God; as God is essentially in himself without beginning so in the kingdom of the soul he is, as essence, without end. ‘ God,’ says one philosopher, ‘is in the soul in such a fashion that his whole Godhead hangs upon her.’ It is far better for God to be in the soul than for the soul to be in God. The soul is not happy because she is in God, she is happy because God is in her. Rely upon it, God: himself is happy in the soul, for God, when he broke out and wrought the soul, so far maintained his ground in her.as to conceal in her his divine treasure, his heavenly kingdom. Hence Christ says: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hid in a field.’ . This field is the soul, wherein lies hidden the treasure of the divine kingdom. Accordingly God and all creatures are happy in the soul. What we say of the soul applies to her as being an image of God. Let us see therefore wherein this image lies. One theologist says it lies in her powers, and this is commonly held to be true. And it is true when rightly understood. If it is taken to mean that her powers are diverse there is no ultimate truth in it, but if the powers are understood to be one at the summit of her activity then it is true. In this divine activity the soul looks back immedi- ately, intellectually, in the divine nature. In this divine act she conceives her own nature superessentially in God. In this act all is divine to the highest image, which in its proper activity it is very God and happy—formally, not objectively. For gazing into itself it simultaneously conceives God in himself, without means. Hence it is happy in him formally, and objectively owing to the divine nature. One doctor says that this supernal light flows immediately out of God and at the same instant by an act of intellection is gotten without means into God. Hence its going out of and persistence in God are one intellectual conception, the impartible nature of the same intelligent act. In God, be sure, the soul in its highest prototype has never known creature as creature nor has she ever therein possessed either time or space. For in this image everything is God: sour and sweet, good and bad, small and great, all are one in thisimage. This image is no more changed by anything in time than the divine nature is changed by anything that is creature ; for it apprehends and uses all things according to the law of godhood. cat
Now it may be asked : If this kingdom is in us why is it unknown to us? To which I answer that, owing to the soul’s natural disposition towards creatures, all her acts are bound to originate in creaturely images; hence these acts are thought by some to be the seat of this image in the soul, though this is not the case. These persons little know the nobility of the soul, whose activity in her ordinary understanding originates in an intelligible image
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in highest thought (or, memory), begotten there as to form by phantasmal images and as to essence by the supernal, God-behold- ing image whence the soul receives power to understand all truth. In the train of this understanding comes the ordinary will, which is nothing but the bias of the mind. Now since the ordinary understanding takes things for true and the will takes them for good, things are the object of both these activities which are alien and remote from God. For God is neither good nor true. And as God is detached and free from all that creatures can understand,, so also is the highest image of the Godhead.
It is a question whether there is mutual regard between God and creatures ? I answer that, God has no regard to creatures, for God has no regard except towards himself ; but creatures have regard to God, for everything that ever issued from him is ever gazing back towards him. Apply this to the highest image. The instant it glanced out from God this highest image looked back again, with countenance unveiled conceiving the divine nature without means. From this act is gotten its whole existence. In this act this prototype is God and is called the image of God ; in its breaking forth it is a creature and is called the image of the soul.
Consider then thyself, O noble soul, and the nobility within thee, for thou are honoured above all creatures in that thou art an image of God ; and despise what is mean for thou art destined to greatness !
That is what is meant by the soul being the kingdom of God.
‘Seek first the kingdom of God.’ It should be our only care, our only quest, to know the nobility of God and the nobility of the soul. Let us see then how to seek the kingdom of God.
In the Book of Love it is written : ‘ Knowest thou not thyself, O fairest among women ? Then go forth and follow after the footsteps of thy flocks!’ These words refer to the soul; she is the fairest of all creatures and she shall go forth in perceiving her own beauty. Now observe in the soul three sorts of going-forth out of three sorts of nature which she has. The first is her crea- turely nature. The second is the nature she has in the personal Word of the Trinity. The third is that which belongs to her in ‘the exuberant nature functioning in the Father, the beginning of all creatures.
Taking this first exodus, note how she has got to go out of her creaturely nature. Christ says: ‘If any man ‘will come after me let him deny himself and follow me.’ As surely as God lives, no man will ever go forth into the negation of himself until he is as free from his own self as he was when he was not. Doctors declare that man is to be known in two ways: as outward man and
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as inward man. The outward whose works are bodily and the inward whose works are ghostly: By the inner man God is sought in the contemplative life, by the outer man God is sought in the active life. Now mark my words. I say again what I have said before: outward disciplines are of little worth; they are useful only in subduing natures that are still uncontrolled. Know that the discipline ‘of outward acts, though it subdue nature, cannot kill it. Nature dies by ghostly acts. There are many to be found who, with the best intentions, cling on to themselves, not denying themselves. Verily I say, these persons are mistaken, for it is contrary to human reason, contrary to the habit of grace and against the nature of the Holy Ghost. As for those who see their salvation in outward practices, I do not say they will be lost, but they will get to God only through hot cleansing fires ; for they follow not God who quit not themselves ; keeping hold of them- selves they follow their own darkness. .God is no more to be found in any bodily exercise than in sin. Nevertheless those ‚who make much practice of outward disciplines are greatly regarded by the eyes of the world ; which follows by analogy, for those who understand only that which is bodily esteem highly the life they can grasp with the senses. None but a fool would prize any other!
Secondly, the work of the inner man is vision in knowing and loving. In this work lies the beginning of the holy life. These two activities define the nature of the soul. Doctors declare that every nature exists for the sake of its proper activity. Now since this nature (the soul) can be apprehended only in these two ‚activities, therefore they are the noblest activities in man. I have said before that virtue is a mean between vice and perfection ; now love is the form of virtue without which no virtue is virtue. Whensoever a person practises a virtue the works of the virtue are ~ works of love, not of the person; each work of virtue having power in love to bring the person to God. St Dionysius says, it is the nature of love to change a man into that which he loves. Wherefore we ought so to live that our whole life is love. In this disposition all practices are praiseworthy, outward or inward. David says: ‘ They shall go from virtue to virtue, then shall the
God of Gods be seen in Sion.’ The vision of God transcends "virtues. Virtue, as I said, is a mean between vice and perfection and the fruit of virtue—the end and object of virtue, that is to say—will never be obtained until the soul is caught up above the virtues. Be sure that as long as a man holds fast himself as thrall to virtue he will never taste the fruit of virtue, which is nothing else than seeing the God of Gods in Sion. God is not seen in Jacob, the practice of virtue, but God is seen in Sion. Sion
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is as it were a polished mirror and stands for unveiled vision with the single eye of the divine nature. Rely upon it, virtue has never seen this sight.
Now it may be asked, are we to abandon virtue altogether ? To which I answer : no, we are to practise virtue, not possess it. The perfection of virtue is freedom from virtues. Thus Christ says: ‘ When ye have done all that is possible to you, say: we are unprofitable servants.’
That is what is meant by the soul dying to her own works. The question we must now consider is how she loses her own nature. Doctors declare that everything made by God is ordered in such an excellent way that nothing can wish it did not exist. Yet the soul is to relinquish her existence. This means the death of the spirit. And in order to accomplish this death the soul must let go of herself and all things, retaining of herself and things no more than when she was not. Christ says: ‘ Except a corn of wheat die it abideth alone.’ To die is to be wholly deprived of life, so that while a man lives, as long as there is life in him, be sure that he knows nothing of this death. St Paul says:
“I no longer live.’ Some people interpret this death to mean that one must live neither in God nor in oneself nor yet in any creature. And so it does, for death is the loss of all life. But I say more: a man may be dead to everything, to God and crea- tures, yet if God still finds in his soul a place that he can live in, then the soul is not yet dead and gone out into that which follows created existence. For to die is, properly speaking, to lose everything. Ido not say the soul is brought so utterly to naught as it was before it was created ; this naughting applies to holding and possessing. In this respect the soul suffers total loss—God as well as creatures.
It sounds strange to say the soul must lose her God, yet I affirm that in a way it is more necessary to perfection that the soul lose God than that she lose creatures. Everything must go. The soul must subsist in absolute nothingness. It is the full intention of God that the soul shall lose her God, for as long as the. soul possesses God, is aware of God, knows God, she is aloof from God. God desires to annihilate himself in the soul in order that the soul may lose herself. For that God is God he gets from creatures. When the soul became a creature she obtained a God. When she lets slip her creaturehood, God remains to himself that he is, and the soul honours God most in being quit of God and leaving him to himself. _
This is the lowest death of the’ soul on her way to divinity. Such souls are hardly to be recognised for, as St Paul says: ‘ Ye are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God.’ If it be ques-
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tioned whether the unique virtue of these souls finds no outward expression, IT answer: Yes, just as Christ, the pattern of perfection, was unindigent and a shining light to all mankind, so these men are turned towards humanity by reason of their in wisdom and godlike frame of mind.
So much for the first exodus in which the soul goes out of her creaturely nature seeking the kingdom of God.