SOURCE: "The Vision of the World and of the Archetypes in the Latin Spirituality of the Middle Ages" in Archives: D'Histoire Doctrinal et Littéraire du Moyen Age, Librarie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1978, pp. 7-31.

[In the following excerpt, Bell discusses various interpretations of St. Benedict's visio mundi, or "vision of the world," as recorded in Gregory the Great's biography of Benedict.]

Our source for this mysterious vision is Gregory the Great's life of Benedict, which forms the second book of the Dialogues. The saint (Gregory tells us) was standing at the window of a tower, and saw, to his wonder, "sicut post ipse narravit, omnis etiam mundus velut sub uno solis radio collectus", and in the splendour of the light, saw too "Germani Capuani episcopi animam in sphaera ignea ab angelis in coelum ferri"¹. Gregory's explanation of this remarkable experience is neat and simple: "non coelum et terra contracta est, sed videntis animus est dilatatus, qui in Deo raptus videre sine difficultate potuit omne quod infra Deum est"². The ravishing to God of the mens of Benedict showed him, in God's light, how small things really were here below. If we were to accept this explanation and consider it as generally applicable, then any similar raptus might in theory be expected to produce the same vision, provided, of course, that a similar raptus is possible.

Gregory himself, however, seems to make of Benedict a notable exception to his general rule, for in a clear passage in the Moralia he points out that the boundless light of God fills all things with itself and encircles all things (including the human mens), but "idcirco mens nostra nequaquam se ad comprehendendam incircumscriptam circumstantiam dilatat, quia eam inopia suae circumscriptionis angustat"³. But Benedict seems not to have been constrained by this general principle. Furthermore, if Gregory intends to imply by his description that Benedict saw God face to face, then this makes the saint an even rarer and more remarkable exception, for Gregory is insistent on our inability here below to see God sicuti est, and presents an abundance of texts stating this fact⁴. If Benedict, then, did see God in this way, his experience was most extraordinary, and we cannot hope to see what he saw. But it is not at all clear that Gregory did wish to imply this with regard to Benedict. He certainly does not say directly that this was so, and Thomas Aquinas shows that from Augustinian premises it is impossible that he could have thought so⁵. But Gregory, although deeply devoted to Augustine and deeply influenced by him, does not copy him slavishly, and as Dom Butler says: "If St Augustine's view be accepted, it is clear that St Benedict did not enjoy this supreme vision. But our question is: Did St Gregory believe St Benedict to have had the vision of God's Essence? rather than: Did St Benedict really have it?"⁶ Robert Gillet would answer the former question affirmatively, pointing out that "la lux creatoris des Dialogues semble donc devoir être identifiée avec la nature même de Dieu"⁷, and that as a consequence to see one is to see the other. There is no doubt that, as Gillet points out, Gregory's general viewpoint is contrary to this concept, but he is prepared to see exceptions to the general rule in Moses, Paul, and Benedict⁸.

A. Schaut, however, is less certain⁹. There is no doubt, he says, that Benedict attained "zur höchsten Höhe der Contemplatio"¹⁰, but must this indicate a vision of the essence of God sicuti est? "Auf den ersten Blick", he observes, "sind wir geneigt, die Frage zu bejahen, da Gregor in der Vision von einem videre Creatorem spricht. Hätten wir nur diesen Text Gregors vor uns, so müsste die Frage wohl in diesem Sinne entschieden werden, da wir zu wenig Anhaltspunkte hätten, die uns veranlassen könnten, eine gegenteilige Behauptung aufzustellen"¹¹. But he considers that the overwhelming weight of the other texts of Gregory gainsays this conclusion, and decides that "eine Gottesschau ist für den noch im Fleische Lebenden nur möglich per aenigma und per speculum; denn im Fleische leben heisst die caligo corruptionis an sich tragen.… Von dieser Regel gibt es auch für Jakob, Moses, Job, Isaias und Paulus keine Ausnahme. Ihr Schauen war kein Schauen per speciem""¹². It is clear, therefore, that there is room for doubt on the question, and I am not sure that we can be certain what Gregory's thought was on this point. That he conceived the vision to be very exalted is not in doubt, but whether he thought of it as a vision of God sicuti est is another question. For myself, I am by no means convinced that he did. Certainly (and as Schaut has noted) Gregory speaks of videre Creatorem ("quia animae videnti Creatorem angusta est omnis creatura"'¹³), but in the very next sentence grows cautious as to how much of this light may be seen. "Quamlibet etenim parum de luce Creatoris aspexerit …"¹⁴. Even faith in God is a slight glimpse of his light ("Jede Glaubenserkenntnis ist bereits ein Schauen im Lichte Gottes", Schaut observes, "denn der Glaubensinhalt kommt ja von Gott"'¹⁵), but no-one, I am sure, would conclude from this that "jede Glaubenserkenntnis" is the full Beatific Vision.

The comments of Bernard of Clairvaux on the Dialogues passage do not assist us to any great extent¹⁶. The views of Dom Butler"¹⁷, of Mabillon'¹⁸, and others are that Bernard understood the description as referring to a face to face vision. Their reasoning appears to be that (a) Bernard says here that this vision really pertains to the natura angelica, not the natura humana¹⁹; (b) Bernard says in a number of places that the angels see the face of God²⁰; therefore (c) the vision of Benedict is the face to face vision of God sicuti est²¹. This argument, however, is not strictly logical, and the conclusion (c) does not necessarily follow from the premises. There is no doubt that angelic consciousness is very remarkable²², but Gilson is right in expressing doubts that Bernard's account of Benedict's vision provides a rare exception to his general stand-point that the vision sicuti est is not permitted us here on earth²³. Bernard does not actually say in this passage "Benedict saw God face to face" (and Benedict, according to Gregory, never said he did); happy are they, he says, "qui … invisibilia Dei non visibilibus rimando perquirunt, sed in ipsis ad liquidum intellecta conspiciunt"²⁴. Happy indeed! But this is not necessarily the Beatific Vision. On the other hand, I am not sure that we can be quite as certain as Gilson that the vision sicuti est is not in Bernard's mind here, and I do not think we can deny the possibility that Butler and Mabillon (even if not strictly logical) are correct. The account in Bernard, like that in Gregory, is open to different interpretations. Bernard does not seem quite sure what to do with it, and after his brief and ambiguous account hastens on, and turns his attention instead to the safer and standard theme of perceiving God via his creatures²⁵.

The vision of Benedict, in other words, although unquestionably of a very high level, poses considerable problems as to what precisely to do with it and how exactly to interpret it. In one way this is not particularly surprising, for as Odo Casel pointed out in 1917²⁶, the actual description of the vision (as distinct from Gregory's interpretation of it) is rather more akin to hellenistic mysticism than to standard Christian spirituality. "Die Seele", he writes, "die ja selbst von Aetherhöhen herabgestiegen ist, die ein Funke des göttlichen Feuers ist, fühlt sich bei Betrachtung der Himmelskörper mächtig angezogen, dorthin zurückzukehren; sie wird emporgetragen unter den Reigen der Sterne und schaut nun von oben in seliger Schau auf die Erde und das Welthall hinab. Sie lässt den Leib unten auf der Erde und vereinigt sich mit der Gottheit"²⁷. And he adduces examples for this concept from Stobaios, Philo, Cicero, and Seneca²⁸. The vision of the soul of Germanus "in sphaera ignea" also has a hellenistic parallel, for Casel reminds us of the "Kaisarapotheose", a representation of which (at the base of the Antoninus column, for example) Benedict himself might have seen in Rome²⁹. And "es ist auffallend", he adds, "dass in dem eigentlichen Bericht üiber die Vision von der Anschauung Gottes nicht gesprochen wird. Das geschieht in der von Gregor auf Bitten des Petrus beigefügten Erklärung, die eigentlich erst dem Ganzen eine spezifisch christliche Ausdeutung gibt"³⁰. The conceptual imagery in which the vision of Benedict is described, therefore, ties it to its times, and since it is much less specifically Christian than much other material, the interpretations placed upon it may vary directly with the ingenuity and imagination of the interpreter. Perhaps because of its somewhat alien nature, the vision of Benedict occupies no major place in the mystical theology of the Middle Ages, and other examples of such hellenistic/Christian visions of the world are extremely difficult to find.

William of St Thierry, for example, conceives of the highest spiritual attainment in this world as being when the mens becomes not Deus, but quod Deus est³¹, when it participates as fully as it may in the divine nature, and if the mens is thus expanded in God, we might surely expect it to be vouchsafed at least a modicum of the visio mundi such as Gregory records. Yet there is no evidence in William of such a vision, and the unus simul intuitus we find in one passage of the Aenigma Fidei (PL 180.435B) refers not to an experience of Benedict's type, but to the post-mortem experience/vision of the oneness and threeness of the Trinity at the same time. We have here a sound theoretical basis for the vision (if Gregory's explanation is to be believed), but no account of the vision itself.

If, however, we turn to the obscure Cistercian, Hildebrand of Himmerod³², we find an account of a most interesting experience which presents certain similarities to the vision of Benedict. The author, whose entire published work comprises less than twelve full columns in volume 181 of the Patrologia Latina, flourished in the latter part of the thirteenth century, and in his Libellus de Contemplatione produced a brief but extremely interesting opuscule. In it, after discussing various matters concerned with the quest for God, and (following Bernard) delineating various types of contemplation, he speaks of the ecstatic raptus thus:

Optimum enim videndi genus erit, ut te viso, nullius eguerim ad omne quod libuerit te contentus. In te quidquid est a te, videre dabitur per te. Claritas refulgens in te, resplendebit mihi totum quod es, et omne quod est ex te.… Quia in lumine tuo videbimus lumen, in tuo lumine, Fili Dei, videbimus lumen Patris Dei; videbimus et lumen Spiritus sancti Dei. Non autem tria videbimus lumina Dei, sed … videbimus in tribus discretis personis unum indiscretum lumen Deum. Non solum quippe in tuo lumine deiformiter illuminati, videbimus te divinum increatum lumen; sed etiam videbimus et nunc et tunc, quantum illuminatio vultus tui super nos, et pro quanto nos fecerit, creata lumina lucentia, ante Dominum³³.

In this description, Hildebrand clearly conceives the experience to be both the Trinitarian unus simul intuitus of William of St Thierry, and the vision of the totality of creation. What he does not make quite clear, however, is whether the "shining created lights" are seen in their earthly manifestations (as in the case of Benedict), or in their archetypal structure as Ideas or Forms³⁴. Or, in other words, whether we have a visio mundi or a visio mundi archetypi. The passage, however, is undeniably of considerable interest.

A brief comment in Bruno the Carthusian is in some ways similar to this description of Hildebrand, but less detailed, and—as in the case of Bernard—difficult to place in the broader scheme of Bruno's thought. The author is speaking of the invisibilia Dei of Romans 1.20, and opens his discussion by explaining why the plural number (invisibilia) is used when, as everyone knows, God is simplex. "Ideo autem", he observes, "pluralem numerum posuit, quia infirmitas humani intellectus non sufficit considerare in Deo, nisi per interpositiones temporum, quae in eo naturalia et simul sunt et uno ictu (si fieri potest) consideranda"³⁵. But after this intriguing comment, he slips back—as did Bernard—into a quite unexceptional account of how we can arrive at a partial understanding of the Trinity through consideration of the created order³⁶. The vision of the temporalia in God is not where his interest lies, and he presents here no philosophical explanation of how and why the vision occurs. Nor is it quite clear whether Bruno is thinking of the manifested world or the archetypal world in this passage. The vision of the latter is of much more frequent occurrence than that of the world of manifestation, and, unlike the difficult vision of Benedict, occupies an important place in the via mystica of the Middle Ages.

Notes

¹ Gregory the Great, Dialogues II.35 PL 66.198B. The passage is noted and briefly discussed in C. Butler, Western Mysticism (London, 1967³), pp. 86-87. Reference may be made generally to the excellent paper by A. Schaut, "Die Vision des hl. Benedikt" in R. Molitor (ed.), Vir Dei Benedictus (Münster i.W., 1947), pp. 207-253. Although much of it is a general study of Gregory's spirituality rather than a specific study of Benedict's vision, it is nevertheless most useful and most informative.

²Dialogues 11.35 PL 66.200B. Cf. his comment in 200A: … quia ipsa luce visionis intimae, mentis laxatur sinus, tantumque expanditur in Deo, ut superior existat mundo, etc. On the matter of dilatare, see Schaut, art. cit., pp. 227-230.

³ Gregory the Great, Moralia in Job XXIV.VI.12 PL 76.292D. See also the texts referred to in Note 4 infra.

⁴ A number of the important texts are cited in Butler, op. cit., pp. 87-91, and see also Schaut, art. cit., pp. 218-221.

⁵ See Aquinas, Quodlibetales i.1 and the Summa II/II q. 180 a.5 cited by Schaut, art. cit., pp. 217-218, and Butler, op. cit., p. 92.

⁶ Butler, ibid.

⁷ R. Gillet (ed.), Grégoire le Grand, Morales sur Job, Livres I et II (Paris, 1952), p. 35 fn 1. See further Schaut, art. cit., pp. 219-220.

⁸ See Gillet, op. cit., p. 35 and p. 36. Gillet also considers that Moralia XVIII. liv. 88-89 PL 76.91-93 also indicates the remote possibility of direct face to face vision of God here on earth. That text, however, presents its own difficulties and we cannot discuss them here. In any case, it is not concerned with Benedict.

⁹ See his paper cited in Note 1 supra.

¹⁰ Schaut, art. cit., p. 252.

¹¹Ibid., p. 218.

¹²Ibid., p. 219.

¹³Dialogues II.35 PL 66.200A.

¹⁴Ibid.

¹⁵ Schaut, art. cit., p. 222. See also ibid., p. 238.

¹⁶ See Bernard, Sermones de Diversis, Sermo IX. 1 PL 183.565D-566A.

¹⁷ In his op. cit., pp. 92, 120.

¹⁸ See his comments on In Cantica, Sermo XXXI.2, in S. Bernardi Opera Omnia (Paris, apud Gaume Fratres, 1839⁴), Vol. IV, cols. 2863-4. Cf. also the editorial foot-note to Serm. de Div. IX. 1, PL 183.565-6.

¹⁹Serm. de Div. IX. 1 col. 566A: "Verum … angelicae felicitatis istud est, non fragilitatis humanae". See also ibid., col. 565CD.

²⁰ Cf. the text of Serm. de Div. IX. 1 itself: "… et quemadmodum creatura coeli, sic et creatura mundi, jam non per speculum et in aenigmate, sed facie ad faciem Deum videbit, et sapientiam ejus ad liquidum contemplabitur in se ipsa, etc." (PL 183.565C). See also In Ps. Qui habitat, Sermo XI.6 PL 183.228B: "Ascendunt (i.e. the angels) ad vultum ejus, descendunt ad nutum ejus; quoniam Angelis suis mandavit de te. Nec tamen vel descendendo visione gloriae fraudantur, quia semper vident faciem Patris". And see further In Festo S. Martini Episc., Sermo, sect. 7 PL 183.493C.

²¹ Butler's reasoning clearly follows this line—see his op. cit., p. 92.

²² Cf. the discussion in In Cantica, Sermo V PL 183.798D-803B, especially sect. 4 of that sermon (col. 800A-C).

²³ See E. Gilson, La théologie mystique de S. Bernard (Paris, 1947), pp. 113-4 n. 1.

²⁴Serm. de Div. IX. 1 PL 183.565D-566A. On the invisibilia Dei, see Note 87 infra.

²⁵ So in sect. 2 of the same sermon: "Quaeramus igitur, per ea saltem quae facta sunt, intellectum invisibilium Dei, etc." (col. 566A).

²⁶ See O. Casel, "Zur Vision des hl. Benedikt (Vita c. 35)" in Studien und Mitteilungen zur Geschichte des Benediktinerordens 38 (1917), pp. 345-348. Schaut presents a summary of this paper in his art. cit., pp. 208-209. Casel would appear to have derived his inspiration for this account from Joseph Kroll, Die Lehren des Hermes Trismegistos (Münster i. W., 1914), pp. 367-372 "Stemenmystizismus".

²⁷ Casel, art. cit., p. 345.

²⁸ See ibid., pp. 345-6. We shall discuss the influence of Macrobius on the matter a little later.

²⁹Ibid., p. 347.

³⁰Ibid.

³¹ See especially his Epistola ad Fratres de Monte Dei II.15 PL 184.348B, but generally ibid., 11.14-16 cols. 347-349. Gilson's comments in his op. cit., pp. 230-232 are useful on this matter of quod Deus est.

³² The Migne Patrology (see PL 181.1691-2) follows Fabricius in attributing the Libellus de Contemplatione to the twelfth-century author, Hildebrand the Young. This attribution cannot, however, be sustained, and there can be little doubt that our Hildebrand flourished at the end of the thirteenth century. The arguments for this dating may be found in G. M. Oury, "Le Libellus de Contemplatione de Maître Hildebrand", Revue d'ascétique et de mystique 43 (1967), pp. 268-9. The ms. of the Libellus was found at Himmerod in 1718 by Martène and Durand, and edited in 1733 in their Veterum Scriptorum et Monumentorum … Amplissima Collectio, Volume IX cols. 1237-1250. It is reproduced in PL 181 cols. 1691-1704 with some inaccuracies and different paragraph enumeration, but for convenience all our citations here will be to the PL version. We cannot be certain that Hildebrand was a monk of Himmerod, but it seems eminently probable, and I know of no other copy of the MS save that at Himmerod used by Dom Martène.

³³Lib. de Cont. 12 PL 181.1700AB. Three points with regard to this text: (a) for PL nullus, read nullius; (b) deiformiter: this has a special significance for Hildebrand, see the Libellus sect. 10 col. 1697CD; (c) ante Dominum: ante presumably for [enantios] (cf. Luke 1.6); i.e. ante = coram. The Martène/Durand edition of the text (Amp. Coll. IX, col. 1245E) ends "ante te Dominum".

³⁴ We might note here that Ideas and Forms are not necessarily coterminous in our authors. Achard of St Victor, for example, is quite aware of the distinction made by Seneca in Epist. 58.18-21 and reproduces it himself—but not without some confusion. See his De Unitate et Pluralitate Creaturarum II.13, in A. Combes, Un Inédit de saint Anselme? (Paris, 1944), p. 46 §26. Combes discusses the matter in ibid., pp. 127-130. The idea and eidos run parallel to the forma secunda and forma tertia in De Unitate… II.13, p. 48 §28 Combes (the forma prima, of course, being Christ the Logos). See further Combes' comments in ibid., pp. 67-68, 151-160, and the excellent discussion in J. Chatillon, Théologie, spiritualité, et métaphysique dans l'œuvre oratoire d'Achard de Saint-Victor (Paris, 1969—hereafter cited as Achard de S. Victor), pp. 297-302. The whole of the latter's Chapter XI is here important. Achard's terminology is very wide. Augustine, on the other hand, ends his tractate De Ideis (De Div. Quaest. 83, qu. 46 PL 40.29-31): "Quas rationes, ut dictum est, sive ideas, sive formas, sive species, sive rationes licet vocare, et multis conceditur appellare quod libet, sed paucissimis videre quod verum est" (col. 31). Nor does Erigena distinguish in De Div. Naturae II.36 PL 122.615D: "Causae itaque primordiales sunt, … quas Graeci ideas vocant, hoc est, species vel formnas aetemas et incommutabiles rationes …". Cf. also ibid., 11.2 col. 529AB for the same theme. We shall follow Augustine and Erigena here, and distinguish idea and form only when specifically necessary.

³⁵ Bruno, Exp. in Ep. Pauli—in Ep. ad Rom. I PL 153.24B.

³⁶ See ibid., col. 24B-D.