136. Now mark how we argue that the Word remains the Word unborn. Where the Word issues from the Father as a birth it shows its born nature and proclaims the Father parent. But where the Word proceeds from the Father as a light it is the species of the Father and shows the Father formless for it has the form of the Father. He himself declared, ‘He who seeth me seeth my Father.’ Thus the Word reveals the Father in his own form and shows the Father formless and where the Word proceeds from the Father as understanding it proceeds as abiding within.
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As intelligence leaves not the heart but reveals to himself the man in whom it dwells, so we have the Word in the eternal procession of the Father, the Word which proceeds from understanding, while understanding itself does not issue forth but abides within. In this: procession we have, in the immanent understanding, the Word unborn. This explains what is meant by the unborn Word and how, in the eternal procession, the Word is as it were born of understanding and is still to be born and is this instant being born.
137. One of the masters (Erigena) says: The Father never wrought anything inferior to himself. If this is true, then all the creatures God has ever wrought are God. The question here is, whether the work wrought is as noble as the worker when the worker is God? Let us see. We speak of a working work and a wrought work. The working work is God, the wrought work is not God for it is creature. Hence the explanation. When it is stated that the Father wrought no work inferior to himself that is as good as saying that the Father does one work and one alone in his own Person, to wit, the begetting of his Son in the eternal emanation personal and essential. Only this one work properly belongs to the Father-nature and all other work wrought we attribute not to the Father alone but to the three Persons and one God. But, it may be objected, can the eternal emanation of the Son from the Father be called a work ? You can look at it in this way. Everything existing has its appropriate work ; the work of fire, for instance, is to heat and so with understanding : it is its work to understand itself. Here the work is not inferior to the worker. And in this sense the Son may very well be called the eternal work of the Father. He brings him forth eternally as Person who yet remains in him in essence.
188. Then there is the question: Was the eternal Word con- ceived in Mary in Person and essence and was it in the bosom of the Father as Person and essence as well ?—In the continuous emanation wherein the Word emanates from the Father as it were from understanding, wherein the Word is now being born, in that same emanation Mary received the eternal Word in a point of time as Person and essence, in its immanence : the Word as flowing from the understanding of the Father. It remained in the bosom of the Father as immanent understanding personal and essential. Thus it came, coming after the manner of a flow and remaining within after the manner of an understanding. Ah, what light and grace enlightened souls obtain from this glorious knowledge !
139. To return to Christ. According to theologists, our Lord Jesus Christ’s soul and Lucifer’s were made in the same light.
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The soul of Jesus Christ our Lord was the very wisest soul that ever was. She turned in the creature to the creator wherefore the Father clothed her in the divine garment and flower of her nature. Lucifer turned to the deficiency and he therefore fell, falling eternally. So fall all they who turn away from God to perishable things.
140. But this light which Christ’s soul supernaturally was, this was a creature and our Lord’s soul itself being creature too, which of these two creatures then, theologians ask, is the nobler and the higher ?—I was asking one wise doctor about this and he said that in one way the light is nobler but in another Christ. See what this supernatural light means. When Christ’s soul was created she was taken from herself and haled above herself into the Tri-unity. Therewith she was united. This was not natural to her, it was all above nature, what befell Christ’s soul. What befell was the supernatural light. Herein Christ’s soul was omnipotent, in virtue of this happening. Here the supernatural light is nobler than Christ’s soul, you can see that for yourselves. The adorner is more noble than the thing that it adorns. Take an illustration. Material is adorned by colour while the colour is displayed by the material, since it has no body of its own. Even so Christ’s soul is adorned by this supernatural light and on the other hand Christ’s soul makes manifest this supernatural light.
141. Now mark how the soul of Christ is nobler than the super- natural light. The supernatural light having had its effect upon Christ’s soul (it happens in a flash), Christ has no more to do with this supernatural light, for the union of divine and human nature to one Person happens instantly and once for all. Here the soul of Christ is nobler than the supernatural light.
142. Then as to souls who have overcome themselves so far as to imagine themselves God. This is due to nothing more than their own natural light: they are withdrawn into themselves till they can see themselves in it as light. You know how a blow in the eye will sometimes make one see stars. By stars in their eyes these souls see themselves. The way the supernatural light reveals the soul to herself is this: the naked spark of the soul, her mens, reflects the supernatural light and the pure essence of her spirit seeing itself in this supernatural light fondly imagines itself God. But as you see, it is nothing else than the spirit in the supernatural light, a very great perfection, none the less.
143. Another question is, whether God is (God) by nature or by will ?—He is God not by nature nor by will. If God were God by nature he would be a caused God: nature would have caused him. But that is not the case. And the same with will : were he God by will he would be subject to will and will would
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be superior to God. Which is not true either; but he is God naturally, not by nature; he is God willingly and not by will. That is the answer.
144. Again, did God beget himself or did he beget some other ? —He did not beget himself nor any other: God the Father is unbegotten God. He begat another and not any other. He begat another, i.e. another Person, not something other, 1.€. another nature: the impartible nature of the Father is also the impartible nature of the Son and of their common Spirit. That is the answer.
145. It is a question among theologians whether the nature is common to the Persons and the Persons common to the nature seeing that each Person contains the whole of nature as its natural being. Does God impart himself to human nature ?—Yes.—How can God impart himself to human nature if he is one in essence and distinct in Person ?—Each of the Persons has the nature as a whole and the Person of the Son, by assuming human nature, imparted himself to it, the two natures meeting in his Person. Here divine and human natures are in communion. Only the middle Person took on human nature but the three Persons are . equally allied with the three powers of the soul.—Are these two natures one or are they united ?—They are united and not one. That is one which is in itself without any other and where two meet in one they are united.—How are these two natures united ? —They are united by something between so that each one keeps its own nature. The Person which took on human nature is the medium uniting these two natures. Had this Person not assumed man’s nature the two natures could not have been united. Neither robs the other of its idiosyncrasy : uncreated nature does not rob created nature of its createdness nor does created nature rob the uncreated of its uncreatedness.—How did the Person take man’s nature ?—He assumed manhood and not man.—What is the difference between man and manhood ?—Man originates with perfect man and is not taken by a Person: it is two natures united in one Person. But manhood is emanating God and man and is taken by the Person of the Son and is divine and human nature and corporal nature united in one person. So much for man and manhood.
146. Did the Person take the manhood of our Lady ?—Yes and no. He took the bodily nature of our Lady and the nature of his spirit God produced from naught and poured it into corporal nature ; God inspired his spirit and embodied himself in his body. —Is our Lady, soul and body, one person ?—Yes.—Did he not take the person of our Lady ?—No. The eternal Word of the Father took to itself what was not there already. There was
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Person there for the eternal Word is itself a Person. But human nature was not there. Hence the eternal Word assumed a nature
not a person: God’s nature and man’s nature were united in one
common form with one Person for Christ does not belie himself. —What brings about this union ?—Grace.—What is grace ?— According to Dionysius, grace is the light of the soul, which lights the understanding of the soul. This light is not God but it is something from God. Just as the sunshine is not the sun but something that comes from the sun so God sheds this light into the soul. In this light man knows and loves and to some extent enjoys in time what beatific spirits know and love and feel in eternal life. But here in time man knows and loves in his own way, dimly: he does not see God face to face as a spirit does in eternal life. Yet the mere feeling of him makes a man able to do all things, to practise all the virtues and in the virtues he grows Godlike and the liker God in virtues the more one he is with God. Thus grace makes for union.
147. There is a further question about the union of divine and
„human nature: have they both the same essence in the Person
they are joined in or have they two essences in this non-potential state ?—One Person can have no more than one essence. So far as the personal nature is Person each nature is its own hypostasis. Where two natures are created in one Person that Person has one essence and that in two natures so far as the two natures are unmingled.—Then we may consider nature as apart from essence in the personal union ?—Yes, it can-be seen from another point of view. We find nature in its image unmingled but in the Person ~ two natures are present in one Person as in their hypostasis. So far as both belong to the same Person the Person has one essence and that in two natures. The Persons are eternal, they are in no- wise creature for they have no before or after. Person, that is unity keeping silence albeit big with speech. The Persons are*not contained by the unity: they are in unity.
148. There is the question of the worker and the work, whether the work is as noble, as perfect as the worker? This refers to the Persons of the Trinity. Examine it in this way. The Father is an origin able to originate an origin like unto himself. The Son is such an origin and he together with his Father originates their common Spirit. Here the worker and the work, the effectual work of revelation, are equally perfect. As Dionysius says, ‘ The first cause causes everything equal to itself.’ It was said by one master that the work wrought by God in the patient soul which is all bare of things is nobler than any of the works he has ever wrought in time in heaven or in earth. Just think what this means. The works God has wrought in the angels in heaven