the mediæval doctrine of deification. This is the _intellectus agens_,
or [Greek: nous poiêtikos], which began its long history in
Aristotle (_De Anima_, iii. 5). Aristotle there distinguishes two forms
of Reason, which are related to each other as form and matter. Reason
_becomes_ all things, for the matter of anything is potentially the
whole class to which it belongs; but Reason also _makes_ all things,
that is to say, it communicates to things those categories by which
they become objects of thought. This higher Reason is separate and
impassible ([Greek: chôristos kai amigês kai apathês]); it is
eternal and immortal; while the passive reason perishes with the body.
The creative Reason is immanent both in the human mind and in the
external world; and thus only is it possible for the mind to know
things. Unfortunately, Aristotle says very little more about his
[Greek: nous poiêtikos], and does not explain how the two Reasons
are related to each other, thereby leaving the problem for his
successors to work out. The most fruitful attempt to form a consistent
theory, on an idealistic basis, out of the ambiguous and perhaps
irreconcilable statements in the _De Anima_, was made by Alexander of
Aphrodisias (about 200 A.D.), who taught that the Active Reason "is
not a part or faculty of our soul, but comes to us from without"--it
is, in fact, identified with the Spirit of God working in us. Whether
Aristotle would have accepted this interpretation of his theory may be
doubted; but the commentary of Alexander of Aphrodisias was translated
into Arabic, and this view of the Active Reason became the basis of
the philosophy of Averroes. Averroes teaches that it is possible for
the passive reason to unite itself with the Active Reason, and that
this union may be attained or prepared for by ascetic purification and
study. But he denies that the passive reason is perishable, not
wishing entirely to depersonalise man. Herein he follows, he says,
Themistius, whose views he tries to combine with those of Alexander.
Avicenna introduces a celestial hierarchy, in which the higher
intelligences shed their light upon the lower, till they reach the
Active Reason, which lies nearest to man, "a quo, ut ipse dicit,
effluunt species intelligibiles in animas nostras" (Aquinas). The
doctrine of "monopsychism" was, of course, condemned by the Church.
Aquinas makes both the Active and Passive Reason parts of the human
soul. Eckhart, as I have said in the fourth Lecture, at one period of
his teaching expressly identifies the "intellectus agens" with the
"spark," in reference to which he says that "here God's ground is my
ground, and my ground God's ground." This doctrine of the Divinity of
the ground of the soul is very like the Cabbalistic doctrine of the
Neschamah, and the Neoplatonic doctrine of [Greek: Nous] (cf.
Stöckl, vol. ii. p. 1007). Eckhart was condemned for saying, "aliquid
est in anima quod est increatum et increabile; si tota anima esset
talis, esset increata et increabilis. Hoc est intellectus." Eckhart
certainly says explicitly that "as fire turns all that it touches into
itself, so the birth of the Son of God in the soul turns us into God,
so that God no longer knows anything in us but His Son." Man thus
becomes "filius naturalis Dei," instead of only "filius adoptivus." We
have seen that Eckhart, towards the end of his life, inclined more and
more to separate the spark, the organ of Divine contemplation, from
the reason. This is, of course, an approximation to the _other_ view
of deification--that of substitution or miraculous infusion from
_without_, unless we see in it a tendency to divorce the personality
from the reason. Ruysbroek states his doctrine of the Divine spark
very clearly: "The unity of our spirit in God exists in two ways,
essentially and actively. The essential existence of the soul, _quæ
secundum æternam ideam in Deo nos sumus, itemque quam in nobis
habemus, medii ac discriminis expers est_. Spiritus Deum in nuda
natura essentialiter possidet, et spiritum Deus. Vivit namque in Deo
et Deus in ipso; et _secundum supremam sui partem_ Dei claritatem
suscipere absque medio idoneus est; quin etiam per æterni exemplaris
sui claritudinem _essentialiter ac personaliter in ipso lucentis,
secundum supremam vivacitatis suæ portionem, in divinam sese demittit
ac demergit essentiam_, ibidemque perseveranter secundum ideam manendo
æternam suam possidet beatitudinem; rursusque cum creaturis omnibus
per æternam Verbi generationem inde emanans, in esse suo creato
constituitur." The "natural union," though it is the first cause of
all holiness and blessedness, does not make us holy and blessed, being
common to good and bad alike. "Similitude" to God is the work of
grace, "quæ lux quædam deiformis est." We cannot lose the "unitas,"
but we can lose the "similitudo quæ est gratia." The highest part of
the soul is capable of receiving a perfect and immediate impression of
the Divine essence; by this "apex mentis" we may "sink into the Divine
essence, and by a new (continuous) creation return to our created
being according to the idea of God." The question whether the "ground
of the soul" is created or not is obviously a form of the question
which we are now discussing. Giseler, as I have said, holds that it
was created with the soul. Sterngassen says: "That which God has in
eternity in uncreated wise, that has the soul in time in created
wise." But the author of the _Treatise on Love_, which belongs to this
period, speaks of the spark as "the Active Reason, _which is God_."
And again, "This is the _Uncreated_ in the soul of which Master
Eckhart speaks." Suso seems to imply that he believed the ground of
the soul to be uncreated, an emanation of the Divine nature; and
Tauler uses similar language. Ruysbroek, in the last chapter of the
_Spiritual Nuptials_, says that contemplative men "see that they are
_the same simple ground as to their uncreated nature_, and are one
with the same light by which they see, and which they see." The later
German mystics taught that the Divine essence is the material
substratum of the world, the creative will of God having, so to speak,
_alienated_ for the purpose a portion of His own essence. If, then,
the created form is broken through, God Himself becomes the ground of
the soul. Even Augustine countenances some such notion when he says,
"From a good man, or from a good angel, take away 'man' or 'angel,'
and you find God." But one of the chief differences between the older
and later Mysticism is that the former regarded union with God as
achieved through the faculties of the soul, the latter as inherent in
its essence. The doctrine of _immanence_, more and more emphasised,
tended to encourage the belief that the Divine element in the soul is
not merely something potential, something which the faculties may
acquire, but is immanent and basal. Tauler mentions both views, and
prefers the latter. Some hesitation may be traced in the _Theologia
Germanica_ on this point (p. 109, "Golden Treasury" edition): "The
true light is that eternal Light which is God; _or else_ it is a
created light, but yet Divine, which is called grace." Our Cambridge
Platonists naturally revived this Platonic doctrine of deification,
much to the dissatisfaction of some of their contemporaries. Tuckney
speaks of their teaching as "a kind of moral divinity minted only with
a little tincture of Christ added. Nay, _a Platonic faith unites to
God!_" Notwithstanding such protests, the Platonists persisted that
all true happiness consists in a participation of God; and that "we
cannot enjoy God by any external conjunction with Him."
The question was naturally raised, "If man by putting on Christ's life
can get nothing more than he has already, what good will it do him?"
The answer in the _Theologia Germanica_ is as follows: "This life is
not chosen in order to serve any end, or to get anything by it, but
for love of its nobleness, and because God loveth and esteemeth it so
greatly." It is plain that any view which regards man as essentially
Divine has to face great difficulties when it comes to deal with
theodicy.
The other view of deification, that of a _substitution_ of the Divine
Will, or Life, or Spirit, for the human, cannot in history be sharply
distinguished from the theories which have just been mentioned. But
the idea of substitution is naturally most congenial to those who feel
strongly "the corruption of man's heart," and the need of deliverance,
not only from our ghostly enemies, but from the tyranny of self. Such
men feel that there must be a _real_ change, affecting the very depths
of our personality. Righteousness must be imparted, not merely
imputed. And there is a death to be died as well as a life to be
lived. The old man must die before the new man, which is "not I but
Christ," can be born in us. The "birth of God (or Christ) in the soul"
is a favourite doctrine of the later German mystics. Passages from the
fourteenth century writers have been quoted in my fourth and fifth
Lectures. The following from Giseler may be added: "God will be born,
not in the Reason, not in the Will, but in the most inward part of the
essence, and all the faculties of the soul become aware thereof.
Thereby the soul passes into mere passivity, and lets God work." They
all insist on an immediate, substantial, personal indwelling, which is
beyond what Aquinas and the Schoolmen taught. The Lutheran Church
condemns those who teach that only the gifts of God, and not God
Himself, dwell in the believer; and the English Platonists, as we have
seen, insist that "an infant Christ" is really born in the soul. The
German mystics are equally emphatic about the annihilation of the old
man, which is the condition of this indwelling Divine life. In
quietistic (Nominalist) Mysticism the usual phrase was that the will
(or, better, "self-will") must be utterly destroyed, so that the
Divine Will may take its place. But Crashaw's "leave nothing of myself
in me," represents the aspiration of the later Catholic Mysticism
generally. St. Juan of the Cross says, "The soul must lose entirely
its human knowledge and human feelings, in order to receive Divine
knowledge and Divine feelings"; it will then live "as it were outside
itself," in a state "more proper to the future than to the present
life." It is easy to see how dangerous such teaching may be to weak
heads. A typical example, at a much earlier date, is that of Mechthild
of Hackeborn (about 1240). It was she who said, "My soul swims in the
Godhead like a fish in water!" and who believed that, in answer to her
prayers, God had so united Himself with her that she saw with His
eyes, and heard with His ears, and spoke with His mouth. Many similar
examples might be found among the mediæval mystics.
Between the two ideas of essentialisation and of substitution comes
that of gradual _transformation_, which, again, cannot in history be
separated from the other two. It has the obvious advantage of not
regarding deification as an _opus operatum_, but as a process, as a
hope rather than a fact. A favourite maxim with mystics who thought
thus, was that "love changes the lover into the beloved." Louis of
Granada often recurs to this thought.
The best mystics rightly see in the doctrine of the Divinity of Christ
the best safeguard against the extravagances to which the notion of
deification easily leads. Particularly instructive here are the
warnings which are repeated again and again in the _Theologia
Germanica_. "The false light dreameth itself to be God, and taketh to
itself what belongeth to God as God is in eternity without the
creature. Now, God in eternity is without contradiction, suffering,
and grief, and nothing can hurt or vex Him. But with God when He is
made man it is otherwise." "Therefore the false light thinketh and
declareth itself to be above all works, words, customs, laws, and
order, and above that life which Christ led in the body which He
possessed in His holy human nature. So likewise it professeth to
remain unmoved by any of the creature's works; whether they be good or
evil, against God or not, is all alike to it; and it keepeth itself
apart from all things, like God in eternity; and all that belongeth to
God and to no creature it taketh to itself, and vainly dreameth that
this belongeth to it." "It doth not set up to be Christ, but the
eternal God. And this is because Christ's life is distasteful and
burdensome to nature, therefore it will have nothing to do with it;
but to be God in eternity and not man, or to be Christ as He was after
His resurrection, is all easy and pleasant and comfortable to nature,
and so it holdeth it to be best."
These three views of the manner in which we may hope to become
"partakers of the Divine nature," are all aspects of the truth. If we
believe that we were made in the image of God, then in becoming like
Him we are realising our true idea, and entering upon the heritage
which is ours already by the will of God. On the other hand, if we
believe that we have fallen very far from original righteousness, and
have no power of ourselves to help ourselves, then we must believe in
a deliverance from _outside_, an acquisition of a righteousness not
our own, which is either imparted or imputed to us. And, thirdly, if
we are to hope for a real change in our relations to God, there must
be a real change _in_ our personality,--a progressive transmutation,
which without breach of continuity will bring us to be something
different from what we were. The three views are not mutually
exclusive. As Vatke says, "The influence of Divine grace does not
differ from the immanent development of the deepest Divine germ of
life in man, only that it here stands over-against man regarded as a
finite and separate being--as something external to himself. If the
Divine image is the true nature of man, and if it only possesses
reality in virtue of its identity with its type or with the Logos,
then there can be no true self-determination in man which is not at
the same time a self-determination of the type in its image." We
cannot draw a sharp line between the operations of our own personality
and those of God in us. Personality escapes from all attempts to limit
and define it. It is a concept which stretches into the infinite, and
therefore can only be represented to thought symbolically. The
personality must not be identified with the "spark," the "Active
Reason," or whatever we like to call the highest part of our nature.
Nor must we identify it with the changing _Moi_ (as Fénelon calls it).
The personality, as I have said in Lecture I. (p. 33), is both the
end--the ideal self, and the changing _Moi_, and yet neither. If
either thesis is held divorced from its antithesis, the thought ceases
to be mystical. The two ideals of self-assertion and self-sacrifice
are both true and right, and both, separately, unattainable. They are
opposites which are really necessary to each other. I have quoted from
Vatke's attempt to reconcile grace and free-will: another extract from
a writer of the same school may perhaps be helpful. "In the growth of
our experience," says Green, "an animal organism, which has its
history in time, gradually becomes the vehicle of an eternally
complete consciousness. What we call our mental history is not a
history of this consciousness, which in itself can have no history,
but a history of the process by which the animal organism becomes its
vehicle. 'Our consciousness' may mean either of two things: either a
function of the animal organism, which is being made, gradually and
with interruptions, a vehicle of the eternal consciousness; or that
eternal consciousness itself, as making the animal organism its
vehicle and subject to certain limitations in so doing, but retaining
its essential characteristic as independent of time, as the
determinant of becoming, which has not and does not itself become. The
consciousness which varies from moment to moment ... is consciousness
in the former sense. It consists in what may properly be called
phenomena.... The latter consciousness ... constitutes our knowledge"
(_Prolegomena to Ethics_, pp. 72, 73). Analogous is our _moral_
history. But no Christian can believe that our life, mental or moral,
is or ever can be _necessary_ to God in the same sense in which He is
necessary to our existence. For practical religion, the symbol which
we shall find most helpful is that of a progressive transformation of
our nature after the pattern of God revealed in Christ; a process
which has as its end a real union with God, though this end is, from
the nature of things, unrealisable in time. It is, as I have said in
the body of the Lectures, a _progessus ad infinitum_, the consummation
of which we are nevertheless entitled to claim as already ours in a
transcendental sense, in virtue of the eternal purpose of God made
known to us in Christ.
APPENDIX D
The Mystical Interpretation Of The Song Of Solomon
The headings to the chapters in the Authorised Version give a sort of
authority to the "mystical" interpretation of Solomon's Song, a poem
which was no doubt intended by its author to be simply a romance of
true love. According to our translators, the Lover of the story is
meant for Christ, and the Maiden for the Church. But the tendency of
Catholic Mysticism has been to make the individual soul the bride of
Christ, and to treat the Song of Solomon as symbolic of "spiritual
nuptials" between Him and the individual "contemplative." It is this
latter notion, the growth of which I wish to trace.
Erotic Mysticism is no part of Platonism. That "sensuous love of the
unseen" (as Pater calls it), which the Platonist often seems to aim
at, has more of admiration and less of tenderness than the emotion
which we have now to consider. The notion of a spiritual marriage
between God and the soul seems to have come from the Greek Mysteries,
through the Alexandrian Jews and Gnostics. Representations of
"marriages of gods" were common at the Mysteries, especially at those
of the least reputable kind (cf. Lucian, _Alexander_, 38). In other
instances the ceremony of initiation was made to resemble a marriage,
and the [Greek: mystês] was greeted with the words [Greek: chaire,
nymphie]. And among the Jews of the first century there existed a
system of Mysteries, probably copied from Eleusis. They had their
greater and their lesser Mysteries, and we hear that among their
secret doctrines was "marriage with God." In Philo we find strange and
fantastic speculations on this subject. For instance, he argues that
as the Bible does not mention Abraham, Jacob, and Moses as [Greek:
gnôrizontas tas gynaikas], we are meant to believe that their children
were not born naturally. But he allegorises the women of the
Pentateuch in such a way ([Greek: logô men eisi gynaikes, ergô de
aretai]) that it is difficult to say what he wishes us to believe in a
literal sense. The Valentinian Gnostics seem to have talked much of
"spiritual marriage," and it was from them that Origen got the idea of
elaborating the conception. But, curiously enough, it is Tertullian
who first argues that the body as well as the soul is the bride of
Christ. "If the soul is the bride," he says, "the flesh is the dowry"
(_de Resurr._ 63). Origen, however, really began the mischief in his
homilies and commentary on the Song of Solomon. The prologue of the
commentary in Rufinus commences as follows: "Epithalamium libellus
hic, id est nuptiale carmen, dramatis in modum mihi videtur a Salomone
conscriptus, quem cecinit instar nubentis sponsæ, et erga sponsum suum
qui est sermo Dei cælesti amore flagrantis. Adamavit enim eum _sive
anima_, quæ ad imaginem eius facta est, sive ecclesia." Harnack says
that Gregory of Nyssa exhibits the conception in its purest and most
attractive form in the East, and adds, "We can point to very few Greek
Fathers in whom the figure does not occur." (There is a learned note
on the subject by Louis de Leon, which corroborates this statement of
Harnack. He refers to Chrysostom, Theodoret, Irenæus, Hilary, Cyprian,
Augustine, Tertullian, Ignatius, Gregory of Nyssa, Cyril, Leo,
Photius, and Theophylact as calling Christ the bridegroom of souls.)
In the West, we find it in Ambrose, less prominently in Augustine and
Jerome. Dionysius seizes on the phrase of Ignatius, "My love has been
crucified," to justify erotic imagery in devotional writing.
Bernard's homilies on the Song of Solomon gave a great impetus to this
mode of symbolism; but even he says that the Church and not the
individual is the bride of Christ. There is no doubt that the enforced
celibacy and virginity of the monks and nuns led them, consciously or
unconsciously, to transfer to the human person of Christ (and to a
much slighter extent, to the Virgin Mary) a measure of those feelings
which could find no vent in their external lives. We can trace this,
in a wholesome and innocuous form, in the visions of Juliana of
Norwich. Quotations from Ruysbroek's _Spiritual Nuptials_, and from
Suso, bearing on the same point, are given in the body of the
Lectures. Good specimens of devotional poetry of this type might be
selected from Crashaw and Quarles. (A few specimens are included in
Palgrave's _Golden Treasury of Sacred Song_.) Fénelon's language on
the subject is not quite so pleasing; it breathes more of
sentimentality than of reverence. The contemplative, he says, desires
"une simple présence de Dieu purement amoureuse," and speaks to Christ
always "comme l'épouse à l'époux."
The Sufis or Mohammedan mystics use erotic language very freely, and
appear, like true Asiatics, to have attempted to give a sacramental or
symbolic character to the indulgence of their passions. From this
degradation the mystics of the cloister were happily free; but a
morbid element is painfully prominent in the records of many mediæval
saints, whose experiences are classified by Ribet. He enumerates--(1)
"Divine touches," which Scaramelli defines as "real but purely
spiritual sensations, by which the soul feels the intimate presence of
God, and tastes Him with great delight"; (2) "The wound of love," of
which one of his authorities says, "hæc poena tam suavis est quod
nulla sit in hac vita delectatio quæ magis satisfaciat." It is to this
experience that Cant. ii. 5 refers: "Fulcite me floribus, stipate me
malis, quia amore langueo." Sometimes the wound is not purely
spiritual: St. Teresa, as was shown by a post-mortem examination, had
undergone a miraculous "transverberation of the heart": "et pourtant
elle survécut près de vingt ans à cette blessure mortelle"! (3)
Catherine of Siena was betrothed to Christ with a ring, which remained
always on her fingers, though visible to herself alone. Lastly, in the
revelations of St. Gertrude we read: "Feria tertia Paschæ dum
communicatura desideraret a Domino ut per idem sacramentum vivificum
renovare dignaretur in anima eius matrimonium spirituale quod ipsi in
spiritu erat desponsata per fidem et religionem, necnon per virginalis
pudicitiæ integritatem, Dominus blanda serenitate respondit: hoc,
inquiens, indubitanter faciam. Sic inclinatus ad eam blandissimo
affectu eam ad se stringens osculum prædulce animæ eius infixit," etc.
The employment of erotic imagery to express the individual relation
between Christ and the soul is always dangerous; but this objection
does not apply to the statement that "the Church is the bride of
Christ." Even in the Old Testament we find the chosen people so spoken
of (cf. Isa. liv. 5; Jer. iii. 14). Professor Cheyne thinks that the
Canticles were interpreted in this sense, and that this is why the
book gained admission into the Canon. In the New Testament, St. Paul
uses the symbol of marriage in Rom. vii. 1-4; 1 Cor. xi. 3; Eph. v.
23-33. On the last passage Canon Gore says: "The love of Christ--the
removal of obstacles to His love by atoning sacrifice--the act of
spiritual purification--the gradual sanctification--the consummated
union in glory; these are the moments of the Divine process of
redemption, viewed from the side of Christ, which St. Paul specifies."
This use of the "sacrament" of marriage (as a symbol of the mystical
union between Christ and the Church), which alone has the sanction of
the New Testament, is one which, we hope, the Church will always
treasure. The more personal relation also exists, and the fervent
devotion which it elicits must not be condemned; though we are forced
to remember that in our mysteriously constituted minds the highest and
lowest emotions lie very near together, and that those who have chosen
a life of detachment from earthly ties must be especially on their
guard against the "occasional revenges" which the lower nature, when
thwarted, is always plotting against the higher.