Secundum capitulum, in quo ostenditur quod ex affectu pietatis principes conformantur ipsis Séraphin.
The Seraphic Love of Kings and Princes
Kings and princes are likened to the Seraphim through the ceaseless, fervent, and penetrating movement of their love toward God.
From this affection of love, then, kings and princes are compared to the blessed spirits called Seraphim, who, stretching out toward God through the movement of love, lead their subjects back into that same God so that they too may be enkindled by a proportionate love. Whence it is written: Their movement around the divine is ever mobile, unceasing, hot, sharp, and super-fervent. For the love of those spirits toward God is a mobile spirit, because it is not interrupted, and unceasing, because it is not ended by any limit of failing. Hot, because by its own fervor, running, it always inclines the lover toward the beloved. Sharp, because by its own subtlety it penetrates. For nothing is more penetrating than love, because it does not rest at all until it has reached the depth of the beloved. This love is super-fervent in its advancing, because through the ecstasy of the mind it is in a continuous rapture. This is the love stretched toward the highest, which is neither relaxed nor grows sluggish, but rests as though in its own element, within the boundary of its intention.
The Fire of Love and Its Perfect Rest
A fiery image illustrates how perfected love, once raised to its height, boils over in continuous ecstasy and rests in the beloved.
So if a fierce heat that evaporates and drives liquid upward could push that raised liquid even higher — so that neither any lessening of heat nor the liquid's own weight could bring it back down — we'd say that liquid was boiling over. This is what perfected love of God consists in, because at this level the lover's final, restful union with the beloved has now been reached.
Love That Assimilates and Leads Back to God
Sincere love reaches downward like fire, assimilating all it touches and drawing them back to God according to their capacity.
This is the orientation of love toward God that reaches down to what is lower, assimilating equally in being and in act. For just as fire assimilates to itself whatever it touches, so the disposition of sincere love — through the varying capacity of its own receptivity — assimilates all whom it touches into loving God, each according to their strength, and leads them back to him.
Angelic Mediation and Ecstatic Governance
Princes and prelates serve as angelic intermediaries, leading subjects to God through providential care and mutual love.
And since lower things are led back to higher things through intermediaries, princes and prelates have been appointed so that, through their ministry, those who are subject to them may be led back to God in the manner of angels.12 For the affection of love stretching toward God produces ecstasy, not allowing lovers to belong to themselves through the sobriety of the mind, but making them belong to those who are loved through an ecstatic transport of the mind.34 And so it makes princes to be of their subjects through the protection of providence, and makes subjects to be of their superiors through the turning of love toward them and the leading back into God.56
Read the original Latin
Ex hoc itaque caritatis affectu reges et principes beatis spiritibus qui dicuntur Séraphin comparantur, qui, motu dilectionis tendentes in Deum, in idipsum reducunt subditos ut dilectione consimili proportionaliter infiammentur. Unde scriptum est : Mobile semper eorum circa divina incessabile, calidum, et acutum, et superfervidum. Est enim illorum spirituum amor in Deum mobilis spiritus, quia non est interpolatus, et incessabilis, quia nullo defectus termino terminatur. Calidus quia sui fervore currens amantem ad amatum semper inclinât. Acutus quia sui subtilitate pénétrât. Nihil enim amore penetrabilius, quia donec amati profunditatem penetraverit nullatenus conquiescit. Superfervidus est amor iste in graduando, quia per mentis excessum est in raptu continuo. Hic est amor intensus ad summum, qui nec remittitur nec lentescit, sed in suae intentionis termino velut in mobile conquiescit.
Si enim virtus ignea evaporans liquidum et exhalans, et sursum elevans, possit ipsum elevatum sursum cogère, ne vel caloris remissione vel liquoris naturali pondère valeret infra descendere, diceremus illud liquidum superfervere. In hoc est consummata Dei dilectio, quoniam in hoc gradu consistit finalis et quieta amantis cum amato jam adepta adhaesio. Iste est affectus amoris in Deum qui descendit ad inferius per assimilationem pariter et actum. Sicut enim ignis sibi assimilât quae contingit, sic sincerae dilectionis affectus omnespro suae receptibilitatis differentia in amando Deum assimilât pro viribus et reducit.
Et quoniam inferiora reducuntur in superiora per média, constituti sunt principes et praelati, ut per eorum ministerium reducantur in Deum angelico more subjecti. Affectus enim amoris tendens in Deum extasim facit, non permittens amatores esse sui ipsorum per sobrietatem mentis, sed eorum qui amantur per mentis excessum. Unde et principes facit esse subjectorum per providentiae protectionem, et subjectos facit esse superiorum per amoris ad eos conversionem et in Deum reductionem.
Notes
- 1 ↩media rendered as 'intermediaries' in the metaphysical sense of means or mediating agents, not merely 'means' in an instrumental sense.
- 2 ↩ut taken as purpose ('so that') rather than result, fitting the teleological framing of princely office.
- 3 ↩extasis/excessus rendered as 'ecstasy' and 'ecstatic transport' respectively, preserving the technical mystical sense of the soul being drawn out of itself toward God.
- 4 ↩enim rendered as explanatory 'for'; sed as adversative 'but' contrasting the two genitive groups (sui ipsorum vs. eorum qui amantur).
- 5 ↩unde rendered as inferential 'And so,' governing the sentence as a conclusion drawn from the preceding.
- 6 ↩reductio rendered as 'leading back,' preserving the metaphysical sense of return to God.
Eruditio regum et principum (Education of Kings and Princes) companion
Louis IX kept a daily rule of reading. Keep yours.
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