The greatest and most universal failure in common-sense must be the leaving out of God in all our thoughts; and therefore is it written of the natural man, not only “there is none that doeth good, no not one,” but also, “there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.”
[1]Described in her own words in “Trees Planted by the River” (Nisbet).
[2]This pope was Gregory X.
[3]The Latin translation of Matilda’s book appears to have been published very early, as it does not contain the seventh book, probably, therefore, considerably earlier than the year 1300. We know that the 6th and 7th Cantos of the Purgatorio were written between 1308 and 1313; the 24th Canto after the year 1314. If Dante passed through Cologne in his wanderings, as appears probable from his reference to Cologne in the Inferno, xxiii. 63, he may there have seen the book. It was, however, no doubt widely circulated before the end of the thirteenth century. The supposition that Matilda of Hackeborn was the origin of Dante’s Matilda is disproved by the later date of the Mechthilden Buch, which could scarcely have been published before the year 1310.
[4]In his lecture on Dante’s Matilda, delivered at a later period, Preger raises the question whether the book of the Béguine is of such a nature as to have attracted in so considerable a measure the appreciation of a Dante. “I must here only repeat,” he says, “that which I have formerly written with regard to the spirit and poetical power of this work, as it appears in Morel’s edition. I think I may say that amongst all the known works of this nature up to the end of the thirteenth century, there is none that attains to the importance of this work. Only the second part of the book of the Nun Gertrude, written by herself, can be placed in any point of view in comparison with it. It is evident that the Béguine Matilda was of sufficient significance to make an impression on Dante, and to be used by him as a type of that form of contemplation which I have described under the name of practical mysticism.”
[5]The contents of the seven books may be thus summarised:—
1. Disconnected passages—visions, or parables related as visions. 2. Disconnected parables, visions, and prophecies. With regard to one of these visions Matilda remarks, “That this so happened is not to be understood literally, but spiritually; it was that which the soul saw, and recognised, and rejoiced in. The words sound human, but the natural mind can but partly receive that which the higher sense of the soul perceives of spiritual things.” Commendations of the preaching friars of the order of S. Dominic. References to passing events and contemporary persons, or persons lately departed. 3. Refers chiefly to ecclesiastical matters. Contains prophecies of the last days, of the Antichrist, of the return of Enoch and Elijah. In these prophecies occur passages reproduced in the Divine Commedia. 4. The book of love, between God and the soul. 5. Practical. 6. Descriptions of hell (the City of Eternal Hate) and Purgatory, with which the Divine Commedia may be compared. Preparation for death. 7. Various and disconnected. References to contemporary persons and events.
[6]Author of the “Psalter of the Blessed Virgin.”
[7]See Purgatoria, Canto xxxi. 129.