The Mirror of Simple Souls Themes

The Mirror of Simple Souls Themes

Divine revelation

To Porete, there are two kinds of revelation: there is normal revelation, which is easily accessible to the senses, which includes the religious ideas and traditions around Christianity, and there is a second one that pertains more to this book than normal revelation: divine revelation. The book is predicated on Porete's own ethos, because she is writing about her own personal, subjective understanding of some objective mystery that lies beyond the reach of her mind. She metaphorizes and personifies concepts to help communicate concepts that might be difficult to communicate directly.

Oneness with God

The goal of the soul in Porete's opinion is to become one with God by being drawn near to God in unfathomable ways that baffle the human imagination. The truth about oneness with God is bizarre and beyond reason, says Porete's Love, and the character Reason struggles to understand what Love is trying to help him understand, that oneness with God will be unbelievable and infinitely baffling. The mystery that is elaborated was controversial enough that Porete was executed by the Catholic church who called her a heretic.

Divine Love

The center of this book is the concept of divine love. Just like the love of a parent leads the parent to sacrifice for the child, so also Porete conceptualizes God's Love as a sacrificial entity, willing to lay it all down, so to speak, willing even to annihilate the soul, because the promise of unconditional divine love is so perfectly consuming to the appetite of the soul that nothing else matters. Ironically, the soul's annihilation is a good thing, because it allows unfettered oneness with God's love, says Porete.

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