The fourth point (is), ‘ they stood afar off and said unto Moses : Moses speak thou to us for we cannot hear God.’ They were standing at a distance, that is the reason they could not hear God.
‘Moses went into the cloud and ascended into the mountain and there he beheld the divine light.’ We see this light best in
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the dark: in suffering and travail this light is nearest to us. Let God do his best or his worst he is bound to give himself to _ us whether in travail or distress. There was once a pious dame with many sons, whom they sought to slay. Smiling she said, ‘Grieve not, be of good cheer and remember your heavenly Father, for from me ye have gotten nothing whatsoever.’ As though to say, Ye have your being straight from God. This applies to us. Our Lord said, ‘ Thy darkness (i.e. thy suffering) shall be turned into bright light.” But I must not love nor covet it. It was said by a master in another place, ‘ The mysterious darkness of the invisible light of the eternal Deity is unknown and never shall be known.’ And the light of the eternal Father has ever been shining in this darkness and the darkness comprehends not the light. May we arrive at this eternal light, So help us God. Amen.
Out of the Mouth of the Most High
Ex oro altissimi prodivi (Eccl. 24,). These words, which I have quoted in Latin, we may speak in the Person of the eternal Word. He says, ‘I proceeded forth out of the mouth of the Most High.’ This is the exalted source which uttered from the Father’s heart the eternal Word which took on human nature in our Lady’s womb. Not of this carnal birth am I going to tell, for much is told you of it. It is on the eternal birth that I propose to speak, and I will broach the subject by answering two questions.
The first one is, Whether the eternal Word can be called the perfect Word seeing it is still in the throes of birth ?— Yes, for the eternal Word is gotten in the essential light and abides therein, untold to anything outside it, and is withal infallibly uttered by _ the Father. Hence it may well be called the perfect Word.
The second question is, Whether our intelligence can at all conceive the perfect Word? for it is proper to every under- standing that it should understand. Is it not the same as our understanding in itself ?—I say no, because our word is gotten in a fitful light. Our understanding is a changing thing, so it cannot conceive a perfect word. The word you hear from me is not infallible, it is a sign of the Word within me.
Now mark the way of the eternal birth. The Personal under- standing as confined to its unity of nature is one with the under- standing whereby the Father understands himself in his char- acteristic nature. Were this not the case there would be two intelligible essences. But there are not: there is but one intelli- gible essence wherein the Father sees himself in his characteristic
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nature. The object of his thought is the eternal Word. Where this is confined to the natural understanding of the Father it is none other than the Father-nature. Where this same Word is directed to itself there is ever distinction of Person and withal one simple essence divine in nature. Here I will put four questions the better for you to understand the mode of the eternal birth, though, let me say at once, that this is inconceivable to the multi- tudinous mind. However, I will tell you as much as it is possible for your minds to grasp.
The first question is, Why is the Person of the Son @alled born and the Person of the Father not ? The answer is, that it is the personal understanding of the Father wherewith he understands himself in his characteristic nature, but the product of this con- ception is the eternal Word. Hence the eternal Word is said to be begotten and the Person of the Father not.—Question two : Is the work of the eternal birth wrought by his personal power or by his natural power? Some theologians say it is due to the personal power of the Father since it is proper to all begotten things to receive the same nature they are gotten by. Where saw ye the father that imparted not his own nature to his son ? So runs the argument for the eternal birth being due to personal power. This is not my view. Where the personal understanding keeps to its unity of nature there is this nature Person. Now the eternal Word originates in the essential thought wherein the Father understands himself in his characteristic nature. It follows that the work of the eternal birth must be due to his natural power, for if the eternal Word sprang from the personal understanding of the Father then this eternal Word would be th cause of its own self, for this conception is the Word. ;
The third question is, Where does the Father-nature have maternal names? Where it does maternal work. Where personal understanding keeps to its unity of nature and has intercourse therewith, there the Father-nature has maternal names and is doing mother’s work, for it is exclusively a mother’s work to receive the seed of the eternal Word. In essential thought the mother- nature has paternal names and does paternal work.
The fourth question is, Whether this work is essential or does the Father play a casual part therein? Isay,no. If he stopped a single instant he would negate himself. For the eternal Word is the image of the Father as he conceives himself in his character of Person, with the added dignity which the eternal Word receives in its own Person, all the perfection which the Father has and all the omnipotence peculiar to his nature. The heretical doctor Arius observes concerning this: It appears to me to be untrue that the eternal Word receives all the perfection that the Father
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has and all the omnipotence peculiar to his nature, for it cannot do what the Father does: he cannot beget another Son. But as St Augustine says, That he does not beget another Son is not due to impotence, but it behoves him not to. A statement which , some doctors misconstrue, giving to understand that the Son an
he would could beget another Son. Which is erroneous, for in that
case the Person of the Son would be the Person of the Father.
The reason for not doing it is this. Each Person receives the same
nature albeit variously : the Father as fatherhood, the Son as
sonship and the Holy Ghost as the common product of them both.
Here the Persons are an hypostasis of the nature, each Person
receiving the one nature all at once as essence. Where (the
Word) receives its dignity the three shine with one light, they
having this light as their common being. The dignity the eternal - Word receives by birth is that of being equal with the Father, for
it springs from the essential conception of the Father. As con-
fined to this conception it is none other than divine nature; in
its aspect of the Word it is distinct in Person and withal in nature
one impartible essence.
Here arises the question, How can the eternal Word be at once discrete and one simple essence divine in nature? The best answer theologians have to this is that it is due to the imparti- bility and simplicity of that nature. The entire content of divine . nature is one impartible essence which operates by divine nature. May we attain this oneness so far as it is possible to us. So help us God. Amen.
Suffering
I say that next to God there is no nobler thing than suffering. Were there anything more noble than suffering the heavenly Father would have given it to his Son Jesus Christ, in exemplary fashion, for all things. We find in Christ, as regards his manhood, nothing so much as suffering. Suffering was with him at his birth, and it never left him while he was here on earth. I say, moreover, that had Christ been a man upon this earth without his deity, yet would he have been noble beyond all human ken by reason of his suffering; for granting that suffering is noble, he who has most suffering is the noblest. But no human suffering was equal to Christ’s passion. And he is the more noble in proportion to it. Again I hold, if anything were nobler than suffering, God would have saved mankind therewith, for we might well accuse him of being unfriendly to his Son if he knew of something superior to suffering. And I say, were not suffering
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always noble, the heavenly Father would have left his Son some few hours on earth that were free from suffering. But we do not find that Christ on earth spent one single hour without suffering. Suffering then must be superior to all else. I ween that our Lady, God’s mother, rather than that she should be deprived of the reward attached to the least instant of her suffering at sight of her child’s martyrdom, would choose to have remained here upon earth and not behold God till the judgment day, provided that would win back this reward. So great the guerdon won in that short hour.
I declare, all the humility and virtue we attribute to our Lady brought her no such great reward or love of God as the least of all the sufferings that God sent her. I say that if our Lady, God’s mother, and suffering stood together in the street and with our Lady all her earned reward for chastity, humility and her other virtues except suffering: to our Lady suffering would appear as lovely as sunshine in a burrow, for in that case she would be out- side God. And again, I say: suppose a man committed a sin beyond all sins, it might involve a suffering wherein by virtuous conduct he could cancel all his sin and win greater merit in God’s eyes than any of his saints. Further, I maintain, no man apart from God has ever been so holy or so good as to deserve the least nobility such as the smallest suffering would give. Given one man’ endowed with the collective humility and virtues of all the people who have lived since God created the first man, he, for all his virtues, would not merit the reward a man wins by a little suffering. I tell you, right suffering is the mother of all virtues, for right suffering so subdues the heart, it cannot rise to pride but perforce is lowly. And suffering makes for chastity; for in right suffering vice is burnt away. And to one who has mastered all the virtues, suffering is the mother of virtue as a whole. Noth- ing makes a man so like God as suffering. For he who has least vices is the most like God. But nothing is like suffering for killing a man’s vices. Ergo, it makes man Godlike. Finally I say, not all the theologists together could describe what profit, what glory lies in suffering. Suffering alone is sufficient prepara- tion for God’s dwelling in man’s heart. God dwells only with the sinless. But suffering exorcises sin. Hence God is always with a man in suffering; as he himself declared by the mouth of the prophet, ‘ Whosoever is sorrowful, I will myself be with him.’
[Peradventure thou wilt say, ‘If it be a fact that suffering is so noble and profits one so much, why are not the Jews and heathens saved? I see and hear a great deal of their sufferings, for as captives they are ever subject to the Christians and that