The Heroic Enthusiasts, Part I (Gli Eroici Furori) · 23 of 63 · tr. L. Williams
Second Dialogue-c
I can very well conceive, from what you have said, the condition of that heroic enthusiast, who says, "My hopes are ice and my desires are glowing," because he is not in the temperance of mediocrity, but, in the excess of contradictions, his soul is discordant, he shivers in his frozen hopes and burns in his glowing desires; in his eagerness he is clamorous, and he is mute from fear; his heart burns in its affection for others, and for compassion of himself he sheds tears from his eyes; dying in the laughter of others, he is alive in his own lamentations; and like him who no longer belongs to himself, he loves others and hates himself; because matter, as say the physicists, with that measure with which it loves the absent form, hates the present one.
And so in the octave finishes the war which the soul has within itself; and when he says in the sistina, but if I be winged, others change to stone and that which follows; he shows his passion for the warfare which he wages with external contradictions.
I remember having read in Jamblichus, where he treats of the Egyptian mysteries, this sentence: "Impius animam dissidentem habet: unde nec secum ipse convenire potest, neque cum aliis." Tans.
Now listen to another sonnet, as sequel to what has been said: 10.
By what condition, nature, or fell chance, In living death, dead life I live?
Love has me dead, alack!
and such a death, That death and life together I must lose.
Devoid of hope, I reach the gates of hell, And laden with desire arrive at heaven: Thus am I subject to eternal opposites, And, banished both from heaven and from hell, No pause nor rest my torments know, Because between two running wheels I go, Of which one here, the other there compels, And like Ixion I pursue and flee; For to the double discourse do I fit The crosswise lesson of the spur and bit.
He shows how much he suffers from this dislocation and distraction in himself; while the affections, leaving the mean and middle way of temperance, tend towards the one and the other extreme, and so are wafted on high or towards the right, and are also transported downwards to the left.
Cic.
How is it that, not being really of one or the other extreme, it does not come to be in the conditions or terms of virtue?
Tans.
It is then in a state of virtue when it keeps to the middle, declining from one to the other opposite; but when it leads towards the extremes, inclining to one or the other of those, it fails so entirely from being virtue, that it is a double vice, which consists in this, that the thing recedes from its nature, the perfection of which consists in unity, and there where the opposites meet, its composition and virtue exist.
This, then, is how he is dead alive, or living dying; whence he says, "In a living death a dead life I live." He is not dead, because he lives in the object; not alive, because he is dead in himself; deprived of death, because he gives birth to thoughts; deprived of life, because he does not grow or feel in himself.
He is now most dejected through meditating on the high intelligence, and the perceived feebleness of power; and most elated by the aspiration of heroic longing, which passes far beyond his limits, and is most exalted by the intellectual appetite; which has not for its fashion or aim to add number to number, is most dejected by the violence done to him by the sensual opposite which drags him down towards hell.
Ecstatic, non-rational receptivity to the divine figured as drunkenness — Plato's symposium wine, Rumi's sukr, Eckhart's 'sober drunkenness'; the passive/receptive metaphor for divine encounter, distinct from divine_madness's active possessing rapture.
The term 'enthusiast' and the state of 'furor' imply an ecstatic receptivity to divine reality akin to intoxication.
Ecstatic irrational rapture — Plato's mania, Bruno's furore — by which the soul transcends ordinary reason and attains direct contact with divine reality; madness reframed as higher knowledge.
[auto] The text describes the enthusiast's state as an 'excess of contradictions' and 'war... within itself,' aligning with the concept of ecstatic irrational rapture reframed as higher knowledge.
Augustinian and Plotinian doctrine that evil has no positive being of its own but is a lack, distortion, or absence of the good — denying ontological dualism while preserving moral seriousness.
Vice is described as receding from nature and unity, implying evil is a lack of perfection.
Sufi self-effacement in God — the via by which the lover is unmade as a separate ego and recovered as God's act; specifies the practice/event rather than mystical_union's resulting state.
The enthusiast is described as 'no longer belonging to himself' and 'dead in himself,' mirroring the concept of self-effacement.
Bruno's eroici furori — a passionate, ennobling spiritual ardor that drives the soul toward divine wisdom; distinguished from base or animal passions by its orientation to infinite truth.
[auto] The passage is from Bruno's 'Gli Eroici Furori' and explicitly discusses the 'heroic enthusiast' and 'heroic longing' as a central state of spiritual ardor.
Diotima's staged ascent from love of beautiful bodies → beautiful souls → beautiful pursuits → beautiful knowledge → Beauty itself; the canonical scala amoris that grounds Plotinus's On the Beautiful and Bruno's Eroici Furori — distinct from generic spiritual_ascent in that eros is the specific motive force.
The text describes love and desire as forces that waft the soul on high or transport it downwards, reflecting a scala amoris dynamic.
Disciplined inward attention — sitting, focused, or open-awareness practice — as a stand-alone term that umbrellas active_contemplation, inner_silence, and dhyana-style sitting.
The passage explicitly mentions the subject 'meditating on the high intelligence' as part of his dejection and elation.
Using apparent contradiction, reversal, or riddle to destabilise ordinary understanding and induce insight.
[auto] The passage relies heavily on oxymorons and contradictions such as 'living death,' 'dead life,' and 'hopes are ice and desires are glowing' to describe the spiritual condition.
A spiritual elite who possess the divine spark and are predestined for salvation, contrasted with psychic (faithful) and hylic (material) persons.
[auto] The 'heroic enthusiast' is distinguished from the 'temperance of mediocrity,' implying a spiritual elite undergoing a specific transformative process.
The felt condition of exile from one's divine origin — Rumi's reed flute torn from its bed, Plotinus's 'we have forgotten,' the Gnostic forgetfulness; the affective wound that complements return_to_source and gives the return its motive.
The soul is depicted as banished from heaven and hell, suffering torments and feeling a dislocation from its natural unity.
Iamblichean ritual practice that engages the gods directly through consecrated material symbols and actions, on the premise that divine power descends into properly prepared matter — distinct from philosophical contemplation alone.
The text cites Jamblichus and Egyptian mysteries, invoking the theurgical tradition of engaging divine powers through specific knowledge.