The twofold way: Christ's manhood and Christ's Godhead

Ego sum via, veritas et vita, 'I am the way, the truth and the life,' says our Lord Jesus Christ. Pay special attention to the words, 'I am the way.' We can understand Christ as the way in two senses: according to his humanity and according to his Godhead. His humanity was the way for our own humanity. We have to follow it, both the whole counsel of perfection and its parts. If even one of our members strays from the way of his example, we are disfigured by it. St Paul says we ought to live so that God may find in us the perfect reflection of all his divine works, that is, we must copy the model he has set before us. That is true spiritual life. But this is badly hindered by many faults, mainly by the many inner failings that come from the powers of our soul being out of order. The soul's joy should be so fixed on its proper work that nothing created can gladden it, only the fact that its conscience is clear. As Christ said to his disciples, 'Do not rejoice in anything except this, that your names are written in the book of life.' And the soul's fear should be so well mastered that it fears nothing under God, neither for itself nor for its possessions, nor anything that might be done to it by God or by any creature. And the same holds for the other powers, desire and thought. In short, the whole soul has to be gathered up into the undivided simplicity of its will, and its will must fly to the highest good and fasten itself there. But St Paul says, 'He who is joined to God becomes one spirit with him.'

See Pfeiffer, Zeitschrift fur deutsches Altertum, vol. 8 (2), 1850, and Preger, Zeitschrift fur historische Theologie, vol. 34, 1864 (two versions). Also Jostes, nos. 18 and 19. For authorship see Preger's Geschichte, vol. 1, p. 318.

See how rich the spirit becomes once it is made one spirit with God. Nothing can enrich it, even though it has power over all things. For things are necessities, while its riches lie in dwelling in a nature above the need for creatures. The one who has nothing and needs nothing is richer than the one who possesses everything out of necessity. St Paul says, 'Our sufficiency is from God alone, whose competent ministers we are.'

Nor do the virtues enrich the spirit. The doctors say that, properly speaking, it is not the virtues that enrich the spirit but the fruit of the virtues. The soul has virtues out of necessity. But since virtues are a necessity, the spirit is not enriched by them as such. The most a spirit can reach in this body is to dwell in a state beyond the need for virtues, where goodness as a whole comes naturally to it, so that it does not merely have virtues but virtue is part of what it is: it is virtuous not from necessity but from its own good nature. Having reached this, the soul has passed through and beyond all need for virtues; they are now inside her. Now she has reached the goal that the virtues only pointed toward, namely the pouring in of the Holy Spirit. This is the fruit of virtue, and this alone is what enriches the spirit. Of this St Paul says, 'Put on the new man, Christ,' who in this way was our way.

The other way is the way of his Godhead.

What way does the Godhead have, and where can it go, since it is everywhere? And by what means does it go, since it has no feet or anything bodily?

The way of the Godhead is the unity in which the three Persons run together into one essence. The Persons' going consists in their mutual knowing and loving, each knowing and loving itself in the others. In this way the Persons walk together in unity.

The feet by which the Godhead enters the Persons, and the Persons enter the essence, are these: one foot of the Godhead is foresight of all things, the other is delight in the things eternally foreseen, for God eternally enjoys, in his own way, the contingency of things. This refers to the eternal image. He enjoys only the good in all things: the image of all things, which is God himself.

One might ask, what delight does God enjoy?

All things must please him, because the one who saw was God, and what he saw was likewise God. In their eternal image, which is God himself, God saw himself and saw all things together. God enjoyed himself, God being, in himself, the one alone. The soul sees her undivided idea in God, which has never come out of him. Her manifold image does this, and the completion of her spirit lies in reducing whatever has been created in her here to the nothing of its eternal pattern. God is the origin of the spirit, and the spirit never rests until it returns to its origin, to its eternal pattern. In its essence this pattern is God, and so it always escapes the spirit, which is never quite able to grasp it. Yet the spirit senses how it has been in God from eternity, apart from itself, and the greatest bliss the spirit knows is to fall back into its origin, into its eternal image, where, as a self, it is lost entirely. There the spirit loses its activity, not its being. The essence of the Godhead draws the spirit out of itself into itself, making it like itself, so that now there seems to be only one essence. It is as if I took the blood of a serpent, which is very red, and poured it into a clear glass: the glass would lose its appearance, not its substance. So in this union the divine light shines into the spirit and outshines it, and the spirit shines with the same light. The spirit loses its appearance, not its substance, for God has drawn the spirit out and joined it to himself. Even so, the spirit in this union can never fathom the depths of the Godhead. St Paul found this out when, caught up into the third heaven, he saw things that could not be spoken, were not even permitted to be spoken, and cried out, 'O the depth of the riches of wisdom and knowledge, how unsearchable are your judgments and how untraceable your ways.' God's riches consist in having nothing and being nothing that can be put into words. His wisdom consists in the good ordering of things. God's knowledge is his own understanding of himself in his supernal light. Of this St Dionysius says, 'The light God dwells in is his own nature, known to no one but himself.' This is the highway of the Godhead, which no creature has ever walked. Of it God spoke through his prophet: 'As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways.' St Augustine says there is nothing more difficult and more demanding, and at the same time nothing more useful and healthy for the soul, than venturing into the knowledge of the holy Trinity and unity.

Mark well, then, the meaning of the Persons and the essence.

What is a Person in the Trinity?

A Person is that which keeps its own rational distinctness apart from any other distinct Person. One Person is not another. The work of the Persons consists in the begetting and the bringing forth of things. Begetting belongs to the Father alone; bringing forth of things belongs to the Trinity together.

What is the essence of the three Persons in the Trinity?

It is that which, being undivided, contains all things undividedly, while in itself, as essence, it neither generates nor produces anything. That is done by the three Persons, who activate the essence, for without them it could do nothing. Even so the Persons do not act as three; they work as one God.

What is the potentiality of the essence?

The potentiality of the essence lies in not being a rational Person, in remaining in its own unity. This same essence is the inherent nature of the Persons and the being of all things. It is the existence of all existing things, the life of all living things, the light of lights, and the nature of natures, all this in its undividedness. The Persons, however, are not the personhood of things the way essence is the essence of all things. The Father cannot be anyone's Person but his own. He brought forth another Person out of his Person, not out of his essence, with his nature in his nature. That the Father was able to produce a Son so rare, so completely like himself, a God as perfect as himself, is due to his inherent nature. When he begets the Son, the Father gives him another Person than his own Person, but not another nature or another essence than his own. It follows that the essence is revealed in the coming forth of the Persons. The Persons are able to reveal the essence, which cannot reveal itself on its own, since in itself, as essence, it neither begets nor bears. This powerlessness of the essence is its chief potentiality, yet it is revealed to itself.

The Persons know and understand the essence equally. The essence stands in the same relation to all the Persons. Now theologians debate whether or not personhood has basic knowledge and understanding of the essence, given that the essence is understood only by essence.

The Persons have basic knowledge and understanding of the essence because this is the Persons' own inherent nature. Further, the essence is not understood in full except by the three Persons, whose nature it is. The Persons understand the essence fully; they are God in Person by reason of their understanding of his essence, which is their own inherent nature. And to the extent that the soul understands this essence, she too is divine. Though what she understands of it is no bigger than a drop compared to the whole boundless ocean, it is still God entire. The surplus good that always escapes her grasp is the shadowy depth into which, having lost herself, she sinks forever.

One might ask, why is there not one Person as there is one essence? I answer that existing things do not exist from themselves. In eternity they come down from an origin that is the origin of itself, and in time they were created out of nothing by the blessed Trinity. Their eternal origin is the Father, and the universal image in him is the Son; the love directed to this same image is the Holy Spirit. If this pattern of all things had not always been in the Father, the Father could never have made anything at all, that is, within his own modeless essence. There must be more than one Person, because it was in the eternal procession, that is, in the begetting of the Son, that all things as a whole flowed out from the Father and not from themselves. This eternal procession is the cause of things on their eternal side, but in time they were created from nothing, and in this sense they are creatures. In the eternal procession, where they flowed forth without stepping outside themselves, they are God in God. For as St Dionysius says, the First Cause generates all things in its own likeness.

Now note the difference between this flowing forth in eternity and in time. What is the flowing forth in time? It is the outpouring of his love in clear distinction. So we come forth into time under the pull of his love. The eternal procession is the revealing of himself to himself, the knower being the same as what is known. This is the eternal flow, no drop of which has ever fallen into any created mind; it is the Son from the Father. In the flowing forth in time, things came forth finite. In the eternal flowing forth, they remain infinite. The flow keeps flowing within itself. As St Dionysius puts it, 'God is a fountain flowing into itself.'

The Father is the origin of his Son in his eternal begetting; the Father and the Son are the origin of their Spirit in the eternal outpouring. But someone might ask, what about the Father's nature? Is it the cause of the essence, or is the essence the cause of the fatherhood?

What comes next needs careful thought. Essence as essence neither gives nor takes. Now if the essence were the origin of the Father, then the essence, being a parent, would not be essence, it would be Person. But that is not so, for essence in its unity is not Person. Again, if fatherhood were the origin of essence, the cause of this would be the fatherly Person. But that is not so either. The Father as Person is a cause, but not a cause of essence, for fatherhood and essence share the same character. That is why, in his fatherhood, he is the all-powerful cause. The essence cannot exist apart from Person, nor can Person exist apart from nature, as you can see. Nothing that exists can be without its own nature, since it cannot step outside itself; it must be what it is. Now the Father is a Person, and he cannot be a Person without a nature, nor can his nature exist without a Person. Given his nature, there must be someone whose nature it is. Note then that the essence can in no way

exist without distinction and hypostasis. Person and hypostasis can in no way exist without their nature, that is, their essence.

So it is shown that neither is the essence the cause of fatherhood nor fatherhood the cause of the essence, for neither can exist without the other. The Son cannot exist without the Father, nor the Father without the Son, nor the two without the Holy Spirit, even though they have three properties that distinguish them from one another. It is not so with fatherhood and essence. Neither of these can exist without the other. For even though essence is not Person and Person is not essence, yet fatherhood and essence share the same nature, so that neither can be said to be the source of the other. For it is with one and the same nature that the Father brings forth his Son, and these two bring forth their Spirit, who is of one nature with them both.

All honor to the exalted spirit that is received into this full, naked knowledge, which is unknown to those who are not naked of themselves. For the soul to be naked, she must turn away from all the images and forms spread out before her and not stop at any of them. For the divine nature is no form or likeness that she can grasp with understanding. By turning away from these toward what lies beyond them, that is, by parting from images and forms, the soul receives the likeness of the formless nature of God, whose true form has never been revealed to any creature. This is the secret door into the divine nature, which the soul has within the image. For when the soul has nothing left to hold her back, she is ready to pass into the image of God, which no one can reach unless stripped of all spiritual matter. Alas, how they block this secret passage, those who so easily settle for temporal things. Here too I acknowledge my own wretchedness. In this spirit St. Dionysius urged his disciples, saying, 'If you would know the hidden mystery of God, go beyond whatever stands in the way of your pure perception.' When, with her pure intellect now lit by divine light, the naked soul sees God, then she knows herself. And when she sees how fitted she is to him, how she belongs to him and how the two of them are one, then, so far as the burden of the body allows, she remains in this state always. This high awareness the soul has of the hidden mystery of God is what Job speaks of: 'In the terror of a vision by night he comes and whispers in the ears of men.' What does he mean by the terror? The deep concern for this perception we are speaking of. The night vision is the uncovering of the hidden truth. And the whispering is the flowing union in which knower and known are one.

This book is difficult and obscure to many people. Do not publish it, I ask you, for God's sake, for I was forbidden to do so. If anyone condemns it, truly that is the fault of his own blindness, for it is the plain truth. But if there are things in it badly expressed, do not willfully misread them, for words fail when speaking of the divine nature. Its meaning is clear in the truth that is with Christ and in Christ. For this may he be blessed and praised forever. Amen.