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Tables of Contents for Mechthild of Magdeburg
Chapter/Section Title
Page #
Page Count
Foreword
xxiii
2
Preface
xxv
14
Key to Abbreviations
xxxix
Introduction
1
24
Notes to the Introduction
25
6
THE FLOWING LIGHT OF THE GODHEAD
Prologue to the Lux Divinitatis
31
4
Latin Foreword with Table of Contents and Middle High German Translation
35
4
BOOK I
39
30
1. How Love and the Queen Spoke to Each Other
39
1
2. Concerning Three Persons and Three Gifts
40
2
3. The Handmaids of the Soul and the Blow of Love
42
1
4. The Soul's Journey to Court During Which God Reveals Himself
43
1
5. The Torment and the Praise of the Soul
44
1
6. The Nine Choirs: How They Sing
45
1
7. God's Curse in Eight Things
45
1
8. The Most Lowly Praises God in Ten Things
45
1
9. With Three Things You Dwell on the Heights
46
1
10. Who Loves God Triumphs over Three Things
46
1
11. Four Battle for God
46
1
12. The Soul Praises God for Five Things
47
1
13. How God Comes to the Soul
47
1
14. How the Soul Receives and Praises God
47
1
15. How God Receives the Soul
47
1
16. God Likens the Soul to Four Things
47
1
17. The Soul Praises God About Five Things
48
1
18. God Likens the Soul to Five Things
48
1
19. God Caresses the Soul in Six Ways
48
1
20. The Soul Praises God in Return in Six Ways
48
1
21. Of Knowledge and Enjoyment
49
1
22. St. Mary's Message and How One Virtue Follows Another. How the Soul Was Made in the Jubilus of the Trinity, and How St. Mary Nursed All the Saints and Nurses Them Still
49
3
23. You Should Ask That God Love You Passionately, Often, and Long; Then You Shall Become Pure, Beautiful, and Holy
52
1
24. How God Responds to the Soul
52
1
25. The Way to Suffer Pain Willingly for God's Sake
52
1
26. The Path upon Which the Soul Draws the Senses and Is Free of Suffering of the Heart
53
1
27. How You Become Worthy of This Path and Keep to It and Become Perfect
53
1
28. Love Shall Be Deadly, Boundless, and Unceasing; This Is the Folly of Fools
53
1
29. The Beauty of the Bridegroom and How the Bride Should Follow Him in Twenty-Three Steps of the Cross
54
1
30. The Seven Hours
54
1
31. You Should Ignore Scorn
55
1
32. You Should Ignore Honors, Suffering, and Possessions. Be Sad After Sinning
55
1
33. Concerning Food, Consolation, and Love
55
1
34. In Suffering You Should Be a Lamb, a Turtledove, and a Bride
55
1
35. The Desert Has Twelve Things
55
1
36. Concerning Malice, Good Works, and Concerning a Marvel
56
1
37. The Soul Responds to God Saying She Is Unworthy of These Favors
56
1
38. God Boasts That the Soul Has Overcome Four Sins
56
1
39. God Asks the Soul What She Is Bringing
57
1
40. She Replies: Something That Is Better than Seven Things
57
1
41. God Asks in Praise What the Precious Stone Is Called
57
1
42. The Precious Stone Is Called Heart's Delight
57
1
43. Put Your Delight into the Trinity
58
1
44. The Sevenfold Path of Love, the Three Garments of the Bride, and the Dance
58
5
45. The Eight Days in Which What the Prophets Longed For Was Accomplished
63
1
46. The Diverse Adornments of the Bride; How She Comes to Her Bridegroom; and How the Retinue Is Composed, Which Is Ninefold
63
6
BOOK II
69
32
1. Love Brings Elevation to the Soul, Not Inhuman Toil; That Comes from Self-Will
69
1
2. Two Songs of Love of Him Who Was Seen in Love
69
1
3. The Tongue of the Godhead, the Light of Truth, the Four Rays of God Shining into the Nine Choirs, the Trinity, and St. Mary
70
2
4. The Poor Girl, the Mass of John the Baptist, the Transformation of the Host into the Lamb, the Beauty of the Angels, Four Kinds of Sanctified People, and the Golden Penny
72
4
5. A Song of the Soul About Five Things, and How God Is a Garment of the Soul and the Soul of God
76
1
6. God's Singing Response in the Soul in Five Things
76
1
7. In Suffering Praise God; Then He Will Appear to You. The Two Golden Chalices of Suffering and Consolation
77
1
8. Of Purgatory; a Person Freed a Thousand Souls from It with the Tears of Love
77
1
9. God Praises His Bride in Five Things
78
1
10. The Bride Praises God in Return in Five Things
78
1
11. Seven Kinds of Love for God
78
1
12. Seven Kinds of Perfection
79
1
13. Between God and the Soul There Should Be Love
79
1
14. Where Bitterness, Low Spirits, Sickness, Terror, Sensitivity, Distress, Forsakenness, and Inconsolability Come From
79
1
15. How One Wounded by Love Is Restored to Health
79
1
16. The Seven Gifts of a Brother
80
1
17. How God Woos the Soul and Makes Her Wise in His Love
80
1
18. How the Soul Interprets God's Wooing in Eight Things
80
1
19. How Knowledge and the Soul Converse and How the Latter Says That She Is Threefold. Of the Three Heavens
81
3
20. How Sister Hildegund Is Adorned in Heaven with Three Mantles, with Seven Crowns, and How the Nine Choirs Praise Her
84
1
21. If You Would Behold the Mountain, You Should Have Seven Things
85
1
22. How Contemplation Asks the Loving Soul About the Seraphim and the Least of Men
86
1
23. How Love Questions and Instructs Dull Souls and Would Like to Bring Them to Their Lover and Begins to Speak; and How the Dull Soul Responds
87
2
24. How the Loving Soul Joins the Company of God and His Chosen Dear Ones and Shall Be Equal to All the Saints. How the Devil and the Soul Talk to Each Other
89
3
25. The Lament of the Loving Soul; How God Protects Her and Withdraws His Gift from Her. Concerning Wisdom, How the Soul Asks God How She Is and Where He Is. Concerning the Orchard, Flowers, and the Song of the Virgins
92
4
26. About This Book and the Writers of This Book
96
5
BOOK III
101
38
1. Of Heaven and the Nine Choirs and Who Is Supposed to Fill the Breach. Of the Throne of the Apostles and St. Mary and on Which Christ Sits. Of the Reward of Preachers, Martyrs, and Virgins, and of the Unbaptized Children
101
6
2. How the Soul Praises God and God the Soul for Seven Things. Of Balsam and Waiting
107
1
3. A Lament That the Soul Is a Maidservant for the Love of God
108
2
4. How Our Lady St. Mary Can Sin and How Not; the Holy Spirit Teaches This
110
1
5. How the Soul Complains That She Hears No Mass Nor Hours and How God Praises Her in Ten Things
111
1
6. If You Would Follow God Rightly, You Should Have Seven Things
112
1
7. Concerning Seven Obvious Enemies of Our Happiness That Cause Seven Kinds of Harm
113
1
8. Seven Things That All Priests Should Have
113
1
9. Concerning the Beginning of All Things That God Created out of Love
114
3
10. The Passion That the Loving Soul Has from God, and How She Rises and Ascends into Heaven
117
2
11. Between God and the Loving Soul All Things Are Beautiful
119
1
12. You Should Praise, Thank, Desire, and Beg. Concerning the Lantern and the Light
119
1
13. Sixteen Kinds of Love
120
1
14. Concerning False Virtues; Whoever Dwells Therein Lives in Lies
121
1
15. You Should Approach God's Table with Eight Virtues. By Ransom a Person Released Seventy Thousand Souls from Ghastly Purgatory, Which Is of Many Kinds
121
3
16. After a Gift There Follows a Scourge and After Disgrace Honor
124
1
17. The Purgatory of a Religious Person, His Five Kinds of Help out of the Torment, and the Nobility of the Order of Preachers
124
1
18. A Knight's Battle in Full Armor Against Sensual Desires
125
1
19. Two Kinds of Poor People: Those Who Are Cheerfully Poor and Those Who Are Unhappily So
126
1
20. The Five Prophets Who Illumine This Book
126
1
21. Hell: How It Has Three Parts; How Lucifer and Sixteen Kinds of People Are Tormented; There Is No Help for Them. Lucifer's Garment
127
5
22. Of God's Mercy, His Concern, and Justice
132
1
23. The Intensity of Yearning Takes Away Words; God Cannot Do Without Virgins; God's Countenance, His Embrace, and His Joy Overcome a Thousand Deaths
133
1
24. Two Kinds of Spirits--from God and from the Devil--Are Offered to Two Kinds of Religious People. The Seven Kinds of Love
134
5
BOOK IV
139
40
1. Pure Virgins Should Have Five Things
139
1
2. This Book Has Come from God; the Soul Praises Herself for Many Things; She Is Given Two Angels and Two Evil Devils. With Twelve Virtues She Does Battle Against the Flesh
139
5
3. Sinners Fall Away from God; of Three Gifts of Wisdom; of the Stone; of the Praise of the Virgin Who Is Christianity
144
3
4. Two Dissimilar Paths: the First Descends into Hell; the Second Ascends to Heaven
147
1
5. Our Sin, Future Fall, Earthly Being, the Kingdom of Heaven. God's Gifts Should Be Clearly Before Our Eyes
148
1
6. Being Chosen by God Cannot Hurt Anyone; True Repentance Earns Remission and God's Grace, and Frees from Purgatory
149
1
7. How a Free Soul Speaks to God in Total Love
150
1
8. Concerning God's Body, Which a Sick Person Vomits Up, and Concerning Power
150
1
9. Four Kinds of Offerings to Priests
151
1
10. Concerning the Offerings of Laypersons According to Their Means
151
1
11. Four Things Concerning How Christians Should Conduct Themselves in Dealing with Jews
151
1
12. How a Bride Who Is United with God Rejects Consolation from All Creatures Except for That from God Alone, and How She Sinks into Pain
152
4
13. The Text of This Book Is Seen, Heard, and Felt in All Members
156
1
14. Of the Holy Trinity, of the Birth and the Name of Jesus Christ, and of Human Nobility
156
2
15. Genuine Pure Love Has Four Things; If You Surrender Yourself to God, God Will Also Surrender Himself to You
158
1
16. Great Love Has More than Ten Parts and of Two Kinds of Complaint
158
1
17. Concerning a Lady Who Liked Being at Court; Concerning Her Devil Who Recommended to Her Seven Kinds of Evil
159
1
18. A Spiritual Person Resembles an Animal in Thirty Things as to His Nature
160
3
19. The Task of Blessed Love Is Manifold
163
1
20. The Six Virtues of St. Dominic
164
1
21. Sixteen Reasons Why the Order of Preachers Is Dear to God
165
1
22. Brother Heinrich's Fourfold Crown and of the Dignity of St. Dominic
166
1
23. About the Burial of St. John the Evangelist
167
1
24. How God Receives the Souls in Heaven; How He Crowns Three Kinds of People; How He Greets, Adorns, Praises, and Thanks Them
168
1
25. How We Are Now Present in Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell
169
1
26. God Consoles the Depressed Brother Baldwin
169
1
27. Concerning the End of the Order of Preachers and the Antichrist; Concerning Enoch and Elias
170
6
28. The Fivefold Power of Love. Because of the Weakness of People and the Treachery of the World One Must Remain Silent About the Truth
176
3
BOOK V
179
44
1. Three Kinds of Sorrow, Ten Kinds of Benefits, and the Path of Angels and Devils
179
1
2. Two Kinds of Suffering, Four Kinds of Benefits, and the Manifold Host of Sins
180
1
3. God Shall Weigh All Innocent Suffering and Also the Blood of Three Kinds of People
181
1
4. The Power of Marvelous Love Is Manifold; How the Soul Sinks. Four Kinds of Humility. The Sevenfold Beauty of the Loving Soul
182
2
5. The Purgatory of a Beguine Whom No Prayer Helped Because of Her Selfishness
184
1
6. How the Soul Praises the Holy Trinity
185
1
7. How God Praises the Soul in Return
186
1
8. A Good Person Should Have Three Children for Whom to Pray
186
1
9. Concerning the Glory of Seventy Men Who Arose with Christ as Testimony
187
1
10. How Sin Is Like God's Greatness
188
1
11. A Religious Name Shall Be Exalted. Concerning the Conduct of Sisters. How They Should Pray and Toil with God
189
1
12. How God Responds to a Brother Concerning What Is Written in This Book
190
1
13. Ten Kinds of Benefit a Good Person's Prayer Has
191
1
14. The Purgatory of Bad Priests
191
1
15. The Purgatory of a Good Priest
192
1
16. It Is Diabolical to Sin
192
1
17. This Is a Greeting, Praise, and Prayer of a Sinner
193
1
18. How God Responds to This
193
1
19. How Seventeen Kinds of Sin Pursue a Person
194
1
20. Praise of God in Eight Things. An Offering for Sins
195
1
21. Why Man Is Rejected and Yet Loved, and How You Should Bless Yourself
195
1
22. The Seven Things of Judgment; Shame and Good Will
196
1
23. St. Mary's Prayer, Gabriel's Light, the Child's Blanket, Where the Milk Came from, the Gifts for the Child, the Devils, and the Hunger Cloth
197
7
24. The Six Kinds of Children of Our Lord God and the Virtues of St. Dominic and How God Has Honored His Order in Four Ways
204
2
25. Something That One Misses in Heaven in Seven Things; Thereafter Follow Seven Things; the Praise of a Disheartened Person Is Beneficial in Seven Ways
206
1
26. How God Praises Himself and Celebrates Himself in Song
207
1
27. The Heavenly Father Received His Son, Jesus, with Twelve Words
208
1
28. The Seven Crowns of Brother Albert. Disposition Is One Thing, Choice Is Another
208
1
29. After Ecstasy with God a Person Would Be Like an Angel If He Were to Follow It, and Concerning the Wickedness of the Devil
209
1
30. Twenty Powers of God's Love and Many Kinds of Names
210
2
31. Of Ten Powers of Love and That No Creature Can Fully Imagine the Longing of the Soul for God
212
2
32. The Sublime End of Sister Mechthild
214
1
33. How Small Sins Harm Perfection and How Through Them the Devil Draws Close to the Soul
215
1
34. Five New Saints Sent for the Sake of Bad People and How God Will Hereafter Wash Christianity in His Own Blood
215
2
35. How Sister Mechthild Thanks and Praises God and Prays for Three Kinds of People and for Herself
217
6
BOOK VI
223
48
1. How a Prior or a Prioress or Other Religious Superiors Should Conduct Themselves Toward Those Under Them
223
5
2. The Rule of a Canon: How He Should Conduct Himself. This Came from God
228
1
3. God Gives Authority. How Billy Goats Become Lambs
229
1
4. Discernment and Fear That Preserve the Senses from Earthly Things
230
1
5. After Love and Desire the Beauty of Creatures Gives Knowledge Along with Sadness
231
1
6. At the End You Should Have Love, Longing, Fear, and Three Kinds of Sorrow
232
1
7. Our Self-Will Can Resist the Barbed Hook. The Good Soul Comes Swiftly to God
233
1
8. Between God and Lucifer There Are Two Kinds of Purgatory. How the Devil Tortures Souls
234
1
9. The Saints Honor Those Who Honor Them and They Console Them at Their Death
235
1
10. Prayer, Masses, God's Word, the Lives of Good People, Fasting, and Carenae Free Souls from Purgatory
236
1
11. How a Student Is Dead and a Dominican Was Seen
237
1
12. How You Should Conduct Yourself as to Fourteen Things
238
1
13. How Religious out of Blindness Fend Off Inwardness from Themselves. The Sixfold Power of God's Gift
238
2
14. Those Who Complain in Suffering Lack Six Things; How One Should Bear Sickness and Contempt
240
1
15. The Sufferings of Enoch and Elijah, the Last Preachers, and the Wickedness of the Antichrist
241
3
16. How the Soul of Our Lord Dwells in the Trinity and What Its Task Is; How It Speaks for the Sinner and Concerning the Task of Our Lady
244
3
17. God Considers the Sinner Good; What a Good Right Will Is; Concerning a Good Burden
247
1
18. You Should Scrutinize Your Heart at All Times
247
1
19. Good Intentions That One Cannot Turn into Deeds
247
2
20. This Book Came About out of a Threefold Favor; Love Flows, It Is Rich and Full of Desire, It Becomes Sick; Who Possesses Heaven; God Bestows Suffering and Consolation as Well
249
1
21. How Bad Priests Shall Be Humiliated; [How Preachers Alone Should Preach and Be Bishops;] Concerning the Last Brothers
249
1
22. Seven Things, Five of Which One Finds in Heaven and Two on Earth
250
1
23. How God Speaks with the Soul in Three Places
251
1
24. How Christ Reveals His Wounds in Days of Suffering. Four Things Knock on Heaven's Gate
251
1
25. Concerning Burned Love
252
1
26. Thinking About Death and Living Long Are Good
252
1
27. How You Should Thank and Ask
253
1
28. When You Are to Die, Take Leave of Ten Things
253
1
29. Ten Parts of Divine Fire out of God's Nobility
254
2
30. Pure Love Has Four Things
256
1
31. How God Made the Soul. Concerning Pleasure and Pain. How God Is Like a Sphere
256
2
32. How We Become Like God, St. Mary, the Angels, and the Saints
258
1
33. Concerning a Strict Chapter to Which a Pilgrim Came Who Turned Out to Be a Great Lord
259
1
34. Someone Who Despises the World Should Be Honored with Nine Things
260
1
35. How the Soul of One Blessed Speaks to Her Body on the Last Day
261
1
36. That John the Baptist Sang Mass for the Poor Girl Was Spiritual Knowledge in the Soul
261
1
37. You Should Praise God, Lament, and Ask for Twelve Things
262
2
38. No One Can Destroy God's Heaven. Hell Drives God Out
264
1
39. The Reflection of God's Radiance by Our Lady and Her Power
265
1
40. Temptation, the World, and a Good End Test Us
265
1
41. How God's Splendor Is Reflected in a Human Being and in the Angels
266
1
42. Sister Mechthild Wrote the Following in a Note to Her Brother B., of the Order of Preachers, Saying:
266
1
43. This Writing Flowed out of God
267
4
BOOK VII
271
66
1. The Crown and the Dignity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Which He Shall Receive After the Last Day
271
4
2. How a Person Prayed for All the Souls on All Souls' Day
275
2
3. How Beneficial It Is for a Person to Examine His Heart Constantly with Humble Fear
277
2
4. Our Lord's Switch
279
1
5. Why the Convent Was Once Undergoing Trials
279
1
6. The Chapter Room and How a Person Should Examine His Infractions and Weep for Them; Two Golden Pennies and Good Will and Desire
280
1
7. How a Person May Always Be United with God
280
2
8. How a Person Seeks God
282
1
9. How the Loving Soul Praises Our Lord with All Creatures
283
1
10. This Happened at a Time When There Was Great Turmoil
284
1
11. How Our Lord Was Seen Looking Like a Worker
284
1
12. How a Person Should Resist Vain Honor and Temptation
285
1
13. How Our Lord Was Seen Looking Like a Pilgrim
286
1
14. God's Choosing and Blessing
286
1
15. How a Person Who Loves Truth Should Pray
287
1
16. How a Person Spoke and Prayed
287
1
17. How Knowledge Speaks to the Conscience
288
1
18. Suggestions for the Seven Hours for Honoring the Passion of Our Lord
289
2
19. The Greeting of Our Lady
291
1
20. How One Should Pray the Ave Maria to Our Lady
292
1
21. How One Should Examine One's Heart Before Going to God's Table
292
2
22. Praise of the Heavenly Father
294
1
23. How One Should Thank the Son
294
1
24. The Flood of Love
295
1
25. The Greeting for the Holy Trinity
295
1
26. How One Should Entreat God in Temptation
295
1
27. How a Religious Person Should Turn His Heart Away from the World
296
2
28. The Misfortunes of War
298
1
29. A Teaching
299
1
30. A Prayer When Virgins Receive Their Crown
300
1
31. A Lament
300
1
32. How the Works of a Good Person Shine Forth in Relation to the Works of Our Lord
301
1
33. A Spiritual Potion
302
1
34. Spiritual Food
302
1
35. The Seven Psalms
303
2
36. A Spiritual Convent
305
3
37. The Eternal Feast of the Holy Trinity
308
1
38. How a Person in Religious Life Should Daily Lament and Confess His Sins to God
309
1
39. How the Devil Rages and Chases About, Bites, and Gnaws When a Loving Soul That Burns with Divine Love Departs This World
309
2
40. Thus Does the Loving Soul Speak to Her Dear Lord
311
1
41. How a Dominican Father Was Seen
311
1
42. The Drink of Honey
312
1
43. Of Simple Love, How Wisdom Is Seen
312
1
44. Five Sins and Five Virtues
313
1
45. Seven Things, Five of Which One Finds in Heaven and Two on Earth
313
2
46. How the Soul Presents Herself in Spiritual Poverty
315
1
47. One Sin That Is Evil Beyond All Sins
315
1
48. How Love Was Seen with Her Maidens
316
3
49. Concerning a Lay Brother
319
1
50. The Visible Favor of God
320
1
51. A Prayer Against Sins of Omission
320
1
52. How the Loving Soul Bows Beneath the Hand of God
321
1
53. The Prison of Religious People
321
2
54. Four Qualities of Faith
323
1
55. How a Friend Writes to a Friend
323
2
56. How God Touches His Friends with Suffering
325
1
57. A Bit About Paradise
325
2
58. St. Gabriel
327
1
59. How the Message Came Before God
328
1
60. How the Child Was Seen
328
1
61. How One Should Prepare Oneself for God
329
1
62. How the Maidens Serve Their Lady the Queen
330
3
63. God's Will Is a Sovereign Lord in All Being
333
1
64. How God Serves Man
334
1
65. How God Adorns the Soul with Suffering
335
2
Notes to Text
337
31
Selected Bibliography
368
3
Index to Introduction and Text
371