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.

[Source page illegible in the scan; the page image is the authoritative witness.]

Address of Dom Johannes Trithemius, Abbot of Sponheim, delivered at Erfurt in chapter, on the sixth day before the Kalends of September.

If it were permitted to me, without injury to obedience, most excellent fathers, to evade this duty of speaking, I would try to excuse myself before you with many words and in various ways; nor, unskilled as I am, would I take up so arduous a task of speaking among learned men, if I could have declined it without sin. For I neither can nor ought to teach those far more learned than I; and I, a fleshly man, blush to speak of the inward conversation of the spirit among most devout men. But since I am a man set under authority, I am compelled to undertake 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 the strength which my ignorance withdraws from me as I am about to speak, humble obedience will supply. Therefore, fathers, assist me with your prayers before the merciful God, and humbly entreat his clemency for the gifts of grace to be obtained; and, turning as usual to the most reverend ark of piety, the Mother of God, say the Ave Maria with me.

Ave Maria.

Since up to now, most loving fathers, there has often been a discourse by me to this synodal assembly on the instruction of morals, it has at last seemed fitting, and no less honorable than useful, to say something briefly about the love of God, to which every regular discipline ought to be ordered as to its final end. For whatever good, whatever holy, whatever just thing is done by us in holy conversation is rightly referred wholly 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 the cares of the age, without the impediment of temporal things, we may have leisure for the contemplation of the love of God. O happy are you who, having despised all transitory things, continually raise the eyes of your mind to this end; who, united to your very selves, flee all multiplicity that distracts the soul from that supreme One, the principle of all things; who through inward love sweetly cling to God, the immutable and utterly ineffable good. For although, while set upon the way, you cannot yet receive perfectly that sweetness of heavenly blessedness, nevertheless through the fire of love it is granted to you to taste mentally something hidden and ineffable of it.

Indeed, that supreme immutable good which we call God, since it is simple and the one principle of all things, loves the simplicity of our soul by its natural goodness; it flees the multiplicity opposed to itself; unity requires one thing. For the more the soul divides itself through its powers among many things, the farther it withdraws from the unity of its principle; nor can it raise itself by affection to the love of unity unless it first knows how to contain itself within itself in its own unity. For God is the one supreme good; and our mind, divided within itself, is by no means permitted to cling to him through the sweetness of love unless it is first united to itself in itself and in the effects of its powers. True and whole love cannot be divided; nor does the affection itself deserve to receive the name of love when it strives to bind itself, more than once and at the same time, to more than one. For either God alone is loved, or, if he is not alone, he is not loved perfectly. If you truly love God, you despise all things except him. If you admit anything besides him into the dwelling-place of love, you break the integrity of divine love. For just as a young woman betrothed to a man, if she has loved some other, is proved not truly to love her bridegroom, so also the soul, if it begins to love anything besides its God, is condemned as an adulteress. Finally, just as our sight, in seeing two objects distant from one another at one and the same time, cannot distinguish them clearly, so neither will the eye of the mind be able, through the gaze of love, to see its creator and created things that distract it from him at the same time. The Creator wishes to be loved alone by his rational creature; he cannot be loved with a partner. For when he commands that he be loved with the whole heart, the whole virtue, and all the powers, he wishes no place to be granted to the love of any other. For while

he set [it] with his whole heart; he left absolutely nothing to be made over to another. And therefore elsewhere he says 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 of me, since you gain no advantage from me? For you are always what you can be; neither can my love add anything to you, nor can the turning away of my mind take anything away.

Yet nevertheless you persist, you knock, and you say: Son, give me your heart; for where your treasure is, there also will your heart 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, for every desire that is not fixed on me alone is held liable to changeableness and eternal miseries. Give me your heart, so that my love may possess it entirely and 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 your bridegroom, O faithful soul, who rescued you with a strong hand from tyrannical power and joined you to myself as a beloved with my own blood. I am the flower of the field and the lily of the valleys, who, that I might be able to take you to myself as a chosen bride, chose to undergo death. For through the transgression of your parents, defiled, you placed your portion with adulterers; you despised me, the guide of your youth; you had the impious corrupter of your virginity, the devil, as a very harsh exactor. But I, having pity on you, like a giant to run the way, girded with human flesh, came into the midst; I undertook the war, about to fight against the tyrant; I poured out for you both my blood and my soul; dying on the gibbet of the cross, I overcame the enemy. Overcome by your excessive love, so that I might lead you, wandering far away, back to the pleasantness of the heavenly homeland, I put on human flesh from a virgin; visible and capable of suffering, I appeared on earth to human beings; for your salvation I submitted myself to many labors; I gave my tender body to be scourged most harshly; I chose to be crowned with thorns, spat upon, struck with slaps, and afflicted with insults and mockery; half-dead, I carried my cross on my shoulders; I was terribly fastened by hands and feet to the wood. O who could express the anguish of my most innocent heart, which I endured for you in that hour, when, full of [wounds?]

[unclear], fixed to the cross in the midst 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 willingly endured all things for love of you, so that I might rescue you from the power of the ancient enemy and join you forever to myself as a bride. See, my dearest one, at what a price I redeemed you, I who did not hesitate to die for you by a most shameful death. What, O sweet beloved, do you give back to your lover, and what do you repay? He does not ask for gold and silver; he does not care for precious stones. In place of all these things he requires faith and charity from you; he desires the dwelling-place of your love. Therefore give your savior the habitation of your heart, he who opened heaven for you in his most sacred blood. Open to him the chaste chamber of your mind, so that he may grant you the secret of his sweetest love. For the Lord Jesus goes nowhere empty, whom the ineffable gifts of his grace accompany. And although the little gifts that Jesus, king of heaven, brings with him are many and various, nevertheless they are all very precious; among them one is most precious, to be purchased from him only with a human heart. What is that? It is he himself, who said in the holy Gospel: I came to cast fire upon the earth, and what do I wish except that it burn? No one understands the greatest love who has not first received it in secret. For indeed Jesus, beautiful in form beyond the sons of men, is always present to those who love him; he meets those who meditate intently on his passion; he loves the simple and upright in spirit; he does not admit curious lovers of the world into the sweetness of his love. Therefore I would deservedly call those blessed who, having despised the affairs and cares of the world, desire to lie hidden in monasteries with themselves in the tranquility of a pure and simple soul; who love absolutely nothing in this world except God alone; who despise empty honors and the deceptive prosperity of the world; who, rooted in divine love, love nothing in this life except God himself, fear nothing. For the one who loves, God is sufficient for all things.

[unclear]: beyond him the soul requires nothing. The soul which truly loves the Lord Jesus above all things gladly remains with herself, in secret, solitary. The lover of inward sweetness speaks in secret with his most loving Lord in words of ardent love; he delights to remain alone with the Alone. He sits in secret, solitary but not idle, since love, which gathers to itself all the powers of the soul, in no way permits the lover to be idle. For that lover of God, Gregory, great among the great, truly said: “The love of God is never idle.” For it works great things, things utterly incredible to those who do not love God. And what does immortal love work in mortal man? Great things, I say, and things not to be set forth before carnal men. The love of God, when poured into the human heart, works an operation which no one perceives unless he has experienced it. Alas for me, because if it belongs only to those experienced in the love of God to speak of this operation, my tepidity imposes silence on me. But since I have once begun, I shall speak of the operation of love, not the one I have learned by experience in myself, but rather the one I have received from experienced and devout men. Yet the more secret matters of divine love are not to be brought forth in public, since only he can understand them whom the very illumination of love has made expert by long exercise. Therefore, honoring with due silence the mystical sights unknown to me, I shall pursue those things known everywhere to all, so that I, who cannot attain those more inward things, may at least strive with all my strength to imitate the more manifest ones.

And first, indeed, when the love of God is in a man, it works a wondrous contrition and a penitence wondrously efficacious for sins. 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 holy apostle bears witness: “The charity of God has been poured forth 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 is more abundant in its burning, so the more the love of God grows in a man’s heart, the more quickly it consumes the chaff of sin. Love is the certain remission of sins, because just as the turning-away of the soul from God brings about deadly sin, so the turning of the mind toward God grants pardon. For what else does the remission of crime do in a man, except reform the soul toward the burning of love? For whenever guilt is remitted to the penitent through the mercy of God, the violated love between God and the soul is restored. Therefore, when divine love is granted to a man, without doubt sins are remitted. Indeed the love of God and sin are wholly opposed to each other, because they can no more exist together than nothing and something. For if sin is present, love at once withdraws. For sin is the privation of divine love. But if the very love of God remains stable in a man’s soul, it does not admit sin. Those daily and venial faults, however, which are troublesome even to those who love God, I would judge should be called faults rather than sins. For the love of God and mortal sin cannot stand together, since just as fire devours wood and chaff, so the love of God drives from the heart of the lover every sin contrary to itself. But let us bring forward an example of this matter from the holy Gospel. A woman who had turned away came to Jesus, but by coming was wondrously made a lover; she came and wept. She washed the feet of her beloved with tears, wiped them with her hair, and kissed them, burning with great sighs. Tell me, O holy sinner, whence did this change come upon you, that you so suddenly put aside all the shamefastness of feminine propriety? Uncalled you come; among the invited elders you present yourself, despised as a sinner; you pour out tears amid the banquet; [unclear] the feet of the most holy man. As a magnet draws iron, so the love of Jesus called me to his most holy feet. For the fire of divine love, which had been wondrously given within my breast, drew me outward, all shame contemned. I considered whom I had offended, and therefore I did not care about human confusion. Who could express in words the love of this holy woman?

or to think with how great a desire for compunction she burned within? For she was aflame inwardly with so great a fire of divine love that she neither shrank before the presence of the guests nor feared the rashness of the Pharisee who despised her.

O most powerful force of divine love: how easily you lift the mind from earthly things; how sweetly you set it aflame with your fire. Where you kindle the breast of a human being, no delay is required for the purgation of the affection; with you as teacher, the understanding is at once illuminated without the instruction of another master. You justify sinners as soon as you have taken hold of them; you suddenly stir lukewarm minds to wondrous devotion, and you bestow on those who possess you ineffable gifts of inward sweetness. Touching the breast of this woman with wondrous fire, you changed a sinner into a lover; and the dwelling that you had once prepared for yourself in her, you inhabit always without end. And what did Jesus, who through you justifies the ungodly, say of her? “Many sins are forgiven her,” he says, “because she loved much.” Therefore, one to whom much is forgiven ought to love much; and 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.” Here no satisfaction of penitence is imposed, because true love of God suffices for every satisfaction, since by loving it makes satisfaction more abundantly.

For a mind kindled by divine love cannot be overly anxious about past sins, because the solicitude of penitence, which prepares a remedy for beginners, would make an impediment for those who love perfectly. The lover of God does indeed grieve that she has offended her beloved by a guilty conscience; but now she does not fear punishment or vengeance for what she has committed, because she has given herself wholly over to the will of her lover. Therefore she cannot be anxious, if through love she has truly been brought into concord with the beloved. Nevertheless, in the secret chamber of contemplation, she does not neglect the office of penitence that befits a lover: out of love she pours forth tears for her sins; prostrate on the ground she addresses her beloved; in an ineffable manner she begs pardon.

O how many tears, how many groans, how many sighs a mind kindled by divine love is accustomed to bring forth in secret, when it remembers that it has so often offended the most loving Jesus by sinning.

She lies at the feet of her lover, illuminated by love; weeping abundantly, she prays, detesting what 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 precipices of vices? Why did you not wish to call me back sooner?” And when the desire of love has grown into affection, the soul rests in its lover; and when there it has been sweetly lulled to sleep, it recognizes the conditions of its past misery through the illumination of the light shining from above. Nor will it any longer be difficult to acquire tranquillity of conscience, when the soul has agreed 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 of sins. For where God is loved in truth with the whole heart, no sin unto death is imputed to the lover.

Secondly, 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 meats, 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 savor of bodily sweetness; it calms the unlawful movements of the affections and restores concord between body and spirit. Indeed, one who truly loves God does not fulfill the desires of the flesh; he hates disordered concupiscence; pure and tranquil, he always stands by 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 that love itself acts by turns, so that the soul may learn to know its own weakness and to place its confidence not in its own virtue but in the mercy of God. For even the holy Apostle, the most prudent host of divine love, found in his members another law resisting love, from which he desires to be set free. Hence he also says: “Unhappy man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death?” Despairing, therefore, of his own virtue, 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 my mind, but with the flesh the law of sin.” What is this, holy Apostle? Do you still serve the law of sin, you who

do you linger in the secret place of the love of God? “I know,” he says, “that there dwells in me, that is, in my flesh, no good thing; for to will is present with me, but to accomplish the good I do not find.” And our Lord Jesus Christ himself confirms this as true in the Gospel, saying: “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” The spirit desires continually to cling 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 upon us, he who, free in spirit, groaned under the law of the flesh. “Therefore,” he says, “brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, so as to 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 of 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 be made reprobate.” This is the wonderful working of divine love: it both subjects the flesh to the spirit and does not break the law of the flesh. For if love were wholly to abolish the law opposed to itself, it would not be expedient for man. For there must be movements in the flesh contrary to the love of the spirit, so that victory may have merit and virtue may have exercise. And therefore love is often withdrawn for a time from the minds of the saints, so that exercise may be tested.

But the love of God suddenly consumes the love of the world, and the heart that has burned with mystical fire desires nothing of carnal love. It suddenly changes desire and directs the affection toward other works. What shall I say of you, O holy and wholly ineffable fire? You suddenly made apostles out of fishermen; you raised the unlearned into most learned men; you taught your guests to despise the riches and honors of the world and to fear no torments of the malicious. O holy power of divine love, how quickly the onrush of carnal concupiscence is extinguished if the mind is set aflame by your fire. You suddenly made the persecutor defend the faith of Jesus Christ, which without you he had previously been accustomed to attack terribly. 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 beloved, after he had deserved to taste the kernel of your sweetness. You so intoxicated him with the sweetness of inward love that thereafter, because of the greatness of that sweetness, he could scarcely contain himself; with a free voice he confounded the enemies of the cross of Christ; he no longer feared to undergo any adversities of this world for love of Jesus.

O how many souls you have suddenly snatched from the peril of this age; how many sinners you have brought without hindrance into the joys of paradise. You made the holy angels of God steadfast in cleaving to their principle; you marked out the innocent from the origin of the world; 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 the confessors; you prescribed for holy virgins the rule of living. And why should I use many words? Without you no one ever pleased God; no one, strengthened by your aid, ever displeased the supreme and immutable good. Through you faith obtains merit; through you religion receives increase; through you the rust of sin is consumed; through you alone every elect person is sanctified.

Just as a great fire consumes the little water cast into it, so the mighty 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 besides God. And plainly it is a wonderful change of affections, since one who before could scarcely tame the passions of his flesh through many labors, now, set aflame by divine love, has overcome them in the silence of contemplation. But to experience this is not granted to all, because it is reserved for few. For many think that conceptions placed in their senses are divine love, and the higher they raise themselves through imagination, the more grievously, for the most part, they fall. For Scripture says: “The beast that touches the mountain shall be stoned.” If you desire to ascend without peril the holy mountain of divine love, you will have to slay bestial affections, because the soul is then made one through love with that one principle of things, when, stripped of every multiplicity of affection, it is raised alone and, lifted above every imagination, reason, and understanding, [unclear] from all things that can be said or thought

[unclear] he sees himself stripped bare; free in affection, he ascends to the dwelling-place of love. Nor is it necessary in this place to instruct the true lover in 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 permit the one who has it to doubt. And although a man may not know whether he is worthy of love or hatred, nevertheless I say with confidence 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.

Third, 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 to be delightful in the world is bitter to him; he delights in nothing except in his lover. For the mind, 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 burning, 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 inhabit the human heart alone, or, if not alone, you refuse to enter. Therefore whoever desires to have the fellowship of you within himself must despise all things besides you, for to the extent that he has wished to love anything besides you, to that extent he drives away from himself your sweetest love. The soul cannot exist without love: for either it loves God and is truly blessed, or it leans upon transitory things and is always wretched. But no one can at the same time love God and the world, for if [unclear], he necessarily despises the other. Yet there is a great difference between the love of God and the desire of the present age. For the love of God makes a man always pure in conscience, joyful in heart, honorable in conduct, distinguished in action, tranquil in mind. He covets nothing; his own condition suffices for him; he rests without ambition. But the love of the world pollutes its possessor in conscience with many crimes; it makes him always anxious and sad; it renders him disturbed in conduct, sluggish in action, turbulent in mind. The end of divine love is everlasting happiness; but the end of worldly affection is calamity that will remain 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 love the vain honors of the world; it does not desire to be over others; rather, for God’s sake, it desires to be subject to others; it does not refuse to lay aside even honors already possessed. For whoever truly conceives the love of God despises all things, both prosperous and adverse, equally. You are placed 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 all your heart, what will you answer? Whatever you answer me outwardly, I shall appeal inwardly to your conscience. If you truly love God, tell me with what intention you are pastor of monks. You will of course say, if I am not deceived, that for the honor of God, whom I love, I bear the burden of governing monks. Therefore either you love God, O abbot, or you do not love him. If you truly love God, you will be ready at every time, for love of him and at the counsel of good men, to yield the office of governance, and with an even mind to be subject to another. But if you do not truly love your God, you unworthily occupy the place of governance. For the true lover of God orders his conscience at every time in such a way that he does not depart from his love through affection for any other thing or office. Hence the ruler of souls who loves his Lord with all his heart, at every time resigned to him, says in his prayers: Lord Jesus, who are ignorant of nothing, you know that I desire to be over no one; you know that I do not refuse to be subject to another. For even if I am not fit to carry out your duties, nevertheless I desire always to be subject to your most holy will; and for love of you I am prepared both to feed your sheep according to my powers, and humbly, as insufficient, to resign the office of pastoral care. I subject myself to your will; I commit myself to the judgment of your servants. But if [unclear] command me to abandon the abbacy, for love of you I wish to obey without pretense. But if they command [unclear], for the honor alone of your most holy name, to undergo authority. Now therefore

O shepherd of monks, diligently consider yourself, and see whether your mind is in all things resigned in this way to almighty God. If you find it so disposed, you are near 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 than of divine love in you. For love loves nothing in this world except God; it desires nothing, but despises all honors, spurns riches, and at the same time contemns all things.

Fourth, the love of God begets wondrous compunction and devotion in its host, because the heart which it has kindled with its own sweetest ardor it carries away, as it were, outside the man. For divine love itself is said in a certain way to imitate the nature of fire: for just as fire always by nature directs the flames of its burning upward, so this love always ascends to heavenly things. What the inward state of a man loving God is, what compunction, how many sweetest sighs of the heart, no one can understand except one who has deserved by experience to taste that very sweetness of inward love. Love raises the mind from earthly things, discloses heavenly things, manifests secrets. O burning of holy love, how sweet is the presence of your most blessed operation, since the mind which once you have entered you do not leave idle. It always burns with 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 out tears. As often as it thinks of its crucified Lord, it weeps most bitterly from an excessive feeling of compassion. Weeping, it goes with him through all the places of the Passion; in spirit it drinks the blood flowing from his body; it embraces Jesus hanging on the cross; with tears it kisses the wounds of him as he dies. These, O faithful soul, are the first preludes of divine love; these are the excellent exercises of spiritual zeal: that you often recall to memory the Passion of your lover, that, giving thanks, you humbly bow yourself before him. Behold the sorrowful soul of Jesus, even unto death; from affection suffer with your suffering lover; give thanks for his most bitter wounds. By these holy exercises divine love is acquired; by these pursuits devotion is begotten, since whoever has learned wisely to exercise his soul in the Passion of sweetest Jesus ascends quickly and easily to the dwelling-place of divine love. This that holy lover of God, Ignatius, knew very well, who, from the vehemence of his compunction, used to say: My love has been crucified. O good Jesus, how sweet is your love; how gently it penetrates the soul. Seeing you in spirit, the soul longs to embrace you; if you command, it hastens to come to you as quickly as possible. Indeed, fathers, he who 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; nothing at all is found that the soul desires. O with how many sighs the mind wounded by love is distressed; with how abundant tears the face is watered in secret, because as often as it thinks of the face of Jesus seated in heaven, so often it weeps that it is desolate on earth. Meanwhile the mind, languishing with love, often tries to say something before men about its most beloved Jesus; it even strives to provoke others to love him; but as soon as it begins to utter the sweetest name of Jesus, because of the greatness of love it is struck dumb. For the love of Jesus is expressed by no words, explained by no letters. In secret it instructs the soul concerning each thing; it hands down the most effective manner of praying; it enlightens the understanding of the lover for asking; it denies nothing to one who prays through love. In the secret of divine love, the devotion of the mind toward God overflows; the innermost compunction of the heart reigns; the spring of sweet tears flows around the lover’s face without injury to the head; the wall of perseverance guards the bridal chamber of love. A true lover of Jesus is always fruitfully pierced with compunction in his meditation; pierced with compunction, he weeps because of the sweetness of love; he is seen to live in body among men, but in mind he dwells in heavenly things. The prayer of one who loves God penetrates the heavens; whatever he has sought from Jesus he easily obtains; he casts his whole self into the bosom of the sweetest lover. There is no true divine love in a man’s heart without burning compunction. O how sweet, how gentle, how divine are the thoughts the mind burning in divine love conceives in psalmody and the other readings of prayers; how deep and mystical are the meanings of the Scriptures it comes to know, which, when it strives to express them in words, it is overcome by their greatness.

What the true and inward lover of God experiences in the utterly divine sacrifice of the body and blood of Jesus Christ, how devout he is, how contrite, how melted in love: he himself cannot tell anyone, nor, if he told it, could one without experience bear it. For the sweetness of divine love melts the soul and often renders it raised above the senses of the flesh.

Fifth, divine love illuminates the understanding of the one who possesses it with wondrous teaching, because when the affection has been cleansed by love from every defilement, then the light of divine illumination pours itself wondrously into the mind. For the love of God purifies the mind from vices and fleshly desires, prepares a dwelling for the Holy Spirit in the heart of the lover, illuminates the soul in those things that pertain to knowledge of the highest truth, and strengthens knowledge. The love of Jesus is the fullness of knowledge, because through it wisdom is poured into those who love, which is denied to those who do not love. However much you advance by learning, if you do not love God, you understand nothing. For vain and utterly fruitless is the knowledge that is not directed to its proper end, in which alone the face of desire is found. Nor should you think that the love of which we speak is common, for there are many who believe that they truly love God, although it is clear that few come to the sweetness of true love. For the true love of God admits nothing in common; it allows no partnership in itself with the love of anything else whatever. By common love I would mean that whose term ordinary people everywhere understand, in which they live content with their own degrees. God is one; indeed 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. Therefore the soul is illuminated according to the measure of love, because the more it has approached God through an inflamed affection, the better it recognizes that splendid light above the understanding. For the understanding itself, first illumined according to the degree of its capacity, wondrously rouses the affection to love that highest ineffable good and to love it still more, and prepares itself as a companion for desire; but when the affection has been stirred to seek out that principle of things which exists above every position, thereafter it no longer admits the companionship of the understanding, because while it, having cast aside every position and privation, enters naked into the darkness of divine silence, the other, burdened by reason, imagination, and understanding, is forbidden to follow. And when the affection itself, through love, has now been admitted to that secret of divine contemplation, without sense and without understanding, alone and naked and not knowing itself, there it sweetly rests. Where do you think the understanding remains meanwhile? It dwells without act among lower things; once a teacher, now a pupil, it waits; it does not understand what is being done about the affection, because insensibly it has lost both itself and it. In this most secret silence of the mind, the soul, through love above all reason, imagination, and understanding, receives a ray of divine illumination, which neither the understanding itself understands nor the affection comprehends. Happy, therefore, is he who has deserved to receive true love of God from the very giver of love, who has learned to sit solitary and to raise himself above himself; for if he perseveres prudently in the exercise of divine love, illumined in soul he will rejoice wondrously and ineffably. We do not promise through love the vain knowledge of the world, but that which pertains to the savory knowledge of God. Often, however, we read that even the knowledge of this world has been divinely infused into lovers of God, so that, when both the one and the other are granted, secular prudence may be confounded by divine prudence. Yet the hand of the Lord is not shortened, but whatever is necessary and useful for salvation to the lover, divine goodness will not deny to one who asks. For the anointing of God will teach good things to the lover.

Sixth, divine love raises the mind to heavenly things, as the Lord cries out in the holy Gospel: “If anyone serves me, let him follow me.” And again he says: “Father, I will that where I am, there my servants also may be.” The best servant of Jesus is he who loves him above all things, who by love rests continually in his dwelling. In three ways love raises the mind and calls it into a certain ecstasy. For whenever desire is caught up into great devotion, the inflamed mind is raised above itself; in that elevation it is very often kindled by such rays of inward love that

[unclear], melted like wax, is dissolved from its former state. For divine love makes the mind go out from itself and fly into the secret place of estimable contemplation.

Secondly, through admiration the mind is led outside itself and is lifted up to that highest summit of the divine darkness. For love arouses the desire of enjoyment; affection, that it may enjoy, beats through love; suddenly heavenly light thrusts itself upon the one who loves, and turns the mind, because of the greatness of its beauty, into admiration. For just as lightning strikes back the eyes of those who look upon it with its flashing, so that divine light, above all understanding, suddenly changes the mind into astonishment and the excess of admiration when it glides into it; and the more it is cast down into the depth through consideration of its own vileness, the more swiftly, seized by desire for the ineffable light, it is lifted above itself.

Thirdly, the mind is seized into excess through the greatness of sweetness, when it is made drunk with the exceeding sweetness of divine love. In these ways the love of God is accustomed to raise the mind from earthly things to heavenly things, if it has found it burning with desire purely, fervently, and sweetly.

The ardent lover of Jesus Christ without interruption raises his mind to him whom he loves; in various ways he reshapes his affections toward him. Whatever he does, whatever he undertakes, he always thinks of Jesus seated 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 casts himself in spirit at his feet, offers prayers with tears, and, melted in the bosom of Jesus, rests. But then, passing beyond the humanity of the beloved, the mind directs its whole self into the wondrous contemplation of his divinity; in it it enjoys such secret and so thoroughly divine mystical splendors that, having gone outside 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.

Seventh, the sweetness of divine love makes one despise death and desire with continual sighs the homeland of heavenly felicity. What do I say, despise, and not rather choose? 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 its dissolution. Always sighing toward its beloved, it raises itself; it longs to depart from the body as quickly as possible; in prayers it daily cries to the Lord with the prophet: Woe is me, for my sojourning is 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 him face to face, 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 promised himself to me as a reward.

Meanwhile the true lover of God passes through the world, raised up into God with such fervor and such desire that there is absolutely nothing that pleases him, nothing that he longs for besides Jesus. Always raised from the earth into heaven, he thinks of Jesus; because of the greatness of love he sweetly weeps; whatever sweet thing, whatever pleasant thing he beholds in this world, the whole taste of divine love turns it for him into nausea. Indeed, so powerful is the fervor of divine love that the soul which it has once truly kindled with its sweetest heat can no longer give way to any worldly desires. Death, the most terrible of all terrible things in our knowledge, it not only does not fear, but even vehemently longs for. But why do I vainly try to express in words the inner fervor and desire of the true lover of Jesus, when even the very one who suffers by loving cannot explain his own affection? For with such upward actions, such burnings of desires, and such flames of spiritual fire the true lover of God is burned in the hidden place of his mind 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 incredible to flesh

[unclear]: who, blinded by the 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; nor can he understand, because it is examined spiritually. 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 persons, since those who burn with vices and carnal desires show themselves utterly unworthy of divine love. But let us leave those who have a carnal mind, and return to those who live spiritually in the love of God. The love of God makes a man despise death and pant, with great and continual sighs, for the joys of heavenly felicity. Let us bring forward the holy martyrs of Jesus Christ, and they will be the confirmation of this judgment. For so great a force 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, they dreaded no torments of death. They had been absorbed in the love of Jesus; therefore they did not care about the destruction of their bodies. For the love of Jesus by its power incomparably surpasses all sufferings of the body, since it does not refuse to subject itself to a thousand deaths. O how savage the torments and pains which the holy martyrs endured in their bodies for the love of Jesus Christ; all these, although they appeared grievous enough to weak flesh, nevertheless seemed light to the spirit because of the magnitude of its immense love. For there is nothing so arduous, nothing so hard, that the love of God does not make it pleasant. For he who loves Jesus with his whole heart above all things fears no adversities of this world, no torments of death. And what the holy martyrs once offered to God in sacred service by dying for love, this true lovers of Jesus even now offer in desire. For the soul, kindled by divine love, desires with many groans and sighs to leave the prison of its body; with its inmost affections it hastens to come to him whom it loves; but the longer it is afflicted by delay while remaining here, the more it is enlarged through desire into love. Often too the fervent lover of Jesus is raised toward Jesus by such great desires that he seems to himself no longer able to live; and hidden in secret he offers loving prayers to the beloved; because of the greatness of love he sends forth his voice with tears: O most loving mediator of God and men, Jesus, why do you not rescue 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 merit by the prolongation of time; I do not await a reward. You alone, O my sweetest lover, suffice for my enjoyment, you who do not despise a spirit that loves you. Be my reward, you who have given to me, your undeserving creature, the fire of your love. O good Jesus, love raises hope, [unclear] confidence. Nevertheless may your most holy will always be fulfilled in me, since, although I vehemently desire to come to you, I do not refuse to remain in the flesh for as long as you shall wish. In these ways, indeed, and by many more secret exercises, love lifts the mind to heavenly things; through them it shows itself not idle, but working many wondrous things in man.

Eighth, divine love makes the soul of its host, although still placed 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. But 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 man, according to his understanding, cannot always comprehend this familiarity of the angels while in the flesh, nevertheless the mind itself can wondrously perceive insensibly. O with how great charity and reverence, beyond all human understanding, the spirit of the lover of Jesus, released from the flesh, is received by the heavenly citizens; with how many praises, wholly ineffable to man, [unclear]; the joyful company of all the citizens comes to meet him. For as the spirit of one who loves Jesus goes out from the flesh, the citizens of heavenly felicity, as if [receiving] their fellow citizen,

Then they joyfully receive him as [known?] and very dear, whom, while still placed in the flesh, they had known to have been so often lifted up by love to them in heaven. For the love of God prepares an open way for the soul to the sight of the supreme emperor; it calls the citizens of the heavenly country to meet the one who is departing; it does not allow demons to draw near; it removes all impediments. The spirit of a man 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 loftiest charity of God, love most ardently the soul of a man who loves Jesus; they recognize their fellow citizen and familiar friend; while he remains in the flesh they guard him; as he goes forth they meet him with the greatest joy. There the order of the patriarchs attends the lover of God with wondrous favor; it rejoices with inestimable joy that a soul which loves the divine majesty is arriving. There the holy seers, foreknowing things to come, joyfully receive the soul, receiving with inestimable joy the spirit of the lover of God. There the holy martyrs, clothed in white robes, come to meet him; they lead the soul, fervent with divine love, to the feet of the Most High. There the most holy virgins will be present; they will receive him with incredible exultation; they will lead him to the throne of glory to be crowned with immortal beauty. We read that many saints in this life had the companionship of angels, and that they often came to meet the dying, because where they see the love of their king Jesus Christ dwelling with sweet fervor, they go more frequently as if to his dwelling-place. For Jesus dwells in the heart of one who loves him; he prepares a throne for himself there; he drives away on every side all the snares of evil affections; he establishes peace and concord in his kingdom. The holy angels also often render invisible service to the one whose lordship over themselves they love. Therefore the soul burning with the fire of divine love is familiarly known to the spirits above, singularly loved by all the saints, and will happily pass into their company without impediment.

The Ninth. Divine love produces an inestimable union between God and the soul by the adhesion of union, when the spirit of the lover, not by nature but by grace, is dissolved into the abyss of divine contemplation, and, failing from itself, is wonderfully transformed into a participation in divinity. This adhesion of union by no means annihilates the human spirit, nor changes it into another essence; rather, while remaining what it is, it is rapt 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 far behind itself both itself and all things that have been created or can be created; it ascends above every imagination, reason, or understanding; and there, 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, having abandoned every creature, enter through darkness to the Creator, who makes darkness his hiding place. And first the mind itself abandons every operation of sense; then it ascends affectively above the unknown 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. The holy Paul also, contemplator of divine things, says: No man has seen God, nor can see him. For the true and immediate perception of God is promised to the lover in this life, and bestowed in the life to come. But true love, raising the mind into that divine darkness, does not wholly satisfy it, nor does it disclose the vision of God, but ineffably refreshes it through the inward sweetness of divine delight and the taste of supernal happiness/

[unclear], perceptible to the wayfarer, he inspires by most secret ways.

Tenth, the love of God rewards the soul that truly has it, in the heavenly homeland, with an incomparable gift, and honors it with distinguished prerogatives. For whoever perseveringly loves the Lord Jesus with all his heart above all things in this life, whoever keeps the exercises of holy love in fervor of spirit: when he departs from the body, the spirit, with the holy angels meeting him, is at once led into the bosom of most loving Jesus, and is 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 the 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 foretaste in this life, and how great an inestimable glory of eternal happiness 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 happiness except through words and likenesses sensibly known to us, which can in no way be compared with spiritual things or joys. For they fashion God and the angels as composed in bodily form; we speak of things existing above sense and human understanding in 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, how great and of what kind are the joys of that heavenly homeland, neither human reason can grasp nor any speech explain. The true inward lover of God, who prudently devotes himself to the exercise of divine love, perceives many and most sweet things by foretasting the sweetness from above; and although in this life he cannot attain to the [satiety?] 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; how it is suffused with ineffable joy. As it goes out, the Lord Jesus himself at once receives it in loving arms; he sweetly pours himself wholly into its embraces; with perpetual charity he embraces the one loving him; in it, as in his own house, he dwells forever.

O how great a jubilation, how great an exultation, how great a gladness is poured into the soul that loves Jesus, when, clean and most pure, it is recalled by him to its own beginning. There the desire of love is perfected in 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 gladly 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 the true love of all for God, there there will be the highest blessedness in all. There is true security; there everlasting happiness. This immense delight of heavenly happiness, O fathers, is promised to us through our Lord Jesus Christ; it is kept for us to be given with all the saints. Let us hasten, therefore, dearest brothers, let us hasten to ascend through the fervor of inward love to that ineffable glory, in which we may be able to remain happy forever with our sweetest Redeemer. What have we to do with the cares of the age? What have we to do with the joys of the world? All things except the love of Jesus pass away; all things except the charity of God vanish. Nothing in this world is seen to last long; nothing in human actions seems stable. Let us therefore cast away from ourselves every solicitude of the age; let us flee the defilements of the world; let no desire for things hold us; let no concupiscence of the flesh seduce us. Let us always consider, O fathers, that we have placed the anchor of our purpose in a higher region, we who are singularly devoted to the contemplative life. Therefore, despising all the affairs of the world, let us strive fervently to devote ourselves to the exercises of divine love, and at all times to think on Jesus, our crucified love, so that while, living in the flesh, we love him above all things, after death we may see him in his majesty without end and with joy.

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.

[Source illegible — OCR-damaged or non-textual material; the source page image is the authoritative witness.]