that contemplative men “see that they are the same simple ground as to their uncreated nature, and are one with the same light by which they see, and which they see.”  The later German mystics taught that the Divine essence is the material substratum of the world, the creative will of God having, so to speak, alienated for the purpose a portion of His own essence.  If, then, the created form is broken through, God Himself becomes the ground of the soul.  Even Augustine countenances some such notion when he says, “From a good man, or from a good angel, take away ‘man’ or ‘angel,’ and you find God.”  But one of the chief differences between the older and later Mysticism is that the former regarded union with God as achieved through the faculties of the soul, the latter as inherent in its essence.  The doctrine of immanence, more and more emphasised, tended to encourage the belief that the Divine element in the soul is not merely something potential, something which the faculties may acquire, but is immanent and basal.  Tauler mentions both views, and prefers the latter.  Some hesitation may be traced in the Theologia Germanica on this point (p. 109, “Golden Treasury” edition):  “The true light is that eternal Light which is God; or else it is a created light, but yet Divine, which is called grace.”  Our Cambridge Platonists naturally revived this Platonic doctrine of deification, much to the dissatisfaction of some of their contemporaries.  Tuckney speaks of their teaching as “a kind of moral divinity minted only with a little tincture of Christ added.  Nay, a Platonic faith unites to God!” Notwithstanding such protests, the Platonists persisted that all true happiness consists in a participation of God; and that “we cannot enjoy God by any external conjunction with Him.”

The question was naturally raised, “If man by putting on Christ’s life can get nothing more than he has already, what good will it do him?” The answer in the Theologia Germanica is as follows:  “This life is not chosen in order to serve any end, or to get anything by it, but for love of its nobleness, and because God loveth and esteemeth it so greatly.”  It is plain that any view which regards man as essentially Divine has to face great difficulties when it comes to deal with theodicy.

The other view of deification, that of a substitution of the Divine Will, or Life, or Spirit, for the human, cannot in history be sharply distinguished from the theories which have just been mentioned.  But the idea of substitution is naturally most congenial to those who feel strongly “the corruption of man’s heart,” and the need of deliverance, not only from our ghostly enemies, but from the tyranny of self.  Such men feel that there must be a real change, affecting the very depths of our personality.  Righteousness must be imparted, not merely imputed.  And there is a death to be died as well as a life to be lived.  The old man must die before the new