Topic: Marguerite Porete

[Nichi]

Wiki:

Marguerite Porete (died 1310) was a French mystic and the author of The Mirror of Simple Souls, a work of Christian spirituality dealing with the workings of Divine Love. She was burnt at the stake for heresy in Paris in 1310 after a lengthy trial, after refusing to remove her book from circulation or recant her views. The book is cited as one the primary texts of the medieval Heresy of the Free Spirit.

Biography

Porete's life is recorded only in accounts of her trial for heresy, at which she was condemned to be burnt at the stake. Her biography is probably biased and certainly incomplete. She is associated with the Beguine movement, and was therefore able to travel fairly freely. Some also associated her with the Free Spirit movement, a group which was considered heretical because of their antinomian views. The connection between Porete and the Free Spirits is somewhat tenuous, though, as further scholarship has determined that they were less closely related than some Church authorities believed.[2]

Unlike other religious figures such as Meister Eckhart, who were condemned and later rehabilitated by the Roman Catholic Church, it is unlikely that Porete will be so favored. This is partly due to her relative obscurity. Until 1946, it was not even known that she was the writer of the Mirror, which had been published anonymously since her death.[3]

The Mirror of Simple Souls

The title of Porete's book refers to the simple soul which is united with God and has no will other than His. The book was originally written in Old French, but was translated into Latin and other languages and circulated widely. Some of the language, as well as the format of a dialogue between characters such as Love, Virtue and the Soul, reflects a familiarity with the style of courtly love which was popular at the time, and attests to Porete's high level of education and sophistication.

Although much of her book resembles a rational, Boethian argument between several parties it is actually subverting those expectations. Writing in beautifully elegant, flowing poetic prose and occasionally poetry, Marguerite ultimately says that the Soul must give up Reason, whose logical, conventional grasp of reality cannot fully comprehend God and the presence of Divine Love. The "Annihilated Soul" is one that has given up everything but God through Love. For Porete, when the Soul is truly full of God's Love it is united with God and thus in a state of union which causes it to transcend the contradictions of this world. In such a beatific state it cannot sin because it is wholly united with God's Will and thus incapable of acting in such a way - a phenomenon which the standard theology describes as the effect of Divine grace, which suppresses a person's sinful nature. It is in this vision of Man being united with God through Love, thus returning to its source, and the presence of God in everything that she connects in thought with the ideas of Eckhart. Porete and Eckhart had acquaintances in common and there is much speculation as to whether they ever met or had access to each other's work.

In many ways Porete's vision is the highest expression of the words of John the Evangelist in the New Testament:

"Beloved, let us love one another, for love cometh of God. And every one that loveth, is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not, knoweth not God; for God is love. .. [and] he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him." (First Epistle of John 3: 7-16)

Words which Porete herself references in her own writing:

" I am God, says Love, for Love is God and God is Love, and this Soul is God by the condition of Love. I am God by divine nature and this Soul is God by the condition of Love. Thus this precious beloved of mine is taught and guided by me, without herself, for she is transformed into me, and such a perfect one, says Love, takes my nourishment." (The Mirror Of Simple Souls. Trans. Ellen Babinsky ISBN 0809134276)

Porete's vision of the Soul in ecstatic union with God, moving in a state of perpetual joy and peace, is a repetition of the Catholic doctrine of the Beatific Vision, albeit experienced in this life and not in the next. Where Porete ran into trouble with some authorities was in her description of the Soul in this state being above the worldy dialectic of conventional morality and the teachings and control of the earthly church. Porete argues that the Soul in such a sublime state is above the demands of ordinary virtue, not because virtue is not needed but because in its state of union with God virtue becomes automatic. As God can do no evil and cannot sin, the exalted/Annihilated soul, in perfect union with Him, no longer is capable of evil or sin. Although this concept is found in the catechism, certain Church authorities nevertheless claimed that it smacked of amorality.

Interestingly, two hundred years later St John of the Cross expressed an almost identical view of the nature of the Soul's union with God in his The Ascent Of Mount Carmel ie that once united with God the Soul's will becomes that of God's, but was not denounced as a heretic. Although the Mirror is now embraced as an important piece of Christian mysticism it is unlikely Porete will ever enjoy the renown or acceptance John now receives from the Catholic Church.

Trial

Porete had been officially warned by Church authorities that her work was heretical and had her books publicly burned by the Bishop of Cambrai at Valenciennes. One of the taboos Porete had broken was writing the book in Old French rather than in Latin and she was ordered not to circulate her ideas or the book again. Nevertheless she continued to do so and was eventually arrested by the local Inquisitor on grounds of heresy, in spite of claims in the book that she had consulted three church authorities about her writings, including the highly respected Master of Theology Godfrey of Fontaines, and gained their approval.

Medieval manuals on "discretio spirituum" — the clerical judgement of mystical visions — called for the clergy to serve in an advisory role but nevertheless cautioned them about their own ultimate inability to make a definitive judgement on such matters (see late-medieval manuals such as Gerson's "De probatione spirituum" and "De distinctione verarum visionum a falsis"). Such manuals tell the clergy to provide learned guidance, not ultimate judgement, warning them that they might make a mistake and end up opposing the Divine Will. Seemingly ignoring such calls for caution, William of Paris consulted with a total of twenty-one theologians who scoured The Mirror of Simple Souls for evidence of heresy. Among those who condemned the book were the ecclesiastical textual scholar, Nicholas of Lyra.[1] Three Bishops passed final judgement upon her.

Porete had been arrested with a Beghard, Guiard de Cressonessart, who was also put on trial for heresy. Guiard declared himself to be Porete's defender. After being held in prison in Paris for a year and a half, their trial began. Guiard, under tremendous pressure, eventually confessed and was found guilty. Porete, on the other hand, refused to recant her ideas, withdraw her book or cooperate with the authorities, refusing to take the oath required by the Inquisitor to proceed with the trial. Guiard, because he confessed, was imprisoned. Porete, because she did not, was found guilty and burnt at the stake as a relapsed heretic. The Inquisitor spoke of her as a 'pseudo-mulier' ('fake woman') and described the Mirror as 'filled with errors and heresies'. As she died, the crowd was moved to tears by the calmness of how she faced her end. A record of the trial was appended to the chronicle begun by William of Nangis.[4]

After her death extracts from the book were used at the Council of Vienne in 1312 to condemn the Free Spirit movement as heretical.

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There is much speculation as to why Porete became such a target and why so much effort was made to put her on trial (the amount of consultants gathered to draw up the case against her was unprecedented). Growing hostility to the Beguine movement among Franciscans and Dominicans, the political machinations of the French king Philip the Fair, who was also busy suppressing the Knights Templar, ecclesiastical fear at the spread of the anti-hierarchial Free Spirit Heresy have all been suggested, as has the popularity of Porete's book which gave her a profile other writers did not have. Even after her death the Mirror of Simple Souls continued to be distributed across Europe, where it was translated into several languages, including English. In spite of its reputation as a heretical work it remained popular in Medieval times and in some ecclesiastical centres was embraced as an almost canonical piece of theology. Between Porete's death and the identification of her as the work's author in the last century, however, the Mirror was circulated as an anonymous work, Porete's name having been struck from it. Curiously, as an anonymous work it caused less controversy and in some instances was embraced as an acceptable part of Christian literature and thought (at one point it was thought that John of Ruysbroek had written it). This perhaps says something interesting about the complexities surrounding the nature of the book and the way it was received in its day. It is possible that Porete's femininity or the timing of the Mirror's publication at the height of the Free Spirit controversy lent weight to its persecution.

There were numerous female mystics during the Middle Ages period who all (by definition) claimed direct mystical contact with God, some working from within the framework of the Church, some not; and yet most — such as Hildegard of Bingen, Catherine of Siena, Birgitta of Sweden, Julian of Norwich, etc. — were not viewed as suspect. Nevertheless the leader of her trial, the Dominican Inquisitor William of Paris gathered together a formidable array of academics and lawyers to assess the case against Porete.

Since the publication of the original Old French version of the Mirror of Simple Souls in 1965 Porete's status as one of the greatest of Medieval Mystics has grown, placing her alongside Mechthild of Magdeburg and Hadewijch as one of the most visionary exponents of the Love Mysticism of Beguine spirituality.

In 2006 poet Anne Carson wrote a poetic libretto entitled Decreation, the second part of which takes as its subject Marguerite Porete and her work, the Mirror of Simple Souls as part of exploration of how women (Sappho, Simone Weil and Porete) "tell God".

[Nichi]

Marguerite Porete /Porette /Marguerite of Hainaut (d.1310)

Nothing is known about the life of Marguerite Porete except from the records of the heresy trial that resulted in her death. Her accusers labeled her a beguine, but they meant it as an insult; we simply don't know whether she considered herself a beguine (one passage in her book places beguines among her critics). Her writing suggests that she was well educated in courtly literature and in biblical and other religious texts.

In the early 1300s she was living in the area around Valencienne, in what is now the Hainaut province of Belgium. We know this because sometime before 1306, her book, Mirouer des simples ames, was condemned by the bishop of Cambrai and publicly burnt; its use was prohibited under pain of excommunication. In 1306 Mirouer probably consisted only of the first 122 chapters. Scholars believe that it after the book's condemnation that the last 17 chapters were added in order to explain and defend Porete's views. With these additions the complete book was submitted to and approved by three theologians (although two of the three were nervous about the work's being written in the vernacular and so available to a the non-Latin-reading public).

Despite this cautious approval, Porete apparently continued to be an annoyance to the authorities. By late 1308, she was in a Paris prison for repeatedly refusing to appear before an ecclesiastical court in order to swear to tell the truth. In April 1310, 21 theologians judged 15 excerpts from her book heretical. This was not itself a capital offense, but the canonists judged that she had not submitted to the bishop of Cambrai's injunction not to speak about her book. Since she still refused to take the oath and respond, she was condemned as a relapsed heretic at the end of May. On June 1, she was burnt at the stake.

Unless individual lines are taken out of context (which is exactly what happened at Paris), it is difficult today to see much in Mirouer that would bother any but the most sensitive defender of ecclesiastical honor. However, the early 1300s were not a good time in France to be questioning any authority, religious or secular. The book itself fared better than its author; it was translated into at least four languages and read for several centuries as an admirable text by "an unknown French mystic." (One of her later readers would be Marguerite de Navarre, who would praise Mirouer in her 1647-48 poem, Les prisons.)

http://home.infionline.net/~ddisse/porete.html

[Nichi]

[Many passages of the book are dialogues between Love and an increasingly confused Reason. Reason leads souls to God in one way, Love in another; Porete uses the dialogues to try to explain the difference:]

"...Love," says Reason, "...my understanding and my intelligence and all my advice, as well as I can advise, all tell me that one should long for contempt, poverty, and every kind of tribulation, and Masses and sermons and fastings and prayers, and that one should fear all kinds of love, whatever they may be, because of the dangers which may be in them, and that one should long above all for Paradise and fear Hell, and that one refuse every kind of honor and temporal goods, and every ease, denying Nature what it asks, except only that without which it could not exist, following the example of the suffering and Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is the best," says Reason, "which I can say and advise to all those who live in my obedience...."

"It is well asked" says Love, "and I shall satisfy all your prayers and questions."

"I assure you, Reason," says Love, "that these Souls who are guided by Perfect Love value shame as highly as honor, and honor as dearly as shame, poverty as highly as riches, and riches as dearly as poverty; suffering at the hands of God and his creatures as highly as consolation from God and his creatures, being loved as highly as being hated, being hated as dearly as being loved, being in Hell as highly as being in Paradise, and being in Paradise as dearly as being in Hell; lowly estate as highly as great, and great estate as dearly as lowly, whether it be for soul or for body....

"...Such Souls do not know what is better for them, nor how God wants to provide their salvation nor the salvation of their neighbors.... And therefore the Soul set Free has no will at all to will or not to will, except only to will the will of God, and to submit in peace to the divine command."       [ch.13, pp.30-31]

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"This is utter bewilderment!"
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[What Reason simply cannot accept is Love's apparent rejection of the mediation of the Church:]

"This Soul," says Love, "...no longer seeks God through penance or through any sacrament of Holy Church; not through reflections or words or works, not through any creature here below or through any creature there above, not through justice or mercy or the glory of glories, not through divine knowledge or divine love or divine praise."

"O God! O God! O God!" says Reason. "What does this creature say? This is utter bewilderment! What will those whom I nurture say? I could find nothing to say to them nor to answer them so as to excuse this."

"I am not at all amazed," says this Soul, "for these men have feet that tread no path, have hands that do no work, have mouths that speak no words, have eyes that see no light, have ears that do not hear, have reason but do not reason, body but no life, have hearts but do not understand, in everything that concerns this state of being. That is why those you nurture are amazed beyond all amazement." 

"Truly, these are marvels," says Love, "most amazing to them, for they are too far from the land where these are the customs to have any sublimity. But those who are such, and who are of the land, such men in whom God dwells are not at all amazed."       [chs. 85-86, pp.109-10]

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"And yet, elected daughter, you must know that Paradise shall be their fill."
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[God, like Love, is less censorious about those who follow Reason and "Holy Church the Less" than is the Soul. The Holy Trinity later tells the Soul:]

"Dear daughter, now I beg of you,
My sister and the only love for me.
For love's sake if you will,
No more of our secrets that you tell
Which you know well.

For others would perdition find
Where your salvation is assigned.
Since none but Reason and Longing are their lords
And Dread and Will.

"And yet, elected daughter, you must know
That Paradise shall be their fill."

"Paradise?" says this elected one. "Do you not award differently to them? So murderers are to have this too, if they are willing to cry for mercy! But even so I will be silent, since that is your wish."       [ch.121, p.149]

http://home.infionline.net/~ddisse/porete.html#anchor170289

[Nichi]

Beloved, what do you want of me?
I contain all that was, and that is, and shall be,
I am filled with the all.
Take of me all you please --
if you want all of myself, I'll not say no.
Tell me, beloved, what you want of me --
I am Love, who am filled with the all:
what you want,
we want, beloved --
tell us your desire nakedly

~M.P.

[Nichi]

You who would read this book,
If you indeed wish to grasp it,
Think about what you say,
For it is very difficult to comprehend;
Humility, who is keeper of the treasury of
Knowledge
And the mother of the other Virtues,
Must overtake you.

Theologians and other clerks,
You will not have the intellect for it,
No matter how brilliant your abilities,
If you do not proceed humbly.
And may Love and Faith, together
Cause you to rise above Reason,
Since they are the ladies of this house.

Humble, then, your wisdom
Which is based on Reason,
And place all your fidelity
In those things which are given
By Love, illuminated through Faith.
And thus you will understand this book
Which makes the Soul live by love.

Marguerite Porete: Mirror of Simple Souls (Classics of Western Spirituality) by Ellen Babinsky


http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0809134276

[Firestarter]

"This Soul," says Love, "...no longer seeks God through penance or through any sacrament of Holy Church; not through reflections or words or works, not through any creature here below or through any creature there above, not through justice or mercy or the glory of glories, not through divine knowledge or divine love or divine praise."

Well this would certainly have pissed them off! No wonder they were mad about her writings. The church is no longer needed. The church made itself too big in power over souls and thats always been its wrong. God, the one Jesus spoke of, was always willing to give His grace to souls. The church was merely an intermediary, not necessary for salvation, or at most, a temporary one. Once a soul is saved its saved, not needed to continue. However, the church wanted to 'keep' people in the fray, so the only way to do it, was to keep its continuity for need. This has always been their biggest problem and contradiction with the scriptures, IMO. Esp the constant need for confession, if a person no longer sins per christ, then why the constant need for confession? Makes you wonder. Sad this lady was burned a heretic.

[Nichi]

This might belong more in the "Christ" folder than the "Poetry" folder, though there are many poems to be culled from "The Mirror of Simple Souls".

Being a Westerner myself, the Inquisition hits home at some genetic level, I intuit, much like rats and the Plague do. And I'm going to take another leap of intuition and state that there might be many women today on the Path who feel the old flames, and still experience some ghost of trauma regarding them. That isn't to say that some men on the Path today don't likewise feel them, just that being a woman in and of itself opens up a potential commiseration.

If I'm wrong, feel free to disagree, but as I was digging up this material today, I did have flashes of some of us here in Soma ... in some other existence.

fwiw

[Firestarter]

This might belong more in the "Christ" folder than the "Poetry" folder, though there are many poems to be culled from "The Mirror of Simple Souls".

Being a Westerner myself, the Inquisition hits home at some genetic level, I intuit, much like rats and the Plague do. And I'm going to take another leap of intuition and state that there might be many women today on the Path who feel the old flames, and still experience some ghost of trauma regarding them. That isn't to say that some men on the Path today don't likewise feel them, just that being a woman in and of itself opens up a potential commiseration.

If I'm wrong, feel free to disagree, but as I was digging up this material today, I did have flashes of some of us here in Soma ... in some other existence.

fwiw

Like in a past life? I wouldnt say I feel that, only cause even if I had lived in a past life, itd be nothing in comparison as to now during the dark ages and living in such a time. But I know per myself 'now' if we'd been living in such times and I were 'caught' in any way, Id definitely get the flames, or the rack or something. Its terrible the things they did to people back then, esp to force confessions! I remember in my youth reading about a woman being accused of witchcraft, and being forced to do the water, if you swim you're a witch, if you drown you die, and she could swim! I thought of the paradox of survival, damned if you do damned if you dont, and I think that more jolted me more than reading this. So I have wondered in past if I lived in such times, but maybe I swam for my survival and because of it, didnt make it. I do not know.

I know I can look at a normal crucifix but cannot stand to see one with jesus depicted on it. It upsets me to see him on there like that, and I find the whole act of having him relive the experience in mass over and over barbaric. There is something about the act of this communion which bothers me. Im ok with wine and crackers passed out, im not ok with having him relived on the cross in mass over and over. I think once is enough, and it shouldve been that way and its possible this causes him to suffer over and over. That really bothers me, yet something tells me hes willing to do it, which is also sad to me too.

[Nichi]

Well this would certainly have pissed them off! No wonder they were mad about her writings. The church is no longer needed. The church made itself too big in power over souls and thats always been its wrong. God, the one Jesus spoke of, was always willing to give His grace to souls. The church was merely an intermediary, not necessary for salvation, or at most, a temporary one. Once a soul is saved its saved, not needed to continue. However, the church wanted to 'keep' people in the fray, so the only way to do it, was to keep its continuity for need. This has always been their biggest problem and contradiction with the scriptures, IMO. Esp the constant need for confession, if a person no longer sins per christ, then why the constant need for confession? Makes you wonder. Sad this lady was burned a heretic.

Indeed! Part of their problem with her to boot was that she wrote in French, not in Latin, so these ideas were "available" to the people who could read, but who could perhaps not read latin.

As a point of interest, the Catholic Douay version of the Bible was the first translation out of Latin, and that happened in the late 19th/early 20th Century. So that's how long the Church hung on to its proprietary stance: "knowledge" only available to monastics and clerics. 

Larry, (now an apostate atheist), went to Catholic School for both elementary and high school -- he graduated 1969 -- and he has said many times that they were never assigned to read the Bible (by then it was the St. Joseph's version). Religious classes were from the catechism and other sources, but never the Bible. So this trend to withhold from "the people" went on for a long time.

Another heretical thing Marguerite (and mystics around the world) asserted was that God is within. Traditional Christianity (not to be confused with Christ, of course) takes great exception to that notion.

[Firestarter]

Indeed! Part of their problem with her to boot was that she wrote in French, not in Latin, so these ideas were "available" to the people who could read, but who could perhaps not read latin.

As a point of interest, the Catholic Douay version of the Bible was the first translation out of Latin, and that happened in the late 19th/early 20th Century. So that's how long the Church hung on to its proprietary stance: "knowledge" only available to monastics and clerics. 

Larry, (now an apostate atheist), went to Catholic School for both elementary and high school -- he graduated 1969 -- and he has said many times that they were never assigned to read the Bible (by then it was the St. Joseph's version). Religious classes were from the catechism and other sources, but never the Bible. So this trend to withhold from "the people" went on for a long time.

Another heretical thing Marguerite (and mystics around the world) asserted was that God is within. Traditional Christianity takes great exception to that notion.

Yeah I remember that they conducted mass in latin too, which I never understood. Like going to a third world country, taking over, only to conduct mass in latin so no one would understand what the hell was going on. Its so ignorant. I take a lot of exception with that.

Well one thing you're seeing nowadays is a more mystical side of christianity. Like the people who run the fellowship place I go call themselves 'mystic christians' and keep it open for all. They also practice things like psychic abilties, guided meditation and the like. and I think you see this more with Unity Christians who are more open to other people. There's always been a mystical side to christianity, and even Jesus said 'kingdom of God is within you' so how could this not be so, that God is not within us? Its amazing how the church will try to side-step even over things that Jesus said and run in contradiction, just to keep up its old ways. But its not going to change. They're still the largest church on the globe with the largest amount of followers, 2 billion statistically, though they are losing members, esp after the child molestation controversy.

[Firestarter]

Here's from adherents.com

# Christianity: 2.1 billion
# Islam: 1.5 billion
# Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist: 1.1 billion
# Hinduism: 900 million
# Chinese traditional religion: 394 million
# Buddhism: 376 million
# primal-indigenous: 300 million
# African Traditional & Diasporic: 100 million
# Sikhism: 23 million
# Juche: 19 million
# Spiritism: 15 million
# Judaism: 14 million
# Baha'i: 7 million
# Jainism: 4.2 million
# Shinto: 4 million
# Cao Dai: 4 million
# Zoroastrianism: 2.6 million
# Tenrikyo: 2 million
# Neo-Paganism: 1 million
# Unitarian-Universalism: 800 thousand
# Rastafarianism: 600 thousand
# Scientology: 500 thousand