Abstract
‘Know Thyself’: the oracle speaks in a riddle about a riddle. Could we know ourselves completely, however, we would cease to live in a human world where thinking emerges tentatively, needing to be confronted and confirmed by others. Of course, the oracle does not speak about knowing ourselves, or anything else, completely. There is a riddle, and a promise, because the statement makes a certain amount of sense, but not complete sense. ‘Know Thyself’ seems to mean, also, ‘acknowledge what you can’t know’, which is the way Socrates seems to have taken it. And St Paul understood that we cannot compel the saving insight - that by which we may come to know ourselves as we are known (1 Cor.: 13, 12) – by any amount of self-scrutiny.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Bibliographical Guide To Texts Without Comment
St John of the Cross, Works, I, pp. 224–5.
St Peter of Alcantara, A Golden Treatise of Mental Prayer, trans. George Seymour Hollings (London: A. R. Mowbray, 1905), p. 50.
St Augustine of Hippo, Soliloquies, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, VII, p. 547.
Anonymous, Theologia Germanica, pp. 110–11.
Ibid., pp. 173–4.
Benet of Canfield, Rule of Perfection, p. 88.
St François de Sales, Letters to Persons in Religion, in Library of St F. de Sales, trans. Dom H. B. Mackey (London: Burns and Oates, 1888), IV, p. 249.
Ibid., IV, p. 349.
St Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermons on the Canticles, I, p. 411.
St Benedict, The Rule of the Holy Father Saint Benedict, trans. N. N. (Douay: 1700), pp. 33–4.
John Cassian, Conferences, p. 388.
Walter Hilton, The Scale of Perfection, pp. 30–1.
Augustine Baker, Sancta Sophia, II, p. 424.
Juan de Valdes, Considerations, p. 209.
Meister Eckhart, Meister Eckhart, I, pp. 180–1.
Evagrius Ponticus, Praktikos, p. 24.
John Cassian, Conferences, p. 298.
Mechthild of Magdeburg, Revelations, p. 262.
St John of the Cross, Works, I, pp. 419–20.
Madame Guyon, Spiritual Torrents, trans. A. W. Marston (London: H. R. Allenson, 1908), p. 89–90.
George Fox, A Journal or Historical Account of the Life, Travels, Sufferings, Christian Experiences, and Labour of Love in the Work of the Ministry of the Ancient, Eminent, and Faithful Servant of Jesus Christ, 2 vols. (Leeds: Anthony Pickard, 1836), I, pp. 90–1.
Thomas Traherne, Centuries, Poems, and Thanksgivings, I, p. 118.
Lorenzo Scupoli, The Spiritual Conflict, p. 19.
Evelyn Underhill, The Letters, ed. Charles Williams (London: Longmans, Green, 1943), p. 308.
Evagrius Ponticus, Chapters on Prayer, p. 65.
John of Ruysbroeck, Adornment, etc., p. 32.
Thomas à Kempis, Of the Imitation of Christ, p. 108.
Anonymous, Epistle of Privy Counsel, in The Cloud of Unknowing and Other Treatises, p. 181.
John of Ruysbroeck, Adornment, etc., p. 229.
William Law, Works, IV, pp. 152–3.
Copyright information
© 1983 Patrick Grant
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Grant, P. (1983). Self and Ego. In: Literature of Mysticism in Western Tradition. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-17151-4_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-17151-4_4
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-17153-8
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-17151-4
eBook Packages: Palgrave Literature & Performing Arts CollectionLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)