Going up the mountain: knowing God without image

HE WENT UP INTO A MOUNTAIN

Videns Jesus turbas ascendit in montem etc. (Matt. 5). We read in the gospel that our Lord departed from the multitude and ascended into the mountain. There he opened his mouth and taught them about the kingdom of God.

St Augustine says, 'The student of this subject sets his stool in heaven.' The student of God must rise above things scattered: these he must eschew. To take in God's instruction he must gather himself together and withdraw into himself, turning his back on care and the pursuit of nether things and on his powers so many and so various. He must leave all these behind, even as existing in his thought, not but what thought works wonders in itself. These thoughts must be transcended if God is to speak into the powers which are inseparate.

Again: 'He went up into the mountain' implies that God is imparting the sublimity and sweetness of his nature. In this intuition wherein there must needs fall away everything that is creature, he is aware of nothing but God and himself as the image of God.

Thirdly: his ascent into the mountain betokens his exaltation (what is high is near to God) and concerns the powers trenching on divinity. Upon one occasion our Lord took three of his disciples and led them up into a mountain where he appeared before them in that same light-body wherein we shall see him in eternal life. Our Lord said to the children of Israel, 'Remember what I told you about heaven: ye see there neither image nor form nor any likeness.' When a man does leave the multitude God comes into his soul without image or likeness.

St Augustine teaches about three kinds of knowledge. The first is bodily: the eye, for instance, is sensible of images. The second is mental but still admits of images of bodily things. The third is in the interior mind, which knows without image or likeness, and this knowledge is like unto the angels.

The higher angels are divided into three. One philosopher says, 'The soul knows only in effigy. Things are all known in image and likeness, but angels know themselves without likeness, and God.' What he means to say is: God imparts himself to the soul at her summit without image or likeness.

He went up into the mountain and was transfigured before them. The soul must be transfigured or re-formed and sealed and re-cast in his form. I maintain that the soul transcends form, she being cast in the form of God's Son. According to the masters, the Son is the image of God and the soul is formed in his image. I agree. But the Son is the image of God above form: the form of his concealed Godhead: the Son as the idea, as the conception of God, that is the form of the soul. By the fact that the Son loves the soul loves also. Where the Son is proceeding is not where the soul is suspended: she is above form. Fire and heat are one and yet far from the same. Taste and hue in an apple are one but by no means identical. The tongue can taste things which are lost on the eye; the eye perceives colours the tongue knows not of. The soul knows one only; she is above form.

The prophet says: God will lead his sheep into green pastures. Sheep is in the singular; and so are they singular who are simplified to one. A philosopher says, that nowhere is the heavenly course so plain as in the simple hearts who guilelessly accept the heavenly influence and in children with no mind of their own. The clever and active-minded people are carried away into multitudinous things. Our Lord promises to feed his sheep in the primitive mountain pastures, on green grass. In God all creatures are in embryo. First, all creatures sally forth from God and then the angels. To have the nature of one particular creature is to bear the stamp of creatures as a whole. An angel's nature bears the impress of all creatures. All that angelic nature can receive is summed up in him. Whatever God chooses to create his angels entertain on penalty of missing the perfection which belongs to other creatures.

St Augustine says: What God creates has a channel through the angels on high, where on the hill-tops everything is flourishing, where creatures are all fresh and green. Falling into time they droop and fade. Among the young green of all creatures there our Lord pastures his sheep. Creatures which flourish on these verdant heights are, as existing in the angels, more grateful to the soul than all the things of this world. The vilest of creatures as it is there, is to this world as day to night.

Whoever would be taught by God has to ascend this mountain; there God will perfect them in the day of eternity when the light is full. What I perceive in God is light; what touches creatures is darkness. The true light has no contact with creatures. Spiritual perception is light. St John says, 'God is the true light that shineth in the darkness.' What is the darkness? In the first place; independence, detachment: being blind and unaware of creatures. As I have frequently said; to see God we have to be blind. Again, God is the light which shines in the darkness. He is the blinding light. That is, light incomprehensible, illimitable, that knows no end. Its blinding the soul means that she knows nothing, is aware of nothing. The third darkness is best of all: there is no light. A master says, 'Heaven has no light, it is too high up for that; it does not shine and in itself is neither hot nor cold.' In this darkness the soul has lost all light, she has outgrown what we call light and colour.

A philosopher says: 'Light is the Supreme, God's promised land.' A philosopher says, 'The realization of every desire is brought to the soul in this light.' A philosopher says: 'There never was anything subtile enough to enter the ground of the soul but God only.' Meaning to say: God shines in that darkness where the soul transcends all light. For what though her powers are open to sweetness and light and grace yet into the ground of the soul she lets nothing but absolute God. Whatever besides of sweetness and light proceeds from him she receives merely into her powers.

According to our best authorities the powers of the soul and she herself are one: fire and fire-light are one, and where it (light) changes to reason it changes to another nature. Where intellect issues from the soul it invents another nature. Thirdly, the light of lights where soul transcends all light is on the mountain summit where no light exists. Where God breaks out into his Son is not where the soul hangs from. Where God is proceeding, we knowing God somewhat, is not where the soul is suspended, it is infinitely higher up than that; she transcends light and knowledge completely. He says, 'I will deliver them and will gather them together and bring them into their own land where I will lead them into green pastures (upon the mountain of Israel).' Upon this mountain he opened his mouth. One doctor says: 'Our Lord opens his mouth here below leading us by the scriptures and by means of creatures.' But St Paul says, 'Now hath God spoken to us in his only-begotten Son in whom I know from the least to the greatest all at once in God.' May we out-grow whatever is not God. So help us God.