John, Ascent of Carmel 2 6
Wherein is described how it is the three theological virtues that perfectthe three faculties of the soul, and how the said virtues produce emptinessand darkness within them.
1 HAVING now to endeavour to show how(236) the three faculties of the soul-- understanding, memory and will -- are brought into this spiritual night,which is the means to Divine union, it is necessary first of all to explainin this chapter how the three theological virtues -- faith, hope and charity-- which have respect to the three faculties aforesaid as their propersupernatural objects, and by means whereof the soul is united with God accordingto its faculties, produce the same emptiness and darkness, each one in itsown faculty. Faith, in the understanding; hope, in the memory; and charity,in the will. And afterwards we shall go on to describe how the understandingis perfected in the darkness of faith; and the memory in the emptiness ofhope; and likewise how the will must be buried by withdrawing and detachingevery affection so that the soul may journey to God. This done, it will beclearly seen how necessary it is for the soul, if it is to walk securelyon this spiritual road, to travel through this dark night, leaning upon thesethree virtues, which empty it of all things and make it dark with respectto them. For, as we have said, the soul is not united with God in this lifethrough understanding, nor through enjoyment, nor through the imagination,nor through any sense whatsoever; but only through faith, according to theunderstanding; and through hope, according to the memory; and through love,according to the will.
2. These three virtues, as we have said, all causeemptiness in the faculties: faith, in the understanding, causes an emptinessand darkness with respect to understanding; hope, in the memory, causes emptinessof all possessions; and charity causes emptiness in the will and detachmentfrom all affection and from rejoicing in all that is not God. For, as wesee, faith tells us what cannot be understood with the understanding. WhereforeSaint Paul spoke of it ad Hebraeos after this manner: Fides est sperandarumsubstantia rerum, argumentum non apparentium.(237) This we interpret as meaningthat faith is the substance of things hoped for; and, although the understandingmay be firmly and certainly consenting to them, they are not things thatare revealed to the understanding, since, if they were revealed to it, therewould be no faith. So faith, although it brings certainty to the understanding,brings it not clearness, but obscurity.
3. Then, as to hope, there is nodoubt but that it renders the memory empty and dark with respect both tothings below and to things above. For hope always relates to that which isnot possessed; for, if it were possessed, there would be no more hope. WhereforeSaint Paul says ad Romanos: Spes, quae videtur, non est spes: nam quod videtquis, quid sperat?(238) That is to say: Hope that is seen is not hope; forwhat a man seeth -- that is, what a man possesseth -- how doth he hope forit? This virtue, then, also produces emptiness, for it has to do with thatwhich is not possessed and not with that which is possessed.
4. Similarity, charity causes emptiness in the will with respect to all things, since itobliges us to love God above them all; which cannot be unless we withdrawour affection from them in order to set it wholly upon God. Wherefore Christsays, through Saint Luke: Qui non renuntiat omnibus quae possidet, non potestmeus esse discipulus.(239) Which signifies: He that renounces not all thathe possesses with the will cannot be My disciple. And thus all these threevirtues set the soul in obscurity and emptiness with respect to all things.
5. And here we must consider that parable which our Redeemer related in theeleventh chapter of Saint Luke, wherein He said that a friend had to go outat midnight in order to ask his friend for three loaves;(240) the which loavessignify these three virtues. And he said that he asked for them at midnightin order to signify that the soul that is in darkness as to all things mustacquire these three virtues according to its faculties and must perfect itselfin them in this night. In the sixth chapter of Isaias we read that the twoseraphim whom this Prophet saw on either side of God had each six wings;with two they covered their feet, which signified the blinding and quenchingof the affections of the will with respect to all things for the sake ofGod; and with two they covered their face, which signified the darkness ofthe understanding in the presence of God; and with the other two they flew.(241)This is to signify the flight of hope to the things that are not possessed,when it is raised above all that it can possess, whether below or above,apart from God.
6. To these three virtues, then, we have to lead the threefaculties of the soul, informing each faculty by each one of them, and strippingit and setting it in darkness concerning all things save only these threevirtues. And this is the spiritual night which just now we called active;for the soul does that which in it lies in order to enter therein. And evenas, in the night of sense, we described a method of voiding the facultiesof sense of their sensible objects, with regard to the desire, so that thesoul might go forth from the beginning of its course to the mean,(242) whichis faith; even so, in this spiritual night, with the favour of God, we shalldescribe a method whereby the spiritual faculties are voided and purifiedof all that is not God, and are set in darkness concerning these three virtues,which, as we have said, are the means and preparation for the union of thesoul with God.
7. In this method is found all security against the craftsof the devil and against the efficacy of self-love and its ramifications,which is wont most subtly to deceive and hinder spiritual persons on theirroad, when they know not how to become detached and to govern themselvesaccording to these three virtues; and thus they are never able to reach thesubstance and purity of spiritual good, nor do they journey by so straightand short a road as they might.
8. And it must be noted that I am now speakingparticularly to those who have begun to enter the state of contemplation,because as far as this concerns beginners it must be described somewhat moreamply, as we shall note in the second book, God willing, when we treat ofthe properties of these beginners.
Wherein is described how strait is the way that leads to eternal life andhow completely detached and disencumbered must be those that will walk init. We begin to speak of the detachment of the understanding.
1 WE have now to describe the detachment and purity of the three facultiesof the soul and for this are necessary a far greater knowledge and spiritualitythan mine, in order to make clear to spiritual persons how strait is thisroad which, said Our Saviour, leads to life; so that, persuaded of this,they may not marvel at the emptiness and detachment to which, in this night,we have to abandon the faculties of the soul.
2. To this end must be carefullynoted the words which Our Saviour used, in the seventh chapter of Saint Matthew,concerning this road, as follows: Quam angusta porta, et arcta via est, quaeducit ad vitam, et pauci sunt, qui inveniunt eam.(243) This signifies: Howstrait is the gate and how narrow the way that leadeth unto life, and fewthere are that find it! In this passage we must carefully note the emphasisand insistence which are contained in that word Quam. For it is as if Hehad said: In truth the way is very strait, more so than you think. And likewiseit is to be noted that He says first that the gate is strait, to make itclear that, in order for the soul to enter by this gate, which is Christ,and which comes at the beginning of the road, the will must first be straitenedand detached in all things sensual and temporal, and God must be loved abovethem all; which belongs to the night of sense, as we have said.
3. He then says that the way is narrow -- that is to say, the way of perfection -- inorder to make it clear that, to travel upon the way of perfection, the soulhas not only to enter by the strait gate, emptying itself of things of sense,but has also to straiten(244) itself, freeing and disencumbering itselfcompletely in that which pertains to the spirit. And thus we can apply whatHe says of the strait gate to the sensual part of man; and what He says ofthe narrow road we can understand of the spiritual or the rational part;and, when He says 'Few there are that find it,' the reason of this must benoted, which is that there are few who can enter, and desire to enter, intothis complete detachment and emptiness of spirit. For this path ascendingthe high mountain of perfection leads upward, and is narrow, and thereforerequires travellers that have no burden weighing upon them with respect tolower things, neither aught that embarrasses them with respect to higherthings: and, as this is a matter wherein we must seek after and attain toGod alone, God alone must be the object of our search and attainment.
4. Hence it is clearly seen that the soul must not only be disencumbered fromthat which belongs to the creatures, but likewise, as it travels, must beannihilated and detached from all that belongs to its spirit. Wherefore OurLord, instructing us and leading us into this road, gave, in the eighth chapterof St. Mark, that wonderful teaching of which I think it may almost be saidthat, the more necessary it is for spiritual persons, the less it is practisedby them. As this teaching is so important and so much to our purpose, I shallreproduce it here in full, and expound it according to its genuine, spiritualsense. He says, then, thus: Si quis vult me sequi, deneget semetipsum: ettollat crucem suam, et sequatur me. Qui enim voluerit animam suam salvamfacere, perdet eam: qui autem perdiderit animam suam propter me. . . salvamlacier eam.(245) This signifies: If any man will follow My road, let himdeny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. For he that will save hissoul shall lose it; but he that loses it for My sake, shall gain it.
5. Oh, that one could show us how to understand, practise and experience what thiscounsel is which our Saviour here gives us concerning self-denial,(246) sothat spiritual persons might see in how different a way they should conductthemselves upon this road from that which many of them think proper! Forthey believe that any kind of retirement and reformation of life suffices;and others are content with practising the virtues and continuing in prayerand pursuing mortification; but they attain not to detachment and povertyor selflessness(247) or spiritual purity (which are all one), which the Lordhere commends to us; for they prefer feeding and clothing their natural selveswith spiritual feelings and consolations, to stripping themselves of allthings, and denying themselves all things, for God's sake. For they thinkthat it suffices to deny themselves worldly things without annihilating andpurifying themselves of spiritual attachment. Wherefore it comes to passthat, when there presents itself to them any of this solid and perfectspirituality, consisting in the annihilation of all sweetness in God, inaridity, distaste and trial, whi ch is the true spiritual cross, and thedetachment of the spiritual poverty of Christ, they flee from it as fromdeath, and seek only sweetness and delectable communion with God. This isnot self-denial and detachment of spirit, but spiritual gluttony. Herein,spiritually, they become enemies of the Cross of Christ; for true spiritualityseeks for God's sake that which is distasteful rather than that which isdelectable; and inclines itself rather to suffering than to consolation;and desires to go without all blessings for God's sake rather than to possessthem; and to endure aridities and afflictions rather than to enjoy sweetcommunications, knowing that this is to follow Christ and to deny oneself,and that the other is perchance to seek oneself in God, which is clean contraryto love. For to seek oneself in God is to seek the favours and refreshmentsof God; but to seek God in oneself is not only to desire to be without bothof these for God's sake, but to be disposed to choose, for Christ's sake,all that is most distasteful, whether in relation to God or to the world;and this is love of God.
6. Oh, that one could tell us how far Our Lord desiresthis self-denial to be carried! It must certainly be like to death andannihilation, temporal, natural and spiritual, in all things that the willesteems, wherein consists all self-denial. And it is this that Our Lord meantwhen He said: 'He that will save his life, the same shall lose it.' Thatis to say: He that will possess anything or seek anything for himself, thesame shall lose it; and he that loses his soul for My sake, the same shallgain it. That is to say: He who for Christ's sake renounces all that hiswill can desire and enjoy, and chooses that which is most like to the Cross(which the Lord Himself, through Saint John, describes as hating his soul(248)),the same shall gain it. And this His Majesty taught to those two discipleswho went and begged Him for a place on His right hand and on His left; when,giving no countenance to their request for such glory, He offered them thechalice which He had to drink, as a thing more precious and more secure uponthis earth than is fruition.(249)
7. This chalice is death to the naturalself, a death attained through the detachment and annihilation of that self,in order that the soul may travel by this narrow path, with respect to allits connections with sense, as we have said, and according to the spirit,as we shall now say; that is, in its understanding and in its enjoyment andin its feeling. And, as a result, not only has the soul made its renunciationas regards both sense and spirit, but it is not hindered, even by that whichis spiritual, in taking the narrow way, on which there is room only for self-denial (as the Saviour explains), and the Cross, which is the staff wherewithone may reach one+s goal, and whereby the road is greatly lightened and madeeasy. Wherefore Our Lord said through Saint Matthew: 'My yoke is easy andMy burden is light'; which burden is the cross. For if a man resolve to submithimself to carrying this cross -- that is to say, if he resolve to desirein truth to meet trials and to bear them in all things for God's sake, hewill find in them all great relief and sweetness wherewith he may travelupon this road, detached from all things and desiring nothing. Yet, if hedesire to possess anything -- whether it come from God or from any othersource -- with any feeling of attachment, he has not stripped and deniedhimself in all things; and thus he will be unable to walk along this narrowpath or to climb upward by it.
8. I would, then, that I could convince spiritualpersons that this road to God consists not in a multiplicity of meditationsnor in ways or methods of such, nor in consolations, although these thingsmay in their own way be necessary to beginners; but that it consists onlyin the one thing that is needful, which is the ability to deny oneself truly,according to that which is without and to that which is within, giving oneselfup to suffering for Christ's sake, and to total annihilation. For the soulthat practises this suffering and annihilation will achieve all that thoseother exercises can achieve, and that can be found in them, and even more.And if a soul be found wanting in this exercise, which is the sum and rootof the virtues, all its other methods are so much beating about the bush,and profiting not at all, although its meditations and communications maybe as lofty as those of the angels. For progress comes not save through theimitation of Christ, Who is the Way, the Truth and the Life, and no man comesto the Father but by Him, even as He Himself says through Saint John.(250)And elsewhere He says: 'I am the door; by Me if any man enter he shall besaved.'(251) Wherefore, as it seems to me, any spirituality that would fainwalk in sweetness and with ease, and flees from the imitation of Christ,is worthless.
9. And, as I have said that Christ is the Way, and that thisWay is death to our natural selves, in things both of sense and of spirit,I will now explain how we are to die, following the example of Christ, forHe is our example and light.
10. In the first place, it is certain that Hedied as to sense, spiritually, in His life, besides dying naturally, at Hisdeath. For, as He said, He had not in His life where to lay His head, andat His death this was even truer.
11. In the second place, it is certainthat, at the moment of His death, He was likewise annihilated in His soul,and was deprived of any relief and consolation, since His Father left Himin the most intense aridity, according to the lower part of His nature. WhereforeHe had perforce to cry out, saying: 'My God! My God! 'Why hast Thou forsakenMe?'(252) This was the greatest desolation, with respect to sense, that Hehad suffered in His life. And thus He wrought herein the greatest work thatHe had ever wrought, whether in miracles or in mighty works, during the wholeof His life, either upon earth or in Heaven, which was the reconciliationand union of mankind, through grace, with God. And this, as I say, was atthe moment and the time when this Lord was most completely annihilated ineverything. Annihilated, that is to say, with respect to human reputation;since, when men saw Him die, they mocked Him rather than esteemed Him; andalso with respect to nature, since His nature was annihilated when He died;and further with respect to the spiritual consolation and protection of theFather, since at that time He forsook Him, that He might pay the whole ofman's debt and unite him with God, being thus annihilated and reduced asit were to nothing. Wherefore David says concerning Him: Ad nihilum redactussum, et nescivi.(253) This he said that the truly spiritual man may understandthe mystery of the gate and of the way of Christ, and so become united withGod, and may know that, the more completely he is annihilated for God's sake,according to these two parts, the sensual and the spiritual, the more completelyis he united to God and the greater is the work which he accomplishes. Andwhen at last he is reduced to nothing, which will be the greatest extremeof humility, spiritual union will be wrought between the soul and God, whichin this life is the greatest and the highest state attainable. This consistsnot, then, in refreshment and in consolations and spiritual feelings, butin a living death of the Cross, both as to sense and as to spirit -- thatis, both inwardly and outwardly.
12. I will not pursue this subject farther,although I have no desire to finish speaking of it, for I see that Christis known very little by those who consider themselves His friends: we seethem seeking in Him their own pleasures and consolations because of theirgreat love for themselves, but not loving His bitter trials and His deathbecause of their great love for Him. I am speaking now of those who considerthemselves His friends; for such as live far away, withdrawn from Him, menof great learning and influence, and all others who live yonder, with theworld, and are eager about their ambitions and their prelacies, may be saidnot to know Christ; and their end, however good, will be very bitter. Ofsuch I make no mention in these lines; but mention will be made of them onthe Day of Judgment, for to them it was fitting to speak first this wordof God,(254) as to those whom God set up as a target for it,(255) by reasonof their learning and their high position.
13. But let us now address theunderstanding of the spiritual man, and particularly that of the man to whomGod has granted the favour of leading him into the state of contemplation(for, as I have said, I am now speaking to these in particular), and letus say how such a man must direct himself toward God in faith, and purifyhimself from contrary things, constraining himself that he may enter uponthis narrow path of obscure contemplation.
Which describes in a general way how no creature and no knowledge that canbe comprehended by the understanding can serve as a proximate means of Divineunion with God.
1 BEFORE we treat of the proper and fitting means of union with God, whichis faith, it behoves us to prove how no thing, created or imagined, can servethe understanding as a proper means of union with God; and how all that theunderstanding can attain serves it rather as an impediment than as such ameans, if it should desire to cling to it. And now, in this chapter, we shallprove this in a general way, and afterwards we shall begin to speak in detail,treating in turn of all kinds of knowledge that the understanding may receivefrom any sense, whether inward or outward, and of the inconveniences andevils that may result from all these kinds of inward and outward knowledge,when it clings not, as it progresses, to the proper means, which is faith.
2. It must be understood, then, that, according to a rule of philosophy,all means must be proportioned to the end; that is to say, they must havesome connection and resemblance with the end, such as is enough and sufficientfor the desired end to be attained through them. I take an example. A mandesires to reach a city; he has of necessity to travel by the road, whichis the means that brings him to this same city and connects(256) him withit. Another example. Fire is to be combined and united with wood; it is necessarythat heat, which is the means, shall first prepare the wood, by conveyingto it so many degrees of warmth that it will have great resemblance andproportion to fire. Now if one would prepare the wood by any other than theproper means -- namely, with heat -- as, for example, with air or water orearth, it would be impossible for the wood to be united with the fire, justas it would be to reach the city without going by the road that leads toit. Wherefore, in order that the understanding may be united with God inthis life, so far as is possible, it must of necessity employ that meansthat unites it with Him and that bears the greatest resemblance to Him.
3.Here it must be pointed out that, among all the creatures, the highest orthe lowest, there is none that comes near to God or bears any resemblanceto His Being. For, although it is true that all creatures have, as theologianssay, a certain relation to God, and bear a Divine impress (some more andothers less, according to the greater or lesser excellence of their nature),yet there is no essential resemblance or connection between them and God-- on the contrary, the distance between their being and His Divine Beingis infinite. Wherefore it is impossible for the understanding to attain toGod by means of the creatures, whether these be celestial or earthly, inasmuchas there is no proportion or resemblance between them. Wherefore, when Davidspeaks of the heavenly creatures, he says: 'There is none among the godslike unto Thee, O Lord';(257) meaning by the gods the angels and holy souls.And elsewhere: 'O God, Thy way is in the holy place. What God is there sogreat as our God?'(258) As though he were to say: The way of approach toThee, O God, is a holy way -- that is, the purity of faith. For what Godcan there be so great? That is to say: What angel will there be so exaltedin his being, and what saint so exalted in glory, as to be a proportionateand sufficient road by which a man may come to Thee? And the same David,speaking likewise of earthly and heavenly things both together, says: 'TheLord is high and looketh on lowly things, and the high things He knowethafar off'(259) As though he had said: Lofty in His own Being, He sees thatthe being of things here below is very low in comparison with His lofty Being;and the lofty things, which are the celestial creatures, He sees and knowsto be very far from His Being. All the creatures, then, cannot serve as aproportionate means to the understanding whereby it may reach God.
4. Just so all that the imagination can imagine and the understanding can receiveand understand in this life is not, nor can it be, a proximate means of unionwith God. For, if we speak of natural things, since understanding can understandnaught save that which is contained within, and comes under the categoryof, forms and imaginings of things that are received through the bodily senses,the which things, we have said, cannot serve as means, it can make no useof natural intelligence. And, if we speak of the supernatural (in so faras is possible in this life of our ordinary faculties), the understandingin its bodily prison has no preparation or capacity for receiving the clearknowledge of God; for such knowledge belongs not to this state, and we musteither die or remain without receiving it. Wherefore Moses, when he entreatedGod for this clear knowledge, was told by God that he would be unable tosee Him, in these words: 'No man shall see Me and remain alive.'(260) WhereforeSaint John says: 'No man hath seen God at any time,(261) neither aught thatis like to Him.' And Saint Paul says, with Isaias: 'Eye hath not seen Him,nor hath ear heard Him, neither hath it entered into the heart of man.'(262)And it is for this reason that, as is said in the Acts of the Apostles,(263)Moses, in the bush, durst not consider for as long as God was present; forhe knew that his understanding could make no consideration that was fittingconcerning God, corresponding to the sense which he had of God's presence.And of Elias, our father, it is said that he covered his face on the Mountin the presence of God(264) -- an action signifying the blinding of hisunderstanding, which he wrought there, daring not to lay so base a hand uponthat which was so high, and seeing clearly that whatsoever he might consideror understand with any precision would be very far from God and completelyunlike Him.
5. Wherefore no supernatural apprehension or knowledge in thismortal state can serve as a proximate means to the high union of love withGod. For all that can be understood by the understanding, that can be tastedby the will, and that can be invented by the imagination is most unlike toGod and bears no proportion to Him, as we have said. All this Isaias admirablyexplained in that most noteworthy passage, where he says: 'To what thinghave ye been able to liken God? Or what image will ye make that is like toHim? Will the workman in iron perchance be able to make a graven image? Orwill he that works gold be able to imitate Him(265) with gold, or the silversmithwith plates of silver?'(266) By the workman in iron is signified theunderstanding, the office of which is to form intelligences and strip themof the iron of species and images. By the workman in gold is understood thewill, which is able to receive the figure and the form of pleasure, causedby the gold of love. By the silversmith, who is spoken of as being unableto form(267) Him with plates of silver, is understood the memory, with theimagination, whereof it may be said with great propriety that its knowledgeand the imaginings that it can invent(268) and make are like plates of silver.And thus it is as though he had said: Neither the understanding with itsintelligence will be able to understand aught that is like Him, nor can thewill taste pleasure and sweetness that bears any resemblance to that whichis God, neither can the memory set in the imagination ideas and images thatrepresent Him. It is clear, then, that none of these kinds of knowledge canlead the understanding direct to God; and that, in order to reach Him, asoul must rather proceed by not understanding than by desiring to understand;and by blinding itself and setting itself in darkness, rather than by openingits eyes, in order the more nearly to approach the ray Divine.
6. And thus it is that contemplation, whereby the understanding has the loftiest knowledgeof God, is called mystical theology, which signifies secret wisdom of God;for it is secret even to the understanding that receives it. For that reasonSaint Dionysius calls it a ray of darkness. Of this the prophet Baruch says:'There is none that knoweth its way, nor any that can think of its paths.'(269)It is clear, then, that the understanding must be blind to all paths thatare open to it in order that it may be united with God. Aristotle says that,even as are the eyes of the bat with regard to the sun, which is total darknessto it, even so is our understanding to that which is greater light in God,which is total darkness to us. And he says further that, the loftier andclearer are the things of God in themselves, the more completely unknownand obscure are they to us. This likewise the Apostle affirms, saying: 'Thelofty things of God are the least known unto men.'(270)
7. But we should never end if we continued at this rate to quote authorities and argumentsto prove and make clear that among all created things, and things that canbe apprehended by the understanding, there is no ladder whereby the understandingcan attain to this high Lord. Rather it is necessary to know that, if theunderstanding should seek to make use of all these things, or of any of them,as a proximate means to such union, they would be not only a hindrance, buteven an occasion of numerous errors and delusions in the ascent of this mount.
How faith is the proximate and proportionate means to the understanding wherebythe soul may attain to the Divine union of love. This is proved by passagesand figures from Divine Scripture.
1 FROM what has been said it is to be inferred that, in order for the understandingto be prepared for this Divine union, it must be pure and void of all thatpertains to sense, and detached and freed from all that can clearly beapprehended by the understanding, profoundly hushed and put to silence, andleaning upon faith, which alone is the proximate and proportionate meanswhereby the soul is united with God; for such is the likeness between itselfand God that there is no other difference, save that which exists betweenseeing God and believing in Him. For, even as God is infinite, so faith setsHim before us as infinite; and, as He is Three and One, it sets Him beforeus as Three and One; and, as God is darkness to our understanding, even sodoes faith likewise blind and dazzle our understanding. And thus, by thismeans alone, God manifests Himself to the soul in Divine light, which passesall understanding. And therefore, the greater is the faith of the soul, themore closely is it united with God. It is this that Saint Paul meant in thepassage which we quoted above, where he says: 'He that will be united withGod must believe.'(271) That is, he must walk by faith as he journeys toHim, the understanding being blind and in darkness, walking in faith alone;for beneath this darkness the understanding is united with God, and beneathit God is hidden, even as David said in these words: 'He set darkness underHis feet . And He rose upon the cherubim, and flew upon the wings of thewind. And He made darkness, and the dark water, His hiding-place.'(272)
2. By his saying that He set darkness beneath His feet, and that He took thedarkness for a hiding-place, and that His tabernacle round about Him wasin the dark water, is denoted the obscurity of the faith wherein He is concealed.And by his saying that He rose upon the cherubim and flew upon the wingsof the winds, is understood His soaring above all understanding. For thecherubim denote those who understand or contemplate. And the wings of thewinds signify the subtle and lofty ideas and conceptions of spirits, aboveall of which is His Being, and to which none, by his own power, can attain.
3. This we learn from an illustration in the Scriptures. When Solomon hadcompleted the building of the Temple, God came down in darkness and filledthe Temple so that the children of Israel could not see; whereupon Solomonspake and said: 'The Lord hath promised that He will dwell in darkness'.(273)Likewise He appeared in darkness to Moses on the Mount, where God was concealed.And whensoever God communicated Himself intimately, He appeared in darkness,as may be seen in Job, where the Scripture says that God spoke with him fromthe darkness of the air.(274) All these mentions of darkness signify theobscurity of the faith wherein the Divinity is concealed, when It communicatesItself to the soul; which will be ended when, as Saint Paul says, that whichis in part shall be ended,(275) which is this darkness of faith, and thatwhich is perfect shall come, which is the Divine light. Of this we have agood illustration in the army of Gedeon, whereof it is said all the soldiershad lamps in their hands, which they saw not, because they had them concealedin the darkness of the pitchers; but, when these pitchers were broken, thelight was seen.(276) Just so does faith, which is foreshadowed by those pitchers,contain within itself Divine light; which, when it is ended and broken, atthe ending and breaking of this mortal life, will allow the glory and lightof the Divinity, which was contained in it, to appear.
4. It is clear, then, that, if the soul in this life is to attain to union with God, and communedirectly with Him, it must unite itself with the darkness whereof Solomonspake, wherein God had promised to dwell, and must draw near to the darknessof the air wherein God was pleased to reveal His secrets to Job, and musttake in its hands, in darkness, the jars of Gedeon, that it may have in itshands (that is, in the works of its will) the light, which is the union oflove, though it be in the darkness of faith, so that, when the pitchers ofthis life are broken, which alone have kept from it the light of faith, itmay see God face to face in glory.
5. It now remains to describe in detailall the types of knowledge and the apprehensions which the understandingcan receive; the hindrance and the harm which it can receive upon this roadof faith; and the way wherein the soul must conduct itself so that, whetherthey proceed from the senses or from the spirit, they may cause it, not harm,but profit.
John, Ascent of Carmel 2 6