Porete's Taking Leave of the Virtues

Reconstructed faithfully from the Mirror:

1. Notice how hard you are working at being good. Bring to mind the inner taskmaster: the constant self-monitoring, the should, the effortful policing of yourself toward virtue, the exhaustion and subtle pride of it. Porete first names this as serving the Virtues — a real but lower stage.
2. See the cost. Recognise that white-knuckled virtue is still the self in the centre, anxiously managing its own goodness. The harder you grip, the more it is about you succeeding, not about love.
3. Take your leave. Deliberately, lovingly, say farewell to the Virtues as masters. Set down the strain of trying to be good-by-force. Porete’s soul says, in effect: I take my leave of you; I have served you long and hard, and now I am free of your demands. 4. Let Love take the throne. In place of effortful rule-keeping, let love be the governor. The point is not “do whatever you want,” but “let right action arise from love rather than from anxious duty.”
5. Watch the virtues return — now spontaneous. Porete’s promise: once you stop forcing them, the virtues come of their own accord and serve you — patience, kindness, honesty flow naturally, “without a why,” because they are no longer a performance.
6. Re-release whenever the taskmaster returns. The straining, scorekeeping self reasserts itself constantly. Each time, notice it and take your leave again, returning goodness to love. (Sourcing note: the soul “taking leave of the Virtues” and the reversal from serving the Virtues to being served by them are Porete’s own; the numbered steps are a faithful practical rendering, not a literal list in the text. The phrase is widely cited from the Mirror‘s chapter heading.)

The “taking leave of the Virtues” chapter is among the most famous and most controversial passages of The Mirror of Simple Souls (c. 1290–1306) — a key reason inquisitors read antinomianism into the book. → (path approximate).

The underlying move — goodness flowing from union/love rather than effort — reappears in Eckhart (“the just live without a why”; works done from a detached ground), in Augustine’s “love, and do what you will,” in Luther’s faith-before-works, and structurally in the Taoist/Zen idea that true virtue is effortless (te) once forcing stops.

Eckhart — acting “without a why” — the just act from a detached, loving ground, not for reward; virtue without the anxious motive.

• “Love, and do what you will” (Augustine) — when love governs, right action follows; structurally parallel.
• Taoist te / wu wei — genuine virtue is effortless and unforced; forced virtue is the lowest.
• Zen “no gaining idea” — practice and goodness done without grasping at attainment.
• Acceptance/values-based action (modern) — letting behaviour flow from chosen values rather than rigid self-control.

Reading it as “anything goes.” The single most dangerous misreading, and the one that condemned the book. You take leave of effortful servitude to virtue, not of goodness, ethics, or obligation. Love produces more virtue, not less.

• Swapping one strain for another. “I must now be effortlessly virtuous!” is just the taskmaster in disguise. The release is gentle, not a new performance target.
• Using it to dodge real duties. It is an interior posture about how goodness arises, not permission to neglect responsibilities.
• Expecting instant spontaneity. Effortful virtue is a long earlier stage in Porete’s path for a reason; the “leave-taking” presumes that ground, not skipping it.
• Pride in being “beyond” others. Feeling spiritually advanced is exactly the self reasserting itself — the opposite of annihilation.