Hitherto mysticism, in the person of Bernard, has repudiated scholasticism. In Hugo, and his successor Richard, the foes are reconciled. Bonaventura in the thirteenth, and Gerson in the fifteenth century, are great names in the same province. Indeed, throughout the middle ages, almost everything that merits the title of mystical theology is characterized by some such endeavour to unite the contemplation of the mystic with the dialectics of the schoolman. There was good in the attempt. Mysticism lost much of its vagueness, and scholasticism much of its frigidity.
Hugo was well fitted by temperament to mediate between the extreme tendencies of his time. Utterly destitute of that daring originality which placed Erigena at least two centuries in advance of his age, his very gentleness and caution would alone have rendered him more moderate in his views and more catholic in sympathy than the intense and vehement Bernard. Hugo, far from proscribing science and denouncing speculation, called in the aid of the logical gymnastics of his day to discipline the mind for the adventurous enterprise of the mystic. If he regarded with dislike the idle word-warfare of scholastic ingenuity, he was quite as little disposed to bid common sense a perpetual farewell among the cloudiest realms of mysticism. His style is clear, his spirit kindly, his judgment generally impartial. It is refreshing in those days of ecclesiastical domination to meet with at least a single mind to whom that Romanist ideal—an absolute uniformity in religious opinion—appeared both impossible and undesirable.[[58]]
A few words may present the characteristic outlines of his mysticism. It avails itself of the aid of speculation to acquire a scientific form—in due subjection, of course, to the authority of the Church. It will ground its claim on a surer tenure than mere religious emotion or visionary reverie. Hugo, with all his contemporaries, reverenced the Pseudo-Dionysius. His more devout and practical spirit laboured at a huge commentary on the Heavenly Hierarchy, like a good angel, condemned for some sin to servitude under a paynim giant. In the hands of his commentator, Dionysius becomes more scriptural and human—for the cloister, even edifying, but remains as uninteresting as ever.
Hugo makes a threefold division of our faculties. First, and lowest, Cogitatio. A stage higher stands Meditatio: by this he means reflection, investigation. Third, and highest, ranges Contemplatio: in this state the mind possesses in light the truth which, in the preceding, it desired and groped after in twilight.[[59]]
He compares this spiritual process to the application of fire to green wood. It kindles with difficulty; clouds of smoke arise; a flame is seen at intervals, flashing out here and there; as the fire gains strength, it surrounds, it pierces the fuel; presently it leaps and roars in triumph—the nature of the wood is being transformed into the nature of fire. Then, the struggle over, the crackling ceases, the smoke is gone, there is left a tranquil, friendly brightness, for the master-element has subdued all into itself. So, says Hugo, do sin and grace contend; and the smoke of trouble and anguish hangs over the strife. But when grace grows stronger, and the soul’s eye clearer, and truth pervades and swallows up the kindling, aspiring nature, then comes holy calm, and love is all in all. Save God in the heart, nothing of self is left.[[60]]
Looking through this and other metaphors as best we may, we discover that Contemplation has two provinces—a lower and a higher. The lower degree of contemplation, which ranks next above Meditation, is termed Speculation. It is distinct from Contemplation proper, in its strictest signification. The attribute of Meditation is Care. The brow is heavy with inquiring thought, for the darkness is mingled with the light. The attribute of Speculation is Admiration—Wonder. In it the soul ascends, as it were, a watch-tower (specula), and surveys everything earthly. On this stage stood the Preacher when he beheld the sorrow and the glory of the world, and pronounced all things human Vanity. To this elevation, whence he philosophizes concerning all finite things, man is raised by the faith, the feeling, and the ascetic practice of religion. Speculative illumination is the reward of devotion. But at the loftiest elevation man beholds all things in God. Contemplation, in its narrower and highest sense, is immediate intuition of the Infinite. The attribute of this stage is Blessedness.
As a mystic, Hugo cannot be satisfied with that mediate and approximate apprehension of the Divine Nature which here on earth should amply satisfy all who listen to Scripture and to Reason. Augustine had told him of a certain spiritual sense, or eye of the soul. This he makes the organ of his mysticism. Admitting the incomprehensibility of the Supreme, yet chafing as he does at the limitations of our finite nature, Faith—which is here the natural resource of Reason—fails to content him. He leaps to the conclusion that there must be some immediate intuition of Deity by means of a separate faculty vouchsafed for the purpose.
You have sometimes seen from a hill-side a valley, over the undulating floor of which there has been laid out a heavy mantle of mist. The spires of the churches rise above it—you seem to catch the glistening of a roof or of a vane—here and there a higher house, a little eminence, or some tree-tops, are seen, islanded in the white vapour, but the lower and connecting objects, the linking lines of the roads, the plan and foundation of the whole, are completely hidden. Hugo felt that, with all our culture, yea, with Aristotle to boot, revealed truth was seen by us somewhat thus imperfectly. No doubt certain great facts and truths stand out clear and prominent, but there is a great deal at their basis, connecting them, attached to them, which is impervious to our ordinary faculties. We are, in fact, so lamentably far from knowing all about them. Is there not some power of vision to be attained which may pierce these clouds, lay bare to us these relationships, nay, even more, be to us like the faculty conferred by Asmodeus, and render the very roofs transparent, so that from topstone to foundation, within and without, we may gaze our fill? And if to realize this wholly be too much for sinful creatures, yet may not the wise and good approach such vision, and attain as the meed of their faith, even here, a superhuman elevation, and in a glance at least at the Heavenly Truth unveiled, escape the trammels of the finite?
Such probably was the spirit of the question which possessed, with a ceaseless importunity, the minds of men, ambitious alike to define with the schoolman and to gaze with the seer. Hugo answers that the eye of Contemplation—closed by sin, but opened more or less by grace—furnishes the power thus desiderated.[[61]] But at this, his highest point, he grasps a shadow instead of the substance. Something within the mind is mistaken for a manifestation from without. A mental creation is substituted for that Divine Existence which his rapture seems to reveal. He asserts, however, that this Eye beholds what the eye of sense and the eye of reason cannot see, what is both within us and above us—God. Within us, he cries, is both what we must flee and whither we must flee. The highest and the inmost are, so far, identical.[[62]] Thus do the pure in heart see God. In such moments the soul is transported beyond sense and reason, to a state similar to that enjoyed by angelic natures. The contemplative life is prefigured by the ark in the deluge. Without are waves, and the dove can find no rest. As the holy ship narrowed toward the summit, so doth this life of seclusion ascend from the manifold and changeful to the Divine Immutable Unity.
The simplification of the soul he inculcates is somewhat analogous to the Haplosis of the Neo-Platonists. All sensuous images are to be discarded; we must concentrate ourselves upon the inmost source, the nude essence of our being. He is careful, accordingly, to guard against the delusions of the imagination.[[63]] He cautions his readers lest they mistake a mere visionary phantasm—some shape of imaginary glory, for a supernatural manifestation of the Divine Nature to the soul. His mysticism is intellectual, not sensuous. Too practical for a sentimental Quietism or any of its attendant effeminacies, and, at the same time, too orthodox to verge on pantheism, his mystical doctrine displays less than the usual proportion of extravagance, and the ardent eloquence of his ‘Praise of Love’ may find an echo in every Christian heart.