Friday, April 27, 2007

¡Ora, UTEP!

Hooray for UTEP Chaucerian English 4308!

Chapter XXVIII: The Cloud of Unknowing.

I personally suspect that the anominous author was quite possibly a contemporary of Geoffrey Chaucer.

While it's true that based upon this translation (1957) at least, the author more or less wanders in and out of the noman's land dividing religious orthodoxy with gnosticism, I'm personally inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt, a la Marcelino Menendez y Pelayo's dictum that there are many things that may be simply either "mal sonante." or "opinable," without necessarily being outright heretical.

Adapted from pages 128-29.

"That a man should not presume to work in this work before he has been lawfully cleansed in his consciousness of all his special deeds of sin.

"1. IF YOU ASK ME when one should begin this work, I answer: not before he has cleansed his consciousness, in accordance with the common ordinance of the Holy Church, of all the special deeds of sin previously committed.

"2. IN THE WORK a soul dries up within itself the entire root an dground of sin that always remains in it after confession.

"Therefore let whoever wishes to undertake this work first cleanse his consciouness.

"Afterward, when he has fulfilled what is lawfully required of him, let him give himself to the work boldly but meekly.

"Let him consider then that he has been held back from the work for a very long time; for this is the work in which a person should labor all his lifetime, even if he has never committed a mortal sin.

"3 AS LONG AS a soul dwells in this mortal flesh, he shall see and feel this cumbrous cloud of unknowing between him and God.

"And not only that, but as a result of the original sin he shall always see and feel that some of all the creatures that God has made or some of their works are constantly pressing into his memory between him and God.

"4. THIS IS THE JUDGEMENT OF GOD. When man held the sovereign power over all the other creatures, he willfully submitted himself to their requests and ignored the ocmmands of God and his Maker.

"Because man did this, he finds now that whenever he seeks to fulfill the bidding of God, he sees and feels all the creatures that should be beneath him proudly pressing themselves above him between him and his God."

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