The Heroic Enthusiasts, Part II (Gli Eroici Furori) · 40 of 49 · tr. L. Williams
Fourth Dialogue-e
Thou sayest well that no natural impulse or power is without strong reason; it is in fact the same rule of nature which orders things.
So far, it is a thing most true and most certain to well-disposed intellects, that the human soul, whatever it may show itself while it is in the body, that same, which it makes manifest in this state, is the expression of its pilgrim existence in this region; because it aspires to the truth and to universal good, and is not satisfied with that which comes on account of and to the profit of its species.
The second, represented by the second blind man, proceeds from some troubled affection, as in the question of Love and Jealousy, the which is like a moth, which has the same subject, enemy and father, that is, it consumes the cloth or wood from which, it is generated.
Min.
This does not seem to me to take place with heroic love.
Sev.
True, according to the same reason which is seen in the lower kind of love; but I mean according to another reason similar to that which happens to those who love truth and goodness, which shows itself when they are angry against those who adulterate it, spoil it, or corrupt it, or who in other ways would treat it with indignity, as has been the case with those who have brought themselves to suffer death and pains, and to being ignominiously treated by ignorant peoples and vulgar sects.
Min.
Certainly no one truly loves the truth and the good who is not angry against the multitude; as no one loves in the ordinary way who is not jealous and fearful about the thing loved.
Sev.
And so he comes to be really blind in many things, and according to the common opinion he is quite infatuated and mad.
Min.
I have noted a place which says that all those are infatuated and mad, who have sense beyond and outside of the general sense of other men.
But such extravagance is of two kinds, according as one goes beyond and ascends up higher than the greater number rise or can rise, and these are they who are inspired with Divine enthusiasm; or by going down lower where those are found who have greater defect of sense and of reason than the many, and the ordinary; but in that kind of madness, insensibility and blindness, will not be found the jealous hero.
Sev.
Although he is told that much learning makes him mad, yet no one can really abuse him.
The third, represented by the third blind man, proceeds from this: that Divine Truth according to supernatural reasoning, called metaphysics, manifests itself to those few to whom it shows itself, and does not proceed with measure of movement and time as occurs in the physical sciences, that is, those which are acquired by natural light, the which, in discoursing of a thing known to reason by means of the senses, proceed to the knowledge of another thing, unknown, the which discourse is called argument; but immediately and suddenly, according to the method which belongs to such efficiency.[AD] Whence a divine has said: "Attenuati sunt oculi mei suspicientes in excelsum." So that it does not require a useless lapse of time, fatigue, and study, and inquisitorial act to have it, but it is taken in quickly, as the solar light, without hesitation, and makes itself present to whoever turns himself to it and opens himself to it.
[AD] When somewhat of this Perfect Good is discovered and revealed within the soul of man, as it were in a glance or flash, the soul conceiveth a longing to approach unto the Perfect Goodness.—("Theologia Germanica.") Min.
Do you mean then, that the student and the philosopher are not more apt to receive this light than the ignorant?
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 state of Divine enthusiasm is described as a form of madness or infatuation that transcends ordinary reason.
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 reframes madness and infatuation as signs of possessing sense beyond the general multitude, aligning with ecstatic irrational rapture.
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 passage states that no natural impulse is without strong reason and follows the rule of nature which orders things.
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 discusses heroic love and divine enthusiasm as a higher spiritual ardor oriented toward truth rather than base passions.
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 dialogue distinguishes between lower love (jealousy/moth) and heroic love (truth/goodness), mirroring the scala amoris.
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's state in the body is described as a 'pilgrim existence' implying exile from its true home.