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From what has been said it is to be inferred that, in
order for the understanding to be prepared for this
Divine union, it must be pure and void of all that
pertains to sense, and detached and freed from all
that can clearly be apprehended by the understanding,
profoundly hushed and put to silence, and leaning
upon faith, which alone is the proximate and
proportionate means whereby the soul is united with
God; for such is the likeness between itself and God
that there is no other difference, save that which
exists between seeing God and believing in Him.
For, even as God is infinite, so faith sets Him
before us as infinite; and, as He is Three and One,
it sets Him before us as Three and One; and, as God
is darkness to our understanding, even so does faith
likewise blind and dazzle our understanding. And
thus, by this means alone, God manifests Himself to
the soul in Divine light, which passes all
understanding. And therefore, the greater is the
faith of the soul, the more closely is it united with
God.
It is this that Saint Paul meant in the passage
which we quoted above, where he says: 'He that will
be united with God must believe.'[271] That is, he
must walk by faith as he journeys to Him, the
understanding being blind and in darkness, walking in
faith alone; for beneath this darkness the
understanding is united with God, and beneath it God
is hidden, even as David said in these words: 'He set
darkness under His feet. And He rose upon the
cherubim, and flew upon the wings of the wind. And He
made darkness, and the dark water, His
hiding-place.'[272]
2. By his saying that He set darkness beneath His
feet, and that He took the darkness for a
hiding-place, and that His tabernacle round about Him
was in the dark water, is denoted the obscurity of
the faith wherein He is concealed. And by his saying
that He rose upon the cherubim and flew upon the
wings of the winds, is understood His soaring above
all understanding. For the cherubim denote those who
understand or contemplate. And the wings of the winds
signify the subtle and lofty ideas and conceptions of
spirits, above all of which is His Being, and to
which none, by his own power, can attain.
3. This we learn from an illustration in the
Scriptures. When Solomon had completed the building
of the Temple, God came down in darkness and filled
the Temple so that the children of Israel could not
see; whereupon Solomon spake and said: 'The Lord hath
promised that He will dwell in darkness'.[273]
Likewise He appeared in darkness to Moses on the
Mount, where God was concealed.
And whensoever God communicated Himself
intimately, He appeared in darkness, as may be seen
in Job, where the Scripture says that God spoke with
him from the darkness of the air.[274] All these
mentions of darkness signify the obscurity of the
faith wherein the Divinity is concealed, when It
communicates Itself to the soul; which will be ended
when, as Saint Paul says, that which is in part shall
be ended,[275] which is this darkness of faith, and
that which is perfect shall come, which is the Divine
light.
Of this we have a good illustration in the army of
Gedeon, whereof it is said all the soldiers had lamps
in their hands, which they saw not, because they had
them concealed in the darkness of the pitchers; but,
when these pitchers were broken, the light was
seen.[276] Just so does faith, which is foreshadowed
by those pitchers, contain within itself Divine
light; which, when it is ended and broken, at the
ending and breaking of this mortal life, will allow
the glory and light of the Divinity, which was
contained in it, to appear.
4. It is clear, then, that, if the soul in this
life is to attain to union with God, and commune
directly with Him, it must unite itself with the
darkness whereof Solomon spake, wherein God had
promised to dwell, and must draw near to the darkness
of the air wherein God was pleased to reveal His
secrets to Job, and must take in its hands, in
darkness, the jars of Gedeon, that it may have in its
hands (that is, in the works of its will) the light,
which is the union of love, though it be in the
darkness of faith, so that, when the pitchers of this
life are broken, which alone have kept from it the
light of faith, it may see God face to face in glory.
5. It now remains to describe in detail all the
types of knowledge and the apprehensions which the
understanding can receive; the hindrance and the harm
which it can receive upon this road of faith; and the
way wherein the soul must conduct itself so that,
whether they proceed from the senses or from the
spirit, they may cause it, not harm, but profit. |