Liber III, Caput I
1. Audiam quid loquatur in me Dominus Deus.
I will hear what the Lord God speaks within me.
When I read these words the other day, I was struck by what a magnificent opening verse this is for the chapter whose subject is "De Interna Consolatione" (Of Interior Consolation). At the time, I was reading from the Vatican's "critical edition" of 1982, which does not make the sources of biblical quotations very obvious, and I didn't realize that this was a quotation of Psalm 84/85, v.9. But Thomas à Kempis' choice could not have been more appropriate to Book III, the mystical heart of his work, and its longest book.
I have translated the Latin literally. Some will notice that it is not the same as the Masoretic Text, or the KJV, or the RSV. It does agree with the Greek of the Septuagint (LXX, circa 100 BCE), and with the Vulgate, which is based on the LXX. Many (including me) believe that the best text of the Psalms is that of the LXX and the Vulgate. The LXX reflects a Hebrew text that is 500 years before St. Jerome, and eight or nine hundred before our oldest copy of the Masoretic Text. It would certainly be the best Hebrew text, and the best text of the Psalms, but unfortunately it has not survived, and can only be inferred from the LXX.
Anyway, this opening verse struck me so forcibly because of the support it gives to the main premise of mysticism, which is that direct communication with the Divine is possible. The institutional Church has always considered this idea a threat to its hierarchical power, but why should it not be true? Why indeed, since every branch of Christianity recognizes something called the Communion of Saints, by which we can communicate with the holy ones who have gone before us? Why should the members of the Mystical Body be able to communicate with each other, but not with the Head?
[to be continued]
Text and image Copyright © 2021 by Donald C. Traxler aka Donald Jacobson Traxler.
