Beatrice of Nazareth (1200-1268) and The seven ways of holy love

Abstract

The Medieval Female Mysticism was developed between the XII and XIV Century, speaks with property about the God intimate knowledge: a union between the human and the divine merged in a mold unique. That can be read, according to Bataille, as sacred erotism, which express the idea of being part of the whole, since hat is in evidence always the descontinuity substituition of the being for a sentiment of deep continuity. This sentiment can be seen in Betriz of Nazareth (cisterciense nun, was born in Tirlemont, Belgium, 1200), when she thinks and live the plenitud divine: no limits, no objections, no intermediaries (sine medio), what we call ascesis of desire, thesis present throughout her book The Seven Manners of Love. Throughout her work, Beatriz is an authentic troubador of God, a proclaimer of divine, with concepts exceed the simple limits of reason. Therefore, in this paper, we intented to show the desire's experience in Beatrice of Nazareth as the absolute experience of the love (Minne). This experience demands an absolute annihilation of the soul (Lover) that seeks God (Love). Therewith, all the seven modes of the soul's journey being constituted in a true ascesis of desire, without however abandoning an erotic of the knowledge, observed from ideas of knowledge yourself and of God's knownledge.