Surrexit autem S aulas de terra apertisque occults nihil videbat {Act, 93). This statement which I quote in Latin is made in St Luke’s narrative about St Paul. It records that ‘ Paul rose from the ground with open eyes and seeing nothing.’ The words are open to four inter|>retations. One is, that wdien he rose up from the ground he was gazing wide-eyed at naught, that naught being God, for the vision of God he would describe as the naught. Another explanation is that when he got up he saw nothing but God. The third, he saw naught but God in all things. I’hc fourth, that in the divine vision he beheld all things as a naught. He previously tells how light came suddenly from heaven and felled him to the ground. Mark you, he says that the light came from heaven. According to our doctors, though heaven is fraught with light it does not shine. The sun is full of light and shines withal. Our doctors teach that fire docs not give any light in the simple, natural perfection of its highest state. Its nature is too pure for eye in any wise to see. So subtle is it, so unlike the eye, that were it here below within our view it could not stimulate our eyes to sight. And yet, forsooth, we see it is absorbed by different things, such as a lump of coal, a piece of wood.
By the light of heaven we see the light that is God whereto no mind of man is able to attain. As St Paul hath it : ‘ God dwells in a light that no man can approach unto.’ He says, ‘ God is light inaccessible.’ There is no admittance to God. No man still on the ascent, still on the increase in grace and in light, has ever yet got into God. God is no crescent light : we get to him by growing. In the growing procicss God is unseen. When God is seen it is in the light that is God himself. A master says, In God there is no more nor less nor this nor that. Whiles we are on the way we are not there.
He says, ‘ A light from heaven shone round about him.’ Implying the capture of his entire soul. A master says that in this light all the soul-powers are exalted and raised to a higher power, the outward senses we see and hear with as well as the inner senses we call thoughts : the reach of these and their profundity are most amazing. I can think as easily about things overseas as close at hand. Above thought comes the intellect, as seeker. She goes about looking, casting her net here and there, gaining and losing. Above intellect the seeker there is another intellect which does not seek but rests in its pure and simple essence in the realm of light. And I say it is in this light that all the soul -powers are exalted. Senses rise to thoughts. How high, how fathomless these are, that no one knows except God and the soul.
Our theologians teach, and it is a knotty question, that angels know nothing about thoughts unless the thoughts take wing and rise up into intellect — intellect the seeker ; and this intellect, the seeker, soars up into the intellect which does not seek, which is the pure light in itself. This light embraces all the powers of the soul. Accordingly he says, ‘ The heavenly light encircled him.’
One master lays it down that anything which has an emanation is exempt from these lower things. God emanates into all creatures without being affected by any. He does not need them. God energises nature and her first work is the heart. Wherefore some doctors would pretend the soul is altogether in the heart and flows thereout as life into the other members. Not so. The soul is in each member, whole. True, her chief work is in the heart.. The heart being in the middle gets protection on all sides, just as heaven is protected from outside influence and intrusion. It contains all things. It moves all things and itself remains unmoved. Not even fire, exalted though it be in its most high estate, can lick the heavens.
‘ In the encircling light he fell to earth, and his eyes being unsealed he, open-eyed, beheld all things as naught.’ And beholding all things as naught he was beholding God. Mark here what the soul says in the Book of Love : ‘ By night in my bed I sought him my soul loveth : I sought him and I found him not.’ She sought him in her bed : meaning to convey that anyone cleaving to aught below God has too narrow a lie. God’s entire creation is all too confined. Quoth she, ‘ I sought him all night through.’ There is no night without the light : only, it is veiled. The sun is shining in the night albeit screened from view. By day it shines, eclipsing all the other lights. So does the light of God ; it blinds and puts out any light. Our creaturely expectations, all these are night. What I mean to say is, that nothing we find in a creature is more than a shadow and dark. Even the highest angel’s light, exalted though it be, illumines not the soul. All but the first light is darkness, is night. By it she cannot find God. ‘ I rose and sought him all about, I scoured the broadways and the alleys. The watchmen (angels) found me, and I questioned them, “ Saw ye not him whom my soul loveth ? ” ’ But they answered not ; peradventure they could not apprehend him. ‘ It was but a little that I passed and I found him my soul loveth.’ The little, the trifle, that she missed him by has often been the burden of my teaching. He to whom mortal things are not all trivial and as naught withal, that man shall not find God.
‘ Having passed by a little,’ she says, ‘ I found him whom I sought.’ When God pours into and informs the soul and thou takes t him as a light or a state or a boon, whatsoever thou knowest about him, that God is not. We have to transcend the little, discard the adventitious and perceive God one. She says, ‘ When I had passed by a little I found him my soul loveth.’
We are very fond of saying, ‘ him my soul loveth.’ But he is far away above the soul, nor does she name her love. There are five reasons why she names him not. One is that God is nameless. Any name she gave him would have to be well chosen. God is beyond all name, none can express him. A second reason is that on swooning away into God for love, the soul is conscious of nothing but love. She fondly imagines that everyone knows him like that. She is amazed that any wight should find him aught but love alone. Thirdly, she has no time to name him. Love does not leave her any time to use another word. Fourthly, perchance she weens he has no other name than love. In love she pronounces all names. Quoth she, ‘ I rose up, I went through the broad streets and the alleys. And when I had passed a little I found him rny soul loveth.’
‘ Paul rose from the ground wide-eyed, beholding nothing.’ I cannot see what is one. He saw nothing, to wit, God. God is naught and God is one. What aught is is naught as well. What God is is he altogether. As Dionysius says about the light : speaking of God he says. He is supernatural, supervital, superluminous ; he will allow him neither this nor that, but makes him out to be I know not what that far transcends them. Aught seen, aught that may come within thy ken, that God is not ; for why, God is not this nor that. AVhocver says that God is here or there, credit him not. The light which God is shines in darkness. God is the true light : to sec it one has to be blind and strip God naked of things. A master says. To argue about God from any sort of likeness is to argue falsely about him. But to argue about God from naught is to argue soundly withal. \Vhen the soul is reduced to one and is gotten therein by discarding herself altogether, there she finds God, as it were, in a naught. It appeared to one soul as in a dream (it was a waking dream), to be big with naught like a woman with child, and in this naught God was born, the fruits of the naught. God was born in the naught. Therefore he says, ‘ He arose from the earth wide-eyed, gazing at naught.’ He had a vision of God where there are no creatures. He beheld all creatures as naught for he had the whole essence of creatures in him. He is the all -containing essence.
Another thing he means by saying, ‘ he saw naught.’ According to our masters, any perception of externals entails some inroad by them, an impression at the least. To get some idea of a thing, a stone, for instance, I do (not) take into my mind the grossest part of it ; that I leave outside. As it exists in the ground of my soul where it is at its noblest and best, it is merely a type (or idea). Things perceived by my soul from without contain an outside element : my ])creeplion of creature in God contains nothing but God alone, for in God there is nothing but God. When I sec all creatures T see not. He saw God where creatures are not.
In the third place, why he saw naught. Naught was God. A master says. Creatures in God are as naught for he has in him the whole essence of creatures. He is the being that contains all beings. The master says. Nothing inferior to God, however nigh it might be to him, but has some alien taint. The master says an angel knows himself and God without means. Into other things he knows there comes an outside element, some interference still, however slights If we are to know God it must be without means, nothing foreign can come in between. When we do see God in his light it happens in private, safe from the slightest intrusion of creaturely things. Then we have immediate knowledge of eternal life.
‘ Seeing nothing, he saw God.’ The light which is God is flowing and darkening every light. Concerning it Job says, ‘ He coiU' manded the sun not to shine and sealeih up the stars as it were with a seal.’ Enveloped in this light he could see naught beside ; his whole soul was distraught, intent upon the light that is God to the exclusion of all else ; and this is a lesson to us, for what time we are busy with God we mind little what goes on without.
Fourthly, he saw naught since the light which is God is unmingled, free from admixture. It shows it vas the true light he beheld for there was nothing there. By light he simply means that he saw nothing with his open eyes. In that he saw not, he saw the divine naught. St Augustine says. When he saw nothing, he saw God. According to St Paul, ‘ Whoso only seeth being blind, he seeth God.’ As St Augustine hath it, ‘ God is the true light, preserver of the soul, more nigh to her than she is to herself, and by the same token, when the soul turns her hack on things becoming, then God must needs shine into her. This soul knows neither love nor care, she is unmindful of th(m. The soul that fares not forth to outside things comes home to stay in her impartible pure light. She does not love nor does she fear nor care withal. Knowledge is the basis, the foundation of all being. Love has no hold except in knowledge. When the soul is blind and can see naught beside, then she sees God, it is inevitable. A master says, the eye at its clearest, without any colour, sees every colour ; not just as a colourless thing in itself, but in place in the body it has to be void of all colour for us to see colours. In colourless things all colours are seen, aye, though it be down in one’s feet. God is something all-embracing. For God to be seen by the soul she has to be blind. Accordingly he says, lie saw the naught whose light all lights are, whose being all beings are.’ The bride says in the Book of Love : ‘ When I had passed by a little I found him my soul loveth.’ The little she had passed all creatures were. Whoso putteth not these behind him shall not find God. And eke she would imply that however small, however pure a thing I know God by, yet it must go. Even the light that verily is God, if I take it where it plays upon my soul is foreign to him. I must take it at the source. I cannot really see the light that shines upon the wall unless I turn my gaze to where it comes from. But if I take it in its cause I am robbed of its effect. I ought to take it neither where it falls nor in its eruption nor yet as brooding in itself; these are all mere modes. We must take God in modeless mode and unconditioned essence, for he is free from mode. St Bernard says : He who would know thee, God, must mete thee with no measure. Please God we may attain that understanding which is wholly without mode and without measure. So help us God. Amen.