The History of Richard Raynal, Solitary

by Robert Hugh Benson

  Of the Dark Night of the Soul

  _De profundis clamavi ad te, Domine: Domine exaudi vocem meam._

  Out of the depths I have cried to Thee, O Lord: Lord, hear myvoice.--_Ps. cxxix. 1, 2._

  XI

  The third temptation was so fierce and subtle, that I doubt whether Iwholly understood it when Master Richard tried to tell it to me. He didnot tell me all, and he could answer but few questions, and I fear thatI am not able to tell even all that I heard from him. It was built uplike a house, he said, stone by stone, till it fenced him in, but he didnot know what was all its nature till he saw my lord cardinal.

  A soul such as was Master Richard's must have temptations that seem asnothing to coarser beings such as myself: as a bird that lives in theair has dangers that a crawling beast cannot have. There are perils inthe height that are not perils on the earth. A bird may strike a tree ora tower; his wings may fail him; he may fly too near the sun till hefaint in its heat; he cannot rest; if he is overtaken by darkness hecannot lie still. [Sir John enumerates at some length other such dangersto bird life.]....

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  Now Master Richard described the state into which he fell under acurious name that I cannot altogether understand. He said that there bethree _nights_ through which the contemplative soul must pass or ever itcome to the dawn. The first two he had gone through during his life inthe country; the first is a kind of long-continued dryness, whenspiritual things have no savour; the second is an affection of the mind,when not even meditation [This is an exercise distinct from contemplationapparently. I include this passage, in spite of its technicalities, forobvious reasons.] appears possible; the mind is like a restless fly thatis at once weary and active. This second is not often attained to byordinary souls, though all men who serve God have a shadow of it. It isa very terrible state. Master Richard told me that before he suffered ithe had not conceived that such conflict was possible to man. It wasduring this time that the fiend came to him in form of a woman. Theimagination that cannot fix itself upon the things of God is wide-awaketo all other impressions of sense. [I do not think that Sir Johnunderstands what he is writing about, though he does his best to appearas if he did. I have omitted a couple of incoherent paragraphs.]....

  Now, these two first _nights_ I think I understand, for he told me thatwhat he suffered during his whipping in the hall and the strife of hismind with the clerk were each a kind of symbol of them. But the third,which he called the _Night of the Soul_ I do not understand at all. [Itis remarkable that this phrase frequently occurs in the writings of St.John of the Cross, though he treats it differently. Until I came acrossit in this MS. I had always thought that the Spanish mystic was thefirst to use it.] This only can I say of the state itself: that MasterRichard said that it was in a manner what our Lord suffered upon therood when he cried to His Father _Eloi, Eloi, etc._

  But I can tell you something of the signs of that affliction, as theyshewed themselves to Master Richard. Of the interior state of his soul Icannot even think without terror and confusion. Compared with thedarkness of it, the other _nights_, he said, are but as clouds acrossthe sun on a summer's day compared with a moonless midnight in winter.He had suffered a shadow of it before, when he was entering thecontemplative state, or the prefect Way of Union. Now it fell upon him.Before I tell you how it came, I must tell you that this _night_, as heexplained it, takes its occasion from some particular thought, and thethought from which it sprang you shall hear presently.

  When the clerk had left him, sighing, as I said, as if with a kindlyweariness (to encourage the other to call for him, I suppose), MasterRichard committed himself again to God and lay still.

  A fellow came in soon with his supper (for it was now growing dark), setit by him and went out. Master Richard took a little food, and after awhile, as his custom was after repeating the name of Jesu, began tothink on God, on the Blessed and Holy Trinity, and on His Attributes,numbering them one by one and giving thanks for each, and marking thecolour and place of each in the glory of the throne. He was too weary tosay vespers or compline, and presently he fell asleep, but whether itwas common sleep or not I do not know.

  In his sleep it seemed to him that he was walking along a path beneathtrees, as he had walked on his way to London; but it was twilight, andhe could not see clearly. There was none with him, and he was afraid,and did not know what he feared. He was afraid of what lay behind, andon all sides, and he was yet more afraid of what lay before him, but heknew that he could not stay nor turn. He went swiftly, he thought, andwith no sound, towards some appointed place, and the twilight darkenedas he went; when he looked up there was no star nor moon to be seen, andwhat had been branches when he set out seemed now to be a roof, so thickthey were. There was no bray of stag, nor rustle of breeze, nor cry ofnight-bird. He tried to pray, but he could remember no prayer, and noteven the healthful name of _Jesu_ came to his mind. He could do noughtbut look outwards with his straining eyes, and inwards at his soul; andthe one was now as dark as the other. He thought of me then, mychildren, and longed to have me there, but he knew that I was asleep inmy bed and far away. He thought of his mother whom he had loved so much,but he knew that she was gone to God and had left him alone. And still,through all, his feet bore him on swiftly without sound or fatigue,though the terror and the darkness were now black as ink. He felt hishair rising upon his head, and his skin prickle, and the warmth wasaltogether gone from his heart, but he could not stay.

  And at the last his feet ceased to move, and he stood still, knowingthat he was come to the place.

  Now, I do not understand what he said to me of that place. He told methat he could see nothing; it was as if his eyes were put out, yet heknew what it was like.

  It was a little round place in the forest, with trees standing about it,and it was trampled hard with the footsteps of those who had come therebefore him. But that was no comfort to him now; for he did not know howthese persons had fared, nor where were their souls.

  So he stood in the black darkness, knowing that he could not turn, withthe horror on him so heavy that he sweated as he told me of it, and withthe knowledge that something was approaching under the trees withoutsound of step or breathing--he did not know whether it was man or beastor fiend, he only knew that it was approaching. Yet he could not pray orcry out.

  Then he was aware that it had entered the little space where he stood,and was even now within a hand's grasp. Yet he could not lift his handsto ward it off, or to pray to God, or to bless himself.

  Then he perceived that the thing--_negotium perambulans in tenebris_["the Business that walketh about in the dark" (Ps. xc. 6.)]--wasformless, without hands to strike or mouth to bite him with, and that itwas all about him now, closing upon him. If there had been aught totouch his body, wet lips to kiss his face, or fiery eyes to look intohis own, he would not have feared it with a thousandth part of the fearthat he had. It was that there was no shape or face, and that it soughtnot his body but his soul. And when he understood that he gave a loudcry and awoke, and knew, as in a mystery, that it was no dream, butthat he was indeed come to the place that he had seen, and that this_negotium_ was at his soul's heart. [There is either an omission herein the translation of Sir John's original MS., or else the transcriberhas dashed his pen down in horror, or sought to produce an impressionof it.]....

  I find it impossible, my children, to make you understand in what statehe was; he could not make even me understand. I can only set down alittle of what he said.

  First, he knew that he had lost God. It was not that there was no God,but that he had lost Him of his own fault and sin. He was aware that inall other places there was God and that the blessed reigned with Him,but not in the place where he was, nor in his heart. In all men thatever I have met there was a certain presence of God. As the apostle toldthe men of Athens, _Ipsius enim et genus suum_; ["For we are also Hisoffspring" (Acts xvii. 28.)] and, again, _Non longe est ab unoquoquenostrum_; ["He is not far from eve
ry one of us" (Acts xvii. 27.)] andagain, _In ipso vivimus, et movemur, et sumus_. ["In Him we live, andwe move, and we are" (Acts xvii. 28.)] I have not seen a man who hadnot this knowledge, though maybe some, such as Turks and pagans, maycall it by another name. But until death, I think, all men, whatevertheir sins or ignorance, live and move in God's Majesty. Hell, MasterRichard told me, is nothing less than the withdrawal of that presence,with other torments superadded, but this is chief. Master Richard toldme that that black fire of hell rages wherever God is not; and that theworm gnaws in all hearts that have lost Him, and know it to be by theirown fault--_maxima culpa_. ["the very great fault."]

  There be a few men in this world--the Son of God derelict is theirprince--who are called to this supreme torment while they yet live--ifindeed that man may be said to live who is without God--and of thiscompany Master Richard was now made one.

  It was with him now as he had dreamed. Where God is not, there can be nocommunion with man, for the only reason by which one perceives another'ssoul, or understands that it is the soul of a man and has a likeness tohis own, is that both are, in some measure, in God. If we were more holyand wise we should understand for ourselves that this is so, and see,too, why it is so, for He is eyes to the blind and ears to the deaf.[I do not understand this at all. I wonder whether Sir John did as hewrote it; I am quite sure that his flock did not.]

  For Master Richard, then, there was no other person in the world. Therewas that that fenced him from all living. Our Saviour Christ upon therood spoke to His Blessed Mother before His dereliction, but not againafterwards. There was no more that He might say to her, or to Hiscousin, John.

  This, then, was the state in which Master Richard lay--that_specialissimus_ of God Almighty, to whom the Divine Love and Majestywas as breath to his nostrils, meat to his mouth, and water to his body.I an say no more on that point.

  As to the fault by which it seemed that he had come to that state, itwas the most terrible of all sins, which is Presumption. Holy Churchsets before us Humility as the chief of virtues, to shew us thatPresumption is the chief of vices. A man may be an adulterer or amurderer or a sacrilegious person, and yet by Humility may find mercy.But a man may be chaste and stainless in all his works, and a worshipperof God, but without Humility he cannot come to glory. [Sir John proceedsin this strain for several pages, illustrating his point by the cases ofLucifer, Nabuchodonosor, Judas Iscariot, King Herod, and others.]....

  Now the matter in which it seemed to Master Richard that he had sinnedthe sin of Presumption was the old matter of the tidings he had borne tothe King. It was not that the tidings were false, for he knew them fortrue; but yet that he had been presumptuous in bearing them. It was asthough a stander-by had overheard tidings given by a king to hisservant, and had presumed to hear them himself, as it were Achimaas theson of Sadoc. [I supposed that this obscure reference is to 2 Kingsxviii. 19.] And more than that, that he had presumed in thinking that hecould be such a man as our Lord would call to such an office. He had sethimself, it appeared, far above his fellows in even listening to ourSaviour's voice; he should rather have cried with saint Peter, _Exi a mequia homo peccator sum Domine_. ["Depart from me, for I am a sinful man,O Lord" (Luke v. 8.)]

  It was this sin that had driven him from God's Presence. Our Lord hadbestowed on him wonderful gifts of grace. He had visited him as Hevisits few others and had led him in the Way of Union, and he hadfollowed, triumphing in this, giving God the glory in words only, untilhe had fallen as it seemed from the height of presumption to the depthof despair, and lay here now, excluded from the Majesty that he desired.

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  Now, here is a very wonderful thing, and I know not if I can make itclear.

  You understand, my children, a little of what I heard from MasterRichard's lips--of what it was that he suffered. But although all thiswas upon him, he perceived afterwards, though not at the time, thatthere was something in him that had not yielded to the agony. His bodywas broken, and his mind amazed, and his soul obscured in this _Night_,yet there was one power more, that we name the Will (and that is thevery essence of man, by which he shall be judged), that had not yet sunkor cried out that it was so as the fiend suggested.

  There was within him, he perceived afterwards, a conflict withoutmovement. It was as when two men wrestle, their limbs are locked, theyare motionless, they appear to be at rest, but in truth they arestriving with might and main.

  So he remained all that night in this agony, not knowing that he didaught but suffer; he saw the light on the wall, and heard the cockscrow--at least he remembered these things afterwards. But his releasedid not come until the morning; and of that release, and its event, andhow it came about, I will now tell you.