Marguerite Porete et la superfluité des vertus

Abstract

In The Mirror of Simple Souls, Marguerite Porete describes the soul’s ascent to the mystical state, which she calls “annihilation.” In it, she suggests that the practice of virtue is necessary at one point in this ascent, but also that it is not sufficient to achieve annihilation.

I will argue here that not only does what Marguerite posits in her Mirror allow us to affirm that this practice is not sufficient to achieve annihilation, but also that it does not compel us to think that a prior practice of the virtues is absolutely necessary to achieve annihilation.

To this end, I will argue that the passages in the Mirror that support the idea of the necessity of a prior practice of the virtues do not establish that the soul must have practised the virtues in order to attain annihilation. I will also argue that annihilation is directly brought about by an act of intellectual grasping whose connection with the practice of virtues is to the least indirect.