anchors 621–630

Fifth Century [00622] He stirs into motion the things that turn towards Him, and which possess the power of desiring each in the degree appropriate it. [00623] 88. You should understand that God stimulates and allures in order to bring about an erotic union in the Spirit; that is to say. He is the go-between in this union, the one who brings the parties. together, in order that He may be desired and loved by His creatures. God stimulates in that He impels each being, in accordance with its own principle, to return to Him. Even though the word ‘allurement’ signifies something impure to the profane, here it stands for the mediation which effects the union with God. [00624] 89. The erotic impulsion of the Good, that pre-exists in the Good, is simple and self-moving; it proceeds from the Good, and returns again to the Good, since it is without end or beginning. This is why we always desire the divine and union with the divine. For loving union with God surpasses and excels all other unions. [00625] 90. We should regard the erotic force, whether divine, angelic, noetic, psychic or physical, as a unifying and commingling power. It impels superior beings to care for. those below them, beings of equal dignity to act with reciprocity, and, finally, inferior beings, to return to those that are greater and more excellent than they. [00626] 91. Spiritual knowledge unites knower and known, while ignorance is always a cause of change and self-division in the ignorant. Hence nothing, according to sacred Scripture, will shift him who truly believes from the ground of his true faith, in which resides the permanence of his immutable and unchanging identity. For he who has been united with the truth has the assurance that all is well with him, even though most people rebuke him for being out of his mind. For without their being aware he has moved from delusion to the truth of real faith; and he knows for sure that he is not deranged, as they say, but that through truth - simple and always immutably the same - he has been liberated from the fluctuating and fickle turmoil of the manifold forms of illusion. [00627] 92. The saints are full of goodness, compassion, kindliness and mercy. They manifest the same love for the whole human race. Because of this they hold fast throughout their lives to the highest of all blessings, humility, that conserves, other blessings and destroys their opposites. Thus they become totally immune to vexing trials and temptations, whether those due to ourselves and subject to our [00628] Fifth Century volition, or net from ourselves and beyond our control. They wither the attacks of the first type through self-control, and repel the assaults of the second type with patient endurance. [00629] 93. The perfect practice of virtue is produced by true faith and genuine fear of God. Unerring natural contemplation – in the course of the spiritual ascent is produced by a sure hope and a sound understanding. Deification through assumption into the divine is produced by perfect love and an intellect voluntarily blinded, because of its transcendent state, to created things. [00630] 94. The function of practical philosophy is to purify the intellect of every impassioned fantasy. The function of natural contemplation is to initiate the intellect into the true knowledge that is found in created things and according to which they possess existence. The function of mystical theology is by grace to make the intellect like God and equal to Him - as far as this is possible - so that it becomes totally unaware, because of its transcendent state, of anything that is sequent to God.