Christ said, ‘ Blessed is the man who hears God’s Word and keeps it.’ The Father himself hears nothing, sees nothing, says nothing, begets nothing excepting his own Word, and in this Word the Father sees and hears and brings forth himself, even this Word and all things, his godhood in principle and himself in nature ; this Word with the same nature in another Person. Observe his mode of speech. The Father, fructifying, brings forth his own nature all at once, as understanding, in his eternal Word ; not at will nor as an act of will. That which is done or spoken by the power of his will he can in that same power refrain from if he will. Not so with the Father and his eternal Word ; whether he would or no he is obliged to speak his Word, to procreate unceasingly : this is rooted, so to say, in the Father-nature as deeply as the Father is himself. The Father speaks his Word then, willingly but not from will, naturally, not from nature. In this Word the Father speaks my and thy and every individual human soul as this same Word. In this utterance thou and I are the natural Son of God like the Word itself. As I have already said, the Father knows nothing but this Word and himself and all divine nature and all things in this Word, and everything he knows therein is like the Word and is the Word itself in nature and in truth.
When the Father gives thee, reveals to thee, this gnosis, he is giving thee his life, his being and his deity, really and truly, all together. The human father shares his nature with his son but not his life or being. You can prove this by the fact that if the father dies the son may go on living or the son may die and the father go on living. With a common life and being they would live or die together. They are separate individuals as regards their life and being, and in this they differ from the heavenly Father and his Son. If I take a light from one place and put it in another these lights, as lights, are separate things, for one may go on burning while the other has gone out, and vice versa. Thus they are neither one nor yet eternal.
But, as I was saying, the heavenly Father gives thee his eternal Word, and in that Word he gives thee his own life, his being and his godhood, all at once ; for the Father and the Word are two Persons and one life, one being, undivided. When the Father finds thee mentally seeing into this same light, this light itself in its own proper nature, as he sees himself and all things in his paternal power in his Word this very Word in utterance and in truth, then he gives to thee the power of begetting, with himself, thyself and all things and his own power in the shape of this same Word. Then with the Father thou art ever giving birth to thyself and all things in the here and now. In this light, as I have said, the Fatlier sees no difference between thee and him ; no more inequality, whether more or less, than between himself and his own Word. For in this light the Father and the soul and all things and the Word itself are one.
2. the Word of the Soul I
— Which of the words my soul speaks is most like the eternal Word ?
— There are two words which most fully reveal the eternal Word as well as the love that flows therefrom, so St Augustine says. One word is the Word of (iod and the other is the word of herself which the soul speaks.
— How does she speak the Word of God ?
— See, God is in all things, therefore God is also in thy memory ; and when the soul in her understanding gives birth to the image of God, as it lies in her memory, then God is the word of thy soul, and when' this word proceeds into the will it becomes love therein. Thus God Father is in thy memory and God Word in thy intellect and (iod Spirit in thy love, though but one God.
— May we say then, generally, that God speaks his own Word in the soul ?
— Ves, for when God speaks his Word in himself the Word acquires true distinction of Person ; but when our heart speaks the Word of God from memory, the word spoken by God does not acquire true distinction of real Persons, it is only a likeness and reflection of the eternal Word.
— When the Word of God is born in him and his memory speaks this Word, how can it be said : God speaks his Word in the soul ?
— To say, God speaks his Word in the soul is true ; and to say the soul speaks this Word in her intellect is also true, for God and man speak the Word of God together in our life. As a woman cannot bear her child before she has conceived it, so memory must first be big with the child she bears.