Centuries of Meditations

Key Words, Figures and Places

Key Words

Traherne’s vocabulary looks modern and often is not. Several of his commonest words had senses in the 1660s and 1670s that have since faded, so that want means lack, sensible means aware and resentment means feeling, while others carry the weight of the schools, such as capacity, fruition and principles. The entries below give the sense current in his day, the place where the book first uses each word, and what the word is doing there. They do not follow the words further, since much of the argument lies in what the book makes of them, and the notes refer to them by headword.

Admire, admiration To admire was to wonder at, to be astonished by, and admiration was wonder (Latin admiratio), with no necessary note of approval. The word first appears at I.18, in the sentence that also first names felicity, where to lose oneself in wonder at the variety and beauty of the world is called a happy loss.

Apostasy A falling away (Greek apostasia, a standing off), a theological word used of the angels who fell, of Adam, and of those who desert the faith. The period often spelled it apostacy. It first appears at II.89, “the least intermission would be an eternal apostacy”. Traherne is contrasting earth, where God overlooks the soul’s wandering attention, with heaven, where a moment’s lapse would be a falling away and union with God makes any lapse impossible.

Apprehension The mind’s laying hold of a thing (Latin apprehendere, to seize), so perception, understanding, or a way of conceiving. It never has the modern sense of dread. It first appears in the prayers before the Passion, “in the sight and apprehension of Thy love” (I.89), for the soul’s grasp of Christ’s love, in whose sight even groans are sweet.

Capacity, capable Capable means able to receive or contain, having room for something (Latin capax), and capacity is that power of receiving, the soul’s room, which the schoolmen set against act as what a thing can become but is not yet. Capable comes first, in the second sentence of the book, “It is capable of all things, but containeth nothing” (I.1), of the empty notebook and the infant’s soul. Capacity follows at I.99, “He made us the sons of God in capacity”.

Communicate, communication To communicate was to impart, to give a share of, to make common, and also to share in, and so to receive Communion, while communication was imparting and fellowship and also a hidden passage of influence between things. The book first uses the verb of the author’s own gift to his friend, “in communicating most enriching Truths” (I.1), an act of love both to her and to truth. At I.2 “some invisible communications” run between the lodestone, the natural magnet, and the iron it draws.

Conversation, converse To converse was to keep company with, to have familiar dealings with, and conversation meant one’s whole manner of life as well as company and society. Talk was only a small part of it. St Paul’s conversation in heaven (Philippians 3:20) is a manner of life, and the verb first appears at II.18, “you shall converse with His wisdom, goodness, and power above all worlds”, of the soul that enjoys the world as God does.

Custom Habit and established usage, the received manners and opinions of a society, and the second nature that habit makes. Moral writers of the period often set it against nature. It first appears at I.8, “an evil habit and custom have made it difficult to think well, not Nature”, explaining why right thinking about the world, which is natural and easy, has come to seem hard.

Enjoy, enjoyment, fruition To enjoy was to have the use and benefit of a thing and to take delight in it, and in law simply to possess, as one enjoys an estate. Fruition is the learned twin, from the schoolmen’s fruitio, the delighted possession of a thing as an end and not a means. Fruition comes first, at I.5, “our fruition of it the end for which our Saviour suffered”, and enjoy follows at I.6, where to enjoy the world is to be raised to God’s throne and to see His love in it.

Felicity Happiness in its highest and final form, blessedness, the soul’s complete good (Latin felicitas), and the word philosophers and divines used for the end of human life. Traherne often uses the plainer happiness as its equal. It first appears at I.18, “an happy loss to lose oneself in admiration at one’s own Felicity”, of a soul that loses itself in wonder at the boundless world and finds God in exchange for itself.

Heir One who inherits by right of birth or by gift and holds the inheritance as his own. The word is scriptural, from the promise to Abraham (Romans 4:13) and from St Paul’s heirs of God (Romans 8:17), and it echoes the Prayer Book Catechism, where the baptised child is made an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven. It first appears at I.3, “Is it not a great thing that you should be Heir of the World?”, naming the great thing the author has promised his friend, that she shall possess the whole world.

Infinite, infinity Without bound or end, in extent, number, time or worth (Latin infinitus), a word that strictly belongs to God but was also, then as now, a strong way of saying very. It is first used in just that loose way at I.3, where the truths the author offers are “infinitely profitable, but not esteemed”, and the noun comes at I.100, “all Angels and the Eternity and Infinity of God are in me”.