Revelations of Divine Love · 27 of 127 · tr. Grace Warrack
Chapter XX
"For every man's sin that shall be saved He suffered, and every man's sorrow and desolation He saw, and sorrowed for Kinship and Love" And thus I saw our Lord Jesus languoring long time. For the oneing with the Godhead gave strength to the manhood for love to suffer more than all men might suffer: I mean not only more pain than all men might suffer, but also that He suffered more pain than all men of salvation that ever were from the first beginning unto the last day might tell or fully think, having regard to the worthiness of the highest worshipful King and the shameful, despised, painful death. For He that is highest and worthiest was most fully made-nought and most utterly despised. For the highest point that may be seen in the Passion is to think and know what He is that suffered. And in this [Shewing] He brought in part to mind the height and nobleness of the glorious Godhead, and therewith the preciousness and the tenderness of the blessed Body, which be together united; and also the lothness that is in our Kind to suffer pain. For as much as He was most tender and pure, right so He was most strong and mighty to suffer. And for every man's sin that shall be saved He suffered: and every man's sorrow and desolation He saw, and sorrowed for Blindness and love. (For in as much as our Lady sorrowed for His pains, in so much He suffered sorrow for her sorrow;—and more, in as greatly as the sweet manhood of Him was worthier in Kind.) For as long as He was passible He suffered for us and sorrowed for us; and now He is uprisen and no more passible, yet He suffereth with us. And I, beholding all this by His grace, saw that the Love of Him was so strong which He hath to our soul that willingly He chose it with great desire, and mildly He suffered it with well-pleasing. For the soul that beholdeth it thus, when it is touched by grace, it shall verily see that the pains of Christ's Passion pass all pains: [all pains] that is to say, which shall be turned into everlasting, o'erpassing joys by the virtue of Christ's Passion.
Attributing human characteristics, emotions, or form to the divine; embodied divine imagery.
The passage is saturated with human imagery for the divine, describing Jesus as having a 'blessed Body,' feeling 'sorrow,' 'languoring,' and possessing 'tenderness' and 'desire.'
Pronoia — the doctrine that the divine actively orders the unfolding of the cosmos and human affairs toward intelligible ends, against pure chance or blind necessity.
The text asserts that Christ's suffering was a deliberate, loving choice ('willingly He chose it') to address every man's sin and sorrow, indicating a divine ordering of history toward salvation.
Using apparent contradiction, reversal, or riddle to destabilise ordinary understanding and induce insight.
The passage relies on paradoxical statements such as the 'highest and worthiest' being 'most fully made-nought' and the 'tender' being 'most strong' to convey theological truth.