y of such a
book must be judged by its whole tendency. My own judgment is that,
taken as a whole, it is safer than Tauler or Ruysbroek, and much safer
than Eckhart. The strongly-marked "ethical dualism" is of very much
the same kind as that which we find in St. John's Gospel. Taken as a
theory of the origin and nature of evil, it no doubt does hold out a
hand to Manicheism; but I do not think that the writer meant it to be
so taken, any more than St. John did.]

[Footnote 273: Throughout the fourteenth century, and still more in
the fifteenth, we can trace an increasing prominence given to
subjugation of the _will_ in mystical theology. This change is to be
attributed partly to the influence of the Nominalist science of Duns
Scotus, which gradually gained (at least this point) the ascendancy
over the school of Aquinas. It may be escribed as a transition from
the more speculative Mysticism towards quietism. In the fourteenth
century writings, such as the _Theologia Germanica_, we merely welcome
a new and valuable aspect of the religious life; since the change is
connected with a distrust of reason, and a return to standpoint of
harsh legalism, we cannot regard it as an improvement.]

[Footnote 274: Compare p. 161, for similar teaching in Eckhart
himself.]

[Footnote 275: See the quotation on p. 11, note.]

[Footnote 276: Irenaeus, _Contra Har_. iv. 6.]

[Footnote 277: No. 31. on Psalm xci. 13.]

[Footnote 278: Hilton's book has been reprinted from the edition of
1659, with an introduction by the Rev. J.B. Dalgairns. Very little is
known about the author's life, but his book was widely read, and was
"chosen to be the guide of good Christians in the courts of kings and
in the world." The mother of Henry VII. valued it very highly. I have
also used Mr. Guy's edition in my quotations from _The Scale of
Perfection_.]

[Footnote 279: 1 Cor. xiv. 15. This text was also appealed to by the
Quietists of the post-Reformation period.]

[Footnote 280: The texts to which he refers are those which Origen
uses in the same manner. Compare 1 Cor. i. 23, ii. 2, Gal. vi. 14,
with 1 Cor. i. 24.]

[Footnote 281: Julian (born 1343) was probably a Benedictine nun of
Carrow, near Norwich, but lived for the greater part of her life in an
anchorage in the churchyard of St. Julian at Norwich. There is a copy
of her _Revelations_ in the British Museum. Editions by Cressy, 1670;
reprint issued 1843; by Collins, 1877. See, further, in the