The Mind’s Ascent to God by a Ladder of Created ThingsTenth step. CONSIDERATION OF THE ESSENCE OF GOD BY COMPARING THE MAGNITUDE

We have ascended as far as we are able by means of created substances: but we have not yet attained to that degree of the knowledge of God which it is possible to reach by consideration, even in this vale of tears.

And so it remains for us to see whether, by the dimensions of bodily quantity which we understand, we can rise to the length and breadth and height and depth of the Essence of God: for in things created those are considered to be great whose four dimensions are great.

Now in the Psalms and elsewhere God is said to be great,' and of his greatness there is no end.'

Indeed, Saint Bernard, a remarkable contemplative, made for himself from these dimensions steps to the knowledge of God, which he wrote in his books concerning contemplation to Pope Eugenius. And he was not the first to invent ladders of this kind; he learnt this method of ascension from the Apostle who penetrated into the third heaven and into Paradise; for thus speaks the Apostle in his Epistle to the Ephesians, ‘That ye may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height.’

If any one will consider carefully, he will surely find that there is nothing complete or solid outside of God, and that everything is narrow, short, lowly, and empty, or superficial: but that in God there is true breadth, immensity; true length, eternity; true height, sublimity of nature; true depth without limit, incomprehensibility: and again true height, omnipotence; true depth, infinite wisdom; true breadth, fullest bowels of mercy; true length, discerning judgement, that is perfect righteousness.

Now, if we wish to ascend and to find what we are seeking, it is not enough for us to touch lightly on these considerations, but it behoves us to understand fully, as the Apostle says, ‘‘That ye may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height.’ That person comprehends who, considering very attentively, is altogether persuaded that he grasps the matter, and is so persuaded that he sells all his possessions and hastens to buy the treasure he has found;? and so the Apostle adds ‘with all saints.' Indeed the saints alone comprehend fully, and no one comprehends those things as he ought without becoming holy.

And what we have said agrees with the words of Saint Augustine in his letter to Honoratus. He says that the Apostle is portraying the Cross of Christ when he writes of breadth and length and height and depth; for as he himself teaches, the breadth corresponds to the transverse beam to which the hands of the Crucified were fixed: the length corresponds to the long beam to which the Body of the Crucified was fastened; the height corresponds to the portion placed at the head of the Cross, on which the title was; the depth corresponds to that part of the tree which lay hidden fixed in the ground. I say that Saint Augustine does not contradict our explanation, but rather wonderfully assists it, for the Cross of Christ is the way to attain to true breadth and length and height and depth: for though to the eyes of men the Cross may seem narrow and short and low and not very deep, yet in truth it spreads its arms from east to west, and from north to south, that is, it spread its glory far and wide by the preaching of the Apostles, and it raised its top to the highest heaven, and as a key opened it to the elect and penetrated even to the lowest depth of hell which it for ever closed to these elect.

Let us begin with the Essence and then pass on to the attributes. The Essence may well be called very wide for many reasons. First it is in itself very wide, and specially immense because it embraces all perfections of created things and also the perfections of those things which might be created, and numberless others: for whatever hath been made or will be made, or could be made, without doubt is contained in a more remarkable degree and manner in God. All other things are good with some qualification, such as a good man, a good horse, a good house, a good garment, and so of all the rest: but God is All-good: for when Moses said, * Show me thy glory,’ God answered him, ‘I will make all my goodness pass before thee.’ !

If a man possessed a thing at home which contained all objects of the senses in highest perfection, so that he never wished to leave his house in order to see or hear or smell or taste or touch elsewhere, since he had at home in that one thing a degree of pleasure as great as any man could wish for, would not that thing be something remarkably precious? But if in addition the object contained within itself such great wealth of all kinds of riches, as a man covetous beyond measure can desire, so that he had no wish to leave his house to gain something more, would not that thing be still more precious and costly?

And again, if that thing could offer to those who possessed it honours and dignities, such as the most ambitious of men can conceive, would it not seem to be beyond all price? And if that thing could fulfil the desire not only of men, but of angels, which is a matter of greater importance, since angels know more and better things than men, what wilt thou say? And yet the goodness of the thing would still be far inferior to the goodness of God, which is so great that it is able to satisfy and to fulfil the infinite longing, or rather the infinite capacity of God himself.

O admirable breadth of the perfection of the Being of God, which embraces such immensity of good that it is altogether sufficient for the infinite capacity which is in God !_ For God never goes beyond himself, since he has all good within himself: and before the world was made he was so rich and happy and afterwards was so, because God made nothing which did not always exist in himself in a higher mode.

Dost thou understand, O soul, what is the kind of good thou wilt enjoy in thy native land if thou hast loved God on the way thither? And of what kind of good thou wilt be deprived if thou hast not loved him? For God will show himself, that is, the All-good, to be enjoyed by those who love him, when he will say to the good and faithful servant, * Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.’ 1

Next, God is immense in another way, because he altogether fills all the things which are in creation: ‘Do not | fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord.’! And if there were more worlds, he would fill them all: ‘If I climb up into heaven,’ saith David, ‘thou art there: if I go down to hell, thou art there also.’? I will add also this, if I go above heaven, or beneath heaven, or beyond heaven, I shall not be alone, for thou wilt be there, and [ cannot exist unless I am in thee, and thou bearest me, thou who bearest all things along by the word of thy power.3

Not only does God fill all bodies with his immensity, but also spirits, hearts, minds: for how should he search the heart unless he was within it,4 and how should he hearken unto the prayer of our hearts 5 unless he held his ear to our hearts? And how should the prophet say, ‘I will hearken what the Lord God will say concerning me,’ ® unless God brought near his mouth to the ears of our heart?

Happy soul who loveth God, since he keepeth his beloved always beside him, cherisheth and will cherish him in his bosom: ‘He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.’7 Not only does God fill all things with his presence, but he also fills them with his glory. For the seraphim cry, ‘The whole earth is full of his glory,’8 and David adds, ‘O Lord our Governor, how excellent is thy Name in all the world: thou that hast set thy glory above the heavens’;9 as if he said: not only hath thy name, thy fame, and thy ] glory filled the whole world with wonder, but it hath ascended to heaven and is raised above the heavens. And lastly the Wise Man adds, ‘The work thereof [of the sun] is full of the glory of the Lord’;1 for there is no creature in heaven or in earth which does not eagerly praise God. And this is the reason why David in the Psalms? and the three children with Daniel 3 exhort all creatures to bless and magnify their Creator. For they knew that very many creatures were not of such a nature as to be able to hear the word of exhortation, but because they understood that all the works of God are good, and for this reason are able to praise their Maker by their own being, they congratulated them and exhorted them to do what they were doing.

And indeed, if any one possessed eyes within, he would see that all the works of the Lord are as censers sending upwards a sweet odour to the glory of God: and if he had ears within he would hear as it were a harmony of all kinds of musical instruments praising God and saying, ‘It is he that hath made us and not we ourselves.’ 4

For although there are not wanting wicked men who curse God and blaspheme his Name, yet they also, though they be unwilling, are compelled to praise the Lord in the way in which a work praises its maker: for in them also shines forth wonderfully the power of God, by which he made them, and the wisdom by which he governs them, and the goodness by which he suffers the ungrateful and preserves life to the evil, and his mercy and justice by which he ordains them rightly to punishment or mercifully awaits their repentance. Indeed many on the earth are deaf to these voices of creatures which should be heard, and yet they do not cease to cry aloud: there are not lacking innumerable ears of angels and of holy men which listen to those praises and take delight in them, and they themselves also magnify God their Creator with hymns and songs.

Now the length of the divine Essence is his eternity, which hath no beginning of duration nor will ever have an end, and will always abide the same without any change: ‘But thou art the same and thy years shall not fail,’ saith David, and so Tobit, and after him the Apostles They call God the Everlasting King, because he alone is not subject to time, but is before all ages and rules all ages, since he alone precedes all ages. Other things either have a beginning and end and never abide in one state, or they have a beginning and no ending and that without change of substance, but they can cease to exist, if it so please their Creator. And thus eternity so belongs to God alone that it is unsuitable to a created thing, and there was never a prince, however arrogant, who presumed to arrogate to himself amongst the titles, however many, which he might take, that of ‘everlasting,’ unless perchance it might be with another meaning, in the way in which Constantius was called ‘Eternal Emperor,’ because he was not emperor for a certain time, but for his life.

But, my soul, thou canst be reckoned amongst both kinds of creatures: for thou hast a body which had a beginning when it was conceived and born, and little by little grew to that size ordained for it by God: but later it begins to diminish, and a little after, dying, it ceases to exist, and thus it never remains in the same state in every part at every hour: it is subject to change. Concerning thy body, the prophet put forward this opinion under the similitude of grass: ‘They fade away suddenly like the grass. In the morning it is green and groweth up: but in the evening it is cut down, dried up, and withered.’ In the morning, that is in boyhood, the human body flourishes like the grass, but soon it passes on to youth: in the noontide of youth it flourishes and forthwith passes to old age: in the evening of old age it fails, it is cut down in death, it is withered in the grave and turns again to its dust. See therefore, O soul, how far thy body is from being eternal!

But thou wast created in time, when before thou wast nothing, and in this thou art very unlike thine eternal Maker. But being created, thou dost not perceive the end of duration, a quality which thou possessest in common with thy Creator: and because, whilst thou livest in the body, thou art changeable, thou passest from vice to virtue and from virtue to vice; and in whatever condition thou art found when thou departest from the body, in that thou wilt be judged, either to reign for ever with God, or to endure torments for ever with the devil. And so there is nothing more important for thee than to see that thou fleest vice and followest virtue.

Beware, therefore, lest thou be led by the deceit of the flesh, to the eternal harm thereof and loss to thyself: but crucify thy flesh with its affections and lusts, that after a little while not only mayst thou live for ever happy, but thy flesh also will rise again in glory and will itself abide for ever united with thee in the eternity of God.

Although the souls of other happy beings, as the holy angels, will be partakers of the eternity of God in that most sublime and happy union with him in the beatific vision and love, in a union which not only will have no end, but will be always stable and unmoved: yet in many other ways they will be able to change and vary their thoughts, their affections, and their abode: they will always wonder and rise up above themselves to the eternity of God in which there can be no change of mind or will or place; yet nothing will be lacking in this union, since it will always possess all those things which by various changes throughout eternity it could gather to itself.

Wherefore the length of eternity is an infinite thing and no less appropriate to God than the breadth of immensity.

Nature, which is the first and highest efficient cause of all things, their pattern and their end. Tue sublimity of God is next to be considered, according to which it is said to God, * Thou only art the Most Highest.’ Now God alone is most high by the nobility of his nature: for things are nobler and higher in proportion as they are purer and more withdrawn from material things. We perceive this first of all in corporeal things: for water is more noble than earth, because it is purer; and for the same reason air is more noble than water, fire than air, and the heaven than fire.

Next, we perceive it in spiritual matters: for the intellect is higher than sense, for sense has a bodily organ which the intellect does not require, and the angelic intelligence is higher than the human, since the latter needs the service of the imagination and fancy, which the former does not require; and among the angels those are the higher who by means of the fewer forms understand more things.

Therefore God, who alone is pure Act and is in need of nothing outside himself, of no instrument or imagination or form and not even the presence of any object outside himself, but his own Essence is all things to him, can have nothing which he has not always by his act, and he possesseth himself by act and his being is always a pure and simple act: and so his Nature is the very highest and most sublime and can in no way have an equal; and for this reason, that one who said, “I will be like the Most High’ was suddenly over-thrown and fell from heaven into deepest hell, as Isaiah describes, and Christ the Lord saith concerning him, ‘I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.’ ?

There is another way in which God is most High, namely that he is the first and highest efficient Cause of all things, their Pattern and their End. He is the highest efficient Cause, since there is nothing created which has in any way a power of working which does not derive its strength from God, and God derives strength from none. Again, there is no cause which can exercise its strength unless it be moved by God, and God is moved by none: and lastly, all other higher causes in created things are those which are called universal, and are derived from these particular causes, as the heavens and the angels who move the heavens, but God made both the heavens and the angels. Therefore he alone is the first and highest efficient Cause.

And again, he is the first exemplary Cause, for God made all things according to forms or ideas, which he holds in himself. And, lastly, he is the final Cause, because he created all things on account of himself, that is, for the setting forth of his glory, as the Wise Man saith in Proverbs.3 But far more fittingly is it said and is the fact, that God is Most High because he sitteth on the highest throne: ‘I saw the Lord,’ saith Isaiah, ‘sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up’; 4 and since he useth two thrones, the one for judgement, the other for rest, let us consider each separately.

First, then, God hath the highest throne because he is supreme judge: for Abraham saith unto God, ‘Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?’ and David, ‘He is a judge among gods,’ that is, God judges those judges who are called in Scripture gods.3 But most plainly Saint James says, ‘There is one lawgiver,’ 4 that is, God alone is properly lawgiver and judge, because he alone gives laws to all and receives laws from none, judges every one and is judged by none.

Next, God is not only judge, but he is also king, and this not as a judge appointed by a king, but as king and supreme ruler; whence he is called ‘King of kings,’5 and ‘A great king above all gods,’6 and ‘Wonderful among the kings of the earth’:7 because when he wills he transfers kingdoms and governments from nation to nation, and when he wills he withdraws the spirit of princes.

Again, not only is God supreme judge and king, but also absolute Lord, which is the highest title of all. For kings are not lords over their subjects in such a way that they can, by their own decision, despoil them of goods or of life: of this let King Ahab be a witness, for he desired to possess the vineyard of Naboth and was unable to get it without the treachery and intrigue of his wife,8 and so both perished miserably.

But God is truly and properly Lord, all things serve him, and he himself serves no one, and he could, if he willed, bring all things to naught, since he made all things out of nothing.

Therefore reflect, O soul, how great fear and trembling is due from us worms of earth before him who sitteth upon a throne so lofty that he hath nothing at all above him. ‘If I be a master, where is my fear ?’ he saith by the prophet Malachi; and if those highest princes of heaven wait upon him with fear and dread, what is fitting for us to do who, as frail mortals, dwell upon the earth along with beasts?

But this is an astonishing thing, that the Most High God should love not only created beings like unto himself, that is the high and lofty, but also the humble and poor: thus God saith by Isaiah, ‘To this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word’;2 and David saith, ‘The Lord is high. . . and yet humbleth himself to behold the things that are in heaven and earth.’3 Indeed God does love high and sublime beings which in this respect are like unto himself: but those which are truly sublime, not those which seem to be so, and are not. And so God does not love the proud, who are elated and puffed up, and who ought not to be called high and sublime: but he loves the humble who tremble at his word, because the more they abase themselves, the more are they exalted by the Lord himself, and those are truly high who are exalted by the Lord. And so these are both humble and lofty: humble in their own eyes, lofty in the eyes of God.

If any one were to look, not only with bodily eyes, but also with the eyes of the mind, and these illuminated by God, upon the rich man feasting, clothed with fine linen and purple, seated at a table laden with all kinds of costly food, with many servants in attendance, all carefully fulfilling their duties, and if at the same time he were to see Lazarus, half naked and full of sores, sitting at the rich man’s gate and desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fall from the rich man’s table: he would assuredly see that the rich man, believed by

x Mal. i. 6. a Is, lxvi. 2. 3 Ps, cxili. 4.

the world to be most happy, was altogether abominable and most vile in the eyes of God and of the angels, indeed like unto mud or dung of the earth, ‘For that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God,’1 as saith the Lord, in that place where he describes the rich man at the feast: but on the other hand, he would see Lazarus, though poor and lowly, noble and honoured in the eyes of God and the angels, as a precious pearl. And this is made plain by their departure from the world, for angel hands carried Lazarus, as one dear to God, into the bosom of Abraham, and the rich man, as hateful to God, was borne by demons to the fire of hell.

But why should I speak of Lazarus? No one is higher in the sight of God than our Lord Jesus Christ according to his humanity, and yet no one is found in heaven or earth more lowly than he, as he most piously said, “Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart’: for as that most holy soul knew more clearly than all created things the infinite height of the divinity, so also he knew more the vileness of the creature, which was made out of nothing, and so since his holy soul was created, beyond all others he subjects himself to God, and humbles himself and exalts God, and in turn is exalted by God above all creatures, even the angels.

We may say the same of the blessed angels and of holy men: for none are more humble than those who are seated high in heaven, since they who are nearer to God see more clearly how great a distance separates the greatness of the Creator from the smallness of the creature,

Wherefore, my soul, if thou desirest true exaltation, love humility; imitate ‘the Lamb without spot, imitate the Virgin Mother, imitate the cherubim and seraphim, for the higher these are, so the more humble they are.

Not only hath God a very high throne, because he judges all men, but also because he rests beyond all and makes those to rest in whom he has his dwelling. The most high throne of God is his highest rest: for although he rules the whole world, in which there is a perpetual warfare, conflicts of elements, of beasts and of men, yet he himself judges with equity, as is said in the book of Wisdom,! and he even rejoices in the highest peace, and there is naught able to disturb his repose and the contemplation of himself in which are his eternal delights. For this reason he is called King of Jerusalem, which is ‘Vision of peace.’ 2

But his proper thrones are the blessed spirits, whence it is said, ‘Thou that sittest upon the cherubims.’ 3 God is said to sit upon the cherubim rather than upon the seraphim, because the cherubim signifies the greatness of knowledge, seraphim rather the ardour of charity: repose follows wisdom, and care and anxiety follow charity, unless it be joined with wisdom. And so the soul of the righteous man is called the home of wisdom.

And lastly when Isaiah says, ‘Heaven is my throne,’ 5 and when David says, ‘All the whole heavens are the Lord’s,’® by the heavens are to be understood the spiritual heavens dwelling above the corporeal heavens, that is, the blessed spirits, as Saint Augustine explained in his exposition of the hundred and thirteenth Psalm. 7

But God made these heavens to rest in such wonderful calm which may be that ‘peace which passeth all understanding.’ Saint Bernard in his Sermons on the Canticles makes a very apt comparison in explanation of this rest: he says, ‘The God of peace renders all things peaceful, and the soul, looking up with fixed gaze at his ineffable stillness, is itself awed into quiescence. It is as if one beheld some king or great judge, who after hearing causes in his court all the day long, dismisses his crowds of attendants, puts an end to the labours of his office, returns with night to his peaceful palace, enters into his chamber with those few companions whom he condescends to honour with his intimacy in private, and there enjoys his repose with the more confidence because it is in such complete retirement, and because, as he looks peacefully around, he sees only the faces of those who are dear to him.’? He shows clearly enough that God does not manifest himself to the spirits of the blessed as their judge, but rather as their friend and beloved. And this familiarity is indeed incredible, that God should offer to the pure in heart even in this life the fulfilment of the words, ‘My delights were with the sons of men,’ 3 and again, ‘His secret is with the righteous.’ 4

Hence it comes to pass that all the Saints, though they suffered oppression in the world, yet always kept peace in their heart where God dwelt, and therefore they were always joyful, always appeared calm and indeed were so: for the Truth itself said to them, ‘Your heart shall rejoice and your joy no man taketh from you.’ 5

There remains the fourth dimension of magnitude, which is called depth. Now depth in respect of the Being of God is found to be multiform: first divinity in itself is very deep, because it is not superficial or slender, but very full and very solid. The Deity is not, as it were, a gilded mass, which has gold only on its surface, but within is brazen or wooden, but it is, as it were, a mass wholly gold, and a great and immense mass, or rather a mine of gold so deep that it can never be exhausted by digging; thus God is altogether incomprehensible. Just as a mine of gold, whose depth cannot be reached, is never exhausted by digging, so also God, of ‘whose greatness there is no end,’ ! is never so perfectly known by a created mind but that it always seeks to know more and more, and God alone comprehends the infinite depths, for he alone has an infinite power of understanding.

Next, God is deep by reason of place: for as he is Most High because he rules over all things and is above all, so also he is most deep because he is beneath all things, that he may uphold them, and he is within all things, that he may bear them: for he himself, as the Apostle says, ‘Upholdeth all things by the word of his power.' And so God is, as it were, the foundation and the roof of the building, ‘in whom we live and move and have our being’:3 and therefore very rightly did Solomon say, ‘The heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee,’4 or rather God indeed contains the heavens and those things that are under the heavens, since he is above the heavens and beneath the earth.

Secondly, the depth of God is his invisibility. For God is Light but Light unapproachable: he is Truth, but exceeding profound, and more interior than any interior thing: “He maketh darkness his secret place,’ saith David;® and as Isaiah says, ‘Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself.' Saint Augustine, at a time when he was seeking after God, sent his eyes as messengers from earth to the heavens, and everything gave him answer, ‘We are not what thou seekest, but he it is who made us.’ And so, not finding God by rising through exterior things, he began to make his way through interior things and learnt indeed to reach unto God more easily by means of these: for he learnt that the soul was better than the body, and the interior sense better than the exterior, and the intellect, which to a certain extent is interior, he saw to be better than an interior sense. Thence he made out that God, who is more interior than the intellect, is better than the intellect: and by this we understand something, or we consider that a thing is not God but something less than God, since God is better than we can understand or think.

Well, then, my soul, if thou art better than thy body, to which thou givest life, because that is body and thou art spirit, and the eye of thy body seeth thee not, because that is outside and thou art within, think thus: thy God is better than thou art, because he giveth thee intelligence, and he is, as it were, thy soul: and therefore thou canst not see him because a spirit is higher and more within than thou art, and thou in a certain way remainest without, and it is within, in its own most secret and deep recess. But wilt thou forever be refused admittance to that secret place? God forbid. Thy Lord doth not lie, and he said, ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God,' and the Apostle says, ‘Now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face,' and the holy Evangelist John writes, ‘We know that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.'

And what will be the joy when, admitted to that secret sanctuary, thou beholdest and possessest that very light, that form, that goodness | Then it will be very plain how empty and fleeting and as nothing have been the temporal good things of this earth with which men become inebriated and then forget the things which are true and everlasting. But if thou art really athirst for the living God, and if tears are thy meat day and night while they say unto thee, “Where is now thy God?'? thou wilt not be slow to cleanse thy heart wherein God is to be seen, and thou wilt not be weary in raising thy heart on high until ‘unto the God of gods appeareth every one in Sion'; and thou wilt not grow cold in the love of God and thy neighbour, and thou wilt not ‘love in word and in tongue, but in deed and in truth,' for this is the way that leadeth to life. |

1 Ps. xl. 3. 7 Ps. lxxxiv.7. 3 1 St. John iii. 18.