auerbah passio

In the translation that follows, I have retained in brackets the German

words Auerbach uses to distinguish between passive feelings, such as Gefuihl,Empfindung, sometimes Erfahrung and Wahrnehmung, as opposed to words we

associate with passion now, including the French passion and the German

Leidenschaft.

The Graduate Center and Brooklyn College, City University of New York

Notes

*The translation that follows first appeared in PMLA 56 (1941): 1179-1196.

1. Erich Auerbach, "Figura," Archivum Romanicum, 17 (1938): 320-341.2. Erich Auerbach, Dante als Dichter der Irdischen Welt (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter,

1929); published in English as Dante, Poet of the Secular World, tr. Ralph Mannheim(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961).

3. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick and Adam Frank, "Shame in the Cybernetic Fold: ReadingSilvan Tomkins," in Shame and Its Sisters: A Silvan Tomkins Reader (Durham, NC:Duke University Press, 1995), 1-28.

4. See Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity (Cambridge,MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), 111.

5. 1 have discussed this at greater length in my "Church History and the Cultural Ge-ography of Erich Auerbach: Europe and Its Eastern Other," in Opening the Borders:Inclusivity in Early Modern Studies, Essays in Honor of James Vi Mirollo, Ed. Peter C.Herman (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1999), 324-349.

6. Eugen Lerch, " 'Passion' and 'Geffihl,' " Archivum Romanicum, 17 (1938): 320-341.7. For German-Jewish identity and the Enlightenment, see Paul Mendes-Flohr, Ger-

man Jews: A Dual Identity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999). For VictorKlemperer's account of writing his history of eighteenth-century French literature,see I Will Bear Witness: A Diary of the Nazi Years, 1933-1941, tr. Martin Chalmers(New York: Random House, 1998).

Erich Auerbach, "Passio as Passio" ["Passio als Leidenschaft"]*

In his paper on "passion" and "feeling" [Geffihl] (Arch. Rom., XXII, 320ff.),E. Lerch attempts to describe the entire many-layered development of themeaning of passio. He draws the following picture:

In antiquity and long afterwards, passio (pathos), in accordance with itsorigins, has a purely "passive" meaning, whereas the modem concept of pas-sion [passion-Leidenschaftl is essentially active. The origin of the older meaningis to be sought, first, in a kind of seduction by language, since pathos and passioindeed both mean "suffering"; second, in the Stoic and Christian understand-ing of the passions [Leidenschaften] as diseases of the soul; finally and aboveall, in the original absence of the category "feeling" [Gefuhl] as an equally im-portant component of the inner life next to thought and will, which had theresult that from antiquity until well into the eighteenth century, feelings [Ge-fihle] and sensations [Empfindungen] that in fact are states of suffering were

288 Martin Elsky

Erich Auerbach's "Passio as Passion"

grouped together with the passions [Leidenschaften], and both were denoted aspathe, passiones. These words, regardless of their etymological associations,could achieve the full unfolding of their active meaning only when, under theinfluence of Shaftesbury, Rousseau, Mendelssohn, and others, the category of"feeling" [Gefuihl] became autonomous, and thus the meanings "sentiment,""feeling" [Gefiihll, "sensation," [Empfindung] etc., were detached from "pas-sion" as understood by the German word Leidenschaft.

In these propositions, which are excellently documented and instructivein many respects, the essence of the case is clearly seen. The concept of "suffer-ing" always lies at the bottom of the psychological meanings of the word thatin antiquity was expressed as pathos, considered in the same sense as passio,and these meanings correspond much more to what we denote as "feelings"and "sentiment" than "passion" [Leidenschaft]. Passions [Leidenschaften] are forus heated, stormy, and thereby active, just what was not originally containedin the semantic fields of pathos and passio. Lerch's exposition, however, leavesus hanging if we ask how the heated, the stormy, the active, in short, the mod-em meaning of "passion" [Leidenschaft] entered the semantic field of passio.That cannot possibly have happened by a mere release, a mere subtraction ofthe meaning "feeling" [Gefihl] from the word. Instead, there must be some-thing else in the history of passio that made the word ready to receive thismeaning. Lerch certainly seems to assume as self-evident that pathos-passio al-ways signified "passion" [Leidenschaft] in addition to other things. But when-ever he means this word in the current modem sense, then this assumptionis contradicted by his own clear and unquestionable demonstration that thecharacteristic mark of pathos-passio, "suffering," is passivity. What we todayunderstand as passion [Leidenschaft], first took shape in passio only later, grad-ually and in stages. Pathos signifies a state of being afflicted, a state of beingaffected, a reception or a suffering, and on this basis it comprehends to someextent the following range of meanings or parts of them: sensory quality,change, phases of development, periodically retuming condition (and indeedall this, particularly in Aristotelean terminology, as much in animals, plants,heavenly bodies, etc., and in matter generally, as in humans); further, percep-tion [Wahrnehmung], experience [Erfahrung, Erlebnis], sensation [Empfindung],feeling [GefuIhl]; finally, in colloquial speech, pain, sickness, suffering, misfor-tune.' Words that are used as the opposite of pathos include praxis [action],poiesis [making], ergon [deed]. The above mentioned words signify "passion"[Leidenschaft] only in so far as they can be understood (exactly like a feeling[GeffihlI or an illness) as merely something affecting the carrier. Concemingthe active quality and intensity of the word, other Greek words, perhaps epi-thymia [desirel and mania [madness], or Latin words like cupiditas, or furor,stand closer to the modem semantic field of "passion" [Leidenschaft]. But eventhey do not completely convey its modem meaning. They lack the possibility

289

of the sublime: modem passion [Leidenschaft] is more than desire, craving, orfrenzy. The word always contains as a possibility, often as its dominant mean-ing, the noble creative fire which extinguishes itself in either struggle or sur-render, and next to which temperate reason at times appears contemptible. Sofar as I can see, a separate word for this meaning of "passion" [Leidenschaft]never developed in antiquity, even though the meaning itself was naturallywell known, in the mystery cults, among the tragedians, and above all byPlato, who in the Phaidros (265B) indeed designated that which afflicts lovers,erotikon pathos, as one of the four kinds of divine madness, theia mania.2

One can generally say that in antiquity the semantic fields were dividedup differently than they are now, but the contents of the inner life were allavailable and very precisely developed; this was also true for "feeling" [Gefahl .Not only is pathos indeed also a choice to be considered, but so too above allis the ambiguous thymos [heart] (kata phrena kai thymon [in mind and heart]),as is, further, enthymion [rumination], then aisthesis for perception [Wahrneh-mung], daimonion for inner feeling [Geffihl], and the paired concepts hedone kailype [pleasure and pain] in the theoretical discussions of the feelings [Geffihlel.This is not the place to delve into these questions; I only want to stress that itwould be imprudent to draw any conclusion about the development of themeaning of "feeling" [Geffihl] from the absence of an exactly correspondingGreek word. In Latin too there is no corresponding word for "thought." Cogi-tatio, made current since Cicero, covers our semantic field "thought" as littleas sensus does the field "feeling" [Geffthl]. In fact, one can at times use a wordderived from sentire, sententia for "thought," and "Plato's thought on beauty"could be renewed well with quid Plato de pulchro senserit.

I return to passio and attempt to ascertain how the modem meaning of"passion" [Leidenschaft] came to prevail in this word. Originally, as we alreadysaid, in ordinary usage pathos meant illness, pain, suffering, and in the psycho-logical terminology coined by Aristotle, it means everything that is passivelytaken in, received, suffered: sense impression [Sinneseindruck] and perception[Wahrnehmung], sensation [Empfindung] and experience [Erfahrung], strongeror weaker feeling [Geffhl]. Besides passivity, pathos also carries for Aristotle thecharacter of ethical neutrality; no one can be praised or blamed for his pathos.Despite many different overlappings in the corresponding word in late Latin,passio, this use of the word-to mean suffering generally, but also to signifyheat and cold, pain and joy, love and hate, etc.-persisted very long as "ill-ness," up to the Renaissance, as in "the suffering of Christ," and even till todayas "feeling" [Geftihl] or sensation in the psychological tradition of Aristotelian-ism, whose terminology proved to be astonishingly tenacious; one finds passioas a purely passive and often ethically neutral feeling [Gefihl] not only in Scho-lasticism, but also much later, into the eighteenth century; cf. Lerch's gathering

290 Martin Elsky


of citations, pp. 332-334. Of this oldest layer available to us, the characteristicfeatures are, as already noted, passivity and ethical neutrality.

However, already in the dialectic of Aristotelianism there lay a certain pos-sibility for rendering the concept pathos as active. In fact, suffering or afflictioncan be considered to be in the condition of potentiality, dynamis, in relation tothe active-productive: it is ready to receive the effect; through the action of theagent, it is moved or changed; it thus moves, and this movement is also signi-fied as pathos; a psychic pathos thus easily becomes kinesis tes psyches, Lat.motus animi [movement of the soul]. This thought, which I here render onlyin a very simplified manner, was further developed3 in the Middle Ages, espe-cially in Thomism, yet remained without any influence on general usage; somuch more consequential was the Stoic development of the word. To the Stoa,the passiones tumed into restiveness, directionless agitation and mental aim-lessness that destroy the tranquility of the wise. The word passio carries asharply pejorative meaning; every inner reaction and movement due to goingson in the world is to be avoided as far as possible; not to encounter the world,at least inwardly, not to allow oneself to be unsettled by it, to be impassibilis[unsusceptible to suffering], is the duty of the wise. In this way, the originalopposition to actio falls into the background, and passio becomes the oppositeof ratio; in contrast to the agitated passiones, reason stands as their opposite;but agitation includes within it a kind of activeness. Here for the first time canthe word Leidenschaft be used to render this meaning into German; partly be-cause of the agitation, partly because of the intensity always assumed by theStoa, the images of storms and whirlwinds of the passions [Leidenschaftenloriginate here, and for passio the clearly pejorative perturbatio is often used.This is the second layer of the development of the meaning of pathos-passio; itis characterized by intensity, closeness to being active, and pejorative connota-tion. In practice it has been ever more influential than the first, Aristotelianmeaning since it continues to live on even today in the popular moral conceptsof the most varied groups of people; in one way or another, it enters into al-most every later ethical dogma; one also finds numerous uses of passio inwhich both concepts-the Aristotelean as well as the Stoic-operate togetherat the same time in manifold combinations, especially in late Scholasticismand in the Renaissance.

The Stoic meaning of passio was all the more effective in that it influencedlate antique Christian writers from the very beginning. Ambrose writes: Caronostra diversis agitatur etfreti modofluctuat passionibus [Our flesh is driven bydifferent passions, and fluctuates like the sea.] (De Noe et Arca, 15; 51; PL 14,p. 385); Augustine uses a similar image (passionum turbelis et tempestibus agi-tari [to be vexed by the turbulence and storms of the passions]. De civ. 8, 17);he defines passio as motus animi contra rationem [stirrings of the soul againstreason] and says the word is understood in Latin, especially in the usage of

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the Church, non nisi ad vituperationem [only in order to censure].' It is easy tomiss that this is Stoic. Among Christian authors, passiones became synony-mous with the concupiscentiae carnis [bodily lust], often with sin itself.: On theother hand, Augustine energetically distances himself from the Stoic doctrineof passion (De civ. 9, 4ff.); he acknowledges bonae passiones, just as Ambrosedoes (omnis enim affectus qui est praeter de formis delectationis illecebras passioquidem est, sed bona passio [for every emotion, except for the allurements ofunseemly pleasures, is indeed a passion, but a good one], he says, loc. cit.,p. 24, 88, p. 402), which sounds rather peripatetic. By then, both currentsalready cross and mix, as is evident from Augustine's exposition; after all, Stoicmorals stood closer to Christian morals in this epoch.

And yet even then they were fundamentally different from each other. ForChristian authors contrasted the passiones not to the tranquility of the wise butto submission to injustice, but their intention was to prevail over the worldthrough suffering, not to withdraw from it in order to avoid suffering and pas-sion [Leidenschaft]. Stoic and Christian flight from the world are profoundlydifferent. Not the zero point of passionlessless [Leidenschaftslosigkeit] outsidethe world, but a suffering against, a passionate [leidenschaftliches] suffering inthe world, and thereby against the world, is the goal of Christian enmity to theworld; and against the flesh, against the evil passiones of this world, they setneither Stoic apathy, nor the "good feelings" [Geffihle] (bonae passiones, seeabove) in order to arrive at the Aristotelian mean through rational balance, butinstead they contrast it with something entirely new, until then unheard of:the gloriosa passio that derives from the buming love of God.6 The person whois impassibilis [incapable of suffering] is not perfect, but he is perfectus in omni-bus [perfect in every way], as Ambrose says Exp. in Ev. sex. Lucam, x, 177 PL15 (1848), quem caro iam revocare non posset a gloria passionis7 [whom the fleshcould no long retrieve from the glory of suffering]; and the Scilitan martyrs(Acta Bolland, viii, 6) call out, as they are led to death: Deo gratias, qui nos prosuo nomine ad gloriosam passionem perducere dignatus est. [Thanks be to God,who has deigned to lead us in behalf of his name to glorious suffering.]

Whoever relies on the difference in the meaning of "suffering" and "pas-sion" [Leidenschaft] in such a statement as this does not have a clear sense ofthe dialectic relationship of both meanings in the Christian understanding:God's love which moved Him to take human suffering upon Himself is itselfsurely a motus animi without measure and bounds.8 In the second half of thefirst millennium, the theme of Christ's suffering was seldom taken up, but itwas all the more frequently after the revival of the figure of Christ in thetwelfth century, after the incarnate Christ begins once again to outshine therex gloriae. In a once well known passage which was much quoted by contem-poraries (Serm. in Cant. LXI, PL 183, 1074), Bemard of Clairvaux speaks ofthe martyr: Enim vero non sentiet sua, dum illius (Christi) vulnera intuebitur. Stat

292 Martin Elsky


martyr tripudians et triumphans, toto licet lacero corpore; et rimante lateraferro,non modofortiter, sed et alacriter sacrum e carne sua circumspicit ebullire cruorem.Ubi ego tunc anima martyris? Nempe in tuto, nempe in petra [Truly the martyrdoes not feel his ovn wounds as long as he contemplates Christ's. The martyrstands exultant and triumphant, though his entire body be tomr; and thoughthe iron cleaves his sides, not only more bravely but also more cheerfully doeshe see the sacred blood flowing from his body. Where therefore is the soul ofthe martyr at that time? Surely in safety, surely in the rock], (the subject con-cems a commentary on Cant. 2, 17 [2, 14] columba mea inforaminibus petrae[o my dove, in the clefts of the rock]), nempe in visceribus Jesu, vulneribus nimi-rum patentibus ad introeundum.... Non hocfacit stupor, sed amor ... [surely inthe entrails of Jesus, his wounds open wide for view .. . It is not stupidity, butlove that does this].9 In the open wounds of Christ, wounds which ignite thefire of love, the martyr finds refuge, so that he ecstatically triumphs over thetorments of his own body; to him the wounds are signs of Christ's love.Amavit, inquam, amavit: habes enim delectionis pignus Spiritum, habes et testemfidelemJesum, et hunc crucfixum [He has loved [you], I say, he has loved [you]:for you have the [Holy] Spirit as an assurance that you have been chosen; youalso have as a reliable witness Jesus, the Crucified.] (Epist. cvii, 8, PL 182,246). Cistercian mysticism, which had the greatest influence on similar move-ments in later centuries, evolves within the framework of commentaries on theSong of Songs; mainly allegorical, but partly typological-figurative, a form ofinterpretation which is still barely accessible to us, gives rise to a fulness andsweetness of love hardly comprehensible to us today. Facile proinde plus dili-gunt qui se amplius dilectos intelligunt, says Bemard in his book De diligendo Deo(iii, 7; PL 182, 978); cui autem minus donatum est, mius diligit. Judaeus sane,sive paganus, nequaquam talibus aculeis incitatur qualis Ecclesia experitur, quae aitVulnerata caritate ego sum, et rursum: Fulcite me floribus, statipe me malis, quiaamore langueo (Can. 2, 5) . . . Cernit Unicum Patris, crucem sibi bajulantem;cernit caesum et consputum dominum majestatis; cernit auctorem vitae et gloriaeconfixum clavis, perciussum lancea, opprobriis saturatum, tandem illam dilectamanimam suam ponere pro amicis. Cernit haec, et suam magis ipsius animam gladiusamoris transverberat, et dicit: Fulcite me floribus, statipe me malis, quia amorelangueo. Haec sunt quippe mala punica, quae in hortum introducta dilecti sponsacarpit ex ligno vitae, a coelesti pane proprium mutuata saporem, colorem a san-guine Christi. Videt deinde mortem mortuam.... Advertit terram quae spinas et

tribulos sub antiquo maledicto produxerat, ad novae benedictionis gratiam innova-tam refloruisse. Et in his omnibus, illius recordata versiculi- Et refloruit caro mea,et ex voluntate mea confitebor ei (Ps. 27, 7) passionis rmalis, quae de arbore tul-erat crucis, cupit vigere, et defloribus resurrectionis, quorum praesertimfragrantiasponsum ad se crebrius revisendam invitet.... [They therefore love more easily

who understand that they are loved more. He to whom less is granted, loves

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less. Indeed, the Jew or Pagan is by no means urged on by such pains as isendured by the Church, which says, I am wounded by love, and at the sametime: Support me with flowers, pile up apples around me, for I languish with love(Cant. 2,5).... [The Church] sees the only [Son] of the Father himself bearingthe cross as a burden; she sees the Lord of majesty beaten and spat on; shesees the author of life and glory pierced by nails, struck with a lance, steepedin reproaches, laying down his beloved soul for his friends. She sees all this,and the sword of love pierces her soul all the more, and she says: Support mewithflowers, pile up apples around me, for I languish with love. These are indeedthe pomegranates which, when she is brought into the garden of the Beloved,the Bride picks from the Tree of Life, their natural taste changed by the heav-enly bread, their color by Christ's blood. Thereupon she sees the death ofdeath.. . . She tums to the earth which brought forth thorns and thistles underthe ancient curse, and which now blooms again with the restored grace of anew blessing. And in the midst of all this, that verse is remembered: And myflesh bloomed again, and of my own accord I shall acknowledge him (Ps. 27,7). Shewishes to add to the fruits of the Passion which she bore from the tree of thecross and from the flowers of the Resurrection, whose special fragrance invitesthe Bridegroom to revisit her more often.] Just as Christ was drunk from thewine of love, ebrius vino charitatis, when he sacrificed himself (Sermo de diversisxxix, PL 183, 620), so too is the soul that immerses itself in his passio andresurrectio. Suavissimum mihi cervical, says a successor of Bernard,10 boneJesu,sinea illa capitis tui corona; dulcis lectulus illud crucis tuae lignum. In hoc nascor etnutritor, creor et recreor, et super passionis tuae altaria memoriae mihi nidum liben-ter recolloco [Good Jesus, that crown of thorns on your head is to me thesweetest pillow; that wood of your cross a sweet bed. In this, I am born andnursed, I am created and re-created, and on the altar of the memory of yourPassion I will gladly place a bowl again]. But the main point of departure ofthe Cistercian Passion mysticism [Passionsmystik] is the verse Cant. 1, 12: Fas-ciculus myrrhae dilectus meus mihi, inter ubera mea commorabitur [A bundle ofmyrrh is my Beloved to me; he shall dwell between my breasts]. With refer-ence on the one hand to the drink of myrrh before the Crucifixion (Marc. 15,23), and on the other to the story ofJoseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, whotook Jesus down from the cross and wrapped him in linen cloth with myrrhand aloe, the fasciculus myrrhae came to be regarded as a prefiguration of thecrucified body, or the Passion, which, like myrrh, is bitter and healing; itshould rest perennially on the breast, and thus on the heart of the beloved;that is, the Church, or the soul, should unceasingly meditate on the Passion. IIAccordingly, the grape clusters of Cyprus wine in the next verse (botrus Cypridilectus meus mihi . . . [a cluster of Cyprian grapes is my Beloved to me]), be-cause of their sweetness which gives joy to the heart, are interpreted as theresurrection. Bernard's commentary on these verses must have made a deep

294 Martin Elsky


impression at the time (it contains a variant, since he construes only the drinkof myrrh as the Passion, but the embalming as the indestructibility of the

body), I have found Bemard's most important passage quoted by Bonaventureand Suso: Et ego,fratres, ab ineunte mea conversione, pro acervo meritorum, quaemihi deesse sciebam, hunc mihi fasciculum colligare et inter ubera mea collocarecuravi, collectum ex omnibus anxietatibus et amaritudinibus Domini mei.... Ubi

sane inter tot odoriferae myrrhae huius ramusculus minime preatermittendam pu-tavi etiam illam myrrham qua in cruce potatus est; sed neque illam qua unctus est

in sepultura. Quarum in prima applicuit sibi meorum amaritudinem peccatorum;

in secundafuturum incorruptionem mei corporis dedicavit. Menoriam abundantiae

suavitatis horum eructabo, quoad vixero; in aeternum non obliviscar miserationesistas, quia in ipsis vivicatus sum. [And I, brethren, from the beginning of myconversion, to make up for the multitude of merits that I knew I lacked, tookcare to bind for myself this bundle [of myrrh] and, collected from all the an-guish and bittemess of my Lord, to place it between my breasts.... And there,surely, among so many branches of fragrant myrrh, I thought that that myrrhfrom which he was made to drink on the cross ought not at all to be passedover, nor yet that with which he was anointed in the tomb. By the first heapplied to himself the bittemess of my sins; by the second he declared thefuture incorruptibility of my body. I shall pour forth my words about thememory of the abundant sweetness of these things as long as I live; I shallnever forget for all etemity that mercy, for in it I have been brought back tolife.] (In Cant. xliii, PL 183, 994).

From these citations, which are only samples, we may infer how closelythe meaning of "suffering" and "creative, ecstatic love passion" [Liebesleiden-schaft] advanced toward each other. It would require a separate treatise to dis-cuss each of the continually recurrent themes: ebrietas spiritus, suave vulnus

charitatis, gladius amoris, pax in Christi sanguine, surgere ad passionem, calixquem bibisti, amabilis, etc. [drunkenness of the spirit, sweet wound of love,sword of love, peace in the blood of Christ, rising up to suffering, the cupwhich you drank, loving, etc.]. The inclination toward Passion mysticism be-came even stronger in the following centuries. In the classic mysticism, as itwere, of Bemard, the Passion almost always appears in connection with otherlove themes, depending on the occasion and context, be it the earlier life ofChrist, be it the resurrection, be it, from the viewpoint of the testimony oflove, the workings of the Holy Spirit. The visual depiction as well as the physi-cal representation of the stations of the cross and the ecstasy effected in thosewho meditate on them always maintained a certain moderation.'2 In the fol-lowing epoch, not least because of the influence of the miracle of Francis ofAssisi's stigmata, a much stronger and more concrete prominence of the Pas-sion and Passion mysticism appeared; its disseminators seem to have been theFranciscans and the mendicant orders in general. There are few texts here at

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my disposal, almost nothing besides the above quoted edition of the work ofBonaventure; and the writings of the Franciscan-Spirituals are entirely inacces-sible to me. Yet even in so moderate a personality as Bonaventure, the develop-ment is clearly recognizable, and the citations are so numerous and extensivethat I cannot present them here, but can only refer to the most important ones:the Breviloquium pars iv caput ix: Diaeta salutis Tit. vii, cap vii; the Itinerariumchapter 7 (De excessu mentali et mystico); the preface of the Lignum vitae; chap-ter 6 of the De perfectione vitae; the chapter de specialibus orationibus (II, 23) inthe apparently inauthentic work De perfectu religiosorum; the preface and thesexta Feria of the Meditationes Vitae Christi; and the first pages of the StimulusAmoris of Bonaventure's student Jacob von Mailand. Undoubtedly, many morehave eluded me. 13 Everywhere the reader will encounter the strong elaborationof passion and the inner proximity of the meaning of "suffering" and "passion"[Leidenschaft], passio and fervor. Christus homo hunc (ignem charitatis) accenditinfervore suae ardentissimae passionis-devotionisfervor perfrequentem passionisChristi memnoriam nutritur-transfige, dulcissime Dominejesu, medulas animaemeae suavissimo ac saluberrimo vulnere amoris tui animam (AMariae) passionisgladius pertransivit-in passione et cruce Domini gloriari desidero-curre, curre,DomineJesu, curre et me vulnera [Christ as man kindles this fire (fire of love)with the heat of his most buming suffering-the heat of devotion is fed by thefrequent recollection of the suffering of Christ-pierce, most sweet LordJesus,the inmost recess of my soul with the most sweet and most salutary wound ofyour love just as the sword of the Passion penetrated the soul (of Mary)-Ilong to be glorified in the Passion and the cross of the Lord-hurry, hurry,Lord Jesus, hurry and wound me.] There are only some excerpted sentences,and many related ones could not be so briefly quoted since they are only intel-ligible in context. Naturally, not only do crux, vulnera, gladius [cross, wounds,sword], etc., often stand for passio, but they were also among the countlessimages which allegorical or figural Biblical interpretation placed into the handof the medieval theologian, and ardor, ebrietas, dulcedo, suavitas, excessus [heat,drunkeness, sweetness, delight, excess] etc., often signifyfervor. I would liketo give one more example of the imagistic language that emerges of Biblicalinterpretation, from chapter 6 de perfectione viale ad soreres; Bonaventure, ad-dressing a nun, paraphrases Is. xii, 3: (Haurietis aquas in gaudio defontibus sal-vatoris): Quicumque desiderat aquas gratiarum, aquas lachrymarum, iste hauriatdefontibus Salvatoris, id est de vulneribusJesus Christi. Accede ergo tu, ofamula,pedibus affectionum tuarum ad Jesum vulneratum, ad Jesum spinis coronatum, adJesum patibulo crucis affixum, et cum beato Thoma apostolo non solum intuere inmanibus eiusfiguras clarovum, non solum mitte manum tuam in latus eius, sed to-taliter per ostium laterus eius ingredere usque ad cor ipsius Jesu; ubique ardentis-simo amore crucifixi in Christum transformata, clavis divini timoris affixa, lancea

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praecordialis dilectionis transfixa, gladio intimae compassionis transverberata, nihilaliud quaeras, nihil aliud desideres, et nullo alio velis consolari, quam ut cumChristo tu possis mori in cruce; et tunc cum Apostolo Paulo (Gal. 2, 19/20) ex-

clames, dicens: Christo confixus sum cruci; vivo iam non ego, vivit vero in me

Christus. [(You will draw water in joy from the springs of the Savior): Whoeverlongs for the waters of grace, the water of tears, let him draw it from thesprings of the Savior, that is, from the wounds of Jesus Christ. Walk thereforewith affection to the wounded Jesus, o maidservant, to Jesus crowned withthoms, to Jesus nailed to the yoke of the cross, and with the blessed Thomasthe Apostle, do not only contemplate the marks of the nails in his hands, donot only place your hand in his side, but completely enter into the door of hisside all the way to the very heart of Jesus himself; and there transformed inChrist by the most buming love of the Crucified, nailed by the nails of divineveneration, penetrated by the lance of heartfelt love, pierced with the swordof intimate mercy, you may seek nothing else, you may long for nothing else,you may wish to be comforted by nothing else than [the thought] that youmay be able to die with Christ on the cross; and then with the Apostle Paul(Gal. 2:19/20) you may exclaim, saying: with Christ I am nailed to the cross;no longer do I live, but Christ lives in me.]'4

It is not only the coming together of "suffering" and "passion" [Leiden-schaft], of passio andfervor, which appears significant to us in these mysticaltexts, but even more important is the striving for both, desiderium et gloria pas-sionis [the longing for, and glory of suffering]. 5 In stark contrast to all ancient,especially Stoic concepts, passio is praised and longed for; the life and stigmati-zation of St. Francis of Assisi concretely realize the union of passion [Leiden-schaft] and suffering, the mystical leap of one to the other. The passion of loveleads through suffering to an excessus mentis and to union with Christ; who-ever is without passio is without grace: whoever does not give himself over tothe passio of the Savior lives in hardness of heart, obduratio cordis, and onefinds in the mystical tracts much instruction about how to overcome this con-dition. Yet, Lerch's criterion, the activeness of passio, in many respects impor-tant and decisive, should not be imprudently exaggerated. The soul is in adynamic-potential state more than it is truly active; it is receptive and longingrather than actually active; it is decidedly bride-like. Whatever tempestuousrapture, whatever buming surrender the soul may reach on its own, it is al-ways overwhelmed by the force of Christ or Grace from which the activityoriginates. The love wounds, thefervor spiritus, the unio passionatus, are a giftof grace; one may very well prepare to receive it, one can wish it for oneselfand pray for it; indeed such powerful longing can thereby force its own ful-fillment into being, just as Jacob prevailed over the angel. But then grace wasalready in the supplicant:

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Regnum coelorum violenza pateDe caldo amore eda viva speranzaChe vince la divina volontate;Non a giusa che l'uom all'uom sobranza,Ma vince lei perche vuol esser vinta,E vinta vince con sua beninanza. (Dante, Par. 20, 94ff.)

[The Kingdom of Heaven suffers the violent force of hot love andliving hope, which conquers the Divine Will, not as man conquersman, but love conquers the Divine Will because it wants to beconquered, and once conquered, it conquers with its own kindness.]

And in this sense the passiones are and remain something that the soul suffersand by which it is afflicted. In this sense the root meaning and the Aristoteliantradition remain preserved. The novelty and, as it were, the active quality ofthe Christian concept subsists in the spontaneity and creative force of love kin-dled by passio (even this is fundamentally Aristotelian); but it always originatesfrom the heights or depths of superhuman forces and is received and sufferedas a magnificent or terrifying gift.

Similarly, the viewpoint of the "positive evaluation" of passio in the mysti-cal ecstacy of love requires careful qualification. All Christian thought, espe-cially all mystical concepts, move within the polarity of opposites. Love of Godis also tormenting love, even when it is answered; for God is too strong for thesoul. If He took it to heart, "it [the soull would perish from His strongerbeing"; the soul would die a Liebestod in real torment and real rapture at thesame time. As an illustration, I want to quote some verses from Jacopone daTodi, from the Can tico dell'amor superardente:

Amor di caritate,Perche m'hai si ferito?Lo cor tutto partito,Et che arde per amore?Arde et incende, e nullo trova loco;Non puo fugir perb ched e ligato;Si si consuma come cera a foco;Vivendo mor, languisce stemperato:Dimanda di poter fugir un poco,et in fomace trovasi locato.Oime do 'son menatoA si forte languire?Vivendo si e morire,Tanto monta l'ardore.Nante che lo il provassi dimandava

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AmarJesu, credendo cio dolzura.E'n pace di dolcezza star pensava,Fuor d'ogni pena possedendo altura:Provo tormento qual io non stimava,Chel cor si mi fendesse per calura.Non posso dar figura,Di che veggio sembianza;Che moio in delettanza,e vivo senza core.

[Love of Divine Love, why have you hurt me? My heart is completelytorn and burns with love? Bums and is on fire, and does not find aplace [to rest]; it cannot escape because it is bound; it is consumedso, like wax by fire; living it dies, pining away it languishes: it asks tobe able to escape for a short time, so much the fervor grows. Before Ihad experienced it, I asked to love Jesus, believing that it would besweet. And I thought I would be in a sweet peace, occupying theheights out of reach of any pain. Instead, I feel an agony that I didnot believe possible, as if my heart burns from the heat. I cannot givea face to what I seem to see, since I die in pleasure and live withoutmy heart.]

Now all these themes are found, as we know, in profane love poetry,sometimes so strongly that one may actually doubt whether one is dealingwith secular poetry. To be without love is to be unworthy of a noble heart;love is the path to all virtue and insight; and yet love is just as much raptureas torment; suffering and passion [Leidenschaft] are one; the lover suffers notonly because of longing, but also because the closeness of the beloved, hergreeting and her words, convulse him to such a degree that he feels he willperish. These are all well known themes of love poetry, which, even if gradu-ally secularized and often made shallow, can be traced from the Provencalthrough Dante and Petrarch till well into the modem era, vigorously and spon-taneously reawakened wherever there was a strong mystical movement. Theimagistic language of mysticism, the images of burning, wounding, piercing,of intoxication, imprisonment, martyrdom, etc., although they are often ofolder origin, are found wherever there is a specifically mystical tone; Fra Fran-cisco Tresatti da Lugano, who provided me with the early seventeenth-centuryedition ofJacopone which lies before me, can everywhere cite passages in latersecular poets (Petrarch, Bembo, etc.) that parallel verses in his author.

I believe, and the reader will have already inferred my thoughts from whatI have said, that Passion mysticism, with its correlation between Passio and

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ecstasy also influenced the development of passio-Leidenschaft; Passion mysti-cism made passio more receptive to the modem meaning of "passion" [Leiden-schaft], and in this regard gave an advantage over the competing expression,affectus. What in particular, in my opinion, "passion" [passion-Leidenschaft]drew from Passion mysticism is the deepening of the meaning of "suffering"in a double, dialectical sense, in that it can mean delight and rapture at thesame time. It is what Eckhart (see note 9 above) calls "inhitzige minne" [ardentlove]. This influence is indeed incontestable for this meaning of the word; it isformed in close accord with the mysticism of the polar-dialectical meaning of"passion" [Leidenschaft] even in profane love poetry, which describes its expe-riences as martiri, tormenti, dolcifurori [martyrdom, torments, sweet madness],etc. Nevertheless, the impact on the secular use of the word passio itself was atfirst very weak. To be sure, in the canzone E'm 'incresce di me si duramente [Andit pains me so deeply], Dante characterizes his experience on the day his Ladyappears in his world, an experience he relates unmistakably to the rapture ofActs 9, as a passion nuova,16 which leads to a mystical Liebestod; to be sure, atthe beginning of his Convivio, he describes the mystical work of his youth, theVita Nouva, using the well known expressionfervida e passionata, taken fromthe mystical texts; to be sure, it may well be concluded from one of his Latinletters (Exulti Pistoriensi, p. 417), that passio, at least in the colloquial speechof certain circles, was commonly used to mean erotic passion [Liebesleiden-schaft], and finally, Boccaccio too uses passione and passionato for the sufferingand passion of love, and occasionally he speaks of the piacevolissima passioned'amore (suavissima passio amoris) [the most pleasing suffering of love]-butwith these instances our examples from the Trecento and Quatrocento are ex-hausted. " In the overwhelming majority of cases, Dante himself uses passio inthe Aristotelian sense, in contrast to actio, and occasionally with a Stoic under-tone, in contrast to ratio; and the same is true of the rest of the philosophicalauthors of the late middle ages; for them passio means suffering (without itssecondary dialectical meaning), feeling [Geftihll, experience [Erfahrung], andsometimes passion [Leidenschaft] in the purely pejorative Stoic sense; the Aris-totelian element prevails by far, the Stoic sense is weak, and the mystical senseis absent. Passio was at the time a technical word smacking of the Schools, andprecisely for that reason love poetry avoided it altogether; even Jacopone al-ways speaks of croce, never passione. Dante, whose concept of the high styleincorporated the philosophy of the Schools, had no lasting influence, since di-rectly after him an early anti-scholastic, humanistic current got the upperhand; Petrarch, who uses very many images of mystical origin, never uses pas-sio. In the high style and with the meaning of passion [Leidenschaft] in themodem sense, this word was accepted only when the influence of the Aristote-lian Scholastic tradition receded. Less tied to the Scholastic tradition was pas-sionatus, but at the time even this word meant "passionate" [leidenschaftlich] in

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the pejorative Stoic sense-but with a new variation to boot: "biased in favorof." This is how it was already used by Dante, who even uses passionare (Mon.i, 11): bene repellentur, qui iudicem passionare conantur [those who attempt toprejudice a judge should be banished]. Other passages can be found in a re-port about the College of Cardinals at Pisa (1409), which Ducange cites (con-silium . .. fuit ex personis ... passionatis contra iustitiam.. . Suae Sanctitatis [thecouncil ... was made up of persons ... biased against the justice of His Holi-ness]), in the Imitation of Christ and in several Italian texts which were citedby Tommaseo-Bellini. 1

8

In the sixteenth century, when the power of the Thomist-Aristotelianschools receded, and when Stoic as well as renewed mystical currents madean impact on literature, passio began to establish itself as "passion" [Leiden-schaft] in the modem sense, and indeed this occurred in the way amorous suf-fering and passion [Liebesleiden und-leidenschaft] were described above. Yet itwas still a long time before this meaning was unequivocally and exclusivelysecured. Passio-Leidenschaft, nourished by mystical and stoic sources, had towage a battle on two fronts, as it were: against its own Aristotelian meaning(as experience [Erfahrung], feeling [Gefuihll, or completely passionless [leiden-schaftsfreies] suffering) and against competition from affectus, affectio. The vari-ous Aristotelian nuances are still found for example in Montaigne,'9 Th. deBeze,20 Gamier,2 1 Lecoq; 22 moreover, they still had aftereffects in the Scholasticpsychological systems of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The Italianand French equivalents of affectus are found in competition with passio-passion [passio-Leidenschaft] in the Italian love treatises; and in two so differentwriters as Alexandre Hardy and Honore d'Urfe, I have come across feux,flammes, blessures [fires, flames, wounds], above all affections, but, so far as Iknow their work, never passion. On the other hand, passio as passion [Leiden-schaft], especially erotic passion, is found in Italy since about Boiardo 23 andLorenzo de'Medici24 (however, I remember no instance in Ariosto or Tasso),and in France mainly in Marguerite de Navarre.25 Alongside passion, she alsouses affection, feux, flammes. Almost everywhere it appears, passion also sug-gests the concept of suffering; at times it even carries the trace of a critical ring,but everywhere it means without a doubt "erotic passion" [Liebesleidenschaft],and any reproach often falls into the realm of the forgotten; sympathy and ad-miration for the grand agitations of the heart are intermingled. From then on,passion in this sense never again disappears,26 while the older meanings of theword are gradually lost. In seventeenth-century France, the word steps out ofthe technical scholarly sphere into the sphere of the cultured and the literary;at this point it unequivocally and exclusively signifies "passion" [Leidenschaft]in the modern sense, for the most part erotic passion [Liebesleidenschaftl-though side by side with a passionate [leidenschaftlichl and power-seeking self-love and self-assertion identified as ambition and later, more characteristically,

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as gloire. Of course, Cartesian psychology, which at least in its terminology stilldepends on Aristotelian Scholasticism, identifies all emotional states, includ-ing feelings [Gefuihlel and sensations [Empfindungen], as passions; but, despiteDescartes's considerable impact on cultured society, his use of the word wasreceived as technical language and remained without any influence whateveron common usage; neither self-satisfaction, cowardice, or a tendency to sar-casm, nor even illness, hunger, cold were spontaneously characterized as pas-sion at that time. Passion and soufffrance, passion and sentiment go their separateways; while Th. de Beze still said, retirez-vous, humains passions [stay down,my human passions] (see note 20), one finds ettoufant tout sentiment humain[stifling human sentiment] in Racine (Iph. 4, 6). In fact, the eighteenth- andnineteenth-century 27 distinction between passion and sentiment was in essencealready made; there is no clear borderline between them, since some feelings[Gefuhlel, as soon as they become very intense, become desire and therebypassions [Leidenschaften]. Yet already in the verse of Corneille-J'ai tendressepour toi, j'ai passion pour elle [I have tendemess for you, I have passion for her](Nicomede 4, 3)-which still sounds a little strange to our ears, there lies aclear intensification of the word: passion should express an intense, passionate[leidesnschaftlichl feeling [Geffihl] of love, in contrast to the natural fatherlyfeelings [Empfindenl unrelated to desire. Later, one not seldom finds an explicitseparation of passion from sentiment, for example in St. Evremond's well-known criticism of Andromaque.2 8 The relationship of passion [Leidesnschaft]to Lerch's criterion, the quality of being active, was expressed by Pascal in away which is entirely traditional and yet corresponds to feeling [Empfindenl aswe think of it today: L'homme est ne pour penser; aussi n'est-il pas un momentsans lefaire; mais les pensees pures, qui le rendraient heureux s'il pouvait toujoursles soutenir, lefatiguent et l'abattent. C'est une vie unie & laquelle il ne peut s'accom-moder; il luifaut du remuement et de l'action, c'est-a-dire qu'il est necessaire qu'ilsoit quelquefois agite des passions, dont il sent dans son coeur des sources si vives etsi profondes.29 [Man was bom to think: and there is not a moment when he isnot doing it; but pure ideas, which would make him happy if he could alwayshold on to them, tire him, wear him down. It is a consistent life to which hecannot accommodate himself; he needs movement and action; in other wordshe sometimes needs to be moved by the passions, whose powerful and pro-found source he feels in his heart.]

The passions in seventeenth-century France are the great human desires,and what is particular about them is the clear inclination to regard them astragic, heroic, sublime and worthy of admiration. At the beginning of the cen-tury, the pejorative Stoic judgment is still sounded quite frequently, yet it soonchanges into a dialectic combination in which the terrible and the noble unitein the sublime. That is already to be sensed in Comeille and Pascal, perhapsalready in Descartes, and it reaches its high point in the tragedy of Racine,

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whose goal it is to excite and glorify the passions [Leidenschaften]. He speaksof les belles passions and les passions genereuses, and critics judged a tragedy ac-cording to the authenticity, depth, and beauty of the passions it represents; forthe sensitive spectator, the torment and rapture of passion [Leidenschaft] be-come the highest form of life. Ce n'est point une necessite, says Racine in thepreface to Berenice, qui'il y ait du sang et des morts dans une tragedie: il suffit quel'action en soit grande, que les acteurs en soient heroiques, que les passions y soientexcites, et que tout s'y ressente de cette tristesse magesteuse quifait tout le plaisirde la tragedie. [It is not necessary that there be blood and death in a tragedy:it is enough that the action have grandeur, that the actors be heroic, that thepassions be aroused, and that all feel that majestic sadness which creates theentire pleasure of tragedy.] A combination of timidity, cant, incipient under-standing and inchoate remorse led him later, in the preface to Phedre, to ex-press himself completely differently; but he is manifestly sophistic when hesays there: les passions n'y sont presentees que pour montrer tout le desordre dontelles sont cause [the passions are presented only to show all the disorder ofwhich they are the cause]; for the listeners admired, even envied Phedre de-spite all the horror evoked by her fate. The exaltation of the passions [Leiden-schaften] is no longer the target of a Stoic polemic, but is instead the target ofan ecclesiastical polemic (Nicole, Bossuet), which now recognized the situa-tion far more clearly than the majority of other critics. This polemic recognizedthat the most real, the most sublime, and therefore, from its viewpoint, themost dangerous passions [Leidenschaften] were amour and ambition. Pascal callsit ambition, later writers, using an extremely significant term for the epoch,called it gloire. Dites-moi, says Bossuet,3 0 que veut un Correille dans son Cid,sinon qu'on aime Chimene, qu'on l'adore avec Rodrigue, qu'on tremble avec lui lors-qu'il est dans la crainte de la perdre, et qu'avec lui on s'estime heureux lorsqu'ilespere de la posseder? Le premier principe sur lequel agissent les poetes tragiques etcomiques, c'est qu'ilfait interesser le spectateur; est si l'auteur d'une tragedie ne lesait pas emouvoir et le transporter de la passion qu'il veux exprimer, oft tombe-t-il,si ne dans lefroid, dans le ennuyeux, dans le ridicule . . . ? Ainsi, tout le dessin d'unpoate, toute la fin de son travail, c'est qu'on soit, comme ses heros, epris de bellespersonnes, qu'on les serve comme des divinites; en un mot qu'on leur sacrifie tout,si ne c'est peut-etre la gloire, dont l'amour est plus dangereux que celui de la beautememe.... On se voit soit-meme dans ceux qui nous paraissent comme transportespar de semblables objets: on devient bientot un acteur secret dans la tragedie; on yjoue sa propre passion; et lafiction au dehors estfroide et sans agrement si elle netrouve au dedans une verite qui lui reponde. [Tell me, what does a Comeille wantbut to make us love Chimene, to make us adore her with Rodrigue, to makeus tremble with him when he fears losing her, and to make us rejoice with himwhen he dares hope he will make her his own. The first principle upon whichtragic and comic poets act is the engagement of the spectator's interest, and if

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the author of, or actor in a tragedy does not know how to move or transportthe spectator through the passion he wants to express, where will he fall butinto coldness, boredom, and ridicule . . . ? Hence the poet's entire design, theentire purpose of his efforts is to make us, like his heroes, fall in love with hisbeautiful characters, and serve them as if they were gods; in a word, to makeus sacrifice everything for them, if perhaps only for the glory the love of whichis more dangerous than that of beauty itself. ... We see ourselves in those whoappear to us to be transported by the same objects that move us: we soon be-come secret actors in the tragedy; we act out our own passion; and the extemalfiction is cold and unattractive if it does not find an inner truth to which itcorresponds.J For the spiritual sensibility, the concept of the passions [Leiden-schaften] in the tragedy of the seventeenth century was a dangerous enemy;passion [Leidenschaft] was not just the ordinary "disorder" which the earthly lifealways entails, but was itself a kind of religion, a presumed elevation of humanexistence, which appeared worthy of aspiration, and by which one demon-strated greatness and nobility of heart. I have dealt with this issue before;"' andI say nothing entirely new when I find that the sublime idea of the passions inits double, dialectic meaning represents a secularized anti-Christian tum of Pas-sion mysticism, for this thought is frequently reflected in the modem critiqueof Racine, even if it lacks an explicit historical grounding. It should also providethe key for a comparison of Racine to his ancient prototypes.

But in any case, the modem meaning of passion [Leidenschaft] is alreadycompletely realized in the seventeenth century not only in visual circumlocu-tions likefeu andflamme, but also in the word passion. I even doubt whetherLerch's emphasis on the eighteenth-century development of the meaning of"feeling" [GeffhlI contributed much to a clearer distinction between feeling[Gefiihl] and passion [Leidenschaft]; that distinction, at least in general, holdstrue only in scientific psychology. There were also currents, from pietism toromanticism, which allowed the feelings [Gefuhle] to grow to such an extentthat they again approached the passions [Leidenschaften] and ultimately dif-fered from them only by their blurred and vague object of desire. Senancouronce calls it passion universelle. In the fourth book of Obermann, after a night ofmelancholic meditation at the lake of Neuchatel, he writes: Indicible sensibilite,charrne et tourment de nos vaines annees; vaste conscience d'une nature partoutaccablante et partout impenetrable, passion universelle, sagesse avancee, volup-tueux abandon; tout ce qu 'un coeur mortel peut contenir de besoins et d'ennui pro-fonds, j'ai tout senti, tout eprouve dans cette nuit memorable. J'aifait un pas sinistrevers l'dge d'affaiblissement;j'ai devore dix annees de ma vie. Heureux l'homme sim-ple dont le coeur est toujours jeune. [Inexpressible sensation, enchantment andtorment of our wasted years; vast consciousness of a nature everywhere over-whelming and everywhere impenetrable, universal passion, highest wisdom,sensual abandon; every desire and profound boredom that a mortal heart can

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contain, I felt it all, experienced it all on that memorable night. I took a cata-strophic step toward the age of enfeeblement. I devoured ten years of my life.Happy the simple man, whose heart is always young.]

P.S. To the objections which Lerch, p. 336ff., raised conceming details inmy "Remarques sur le mot passion" ["Remarks on the Word Passion"] (Neu-phil. Mitt. XXXVIII, 218), I would like to make the following comments:1. Conceming the survival of passio in vulgar Latin, I believe just as he does,namely, that it survived as a leamed and ecclesiastical word, with the meaningof illness, as in Christ's suffering. I too have written that, and have attachedfar greater importance to the ecclesiastical usage. Godefroy, moreover, citespopular forms as well. 2. I stand by my explanation of the disappearance ofpassion as "illness" in the seventeenth century as the secondary meaning of aword henceforth received into the formal language of the cultured. Lerch ap-parently misunderstood me. I did not assert that "suffering" had to make wayfor "passion" [Leidenschaft], but that inferior, physical illness had to give wayto the sublime movements of the soul. His own explanation that passio-illnessmust have given way as a specialized word does not contradict mine, but com-plements it. 3. In contrast, Lerch is correct, contra Furetiere and myself, whenhe sees a reminder of Christ's Passion in the expression souffrir mort et passion.It appears already in crusader songs, as in the song Chevalier mult estes guariz,in Bedier-Aubry, Les Chansons de croisade, Paris, 1909, and in Provencal byRaimbaut de Vaqueiras, in Bartsch's Chrestomathie, 6th ed., 139, 10.

Martin Elsky, translationThe Graduate Center and Brooklyn College, CUNY

Notes

*1 would like to thank Gerhard Sharon, John Collins, Monica Callibritto, Ottavio diCamillo, and Jacob Steme for their help. My special thanks to Julia Hirsch.

1. Cf. Liddell-Scott, A Greek-English Lexikon: A New Edition, by Henry Stuart Jones(Oxford). See also specialized dictionaries, especially the Aristotle-Index by Bonitz.

2. Thucydides VI, 59, 1, has erotike lype. Cf. Bultmann in Theologisches Worterbuchzum Neuen Testament under [ad. v.] lype, where parallel problems to the pathos-question are treated.

3. Instructive in this context is a passage in Boethius, De Cons. Phil., 5, 4: Praecedit(that is the perceiving activity of the spirit) tamen excitans I Ac vires animi movens /Vivo in corpore passio [Suffering excels, nevertheless, in rousing and stirring thepowers of the soul in the living body]. We are not really dealing here with psychol-ogy, but with epistemology, and passio signifies "sense perception." But it is exci-tans and movens. The excerpt contains a defense of the Aristotelian doctrine of thespontaneous cognitive power of the soul against the Stoic theory that the soul isonly a [passive] receptor (the theory of the tabula rasa upon which sense impres-sions leave their inscriptions like a stylus). An example of the development of theabove mentioned Aristotelian relationships between the agential to the suffering

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can be found in Dante's Convivio, III, 10, beginning Dov'e da sapere, etc. Cf. theexplanation in Businelli and Vandelli's edition (Florence 1934), 1, 376. But Stoic,even already mystical motifs are indeed suggested here in Dante.

4. De nuptiis et conscupisc., 2, 33; it is not certain that nisi is in the text, but the sensedemands it.

5. This is already the case in the Roman Vulgate, l, 26; Romans 7, 5: Thess. 1, 4, 5;see also Z. B. Cassian, De Coen. inst., V, 2,: Coll., V, 19 and 20; a Provencal texttranslates peccata in the Liber scintillarum as passios; cf. Bartsch, Chrestomathieprovencale, 61' ed., p. 58 and PL, 88, 600.

6. L. Spitzer has made me aware of the following passages in Malebranche, EntretiensXI, § XIV: Je croix de plus que Dieu afigure, meme par les dispositions du corps, cellesde I'ame sainte deJesu, et principalement l'excrs de son amour pour son Eglise; car saintPaul (Eph., 5, v. 25-33) nous apprend que cette passion violente de l'amour, quifaitqu'on quitte avec joie son pere et sa mere pour sa femme, est une figure de L'exces del'amour de Jesu-Christ pour son epouse... [I believe, moreover, that God repre-sented the sacred soul of Jesus even through the state of his body, and especiallythe surfeit of his love for the Church; for Saint Paul teaches us that the violent pas-sion of love, which makes us joyfully leave our father and mother for our wife, is afigure of the surfeit of love that Jesus Christ feels for his spouse.... 1

7. Jesus was impassibilis before his Incamation. See Bernard of Clairvaux (Tract. degrad. humil., 111, 9, PL, 182, 946): Beatus quippe Deus, beatus Deifilius, in eaformaqua non rapinam arbitratus est esse se aqualem Patri, procul dubio impassibilis, prius-quam se exinanissetformam servi accipiens (Phil., 2, 6-7), sicut miseriam vel subjectio-nem expertus non erat, sic misericordiam et obedientiam non noverat experimento.Sciebat quidem per naturam, non autem sciebat per experientiam. At ubi minoratus estnon solum a se ipso, sed etiam paulo minus ab angelis, qui et ipsi impassibiles sunt pergratiam, non per naturam, usque ad illam formam, in qua pati et subjici posset....[Certainly, blessed God, the blessed Son of God, in that form which is not consid-ered to be theft to be equal to the Father, without doubt immune to suffering be-fore he emptied himself to take on the form of a servant (Phil., 2, 6-7). Just as hefelt no affliction or subjection, so too he did not know pity or obedience throughexperience. Indeed, he knew that by nature, not by experience. And where he wasreduced not only from himself, but also a little less from the angels, who are them-selves immune to suffering through grace not nature, all the way down to thatform in which he could suffer and be subjected.] After the resurrection, He wasagain impassibilis. Cf. Bonaventure, Breviloquium, IV, 10 (Opera omnia cura et stu-dio A. C. Peltier, Aug. Tur., VII, 294): Christi corpus . . . primo fuerat passibile etmortale, postea autem impassibile et immortale. [Christ's body was first mortal andcapable of suffering, but afterwards immortal and not capable of suffering.] For theimpassibilitas of God, cf. Isidor., VII, 1, 24, discussed by Spitzer in a note rich incontent in Romania, LXV, 123f. Passibilis in this sense is also occasionally renderedwith sensibilis; they appear almost as synonyms in the Stimulus Amoris (ob. gen.Bonaventura-Ausgabe, XII) p. 636-637. Cf. Roman d'Eneas, 2883: Sire . . ge voilsaveir, se ce puet estre ... veir que cil .. - aientformne corporel, passible seient et mortel.In contrast, see Dante, Inf., 2, 151:1 sensibilmente.

8. Of course not a passio, for God is, as noted above, impassibilis. A love dialogue ofthe Renaissance, 11 Raverta di G. Betussi, in the Trattati d'amore del Cinquecento, ed.Zonta (Bari, 1912), explains, loc.ciL [a.a.O.], P. 39: .. . Quello affetto suo voluntarionon e suggetto a passione, come il nostro, non essendo in lui difetto d'alcuna cosa. [That

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love of his, by his own will, is not subject to passion, as our love is, since there isno defect of any kind in him.l On this problem, see Thomas Aq. S. Th. Ia, xx, 1.

9. Cf. Eckhart, Sermon CVII, ed. v. Pfeifer, 3 ed. (G6ttingen 1914): Ez wundert vilmenschen, wie doie lieben heiligen in sa grazer suiezikeit sa grOz liden getragenhaben. Wer des wunders wil ledic werden, der erfulle daz die heiligen mit gr6zemflize erfullet hant unde hant Jesu KristO mit inhitziger minne nach gevolget.

10. Gilbert von Hoyland, PL, 184, 21, on Cant. 3, 1.11. For this tradition, cf. perhaps Beda on Cant. Cant. alleg. expos., 2, 4; PL, 91, 1097.12. Lerch cites as an especially effective example of the radical tum to the active in the

meaning of passio in the modem period some texts of the eighteenth century (Bon-net, Wieland, Choderlos de Laclos), which speak of "active passions" [Leidenschaf-ten], passions actives. In Les liaisons dangereuses, Valmont commends the passions asthe only path to happiness. However, Bemard of Clairvaux already says ofJesus ina sermon about the Passion (in Feria quarta Hebdomadae Sanctae, 11, PL, 183,268): Et in vita passivam habuit actionem, et in morte passione activam sustinuit, dumsalutem operaretur in medio terrae. [And in life he took passive action, and in deathhe endured active suffering, provided that he might bring about salvation onearth.]

13. In the Ottimo Commento, I find on Par., 11, 118, in the framework of a biographyof Saint Francis the following sentence: Da quella ora (since Christ himself had ap-peared to him in San Damiano) innanzi l'anima suafu tutta liquefatta, e la passionedel Crucifisso nel suo cuorefu mirabilmentefitta ffrom that moment, his soul com-pletely melted, and the suffering of the Crucifixion was miraculously fixed in hisheart].

14. Whoever knows the tendency to antithetical paradoxes in European love poetryfrom the Provencal through Petrarch and the Renaissance (typical examples[Typus]: Pace non trovo, e non ho dafar guerra [I find no peace, and I have nothingwith which to make warl) will hardly be able to escape the impression when read-ing medieval mystical texts that the great paradoxes of the Passion created the fer-tile soil in which such forms could grow. The following text is to be sure relativelylate (it is from the Stimulus Amoris, written in the second half of the thirteenth cen-tury, thus just about contemporary with the rise of the Stil Nuovo), but alreadysince the beginning of the twelfth century similar motives can be found: Si ergo,anima, carnem diligis, nullam carnem nisi carnem Christi ames. Haec enim pro tua ettotius humani generis salute et super aram crucis oblata, cuius passionem in corde rumi-nes quotidie. Huius enim passionis Christi meditatio continua mentem elevabit.... 0passio desiderabilis! 0 mors admirabilis! Quid mirabilius quam quod mors vivificet,vulnera sanent, sanguis albumfaciat, et mundet intima, nimius dolor nimium dulcoreminducat, apertio lateris cor cordi coniungat? Sed adhuc mirari non ceses, quia sol obscu-ratus plus solito illuminat, ignis extinctus magis inflammat, passio ignominiosa glorificat.Sed vere mirabile est, quod Christus in croce sitiens inebriat, nudus existens virtutemvestimentis ornat, sed et eius manus ligno conclavatae nos solvunt, pedes confossi noscurrerefaciunt, etc. [If therefore, my soul, you love the flesh, may you love no fleshbut the flesh of Christ. For lifted up on the altar of the cross, this flesh, whosesuffering you should contemplate daily in your heart, is for you and for the salva-tion of the entire human race. For uninterrupted meditation on Christ's sufferingwill elevate the mind.... 0 suffering to be wished for! 0 marvelous death! Whatcan be more wondrous than that death may restore life, that wounds may heal,that blood may make you white, and cleanse your inner being, that great pain

307

brings great sweetness, that an opened side may join heart to heart? But may younot cease to look with wonder that a darkened sun shines more than usual, thatan extinguished fire has greater flames, that inglorious suffering glorifies. But it istruly marvelous that Christ thirsting on the cross makes one drunk; that beingnaked, he adoms virtue with garments; and indeed his hands nailed to the treeunbind us, his pierced feet make us run.l The passage is already almost excessivelyartistic.

15. See also Chapter 14 of Suso's Horologium sapientiae (I am using the edition ofJ. Strange, rev. ed., Cologne 1861). For an understanding of this passage, one musttake into account that the rose is a symbol of heavenly joy. Cf. M. Gorce 0. P., LeRoman de la Rose, Paris, 1933, 29-36. The Passion mysticism of German womenmystics like Mechthild von Magdeburg and Margaretha Ebner is highly developed.

16. One must take care here, as in Dante generally, conceming the meaning of novo(which depends on passages in Ezechiel and Paul). E. Eberwein has made meaware of this.

17. The Catalan texts, which Spitzer quotes (Romania, LXV, 124), are not available to me.18. The meaning "biased preference" later became an epistolary flourish. Guez de Bal-

zac and Descartes conclude their letters with que je suis passionnement or avec unetres ardente passion-votre tres humble, etc. This corresponds to our "vorzuiglichen"Hochachtung [respectfully yours] or the "partiality" with which a tradesman assuresus he is dedicated to our service. In 1724, Prince Eugen concludes a letter to Vicowith the words: e sono parzialite, etc. Vico, L'Autobiografia., etc. (Bari 1929), 180.

19. See vol. 5 of Lexique de la langue des Essais, Edition Municipale (Bordeaux 1933).20. Darmesteter-Hatzfield, Morceaux choisi . . . du XVIe siecle, 315.21. Ibid., 342 and 349.22. Ibid., 327.23. For example. Orlando inam., I, Il, 19, and 1, XII, 49.24. For example, his portrayal of the origins of Italian love poetry, in d'Ancona and

Bacci, Manuale della letL ital., II, 85ff.25. L'Heptameron des nouvelles, passim.26. Cf. for example, Monchrestien, in Dannesteter-Hatzfield, 359. and Regnier, ibid.,

291. In addition, according to Spitzer, loc. cit., also Mairet in Sophonisbe. In Grim-melshausen, Simpl. Simpl., 3, 19, one finds the sentence: '. . . wann der Herr nichtselbsten wasste wie einem Buhler ums Herz ist, so hatte er dieses Weibes Passiones nichtso wohl ausfahren oder vor Augen stellen konnen" [if one did not himself know howthe heart of a lover feels, he would not be able to represent and show so well thepassions of this woman].

27. As soon as this was consciously theorized, the old Aristotelean nomenclature forpassion reappears very easily for all movements of the emotions. That can be deter-mined not only in the eighteenth century (cf. the cited texts in Lerch, 334, fromthe Encyclopedie and from Rousseau), but also sometimes still in the nineteenth.

28. Oeuvres melees, Amsterdam 1706, II, 320. Cf. also 1, 65 and passim.29. Pensees et opuscules, ed. Brunscwicg, 123 (Discours sur les passions del'amour). One

notices that here all inner processes except the passions [Leidenschaften] belong topensees, even the sentiments; cf. Brunscwicg's note.

30. Maximes et niflexions sur la comedie, IV.31. "Racine und die Leideschaften" ["Racine and the Passions"], Germanisch-

romanische Monatsschrift 1926: Dasfranzosiche Publikum des 17. Jahrhunderts (Mu-nich, 1933), 47ff.

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