d's ground is my
ground, and my ground God's ground." This doctrine of the Divinity of
the ground of the soul is very like the Cabbalistic doctrine of the
Neschamah, and the Neoplatonic doctrine of [Greek: Nous] (cf.
Stoeckl, vol. ii. p. 1007). Eckhart was condemned for saying, "aliquid
est in anima quod est increatum et increabile; si tota anima esset
talis, esset increata et increabilis. Hoc est intellectus." Eckhart
certainly says explicitly that "as fire turns all that it touches into
itself, so the birth of the Son of God in the soul turns us into God,
so that God no longer knows anything in us but His Son." Man thus
becomes "filius naturalis Dei," instead of only "filius adoptivus." We
have seen that Eckhart, towards the end of his life, inclined more and
more to separate the spark, the organ of Divine contemplation, from
the reason. This is, of course, an approximation to the _other_ view
of deification--that of substitution or miraculous infusion from
_without_, unless we see in it a tendency to divorce the personality
from the reason. Ruysbroek states his doctrine of the Divine spark
very clearly: "The unity of our spirit in God exists in two ways,
essentially and actively. The essential existence of the soul, _quae
secundum aeternam ideam in Deo nos sumus, itemque quam in nobis
habemus, medii ac discriminis expers est_. Spiritus Deum in nuda
natura essentialiter possidet, et spiritum Deus. Vivit namque in Deo
et Deus in ipso; et _secundum supremam sui partem_ Dei claritatem
suscipere absque medio idoneus est; quin etiam per aeterni exemplaris
sui claritudinem _essentialiter ac personaliter in ipso lucentis,
secundum supremam vivacitatis suae portionem, in divinam sese demittit
ac demergit essentiam_, ibidemque perseveranter secundum ideam manendo
aeternam suam possidet beatitudinem; rursusque cum creaturis omnibus
per aeternam Verbi generationem inde emanans, in esse suo creato
constituitur." The "natural union," though it is the first cause of
all holiness and blessedness, does not make us holy and blessed, being
common to good and bad alike. "Similitude" to God is the work of
grace, "quae lux quaedam deiformis est." We cannot lose the "unitas,"
but we can lose the "similitudo quae est gratia." The highest part of
the soul is capable of receiving a perfect and immediate impression of
the Divine essence; by this "apex mentis" we may "sink into the Divine
essence, and by a new (continuous) creation return to our