The Christian Life
He (the believer) is hungry and thirsty, for he sees the food of angels and the drink of heaven. He labours diligently in love, for he beholds his rest. He is a pilgrim, and he sees his fatherland. He strives in love for the victory, for he sees his crown. Consolation, peace, joy, beauty, and riches, and all that the heart can desire, are shown to the reason which is enlightened to see God in spiritual similitudes and without measure or limit.... Those who do not possess, at the same time, the power of rest and action, and are not exercised in both, have not received this righteousness of the just.
Footnote
1 I shall give only one example, which is elementary in both senses of the word. Ruysbroeck distinguishes three kinds of life—the active life, the inward life, and the super-essential life. The Gnostics distinguish the spirit, the soul, and the material life, and divide men into three classes—the pneumatic or spiritual men, psychic or soul men, and hylic or material men. Plotinus also distinguishes between the soul, the intellect, the reasonable soul, and the animal nature. The Zohar distinguishes the spirit, the soul, and the life of the senses, and in the two systems, as in Ruysbroeck, the relation of the three principles is explained by a procession which is of the nature of an irradiation; then the theory of the divine meeting, God coming into us from within towards without, we going to Him from without towards within, etc. Cf. also the 5th Ennead, etc. etc.