Now I behold what most I sought;
Fulfilled at last my longing thought;
Lovesick, my soul to Jesus turns,
And all my heart within me burns.

(Transl. by T.G.  CRIPPEN.)

We read in his writings:  “Blessed and sacred is he to whom it has been given to experience this in his earthly life; even if he have experienced it only once, for the space of a fleeting minute.  For to melt away completely, as it were, as if one had ceased to exist, to be emptied of self, dissolved in holy emotion, has not been given to mortal life, but is the state of the blessed.”

I shall have to refer to both men in a future chapter, when I shall examine the degenerate growths of metaphysical eroticism; for the ardour of their souls was frequently kindled by sexual imaginings; in the case of emotional mystics it is often difficult to distinguish between sensual conceptions and the pure love of God (a fact which does not, however, justify the superficial opinion that all mysticism is diverted sexuality).

It is obvious that this love of God is not the original creation of the lover, as is the deifying love of woman, but the mystic love whose self-evident object is God or eternity.  Jacopone’s (and later on Zinzendorf’s) love of Jesus, though projected on a historical personality, was fundamentally the same thing.  The love of God also—­and in this connection I might mention Jacob Boehme, Alphonso da Liguori, Novalis—­is metaphysical eroticism; but I have restricted my subject to the metaphysical love of woman, and shall not overstep my limits.  I will merely elucidate a little more the last scene of Faust.

Pater seraphicus, a title given both to St. Francis and to Bonaventura—­requires but a few words:  he, too, praises metaphysical love, the essence of the supreme spirits.

     Thus the spirits’ nature stealing
     Through the ether’s depths profound;
     Love eternal, self-revealing,
     Sheds beatitude around.

But even the more perfect angels cannot free themselves from the dualism of all things human (body and soul)—­an unmistakable confession of metaphysical dualism: 

     Parts them God’s love alone,
       Their union ending.

The identity of the last scene of Faust, Goethe’s masterpiece, and the conclusion of Dante’s Divine Comedy, is so obvious that I do not think any one could deny it.  I have pointed out the thought underlying both works, and could easily advance further proof of their similarity, but I will keep within the limits of the last scene which contains the totality of metaphysico-erotic yearning, and I contend that it is very remarkable that a lifetime after the composition of Margaret, Faust (and with him Goethe) very old, very wise, and a little cold, having had love-affairs with demi-goddesses, and having finally renounced the love of woman, found his mission and his happiness