The "delicious agony" the "sweet martyrdom," the strongly
combined pleasure and pain experienced by St. Theresa were certainly
associated with physical sexual sensations.[408]
The case of Marguerite-Marie Alacoque is typical. Jesus, as her
autobiography shows, was always her lover, her husband, her dear master;
she is betrothed to Him, He is the most passionate of lovers, nothing can
be sweeter than His caresses, they are so excessive she is beside herself
with the delight of them. The central imagination of the mystic consists
essentially, as Ribot remarks, in a love romance.[409]
If we turn to the most popular devotional work that was ever written, _The
Imitation of Christ_, we shall find that the "love" there expressed is
precisely and exactly the love that finds its motive power in the emotions
aroused by a person of the other sex. (A very intellectual woman once
remarked to me that the book seemed to her "a sort of religious
aphrodisiac.") If we read, for instance, Book III, Chapter V, of this work
("De Mirabili affectu Divini amoris"), we shall find in the eloquence of
this solitary monk in the Low Countries neither more nor less than the
emotions of every human lover at their highest limit of exaltation.
"Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing stronger, nothing higher, nothing
broader, nothing pleasanter, nothing fuller nor better in heaven or in
earth. He who loves, flies, runs, and rejoices; he is free and cannot be
held.
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