Treatise on the Love of God

Love speaks not only by the tongue, but by the eyes, by sighs, and play of features; yea, silence and dumbness are words for it. My heart hath said to thee, my face hath sought thee: thy face, O Lord, will I still seek.²⁶¹ My eyes have failed for thy word, saying: When wilt thou comfort me?²⁶² Hear my prayer, O Lord, and my supplication: give ear to my tears.²⁶³ Let not the apple of thy eye cease,²⁶⁴ said the desolate heart of the inhabitants of Jerusalem to their own city. Do you mark, Theotimus, how the silence of afflicted lovers speaks by the apple of their eye, and by tears? Truly the chief exercise in mystical theology is to speak to God and to hear God speak in the bottom of the heart; and because this discourse passes in most secret aspirations and inspirations, we term it a silent conversing. Eyes speak to eyes, and heart to heart, and none understand what passes save the sacred lovers who speak.

261. Ps. xxvi. 8.

262. Ps. cxviii. 82.

263. Ps. xxxviii. 13.

264. Jer. Lam. ii. 18.