were wrought by the almighty power of God who created them from naught. He was not hindered in this work. In the case of the soul which also he created out of naught, he endowed her with free will nor would God do a single thing without her free will’s sanction. But when the soul is passive and cleared of every- thing in her that might be a hindrance to God’s will and turning to God of her own account she gives God the freedom of her noble will as though she had never had free will, enabling God to work in her as freely as when he made all things from naught, then this work has two outstanding features. One is that her free will is no obstacle to God although he is so careful not to override free will: God can work as freely as he will, what he will and when he will and how he will just as if the soul had no free will. The second feature is that God being free in himself his work is freely wrought in what by right of its free will might well object but which does in fact raise no objection. And that is why this is the noblest work God does in heaven or earth in respect of creature. Now you may ask what this work is? It is nothing less than God’s revelation of himself to himself in the soul. As sure as he is in himself he himself is in this work. That which is wrought in is turned into that which works there, to the likeness of him, the worker, who has wrought there his like. Here the work which is wrought is as perfect as the worker for it is his living image which is in the work.
149. The soul cannot prepare herself for the reception of God : he who prepares her, him does she receive in preparation. There is a special profit accruing to the soul in the reception of the body of our Lord, which she does not get in any other gift.—‘ What profit is that ? ’—Her nature receives its own nature for Jesus Christ’s nature is our nature. Nature is received by nature albeit not received pure nature: it is received united with divine nature.
150. Mark how these two natures are united. They are not united nature to nature: they are joined together in one Person, z.e. the middle Person. Just as the divine nature is the nature of this Person so is human nature in Christ the Person in the Trinity. For what the eternal Word assumed was humanity not a human person. Had the eternal Word assumed a human person there would be four Persons in the Trinity. But there are not. Jesus Christ’s humanity in the eternal Word is the very Person who has ever been the central figure of the Trinity. There- in is not one nature as there is one Person: the natures are of different nature and are united in the Person. Wherefore whoso receives the body of our Lord receives the middle Person and divine nature and Christ’s manhood, which is Person in the
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eternal Word, and Christ’s eternal soul. We receive this all at once in Jesus Christ’s body. This we do not do in any other gift in heaven or earth. Let us therefore prize this gift above all other gifts to be gotten here below.
151. When Christ gave his body to his disciples he said, ‘ Take, eat, this is my body.’ But Christ was mortal. Now the question is, did Christ give his body mortal or immortal? According to Hugo of St Victor, every property of his original body of immor- tality, the whole of these Christ had in him what time he was mortal. So in spite of being mortal he could give his brethren his immortal body ; if he had given them his mortal body the eating of it would have outraged them. Bishop Albertus contro- verts this doctor. I am amazed, he says, that such a great authority should hazard such a foolish statement. Every nature emanates from its appropriate form and Christ’s form here was mortal and no immortal property could emanate from his mortal form. If you really want to know how Christ gave his body, mortal and immortal, he gave his body as mortal in itself and immortal in its form and in its effect for its action is divine and he gave it therefore in another form than that of himself. He gave his body as immortal in its work and in its form and mortal in itself for in his mortal body Christ had power to communicate his body immortally as to its effect but not so as to its own nature.
152. It is a question whether in Christ’s body there remains aught of what it seems ? No, there is seeming without substance and substance without seeming. It seems to be bread but there is really no substance of bread: it is really the body of God without its appearance. So far as its appearance goes it would nourish us like any other food. But if there is really no substance of bread and only the substance of bread feeds the body then how, without the substance of bread, does this nourish the body ?— At the consecration of the body of our Lord the bread loses its nature while it retains its form, its mass, its smell and its feeling of bread, so that it does not disappear. Nothing we can taste and feel, nothing, in short, which is apparent to the outward senses, is God’s body. The outward senses do not lose what pertains to them. They derive their nourishment from such things as re- main. In bread the solid part is all that nourishes. The solidity of the body of Christ is not his body: the solid of the bread remains and that feeds the outward man. This is the explanation of how the sacrament nourishes like any other food. But it really has none of the nature of bread.
153. —When Christ consecrated his body on that Sabbath day and gave it to his disciples, supposing some to have been left and hidden in a bush, would this have died when Christ died on the
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cross ?—If the consecrated body had been maltreated by scourging or in any other way, that would not have hurt it. Christ suffered no hurt by eating in the sacrament for he gave his body in another form than that of himself. Christ suffered not at all in the form he gave. But mark. When Christ died upon the cross since there lay under consecration the body of the soul that died upon the cross therefore all the pain Christ suffered in his human form was suffered by his body under consecration. When Christ died to his manhood there died his body dying under consecration, for there was no more than a single body. This death of Christ was the parting of the soul from body; and since she is impartible therefore wherever she is she is altogether. When she was in the precincts of hell she was not in the body. Neither could she be in his consecrated body. We speak hére of two bodies, but there is only one, that which rose from the dead on the third day.
154. Did the consecrated body rise too ?—Oh yes, it rose up glorified for it was the Christ.
155. Then it was questioned, can the soul while in this body get to the point of receiving without means ?—The answer is both no and yes. In the first sense I declare that anything the soul receives must be by light and grace. Light and grace are her means for she is creature. Soul cannot do without these means as long as she is in the body. On the other hand the affirmative reply, that the soul is able to receive direct while in the body, is argued thus. The soul has within her a likeness of the sovran good. In this likeness she receives like. Here like is being received direct by like. Mark how. In receiving thus without means we have to abide by this likeness.—Wherein does this like- ness consist ?—Likeness to the sovran good consists in motionless- ness of the inner and the outer man : in imperturbability towards all nether things, the outward man not being moved by them nor the inward man disturbed by any mental agitation; he remains firm and unshaken in the here and now. Be so always.
156. One other question. How have all things been in God ?— In his impartible essence all things subsist impartibly, no one more noble than another. But in the essential Word where all things are distinct one thing is nobler than another.
157. Once the spirit is one with God is it at all enriched by virtues ?—Virtues are products of necessity and necessity enriches not the spirit. It is not virtues that enrich the spirit but the fruit of virtues.
158. It may be asked, are we to take the impartible image of all things as Person or essence ?—There are three distinct Persons but not three images to correspond. We may therefore look at the image in the light of impartible essence. But since essence
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in the Persons is possessed impartibly as essence and partibly as speech (one utterance in the Father and another in the Son and another in the Holy Ghost), therefore we may take the image of the Trinity also as a speaking in the Persons as well as simple essence, for the essence is simple in the Persons no less than in its own particular nature.
159. It may be asked, has the one essence no form to correspond with its essential nature ?—That which reveals another is its form. Essence cannot manifest itself in its essential nature: it is mani- fested by the Persons. Hence the Persons are the form of the essence so far as they reveal it. But Person is one thing, essence is another. Nothing that exists can be without its proper form. If essence exists it must wear its appropriate form. In its own essential form it is manifest to itself as well as to the Persons and none else. But the Persons reveal it to creatures. Here the Persons are its form by the fact of being Persons and making manifest the formless essence. The Persons are the form of the essence inasmuch as they reveal it and in its arcane nature it has its own form latent in itself. This form is none other than the immanent essence itself. Under this essential form the forms of all things are formless for this essential form is the impartible form of all things: this universal form is essential God in its onefold nature and threefold as uttered in the Persons.
160. This is what the spirit clearly sees in a foretaste of delight. The best the spirit can hope for in this body is the perennial feeling of being without all and within all. Without all means in com- plete detachment, remote from self and things. In all means abiding in perpetual stillness : conscious life in its eternal exemplar wherein the universal image shines in impartibility. There the spirit dwells in all: it has attained to its ideal.
161. Doctors discuss that most abstruse and difficult of ques- tions : What is that which is not caused and which, though neither essence nor yet Person, has might and power in the Father and makes the Father father and the essence essence ?— The answer needs your close attention. Nature cannot be without something whose nature it is and the Person of the Father cannot be without someone whose Person it is. Neither can exist without the other so neither can originate the other. At the same time they have a dual character: speech-silence. Where both alike vanish into their common ground they have the same character ; there speech detracts not from silence neither silence from speech. This lapse into their common ground applies to the eternal and eventful nature. Uneventful nature does not interfere: eventful nature goes on speaking while uneventful nature holds its peace. But this uneventful nature must have an hypostasis, i.e, the eternal
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and eventful nature which gives power and might to the objective Person. This makes the Father father and the nature nature; not that the Father has an eventful nature: his is the eternal uneventfulness. This let none gainsay in the interests of eternal truth for it is the eternal truth. The ignorant, remember, are given to attacking the eternal verity.