'
'What is the doctrine?
'What is the doctrine?
Yeats
Again and again groups of visionaries were
accused of possessing this terrible book, in which the freedom of the
Renaissance lay hidden, until at last Pope Alexander IV. had it found
and cast into the flames. I have here the greatest treasure the world
contains. I have a copy of that book; and see what great artists have
made the robes in which it is wrapped. The greater portion of the book
itself is illuminated in the Byzantine style, which so few care for
to-day, but which moves me because these tall, emaciated angels and
saints seem to have less relation to the world about us than to an
abstract pattern of flowing lines, that suggest an imagination absorbed
in the contemplation of Eternity. Even if you do not care for so formal
an art, you cannot help seeing that work where there is so much gold,
and of that purple colour which has gold dissolved in it, was valued at
a great price in its day. But it was only at the Renaissance the labour
was spent upon it which has made it the priceless thing it is. The
wooden boards of the cover show by the astrological allegories painted
upon them, as by the style of painting itself, some craftsman of the
school of Francesco Cossi of Ferrara, but the gold clasps and hinges
are known to be the work of Benvenuto Cellini, who made likewise the
bronze box and covered it with gods and demons, whose eyes are closed,
to signify an absorption in the inner light.
I took the book in my hands and began turning over the gilded,
many-coloured pages, holding it close to the candle to discover the
texture of the paper.
'Where did you get this amazing book? ' I said. 'If genuine, and I
cannot judge by this light, you have discovered one of the most
precious things in the world. '
'It is certainly genuine,' he replied. 'When the original was
destroyed, one copy alone remained, and was in the hands of a
lute-player of Florence, and from him it passed to his son, and so
from generation to generation until it came to the lute-player who
was father to Benvenuto Cellini, and from Benvenuto Cellini to that
Cardinal of Ferrara who released him from prison, and from him to
a natural son, so from generation to generation, the story of its
wandering passing on with it, until it came into the possession of
the family of Aretino, and to Giulio Aretino, an artist and worker in
metals, and student of the kabalistic heresies of Pico della Mirandola.
He spent many nights with me at Rome, discussing philosophy; and at
last I won his confidence so perfectly that he showed me this, his
greatest treasure; and, finding how much I valued it, and feeling that
he himself was growing old and beyond the help of its teaching, he sold
it to me for no great sum, considering its great preciousness.
'
'What is the doctrine? ' I said. 'Some mediaeval straw-splitting about
the nature of the Trinity, which is only useful to-day to show how many
things are unimportant to us, which once shook the world? '
'I could never make you understand,' he said, with a sigh, 'that
nothing is unimportant in belief, but even you will admit that this
book goes to the heart. Do you see the tables on which the commandments
were written in Latin? ' I looked to the end of the room, opposite to
the altar, and saw that the two marble tablets were gone, and that
two large empty tablets of ivory, like large copies of the little
tablets we set over our desks, had taken their place. 'It has swept
the commandments of the Father away,' he went on, 'and displaced the
commandments of the Son by the commandments of the Holy Spirit. The
first book is called _Fractura Tabularum_. In the first chapter it
mentions the names of the great artists who made them graven things
and the likeness of many things, and adored them and served them; and
the second the names of the great wits who took the name of the Lord
their God in vain; and that long third chapter, set with the emblems
of sanctified faces, and having wings upon its borders, is the praise
of breakers of the seventh day and wasters of the six days, who yet
lived comely and pleasant days. Those two chapters tell of men and
women who railed upon their parents, remembering that their god was
older than the god of their parents; and that which has the sword of
Michael for an emblem commends the kings that wrought secret murder and
so won for their people a peace that was _amore somnoque gravata et
vestibus versicoloribus_, heavy with love and sleep and many-coloured
raiment; and that with the pale star at the closing has the lives of
the noble youths who loved the wives of others and were transformed
into memories, which have transformed many poorer hearts into sweet
flames; and that with the winged head is the history of the robbers who
lived upon the sea or in the desert, lives which it compares to the
twittering of the string of a bow, _nervi stridentis instar_; and those
two last, that are fire and gold, are devoted to the satirists who bore
false witness against their neighbours and yet illustrated eternal
wrath, and to those that have coveted more than other men the house of
God, and all things that are His, which no man has seen and handled,
except in madness and in dreams.
'The second book is called _Lex Secreta_, and describes the true
inspiration of action, the only Eternal Evangel; and ends with a
vision, which he saw among the mountains of La Sila, of his disciples
sitting throned in the blue deep of the air, and laughing aloud, with
a laughter that was like the rustling of the wings of Time: _Coelis in
coeruleis ridentes sedebant discipuli mei super thronos: talis erat
risus, qualis temporis pennati susurrus. _'
'I know little of Joachim of Flora,' I said, 'except that Dante set him
in Paradise among the great doctors. If he held a heresy so singular, I
cannot understand how no rumours of it came to the ears of Dante; and
Dante made no peace with the enemies of the Church. '
'Joachim of Flora acknowledged openly the authority of the Church, and
even asked that all his published writings, and those to be published
by his desire after his death, should be submitted to the censorship of
the Pope. He considered that those whose work was to live and not to
reveal were children and that the Pope was their Father; but he taught
in secret that certain others, and in always increasing numbers, were
elected, not to live, but to reveal that hidden substance of God which
is colour and music and softness and a sweet odour; and that these
have no father but the Holy Spirit. Just as poets and painters and
musicians labour at their works, building them with lawless and lawful
things alike, so long as they embody the beauty that is beyond the
grave, these children of the Holy Spirit labour at their moments with
eyes upon the shining substance on which Time has heaped the refuse of
creation; for the world only exists to be a tale in the ears of coming
generations; and terror and content, birth and death, love and hatred,
and the fruit of the Tree, are but instruments for that supreme art
which is to win us from life and gather us into eternity like doves
into their dove-cots.
accused of possessing this terrible book, in which the freedom of the
Renaissance lay hidden, until at last Pope Alexander IV. had it found
and cast into the flames. I have here the greatest treasure the world
contains. I have a copy of that book; and see what great artists have
made the robes in which it is wrapped. The greater portion of the book
itself is illuminated in the Byzantine style, which so few care for
to-day, but which moves me because these tall, emaciated angels and
saints seem to have less relation to the world about us than to an
abstract pattern of flowing lines, that suggest an imagination absorbed
in the contemplation of Eternity. Even if you do not care for so formal
an art, you cannot help seeing that work where there is so much gold,
and of that purple colour which has gold dissolved in it, was valued at
a great price in its day. But it was only at the Renaissance the labour
was spent upon it which has made it the priceless thing it is. The
wooden boards of the cover show by the astrological allegories painted
upon them, as by the style of painting itself, some craftsman of the
school of Francesco Cossi of Ferrara, but the gold clasps and hinges
are known to be the work of Benvenuto Cellini, who made likewise the
bronze box and covered it with gods and demons, whose eyes are closed,
to signify an absorption in the inner light.
I took the book in my hands and began turning over the gilded,
many-coloured pages, holding it close to the candle to discover the
texture of the paper.
'Where did you get this amazing book? ' I said. 'If genuine, and I
cannot judge by this light, you have discovered one of the most
precious things in the world. '
'It is certainly genuine,' he replied. 'When the original was
destroyed, one copy alone remained, and was in the hands of a
lute-player of Florence, and from him it passed to his son, and so
from generation to generation until it came to the lute-player who
was father to Benvenuto Cellini, and from Benvenuto Cellini to that
Cardinal of Ferrara who released him from prison, and from him to
a natural son, so from generation to generation, the story of its
wandering passing on with it, until it came into the possession of
the family of Aretino, and to Giulio Aretino, an artist and worker in
metals, and student of the kabalistic heresies of Pico della Mirandola.
He spent many nights with me at Rome, discussing philosophy; and at
last I won his confidence so perfectly that he showed me this, his
greatest treasure; and, finding how much I valued it, and feeling that
he himself was growing old and beyond the help of its teaching, he sold
it to me for no great sum, considering its great preciousness.
'
'What is the doctrine? ' I said. 'Some mediaeval straw-splitting about
the nature of the Trinity, which is only useful to-day to show how many
things are unimportant to us, which once shook the world? '
'I could never make you understand,' he said, with a sigh, 'that
nothing is unimportant in belief, but even you will admit that this
book goes to the heart. Do you see the tables on which the commandments
were written in Latin? ' I looked to the end of the room, opposite to
the altar, and saw that the two marble tablets were gone, and that
two large empty tablets of ivory, like large copies of the little
tablets we set over our desks, had taken their place. 'It has swept
the commandments of the Father away,' he went on, 'and displaced the
commandments of the Son by the commandments of the Holy Spirit. The
first book is called _Fractura Tabularum_. In the first chapter it
mentions the names of the great artists who made them graven things
and the likeness of many things, and adored them and served them; and
the second the names of the great wits who took the name of the Lord
their God in vain; and that long third chapter, set with the emblems
of sanctified faces, and having wings upon its borders, is the praise
of breakers of the seventh day and wasters of the six days, who yet
lived comely and pleasant days. Those two chapters tell of men and
women who railed upon their parents, remembering that their god was
older than the god of their parents; and that which has the sword of
Michael for an emblem commends the kings that wrought secret murder and
so won for their people a peace that was _amore somnoque gravata et
vestibus versicoloribus_, heavy with love and sleep and many-coloured
raiment; and that with the pale star at the closing has the lives of
the noble youths who loved the wives of others and were transformed
into memories, which have transformed many poorer hearts into sweet
flames; and that with the winged head is the history of the robbers who
lived upon the sea or in the desert, lives which it compares to the
twittering of the string of a bow, _nervi stridentis instar_; and those
two last, that are fire and gold, are devoted to the satirists who bore
false witness against their neighbours and yet illustrated eternal
wrath, and to those that have coveted more than other men the house of
God, and all things that are His, which no man has seen and handled,
except in madness and in dreams.
'The second book is called _Lex Secreta_, and describes the true
inspiration of action, the only Eternal Evangel; and ends with a
vision, which he saw among the mountains of La Sila, of his disciples
sitting throned in the blue deep of the air, and laughing aloud, with
a laughter that was like the rustling of the wings of Time: _Coelis in
coeruleis ridentes sedebant discipuli mei super thronos: talis erat
risus, qualis temporis pennati susurrus. _'
'I know little of Joachim of Flora,' I said, 'except that Dante set him
in Paradise among the great doctors. If he held a heresy so singular, I
cannot understand how no rumours of it came to the ears of Dante; and
Dante made no peace with the enemies of the Church. '
'Joachim of Flora acknowledged openly the authority of the Church, and
even asked that all his published writings, and those to be published
by his desire after his death, should be submitted to the censorship of
the Pope. He considered that those whose work was to live and not to
reveal were children and that the Pope was their Father; but he taught
in secret that certain others, and in always increasing numbers, were
elected, not to live, but to reveal that hidden substance of God which
is colour and music and softness and a sweet odour; and that these
have no father but the Holy Spirit. Just as poets and painters and
musicians labour at their works, building them with lawless and lawful
things alike, so long as they embody the beauty that is beyond the
grave, these children of the Holy Spirit labour at their moments with
eyes upon the shining substance on which Time has heaped the refuse of
creation; for the world only exists to be a tale in the ears of coming
generations; and terror and content, birth and death, love and hatred,
and the fruit of the Tree, are but instruments for that supreme art
which is to win us from life and gather us into eternity like doves
into their dove-cots.
