Whether Christ, should have lived alone or in company with others. It would seem that he should not have liyed with others but should have adopted a solitary life.

For it behoved Christ by his manner of life to declare himself not merely true man but also true God. It does not behove God to associate with men, as witness Daniel 2, 11: ‘For the thing that thou askest, 0 King, is difficult; nor can anyone be found that can show it before the King, except the gods who live apart from men'. Aristotle, too, states (I Polit. 2): ‘Who lives alone is either a beast’ that is to say, he is ostracised on account of his savage character, ‘or he is a god', that is, if he seeks solitude as being most conducive to contemplating the truth. Therefore does it seem unfitting for Christ to have associated with his fellow men.

Beres Universorum’ occurs in the accusative case in the first sentence of the Epistle to the Hebrews. St Paul is intensely conscious that Christ's coming is the summing up of the past, the completion of an immense cycle, the climax of a great series of stupendous events, the crowning act of a drama, the final interference of God in his own creation. Not only that; Christ's ‘coming, for St Paul, gathered up all the past, gave it shape and substance, explained it, since all things pointed to or prepared for him. He was the heir of all things. In this title we have a glimpse of the Augustinian vision that history was summed up in Christ, that all the golden threads in pagan life and worship led ultimately to heredem universorum Christum. Thus there are two lines of thought: Christ heir to the Jewish tradition, and Christ heir to the pagan tradition.

It all begins with a conversion; properly speaking with a second or re-conversion.

This applies to cradle Catholics and converts alike, at least to average normal people. The normal born Catholic is usually well content to use up the spiritual capital of baptism, as it were, and make his religion a reflex action rather than a conscious effort. This is not criticism but a statement of observable fact. To become active, to awaken to the possibilities and responsibilities of the religion he practises, a further jolt of some kind is needed, whether from within or from without. It is the same with converts. It does happen that entry into the Church will coincide with or cause the beginning of an intense and active spiritual life; but these cases are rare. (We speak in general terms and not of special cases, such as direct conversion to the religious life, which have nothing to do with the life of the laity—our subject here—and so are outside our scope.)

From our own experiences and from those we have been privileged to hear of, it seems that this second conversion is necessary.

The contemplative life is of its nature a hidden life. It is often a reproach levelled at contemplatives that they separate themselves, not only materially, but also spiritually from the life of those living in the world. That the world of sin which the contemplative has quitted and that of grace where he intends to live, are opposed one to the other, is a fact. But that this includes an opposition between those who abide in the love of God either in the world or in the enclosure is not true.

The soul of the contemplative becomes the rendezvous of humanity and God, for she belongs to both. As he prays silently or chants the Divine Office his prayer and praise are the voice of the-world. When he suffers and offers himself in sacrifice he is a token for the expiation of the world's sins and shares in the sufferings of his brethren. He is ever in the presence of God, and within his soul Life itself is buried—hidden like the seed—in order to bring forth fruit and be communicated to others.

No one who has any acquaintance with modern ‘mystical’ I writings which come from the pens of such as Aldous Huxley or Gerald Heard will be unaware of the existence of dangers in the doctrine put forward by The Cloud of Unknowing. This book has become so popular with people who are not specifically Christian and who think they find an identical teaching in Indian and Sufi writings that it is suspect by many devout Catholics who are yet seeking courageously for perfection and would find otherwise much assistance in its pages. It is easy to point to its strong Dionysian origins, reaching this East Anglian spiritual director through the Victorines and stretching back through the Pseudo-Dionysius to Neoplatonic philosophy. So with a careful choice of texts a student could work out a detailed, parallelism between the pagan writings of Plotinus and Proclus and the Christian author of The Cloud.