[46] Exod. xxxiii. 11; Num. xii. 8; Heb. iii. 2.
[47] It would be well to quote St. Thomas, the disciple of Albert the Great, upon this important doctrine: "A thing may be said to belong to the contemplative life in two senses, either as an essential part of it, or as a preliminary disposition. The moral virtues do not belong to the essence of contemplation, whose sole end is the contemplation of truth.... But they belong to it as a necessary predisposition ... because they calm the passions and the tumult of exterior preoccupations, and so facilitate contemplation" ("Sum.," 2, 2ae, q. 180, a. 2).
This distinction should never be lost sight of in reading the mystic books of the scholastics.
[48] John xvii. 3.
[49] Ps. xvi. 15.
[50] This admirable doctrine condemns a whole mass of insipid, shallow, affected and sensual books and ideas, which have in modern times flooded the world of piety, have banished from souls more wholesome thoughts, and filled them with a questionable and injurious sentimentality.
[51] Matt. xi. 6; xiii. 57, etc.
[52] This shows an excellent grasp of the meaning of the celebrated maxim "Perinde ac cadaver."
[53] Luke x. 42.
[54] Ibid.