The Heroic Enthusiasts, Part II (Gli Eroici Furori) · 5 of 49 · tr. L. Williams
First Dialogued
You see, Cesarino, how this enthusiast is justified in his anger against those who reproach him with being in captivity to a low beauty, to which he dedicates his vows, and attributes these forms, so that he is deaf to those voices which call him to nobler enterprises: for these low things are derived from those, and are dependent upon them, so that through these you may gain access to those, according to their own degrees.
These, if they be not God, are things divine, are living images of Him, in the which, if He sees Himself adored, He is not offended.
For we have a charge from the supernal spirit which says: Adorate sgabellum pedum eius.
And in another place a divine messenger says: Adorabimus ubi steterunt pedes eius.
Ces.
God, the divine beauty, and splendour shines and is in all things; and therefore it does not appear to me an error to admire Him in all things, according to the way in which we have communion with them.
Error it would surely be if we should give to another the honour due to Him alone.
But what means the enthusiast when he says, "Leave, leave me, every other wish"?
Mar.
That he banishes every thought presented to him by different objects, which have not the power to move him and which would rob him of the sight of the sun which comes to him through that window more than through others.
Ces.
Why, importuned by thoughts, does he continually gaze at that splendour which destroys him, and yet does not satisfy him, as it torments him ever so fiercely?
Mar.
Because all our consolations in this state of controversy are not without their discouragements, however vast those consolations may be.
Just as the fear of a king for the loss of his kingdom, is greater than that of a mendicant who is in peril of losing ten farthings; and more important is the care of a prince over a republic, than that of a rustic over a herd of swine; as perchance the pleasures and delights of the one are greater than the pleasures and delights of the other.
Therefore the loving and aspiring higher, brings with it greater glory and majesty, with more care, thought, and pain: I mean in this state, where the one opposite is always joined to the other, finding the greatest contrariety always in the same genus, and consequently about the same subject, although the opposites cannot be together.
And thus proportionally in the love of the supernal Eros, as the Epicurean poet declares of vulgar and animal desire when he says:— Fluctuat incertis erroribus ardor amantum, Nec constat, quid primum oculis, manibusque fruantur: Quod petiere, premunt arte, faciuntque dolorem Corporis, et dentes inlidunt saepe labellis, Osculaque adfigunt, quia non est pura voluptas, Et stimuli subsunt, qui instigant laedere id ipsum, Quodcunque est, rabies, unde illa haec germina surgunt.
Sed leviter poenas frangit Venus inter amorem, Blandaque refraenat morsus admixta voluptas; Namque in eo spes est, unde est ardoris origo, Restingui quoque posse ab eodem corpore flammam.
Behold, then, with what condiments the skill and art of nature works, so that one is wasted with the pleasure of that which destroys him, is happy in the midst of torment, and tormented in the midst of all the satisfactions.
Themes
◆Active Contemplationpraxis
A form of meditation that uses imagery, imagination, or symbolic thought rather than purely empty stillness.
The practice involves gazing at splendour and using living images of God rather than empty stillness.
The Hermetic axiom that the structure of the cosmos is reflected at every scale — 'as above, so below; as within, so without' — making each level a legible map of the others.
The text implies that lower forms reflect higher ones, allowing access to the divine through material degrees.
John of the Cross's stage of contemplative purgation: a felt absence and aridity of God that strips the soul of attachments to its own consolations en route to deeper union.
The text describes the state of love as having discouragements and torment even amidst vast consolations.
Eckhart's Abgeschiedenheit/Gelassenheit — radical letting-go of will, image, and grasping that opens the soul to God; distinct from inner_silence (quietness) and from material renunciation, and adjacent to Sufi tark and Buddhist non-grasping as a practice rather than a metaphysical claim.
The enthusiast banishes every thought presented by different objects to maintain focus on the divine.
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 enthusiast's state is characterized by ardor and furor, akin to ecstatic receptivity.
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 lover is described as wasted by the pleasure of that which destroys him, suggesting self-effacement in divine love.
The doctrine of the universe as boundless and without center or circumference, populated by innumerable worlds — Bruno's rejection of the closed Aristotelian sphere; the divine and the cosmos as ontologically infinite.
The pantheistic claim that God is in all things implies Bruno's doctrine of the infinite cosmos.
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 enthusiast focuses disciplined attention on the sun/splendour coming through a specific window.
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 enthusiast is tormented by the splendour that destroys him, indicating a painful distance from full satisfaction.
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 ecstatic torment and irrational rapture as a necessary state for attaining higher divine knowledge.
A chain of divine beings or principles flowing downward from a single transcendent source (the One or the Father), each level less perfect than the one above.
[auto] Low things are described as derived from and dependent upon higher divine forms according to their specific degrees.
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 explicitly defines the enthusiast's justified anger and spiritual ardor as central to the text's title and theme.
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.
[auto] The text describes a hierarchy where low things are derived from higher ones and serve as access points to nobler enterprises through degrees of beauty.