The power of things resides in essence. Now the soul is capable of knowing all things in her highest power, she being all closeted in her secret chamber. To the soul thus freed from things there is disclosed his secret essence. She is able to receive his arcane power. As St Paul says, ‘I can do all things in him that strength- eneth me.’ Up, noble soul! seek thee no other place than this unnecessitous naught that did create thee, the same in its im- movableness shall be thy place; there shalt thou be more motionless than naught.—But this is traversed by some learned men who hold it is impossible. Naught, say they, is motionless, so how can the soul be more motionless than naught? The soul is a created aught which can be moved: she is a variable ; naught is a constant. The soul, for instance, goes from light to light until she finds the sovran truth where all things end. So too the soul is moved in that she is aware of things other than herself. Naught has no awareness. Therefore aught is more movable than naught. So runs the argument against our thesis. Now to prove that the soul is more motionless than naught.
The arch-good, God, is more motionless than naught. And the most perfect likeness of this motionless arch-good is also most immovable. Haply thou wilt object: Naught is the same as
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God for both of them are non-existent.» Not so. For naught is nothing to itself or any creature. But God is to himself his aught and naught to the mind of any creature. Withal the creature aught tells forth God’s aught by nature rather than its own. God’s aught is intellectual being. Dionysius says, ‘The intel- lectual light that God is, gat its own image in the rational soul.’ Now if God is more motionless than naught, it follows that the soul as reflected into her motionless aught, God namely, is- more motionless than naught. Naught is movable out of itself when naught becomes aught and always is moved when aught is pro- duced out of naught. Not so the soul: she always is aught and can never be naught. Behold the soul more motionless than naught, God having set her free, free to assert her own free will.
Her motion is the quest of him who has never loved nor was ever loved. Which may be interpreted thus. The soul, uplifting with all her might and main herself above herself to love the sovran good, sees clearly she can never reach the divine aught accom- panied by any of her powers. So down she goes again into herself, and the motionless aught bides unbeloved of her and of all that is not its very self. Thus the divine aught is never loved by her nor by anything that is not itself, nor has it ever loved. You can. put it like this. He loves nothing but himself or his image in all things. But since he is not love nor anything named, there- fore he loves not neither is he loved. This is the meaning of St Dionysius’ words, ‘God dwells in motionless calm.’ And the bride says in the Book of Love, ‘I have crossed all the mountains, aye, even my own powers, and have reached the dark power of the Father. There heard I without sound, there saw I without light, there breathed I without motion ; there did I taste what savoured not, there did I touch what touched not back. Then my heart was bottomless, my soul loveless, my mind formless and my nature natureless.’
Now what does the soul mean by ‘crossing all the mountains ?’ She means she has transcended her own rational powers and gotten ‘to the dark power of the Father’ where all rational dis- tinctions end. ‘There heard I without sound.’ Hearing without sound means intuition, direct apprehension. ‘ There saw I without light.’ Seeing without light means undefined, vague perception in the naught. ‘ There breathed I without stir’: the inspiration of unity wherein all things are still. ‘ There tasted I what savoured not’: over all sensible things hangs the motionless haze of unity. ‘There did I touch what touched not back’: alien, unalloyed essence of all creatures: the substance of all things substantial. ‘Then my heart was bottomless ’: the overwhelming wonder of
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my powers. ‘And my soul loveless’: powers and senses blotted out. ‘And my spirit formless’: the sealing of the mind in the | unformed form and image of God. ‘ And my nature natureless ’ : my own nature withered away till nothing is left but the one unique is. This is-ness is the unity, the being of itself and of all . things. St Dionysius says, ‘ The one alone is the life of lives, being
of beings, reason of reasons, nature of natures, light of lights and
yet not light, not life, not nature.’ Of it St James declares, ‘ The
most perfect gift comes down from the Father of lights.’ Again
St Dionysius says, ‘ The First Cause is above all names and tran-
scends love; it is superessential, superintelligible, super-rational
and supernatural. The First Cause is neither light nor darkness.’
Behold how different from all caused things. é
Saith the soul in the Book of Love, ‘No one is God to me and I am soul to none.’ By ‘no one is God to me ’ she means merely that no entity, nothing nameable, is her God. Again the words, ' “I am soul to none’ mean that she is so void of self she has not got it in her to be aught to anyone. This is the state in which the soul should be: in utter destitution. The soul cries in the . Book of Love, ‘He is mine and I am his.’ It were better she had said, * He is not mine nor am I his,’ for God who is in all is therein all his own. She can lay claim to naught: she has lost every whit whereto any wight could in anywise be aught or she withal be aught to any wight. No one is her God and she is no one’s soul, wherefore she cries in the Book of Love, ‘Fly from me, beloved, on the feathers of the wind.’
What is the meaning of these feathers of the wind whereon the soul rides ? The feathers are the choirs of Seraphim. The wind of their feathers is their clear seraphic knowledge. Above this dwells the soul. But not till she has left behind all images and forms, not harbouring any, not resting upon any. She must have lost her individual motion. And thus divested of her creature- hood, having no hold on anything at all, she sinks into downright nothingness ; there she is concealed from every creature. To this same naught no Seraph’s understanding can attain ; in this naught dwells the soul, super-seraphic, above all such knowing. Thus the soul rides on the feathers of the wind.
But what a perfect life this man must lead! How dead his soul to every kind of motion! St John declares, * Blessed are the dead that die in God.’ To this end, O man, do thou free thyself from every sort of sensible affection. God is exempt from such, and it behoves thee, man, to be the same if thou wouldst solve his hidden mystery. For this, look you, soul must be stripped of all her senses. St Dionysius spoke of this to Timothy, one of his disciples, when talk arose about St Paul who had been put to death.
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‘ Alas ! my friend ’ (said Timothy), ‘ and shall we never hear again the loved voice of our master?’ The saint replied, ‘ Friend Timothy, my counsel is to leave behind us corporal things and go to God. But this we cannot do save with blind eyes and alien senses ; not that we ought to have misleading senses: we must transcend sense and knowledge to get to his mysterious unity.’ Anent which St Augustine says, ‘ The soul has a private door into divinity where for her all things amount to naught.’ There she is ignorant with knowing, will-less with willing, dark with enlighten- ment. To wot of self would mean her imperfection ; to wot of God would mean her imperfection ; to wot of self in God or God in her would mean her imperfection: self is reduced to utter naught and there is nothing left but God, for God outshines her as the sun the moon and she with God’s all-penetrativeness streams into the eternal Godhead where God keeps ever flowing into God.
Nothing is without beginning, and since nothing is without beginning God could make us from nothing better than nothing, like himself. Alone God’s power did make the soul, so she like him is free from matter. And soul could have no homelier road into divinity than by way of nothing to nothing, for nothing unites like natural affinity. But St John Chrysostom declares that none can take it till his outward and his inward senses are focussed to clear vision of the Deity.
The naught we were before we were created was indigent of naught. Moreover of itself it could do absolutely naught and naught withstood creatures : all but the power of God ; it was this caused naught to stir when God made all things from naught. Now we have got to be more motionless than naught.—‘ But how ?’ Mark how. God gat the soul the mistress of herself, not overriding her free will nor once exacting from her aught that she will not ; so whatever in this body she elects of her free will she is free to carry through. Say she chooses to need nothing and to be more motionless than naught, then assembling all her powers into her free will so as not to be hindered by herself or any thing, she centres herself in the motionless God who was n’er moved by any act done by the blessed Trinity nor is not indigent of any thing the blessed Trinity has ever wrought. To reach this point of needing naught and being more immutable than naught, soul must be
‚sunk so deep in the bottomless well of the divine naught that nothing can draw her thereout to spend herself on mortal things, but there she steadfastly abides ; as the heavenly Father is ever- abiding in his nature without let or hindrance so the soul abides therein without let or hindrance, as far as that is possible to creature.
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—-‘ Pray, Sir, how should it be impossible seeing that the soul was created to that end ? ”—-Because, you see, if she does stoop to baser things to let herself be satisfied with these, then that which is above her is beyond her reach, whereas God keeps no secrets from the soul whose lofty nature is equal to the quest. Up, noble Soul! - Out of thyself so far thou never comest in again and enter into God so deep thou never comest out again: there stay nor ever deign to stoop to creature ; and burden not thyself with things made clear to thee, nor wander among objects presented to thy mind, nor be not hindered from achievement by any service. Steadfastly pursue thy simple nature and the unnecessitous nothingness, seeking no other place than this unnecessitous naught. God who made thee out of nothing, he in his unnecessitous nothing- ness and immovableness shall himself be thy place. There thou shalt be more immovable than nothing.
They that serve God for gain with outward works reap their reward in creatures, such as heaven and heavenly things. But they that serve God by interior acts are rewarded with the un- created, namely, the works of the blessed Trinity.