Observations placeholder
Hugh of Saint Victor
Identifier
021667
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
Hugh of Saint Victor, C.R.S.A. (c. 1096 – 11 February 1141), was a Saxon canon regular and a leading theologian and writer on mystical theology.
We have our doubts about whether this is genuine in that this is more like a description he obtained from a book, but it isn't a bad description so we have included it anyway
A description of the experience
HUGH OF ST. VICTOR. Quoted by Evelyn Underhill in Mysticism.
'The Soul Says, "Tell me, what can be this thing of delight that merely by its memory touches and moves me with such sweetness and violence that I am drawn out of myself and carried away, I know not how? I am suddenly renewed: I am changed: I am plunged into an ineffable peace. My mind is full of gladness, all my past wretchedness and pain is forgot. My soul exults: my intellect is illuminated: my heart is afire: my desires have become kindly and gentle: I know not where I am, because my Love has embraced me. AIso, because my Love has embraced me I seem to have become possessed of something, and I know not what it is; but I try to keep it, that I may never lose it. My soul strives in gladness that she may not be separated from That which she desires to hold fast for ever: as if she had found in it the goal of all her desires. She exults in a sovereign and ineffable manner, seeking nought, desiring nought, but to rest in this. Is this, then, my Beloved?
Tell me that I may know Him, and that if He come again I may entreat Him to leave me not, but to stay with me for ever."'