119. ‘I crave your counsel, Sir: In the throes of intellectual conception, at the actual moment of it, I would fain be absolutely free.’—It is impossible : gross matter forbids. Soul is volatile by nature, body is made of dense material. That this dense material should be as nimble as the psychic is not to be expected in the unglorified body. To the eye colour, to the ear sound. There is no harm in that nor is it any barrier to eternal truth. We ought to disregard them it is true, but that cannot be. Yet one thing I can tell you for your comfort : no will or love is lost on these dis- turbers of the peace. Furthermore I say, the power to will and love being absent, her power is what I call essential power. It is a certain test of essence when nothing wrought from without gives any reaction within.
120. In the image-bearing form of God which impartibly con- tains the form of all things there shines the universal form unformed
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in oneness, which radiates one single light into all spirits variously : the highest spirits, as becomes their stable nature, without reflec- tion and souls in this body according to their fitness in this passing time. Mark how this image-bearing light, which the soul receives from its reflection, carries her beyond this mode of changing time into eternity, to the level of the highest spirits. When a mind habitually dwells in its eternal image, God to wit, with more delight than in itself, to such a mind the image-bearing light appears in its eternal form. Then the mind is transported over these manifold and changing things which exist in time and inhabits these rather than itself. Remember, we are dealing here with spirit not with essence.
121. The image-bearing light of divine unity is impartible and yet both essence and nature. Now the question ‘is, how is it essence and how is it nature? The answer is as follows. As essence it subsists in permanent, immanent stillness. It appears as all things in impartible mode ; not in the mode of any creature : it is a mode of its own in that same absolute stillness. There the distinctions of the Persons are sublimed to this simple modeless mode. Behold it now the essence of the Persons and of all things : the essence of the Persons it is by nature but of creatures by grace. For consider. It contains the form of all things impartibly, as essence. In this form it is ingrained in all things. This same impartible form (or image) is also nature and as nature it preserves its one-being in the Trinity and the Trinity its one-being in the unity. And as this one-being in the Trinity it is the impartible potentiality of the Trinity: the nature of the Persons but not that of all things. For if it were the nature of all things it would reproduce itself in all the things in manifestation in its own potential nature. Then things would all be God in the same sense that God is God. Now that is not the case. This shows that it is not the nature of all things but only the nature of the Persons and there exists no thing but has its own appropriate nature.
122. Since the impartible image-bearing light behaves as essence and also as its nature, has it then, I ask, the idiosyncrasies of each or not ?—No, assuredly not. There is no more than one. Its chief idiosyncrasy is that it is shining by itself and is manifest only to the Persons. But in that this image-bearing light falls upon all things and the only thing that shows it is itself, you see it has the character of light. This character belongs to essential essence and it also belongs to its nature’s nature. Here essence and nature are shown to be one being with one idiosyncrasy not two idiosyncrasies ; for supposing there were two then one idiosyncrasy would cause the other; which is impossible: the essential stillness behaves as simple essence and nature’s radiant Trinity as well.
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123. Hence arises the question, in the essence and its nature do things all appear in impartible fashion or no ?— The answer is, Yes, they appear in the essence in immanent stillness and impartible mode: essence and nature one light in light’s summit. The essence is light’s source and centre. As such it is essence. Also in the Trinity nature shines with the light of all things in the same impartible way. But there is stillness in the depths of essence.
124. But how nature in the Trinity is one and three proceed from one is not to be deduced from the impartibility of the first cause. Augustine says, the Persons are one in nature. Hence nature and Persons are alike eternal. Intellect is by nature perfectly intelligible to itself in the light of nature and its con- ception of itself is other than this intellect. Intellect is not begotten ; it is the paternal Person who begets the knower in perfectly conceiving his own Person. Lo, on a sudden, the eternal birth ! Now there are two Persons and in the very act of the Son’s proceeding from the Father, the knower looking back, leaps to the perfect understanding of his Father whence he sprang. In that same origin these two natures know each other with one knowledge. The knowing is the same as the knower himself. Therein they know themselves one love in the omnipotence of the Father whence the knower sprang. This love is their common spiration : in this love they are one. It is the third Person. It starts with the re- birth, the reposing of the knower on the heart of the omnipotent Father. Thus the first river originates the second river, in con- junction with the original source. Hence the several natures are all one in nature and this nature is the same in the several natures. That is to say, Persons.
125. ‘ But what enjoyment do the Persons get out of their natural essence ? —Well, as you may prove, the Persons are in their nature and their nature in the Persons: their nature keeps the Persons. quite distinct while at the same time preserving them in unity. As preserving them in one, nature is simply the power of the Persons. In this same power the three Persons disappear into their nature. For essence and nature form one light in light’s summit, the impartible image of God, essence passing into nature ; moreover all the Persons being clapt into their nature vanish into the dim silence of their interior being. There they retain no per- sonality for with this confinement goes entire loss of property. Lo, God de-spirited! The fathomless deep is fathomed by the master- mind of God. The delight and satisfaction and perfection found therein no nature can describe. That is how the three Persons enjoy their natural essence.
126. ‘ Tell me, when the spirit runs back into its source, does it remain in its original source or in the naught of its idea ? ’—Its
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proper habitation is its source. The naked spark of spirit is the mens. Mens is the natural image of the spirit. But mind is never perfect spirit till it passes into its exemplar and is lost to its own selfhood, escaping in that same natural image into its ideal nature. In this sense its abode is in the naught of its idea rather ‘than in its source. But its origin is its real abode.
127. How is the Son re-born in the Father once he has come forth ?—In this way. The Father grasps the light of his own understanding and bears it into the ground of his essence. Thus the knower is reflected back into the light of his Father’s heart.
128. ‘I should much like to know, about the appearance of the paternal Person in the unity, where it is all-conceiving.’—When the Father conceiving the impartible idea of all things in the unity, appears to himself in Person and essence, lo, the paternal Person vanishes in this mysterious unity and there is an end of the Father and of all distinctions. Unity conceiving all as one, nothing but one appears and communes with itself. But since logically speak- ing there is Person in the unity, it is in this unity that it conceives its nature, appearing and calling itself Person and there too the paternal Person must conceive his unity, as the unity the Person, since both of them have the same nature.
129. Mark how conception differs. There is ideal conception and real conception. Ideal conception is the nature’s general conception of the Persons, all the three. But the real conception
‚is the special conception of each particular Person in its own proper nature in the nature.
130. ‘ Tell me, when God conceives the soul does he conceive her by ideal conception or by real conception ? ’—He conceives her by ideal conception for this general idea embraces all in one ; supposing he conceived her by particular conception she would be bereft of the flower of her nature for in a particular conception nothing is conceived besides the special nature of the thing itself. In other words, its nature as a unit, an expression, not its innate nobility.
131. Mark the noble lineage of the Persons. They are uncreated and without beginning and infinite and inconceivable and are possessed of property which comes to them in the course of nature. Not so with the soul: she is created and has a beginning and is man and has possessions and not property for to her it is all given.
132. ‘ Is the seér as free as the will ? ’—No, not by any means. If it were it would be always in the naked Godhead. But it is not; it has to be doing its work, the ordering and management of the various powers. Will has not got this to do: it bids and forbids.
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133. ‘ Now what I want to know is this: why has the Godhead a feminine name and no feminine function and the Person of the Father on the other hand a masculine name and a feminine function ? ’—The explanation is this. The Godhead contains all things impartibly and the thing in which another is contained is called mother in virtue of this content. It has, however, no maternal act since it does not as such give birth to anything. The Father, again, has a masculine name and a feminine function and the reason is that the Father in Person does not contain things in him, he begets them out of him by the power of his Person. The Father in his proper personality is empty of the content which he impartibly contains. But also he plays a mother’s part, the unity providing him with all that-he brings forth. In this bringing forth he is functioning as mother ; as being free from content in his personal nature he retains his masculine name. The birth of the Son shows the Father travailing. But the Father is Father in that he begets.
134. ‘ Then there is this question : Is the Son born or is he not ' born or is he still to be born ? ’—Let us consider. There are three ‘Persons and that shows the Son is born for each of the Persons has its own peculiar nature. They could none of them have this if the Son had not been born. This proves the Son is born. But the Father changes not at all in his eternal childbirth: could we / attribute to him any deed at all it would be in the sense that anything he does he is doing now and what he is doing now he has always done, for with him there is no past nor future. This proves the Son has not been born : he is now this instant being born and this now is an ever-becoming ; as the Father himself says, ‘ To-day have I begotten thee.’ To-day is the eternal now. It is in this now that his birth is taking place.
135. Remember, the eternal Word is both unborn and born. This is a hard saying, but being in the Trinity the Word must needs be born; it cannot there be called the unborn Word. Taking the eternal Word as Person, it is born; but take it in its essence and the Word is non-existent. Here the Word has to be born.