CAPUT XXXVII. Comparatio interioris et exterioris dulcedinis
Comparing Two Sweetnesses
Sacred Scripture names interior sweetness as both a taste and a drunkenness; though small compared to future joy, it far surpasses all worldly pleasure and intoxicates the soul.
Sacred Scripture calls this tasting of interior sweetness sometimes a taste, sometimes drunkenness, to show how small or how great it is: small, indeed, compared with the fullness still to come, but great compared with any worldly pleasure. For the present delight of spiritual people, compared with the joys of the life to come, is found to be small no matter how much it grows; and yet, compared with it, all the sweetness of exterior pleasures is nothing. Oh, marvelous sweetness — sweetness so great, sweetness so small! How could you not be great? You surpass every worldly sweetness.1 How could you not be small? You scarcely pluck even a modest drop from that fullness. You drip only a little into minds from such a vast sea of happiness; yet you fully intoxicate the mind you pour into.
Witnesses of the Heavenly Draught
The Psalmist and the Apostle Peter testify that the Lord is sweet, and the Apostle Paul, drunk with divine love, lost awareness of both the world and himself.
It's rightly called a taste—so little drawn from so much—and yet, just as rightly, what takes the mind out of itself is called drunkenness. So it is a taste, and it can rightly be called drunkenness: "Taste," says the Prophet, "and see that the Lord is sweet." And the Apostle Peter says: "If indeed you have tasted that the Lord is sweet."✦ And of that drunkenness the same Prophet says: "You visited the earth, and you made it drunk." Listen to a man soaked in this drunkenness and completely unaware of what is happening around him: "Whether in the body," he says, "or outside the body, I don't know—God knows."✦2 How drunk do you think he was—how completely the world had slipped from his mind—when he didn't even know himself?
Read the original Latin
Hanc autem internae dulcedinis degustationem Scriptura sacra nunc gustum, nunc ebrietatem vocat, ut quam sit parva, vel magna ostendat, parva quidem ad comparationem futurae plenitudinis, magna autem in comparatione cujuslibet mundanae jucunditatis. Praesens etenim spiritualium virorum delectatio futurae vitae gaudiis comparata, quantumlibet excrescens invenitur parva, in cujus comparatione tamen omnis exteriorum delectationum suavitas est nulla. O dulcedo miranda, dulcedo tam magna, dulcedo tam parva! Quomodo non magna? quae mundanam omnem excedis. Quomodo non parva? quae de illa plenitudine vix stillam modicam decerpis. Modicum quidem de tanto felicitatis pelago mentibus instillas, mentem tamen quam infundis, plene inebrias.
Merito tantillum de tanto, gustus quidem dicitur, merito nihilominus quae mentem a seipsa alienat, ebrietas nominatur. Gustus ergo est, et ebrietas jure dici potest: Gustate, inquit Propheta, et videte quoniam suavis est Dominus. Et Apostolus Petrus: Si tamen gustatis quoniam dulcis est Dominus. Et de ebrietate idem Propheta: Visitasti terram, et inebriasti eam. Audi hominem hac ebrietate madentem, et quid circa se agatur omnino ignorantem: Sive in corpore, inquit, sive extra corpus, nescio, Deus scit. Quomodo putas inebriatus erat, quomodo mundus ei in oblivionem venerat, qui seipsum nesciebat?
Scripture echoes
- ↩1Pet.2.3 — if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good
- ↩2Cor.12.2-2Cor.12.3 — I know a person in Christ fourteen years ago—whether in the body I do not know, or out of the body I do not know; God knows—such a one was caught up to the third heaven. 2Cor.12.3 — And I know that such a person—whether in the body or apart from the body, I do not know; God knows—
Notes
Benjamin Minor (The Twelve Patriarchs / Preparation of the Mind for Contemplation) companion
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