Chapter 11, Section 1a

CHAPTER XI Concerning ” Peace “ and what is meant by ” Very Being “ Itself , ” Very Life ,” ” Very Power ,” and similar phrases . 1. Now let us praise with reverent hymns of peace the Divine Peace which is the Source of all mutual attraction. For this Quality it is that unites all things together and begets and produces the harmonies and agreements of all things. And hence it is that all things long for It, and that It draws their manifold separate parts into the unity of the whole and unites the battling elements of the world into concordant fellowship. So it is that, through participation in the Divine Peace, the higher of the mutually Attractive Powers 467 467 i. e. The Seraphim. are united in themselves and to each other and to the one Supreme Peace of the whole world; and so the ranks beneath them are by them united both in themselves and to one another and unto that one perfect Principle and Cause of Universal Peace, 468 468 The Divine Energy and Light streams through the medium of the higher orders to the lower. This is worked out in the Celestial Hierarchy of the same writer. We get the same thought in Dante’s Paradiso, where the Primum Mobile, deriving its motion from an immediate contact with the Empyrean, passes them on to the next sphere and so to all the rest in turn, the movement being received and conveyed by the succeeding angelic orders presiding severally, in descending scale of dignity, over the concentric spheres.—See Convito, II. 6. which broods in undivided Unity upon the world, and (as it were with bolts which fasten the sundered parts together) giveth to all things their laws, their limits, and their cohesion; nor 174 suffers them to be torn apart and dispersed into the boundless chaos without order or foundation, so as to lose God’s Presence and depart from their own unity, and to mingle together in a universal confusion. Now as to that quality of the Divine Peace and Silence, to which the holy Justus 469 469 Vide Acts i. 23 ; xviii. 7 ; or Col. iv. 11 . gives the name of “Dumbness” and “Immobility” ( sc. so far as concerns all emanation which our knowledge can grasp), 470 470 Victorinus calls God the Father Cessatio, Silentium, or Quies, and also Motus, as distinguished from Motio (the name he gives God the Son), the former kind of movement being the quiescent generator of the latter, since Victorinus was an older contemporary of St. Augustine (see Conf. viii. 2–5) his speculations may have been known to D. The peace of God attracts by its mysterious influence. This influence is, in a sense, an emanation or outgoing activity (or it could not affect us), but it is a thing felt and not understood. and as to the manner in which It is still and silent and keeps in Itself and within Itself and is wholly and entirely one transcendent Unity in Itself, and while entering into Itself and multiplying Itself, 471 471 It multiplies Itself by entering into the creatures and seeking to be reproduced in each of them. This whole passage throws light on the problem of Personality. If our personalities are ultimately contained in the Absolute, the Absolute is not a Person but a Society of Persons. D. would reply that the Absolute is Supra-Personal, and that in It our personalities have their ultimate existence, outside of themselves, as an undifferentiated Unity, though that ultimate plane needs also and implies the existence of the relative plane on which our personalities exist as differentiated individuals. The Holy Spirit enters into the various individuals, but still possesses One Supra-Personal Godhead.