Quomodo per contemplationem cibat
The Food of Contemplation
Contemplation is presented as true spiritual food and joy, fulfilling the psalmist's promise of eternal delight in God's presence.
Through contemplation, one is fed. This is food. This is the refreshment the psalmist speaks of: You will fill me with joy in your presence, with delights at your right hand forever.✦ Amen.
The Mystery of Fifteen Steps
The tree of wisdom grows through fifteen steps, a number charged with mystery because it combines seven, signifying this present life, and eight, designating eternal life.
Look at the tree of our wisdom: it reaches the highest growth through fifteen steps, and this number is charged with a great mystery. First, because it is made up of seven and eight. The number seven indeed signifies this present life, which runs its course in seven days. The number eight, which comes after seven, designates eternal life.
Seven and Eight in Scripture and Wisdom
The sevenfold number points to the Old Testament's earthly promises and the eightfold to the New Testament's eternal hope, while wisdom joined by charity leads to the fullness of Christ.
So the sevenfold number points to the Old Testament, in which earthly goods are promised. The eightfold number, however, applies to the New Testament, in which we are commanded to hope for eternal goods. Let wisdom, then, grow through seven and eight. Let it begin through seven, and through eight reach forward to completion. The first wisdom is to seek earthly goods from God. The second wisdom, and the greatest, is to desire God from God. Likewise, fifteen doubled makes thirty, and if wisdom is joined by charity and multiplied through love of God and neighbor, it leads us all the way to the conformity of the age and fullness of Christ. Likewise, among the fifteen the middle is the same as the eighth, holding the sevenfold number on either side.
The Double Sabbath of Rest
The number seven signifies rest, from God's Sabbath rest through prophetic promises, leading to a first rest of ceasing from evil in this life and a second eternal rest with Christ, sustained by love amid tribulation.
And it's quite clear that the number seven points toward rest — especially since on the seventh day the Lord rested from every work he had accomplished.✦ Again through the prophet God promises his beloved ones Sabbath for Sabbath and month for month — that is, rest for rest, perfection for perfection; for the rest of the mind, rest of both mind and body; for the rest in which they consent to no evils, a rest in which they feel no evils at all.✦ Likewise, for the perfection of work, the perfection of recompense. For it's the same thing when you say 'Sabbath for Sabbath' as when you say 'rest for rest'; and what he says as 'month for month' is as if one were to say 'perfection for perfection.' The first rest, then, the first Sabbath, ought to be for us in this present life: to cease from evil, so that we may deserve to obtain the second Sabbath, and so that we may rest for eternity with Christ. But whoever proposes to keep Sabbath from evils in this way must, before that future Sabbath arrives, suffer many hardships in this world. And so on the tree of wisdom, at the eighth step between seven and seven, as it were between Sabbath and Sabbath, endurance of labor is fixed in the center of the middle of unity — since it is said to be strengthened through love. For against great tribulations, what is needed is — or rather, what amounts to the same thing — a strong love.
The Eighth Beatitude and Return to the Ark
Christ's eighth beatitude on enduring persecution fulfills the strength of love, after which the author humbly acknowledges digression and returns to building the ark of wisdom.
And this is what the Lord did in the Gospel: after listing seven beatitudes, in the eighth he urged endurance of suffering, saying, Blessed are those who suffer persecution for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.✦ For what is said there — Blessed are those who suffer persecution for righteousness' sake — is said here through love is strengthened.✦ But now, while we've been pursuing the exposition of incidental reasons at greater length, we've digressed from our purpose. And so on this point too we ask your pardon, because — to confess the truth — in this treatise we more often find things that should be written than we actually write what we've found. Nor am I even ashamed to confess my foolishness in this. Now therefore, returning to our purpose, let us go forward with the construction of the ark of wisdom.
Read the original Latin
Per contemplationem cibat. Iste est cibus. Ista est refectio, de qua Psalmista dicit: Adimplebis me laetitia cum vultu tuo, delectationes in dextera tua usque in finem. Amen. Ecce arbor sapientiae nostrae per quindecim gradus usque ad summum incrementum pervenit; hic autem numerus magni mysterii conscius est. Primum quia ex septem et octo componitur. Septenarius vero praesentem vitam, quae septem diebus currit, significat. Octonarius autem, qui post septem venit, aeternam vitam designat.
Septenarius ergo ad Vetus Testamentum pertinet, in quo promittuntur bona temporalia. Octonarius autem homo testamento congruit, in quo sperare jubemur aeterna. Crescat ergo per septem et octo sapientia. Per septem incipiat, et per octo ad consummationem pertingat. Prima sapientia sit a Deo terrena bona petere. Secunda sapientia et maxima sit a Deo Deum desiderare. Item quindecim si duplicentur triginta efficiunt, et sapientia si adjuncta charitate per dilectionem Dei et proximi geminetur, usque ad conformitatem aetatis plenitudinis Christi nos perducit. Item in quindecim medius idem est qui octavus, hinc inde habens septenarium.
Et satis claret, quod septenarius ad requiem pertinet, hinc maxime quod septima die requievit Dominus ab omni opere quod patrarat. Rursum per prophetam repromittit Deus suis dilectoribus Sabbatum pro Sabbato, et mensem pro mense; hoc est requiem pro requie, perfectionem pro perfectione; pro requie mentis requiem mentis et corporis, pro requie qua non consentiunt malis, requiem qua nulla sentiunt mala. Item pro perfectione operis perfectionem retributionis. Idem est enim quod dicis Sabbatum pro Sabbato, ac si diceret requiem pro requie; et quod dicit mensem pro mense, ac si diceret perfectionem pro perfectione. Prima igitur requies primum Sabbatum nobis esse debet in praesenti vita cessare a malo, ut secundum Sabbatum adipisci mereamur, ut in aeternum requiescamus cum Christo. Sed quisquis hoc modo a malis sabbatizare proponit, necesse est priusquam ad illud futurum Sabbatum veniat, multa in hoc mundo adversa patiatur. Et ideo in arbore sapientiae octavo gradu inter septem et septem, quasi inter Sabbatum et Sabbatum, tolerantia laboris figitur in centro mediae unitatis, cum dicitur per charitatem roboratur. Contra enim magnas tribulationes necessaria est vel robusta charitas.
Et hoc est quod Dominus in Evangelio, cum septem beatitudines enumerasset, in octava ad tolerantiam passionis admonuit, dicens: Beati qui persecutionem patiuntur propter justitiam, quoniam ipsorum est regnum coelorum. Nam quod ibi dicitur: Beati qui persecutionem patiuntur propter justitiam, hoc hic dicitur per charitatem roboratur. Sed jam, dum incidentium rationum expositionem prosequimur, longius a proposito nostro digressi sumus. Unde et de hoc quoque veniam postulamus, quia ut verum fatear, saepius in hoc tractatu scribenda plura invenimus, quam inventa scribemus. Neque enim vel in hoc meam insipientiam fateri erubesco. Nunc ergo ad propositum revertentes de fabricatione arcae sapientiae prosequamur.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Ps.31.12 — I have become a reproach to all my enemies, and to my neighbors exceedingly, and a terror to my acquaintances; those who see me in the street flee from me.
- ↩Gen.2.2 — And God finished on the seventh day His work that He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done.
- ↩Ezek.46.1 — Thus says the Lord God: The gate of the inner court that faces east shall be closed during the six days of work, but on the Sabbath day it shall be opened, and on the day of the new moon it shall be opened.
- ↩Matt.5.10 — Blessed are those who have been persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
- ↩Matt.5.10 — Blessed are those who have been persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
De Arca Noe Morali et Mystica (On the Moral and Mystical Ark of Noah) companion
Keep the ark under construction
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