The nobility of the soul

THE NOBILITY OF THE SOUL

Whosoever would attain to the summit of his noble nature and to the vision of the sovran good, which is God himself, must have profoundest knowledge of himself and of things above himself. Thus he reaches the supreme. Beloved, learn to know thyself, it shall profit thee more than any craft of creatures. How to know thyself, of this now learn two ways.

First, see that thy outward senses are properly controlled. Reflect, as regards these outward senses, that to the eye evil presents itself no less than good. The ear is importuned by one as well as the other and so with the other senses. Wherefore it behoves thee strictly to confine thyself and with all diligence to those things which are good. So much for the outward senses.

Now turn to the inward senses or noble powers of the soul, lower and higher. Take the lower powers first. These are intermediate between the higher powers and the outward senses. They are excited by the outward senses: what the eye sees, what the ear hears, they offer forthwith to desire. This offers it again, in the ordinary course, to the second power, called judgment, which considers it and once more passes it on to the third power, reckoning or reason. In this way it is clarified before it arrives at the higher faculties. So exalted is the power of the soul that she can seize it minus form or image and carry it in this state up into her higher powers. Here it is stored in the memory, mastered in the intellect and consummated in the will. These are the superior powers of the soul and they are one in nature. What the soul does is done by this simple nature in her powers.

Now it may be asked, What is this nature of the soul? -- It is the consciousness (the spark or synteresis) in the soul, that is the impartible nature of the soul. So subtile is this nature of the soul that space might not exist at all for all it troubles her. For instance, if one has a friend a thousand leagues away, thither flows the soul with the best part of her powers, loving her friend there. St Augustine testifies to this. He says, 'The soul is where she loves rather than where she is giving life.' The simple nature of the soul is in no way hampered by place. So much for the nature of the soul.

Next consider her higher powers, so orderly appointed, so admirably adapted to their several functions albeit of one nature. Memory is the power of storing up what the other powers bring in, that is its function. -- The second power is understanding. This is so exalted that in its understanding of the highest good, God namely, all the other powers must subserve it to the best of their ability. -- The third faculty is will. It is lordly enough to bid what it will and forbid what it will not; from things it does not will it is altogether free. So much for the superior powers of the soul and the role assigned to each.

Doctors dispute as to whether understanding is the nobler or the will. The position is this. Understanding sees things beyond this mundane level, that is its prerogative. But to will alone are all things possible. As St Paul declares, 'I can do all things in God who strengtheneth me.' When understanding comes to the end of its tether, up soars the will transcendent in the light and power of faith. Here will surpasses understanding. This is the prerogative of will. But mind you, though the will is free to do and leave undone exactly as it will, this upward flight is not achieved by its own power alone: help comes from the other powers and from faith as well. What help we shall now see. The powers have in common their impartible nature, and to this is due the transcension of the will. The other powers are the cause of this transcension in virtue of identity of nature. That is one help.

Then comes the question, which is the power in the psychic trinity wherein faith first appears? -- The middle one: it springs from understanding but it is fortified in will and will is fortified by faith. Thus the light of faith contributes to this ascent of will. That is the second help. And of still another it remains to tell. Intellect projects itself to hear and understand. It analyses, orders, synthesises. But even when working to perfection, always there is something on beyond which it cannot penetrate and which it recognises as belonging to a higher order. This it communicates to will, in their common nature, not in its individual capacity. This communication gives will an upward swing which displaces it into that higher order -- always in their common nature. Here understanding is superior to will. But to will as individual a certain superiority belongs at the summit of its nature where it receives from the highest good, from very God. -- What does it receive? -- It receives grace and in grace the highest good itself. What soul receives she receives willingly or not at all. Not that will as such receives this light: to receive is not its part; but by the grace of the sovran good the other powers are strengthened in their common nature. This light is kindled in that second power, in the Holy Ghost. It is in this light that all works are wrought in the soul. As Isaias says, 'All our works are wrought by God.' This light is gracious light, and any light outside this light is the light of nature. It is a sure sign of this light when of his own free will a person turns from mortal things to the highest good, God namely. We are in duty bound to love him for conferring on the soul such great perfection. When she has reached her limit of endeavour then will as such is free to leap over to that gnosis which is God himself. A somersault which lands the soul at the summit of her power. A marvel, truly, God has made from naught in the image of himself!

See now how the soul rises to sovran rank and to the zenith of her power. One master says, God is conveyed into the soul and there implanted. Whence there arises in the soul a divine love-spring which bears the soul back into God. Mark how. According to one holy man, 'Whatever we can say of God, that God is not.' According to another, 'Whatever we can say of God, God is.' And an eminent authority declares that both are right. With these three holy men even so I say, that when with her own understanding the soul receives divine understanding it is offered forthwith to her will. Will accepting it grows one with what it has accepted and finally takes it and puts it away in the memory. Thus God is conveyed and implanted in the soul. Then as to the divine love-spring. This overflowing in the soul causes her higher powers to flood the lower ones and the lower ones flood the outward man who, borne above all nether things, is incapable save of what is spiritual. As the spirit works by divine energy even so the outward man is driven by the spirit.

Oh wonder of wonders! When I think of the union of the soul with God! He makes the soul to flow out of herself in joyful ecstasy, for no named things content her. And since she is herself a nature named therefore she fails to content herself. The divine love-spring surges over the soul sweeping her out of herself into the unnamed being in her original source, for that is all God is. Creatures have given him names, but in himself he is nameless essence. Thus the soul arrives at the height of her perfection.

Further as concerns the noble nature of the soul. St Augustine says, 'As with God so with the soul.' Had God not made the soul in the likeness of himself, to be God by grace, she could never be God above grace. Her likeness to the pattern of the blessed Trinity we see by comparing her with God.

God is threefold in Person and onefold in his nature. God is in all places and in each place whole. In other words, all places are the place of God. And the same with her. God has prevision of all things and everything is pictured in his providence. This is natural to God. And also to the soul. She too is threefold in her powers and simple in her nature. She too exists in all her members and in each member whole. So that all her members are the place of the soul. She too has foresight and imagines such things as she is able. To anything that we can predicate of God, soul has a certain likeness. Or, in the words of St Augustine, 'Like God like the soul.' God has endowed the soul with his own likeness which did she not possess she could not be God by grace nor above grace either; whereas in this likeness she is able to attain to being God by grace and also above grace. And she must equal him in divine love and divine activity. So much for the soul as being God by grace.

The soul who abides in this perfect likeness and in this noble nature God has given her, and at the same time rises to higher rank and higher, to her, what time she leaves the body, and at that very point, eternal life is open and in the opening she is encompassed with divine light, and enveloped in this divine light she is absorbed and transformed into God. Now each of the powers of the soul is endowed with the likeness of a divine Person: will receives the likeness of the Holy Ghost; understanding receives the likeness of the Son; memory the likeness of the Father and (her nature the likeness of the) divine nature withal remaining undivided. -- That is as far as I can understand it.

In the third place let us see how the soul becomes God above grace. What God has given her is changeless for she has reached a height where she has no further need of grace. In this exalted state she has lost her proper self and is flowing full-flood into the unity of the divine nature. But what, you may ask, is the fate of this lost soul: does she find herself or not? My answer is, it seems to me that she does find herself and that at the point where every intelligence sees itself with itself. For though she sink all sinking in the oneness of divinity she never touches bottom. Wherefore God has left her one little point from which to get back to herself and find herself and know herself as creature. For it is of the very essence of the soul that she is powerless to plumb the depths of her creator. Henceforth I shall not speak about the soul, for she has lost her name yonder in the oneness of divine essence. There she is no more called soul: she is called infinite being.

Now I go on to speak about abstract knowledge of God. And I address myself to you, my brethren and my sisters, beloved Friends of God who are familiar with him and know something of the matter. I will start with the nomenclature of the holy Trinity. And here you will be called upon to follow an abstruse,

technical discussion. When we speak of the Father or the Son or the Holy Ghost we are speaking of the Persons. When we speak of the Godhead we are speaking of their nature. The three Persons, as Person and essence, flow with their essence into the essence wherein they are Godhead. Not that the Godhead is other than what they are themselves: they are the Godhead in their unity of nature. They flow in essence into the essence, both Person and essence, because essence is comprehended by nothing but itself. It is fast locked in stillness, comprehending itself with itself. This influx is, in the Godhead, the oneness of the three inseparate Persons. In this same flux the Father flows into the Son and the Son again into the Father (as our Lord Jesus Christ declares, He that seeth me seeth my Father. My Father is in me and I in him '), and they both flow into the Holy Ghost and the Holy Ghost back to them again. (As our Lord Jesus Christ says, I and my Father are one Spirit.') The Father utters his Son and in his Son tells forth himself to creatures as a whole, all in this flow. And the Father returning to himself speaks himself to himself: The fountain flows into itself,' as St Dionysius says. This proceeding in the Godhead is a speaking without words and without sound; a hearing without ears; a seeing without eyes. In this proceeding each Person wordlessly utters himself in the others. It is a flow where nothing flows. Compare with this the noble soul, which provides a striking likeness of this flow; for where her higher powers and her simple nature have the same property (hyparxis) they are flowing into each other, speaking themselves without word and without sound. Happy the soul who thus attains to the vision of eternal light!

But it may be questioned, what about their power? Is their power that of Person or of essence? -- I answer that, the three are one God, no one is before or after the other: all three Persons are one first in the unity of their essential nature. Hence we speak of the activity of the blessed Trinity not of their essence. This is silence. Now speech, remember, beats into silence. In this sense the Persons are the hypostasis of essence. -- But why call it a beat? -- Because it is neither a coming nor a going. In this impulse the Trinity has equal power to act and has wrought its work entirely unmoved and undisturbed.

Examine, again, the statement, the Persons are the hypostasis.' This reveals two things. From the word are we gather that each Person is distinct in the Personality. But saying the hypostasis ' argues the three Persons and one nature to possess one property. The Persons are the hypostasis of the essence since their unity and personality have like power to act. This power the holy Trinity possesses in the unity of its natural essence. There you

have the argument in full for the blessed Trinity having power in the unity of its divine nature.

Two things we attribute to God, essence and nature. -- I should much like to know the difference.' -- Essence attracts and nature is common to the Persons: they are one. -- For God's sake, Sir, explain.' -- Then follow with enlightenment, with mind attuned to the highest pitch. You see, God, whatever he is, has essence and essence is absolute stillness; it is immoveable. It speaks not, loves not, gets not; but it moves moveable things like creatures. Immoveability and motion do not represent (the divine nature) and the divine Persons: Persons and nature have one property. (Immoveability) distinguishes the essence. But what the divine nature is, of that no single drop did ever fall within the ken of any creature. According to one philosopher, God's nature is God's beauty.' And to this I add that in this same beauty there is play of light and its reflection, each Person radiant to the rest as to itself. This illumination is the perfection of beauty. -- Good. I am quite satisfied with that. But now I want to ask about the eternal Word of the Father: is it to be taken as abiding within in his essence? ' -- No. -- Is it to be taken in his Person? ' -- No. -- Then is it to be taken as being in the abstract nature of the Father? '-- St Augustine, speaking as it were in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, gives for it five analogies: I am come as a word from the heart that is spoken therefrom; I am come as the light from the sun; I am come as the heat from the fire; I am come like the fragrance of a flower; I am come like the stream from its perennial spring.' Even so is the eternal Word uttered in the Person of the Son while remaining God by nature in his nature. That is the answer.

-- Now another question. Theologians say God is in every- thing. Is God in everything in his nature? ' -- No. -- Is God in everything in Person? ' -- No. -- Then how is he in everything? ' -- As preserving their unity of nature. Persons and nature have but one property and this property is the divine essence as a whole. As such God is in all places and in each place God is all at once. For since God is impartible, all things and all places are the place of God. So everything is full of God, of his divine essence, continually.

Three things are to be noted about the divine essence. First and foremost, it is the principle preserving all things; in his divine essence God is in all things upholding them. But he is in the soul innately. Witness our Lord Jesus Christ: he was God and man. He has given us his sacred body: whoso receives it worthily receives at once the Person of the Son and divine nature; he receives human nature joined with divine nature. For he is

really present where he is worthily received. This accounts for God's loving himself in the soul.

It may be asked, how does God love himself? -- God is in all things, for he is with himself. God is with himself for love of himself. Hence God loves himself with himself in all things. -- Secondly, God is one alone; hence it is from itself not from another. Were it from another it would reveal the thing from whence it came. Not so: it is by itself in stillness so profound it cannot of itself reveal anything at all. And here it may be noted that although God is potent for good yet it may be main- tained that his greatest power is his impotence. The argument runs thus. The impartible essence of divine nature is unity. Now unity cannot reveal itself to itself. That is its impotence and this impotence is the unity itself: the unity which is God's chief potentiality. Whence also the deduction that the three Persons have like power in their natural essence. And since this cannot manifest itself therefore the three Persons have manifested it and to none more than to themselves, for it is their own essential nature. -- ^Thirdly, it unifies and embraces all things in itself and in this embrace the Father loses his name although he preserves his paternity of Person. That is one Person. And the same with the other Persons. In this embrace all is dissolved in all for all encloses all. But in itself it is self-disclosed.

Here arises the question how the first embraces all? The answer is this. Things flowed forth finite into time while abiding infinite in eternity. There they are God in God. Take an illustration. Suppose some master of the arts. If he produce a work of art he none the less preserves his arts within himself: the arts are the artist in the artist. Even so the first contains the idea of all things, which is God in God.

Then there is the question of how all things return into their first source? The answer is this. Creatures all change their names in human nature and become ennobled; in human nature they lose their own particular nature and find their way back into their cause. There are two ways of doing this. First, it is feasible for human nature to scale the heights by ghostly toil, for in spiritual travail the soul ascends to whence it came. That is one way. But there is another. The meat and drink a man consumes turns into flesh and blood. Now it is the Christian faith that this actual body will rise at the last day. Then things shall all arise, not as themselves but in him who has changed them into himself. He, spiritualised and turned to spirit, shall flow in spirit back to his first cause. From this it may be argued that every single creature has, in human nature, a stake in the eternal. Furthermore it argues the faithfulness and kindness and perfect love of God who refuses to shut out any belonging of his faithful servant: he takes him all together to himself. All embraces all, for all is one and one is all in all.

Then there is the question how the Person of the Son was sent into Mary's virgin body and took on human nature without his ever quitting the shelter of his Father's bosom? The answer is as follows: The bosom of the Father is the throne of God. The Father has given birth to his Son, is now giving him birth and shall go on giving him birth without stopping. This birth has been taking place in him for ever. At the very instant when the Son was donning human nature the Father was bringing him to birth. That is one explanation. Or take it in another way: the Son is the understanding of the Father and the architect of all things in his Father. Had this architect not wrought in his Father without ceasing the Father had not wrought at that particular point. So God's Son while taking on man's nature in Mary's body was the architect of all things in his Father. That is another explanation. Or take it, thirdly, in yet another sense. The Son has no less of the essence than the Father or the Holy Ghost, with whom he possesses it in common. And in the community of their essential nature the Son himself is the encloser. Unity is the close, the Persons what the one encloses. Each Person in the utterance keeps his individual nature. But within this close the three Persons have one nature. The Son has his nature in common with the Father and with the Holy Ghost so that as therein contained he has with them one common property. It follows that the Son has never for one instant left the Father. And herewith I conclude this threefold argument. It demonstrates conclusively that God has never waxed or waned in divine glory. -- So much of theology and of the noble lineage of the soul.

Now we will speak about the union of the soul with God. There are those who say, nothing unites the soul so much as knowledge. Others again aver the same of love. And yet a third school teaches that nothing unites like use (i.e., actual enjoyment). Now I put one question regarding these three things. What is the property of each? Each is its own peculiar property. But at the summit of its property (its nature) each of them approaches so closely to the rest that they are virtually the same: threefold yet one in nature. This, to be sure, is not strictly true, but in the higher reaches of their nature, where they are verging on each other, knowledge enhances love and love enjoyment. Each one, however, does its own appropriate work. Knowledge raises the soul to the rank of God; love unites the soul with God; use perfects the soul to God. These three transport the soul right out of time into eternity. There the spirit in perfect freedom enjoys in its origin the height of bliss. Love and the sweetness of its uses have lured forth the soul to its naked spark. What is her fortune there? All I can say is this; the glance, out of the spirit, which pierces without stop into naked Godhead; the flow, out of the Godhead, into the naked spirit, these are but one form which conforms and unites the spirit to God in form and oneness so that it receives as like from like. How spirit fares in this exalted state I know not, nor can I tell at all more than to say that the spirit is then at the summit of its power and its welfare is supreme.

Peradventure you will say, 'It is all very well to talk, my friend, but how do I arrive at this exalted state you have described?' -- See. God is what he is and what he is is mine and what is mine I love and what I love loves me and absorbs me and what absorbs me that I am rather than my own self. By loving God therefore ye may become God with God. But I will not pursue this subject further.

Now I want to say a little about the virtuous life so that you may have some guide to its attainment. Whosoever would attain to God must make him some return for all his godly works. He who would atone to God must needs possess one virtue: righteousness (or justice). This is the epitome of all the virtues. He must be bare and free within and without. What is the freedom of a godly man? Being absolutely nothing to and wanting absolutely nothing for himself but only the glory of God in all his works. Mark two degrees of freedom in the willing poor. First they abandon friends and worldly goods and honours and descend into the valley of humility. There the willing poor find outward freedom and dwell unsolaced by perishable things. Follow the scorn and bitterness of the world. Courage, my children, establish yourselves in the valley into which ye have gone down. If the sons of the world revile you waver not; stand fast in Christ remembering and acting on his words, 'The servant is not greater than his lord; if the world hate you, know, it hated me before it hated you!' Accept it all from God with hearty thanks and deem yourselves all unworthy of it; then, only then, have ye renounced yourselves.

Then again there is ghostly freedom. He is in this sense free who finds within himself no sort of sin or imperfection. More free is he who cleaves to nothing that has name nor it to him. Still freer is the man who works not for reward from God but solely for God's glory. And most free of all, one who forgets himself and flows with all he is into the bottomless abyss of his first cause. This is the case of those willing poor who have descended into Humble Valley. They verily obey the precept of our Lord, 'If any man will come after me let him take up his cross and follow me.' From such as have denied themselves to follow after God in genuine poverty how can God refrain? he must pour out his grace into those souls who thus in love have undone themselves. He pours his grace into them filling them full and in his favours he bestows himself. With his own self does God adorn the soul like gold adorned with a precious stone. Thereafter he leads on the soul to the beholding of his Godhead. In eternity this happens, not in time. Although in time she has a foretaste of it in what is here described of the virtuous life. This I have told so ye may know that none achieves the crown and summit of his nature, knowing and loving, excepting by the path of willing poverty, of being like these poor. That is for all the best.

Now praising God for his eternal goodness we pray him to receive us at the last. So help us Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen.