Quomodo ramus olivae deportetur ad arcam sapientiae.
The Olive Branch of Contemplation
The olive branch signifies how outward contemplation of creation leads the soul inward to love, safety, and renewal through successive modes of spiritual sight.
The green olive branch shows the good disposition of the mind, because the holy, the more they look upon God's works outside themselves, the more they burn with love for the Creator within. For while they look at the mutability of present things, immediately all that seems beautiful in this world becomes worthless in their thinking, and like those returning the olive branch in their mouth they carry it, because the more ardently they desire the beauty of their Creator, the less delight they have found in created things. Delightfully the mind is fed within, because delightfully it is not held without, and like one led back to the harbor of its own ark, now secure it rejoices, which before had been shipwrecked on the world's waves. Similarly, in the second kind of contemplation, whenever we learn to admire God's invisible power and wisdom in visible things, we carry, as it were, the olive branch from the waters back to the ark, because in the changeable things outside us we recognize the One whom we love unchangeably within us. In the third kind of contemplation likewise, while we attend to his judgments outwardly, we are renewed in fear and love within. Therefore: in the first, the material of vanity examined within us produces contempt of the world; in the second, the image of reason, praise of God; in the third, the instrument of dispensation, fear and love of God; in the fourth, the kindling of desire, the incentive of lust.
Warnings Against Reckless Departure
Having described contemplation's fruit, the text turns to warn against rashly leaving the safety of the ark and trusting one's own conscience.
Let us beware this outcome, then: that we not go out rashly. Let no one trust in their own conscience.
Dinah's Going Out
The story of Dinah illustrates how even a chaste soul, by venturing outside the ark of interior life, suffers corruption and becomes like the raven that never returns.
Dinah was a virgin within, chaste within, a dove within, but because the dove was seduced — having no heart — she went outside and changed her color along with her name. For so it is written: Dinah went out to see the women of that region.✦ When Shechem son of Hamor the Hivite, a prince of that land, saw her, he loved her, and he seized her, and he slept with her, forcing the virgin.✦ It is clear that she who is forced does not go out in order to be corrupted, but nevertheless, because she went out recklessly, she suffered the loss of her chastity even against her will. What is added next — he clung to her — means this: the raven found a corpse and refused to return to the ark any longer.✦
Read the original Latin
Ramus olivae virentis bonum mentis affectum demonstrat, quia saepe sancti viri quanto magis foris opera divina aspiciunt, tanto magis intus in amore Conditoris inardescunt. Dum enim rerum praesentium mutabilitatem aspiciunt, continuo omnia quae in hoc mundo pulchra videntur, eis in cogitatione vilescunt, et quasi revertentes olivam in ore deferunt, quoniam eo ardentius Conditoris sui speciem concupiscunt, quo in rebus conditis quod delectaret minus invenerunt. Delectabiliter intus mens pascitur, quia delectabiliter foris non tenetur, et quasi ad arcae suae portum reducta jam secura tripudiat, quae in mundi fluctibus prius naufraga erat. Similiter in secundo genere contemplationis quoties in rebus visibilibus invisibilem Dei virtutem et sapientiam admirari discimus, quasi ramus olivae ab aquis ad arcam reportamus, quia in rebus mutabilibus extra nos illum agnoscimus, quem in nobis immutabiliter diligamus. In tertio itidem contemplationis genere dum judicia ejus foris attendimus, in timore ejus, et amore intus renovamur. In primo ergo materia vanitatis inspecta, in nobis generat contemptum mundi, in secundo simulacrum rationis, laudem Dei, in tertio instrumentum dispensationis timorem et amorem Dei, in quarto fomes cupiditatis incentivum libidinis. Hunc igitur exitum caveamus, ne egrediamur temere. Nemo de conscientia sua confidat.
Dina intus virgo, intus casta, intus columba fuit, sed quia columba seducta fuit non habens cor, egressa foras colorem pariter cum nomine mutavit. Sic enim scriptum est: Egressa est Dina, ut videret mulieres regionis illius. Quam cum vidisset Sichem filius Hemor Evaei, princeps terrae illius, adamavit, et rapuit eam, et dormivit cum illa, vi opprimens virginem. Quae vi opprimitur patet quod non ideo exit ut corrumpatur, sed tamen quia temere exiit, pudicitiae suae damna etiam invita sustinuit. Quod autem subjungitur, conglutinavit eam sibi; hoc est corvus cadaver invenit, et amplius ad arcam redire noluit.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Gen.34.1 — And Dinah, the daughter of Leah, whom she bore to Jacob, went out to see the daughters of the land.
- ↩Gen.34.2 — And Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, the prince of the land, saw her, and he took her and lay with her and humiliated her.
- ↩Gen.34.3;Gen.8.7 — And his soul clung to Dinah, Jacob's daughter, and he loved the young woman, and he spoke to the heart of the young woman. Gen.8.7 — And he sent out the raven, and it kept going out and returning until the waters had dried up from the earth.
De Arca Noe Morali et Mystica (On the Moral and Mystical Ark of Noah) companion
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