This tract from the Cell of
Self-Knowledge,
modernized by Harry Plantinga, 1997.
This text is in the public domain.
BY WALTER HILTON
DEAR brother in Christ, I understand by your own speech, and also by the word
of another man, that you yearn and long to have more knowledge and
understanding than you have of angel's song and heavenly sound--what it is, how
it is perceived and felt in the soul, how to be sure that it is true and not
feigned, and how it is made by the presence of the good angel and not by the
inputting of the evil angel. These things you desire to learn from me, but,
truthfully, I cannot tell you with certainty the truth of this matter;
nevertheless I will show you something of my opinion in a short word.
Note well that the end and pinnacle of
perfection is true union of God and the soul by perfect love. This union is
truly made when the powers of the soul are reformed by grace to the dignity and
the state of the first condition--that is, when the mind is firmly established,
without changing and wandering, in God and spiritual things, and when the
reason is cleared from all attention to worldly and fleshly things, and from
all bodily images, figures, and fantasies of created things, and is illumined
by grace to see God and spiritual things, and when the will and the affection
are purified and cleansed from all fleshly, natural, and worldly love and
inflamed with burning love of the Holy Spirit. This wonderful union may not be
fulfilled perfectly, continuously, and wholly in this life, because of the
corruption of the flesh, but only in the bliss of heaven. Nevertheless, the
nearer that a soul in this present life may come to this union, the more
perfect it is. For the more that it is reformed by grace to the image and the
likeness of its Creator here, in this way, the more joy and bliss shall it have
in heaven.
Our Lord God is an endless being without
changing, almighty without failing, supreme wisdom, light, truth without error
or darkness, supreme goodness, love, peace, and sweetness. Therefore the more
that a soul is united, fastened, conformed, and joined to our Lord, the more
stable and strong it is, the more wise and clear, good and peaceable, loving
and virtuous it is, and so it is more perfect. For a soul that has by the grace
of Jesus and long, hard work of bodily and spiritual exercise, overcome and
destroyed lusts, passions, and unreasonable impulses within itself, and without
in the sensuality, and is clothed all in virtues, as in meekness and mildness,
in patience and softness, in spiritual strength and righteousness, in
continence, in wisdom, in truth, hope and charity--then it is made as perfect
as it may be in this life. Much comfort it receives from our Lord, not only
inwardly, in its own secret nature, by virtue of the union to our Lord that
lies in knowing and loving God, in illumination and spiritual burning from Him,
in transforming of the soul into the Godhead; but also many other comforts,
savors, sweetnesses, and wonderful feelings in various manners, because our
Lord graciously visits His creatures here on earth, and because the soul
profits and grows in charity.
Some souls, by virtue of the love that God gives
them, are so cleansed that all creatures and everything they hear, or see, or
feel by any of the senses, turns them to comfort and gladness; and the
sensuality receives new savor and sweetness in all creatures. And just as
previously the sensual appetites were carnal, vain, and corrupt, because of the
pain of original sin, so now they are made spiritual and clean, without
bitterness and biting of conscience. And this is the goodness of our Lord, that
since the soul is punished in the sensuality, and the flesh shares the pain,
that afterward the soul be comforted in the sensuality, and the flesh join in
joy and comfort with the soul, not carnal, but spiritual, as it was a fellow in
tribulation and pain.
This is the freedom and the lordship, the
dignity, and the worth that a man has over all creatures, which dignity he may
so recover by grace here, that every creature appear to him as it is. And that
occurs when by grace he sees, he hears, he feels only God in all creatures. In
this way a soul is made spiritual in the sensuality by abundance of love, that
is, in the nature of the soul.
Also, our Lord comforts a soul by angel's song.
This song cannot be described by any bodily likeness, for it is spiritual, and
above all imagination and reason. It may be felt and perceived in a soul, but
it may not be showed. Nevertheless, I will speak of it to you as I think.
When a soul is purified by the love of God,
illumined by wisdom, and stabilized by the might of God, then the eye of the
soul is opened to see spiritual things, as virtues and angels and holy souls,
and heavenly things. Then, because it is clean, the soul is able to feel the
touching, the speaking of good angels. This touching and speaking is spiritual
and not bodily. For when the soul is lifted and ravished out of the sensuality,
and out of mind of any earthly things, then in great fervour of love and light
(if our Lord deigns) the soul may hear and feel heavenly sound, made by the
presence of angels in loving God.
Not that this song of angels is the supreme joy
of the soul; but because of the difference between a person's soul in flesh and
an angel, due to uncleanness, a soul may not hear it except by ravishing in
love, and it must be much purified and well cleaned, and filled with much love,
before it will be able to hear heavenly sound. For the supreme and essential
joy is in the love of God by Himself and for Himself, and the secondary is in
communing with and beholding angels and spiritual creatures. For just as a
soul, in understanding spiritual things, is often touched and moved through
bodily imagination by the work of angels, as when Ezekiel the prophet saw in
bodily imagination the truth of God's hidden mysteries, just so, in the love of
God, a soul by the presence of angels is ravished out of mind of all earthly
and fleshly things and filled with a heavenly joy, to hear angel's song and
heavenly sound, according to the measure of its love.
I think that no soul may truly feel the angel's
song or heavenly sound, unless it is in perfect love, though not all that are
in perfect love have felt it, but only the soul that is so purified in the fire
of love that all earthly savor is burned out of it, and all obstacles between
the soul and the cleanness of angels are broken and put away from it. Then
truly may he sing a new song, and truly may he hear a blessed heavenly sound,
and angel's song, without deceit or feigning. Our Lord knows the soul that, for
abundance of burning love, is worthy to hear angel's song.
Whoever would hear angel's song, and not be
deceived by feigning of himself, or by imagination, or by the illusion of the
enemy, should have perfect love. That is when all vain love and fear, vain joy
and sorrow, are cast out of the heart, so that it loves nothing but God, nor
fears anything but God, nor joys, nor sorrows in anything but God, or for God.
Whoever by the grace of God goes this way will not err.
Nevertheless, some are deceived by their own
imagination or by the illusion of the enemy in this matter. Such a person, who
may have worked long and hard, bodily and spiritually, in the destroying of
sins and gaining of virtues, and perhaps received by grace a little rest, and a
clarity in conscience, may soon leave prayers, readings of holy scriptures,
meditations on the passion of Christ, and thoughts of his wretchedness. Before
he is called by God, he tries, by his own skill and by violence, to seek and to
see heavenly things, before his eyes are made spiritual by grace. He overcomes
his reason by imagination, and by indiscreet effort turns the brains in his
head, and overworks the powers and the wits of the soul and of the body. And
then, because of weakness of the brain, he thinks that he hears wonderful
sounds and songs. But it is nothing but a fantasy, caused by troubling of the
brain, as a person in a frenzy thinks that he hears and sees what no one else
does. It is all vanity and a fantasy of the head, or else it is by the work of
the wicked enemy that feigns such sounds in his hearing.
For if a person has any presumption in his
fantasies and in his workings, and falls by them into indiscreet imagination,
as in a frenzy, and is not ordered or ruled by grace, or comforted by spiritual
strength, the devil enters in, and by his false illuminations, and by his false
sounds, and by his false sweetnesses, he deceives that soul. And of this false
ground spring errors, heresies, false prophecies, presumptions, false
reasonings, blasphemings, slanderings, and much other mischief. And, therefore,
if you see any spiritually-occupied person fall in any of these sins or
deceits, or into frenzies, know well that he never heard or felt angel's song
or heavenly sound. For, he who truly hears angel's song is made so wise that he
will never err by fantasy, or by indiscretion, or by deceptive working of the
devil.
Also, some people feel in their hearts what seem
to be spiritual sounds and sweet songs in various manners, and this is often
good, but sometimes it may turn to deceit. This sound is felt in this way. A
person sets the thought of his heart only in the name of Jesus, and firmly
holds it there, and in a short time he thinks that that name brings him great
comfort and sweetness, and he thinks that the name sounds delectably in his
heart, like a song; and this pleasure is so strong that it draws all the powers
of the soul to it. Whoever feels this sound and this sweetness truly in his
heart, knows that it is of God, and, as long as he is humble, he shall not be
deceived.
But this is not angel's song; it is a song of the
soul by virtue of the name and by a touching of the good angel. For when a soul
offers himself to Jesus truly and humbly, putting all his trust and his desire
in Him, and busily keeping Him in mind, our Lord Jesus, when He will, purges
the affection of the soul, and fills it and feeds it with sweetness of Himself,
and makes His name feel in the soul as honey, and as song, and as anything that
is delectable; so that the soul evermore wants to cry Jesus, Jesus. And
he has comfort not only in this, but also in psalms and hymns, and anthems of
holy Church; the heart sings them sweetly, devoutly, and freely, without any
effort of the soul or bitterness, in the music that the holy Church uses.
This is good, and a gift of God, for the
substance of this feeling lies in the love of Jesus, which is fed and
illuminated by such songs. Nevertheless, in this manner of feeling, a soul may
be deceived by pride--not while the affection sings to Jesus, and loves Jesus
in sweetness of Him, but afterward, when it ceases and the heart cools down
from the love of Jesus. Then pride may enter in.
Also, a man may be deceived in this way: he hears
it said that it is good to have Jesus in his mind, or any other good word of
God, so he strains his heart mightily to that name, and by habit he has it
nearly always in his mind. Nevertheless, he does not feel by it sweetness in
his affection or light of knowing in his reason, but only an abstract thought
of God, or of Jesus, or of Mary, or of any other good word. Here may be deceit,
not that it is evil to have Jesus in mind in this way, but if he holds this
feeling and this thought (which is only by his own effort and habit) to be a
special visitation of our Lord, he thinks it more than it is.
For note well that an abstract thought or
imagination of Jesus, or of any spiritual thing, without sweetness of love in
the affection, and without light of knowing in reason, is but a blindness, and
a way to deceit, if a man hold it to be more than it is. Therefore I think it
safer that he be humble in his own feeling, and not esteem this thought at all,
till he may, by habit and use of this thought, feel the fire of love in his
affection, and the light of knowing in his reason.
Now, I have told you in this matter a little of
what I think, not affirming that this suffices, or that this is the truth of
the matter. But if you think otherwise, or if anyone else savor by grace the
contrary, I defer to him; it suffices for me to live in truth principally, and
not in feeling.
EXPLICIT