On the Divine Names and the Mystical Theology — trans. C. E. Rolt
The translator’s English as printed (C. E. Rolt). The original-language text is not held; names are romanised as the translator printed them.
Nothing could be more lucid. The soz is merged in the Godhead and yet the ego still retains its individuality un-merged, and the existence of the perfected spirit embraces these two opposite poles of fusion and distinction.
The same doctrine is taught, though with less masterly clearness, by St. Bernard in the De Dzlzgendo Deo. There is, he says, a point of rapture where the human spirit “forgets itself . . . and passes wholly into God.” Such a process is “to lose yourself, as it were, like one who has no existence, and to have no self-consciousness whatever, and to be emptied of yourself and almost annihilated.” “As a little drop of water,” he continues, “blended with a large quantity of wine, seems utterly to pass away from itself and assumes the flavour and colour of wine, and as iron when glowing with fire loses its original or proper form and becomes just like the fire; and as the air, drenched in the light of the sun, is so changed into the same shining brightness that it seems to be not so much the recipient of the brightness as the actual brightness itself: so all human sensibility in the saints must then, in some ineffable manner, melt and pass out of itself, and be lent into the will of God. . . . The substance (i.e. personality) will remain but in another form.” !
1 The Sparkling Stone, chap. x.
Nothing could be more lucid. The soi is merged in the Godhead, and yet the ego still retains its individuality un-merged; and the existence of the perfected spirit embraces these two opposite poles of fusion and distinction.
The same doctrine is taught, though with less masterly clearness, by St. Bernard in On Loving God (De Diligendo Deo). There is, he says, a point of rapture where the human spirit “forgets itself . . . and passes wholly into God.” Such a process is “to lose yourself, as it were, like one who has no existence, to have no self-consciousness whatever, and to be emptied of yourself and almost annihilated.”
“As a little drop of water,” he continues, “blended with a large quantity of wine, seems to pass utterly away from itself and takes on the flavour and colour of wine; and as iron glowing with fire loses its original or proper form and becomes just like the fire; and as the air, drenched in the light of the sun, is so changed into the same shining brightness that it seems to be not so much the recipient of the brightness as the brightness itself: so all human sensibility in the saints must then, in some ineffable manner, melt and pass out of itself, and be blended into the will of God. . . . The substance (i.e. personality) will remain, but in another form.” !
1 The Sparkling Stone, chap. x.