136. Now mark how we argue that the Word remains the Word unborn. Where the Word issues from the Father as a birth it shows its born nature and proclaims the Father parent. But where the Word proceeds from the Father as a light it is the species of the Father and shows the Father formless for it has the form of the Father. He himself declared, ‘ He who seeth me seeth my Father.’ Thus the Word reveals the Father in his own form and shows the Father formless and where the Word proceeds from the Father as understanding it proceeds as abiding within.
As intelligence leaves not the heart but reveals to himself the man in whom it dwells, so we have the Word in the eternal procession of the Father, the Word which proceeds from understanding, while understanding itself does not issue forth but abides within. In this procession we have, in the immanent understanding, the Word unborn. This explains what is meant by the unborn Word and how, in the eternal procession, the Word is as it were born of understanding and is still to be born and is this instant being born.
137. One of the masters (Erigena) says : The Father never wrought anything inferior to himself. If this is true, then all the creatures God has ever wrought are God. The question here is, whether the work wrought is as noble as the worker when the worker is God ? Let us see. We speak of a working work and a wrought work. The working work is God, the wrought work is not God for it is creature. Hence the explanation. When it is stated that the Father wrought no work inferior to himself that is as good as saying that the Father does one work and one alone in his own Person, to wit, the begetting of his Son in the eternal emanation personal and essential. Only this one work properly belongs to the Father-nature and all other work wrought we attribute not to the Father alone but to the three Persons atid one God. But, it may be objected, can the eternal emanation of the Son from the Father be called a work ? You can look at it in this way. Everything existing has its appropriate work ; the work of fire, for instance, is to heat and so with understanding : it is its work to understand itself. Here the work is not inferior to the worker. And in this sense the Son may very well be called the eternaf work of the Father. He brings him forth eternally as Person who yet remains in him in essence.
138. Then there is the question : Was the eternal Word conceived in Mary in Person and essence and was it in the bosom of the Father as Person and essence as well ? — In the continuous emanation wherein the Word emanates from the Father as it were from understanding, wherein the Word is now being born, in that same emanation Mary received the eternal Word in a point of time as Person and essence, in its immanence : the Word as flowing from the understanding of the Father. It remained in the bosom of the Father as immanent understanding personal and essential. Thus it came, coming after the manner of a flow and remaining within after the manner of an understanding. Ah, what light and grace enlightened souls obtain from this glorious knowledge !
139. To return to Christ. According to theologists, our Lord Jesus Christ’s soul and Lucifer’s were made in the same light.
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The soul of Jesus Christ our Lord was the very wisest soul that ever was. She turned in the creature to the creator wherefore the Father clothed her in the divine garment and flower of her nature. Lucifer turned to the deficiency and he therefore fell, falling eternally. So fall all they who turn away from God to perishable things.
140. But this light which Christ’s soul supernaturally was, this was a creature and our Lord’s soul itself being creature too, which of these two creatures then, theologians ask, is the nobler and the higher ? — I was asking one wise doctor about this and he said that in one way the light is nobler but in another Christ. Sec what this supernatural light means. When Christ’s soul was created she was taken from herself and haled above herself into the Tri-unity. Therewith she was united. This was not natural to her, it was all above nature, what befell Christ’s soul. What befell was the supernatural light. Herein Christ’s soul was omnipotent, in virtue of this happening. Here the supernatural light is nobler than Christ’s soul, you can see that for yourselves. The adorner is more noble than the thing that it adorns. Take an illustration. Material is adorned by colour while the colour is displayed by the material, since it has no body of its own. Even so Christ’s soul is adorned by this supernatural light and on the other hand Christ’s soul makes manifest this supernatural light.
141. Now mark how the soul of Christ is nobler than the super- natural light. The supernatural light having had its effect upon Christ’s soul (it happens in a flash), Christ has no more to do with this supernatural light, for the union of divine and human nature to one Person liappens instantly and once for all. Here the soul of Christ is nobler than the supernatural light.
a 42. Then as to souls who have overcome themselves so far as to imagine themselves God. This is due to nothing more than their own natural light : they are withdrawn into themselves till they can see themselves in it as light. You know how a blow in the eye will sometimes make one see stars. By stars in their eyes these souls see themselves. The way the supernatural light reveals the soul to herself is this : the naked spark of the soul, her mens, reflects the supernatural light and the pure essence of her spirit seeing itself in this supernatural light fondly imagines itself God. But as you see, it is nothing else than the spirit in the supernatural light, a very great perfection, none the less.
143. Another question is, whether God is (God) by nature or by will ? — He is God not by nature nor by will. If God were God by nature he would be a caused God : nature would have caused him. But that is not the case. And the same with will : were he God by will he would be subject to will and will would be superior to God. Which is not true either ; but he is God naturally, not by nature ; he is God willingly and not by will. That is the answer.
144. Again, did God beget himself or did he beget some other ? — He did not beget himself nor any other : God the Father is unbcgotten God. He begat another and not any other. He begat another, i.e, another Person, not something other, i,e. another nature : the impartible nature of the Father is also the impartible nature of the Son and of their common Spirit. That is the answer.
145. It is a question among theologians whether the nature is common to the Persons and the Persons common to the nature seeing that each Person contains the whole of nature as its natural being. Docs God impart himself to human nature ? — Yes. — How can God impart himself to human nature if he is one in essence and distinct in Person ? — Each of the Persons has the nature as a whole and the Person of the Son, by assuming human nature, imparted himself to it, the two natures meeting in his Person. Here divine and human natures are in communion. Only the middle Person took on human nature but the three Persons are equally allied with the three powers of the soul. — Are these two natures one or are they united ? — They are united and not one. That is one which is in itself without any other and where two meet in one they are united. — How are these two natures united ? — They are united by something between so that each one keeps its own nature. The Person which took on human nature is the medium uniting these two natures. Had this Person not assumed man’s nature the two natures could not have been united. Neither robs thft other of its idiosyncrasy ; uncreated nature does not rob created nature of its createdness nor docs created nature rob the uncreated of its uncrcatcdness. — How did the Person take man’s nature ? — He assumed manhood and not man. — What is the difference between man and manhood ? — Man originates with perfect man and is not taken by a Person : it is two natures united in one Person. But manhood is emanating God and man and is taken by the Person of the Son and is divine and human nature and corporal nature united in one person. So much for man and manhood.
146. Did the Person take the manhood of our Lady ? — Yes and no. He took the bodily nature of our Lady and the nature of his spirit God produced from naught and poured it into corporal nature ; God inspired his spirit and embodied himself in his body. — Is our Lady, soul and body, one person ? — Yes. — Did he not take the person of our Lady ? — No. The eternal Word of the Father took to itself what was not there already. There was
Person there for the eternal Word is itself a Person. But human nature was not there. Hence the eternal Word assumed a nature not a person ; God’s nature and man’s nature were united in one common form with one Person for Christ does not belie himself. — What brings about this union ? — Grace. — What is grace ? — According to Dionysius, grace is the light of the soul, which lights the understanding of the soul. This light is not God but it is something from God. Just as the sunshine is not the sun but something that comes from the sun so God sheds this light into the soul. In this light man knows and loves and to some extent enjoys in time what beatilic spirits know and love and feel in eternal life. But here in time man knows and loves in his own way, dimly : he docs not see God face to face as a spirit does in eternal life. Yet the mere feeling of him makes a man able to do all things, to practise all the virtues and in the virtues he grows Godlike and the liker God in virtues the more one he is with God. Thus grace makes for union.
147. There is a further cpiestion about the union of divine and human nature : have they both the same essence in the Person they are joined in or have they two essences in this non-potential state ? — One Person can have no more than one essence. So far as the personal nature is Person each nature is its own hypostasis. Where two natures are created in one Person that Person has one essence and that in two natures so far as the two natures are unmingled. — Then we may consider nature as apart from essence in the personal union ? — Yes, it can be seen from another point of view. We find nature in its image unmingled but in the Person two natures are present in one Person as in their hypostasis. So far as both belong to the same Person the Person has ohe essence and that in two natures. The Persons are eternal, they are in nowise creature for they have no before or after. Person, that is unity keeping silence albeit big with speech. The Persons are not contained by the unity : they are in unity.
148. There is the question of the worker and the work, whether the work is as noble, as perfect as the worker ? This refers to the Persons of the Trinity. Examine it in this way. The Father is an origin able to originate an origin like unto himself. The Son is such an origin and he together with his Father originates their common Spirit. Here the worker and the work, the effectual work of revelation, are equally perfect. As Dionysius says, ‘ The first cause causes everything equal to itself.’ It was said by one master that the work wrought by God in the patient soul which is all bare of things is nobler than any of the works he has ever wrought in time in heaven or in earth. Just think what this means. The works God has wrought in the angels in heaven 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 everything 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, i.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. Therein 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 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 immortality, 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 controverts 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 remain. 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.
158. — 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 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 here 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 likeness consist ? — Likeness to the sovran good consists in motionlessness 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 fniit 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 manifested by the Persons. Hence the Persons are the form of the ssence so far as they reveal it. But Person is one thing, essence is another. Nothing that exists can be without its proper form.
f 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 complete 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 questions : What is that which is not caused and whicth, 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 Fatlier 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, the eternal 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.
162 . St Dionysius says the highest spirits are poured into the lower in succession, and the lowest are poured into the soul. Now the question is, can the soul receive at all without the aid or knowledge of superior angels ? I answer. Grant one spirit is more toward than the rest then anything received by the other spirits will be known beforehand to this spirit which is better placed than any of the others. Thus a Seraph is more open to divine inspiration than any single spirit in this life and for two reasons. One is that the angel being pure spirit cannot be poured into the soul. While sharing with the body she has no accommodation for the angel. Secondly, the angel is in the condition of ever beholding the divine light and that is not for any soul in this life. Hence Seraph is more apt to receive God’s inspiration and what all spirits receive that spirit knows who is more apt than all the rest. Seraph is not the means of its reception, but, flying as he does nearer to the source of the divine light, it is apparent to him what other spirits are getting of that light. In this sense souls get nothing without the angels knowing.
But let us sec, in the working of the soul, if we cannot find some secret way in which enlightened souls receive without the Seraph’s knowledge. Well, as you know, the soul animates the members of the body all unbeknownst to those same members. And though life runs so secretly into all the limbs that they are unaware of its mysterious flow, the work of life is none the less carried on in them. The fact is, God instils his life into the soul and into every spirit surreptitiously : no Seraph knows about this stealthy stream of life. Its reception by the soul is a clandestine act. How should Seraph know ? He knows nothing of himself or of the soul. That is one thing the soul receives without the higher angels knowing.
The other she receives in the mysterious spark of her own nature, her undivided likeness. But when like meets like there is no mean between them. Like gives like its likeness all unknown to its unlike, in unbroken union. But Seraph is unlike the soul. A Seraph, as you know, is spirit not embodied in any sort of body. But soul is spirit embodied in something of the kind. And secondly to Seraph in his created nature there came all at once and without addition what he this day possesses in his vision of the eternal light ; for he is constant in his likeness to God. Here the soul is different from the angels for in the reflection of her like she receives a secret influx unknown to any angel. It has been said by John, a sage of Greece, that the likeness of the soul consists in perfect likeness to that which has no like. Dionysius calls the angels ‘divine minds.’ And St Bernard says of those who lead angelic lives while in the flesh that into them there flows the mind of God as it does into the angels. O thou God turned God in thy temporal unified mind, thou sjfirit inspired into the oneness of God, stand up and do thy crowning work !
You ask how the spirit stands up ? He stands on his two feet, understanding and love, and oversteps all perishable things lest he should foul his feet with matter of corruption. — And what is his crowning work ? — The clear and naked vision of the highest good, God yonder, wherein the highest good shall bathe the spirit in the light of exquisite consciousness. Then shall thou look and see ! — Do the light-streams of the highest good affect the spirit ? — — When the Sovran Good floods the spirit with light the spirit is borne up above its natural abode.
Meister Eckhart was besought by his good friends, ‘ Give us one last word before you go.’ He said, I will give you a rule which is the sum of all my arguments, the key to the whole theory and' praetiee of the tnith. ''
It very often happens that a thing seems small us which is of greater moment in God’s sight than what looms large in ours. Wherefore it behoves us to take alike from God everytiiing he sends us without ever thinking or looking to see which is greatest or highest or best but following blindly God’s lead, that is to say, our own feeling, our strongest dictates, what we are most prompted to do. Then God gives us the most in the least without fail.
People often shirk the least and prevent themsel s getting the most in the least. They are wrong. God is every wise, the same in every guise to him who can see him the same. There is much searching of heart as to whether one’s promptings come from God or no ; but this we can soon tell for if we find ourselves aware of, privy to, God’s will above all when we follow our own impulse, our clearest intimations, then we may take it that they come from God.
Somejpeople make believe to find God as a light or savour ; they may find a light or a savour but that is not to find God. Aecording to one scripture, God shines in the dark where every now and then we may catch a glimpse of him. Where to us God shows least he is often most. So it behoves us to take God the same in every mode and in every thing.
Someone may say, But if I do take God alike in every mode and every thing my mind refuses to abide in that mode or in this one as in that. — Then I say, he is wrong. For finding God in one way rather than another, I allow, due credit, but that is not the best. God is everywise, alike in every guise to one who can find him the same. Knowing one guise, such and such, is not knowing God. Finding this or that is not finding God. God is everywise, the same in every guise to one who can see him the same.
Someone may "object, But to find God in every mode and in every thing do I not need some special way ? — In whatever way you find God best and are most aware of him that way pursue. Should another way appear quite different from the first you will do right in quitting that to close ivith God in this one which appears as in the one forsworn. It is a counsel of perfection in this manner to attain to such a final certainty and peace that we can see God and are able to enjoy him in any guise and in any thing without having to stop and look for him at all : a boon accorded me. For this and to this end all works are wrought and on the whole works help. The things that do not help let us eschew.
We thank thee, heavenly Father, for giving us thy only Son in whom thou givest thine own self and all things. We pray thee, heavenly Father, as thou has given us thy only Son our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom and in whom thou dost deny us naught, nor "ouldst nor cculdst not, hear us in him and make us pure and free from all our many faults, uniting us with him in thee. Amen.