eyes; the bonds of sensuality break, and we rejoice in the liberty of God's children."1 It will be noticed that in all these slave designs the bandage has been pushed up from over the eyes. In fig. 49 the hoodwink of ignorance has completely disappeared, and the enlightened slave is gaping with an expression of astonishment and wonder. In figs. 50 and 51 the disbanded figure, now weeping apparently with joy, is crowned, in one case with the Rose of Bliss, in the other with the Cross of Salvation, the Crown of Lux, and the Circle of Perfection. Doubtless these emblems represent the fulfilment of the promise: "And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one.' 2 1 The Cloud upon the Sanctuary, Karl von Eckartshausen, p. 60. CHAPTER III THE WAYS OF ASCENT "My soul, like quiet palmer, Travelleth towards the land of heaven; Over the silver mountains, Where spring the nectar fountains.' SIR WALTER RALEIGH. "And many people shall go and say: 'Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord.""-ISAIAH. ONE might indefinitely multiply the symbols under which Allegory has veiled the Quest of the Ideal, and almost as multifarious are the forms under which the symbolists expressed their conceptions of the Vision Beautiful. The accompanying designs represent the ascent of the soul by means of the Ladder of Perfection, the timehonoured Scala Perfectionis of Mysticism. From PLOTINUS downward there has been a persistent preaching of this Ladder of the Virtues. "Our teaching," says PLOTINUS, "reaches only so far as to indicate the way in which the Soul should go, but the Vision itself must be the Soul's own achievement."1 The Ladder was a favourite emblem of the roadway of the Gods, because it depicted a gradual ascent in goodness, a progress step by step and line upon line towards Perfec 1 Cf. Studies in Mystical Religion, R. M. Jones, p. 76. The sanctity of the emblems herewith is indicated by the Angel on the top of fig. 53, and by the cross surmounting fig. 52. The goal of ascent is expressed in fig. 54 by the Fleur de Lys of Light, and in fig. 55 by a Star, the Vision of Christ the Bright and Morning Star. + 52 53 54 55 It was a Vaudois tenet that "Jesus Christ, whom all things obey, is our Pole Star, and the only star that we ought to follow," which idea is doubtless expressed in the crowned and long-tailed star herewith. The Vaudois also regarded Christ as a Stag, and their pastors as Chamois who leaped from virtue to virtue. The letters I.S. imply that the meaning of the design herewith is to be found in the passage, "The day starre arises in men's hearts; yea, the day breaks and the shadows flee VOL. I. 1 Paradiso, Canto xxi. away; and 2 Ed. Montet, Histoire Littéraire des Vaudois, p. 65. 3 Christ comes as a swift Roe and young Hart upon the mountains of Bether."1 Mons. Briquet reproduces upwards of three hundred devices (dating from 1318) which he describes as "Mounts, Mountains, or Hills." They are emblems of what Bunyan terms the Delectable Mountains-in other words, those 56 57 58 59 Holy Hills to which the Psalmist lifted his eyes, and which, according to OBADIAH, "dropped sweet wine." The mystics gloried in the belief that they "walked with the Lord, treading and tripping over the pleasant mountains of the Heavenly Land," and their eyes were strained perseveringly eastward in expectation of Christ's speedy coming over the hills of Bether. 1 Cf. S. Fisher, Baby Baptism meer Babism, London, 1653, p. 512. In Allegory, hills or mountains very frequently imply Meditation and Heavenly Communion, and for this reason the legend runs that the Holy Grail was preserved on the summit of Montsalvat, the Mountain of Salvation. The Mountains of Myrrh and the Hills of Frankincense, to which the writer of The Song of Solomon1 says he will retreat, are ideally the same as those "silver mountains" over which, according to Sir Walter Raleigh "My soul, like quiet palmer, Travelleth towards the land of heaven." In Emblem they were represented as three, five, or six, but most usually as three. Among the Jews the three-peaked Mount Olivet was esteemed to be holy, and accounted to be the residence of the Deity. Mount Meru, the Indian 1 iv. 6. |
