CAPUT LXXX. Quomodo summis conatibus nostris, divina revelatio occurrat
The Radiant Summit
Many presume they have reached the heights of contemplation, but the true sign of arrival is being granted to see Christ glorified and transfigured in unapproachable light.
But this also must be said: many already believe they have seized the highest heights of this mountain, when it is clear they have barely touched its lowest edge. Consider this a sure sign that you have by no means reached the summit of this mountain: if you have not yet been granted to see Christ glorified.1 As soon as your guide, Christ, sets you at the summit, he appears to you in a different form, and before your eyes he is clothed with light as with a garment; and as the evangelist testifies, his clothes soon become white as snow, such as no fuller on earth can make them — because that radiance of divine wisdom, which is seen from the high peak of contemplation, cannot be defined at all by the shrewdness of human sense.2
Whole and Glorious
Christ wears one garment in the valley and another on the mountain: simple truth always keeps the garment whole, but glory is reserved for the heights, prompting the question of how to distinguish them.
Notice, then, that Christ has one garment in the valley and another on the mountain. In the valley, to be sure, he has a whole garment; but only on the mountain does he have a glorious one.3 Simple truth knows nothing at all of the rifts of schisms, and for that reason, whether in the valley or on the mountain, Christ puts on nothing but whole garments.4 But there is a great difference between a whole garment and a glorious garment. Do you want to know the difference among his garments, and to get a clear distinction between one garment and another?
Earthly and Heavenly Teaching
Quoting the Lord's words about earthly and heavenly things, the author explains that without Christ no truth is known and that lingering in the valley leaves one with only lowly teaching, while the mountain alone reveals heavenly wisdom.
"If I have told you earthly things," he says, "and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?" So distinguish between teaching and teaching, and you'll find the difference between the garments. Oh, how great a difference there is between the teaching by which earthly things are taught and the teaching by which heavenly things are taught—and indeed not without Christ, because without the Truth neither these nor those are known!5 For what true thing is known where Truth does not speak? Christ, then, is the one who teaches both—but earthly things in the valley, heavenly things on the mountain. So as long as you still linger in the valley, as long as you don't climb to the heights, Christ teaches you only about earthly and lowly things.6
Read the original Latin
Sed nec hoc silendum, quod multi montis hujus jam se credunt apprehendisse suprema, cum constat eos ejus vix tetigisse extrema. Sit tibi certum signum quia montis hujus verticem minime apprehendisti, si Christum clarificatum nondum videre meruisti. Mox ut te dux tuus Christus collocaverit in summo, apparet tibi in habitu alio, et te coram induitur lumine sicut vestimento, et sicut evangelista testatur, fiunt mox vestimenta ejus alba sicut nix, et qualia non potest fullo facere super terram, quia ille divinae sapientiae splendor, qui ab alto speculationis vertice prospicitur, omnino definiri non potest per humani sensus prudentiam. Animadverte ergo quia aliam in valle, et aliam vestem Christus habet in monte. In valle sane habet vestem integram, sed in monte tantum, habet vestem gloriosam. Nescit penitus simplex veritas schismatum scissuras, et idcirco sive in valle, sive in monte non induit Christus nisi vestes integras. Sed multum interest inter vestem integram et vestem gloriosam. Vultis vestium ejus differentiam nosse, et inter vestem, et vestem distinctionem apertam accipere?
Si terrena, inquit, dixi vobis, et non creditis, quomodo si dixero vobis coelestia credetis? Distingue ergo inter doctrinam et doctrinam, et invenies vestium differentiam. O quantum est inter doctrinam qua docentur terrena, et inter doctrinam qua docentur coelestia, et quidem non sine Christo, quia sine veritate non cognoscuntur, vel ista, vel illa! Quid enim verum scitur, ubi veritas non loquitur? Christus ergo est qui docet utraque, sed terrena in valle, coelestia in monte. Quandiu ergo adhuc in valle moraris, quandiu ad alta non ascendis, non te docet Christus nisi de rebus terrenis et infimis.
Notes
- 1 ↩clarificatum / videre meruisti evokes Transfiguration vision as the mark of having reached the mountain peak; meruisti rendered as 'been granted' rather than bare 'deserved,' keeping medieval grace-merit force without modern merit-payback tone.
- 2 ↩speculationis rendered as 'contemplation' in the Victorine sense of contemplative gazing/insight, not modern 'speculation'.
- 3 ↩tantum taken with in monte ('only on the mountain'), not as limiting the kind of garment on the mountain; fits the following contrast of whole vs. glorious.
- 4 ↩schismatum scissuras plays on tear/split imagery: simple truth admits no divided, rent teaching; vestes integras continues the garment metaphor from s5.
- 5 ↩veritas is capitalized as Truth to preserve the identification with Christ as Truth, which the next sentence makes explicit.
- 6 ↩Source spelling Quandiu is the common medieval form of quamdiu ('as long as'); rendered as 'as long as'.
Benjamin Minor (The Twelve Patriarchs / Preparation of the Mind for Contemplation) companion
A daily portion of stillness
Chosen Portion delivers one short contemplative reading and a guided moment of silence each day — the ascent, one step at a time.
Chosen Portion is the paced doorway into this collection: it portions the dense mystical treatises into one daily reading plus guided silence, exactly as the 14-day plan teaches.
- Daily bite-sized excerpts from the contemplative classics, never a wall of text
- A built-in timed stillness practice that grows from 2 minutes to 10
- Gentle progression through the tradition — the app remembers where you are on the ascent