Walter Hilton’s Song of Angels

Bl. Fra Angelico, Dormition and Assumption of the Virgin (c.1424−1434), detail

IN the Introduction to her edition of the Cloud of Unknowing, Evelyn Underhill refers to “an exquisite fragment” by the English mystic Walter Hilton (c. 1340/1345 – 1396) called Song of Angels.  The first third is shown below.  Besides discussing angelic music, Hilton makes some valuable comments about the nature of the what Underhill and Christian mystics call unitive life, a condition in which the material world becomes sacralized.

Links to the entire work are supplied in the Bibliography, and a nice audio version is here.  As a side note, according to St. Hildegard of Bingen, she wrote her ethereal music in by divine inspiration in a trance-like state.  Surely, listening to it one cannot help but think of angels’ songs!

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Here followeth a devout treatise compiled by Master Walter Hilton of the Song of Angels

DEAR brother in Christ, I have understanding by thine own speech, and also by telling of another man, that thou yearnest and desirest greatly for to have more knowledge and understanding than thou hast of angel’s song and heavenly sound; what it is, and on what wise it is perceived and felt in a man’s soul, and how a man may be sure that it is true and not feigned; and how it is made by the presence of the good angel, and not by the inputting of the evil angel. These things thou wouldest wete of me; but, soothly, I cannot tell thee for a surety the soothfastness of this matter; nevertheless somewhat, as me thinketh, I shall shew thee in a short word.

Know thou well that the end and the sovereignty of perfection standeth in very oneness of God and of a man’s soul by perfect charity. This onehead, then, is verily made when the mights of the soul are reformed by grace to the dignity and the state of the first condition; that is, when the mind is stabled firmly, without changing and vagation, in God and ghostly things, and when the reason is cleared from all worldly and fleshly beholdings, and from all bodily imaginations, figures, and fantasies of creatures, and is illumined by grace to behold God and ghostly things, and when the will and the affection is purified and cleansed from all fleshly, kindly, and worldly love, and is inflamed with burning love of the Holy Ghost.

This wonderful onehead may not be fulfilled perfectly, continually, and wholly in this life, because of the corruption of the flesh, but only in the bliss of heaven. Nevertheless, the nearer that a soul in this present life may come to this onehead, the more perfect it is. For the more that it is reformed by grace to the image and the likeness of its Creator here on this wise; the more joy and bliss shall it have in heaven. Our Lord God is an endless being without changing, almighty without failing, sovereign wisdom, light, truth without error or darkness; sovereign goodness, love, peace, and sweetness. Then the more that a soul is united, fastened, conformed, and joined to our Lord, the more stable and mighty it is, the more wise and clear, good and peaceable, loving and more virtuous it is, and so it is more perfect. For a soul that hath by the grace of Jesus, and long travail of bodily and ghostly exercise, overcome and destroyed concupiscences, and passions, and unreasonable stirrings within itself, and without in the sensuality, and is clothed all in virtues, as in meekness and mildness, in patience and softness, in ghostly strength and righteousness, in continence, in wisdom, in truth, hope and charity; then it is made perfect, as it may be in this life. Much comfort it receiveth of our Lord, not only inwardly in its own hidden nature, by virtue of the onehead to our Lord that lieth in knowing and loving of God, in light and ghostly burning of Him, in transforming of the soul in to the Godhead; but also many other comforts, savours, sweetnesses, and wonderful feelings in the diverse sundry manners, after that our Lord vouchethsafe to visit His creatures here in earth, and after that the soul profiteth and waxeth in charity.

Some soul, by virtue of charity that God giveth it, is so cleansed, that all creatures, and all that he heareth, or seeth, or feeleth by any of his wits, turneth him to comfort and gladness; and the sensuality receiveth new savour and sweetness in all creatures. And right as beforetime the likings in the sensuality were fleshly, vain, and vicious, for the pain of the original sin; so now they are made ghostly and clean, without bitterness and biting of conscience. And this is the goodness of our Lord, that sith the soul is punished in the sensuality, and the flesh is partner of the pain, that afterward the soul be comforted in the sensuality, and the flesh be fellow of joy and comfort with the soul, not fleshly, but ghostly, as he was fellow in tribulation and pain.

This is the freedom and the lordship, the dignity, and the honor that a man hath over all creatures, the which dignity he may so recover by grace here, that every creature savour to him as it is. And that is, when by grace he seeth, he heareth, he feeleth only God in all creatures. On this manner of wise a soul is made ghostly in the sensuality by abundance of charity, that is, in the substance of the soul.

Also, our Lord comforteth a soul by angel’s song. What that song is, it may not be described by no bodily likeness, for it is ghostly, and above all manner of imagination and reason. It may be felt and perceived in a soul, but it may not be shewed. Nevertheless, I shall speak thereof to thee as me thinketh. When a soul is purified by the love of God, illumined by wisdom, stabled by the might of God, then is the eye of the soul opened to behold ghostly things, as virtues and angels and holy souls, and heavenly things. Then is the soul able because of cleanness to feel the touching, the speaking of good angels. This touching and speaking, it is ghostly and not bodily. For when the soul is lifted and ravished out of the sensuality, and out of mind of any earthly things, then in great fervour of love and light (if our Lord vouchsafe) the soul may hear and feel heavenly sound, made by the presence of angels in loving of God. Not that this song of angels is the sovereign joy of the soul; but for the difference that is between a man’s soul in flesh and an angel, because of uncleanness, a soul may not hear it, but by ravishing in love, and needeth for to be purified well clean, and fulfilled of much charity, or it were able for to hear heavenly sound. For the sovereign and the essential joy is in the love of God by Himself and for Himself, and the secondary is in communing and beholding of angels and ghostly creatures.

For right as a soul, in understanding of ghostly things, is often times touched and moved through bodily imagination by working of angels; as Ezekiel the prophet did see in bodily imagination the soothfastness of God’s privities; right so, in the love of God, a soul by the presence of angels is ravished out of mind of all earthly and fleshly things in to an heavenly joy, to hear angel’s song and heavenly sound, after that the charity is more or less.

Now, then, me thinketh that there may no soul feel verily angel’s song nor heavenly sound, but he be in perfect charity; though all that are in perfect charity have not felt it, but only that soul that is so purified in the fire of love that all earthly savour is brent out of it, and all mean letting between the soul and the cleanness of angels is broken and put away from it. Then soothly may he sing a new song, and soothly he may hear a blessed heavenly sound, and angel’s song without deceit or feigning. Our Lord woteth there that soul is that, for abundance of burning love, is worthy to hear angel’s song. […]

For if a man have any presumption in his fantasies and in his workings, and thereby falleth in to indiscreet imagination, as it were in a frenzy, and is not ordered nor ruled of grace, nor comforted by ghostly strength, the devil entereth in, and by his false illuminations, and by his false sounds, and by his false sweetnesses, he deceiveth a man’s soul. And of this false ground springeth errors, and heresies, false prophecies, presumptions, and false reasonings, blasphemings, and slanderings, and many other mischiefs. And, therefore, if thou see any man ghostly occupied fall in any of these sins and these deceits, or in frenzies, wete thou well that he never heard nor felt angel’s song nor heavenly sound. For, soothly, he that heareth verily angel’s song, he is made so wise that he shall never err by fantasy, nor by indiscretion, nor by no slight of working of the devil. [Source: Gardner, 1910; slightly modernized]

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Bibliography

Gardner, Edmund G. (ed.). The Cell of Self-Knowledge: Seven Early English Mystical Treatises Printed by Henry Pepwell in 1521. London, 1910. IV. A Devout Treatise compiled by Master Walter Hylton of the Song of Angels (pp. 63−73). [Google Books]

Underhill, Evelyn (ed.). The Cloud of Unknowing. London, 1922.

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Beyond Stoicism

THE INTEREST shown in Stoicism in recent years has some definite pluses.  One is that it shows people are finding the Freudian and other reductionist systems of materialist psychology insufficient for finding moral direction, personal satisfaction and happiness.  Another is that it’s helping people to wake up to the beauties of Greek and Roman philosophy.  Consider that before this Stoic revival, the prevailing attitude in university Psychology Departments was that nothing important had been written on human psychology before William James.

Nevertheless, I suspect that once they read and absorb all the excellent things Stoicism has to say about psychology, ethics, and the human condition, many will ultimately find something lacking.  Stoicism excels in technical definitions and minute analysis of cognitive operations.  But, ultimately, it fails to satisfy the deepest yearnings of the heart.

Platonism (which we may here to consider to include Neoplatonism) does more to satisfy these deep yearnings.  Like Stoicism, it emphasizes the acquisition of virtue and the pursuit of dispassion (apatheia and/or ataraxia).  But, unlike Stoicism, Platonism does not see apatheia as an end in itself, but rather as a means to an end: once the passions are quieted, the mind, now calm and still, can gain insight into deeper realms of truth.  From dispassion it proceeds to theoria and noesis — the contemplation of Eternal Verities.  From this contemplation the soul begins to learn important truths of its own nature, such as that (1) it is immortal, and (2) its destiny is to find fulfillment by degrees in ‘becoming godlike insofar as possible.’  The Platonist also seeks to ascend to a direct encounter with the Good, the source of all Truth and Beauty – which it cannot help but love.

But from this it is obvious that a still greater degree of personality development may occur:  to make love of the Good – God – the central purpose of ones life.  This is the realm of religion.  Hence, while we have sketched this only in the broadest of strikes, the idea is that a natural progression would be from Stoicism, to Platonism, to religion.

These three correspond fairly well to the traditional stages of ascetico-mysticism, i.e., those of purgation (Stoicism), illumination (Platonism) and union (religion). In each later stage, the benefits of earlier stages are retained and built upon.  Hence the Platonist may still be a Stoic, and the saint still a Stoic and a Platonist.

If we were to select as most important one thing that distinguishes a Christian from a Stoic, it is that the Christian recognizes a personal, loving God. Both the Christian and the Stoic may take as the ethical summum bonum or rule of life the accommodation of personal will to a higher will — to God’s will, for the former, and to Nature (or the Law of Nature) for the latter.  The Stoic, moreover, may also understand Nature to be God — but not a personal God.  Hence, while it may seem that the goals of the two are similar or the same, the way they seek to accomplish this are extremely different.  The Stoic must rely on his or her own will to accomplish the abrogation of personal will!  It is a matter of individual effort only.  Hence, ironically, the struggle to achieve Stoic virtue, holiness, and resignation, because it is directed by the ego, necessarily contributes to egoism.  For the Christian, however, progress in virtue comes from grace — it is the gift of a generous, loving, personal God. The Stoic seeks humiliation of will through pride, the Christian seeks humiliation of will in humility and gentle, childlike trust in God’s loving-kindness. The Stoic seeks to accomplish great psychological feats of asceticism and self-control, the Christian begins by praying for divine help.

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Psychology and the Beam in the Eye of Matthew 7:3

One of the more psychologically interesting and insufficiently studied passages found in the Gospels is:

 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?

Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.

~ Matthew 7:3–5 (KJV)

 The reference to the beam in ones eye is an extremely powerful image. It’s a figure of speech, of course, since a roof beam (Greek word δοκός or dokos¹, also translated ‘plank’, ‘log’ or ‘timber’) obviously cannot fit in an eye. The power of the statement comes by comparing it to a mote, a small speck of dust, which may be in another’s eye and impairing the other’s vision.  Jesus is saying: “Why worry about some small way in which another person’s views are limited.  Worry about the huge ways in which your own views are distorted.”  That’s how I take it, at any rate, and it seems like a reasonable interpretation.

This is one of those extremely canny sayings of Jesus Christ recorded in the Gospels.  If someone were to ask me what reasons there are for believing that Christianity is a divinely inspired religion, I would include on the list these canny sayings of Jesus.  They are incisive, cutting through layers of artifice and illusion to get to the heart of the things that really concern us as human beings.  Nothing else in the literature of the West can compare to them — not in Plato or the Greek tragedians, not even in the Old Testament do we find such an abundance of these sayings.²  There is something extraordinary, otherworldly about them.  One may recall the words of the Pharisees’ officers, sent to arrest Jesus but returning bewildered and empty-handed:  “Never man spake like this man.” (John 7:46; KJV)

This remarkable level of insight and honesty is evident in the passage above.  It speaks with extraordinary directness to a very real aspect of our experience.  Examining the meaning of words, and relating them to certain principles of modern psychology, we can appreciate even better the importance and relevance of the beam in the eye.

Perceptual and Cognitive Schematizing

This word-square and others like it, recently circulated around the internet.  The idea is that when you look at the square, one word, out of the dozens it contains, will leap out and present itself to awareness.  These squares have been presented in a casual way — as little more than a parlor game — to analyze ones personality or “what you want in life”.  However there are some serious psychological principles at work here.

If you experiment with one of these squares, you will find that your current state of mind affects what word leaps out at you.  If your mind is on work, or on a romantic relationship, or on philosophy, or on your faith — in each case a different word will appear.  This illustrates most strikingly the truth that ones intentions determine ones perceptions.  What your heart is set on at the moment, what you are most concerned about, what you desire — that will determine which word you see.

This principle of intention precedes perception is, of course, a general one in operation all the time.  It affects how you visually process information when walking outside, for example.  What strikes your attention — people, trees, buildings, whatever — will vary.  A boy with his mind on girls will walk on a city street and notice womens’ hemlines and the  contours of blouses.  An angry and combative man will walk down the same street and notice the physique and demeanor of other men, subconsciously sizing them up, as though to judge whether he could defeat them in a fight.  A guilty person may notice the expressions on other people’s faces, looking for signs of disapproval, or may notice policeman and guards.  There is nothing speculative about this. You can verify the phenomenon yourself any day by taking a walk.  What you see reflects the intentions you have at any time.

A corollary of this principle is that the stronger, more urgent, and more pronounced ones intentions are, the more that attention will selectively focus on certain kinds of objects.

It similarly follows that this principle must also affect our inward perceptions: those features of our interior mental life which we notice at any given time, and those we do not notice, depend on our intentions and desires.

Not only do intentions determine what ones sees, but what one doesn’t see.  If attention is on one thing, it cannot be on another.  And the more exaggerated ones intentions and desires are, the more one will filter out unrelated perceptions.  If one is driven by appetite, covetousness, fear, or anger, one may pass by dozens of smiling, friendly people without realizing it.  In a foul mood one does not see the flowers in bloom or notice the lovely countryside; these things might as well not exist.

This I believe is the meaning of the beam in the eye.  When ones intentions are disordered, ones perceptions are in chaos.  Instead of seeing the entire world as a harmonious whole, one perceives it fragmented and disjointed. One notices small pieces of the perceptual field which relate to sex or fear or anger or whatever — and  disregards the rest.

To the degree one is in such a disordered mental state, one is not really living in the world at all — not the world as it is.  Instead one is living in a kind of distorted caricature of the world.  It’s the world of the shadows on the wall of Plato’s cave;  not a vibrant world of life, spirit, meaning, happiness, and satisfaction.

What, then, is the alternative to the beam  in the eye?  Naturally we have intentions, and these change depending on time and situation.  But it stands to reason that, ideally, these intentions should be harmonious, one intention in balance with the others.  Moreover, as religious people — whether, Christians, Jews, Muslims, or Hindus — we believe in God’s superintending providence.  God guides all at once  — the world, events in our lives, our intentions, and our emotions — to  coincide and harmonize.  We do have free will, however, and must use this free will to moderate and purify our intentions, so as to keep them in balance.  We must keep our appetites within the bounds of what our nature requires at the present time.  This precludes letting any intention become unnaturally strong and dominant.²

This moderation of appetites and passions is not necessarily an easy thing to accomplish, but it is an attainable skill.  It comes from experience and practice, from self-insight, from the intellectual development supplied by philosophy, and by the moral growth produced by religion.

If we can learn this great virtue of moderation (which the Greeks called sophrosyne,  a virtue that doesn’t operate in isolation, but rather interacts in myriad ways with other virtues like courage, justice, wisdom, patience, piety, and humility) then we can remove the beam in the eye.

The resulting condition, I believe, corresponds to what the humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow (1970) called “B-cognition” or “Being cognition.”  One description of this state is one “in which the whole of the cosmos is perceived and everything in it is seen in relationship with everything else, including the perceiver” (Maslow, 1971, pp. 252–253).

I also believe that this is at least part of what Jesus means in the Gospels when he refers to the Kingdom of Heaven.  Upon saying this, I must be careful to point out that some ‘modern’ psychologists have said similar things but with a substantially different meaning.  That is, some have suggested that by the Kingdom of Heaven Jesus meant only a certain kind of happy human life; and from this they go on to claim that Jesus was not concerned with spiritual matters at all, and was saying nothing about an after-life; he was merely a social philosopher.  That is definitely not what I’m suggesting.  The Kingdom of Heaven in the sense I mean is not achieved by disconnecting our experience on earth from spiritual concerns, but precisely the opposite: by connecting it with spirituality.  A critical part of producing a state of harmonized intentions, by which we see the world fully and completely — in clear and rich detail, with full depth and meaning — is by ‘tuning in’ to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit.

Notes

1. dokos can also mean an opinion, so there may be a play on words here. In Plato’s dialogues one of Socrates’ main missions is to alert us to how severely our souls are distorted by a habitual mistaking of false opinions for true knowledge.

2. Another such saying, one which seems thematically related to Matt. 7:3, is the light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light (Matt. 6:22).  Indeed all of Matthew 6:19–34 appears relevant to the present theme.

3. We should keep in mind the possibility that exaggerated appetites come not from the body itself, but from a tendency of the mind to falsely interpret appetitive impulses.

Bibliography

Maslow, Abraham H. The Farther Reaches of Human Nature. New York: Viking, 1971.

Pollock, Robert C.  ‘The Single Vision‘.  In: Harold C. Gardiner (editor), American Classics Reconsidered: A Christian Appraisal, New York: Scribner, 1958 (pp. 15–58).  Reprinted as  and in Arthur S. Lothstein, Michael Brodrick (eds.), New Morning: Emerson in the Twenty-First Century, SUNY Press, 2008 (pp. 9–48).  Originally published as ‘A Reappraisal of Emerson’ in Thought, 32(1), 1957, pp. 86–132.

White, Rhea A. ‘Maslow’s Two Forms of Cognition and Exceptional Human Experiences.’  1997. < http://www.ehe.org/display/ehe-page2f56.html?ID=23 >  Accessed 15 November 2013.