The Divine Names

^12. Nay, some of our writers about holy things have thought the title of “Yearning” diviner than that of “Love.” Ignatius the Divine writes: “He whom I yearn for is crucified.”^[309] And in the “Introductions’ of Scripture^[310] thou wilt find some one saying concerning the Divine Wisdom: “I yearned for her beauty.” Let us not, therefore, shrink from this title of “Yearning,” nor be perturbed and affrighted by aught that any man may say about it. For methinks the Sacred Writers regard the titles “Love” and “Yearning” as of one meaning; but preferred, when speaking of Yearning in a heavenly sense, to qualify it with the world “real”^[311] because of the inconvenient pre-notion of such men. For whereas the title of “Real Yearning” is employed not merely by ourselves but even by the Scriptures, mankind (not grasping the unity intended when Yearning is ascribed to God) fell by their own propensity into, the notion of a partial, physical and divided quality, which is not true Yearning but a vain image of Real Yearning, or rather a lapse therefrom.^[312] For mankind at large cannot grasp the simplicity of the one Divine Yearning, and hence, because of the offence it gives to most men, it is used concerning the Divine Wisdom to lead and raise them up to the knowledge of the Real Yearning until they are set free froth all offence thereat; and often on the other hand when it was possible that base minds should suppose that which is not convenient, the word that is held in greater reverence is used concerning ourselves.^[313] “Thy love,” says some one, “came upon me like as the love of women.”^[314] To those who listen aright to Holy Scripture, the word “Love” is used by the Sacred Writers in Divine Revelation with the same meaning as the word “Yearning.” It means a faculty of unifying and conjoining and of producing a special commingling together^[315] in the Beautiful and Good: a faculty which pre-exists for the sake of the Beautiful and Good, and is diffused from this Origin and to this End, and holds together things of the same order by a mutual connection, and moves the highest to take thought for those below and fixes the inferior in a state which seeks the higher.

13. And the Divine Yearning brings ecstasy, not allowing them that are touched thereby to belong unto themselves but only to the objects of their affection. This principle is shown by superior things through their providential care for their inferiors, and by those which are co-ordinate through the mutual bond uniting them, and by the inferior through their diviner tendency towards the highest. And hence the great Paul, constrained by the Divine Yearning, and having received a share in its ecstatic power, says, with inspired utterance, “I live, and yet not I but Christ liveth in me”: true Sweetheart that he was and (as he says himself) being beside himself unto God, and not possessing his own life but possessing and loving the life of Him for Whom he yearned. And we must dare to affirm (for ‘tis the truth) that the Creator of the Universe Himself, in His Beautiful and Good Yearning towards the Universe, is through the excessive yearning of His Goodness, transported outside of Himself in His providential activities towards all things that have being, and is touched by the sweet spell of Goodness, Love and Yearning, and so is drawn from His transcendent throne above all things, to dwell within the heart of all things, through a super-essential and ecstatic power whereby He yet stays within Himself^[316] Hence Doctors call Him “jealous,” because He is vehement in His Good Yearning towards the world, and because He stirs men up to a zealous search of yearning desire for Him, and thus shows Himself zealous inasmuch as zeal is always felt concerning things which are desired, and inasmuch as He hath a zeal concerning the creatures for which He careth. In short, both the Yearning and its Object belong to the Beautiful and the Good, and have therein their pre-existent roots and because of it exist and come into being.

14. But why speak the Sacred Writers of God sometimes as Yearning and Love, sometimes as the Object of these emotions? In the one case He is the Cause and Producer and Begetter of the thing signified, in the other He is the Thing signified Itself. Now the reason why He is Himself on the one hand moved by the quality signified, and on the other causes motion by it,^[317] is that He moves and leads onward Himself unto Himself.^[318] Therefore on the one hand they call Him the Object of Love and Yearning as being Beautiful and Good, and on the other they call Him Yearning and Love as being a Motive-Power leading all things to Himself, Who is the only ultimate Beautiful and Good—yea, as being His own Self-Revelation and the Bounteous Emanation of His own Transcendent Unity, a Motion of Yearning simple, self-moved, self-acting, pre-existent in the Good, and overflowing from the Good into creation, and once again returning to the Good. And herein the Divine Yearning showeth especially its beginningless and endless nature, revolving in a perpetual circle for the Good, from the Good, in the Good, and to the Good, with unerring revolution, never varying its centre or direction, perpetually advancing and remaining and returning to Itself. This by Divine inspiration our renowned Initiator hath declared in his Hymns of Yearning, which it will not be amiss to quote and thus to bring unto a holy consummation our Discourse concerning this matter.

15. Words of the most holy Hierotheus from the Hymns of Yearning. “Yearning (be it in God or Angel, or Spirit, or Animal Life, or Nature) must be conceived of as an uniting and commingling power which moveth the higher things to a care for those below them, moveth co-equals to a mutual communion, and finally moveth the inferiors to turn towards their superiors in virtue and position.”

16. Words of the same, from the same Hymns of Yearning. “Forasmuch as we have set down in order the manifold yearnings springing from the One, and have duly explained what are the powers of knowledge and of action belonging to the yearnings springing from the One, and have duly explained what are the powers of knowledge and of action proper to the Yearnings within^[319] the world and above^[320] it (wherein, as hath been already explained, the higher place belongeth unto those ranks and orders of Yearning which are spiritually felt and perceived, and highest amongst these are the Divine Yearnings in the very core of the Spirit towards those Beauties which have their veritable Being Yonder),^[321] let us now yet further resume and compact them all together into the one and concentrated Yearning which is the Father of them all, and let us collect together into two kinds their general desiderative powers, over which the entire mastery and primacy is in that Incomprehensible Causation of all yearning which cometh from Beyond them all, and whereunto the universal yearning of all creatures presseth upwards according to the nature of each.”

[310] ἐν ταῖς προεισαγωγαῖς τῶν λογίων. Apparently this was a title of the books ascribed to Solomon. The present reference is Wisdom viii. 2.

[311] τοῖς θείοις μᾶλλον ἀναθεῖναι τὸν ὄντως ἔρωτα.

[312] Earthly desire is below static conditions, the Divine Desire is above them.

[313] i. e. The word ἔρως is sometimes used concerning God to stimulate our minds by its unexpectedness and so to make us penetrate beyond the word to the mystery hinted at by it. On the other hand ἀγάπη or ἀνάπησις is sometimes used concerning human relationships to prevent any degrading associations from entering in.

[314] 2 Sam. i. 26.

[315] καὶ ἐστι τοῦτο δυνάμεως ἑνοποίου καὶ συνδετικῆς καὶ διαφερόντως συγκρατικῆς.

[316] This finely suggests that the “Selfhood” of God is selfless. Vide Intr., p. 9. Note also the combination of rest and motion alluded to here.

[317] Yearning is a movement in the soul; the Object of Yearning causes such movement in the soul.

[318] Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas: Deus movet sicut desideratum a Se Ipso. Cf. Spenser: “He loved Himself because Himself was fair.” CE Plato’s Doctrine of ἔρως. This Yearning is eternally fulfilled in the Trinity. Cf. Dante: ”O somma luce che sofa in Te sidi / sola T’ intendi e da Te intelletta / ed intendente Te ami ed arridi.“ It is struggling towards actualization in this world.

[319] i. e. The social instinct in men and animals, and the impulse of mutual attraction in the inanimate world.

[320] The manifold yearnings of the spirit for Truth, Beauty, Spiritual Love, etc.