Homo quidam fecit coenam magnum {Luc, St Luke relates in his gospel how ‘ a certain man gave a great supper or evening entertainment.’ Who makes it ? A certain man. What does he mean by calling it a supper ? One master says this betokens great affection, seeing none are bidden save the intimates of God. When we give a morning party all and sundry are invited but to an evening meal we invite important people, the people that we like and our own familiar friends. Secondly, he has in mind how perfect are those souls who enjoy this evening meal. The evening never comes without a whole day having gone before. Were there no sun there were no day. Sunrise, that is morning light which goes on getting brighter up to middle-day. Just as the divine light rising in the soul gradually eclipses the powers of the soul until the advent of the noon. No day, no spiritual day, at all can dawn within the soul except she receive divine light. Divine light breaks into the soul and makes her morning, and the soul mounts up in this light into space, to the zenith at high noon. Thirdly, he implies that to take this supper worthily we have to come at evening. When the light of this world fails it is the evening. As King David sings, ‘ He riseth in the evening and His name it is the Lord I ’ So Jacob at eventide did lay him down to sleep. This betokens peace of mind. Fourthly, he remembers, as St Gregory points out, that after supper there comes no other meal. When the spark in the soul takes in divine light it needs no other sustenance but keeps ever to this divine light.
To whom God grants this provender, so fragrant, so delicious, that soul shall never relish any other fare.
St Augustine says, ‘ God is of such a nature that once embracing him we can never rest elsewhere.’ St Augustine says, ‘ Lord, so thou take from us thyself, grant us then another thee or we shall have no rest ; we have no mind for aught but thee.’ One holy man says of the God-loving soul, that she gets out of God whatsoever she will, befooling him so thoroughly he can deny her not a thing there is. He took himself in one way and gave himself another way: he took himself God-and-man and gave himself God-and- Man, another self in a mystic vessel. Very precious hallows are not wantonly exposed to public gaze and touch. So he clad himself in the frock of the appearance of bread, even as my bodily food is altered in my soul, which is not in my nature for an instant without combining with it. For there is a power in nature which separates the base and throws it out, and the high invades the low to the last needle-point and is embodied in it. The things I ate a fortnight since are every bit as much united with my soul as what I did receive within my mother’s womb. Whoso takes this food fasting becomes as truly one therewith as flesh and blood are with my soul.
There was a certain man ; the man had not a name because this man is God.
The philosopher affirms concerning the first cause that it transcends speech. All words fail. Because of the surpassing pureness of its nature. We have but three ways of speaking about things : first, in terms of things above them ; second, of their likes ; and thirdly, of the works of the things. To give you an example. The power of the sun draws up the precious sap out of the roots into the shoots and brings it out in flower, here the solar power being above it. As we say of the tree, so we say of the things above the tree ; of the sun, for example, which is working in the tree. Likewise I say the divine light is working in the soul. The spark in the soul being drawn up in this light and in the Holy Ghost and borne aloft to its first source. But nothing true can be spoken of God, because there is nothing above him. That the soul expresses God does not in anywise affect his real intrinsic being : no one can express what he actually is. Sometimes we say one thing is like another. We can say nothing of God because nothing is like him. Creatures enclose a mere nothing of God wherefore they cannot disclose him. The painter who has painted a good portrait therein shows his art : it is not himself that it reveals to us. Creatures can no more give out God than they can take in exactly what he is.
The God-and-Man has prepared this supper, the ineffable man who is wordless. According to St Augustine, what we say about God is not true and the things that we say not are true. Things we say that God is he is not ; what we say he is not that he is rather than what we say that he is.
Who has prepared this repast ? A man, the man who is God. King David says, ‘ O Lord, how great and manifold is thy entertainment, the sweets that are laid up for them that love thee ! ’ (Not ‘ them that fear thee.’) St Augustine meditating on this food, regarded it with loathing and distaste, when lo! he heard a voice from within, ‘ I am the food of the great, wax and grow great eating me ; nor ween not that I shall be turned into thee : thou shalt be turned into me. When God works in the fiery heat the diverse things within the soul sublime and burn away. By the absolute truth ! soul enters more into God than any food into us ; nay, the soul is changed into God. There is a power in the soul which splits off what is base and is absorbed into God. To wit, the spark of the soul. My soul becomes more one with God than food does with my soul.
Who has prepared this evening meal ? A man. Dost know his name ? Not I. His name is not spoken. He is more silence than speech. He is above name. What food has he prepared for this feast ? Himself, no less than himself. (What does the servant mean ?) According to St Gregory the servant means preachers. And in another sense the servant means the angels, thc angels ever calling us with interior voice. Thirdly, methinks this servant is the spark of the soul, which is sent there by God and is his light striking down from above, the reflection (or image) of his divine nature and ever opposed to anything ungodly : not a power of the soul, as some theologians make it, but a permanent tendency to good ; aye, even in hell it is inclined to good. According to the masters, this light is of the nature of unceasing effort ; it is called syndcresis, that is to say, a joining to and turning from. It has two works. One is remorse for imperfection. The other work consists in ever more invoking good and bringing it direct into the soul, even though she be in hell. It is a great supper. He said to the servant, ‘ Go out and compel them to come in, those that are bidden, for all things are now ready.’ All that he is the soul receives. What the soul desires is now prepared. The things God gives have always been. Behold them new and fresh and all at once in the eternal now.
A grat philosopher declares that anything I see comes into my eyes purified and ghostly, and the light that comes into my eyes would never get into my soul but for a power above it. There is a power in sight which is superior to the eyes set in the head and more far-reaching than the heavens and earth. This power seizes all the things that come into the eye and bears them up into the soul. St Augustine says the spark comes nigher to the truth than any human knowledge, flight burns. They say that one is lighted from another. If so, the light is higher than the thing that burns. For instance, take a taper, extinguished but still glimmering and smoking, and hold it to the light ; this will glance down and light the other. They say one fire burns another. But I traverse that. Fire, I ween, does burn itself. For one thing to burn another it must needs be above it, like heaven, for example, which burns not and is cold ; natheless it sets on fire and that by dint of contact with the angels. For this the soul prepares by practice. Then she is fired from above. By the angelic light. He says to the servant, ‘ Go out and say to them that were bidden, Come, for all things are now ready. Then one said,
‘ I have bought a piece of ground, I cannot come.’ These are they who still have worldly cares ; they never taste this supper. A second said, ‘ I have bought five yoke of oxen.’ These five yoke, I fancy, stand for the five senses, for each sense is self and other and the very tongue is double. So in my story yesterday, when God said to the woman, ‘ Bring me thy husband,’ she replied,
‘ I have none.’ Whereupon quoth he, ‘ Thou sayest truly : thou hast had five, and him whom now thou hast is not thine husband.’ The moral is that those who live the life of the five senses never taste this food. The third one said, ‘ I have married a wife, therefore 1 cannot come.’ The soul is all-to single when she turns to God. As glancing down in this direction she is woman ; but as seeing God in himself and visiting God at home she is the man. Of old it was forbidden to men to dress in woman’s clothes or women man’s. She is man when she penetrates into God, impartibly and without means. But when she peers forth at all she is woman. As I have repeatedly said, the man in the soul is the intellect. When the soul looks straight up to God with her mind then the soul is the man, she is one and not two. But thinking and glancing down she dons female dress. Quoth our liOrd, ‘ Verily, these shall not taste of my supper ’ ; and he commanded the servant, ‘ Go out into the streets and the lanes, into the highways and hedges — the narrower the wider and hedged about.’ For the more recollected the soul the less scattered she is and the more concentrated the wider her ken. And some of her powers are hedged into one sense. The power I see with I do not hear with, nor with my power of hearing can I see. So with the rest (of the five senses). But on the other hand, the soul exists entire in every member; there is some power, therefore, not confined to place at all.
What is the servant ? Angels and preachers (so says St Gregory). But, as it seems to irie, the servant is a symbol of the spark. He says to the servant, ‘ Go out into the hedges and drive in thither these four kinds of folk : the poor and the maimed and the halt and the blind : Verily, none other shall taste of my supper.’ Let us throw off those three and rise up man, So help us God. Amen.
APPENDIX 1 Synderesis
Oxford MS.
The meat and drink I took a fortnight since has turned into my blood, my flesh, my nature. That is due to the power of the soul which brings it into my nature ; it is as truly one with me as what was born with me.
So does the power of the Holy Ghost take the purest and lightest and highest and the spark of the soul and carry it up in the fire of love. Just like the sun’s power ; this lays hold in the roots of the tree of what is most pure and essential, drawing it up into the branches where it flowers. Even so is the spark of the soul being always drawn up in the light and in the Holy Ghost and conveyed into its source, becoming all-to one with God and searching him so throughly that it is more the same as God than food is with my life.
I say it is the light up in the soul where the soul nature
Mark first in St Andrew his singleness of life and spiritual attainments whereby his soul was enabled, in her intellect, to ascend in the grace of God above all creatures into God.
For the power of the Holy Ghost seizes the very highest and purest, the spark of the soul, and carries it up in the flame of love. Just as the power of the sun takes what is purest and subtlest out of the roots of the tree and draws it into the branches where it is in flower. Likewise the soul-spark is conveyed aloft into its source and is absorbed into God and is identified with God and is the spiritual light of God.
There are two lights in the soul, one is a light up in the touches angelic nature and passes into the angelic nature ; it is from God and is pouring into the soul above nature.
Some say it is a power. It is not. A servant is mentioned, that is the intellect. There soul attains angelic nature and is the image of God.
In this light the soul has intercourse with angels and ckc with those angels that are fallen into hell. There the spark subsists without any kind of suffering, turning straight up into God.
And withal she is like the good angels in this power, who work unceasingly in God, beholding God in God and returning all work into God.
This light the soul carries within her. The masters call it a power in the soul, this synderesis. It is not. It means something hanging to God and is ever averse from evil.
In hell it tends to God. It is soul at the point where the soul is by nature in contact with the angels’ nature. The other light is what I speak of. This light pours into the soul from on high, above nature.
Some call it a power of the soul. But it is not. It is called synderesis. To wit, the intellect which is a spark (or ray) of God the Father given by God out of his Godhead’s Godnature, and is the form of God without any difference at all. In it she is in touch with the angelic nature.
In this light the soul has community with angels also those cast into hell. There the spark is free from all suffering and faces straight up into God and has precisely his nature.
And withal she has a somewhat, mind, in common with good angels who are constantly working in God and emanating from God and bearing back all their work into God and receiving God from God in God.
The intellect is like to these good angels, drinking God in his eternal savour, his living sweetness and in his own ground. She is sent away from God and is ’ a light that (re)turns : the reflection of the divine nature which the soul has cast into her. The masters call it synderesis which is as much as to say something suspended from God all the time and which never docs wrong.
In hell, says St Augustine, it ever at war in the soul with the impure and the ungodly.
is turned to God. In the soul it wages constant war with things that are not pure and are not godly.
It looks neither to God’s glory nor possessions. It presses up into the goal of divine essence and is the true God’s messenger which leads and draws mankind to the celestial feast : ct misit servum suum hora ccne.