Virtutes cadorum movebantur {Luc, 21 20 ). This is a gospelsaying of our Lord, and the translation runs, ‘ The powers of heaven shall be moved.’ Heaven is suggestive of some mysterious or hidden thing, God being so mysteriously coneealed by the light of his divine splendour that no man may by dint of his own intellect attain to the beatific vision of his godly countenance. As Job exclaims, ‘ Who can by searching find out the things in heaven ? ’ As though to say, no one in the world. The sage laments this, crying, ‘ Alas ! O Lord, thou art a hidden God ! ’ According to St Augustine, ‘ God hides in the recesses of the soul, disguised in the workings of grace wherein he shows himself to the soul covertly, so that none may know except the soul wherein he is thus privily concealed.’ And St Paul says, ‘ Everything, which is in the soul, is hidden.’ The soul then is the godly heaven 'and ghostly where in unbroken stillness God does his perfect work. As God spake by the prophets, ‘ Behold, I create in you a new heaven.’
It is the stirring of the powers of these incarnate heavens by the light of God’s glory shining on them which Christ refers to when he says, ‘ The powers of heaven are shaken.’ These words betoken to us the good works of the soul whereto she is wont what time God being hid in her makes her the heaven of his incomprehensible divinity. For every act proceeds from power and power proceeds from essence. So from these words we learn three things about the noble nature of the soul. First, her transcendent being. |, (Thus he speaks of heaven,) Next, her powerful faculties. (Hence i j the word powers,) Thirdly, her fruitful operation. (Hence the ' word moved,)
Now to begin with let us note that if the soul has got a heavenly being she must possess three heavenly properties. First, the innate eternity of heaven. Secondly, its motion in a circle... Thirdly, its overflowing into creatures underneath. These three! things I demonstrate as follows : The first, that heaven is eternal,
I explain in this way. The heavens have an incorporeal, immaterial nature in corporeal guise. No outside semblance is admitted. Colour is excluded, and no variable force can ply therein, hence its state is one of fixed abiding. Then the circular motion of the See also Spamer’s Texte A. 6, for a longer version.
heavens is argued thus. Anything that travels in a circle comes back to its start ; and anything that comes back to its start travels in a circle. Now the philosopher says the mover of the heavens is in the East where the sun rises. We see with our own eyes that every day the sun dawns in the East and sets into the West to rise again next day at the place where, the philosopher says, the mover resides. It returns each day to its start. Ergo, the sun goes round. This is not to be confused with the sun’s own period of revolution. The starting-point of its own path is not reached in one day : it takes it a whole year, three hundred and sixty-five days, that is to say. Rather we must take this as referring to the heavens altogether, with the sun in their train. The sun doing yearly what they accomplish daily. Thirdly, the heavenly downpour into creatures I argue from the fact that everything subject to birth and decay is unstable and lacking in celestial power. As the philosopher observes in the book of The Celestial Nature, ‘ Heaven is to all inferior things the influx of being and of life.’
Now for the soul to be this ghostly heaven she must return to her eternal being, to the circular motion of her cause and to her highest nature streaming down into her lower powers. First and foremost let me say that as she goes it does behove the soul to turn to her eternal being and diligently note how by God’s grace she is immortal in her nature which he has rendered meet to share in his eternal bliss. She is an incorporeal nature in corporeal ' guise, spirit not following body in its fleshly birth, so no extraneous semblance can invade her, provided she is ever on her guard against the fading of her own exemplar wherein she is reflecting and manifesting God in his own proper nature. Nor may she brook the entrance of any naughtiness to oust her from her heavenly perfection and cast her into suffering, for she suffers without suffering in the power of God whereby she is fortified in suffering. Withal no other power can ply in her ; she is so secure in God who is immutable stability that neither death nor life nor depth nor height nor any creature can part her from his fixed and changeless deity. So with King David she may say, ‘ In cleaving to God lies the gift of immortal felicity.’
Secondly, the soul progresses in a circle, for she rises with the rising sun, in her eternal nature, to wit, in her heavenly Father’s heart, where there is ever dawning the true Son, his self-begotten Son, the light and shine of his eternal sufficiency. And she returns into the Father’s mind where she is spoken in celestial wise, as the prophet hath it, ‘ God fashioned the heavens in his understanding.’ This intelligible heaven means the soul returned intact to God as to her source. For he speaks into her his eternal
Word, and confirms her in all heavenly perfection ; as the prophet cries on becoming the heaven of the Deity, ‘ By God’s Word are the heavens, fixed and established.’
Thirdly, this spiritual heaven of the soul drips divine grace and consolation. Just as the angel-mover rolls the heavens round and gives them energy, furnishing the heavens with the power of his might for heaven to pass on and thus supply all things with their being and activity and life, even so God dispenses to the soul his godly power with all its grace, which wells up in the Father’s heart, so giving her the means of growing vigorous and strong in his own proper motion wherein she gives her being and activity and life to all her lower powers, to the members of her body and to all their operations, till they, grown living in God’s eyes, do bring forth fruit of life eternal. This was the draught the prophet craved when, mindful that the Holy Ghost was troubling the deep waters of his heart and that his highest power was receiving and conceiving the dearest power of divinity, Isaias cried, ‘ Drop dew, ye heavens from above,’ meaning to say, pour into all my powers, all my members, all my works, the sweet celestial dew which ye have gotten into you from God.’
Further we must note how he has decked the natural heavens with seven planets, seven noble stars which are nearer tq than the rest. I’lie first is SaMrn, then comes .Jiipiter, tfien Mars and then the Siiif ; after that comes Venus and then Mercury and then the Moon. Now when th<i soul becomes a spiritual heaven our Lord will deck her with these same stars ghostly, as .John saw in his apocalypse when he espied the King of Kings seated upon the throne of the majesty of (Jod and hav ing seven stars in his hand. Know that the first star, Saturn, is the purger ; Jupiter, the second, the well-wisher ; the third one. Mars, is him of wrath ; the fourth, the Sun, the light-giver ; the lifth one, Venus, is the lover ; the sixth one. Mercury, the winner ; the seventh is the . Moon, the runner.
In the heaven of the soul Saturn becomes angelic purity, bringing as reward the vision of God, as our Lord says, ‘ Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall sec God. After him comes Jupiter, the gracious, whose reward is the possession of the earth ; not the one we wear by way of body, nor that we tread on with our feet ; but the one we are in eager search of : that earth which is flowing with the milk of humanity and the honey of divinity. Ht is of this our Lord declares, ‘ Blessed are the meek in heart for they shall inherit the earth.’ Next follows Mars, of grim, determined nature and passionate suffering for God, bringing reward of the kingdom of heaven, as our Lord says, ‘ Blessed are they that suffer persecution for God’s sake for the heavenly kingdom is theirs.’ And after him the sun of light bringing as its guerdon to the soul, with knowledge of the truth the habit of right-doing and of giving unto everyone his own ; and she being God’s by creation and adoption docs therefore give herself to God withal. According to the words of our Lord, ‘ Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled.’ Then comes Venus, the lover, bringing reward of union with God ; as our Lord said, ‘ He that loveth me is beloved of my Father ; such conic unto him and abide with him.’ From her, too, comes reward of consolation, since love sets the loving heart lamenting and mourning for her love. As our Lord says, ‘ Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted.’ After her comes Mercury, the winner, directly the soul forgoes everything for God, bearing as his prize the palm of deity, including the kingdom of heaven. According to the words of our Lord, ‘ Blessed are the spiritual poor for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’ Last comes the Moon, the runner, with her meed of happiness attained, as St Paul says, ‘ So run that ye may obtain.’ Now the soul attains God best by running to him with a tranquil heart, for his abode is in peace. Our God chooses peace for his children, and his child is lieir to his eternal bliss, as our Lord says, ‘ Blessed are the peaceful for they shall be called the children of God.’
Beyond these planetary stars there is the heaven where the fixed stars are which shine by night, the signals of the works wrought by the soul. In the night of the shadow of this world these shine before men, according to the words of our Lord, ‘ Let your light so shine before men that they may sec your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven.’ The other stars all get their light from the radiance of the sun. Venus as well, the love-star, which shines brightest of them all. Accordingly, the works we do are pregnant most with power and brightest light when we have wholly gotten us the nalurc of the amiable Venus, star of love, whose nature is receptive to the sunshine of the true and intelligible Deity.