VIb

Therefore she made mention of her humility and not of her sanctification, in which she remained unmoved and unaffected. If she had said, “He hath regarded the sanctification of His handmaiden,” her sanctification would have been disturbed, for, so to speak, would have been a going out of herself. Therefore the Psalmist said, “I will hear what the Lord God will say in me,” as if to say, “If God will Speak to me, let Him come in, for I will not come out.” And Boethius saith, “Men, why seek ye outside you what is inside you—salvation?” I set also sanctification above pity, for pity is only going out of oneself to sympathize with one’s fellow-creature’s sorrows. From such an out-going sanctification is free and abides in itself, and does not let itself be troubled. To speak briefly: when I consider all the virtues I find none so entirely without flaw and so conducive to union with God as sanctification. The philosopher Avicenna says, “The spirit which is truly sanctified attains to so lofty a degree that all which it sees is real, all which it desires is granted, and in all which it commands, it is obeyed.” When the free spirit is stablished in true sanctification, it draws God to itself, and were it placed beyond the reach of contingencies, it would assume the properties of God. But God cannot part with those to anyone; all that He can do for the sanctified spirit is to impart Himself to it. The man who is wholly sanctified is so drawn towards the Eternal, that no transitory thing may move him, no corporeal thing affect him, no earthly thing attract him. This was the meaning of St Paul when he said, “I live; yet not I; Christ liveth in me.” Now the question arises what is sanctification, since it has so lofty a rank. Thou shouldest know that real sanctification consists in this that the spirit remain as immovable and unaffected by all impact of love or hate, joy or sorrow, honour or shame, as a huge mountain is unstirred by a gentle breeze. This immovable sanctification causes man to attain the nearest likeness to God that he is capable of. God’s very essence consists of His immovable sanctity; thence springs His glory and unity and impassibility. If a man is to become as like God as a creature may, that must be by sanctification. It is this which draws men upward to glory, and from glory to unity, and from unity to impassibility, and effects a resemblance between God and men. The chief agent in this is grace, because grace draws men from the transitory and purifies them from the earthly. And thou shouldest know that to be empty of all creature’s love is to be full of God, and to be full of creature-love is to be empty of God. God has remained from everlasting in immovable sanctity, and still remains so. When He created heaven and earth and all creatures, His sanctity was as little affected thereby as though He had created nothing. I say further: God’s sanctity is as little affected by men’s good works and prayers, as though they had accomplished none, and He is by those means no more favourably inclined towards men than if they ceased praying and working. I say even more: when the Divine Son became man and suffered, that affected the sanctity of God as little as though He had never become man at all.