The second thing is a free mind. Freedom means not being in any way bound ; our being as free and clear and unalloyed as we were in our first emanation when we were loosed in the Holy Ghost.
The third is the speculative mind. Herein the soul sees God. What does the soul see when she sees God ? Dionysius says she sees the one power. This unique power makes her one with it. She sees in him also the good passing good, embracing all good things. He wants to entice us out of ourselves, to make us unwilling to stay in ourselves. As the heathen philosopher says, The arch delight, all delights excelling, attracts the soul out of all enjoyments into the sovran truth where all things end. And the same master says, Why are we unaware of this? Because we are bent on lower things. Supposing that we find ourselves. desirous of God before all else, then God has touched this highest power. By this touch she is moved out of herself and into him ; not that she is moved by grace as one thing moves another, for she has no body to her deity. St Dionysius says that the ‘motion of the soul is as in a circle, since she never varies from her centre.
He says too, God is splendid, and this by reason of three things. He is clear, he is a mutual illumination, he is one and the same. What does clear mean ? Free from admixture of body ; persisting in his purity or light-nature. According to the scriptures, the soul is sevenfold clearer than the sun. The sun is clear albeit a corporal thing. But I declare the soul to be an hundredfold clearer than the sun, for the sun is bodily whereas the soul is ghostly. And her surpassing clarity is due to the ascendency of spirit over matter. Now if the soul is clear like this then God must be infinitely
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clearer, for he created her, and the cause is more than its creature has.
He is also a mutual illumination, for all that is in God is God. And St Augustine says the Father and the Son shine into each other in the Holy Ghost, who is the tie between them. And the three hypostases, which are the three Persons, have one nature, like three lights with one shine. So too with us there should be unanimity, all multiplicity focussed to the highest power and this sovran power cast into God there to abide without reflection.
Thirdly, he is one and the same, this being characteristic of divinity, which is the same as unity. This is not said of creature, for it cannot be maintained of any creatures that it is from them- selves they have their being. St Paul says, ‘What we have we have received from the unique good, God namely, from whom are all good things.’ Things are not from themselves. That which is from itself and from which all things are, is God. It is expressly taught that God is one and the same. And it is for us to be like him. When we have parted from ourselves then we are not-being rather than being. May we, being planted in the likeness of God, attain to higher and truer vision, So help us God. Amen.
The Son of the Widow
Adolescens, tibi.dico: surge (Luc. 7,4). To-day we read in the gospel about the widow with an only son who had died. And our Lord came to him and said, ‘ Young man, arise!’ And he sat up.
By the widow we understand the soul; her husband was dead, so her son was dead also. Her son we take to mean her intellectual nature. Our Lord, sitting by the well, said to the woman, ‘ Go home and fetch me thine husband.’ Not hers that living water which is the Holy Ghost; that is vouchsafed alone to those who are quickened in their understanding. Intellect is the summit of the soul. ‚It has fellowship and intercourse with the angels in angelic nature. Angelic nature no time can touch, nor can time touch the intellectual nature. Unless she lives in this her son will die. She was a widow. No creature lives but has some good and some shortcomings. She was a widow in this sense: intellect ae dead in her, and with it perished also the fruit of it, the
on. .
Widow, in another sense, suggests abandonment, one who is forsaken. Even so must we abandon creatures and forsake them utterly. The prophet says, ‘The woman who is barren, more in number are her children than hers who is fruitful.’ So with the
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soul who travails ghostly: manifold are her offspring, instantly does she bear fruit. The soul that has gotten God is bringing forth fruit all the time. God must needs accomplish his work. God is ever at work in the eternal now, and his work is the beget- ting of his Son; he is bringing him forth all the while. In his birth all things have proceeded forth, and so great is his pleasure in this birth that he spends his whole energy upon it. God bears himself out of himself into himself; the more perfect this birth is the more does it bear. I say that God is all one, he knows nothing but himself alone. God cannot know himself without knowing all creatures. God gives himself birth all at once in his Son; he says all things in him. He says, ‘ Young man, arise!’
God exerts all his power in his Son so as to quicken the soul back to God. And hell-torment really means the frequent lapsing of the soul from the purpose of God’s effort, which is, to bring the soul to life again. God makes all creatures in a word, but in order to vivify the soul the whole of his power is expended in his Son with intent for the soul to be brought back therein. In his birth she comes to life, and God bears his Son into the soul so as to quicken her. God speaks himself in his Son. In the word wherein he speaks himself in himself he speaks himself into the soul. It belongs to all creatures to be born. A creature without birth would not be at all. According to one master, it is a sign of the divine birth that all creatures are wrought in it. Hence his words, ‘ Young man, arise ! ’
The soul has nothing God can speak into excepting her intelli- gence. Some powers are too vile for God to speak to. He could of course address them, only they would not hear. Will as will is not receptive, not in any wise: will consists in aspiration. So he says, ‘Young man, arise!’ The powers of the soul age not, they say. Not so the corporal faculties, which flow past and decay. The more a man knows the better he knows, and this ennobles the soul. But the corporal powers do not have this result, so his words, ‘ Young man, arise!’ have reference to the “ noble powers of the soul.
Philosophers define as young things which are near to their beginning. Man has perennial youth in his intellectual nature ; the more he is in his active (intellect) the nearer he is to his birth, and a thing near its birth is young. The first issue of the soul is her intellectual nature, next follows will and then all the rest of her powers. Now he says, ‘Young man, arise!’ The soul herself is one indivisible work ; what is wrought by God in the impartible light of the soul is more lovely and fair than the whole of his work in creatures. Yet foolish folk take bad for good and good for bad. To him who understands aright the unique work
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of God in the soul is better and nobler and higher than the whole world. y
Above this light comes grace. Grace enters neither into intellect nor will. For grace to enter into intellect and will, intellect and will must transcend themselves. A master says, ‘There is I know not what, wholly mysterious, above them,’ meaning the spark of the soul, the only part of her which is God- receptive. Here in this minute spark, called the spirit of the soul, there occurs true union between the soul and God. Grace never did any virtuous work: it has never done any work at all albeit good works are the outcome of it. Grace does not unify by works. Grace is the inhabiting and co-habiting of the soul in God. Work of whatever kind, external or internal, is beneath it. All creatures are searching for the Godlike. The more vile they are the more they search outside. Air and water, for example, flow away, but heaven steadily goes round and in its course is bringing forth all creatures ; therein being godlike so far as in it lies. Moreover, in its motion it is seeking rest. Heaven never condescends to serve inferior creatures. And in this it is very much like God. God’s birth of himself in his Son is denied to creatures. But heaven is striving after this act which God performs in himself. And if heaven does this, and also other creatures much baser than the soul, then it is thankless and shameful of her to make such scant effort to compass such things as resemble the works God does in eternity.
According to philosophers, the soul can give birth to herself in herself and bear herself out of herself back into herself. In her natural light she works wonders; she is able to separate one. Fire and heat are one : in her intellect she divides them. Wisdom and goodness are one in God: in her intellect wisdom is never envisaged as goodness. Why? Because wisdom enters more into God. The soul brings forth in her God out of God into God; she is with young in her very self, and this by dint of her nearness to God, of her being the image of God.
As I have often said, image as image, 7.e. as a reflection, is an inseparable thing. Soul as living in the reflection of God has real union no creature can sever. Not God himself, not angels, nor any sort of creature is able to disjoin the soul who is in the image of God. That is true union, and therein lies true happiness. Various philosophers are in search of happiness. My verdict is, that happiness lies neither in intellect nor will : happiness lies above them both, and it is there as happiness and not as intellection, and God is there as God and soul as the image of God. May he unite us to him in this sense, So help us God. Amen.
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There Is One Power in the Soul
Adolescens, tibi dico: surge (Luc. 7,,). We read in St Luke’s gospel about a youth who was dead. And our Lord came and took compassion on him and touched him and said, ‘ Young man, I say unto thee, I command thee, Arise ! ’
Now you must know that in all good people God is present all at once and there is something in the soul wherein God lives and something in the soul where the soul lives in God, and if the soul turns outwards towards external things she dies and God dies also in the soul. But he does not die in himself at all and he is alive to himself. Just as, when the soul leaves the body the body dies and the soul lives on in herself, so God may be dead to the soul and be alive to himself. Andknow, there is one power in the soul wider than wide heaven, which is so incredibly extensive that we are unable to define it, and yet this power is much vaster still.
Mark now. In this exalted power the Father is saying to his one-begotten Son, ‘ Young man, arise!’ It is God, and the closeness of its union with the soul is past belief, for God is so lofty in himself that nothing whatsoever can attain thereto by under- standing. It is wider than the heavens, aye than all the angels, albeit one angelic spark is the cause of all the life on earth. Desire is far-reaching, limitless. All that mind can conceive, all that heart can desire, that isnot God. Where desire and understanding end, in the darkness, there shines God.