, his mother Rachel dies:
"For, when the mind of man is rapt above itself, it surpasseth all
the limits of human reasoning. Elevated above itself and rapt in
ecstasy, it beholdeth things in the divine light at which all human
reason succumbs. What, then, is the death of Rachel, save the
failing of reason?"[5]

The treatise here printed under the title Benjamin is based upon a
smaller work of Richard's, a kind of introduction to the Benjamin
Major, entitled: Benjamin Minor; or: De Praeparatione animi ad
Contemplationem. It is a paraphrase of certain portions of this
work, with a few additions, and large omissions. Among the portions
omitted are the two passages that, almost alone among Richard's
writings, are known to the general reader--or, at least, to people
who do not claim to be specialists in mediaeval theology. In the
one, he speaks of knowledge of self as the Holy Hill, the Mountain
of the Lord:--

"If the mind would fain ascend to the height of science, let its
first and principal study be to know itself. Full knowledge of the
rational spirit is a great and high mountain. This mountain
transcends all the peaks of all mundane sciences, and looks down
upon all the philosophy and all the science of the world from on
high. Could Aristotle, could Plato, could the great band of
philosophers ever attain to it?"[6]

In the other, still adhering to his image of the mountain of
self-knowledge, he makes his famous appeal to the Bible, as the
supreme test of truth, the only sure guard that the mystic has
against being deluded in his lofty speculations:--

"Even if you think that you have been taken up into that high
mountain apart, even if you think that you see Christ transfigured,
do not be too ready to believe anything you see in Him or hear from
Him, unless Moses and Elias run to meet Him. I hold all truth in
suspicion which the authority of the Scriptures does not confirm,
nor do I receive Christ in His clarification unless Moses and Elias
are talking with Him."[7]

On the other hand, the beautiful passage with which the version
closes, so typical of the burning love of Christ, shown in devotion
to the name of Jesus, which glows through all the writings of the
school of the Hermit of Hampole, is an addition of the translator:--

"And therefore, what so thou be that covetest to come to
contemplation of God, that is to say, to bring forth such a child
that men clepen in the story Benjamin (that is to say, sight