The original book is the oldest work of its sort hitherto known to have existed in the German tongue.
“It may justly be said,” writes Preger, “that this book denotes a high degree in the measurement of the culture of German women, and of religious life in the Middle Ages. With freedom and clearness of thought, the writer combines tender and deep feeling; with a childlike and naïve perceptiveness, a true sublimity of conception. Matilda frequently touches the depths in which speculative mysticism is formed, and her influence is to be traced even in the work of the deep thinker who was her compatriot, namely, Meister Eckhart, in whose language we find the echo of Matilda’s speech. This language, which she employs with freedom and ease, takes at times the form of didactic speech, but it often rises to musical rhythm, to lyric song, and to epic portraiture. By the variety and life, as well as by the plastic intuition of expression, this work is distinguished from the monotonous writings on similar subjects by older authors.”[4]
Much more might yet be said of Matilda as a writer and a poet. But it is with Matilda, the persecuted “Friend of God,” the witness for Christ in a time dark as she describes it, that we have to do in the present instance.
The Book and its Origin.
We have Matilda’s own account of the origin of her book. She says that when she began to live a spiritual life, and “took leave of the world,” she found that the fulness of her bodily life and strength was a danger to her spiritual life, and, therefore, after the manner of her times she regarded the body as an enemy against which she was called to wage continual war.
“I saw that the weapons furnished to my heart were the sufferings and the death of Christ, and yet I was in great and constant fear, and I thought to deal violent blows to my enemy with sighs and confession, and weeping, with fasting, watching, and prayer, and with blows and stripes. And by this means for two and twenty years I kept my body in subjection, and had no illness.
“But after this illness came. And then came to me the mighty power, even the love of God, and filled me to overflowing with His wonders, so that I dared no longer keep silence, though to one so simple as I it was hard to speak. And I said to the Lord, ‘O loving God, what canst Thou find in me? Thou knowest well I am a fool and a sinner, and a miserable creature in soul and body. It is to the wise that Thou shouldst commit Thy wonders, then mightest Thou be praised aright.’
“But the Lord was displeased at my words, and He rebuked me, saying, ‘Tell me now, art thou not Mine?’
“‘Yes, Lord, that hast Thou granted me!’
“‘May I not, then, do with thee as I will?’