Abbreviations
A. Ms. Add. 37790 Brit. Mus.
Bg. La Bigne's Maxima Biblioteca Patrum.
C. Corpus Christi Coll. MS. 236 Oxfd.
D. Douce MS. 322 Bod.
E.E.T.S. Early English Text Society.
L. MS. Dd. 5.64 Camb.
M.E. Middle English.
O.E.D. Oxford English Dictionary.
Sp. Speculum Spiritualium.
EDITOR'S PREFACE
Of mysticism, as of all the greatest
things in life, the characteristic notes are sincerity and simplicity. Its
nature and birth are better felt by the heart than uttered by the tongue.
Therefore the increasing interest in mysticism, evidenced by the multiplication
of books, essays, criticism, and correspondence on the subject, is rather to be
dreaded than welcomed by the mystic. For mysticism like love is shy as the wild
bird. Criticism destroys it; discussion frightens it away. Doubtless it can
live in the heart of every man; only that heart must be pure, and free from
anxiety and worldly love; since to the Christian mysticism is nothing else that
that love which is the sole definition of God that man can comprehend.
He that has found the secret of this love, which
possesses alike the world of nature and of man, has found the secret of the
mystic. For it is not a respecter of persons, nor reserved for the few. The old
woman sitting over her peat fire, the shepherd upon the lonely hills, the
workman breaking stones by the roadside, even the "great divine lapped in
infinite questions" or the anchoress in her cell; all indeed who are "more busy
to know God than many things," have glimpses of this secret. And it was for
those who would rather know God's love than know about it that this book was
written so long ago.
For six centuries the dust of oblivion has hidden
Richard Rolle from our knowledge. True, his name was known as the author of a
long Northern poem called the Prick of Conscience, but it has lately
been proved that, whatever else he may have written, this most certainly he did
not write.[2] Of him and of the other English
mystics of his time, we knew but little. As we may have stood by and watched a
statue, modeled by some sculptor dead these many hundred years, being slowly
and carefully unearthed in a villa garden near Rome, so now we look on with
interest as scholars, mostly of other nations than our own, are laboriously
restoring to us the mystical writings of these Englishmen, long ago dead, and
now for the most part nameless.
Yet Richard Rolle, the first of these great
mystics, had revealed himself to us in his writings. Race counts for much in
character, and in reading his books we can never forget that he comes of the
sturdy stock of Yorkshiremen. Honest, somewhat blunt and plainspoken,
especially in regard to women, and full of common sense, it is the more
remarkable that he should in so many ways recall to us the sweet singer of
Assisi. And yet, as Miss Underhill has shown us, he joins hands across the
century with the poet of love and poverty who preached to the birds under the
ilex-tree at the Carceri; while from another point of view he has kinship with
the monk of Windesheim, the words of whose Ecclesiastical Music are
constantly recalled to our minds by this other Melody of Love. As we
read it we find that the problems which confronted Richard in his hermit's cell
at Hampole are the same as confront the thoughtful man today. He is distressed
by the friendlessness, rather than the poverty, of the poor; the oppression and
worldliness of the rich; the wrong and selfish acquisition of land; the utter
destructiveness of sin; the hypocrisy and backbiting of those who "fill the
kirks." Then, as now, men desired to escape from the transient to the eternal;
from the overwhelming power of the material to the spiritual; from the turmoil
and confusion of strange ideas and social upheaval and crying injustice, to the
rest and peace to be found in humility and brotherly love. As in the old emblem
of the two crossed pieces of wood bearing the wayfarer safely over the stormy
sea, the love of God laid athwart the love of man bears the soul safely over
the waves of this life.
And this love is the sum and substance of Rolle's
mysticism. We find in his writings few definitions or classifications, which
are so frequent in many mystical works; for it was as impossible for him as for
Saint Francis--who in his life was the greatest exponent of mysticism that the
world has ever seen--to lay down rules regarding love. The love of child and
parent, of young man and maid, with all the deeds of heroism and sacrifice
which such love has engendered, are but as pale symbols of the love which has
given birth to the ancient literature of mysticism. This love is as a fire or a
raging flame. "It verily inflames the mind," says Richard; "Love sets my heart
on fire," sings Francis.
To most this love comes only as the reward of
long search and striving. It is a quest on which a man may start out in
company, but he must end alone--with God: and in proportion as we attain to it
we find the solution of many problems, the secret of life, and the key to the
"mysteries of the Kingdom."
[2] See The Authorship of the Prick of
Conscience, by H. E. Allen, Radcliffe College Monographs, No. 15 (Ginn
& Co., 1910)