SOURCE: Sells, Michael A. “Apophasis of Desire and the Burning of Marguerite Porete.” In Mystical Languages of Unsaying, pp. 116-45. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994.

In the following excerpt, Sells analyzes several major themes in The Mirror of Simple Souls, including the nature of divine love, the form of mystical union with God, and the annihilation, or ‘reversion,’ of the soul.

Marguerite Porete was burned at the stake on the first of June, 1310, at the Place de la Grève in Paris. Porete, from Hainaut in northern France, belonged to that class of women known as beguines, whose status was midway between the laity and clergy. The beguines modeled their rule in part on the rules of the recognized monastic orders, but they were free to leave the cloister and marry. Porete followed in the distinguished line of beguine mystical writers that included Mechthild of Magdeburg (d. ca...