The Dark Night of the SoulChapter XVII. Gives the second line and explains how this dim contemplation is secret

1. Three points of explanation: secret, ladder, disguised. 2. Secret. 3, Continuation. 4. Nature of divine language. 5. Jeremias and Moses

6. Difficulties of contemplation with their directors. 7. The soul hidden in the abyss of wisdom. 8. Continuation. 9. It leads the soul to union with a hidden God. 10. Contemplation an infusion of the secret wisdom of God.

By the secret ladder, disguised.

I HAVE three things to explain in reference to the three words of this line. Two of them—‘secret’ and ‘ladder’ —belong to the dark night of contemplation of which I am speaking, but the third—‘disguised'—belongs to the way of the soul therein. As to the first, the soul calls the dim contemplation, by which it goes forth to the union of love, a secret ladder, and that because of two properties of it which I am going to explain, namely, that it is secret, and that it is a ladder. First, this dark contemplation is called secret, because it is, as I have said before, the mystical theology which theologians call secret wisdom, and which, according to St. Thomas, is infused into the soul more especially by love. This happens in a secret hidden way in which the natural operations of the understanding and the other faculties have no share. And, therefore, because the faculties of the soul cannot compass it, it being the Holy Ghost Who infuses it into the soul, in a way it knoweth not, as the Bride saith in the Canticle, we call it secret.

2. And, in truth, it is not the soul only that knows it not, but every one else, even the devil; because the Master who now teaches the soul dwells substantially within it, whither Satan cannot penetrate, neither the natural senses nor the understanding. This is not the only reason why it is called secret, for it is secret also in its effects. It is not only secret beyond the powers of the soul to speak of it, during the darkness and sharpness of the purgation, when the secret wisdom is purifying the soul, but afterwards also, during the illumination, when that wisdom is most clearly communicated, it is so secret that it cannot be discerned or described. Moreover, the soul has no wish to speak of it, and besides, it can discover no way or proper similitude to describe it by, so as to make known a knowledge so high, a spiritual impression so delicate and infused. Yea, and if it could have a wish to speak of it, and find terms to describe it, it would always remain secret still,

3. Because this interior wisdom is so simple, general, and spiritual, that it enters not into the understanding under any form or image subject to sense, as is sometimes the case, the imagination, therefore, and the senses—as it has not entered in by them, nor is modified by them—cannot account for it, nor form any conception of it, so as to speak in any degree correctly about it, though the soul be distinctly conscious that it feels and tastes this sweet and strange wisdom. The soul is like a man who sees an object for the first time, the like of which he has never seen before; he handles it and feels it, yet he cannot say what it is, or tell its name, do what he may, though it be at the same time an object cognisable by the senses. How much less then can that be described which does not enter in by the senses?

4. Such is the nature of the divine language that the more interior, infused, and spiritual it is, the more it transcends every sense; the powers of the senses, interior and exterior, cease, and their harmonies become mute.

5. The Holy Writings supply both proofs and illustrations of this principle. Jeremias shows the impossibility of manifesting and expressing it in words: for when God had spoken to him he knew not what to say, except ‘Ah, ah, ah, Lord God.' Moses, also, is an instance of the interior helplessness, that is, of the interior imaginative sense, and of the exterior also at the same time: for when God spoke to him out of the bush, he not only saw that he could not speak, but, as is said in the Acts of the Apostles, he ‘durst not behold,' that is, with the interior imagination, which he considered far removed and powerless not only to form some picture of what he saw in God, but not even capable of receiving an impression thereof. Hence, inasmuch as the wisdom of this contemplation is the language of God addressed to the soul, as of a pure Spirit speaking to another pure spirit, nothing inferior to a spirit, such as the senses, is able to perceive it; it remains, therefore, a secret to them which they neither know nor can express, nor do they wish to know it because they do not even see it.!

6. This explains why some persons, walking in this way, good and timid souls, who, when they would give an account of their interior state to their directors, know not how to do it, neither have they the power to do it, and so feel a great repugnance to explain themselves,

1 jer. i. 6. 2 Exod. iv. 10, 3 Acts vii. 32.

4 Pero ni aun con la imaginación interior no se atrevió 4 considerar, pareciendole que la imaginación estaba muy lejos y muda no sólo para former also de aquello que entendia en Dios, pero ni aun capacidad para recibir also de ella. De donde por cuanto la sabiduria de esta contemplación es lenguaje de Dios al alma de puro espíritu a espíritu puro, to do lo que es menos que espiritu come son los sentidos, no lo perciben, y asi les es secreto y no lo saben ni pueden decir, ni tienen gana porque no le ven, especially when contemplation is the more simple and with difficulty discernible by them. All they can say is that their soul is satisfied, calm, or contented, that they have a sense of the presence of God, and that all goes well with them, as they think; but they cannot explain their state, except by general expressions of this kind. But it is a different matter when they have a consciousness of particular things, such as visions, impressions, and the like; these in general are communicated under some species, in which the senses participate; in that case they are able to describe them. But it is not in the nature of pure contemplation that it can be described; for it can scarcely be spoken of in words, and therefore we call it secret.

7. This is not the only reason why it is called secret, and why it is so. There is another, namely the mystical wisdom has the property of hiding the soul within itself. For beside its ordinary operation, it sometimes so absorbs the soul and plunges it in this secret abyss that the soul sees itself distinctly as far away from, and abandoned by, all created things; it looks upon itself as one that is placed in a wild and vast solitude whither no human being can come, as in an immense wilderness without limits; a wilderness, the more delicious, sweet, and lovely, the more it is wide, vast, and lonely, where the soul is the more hidden, the more it is raised up above all created things,

8. This abyss of wisdom now so exalts and elevates the soul—orderly disposing it for the science of love— that it makes it not only understand how mean are all created things in relation to the supreme wisdom and divine knowledge, but also, how low, defective, and, in a certain sense, improper, are all the words and phrases by which in this life we discuss divine things, and how utterly impossible by any natural means, however profoundly and learnedly we may speak, to understand and see them as they are, except in the light of mystical theology. And so the soul in the light thereof discerning this truth, namely, that it cannot reach it, and still less explain it by the terms of ordinary speech, justly calls it secret. g. This property of being secret, and of surpassing all natural capacity, belongs to divine contemplation, not only because it is itself supernatural, but also because it is the guide of the soul to the perfections of union with God, which not being humanly known, we must reach by not knowing the way humanly,' and being divinely ignorant. For, to use the language of mystical theology, as we are doing, these divine perfections are neither understood nor known when they are sought, but when they are found and practised. For thus the prophet Baruch speaks of the divine wisdom: ‘There is none that can know her ways, nor that can search out her paths.’⁶ The royal prophet also, speaking of this way of the soul, says unto God: ‘Thy lightnings enlightened the round world, the earth was moved and trembled, Thy way is in the sea, and Thy paths in many waters, and Thy steps shall not be known.' All this in a spiritual sense explains the matter I am discussing.

10. The lightnings that enlightened the round world is the illumination of the faculties of the soul in the divine contemplation, the moving and trembling of the earth is the painful purgation of which it is the cause. To say that the way of God, by which the soul draws near unto Him, is in the sea, and His paths in many waters, and therefore not known, is to say that this way to God is as secret, and as hidden from the senses of the soul, as the way of one who walks on the waters is from the senses of the body, and whose paths and steps are not known. The paths and steps of God in those souls which He is drawing to Himself, making them great in the union of His wisdom, have this property, that they are not known. That is the meaning of these words in the book of Job, impressing upon us this truth, ‘Knowest thou the great paths of the clouds, and perfect knowledges?' that is, the paths and ways of God, in which He makes souls great and perfect in His wisdom; these are the clouds. This contemplation, therefore, which guides the soul to God is secret wisdom,