Chapter Vc

begins with the notion of Goodness (which he holds to be possessed by all things) and proceeds thence to Existence (which is not possessed by things that are either destroyed or yet unmade), and thence to Wisdom (which is not possessed either by unconscious or irrational forms of Life), and thence to qualities (such as Righteousness, Salvation, Omnipotence) or combinations of opposite qualities (such as Greatness and Smallness) which are not, ‘in the full sense, applicable to any creature as such. Thus by adding quality to quality (“Existence” to “Goodness,” “Life” to “Existence,” “Wisdom” to “Life,” “Salvation,” etc., to “Wisdom”) he reaches the conception of God. But he constantly reminds us in the Divine Names that these qualities apply adequately only to the manifested Godhead which, in Its ultimate Nature, transcends them. 528 The process from the universal to the particular is the process of actual development (existence before life, and life before rationality, etc.); the converse is the natural process of thought, which seeks to refer things to their universal laws of species, etc. (Divine Names, V. 3). But this latter process is not in itself the Via Negativa, but only the ground plan of it, differing from it as a ground plan of a mountain path differs from a journey up the actual path itself. The process of developing life complicates, but enriches, the world; that of thought simplifies, but eviscerates it. Contemplation, being an act of the human spirit, is a process of developing life, and yet follows the direction of thought. Hence it enriches and simplifies at the same time. 529 Cf. p. 194, n. 1. 530 The Good = (1) the Undifferentiated Godhead, and hence, in Manifestion, (2) God the Father as the Fount of Godhead to the other Persons. The Rays = God the Son and God the Holy Ghost, who, as manifested Differentiations, eternally proceed from the Father. The separate being of the Three Persons exists on the plane of Manifestation (cf. St. Augustine, who says: “They exist secundum relativum and not secundum essentiam “). [Augustine sacs non secundum substantiam . The translator quotes it correctly in his introduction, p. 10.— Ed. ] But this plane is eternal. They wholly interpenetrate, and the state of rest is co-eternal with the Act of Their Procession, because They possess eternal repose and eternal motion. 531 This is a case of communicatio idiomatum (cf. the title “Mother of God” applied to the Blessed Virgin Mary). The Godhead of our Lord is Super-Essential, not His Manhood. 532 The Symbolical Divinity was an attempt to spiritualize “popular” theology, the Divine Names sought to spiritualize philosophical theology, the present treatise is a direct essay to Spiritual Theology. 533 At the last stage but one the mind beholds an Object to which all terms of thought are inadequate. Then, at the last stage, even the distinction between Subject and Object disappears, and the mind itself is That Which it contemplates. Thought itself is transcended, and the whole Object-realm vanishes. One Subject now knows itself as the part and knows itself as the Whole. 534 In the Divine Names the order of procedure was: Goodness, Existence, Life, etc. Now it passes from sense-perception to thought. 535 This shows that the Via Negativa is not purely negative. 536 Being about to explain, in these two last chapters, that no material or mental qualities are present in the Godhead, D.