take up your command, and to consider not what I can do, but rather what I ought to do. Your authority commands me to speak, but my weakness enjoins silence upon me. Yet the authority of superiors must prevail, so that the weakness of one who obeys may be strengthened.

For I trust both in God and in your holy prayers, that humble obedience will supply to me what my inexperience takes away from me as I am about to speak. Therefore, fathers, assist me with your prayers before the merciful God; humbly ask his clemency to obtain the gifts of grace; and, turning as usual to the most reverend ark of piety, the Mother of God, say with me: Hail Mary.

¶ Hail Mary.

Since up to this point, most loving fathers, I have often given this synodal gathering a treatment of the formation of morals, at last it has seemed fitting, and no less honorable than useful, to say something briefly about the love of God, to which every regular institution ought to be ordered as to its final end. For whatever good, whatever holy, whatever just thing is done by us in holy conduct is all rightly referred to divine love, as to its most tranquil center. Inflamed by this desire, we have left the world; with this hope we have entered monastic solitude, so that, free and released from all cares of the age, without the hindrance of temporal things, we may be free for the contemplation of the love of God. O happy are you who, having despised A ij For when he has stipulated “with the whole heart,” he has left absolutely nothing to be assigned to another. Hence he also says elsewhere through the wise man: “Son, give me your heart.” O good God, what have you to do with my heart? Why do you ask my heart from me, you who gain no advantage from me? For you are always what you can be; my love cannot add anything to you, nor can the turning away of my mind take anything away. Yet you persist, you knock, and you say: “Son, give me your heart,” because where your treasure is, there your heart also will be. “I am the treasure of the soul; I am delight, I am love, I am the end, I am the beginning. Son, give me your heart, because every desire that is not fixed on me alone is held liable to mutability and eternal miseries. Give me your heart, so that my love may possess it entirely; let it admit absolutely no other besides me. Behold, I stand at the door of your heart and knock; why do you not open to me? I am the bridegroom of your wedding, O faithful soul, who rescued you with a mighty hand from tyrannical power and joined you to myself as beloved by my own blood. I am the flower of the field and the lily of the valleys; so that I might be able to take you to myself as my chosen bride, I was willing to undergo death. For through the transgression of your parents, polluted among adulterers, you set down your portion; you despised me, the guide of your youth; you had the devil, the impious corrupter of your virginity, as a most harsh exactor. But I, having compassion on you, like a giant ready to run his course, girded with human flesh, came into the midst; I undertook to fight a war against the tyrant; I poured out both my blood and my life for you; dying on the gibbet of the cross, I overcame the enemy. I, conquered by my exceeding love for you, in order to lead you, wandering far away, back to the delight of the heavenly homeland, put on human flesh from a virgin; visible and passible, I appeared on earth to human beings; for your salvation I submitted myself to many labors; I gave my tender body to be most cruelly scourged; I was willing to be crowned with thorns, spat upon, struck with blows, and afflicted with insults and mockery; half-dead, I carried my cross on my shoulders; horribly fixed to the wood by hands and feet, I stood. O who could express the anguish of my most innocent heart which I endured for you in that hour, when, full of wounds…” with wounds, fixed to the cross between two thieves, I heard so many horrible cries of the insulting people. And although the pain of my heart afflicted me beyond measure, nevertheless I gladly endured all things for love of you, so that I might rescue you from the power of the ancient enemy and join you to myself forever as my bride.

See, my dearest, at what price I redeemed you, I who did not hesitate to die for you by a most shameful death. What, O sweet beloved, what do you give back to your lover, or what do you repay? He does not demand gold and silver; he does not care for precious stones. In place of all these he requires faith and charity from you; he desires the dwelling-place of your love. Therefore give your Savior the lodging of your heart, he who opened heaven for you in his most holy blood. Open to him the chaste bridal chamber of your mind, so that he may grant you the secret of his sweetest love.

For the Lord Jesus nowhere goes forth empty-handed; the ineffable gifts of his grace accompany him. And although the little gifts that Jesus, king of heaven, brings with him are many and various, nevertheless they are all very precious; and among them one is most precious, to be purchased from him by the human heart alone. What is it? It is that very thing of which he said in the holy Gospel: “I came to cast fire upon the earth, and what do I want except that it burn?” The greatest and chief gift of Jesus is love, which indeed he pours into the saints and those who flee the vanities of the world, but denies to sinners who are carnally wise. No one understands this most secret gift of divine love unless he has first received it in hiddenness.

For truly Jesus, beautiful in form beyond the sons of men, is always ready for those who love him; he comes to meet those who meditate intently on his passion; he loves the simple and upright in heart; he does not admit curious lovers of the world into the sweetness of his love. Therefore I would rightly call those blessed who, having despised the business and cares of the world, desire to lie hidden in monasteries with themselves in the tranquility of a pure and simple mind; who, apart from God alone, love absolutely nothing in this world; who despise vain honors and the deceitful prosperity of the world; who, rooted in divine love, fear none of the adversities of this time. For the love of God loves nothing in this life except God himself; it fears nothing. For the one who loves, God is sufficient for all things; outside him the soul requires nothing. The soul that truly loves the Lord Jesus above all things gladly remains alone with itself in secret. The lover of inward sweetness speaks in secret with his most loving Lord in words of burning love; he delights to remain alone with the Alone. He sits in secret, solitary but not idle, since love, which gathers all the powers of the soul to itself, in no way permits the lover to be idle. For Gregory, that lover of God, great among the great, spoke truly: “The love of God is never idle.” For it accomplishes great things, utterly incredible to those who do not love God.

And what does immortal love accomplish in mortal man? Great things, I say, and not to be disclosed to carnal people. The love of God, poured into the human heart, performs an operation that no one perceives unless he has experienced it. Alas for me, since if it belongs only to those experienced in the love of God to speak of this operation, my own lukewarmness imposes silence upon me. But since I have once begun, I shall speak of the operation of love, not what I have learned by experience in myself, but rather what I have received from experienced and devout men. Yet the more secret matters of divine love are not to be brought out in public, since only that person can understand them whom the very illumination of love has made skilled by long exercise. Therefore, honoring with due silence the mystical visions unknown to me, I shall pursue those things generally known to all, so that we who cannot attain those more inward things may at least strive with all our strength to imitate the more manifest ones.

I — Contrition and Repentance

When the love of God is in a person, it works a wonderful contrition and a repentance for sins that is wonderfully effective. For Peter, the arch-apostle and lover of Jesus, says: “Charity covers a multitude of sins.” The love of God is a consuming fire, which Jesus, the most beloved bridegroom of souls, sent upon the earth, as the apostle also bears witness: “The charity of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” Just as this material fire consumes the moisture set against it, if it has a more abundant blaze, so the more the love of God grows in a person’s heart, the more quickly it consumes the chaff of sin. Love is the sure remission of sins, because just as aversion of the soul from God makes deadly sin, so the conversion of the mind toward God obtains pardon. For what else does the remission of wickedness do in a human being, except restore the soul to the fire of love? For whenever guilt is forgiven to the penitent through God's mercy, the love that had been violated between God and the soul is restored. Therefore, when divine love is granted to a human being, sins are without doubt forgiven.

For the love of God and sin are utterly opposed to each other. Just as nothing and something cannot exist together, so sin and love can by no means exist together in one heart. For if sin is present, love at once withdraws. Sin is indeed the privation of divine love. But if the very love of God remains firmly in a person's soul, it does not admit sin. Those daily and venial faults, however, which trouble even those who love God, I would say should be considered faults rather than sins. For the love of God and mortal sin cannot stand together, since, just as fire devours wood and straw, so the love of God drives every sin contrary to itself from the lover's heart.

But let us bring forward an example of this from the holy Gospel. A woman, once a sinner and turned away, came to Jesus; but by coming she was miraculously made a lover. She came, she wept, she washed the feet of the beloved with tears; she wiped them with her hair; she kissed them, burning with great sighs. Tell me, O holy sinner, whence did this change come upon you, that so suddenly you laid aside every modesty of womanly honor? Uncalled you come forward; among the elder guests at table you thrust yourself in, a despised sinner; you pour out tears amid the meal; you touch the feet of the most holy man with your hands and kisses. Where is womanly modesty? Where is regard for your own honor? But love does not know shame; it does not heed reverence. For just as the magnet draws iron, so the love of Jesus called me to his most holy feet. For the fire of divine love, which had been wonderfully given within my breast, drew me outward, all shame despised. I considered whom I had offended, and therefore I did not care about human embarrassment. Who, O fathers, could express in words the love of this holy woman, or think with how great an inward desire of compunction she burned? For she blazed inwardly with so great a fire of divine love that she neither feared the reverence due to the hosts nor dreaded the rash judgment of the contemptuous Pharisee.

O most mighty power of divine love, how easily you lift the mind from earthly things; how sweetly you kindle it with your fire. Where you set a human breast aflame, no delay is required for the purging of the affections; with you as teacher, the understanding is suddenly illuminated without another instructor. As soon as you take hold of sinners, you justify them; you suddenly rouse lukewarm minds to wondrous devotion, and you grant to those who possess you ineffable gifts of inward sweetness. Touching the breast of this woman with a wondrous fire, you changed a sinner into a lover; and the dwelling that you had once prepared for yourself in her, you inhabit forever.

And what did Jesus say of her, he who through you justifies the ungodly? Many sins are forgiven her, he says, because she loved much. Therefore, the one to whom much is forgiven ought to love much; and the one who loves much can obtain much pardon from the Lord. For the love of God is the consummation of penitence.

Indeed, turning to the woman, Jesus said to her: Your sins are forgiven you; your faith has saved you; go in peace. No satisfaction of penitence is imposed here, because true love of God suffices for every satisfaction, since by loving more abundantly it makes satisfaction. For a mind set aflame by divine love cannot be excessively anxious about past sins, since the anxious care of penitence, which prepares a remedy for beginners, would become an impediment to those who love perfectly. The lover of God does indeed grieve in conscience that she has offended her beloved; but she no longer fears punishment or vengeance for what she has committed, because she has given herself wholly to the will of her lover. Therefore she cannot be anxious if she has truly been brought into concord with the beloved through love.

Nevertheless, in the secret bridal chamber of contemplation she does not neglect the office of penitence fitting for one who loves. Out of love she pours forth tears for sins; prostrate on the ground she speaks to the beloved; in an ineffable manner she begs pardon. O how many tears, how many groans, how many sighs a mind set aflame by divine love is accustomed to bring forth in secret, when it remembers that by sinning it has so often offended the most loving Jesus.

Illumined by love, she lies at the feet of her lover; weeping abundantly, she prays, detesting the sins she has committed. “O,” she says, “sweetest lover of humankind, why did you endure me for so long as I wandered away from you through the steep places of vice? Why did you not choose to call me back sooner?” And when the desire of love has grown into affection, the soul rests in its lover; and when it has been sweetly lulled to sleep there, it recognizes, through the illumination of a light shining from above, the conditions of its past misery. Nor will it any longer be difficult to obtain tranquility of conscience, when the soul has consented to love nothing in this world except God. For prayer that is offered to God in the simple purity of love proves most efficacious for obtaining pardon for sins. For where God is truly loved with the whole heart, no sin unto death is imputed to the lover.

II — The Mortification of the Passions

The love of God mortifies all bestial passions in a human being, subjects the flesh to the spirit, and restrains the movements of carnal concupiscence. Just as fire, drawing out the humors of flesh, cooks and dries them, so divine love, subjecting all carnal affections to the spirit, cooks and mortifies them. For the sweetness of true love incomparably surpasses every taste of bodily sweetness; it stills the illicit movements of the affections and restores concord between body and spirit. Indeed, the one who truly loves God does not indulge the desires of the flesh; he hates disordered concupiscence; pure and quiet, he always attends upon his lover, God alone. For this is the property of divine love: that the heart which it has once truly kindled with its invisible fire it no longer permits to be entangled in carnal desires. Yet love itself acts in turns, so that the soul may learn to recognize its own weakness and to place its confidence not in its own strength but in the mercy of God. For even the holy apostle, that most prudent host of divine love, found another law in his members, resisting love, from which he longed to be freed. Hence he also says: “Unhappy man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death?” Despairing, then, of his own strength, he turns to the grace of God and glories that he can be delivered through the Lord Jesus. “Therefore,” he says, “I myself serve the law of God with the mind, but with the flesh the law of sin.” What is this, holy apostle? Do you still serve the law of sin, you who dwell in the secret place of the love of God? “I know,” he says, “that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh; for to will is present with me, but to accomplish the good I do not find.” And our Lord Jesus Christ himself proves this true in the Gospel, saying: “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” The spirit desires continually to cleave to the love of its creator, but the weakness of the flesh cries out against it. But let us hear what the holy apostle next enjoins on us, who under the law of the flesh groaned with a free spirit. “Therefore,” he says, “brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, so that we should live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the Spirit you mortify the deeds of the flesh, you will live.” And concerning himself he says in another place: “I chastise my body and bring it into servitude, lest perhaps, after I have preached to others, I myself should become reprobate.” This is the wondrous working of divine love: that it both subjects the flesh to the spirit and does not destroy the law of the flesh. For if love were utterly to remove the law contrary to itself, it would not be advantageous to the human being. For contrary movements must be present in the flesh against the love of the spirit, so that victory may have its merit and virtue its exercise. And therefore love is often withdrawn for a time from the minds of the saints, so that their exercise may be tested.

But the love of God suddenly consumes the love of the world, and the heart that has burned with its mystical fire desires nothing of carnal love. It suddenly changes desire and directs affection into other works. What shall I say of you, O holy and utterly ineffable fire? You suddenly made apostles out of fishermen; you raised unlearned men into men most highly taught; you taught your guests to despise the riches and honors of the world and not to fear any torments inflicted by the malicious. O holy power of divine love, how swiftly the assaults of carnal concupiscence are extinguished if the mind is set ablaze by your fire. You suddenly made the persecutor defend the faith of Jesus Christ, which before, without you, he had been terribly accustomed to attack. For as soon as he was able to feel you working within, he no longer yielded to flesh and blood, nor did he care to revisit friends once dear to him, after he had merited to taste the kernel of your sweetness. You made him so drunk with the sweetness of inward love that thereafter, because of the greatness of its delight, he could scarcely contain himself.

He would scarcely contain himself; he would confound the enemies of the cross of Christ with a free voice; he would no longer fear to undergo any adversities of this world for the love of Jesus. O how many souls you have suddenly snatched from the danger of this age; how many sinners you have brought without hindrance into the joys of paradise. You made the holy angels of God stable in cleaving to their principle; from the beginning of the world you marked out the innocent; you chose the patriarchs; you ordained the prophets. Finally, you made the holy disciples of God despise the world; you wonderfully strengthened the martyrs; you purified confessors; you prescribed a rule of life for holy virgins. And why should I use many words? No one ever pleased God without you; no one, strengthened by your aid, ever displeased the highest and unchangeable good. Through you faith receives the reward of merit; through you religion receives increase; through you the rust of sin is consumed; through you alone every elect person is sanctified.

As a great fire consumes the few waters poured into it, so the immense power of divine love restrains carnal passions in a person. For whoever has truly conceived the love of God in his heart will burn with such desires and such affections toward God that, while the exercise of love continues, he feels no disordered affections of the flesh and desires nothing except God. And this is plainly a wonderful change of affections: one who previously could scarcely tame the passions of his flesh through many labors now, kindled by divine love, overcomes them in the silence of contemplation. But it is not granted to all to experience this, because it is reserved for few. For many think that their own conceptions, implanted in the senses, are divine love; and the higher they lift themselves through imagination, the more gravely they usually fall. For Scripture says: “The beast that touches the mountain shall be overwhelmed with stones.” If you desire to ascend the holy mountain of divine love without danger, you must kill the beastly affections, because the soul is made one through love with that one principle of all things only when, stripped of every multitude of affections, it is lifted up alone and, raised above all imagination, reason, and understanding, sees itself stripped bare of all things that can be spoken or thought, and ascends, free through affection, to the dwelling-place of love. Nor is it necessary here to instruct the true lover about the conditions of false love, since the true love of God brings with it so many most certain signs of itself that it does not allow the one who has it to doubt. And although a person does not know whether he is worthy of love or hatred, nevertheless I say confidently that one into whom almighty God deigns to pour the sweetness of his inward love will be able to know many things unknown to us.

III — Contempt of Worldly Things

The love of God makes the one who has it despise all things and love absolutely nothing in this world. He is not drawn to honors and dignities; he delights in no riches or joys of the world; he always thinks of the Lord Jesus; he longs to come as quickly as possible to his sweetest embraces. Whatever is seen as delightful in the world is bitter to him; he delights in nothing other than in his beloved. For the soul, gathered together and united to itself, despises both itself and all things, so that without the hindrance of multiplicity it may stretch itself through love toward that one ineffable principle. O wondrous sweetness of divine love, how powerful is your fire, how sweet your bond, how blessed your experience. Whoever has you has all things; whoever does not have you has nothing. But no one can acquire you, O sweet love, who has wished to love anything in this world besides you. For you either dwell alone in the human heart, or you refuse to enter when not alone. Therefore whoever desires to have your fellowship within himself must despise all things except you, because insofar as he wishes to love anything besides you, to that extent he drives your sweetest love away from himself.

The soul cannot exist without love. For either it loves God and is truly blessed, or it relies on transitory things and is always wretched. No one can love God and the world at the same time, because he necessarily despises one or the other. But there is a great difference between the love of God and the desire of the present age. For the love of God makes a person always pure in conscience, glad in heart, honorable in conduct, outstanding in action, tranquil in mind. He covets nothing; his own condition is enough for him; he rests without ambition. But the love of the world stains its possessor in conscience with many crimes.

...pollutes its possessor with many crimes in conscience; it makes him always anxious and sad; in conduct it renders him troubled, in action sluggish, in mind turbulent. The end of divine love is everlasting happiness; but the end of worldly affection is calamity that will endure without end.

The love of God always has joy; the love of the world is full of infinite miseries. The love of God does not cherish the vain honors of the world; it does not desire to be set over others; rather, for God’s sake, it desires to be subject to others; it does not refuse even to relinquish honors already possessed. Whoever truly conceives the love of God contemns equally all things, both prosperous and adverse.

You are established in some honor, O man: you are an abbot, you are a provost, you are prior of monks. If I ask you whether you love God with your whole heart, what will you answer? Whatever you answer me outwardly, I will appeal inwardly to your conscience. If you truly love God, tell me with what intention you are pastor of monks. You will say, of course, unless I am mistaken: “For the honor of God, whom I love, I bear the burden of ruling monks.” Therefore, O abbot, either you love God or you do not love him. If you truly love God, you will at all times be ready, for love of him, to yield the office of rule at the counsel of good men, and with equanimity to be subject to another. But if you do not truly love your God, you occupy the place of rule unworthily.

For the true lover of God at all times so orders his conscience that he does not withdraw from his love through affection for any other thing, matter, or office. Hence the ruler of souls who loves his Lord with his whole heart, at all times resigned to him, says in his prayers: “O Lord Jesus, who know nothing not, you know that I desire to be set over no one; you know that I do not refuse to be subject to another. For although I am not fit to act in your stead, nevertheless I desire always to be subject to your most holy will; and for love of you I am ready both to feed your sheep according to my strength, and humbly to resign the office of pastoral care as one insufficient for it. I submit myself to your will; I commit myself to the judgment of your servants. If they command me to leave the abbacy, for love of you I wish to obey without pretense. But if they command me to feed your entrusted sheep longer, I wish to undergo the command for the sole honor of your most holy name.”

Now therefore, O pastor of monks, consider yourself diligently, and see whether your mind is resigned in all things to almighty God in this way. If you find it so disposed, you are near to the fire of sweetest love. But if your will has taken delight in the office of rule, you show most plainly that there is more love of self in you than divine love. For love cherishes nothing in this world except God; it covets nothing, but despises all honors, scorns riches, and at the same time contemns all things.

IV — Compunction and Devotion

The love of God generates wondrous compunction and devotion in its host, because the heart that it has kindled with its sweetest ardor it snatches, as it were, outside the human being. For divine love itself is said in a certain way to imitate the nature of fire: just as fire always naturally directs the flames of a blaze upward, so also this love always ascends toward heavenly things.

What the inner state of a human being who loves God may be, what compunction, how many sweetest sighs of the heart, no one can understand except the one who has deserved by experience to taste that very sweetness of inward love. Love lifts the mind from earthly things, reveals heavenly things, makes secrets manifest. O fire of holy love, how sweet is the presence of your most blessed working; for the mind that you have once invaded you do not leave idle. It always burns in the love of the sweetest Savior; it always cries sweetly to the King of glory; it directs desire toward the mystical embraces of the Bridegroom; because of the greatness of love it pours forth tears.

Whenever it thinks on its crucified Lord, it weeps most bitterly from an exceedingly great feeling of compassion. Weeping, it accompanies him through every place of the Passion; in spirit it drinks the blood flowing from his body; it embraces Jesus hanging on the cross; it kisses the wounds of the dying one with tears.

These, O faithful soul, are the first preludes of divine love; these are the illustrious exercises of spiritual zeal: that you often recall to memory the Passion of your lover, and that, giving thanks, you humbly bow yourself before him. Look upon the sorrowful soul of Jesus, even unto death; with affection suffer together with your suffering lover; give thanks for the most bitter wounds. By these holy exercises divine love is acquired; by these studies devotion is generated, because whoever has learned wisely to exercise his soul in the Passion of sweetest Jesus, to the dwelling-place of divine love he ascends both quickly and easily. This the holy lover of God, Ignatius, knew very well, who, from the vehemence of compunction, used to say: “My love has been crucified.” O good Jesus, how sweet is your love; how gently it pierces the soul. Seeing you in the spirit, the mind longs to embrace you; if you command it, it hastens to come to you as quickly as possible. Indeed, fathers, whoever loves Jesus forgets himself; he meditates on nothing other than that sweetest presence of his. There is nothing in the world that pleases one who loves Jesus except Jesus; nowhere is anything found that the soul desires.

O with how many sighs the mind wounded by love is afflicted; with what abundant tears the face is bathed in secret, because as often as it thinks upon the face of Jesus presiding in heaven, so often it weeps that it is desolate on earth. Meanwhile the mind, languishing with love, often attempts to say something before men about its most beloved Jesus, and it tries also to provoke others to his love; but as soon as it has begun to utter the sweetest name of Jesus, it falls silent because of the greatness of its love. For the love of Jesus is expressed by no words and explained by no letters. In secret it instructs the soul concerning individual things; it hands down the most effective manner of praying; it illumines the understanding of the lover for asking; it denies nothing to one who prays through love.

In the secret place of divine love the devotion of the mind toward God overflows; the innermost compunction of the heart reigns; a fountain of sweet tears, without injury to the head, flows around the beloved’s face; the wall of perseverance guards the chamber of love. The true lover of Jesus is always fruitfully pierced with compunction in his meditation; pierced with compunction, he weeps because of the sweetness of the love he has first tasted. In body he is seen to live among men; in mind he dwells in heavenly places. The prayer of one who loves God penetrates the heavens; whatever he asks from Jesus he easily obtains; he lets his whole self sink into the bosom of the sweetest lover. Without burning compunction in a person’s heart there is no true divine love. O how sweet, how gentle, how divine are the perceptions that a mind burning in divine love conceives in psalmody and in the other readings of prayers; how profound and mystical are the meanings of the Scriptures that it recognizes, and when it tries to express them in words, it is overcome by their greatness.

What the true and inward lover of God does in the presence of the wholly divine sacrifice of the body and blood of Jesus Christ, how devout he is, how compunct, how melted in love: neither can he himself tell anyone, nor, if he did tell it, could an inexperienced person endure it. For the sweetness of divine love melts the soul and often renders it raised above the senses of the flesh.

V — Illumination of the Understanding

Divine love illumines the understanding of the one who has it with a wonderful teaching, because when the affection has been purified by love from every stain, the light of divine illumination pours itself wonderfully into the mind. For the love of God purifies the mind from vices and carnal desires; it prepares in the lover’s heart a dwelling for the Holy Spirit; it illumines the soul in those things that pertain to the knowledge of the highest truth; it confirms knowledge. The love of Jesus is the fullness of knowledge, since through it wisdom is poured into those who love, which is denied to those who do not love. However much you may advance by learning, if you do not love God, you understand nothing. For knowledge is vain and wholly unfruitful if it is not directed to its proper end, in which alone the satisfaction of desire is found.

Nor should you think that the love of which we speak is common, since there are many who think that they truly love God, though it is clear that few attain the sweetness of true love. For true love of God receives nothing common and admits no fellowship of any other love besides itself. I would call that love common whose name common people everywhere understand, and in which they live content with their own degrees. There is one God; he is loved by his lovers with one fire of love, but he is not loved equally by all. He who has received more loves more; he who loves more receives more.

The soul, therefore, is illumined according to the measure of love, since the more it approaches God through an inflamed affection, the better it knows that light shining above the understanding. For the understanding itself, first illumined according to the degree of its capacity, wonderfully provokes the affection to love that supreme and ineffable good, and to love it ever more; and it prepares itself as a companion for desire. But when the affection sets out to investigate that which exists above every position of things, has been stirred up to seek the principle of things, which exists above every assertion, it thereafter no longer admits the companionship of the intellect; for while it, having cast aside every assertion and negation, enters naked into the darkness of divine silence, the intellect, burdened with reason, imagination, and understanding, is forbidden to follow. And when the affect itself has now, through love, been admitted insensibly, without the intellect, alone and naked and not knowing itself, to that secret place of divine contemplation, there it sweetly comes to rest. Where, do you think, does the intellect remain meanwhile? It dwells inactive among lower things; once a teacher, now a pupil, it waits. It does not understand what is being done around the affect, because it has insensibly lost both itself and that affect. In this most secret silence of the mind, the soul through love, above all reason, imagination, and understanding, receives the ray of divine illumination, which neither the intellect itself understands nor the affect comprehends.

Happy, therefore, is the one who has deserved to receive true love of God from the very giver of love; who has learned to sit alone and to raise himself above himself. For if he perseveres prudently in the exercise of divine love, he will be illumined wondrously in his soul and will rejoice ineffably. We do not promise through love the vain knowledge of the world, but that knowledge which belongs to the flavorful knowledge of God. Yet we often read that even the knowledge of this world has been divinely infused into lovers of God, so that, when both this and that are granted, worldly prudence may be confounded by divine prudence. Nevertheless, the hand of the Lord is not shortened; rather, whatever will be necessary and useful for salvation to the lover, divine goodness will not deny to the one who asks. For the anointing of God will teach the lover good things.

VI — Elevation to Heavenly Things

Divine love raises the mind to heavenly things, as the Lord cries out in the holy Gospel: “Whoever serves me, let him follow me.” And again he says: “Father, I will that where I am, there my servants may also be.” The best servant of Jesus is the one who loves him above all things, who through love continually rests in his dwelling. Love raises the mind in three ways and calls it into a certain excess. For whenever desire is carried away in great devotion, the enflamed mind is raised above itself; in this elevation it is often kindled by such rays of inward love that, utterly melted like wax, it is dissolved from its former state. For divine love makes the mind go out from itself and fly into the secret place of inestimable contemplation.

Second, through wonder the mind is led outside itself and raised to that highest summit of divine darkness. For love stirs up the desire to enjoy; the affect, so that it may enjoy, knocks through love; suddenly heavenly light presses itself upon the lover and, before the greatness of its beauty, turns the mind into wonder. For just as lightning, by its flashing, strikes back the eyes of those who look upon it, so that divine light above every intellect, when it slips into the mind, suddenly changes it into an excess of astonishment and wonder. And the more deeply the mind is cast into the depth of God through consideration of its own vileness, the more swiftly it is caught up and raised above itself through desire for the ineffable light.

Third, the mind is carried away into excess through the greatness of sweetness, when it is made drunk by the excessive delight of divine love. In these ways the love of God is accustomed to raise the mind from earthly things to heavenly ones, if it has found it burning purely, fervently, and sweetly through desire.

The ardent lover of Jesus Christ without interruption raises his mind to the one whom he loves; in various ways he reshapes his affections toward him. Whatever he does, whatever he undertakes, he always thinks of Jesus sitting on a throne not made by hands, and continually bears the memory of him in his breast. Now, when with the gaze of the mind he beholds him wondrously glorified in human substance, he humbly prostrates himself in spirit at his feet, pours out prayers with tears, and, melted in the bosom of Jesus, comes to rest. But then, passing beyond the humanity of the beloved, the whole mind directs itself toward the wondrous contemplation of his divinity; in this it enjoys such secret and thoroughly divine mystical splendors that, made external to itself, it seems not to be in the body. What this elevation of the mind, placed in the abyss of love, accomplishes through the depth of contemplation, only those understand who have received this gift from the mercy of the Lord.

B ij

VII — Contempt of Death and Longing for Heaven

The sweetness of divine love makes one despise death and long with continual sighs for the homeland of heavenly happiness. Why do I say despise it, and not rather desire it? Love is stronger than death. For the soul that truly loves sweetest Jesus longs to come to him through death as quickly as possible; it desires to go out from the prison of its little body, in which it is held captive, and therefore it does not fear that body's dissolution. Always sighing toward its beloved, it raises itself up; it longs to depart from the body as quickly as possible; in daily prayers it cries with the prophet to the Lord: Alas for me, that my sojourn has been prolonged; I have dwelt with the inhabitants of Kedar; my soul has long been a sojourner. O when shall I come and appear before the face of my Lord? When shall I see face to face him whose sweetness I have so often tasted in a riddle through love? With the Apostle also it truly says: I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ, for he alone is the desire of my heart, who through the shedding of his most holy blood has promised himself to me as a reward.

Meanwhile the true lover of God passes through the world, raised up toward God with such fervor and such desire that there is utterly nothing that pleases him, nothing that he desires except Jesus. With his heart always raised into heaven, he thinks on Jesus; because of the greatness of love he sweetly weeps; whatever sweet or pleasant thing he sees in this world, the taste of divine love turns it all into nausea for him. Indeed, so strong is the fervor of divine love that the soul which it has once truly set alight with its sweetest warmth can no longer yield to any worldly desires. Death, the most terrible of all terrible things in our understanding, it not only does not fear, but even vehemently desires.

But why do I try in vain to express in words the inward fervor and desire of a true lover of Jesus, when even the one who suffers it by loving cannot explain his own affection? For with so many upward movements, with so many burnings of desires, and with so many flames of spiritual fire, the true lover of God is burned in the hidden place of his mind, so that unless almighty God tempered the fire that has arisen, the man would die from the greatness of love. These things are unheard-of and altogether unbelievable to carnal people, who, blinded by various desires of worldly love, cannot perceive spiritual things; nor do they truly rise up to divine love. For the holy Apostle says: The animal man does not perceive the things that are of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand, because they are spiritually examined. But the spiritual man judges all things, and he himself is judged by no one.

For the love of Jesus is not given to carnal people, because those who burn with vices and carnal desires show themselves altogether unworthy of divine love. But let us leave those who think carnally and return to those who live spiritually in the love of God. The love of God makes a person despise death and pant with great and continual sighs for the joys of heavenly happiness. Let us bring into view the holy martyrs of Jesus Christ, and they will be the support of this statement. For so great a power of divine love, so great a fervor, so great an elevation of mind toward God had kindled them that for the love of Jesus they feared no kinds of punishments, dreaded no torments of death. They had been absorbed in the love of Jesus; therefore they were not concerned about the destruction of their bodies. For the love of Jesus incomparably surpasses all the sufferings of the body by its own power, since it does not refuse to submit itself to a thousand deaths.

O what most savage tortures and pains the holy martyrs endured in their bodies for the love of Jesus Christ; although all these seemed heavy to weak flesh, nevertheless to the spirit, because of the greatness of immeasurable love, they appeared light. For there is nothing so arduous, nothing so hard, that the love of God does not make it pleasant. For one who loves Jesus above all things with his whole heart fears no adversities of this world, no torments of death. And what the holy martyrs once offered to God in sacred service by dying through love, true lovers of Jesus even now offer in desire. Indeed, the soul kindled by divine love desires with many groans and sighs to leave the prison of its body; with inmost affections it hastens to come to him whom it loves; but the longer it is afflicted here by remaining through delay, the more it is enlarged in love through desire. Often B iij Often also the fervent lover of Jesus is lifted up toward Jesus by such great desires that he seems to himself no longer able to live; and, hidden in secret, he extends loving prayers to the beloved, and from the greatness of love sends forth his voice with tears: “O most loving Jesus, mediator of God and human beings, why do you not deliver me, placed as I am in this prison? Why do you leave me so long an exile in this misery? I do not desire to increase my merit by the delay of time; I do not look for a reward. You alone, O sweetest lover, are enough for my enjoyment, since you do not despise the spirit that loves you. Be my reward, you who have handed over to me, your unworthy creature, the fire of your love. O good Jesus, love raises hope; it strengthens confidence. Nevertheless, let your most holy will always be fulfilled in me, for although I vehemently desire to come to you, I do not refuse to remain in the flesh as long as you wish.”

In these ways, then, and by many more secret exercises, love raises the mind to heavenly things; through these it shows itself not idle, but as working many wondrous things in a human being.

VIII — Fellowship with the Citizens of Heaven

Divine love makes the soul of its host, while still established in the flesh, known and familiar to the citizens of the heavenly fatherland, because whoever is loved by the king is venerated by the whole court. But our heavenly king loves the one who loves him, as he says in the holy Gospel: “He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and will manifest myself to him.” Therefore the lover of Jesus is loved by him, and is honored by those holy spirits who are in the fatherland; and although a human being, according to his own understanding, cannot always understand this familiarity with the angels while in the flesh, nevertheless the mind itself can insensibly perceive wondrous things. O with what great charity and reverence, beyond every human understanding, the spirit of the lover of Jesus, released from the flesh, is received by the citizens above; with what great praises, altogether ineffable to a human being, he is honored, because when he enters, whom the emperor loves in a special way, the glad whole body of citizens runs to meet him. For when the spirit of one who loves Jesus goes out from the flesh, the citizens of heavenly blessedness, as one known and most dear to them, receive him gladly as their fellow citizen, since they had known him while he was still placed in the flesh, lifted up so often by love to them in heaven. For the love of God prepares an open way for the soul to the sight of the highest emperor; it calls the citizens of the heavenly fatherland to meet the one who is passing over; it does not permit demons to draw near; it removes every obstacle. The spirit of a human being who loves Jesus above all things has as many familiar friends in heaven as he has had companions in the love of God. There the angelic spirits, confirmed in the highest charity of God, love most ardently the soul of a person who loves Jesus; they recognize their familiar fellow citizen, guard him while he remains in the flesh, and most gladly run to meet him as he departs. There the order of patriarchs attends the lover of God with wondrous favor; it rejoices with inestimable joy that a soul loving the divine majesty has arrived. There the holy prophets, foreknowers of future things, receive the soul gladly, taking up the spirit of the lover of God with inestimable joy. There the holy martyrs, clothed in white robes, come forward and lead the soul, fervent with divine love, to the feet of the Most High. There the most holy virgins will be present; with incredible exultation they will receive him and lead him, to be crowned with immortal beauty, to the throne of glory.

We read that very many saints in this life had the companionship of angels, and that these angels often came to meet them at their death, because wherever they see the love of their king, Jesus Christ, dwelling with sweet fervor, they come more frequently, as it were, to his dwelling place. For Jesus inhabits the heart of the one who loves him; he prepares a throne for himself in it; he drives out all the snares of evil affections round about; he establishes peace and concord in his kingdom. The holy angels also frequently render invisible service to the one whose rule over them they love. Therefore the soul blazing with the fire of divine love is familiarly known to the spirits above.

Loved singularly by all the saints, and destined to pass happily, without hindrance, into their fellowship.

IX — Union between God and the Soul

Divine love effects an inestimable adhesion of union between God and the soul, when the spirit of the lover is dissolved, not by nature but by grace, into the abyss of divine contemplation, and, failing from itself, is wondrously transformed into participation in divinity. This adhesion of union in no way annihilates the human spirit, nor changes it into another essence; rather, while remaining what it is, it is carried above itself, and, while its first essential act remains, it is deprived of the exercise of the second. For, entering the new darkness of divine contemplation, it leaves itself and all things that have been created, or can be created, far behind; it ascends above every imagination, reason, or understanding, where, when it has failed from every action of a created or creatable being, exercising itself in God alone, it rests insensibly. For the mind of one who loves God must rise through affection to this experiential knowledge and, abandoning every creature, enter through the darkness to the Creator who makes darkness his hiding place. And first the mind itself leaves behind every operation of sense; then, in an unknown way, it rises affectively above the intellect; afterward, failing even from itself, it enters the divine darkness, in which, resting through ecstatic love, it is lulled to sleep. But to see God face to face as he is is granted to no soul, however holy, so long as it is contained in the prison of the flesh. For God says to Moses: No man shall see me and live. And that disciple whom Jesus loved says in a certain epistle: No one has ever seen God. Likewise holy Paul, contemplator of divine things, says: No human being has seen God, nor indeed can see him. For the true and immediate perception of God is promised to the lover in this life, but granted in the life to come. True love, however, raising the mind into that divine darkness, does not satisfy it completely, nor does it manifest the vision of God; but by the inward sweetness of divine delight it ineffably refreshes it, and in most secret ways breathes into the pilgrim a perceptible taste of heavenly felicity.

X — The Heavenly Reward of Divine Love

The love of God rewards the soul that truly possesses it in the heavenly homeland with an incomparable gift, and honors it with outstanding prerogatives. For whoever in this life perseveringly loves the Lord Jesus with all his heart above all things, whoever keeps the exercises of holy love in fervor of spirit, when he departs from the body, with the holy angels coming to meet him, is immediately led into the bosom of most loving Jesus and honored with immortal glory. For love surpasses all virtues in faith, because no good work will have merit unless it has been rooted in the love of God. The more ardent a soul has been in the love of God, the greater it will be in glory. Truly, eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man, how great a sweetness of inward delight the Lord Jesus grants his lovers to taste beforehand in this life, and how great and inestimable a glory of eternal felicity he stores up for them. When speaking of invisible things, we are compelled to imitate painters; nor can we, stammering as best we can, express the condition and state of heavenly felicity except through words and likenesses sensibly known to us, which can in no way be compared with spiritual things or joys. For they depict God and the angels as composed in bodily form; we speak of things existing above human sense and understanding with words suited to our sense, although God and the angels have no body, and spiritual things do not admit likenesses of bodily or sensible things. Indeed, what and how great the joys of that heavenly homeland are, neither human reason can grasp nor any speech explain. The true inward lover of God, who prudently persists in the exercise of divine love, perceives many and most sweet things by tasting beforehand the sweetness from above; and although in this life he cannot attain to the fullness of the highest truth, nevertheless he is permitted to taste great things, hidden from others who do not love in this way. O how gladly, how joyfully, and how happily the soul of one who fervently loves the Lord Jesus goes out from the body; how gloriously it is exalted in heaven; with what ineffable joy it is inwardly suffused. As it goes forth, the Lord Jesus himself at once receives the departing soul he receives him in his arms; he pours himself out wholly and sweetly in his embraces; with perpetual charity he embraces the one who loves him; and in him, as in his own house, he dwells forever. O how great a jubilation, how great an exultation, how great a joy is poured into the soul that loves Jesus, when it is recalled by him, clean and most pure, to its own beginning. There the desire of love is fulfilled with inestimable blessedness; there the spirit is satisfied with ineffable sweetness; there the mind receives what it has always longed for; there the soul that loves God rests without end in the bosom of the beloved. O with what incomparable joy the holy mind will be filled, when it is joyfully joined to the spirits above; when it will keep a feast day without end; when it will rest forever in the bridal chamber of sweetest Jesus. There there will be no sadness; there no misery, for where there is true love for the God of all, there there will be supreme blessedness in all things. There is true security; there everlasting happiness; there the supreme tranquility of the mind; there joy that will remain forever.

O truly happy fellowship, always to be desired with deepest sighs; O holy banquet, never to be consigned to oblivion, where neither satiety itself will bring weariness, nor desire frustrate appetite. This everlasting happiness of the heavenly fatherland, this immense joy of supernal happiness, is promised to us, O fathers, through our Lord Jesus Christ; it is reserved to be given to us with all the saints. Let us hasten, therefore, dearest brothers; let us hasten to ascend to that ineffable glory through the fervor of inward love, in which we may be able to remain forever blessed with our sweetest Redeemer. What have we to do with the cares of the world? What have we to do with the joys of the world? Let all things pass away except the love of Jesus; let all things vanish except charity toward God. Nothing in this world is seen to be lasting; nothing in human affairs appears stable. Let us therefore cast away from ourselves every care of the world; let us flee the defilements of the world; let no desire for worldly things hold us; let no concupiscence of the flesh seduce us. Let us always consider, O fathers, that we have fixed the anchor of our purpose in a higher region, we who have been singularly devoted to the contemplative life.

Therefore, having despised all the business of the world, let us strive to attend fervently to the exercises of divine love, and to think at every time upon Jesus, our crucified love, so that, while living in the flesh, we love him above all things, and after death may behold him joyfully in his majesty without end.

I have spoken.

End of the oration of Lord Johannes Trithemius, Abbot of Sponheim, delivered at Erfurt on the sixth day before the Kalends of September, in the year of the Lord 1497.