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Spiritual Life

Walter Hilton: The Scale of Perfection
translated from the Middle English, with an introduction and notes by John P.H. Clark and Rosemary Dorward
preface by Janel Mueller

Behold him well, for he goes before you not in bodily likeness but invisible, through the secret presence of his power. Therefore see him in the spirit if you can, or else trust him and follow him wheresoever he goes, for he shall lead you in the right way to Jerusalem; that is, the sight of peace in contemplation.
Walter Hilton (c.1343-1396)

This edition of The Scale of Perfection by English Augustinian Canon Walter Hilton represents a considerable advance on what has hitherto been available. The modern-language version by Rosemary Dorward is made from those manuscripts selected as the basis for the forthcoming Early English Text Society editions, and differs at a number of points from existing printed versions.

The introduction and theological notes by John P.H. Clark take account of the considerable progress which has been made in the last twenty years in the understanding of Hilton's life and milieu, and of his theological background. Hilton is considered in relation to Richard Rolle, to The Cloud of Unknowing and to some of the turbulent religious movements of his day. Arising from this context, his powerful restatement of the church's traditional wisdom, addressed to those outside the cloister as well as within, is seen to speak to the needs of our own day as clearly as to those of the fourteenth century.
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Introduction by: Rosemary Dorward