Assuming the leading positions of the writer as guides, we should say
that in his philosophy he regards the world as a manifestation and
communication of God in time and space, manifestation taking place,
as he says, through the Word, communication through the agency called
Spirit. The first of things in which God showed Himself, he says, was
Light, which he speaks of as uncreated--_lux increata_, essence or
first principle of things--all existence, all generation being effected
by the energising power of light. In, and of, and first manifested
by light, God, however, is not identified therewith, any more than
with the things of creation, in all of which he is still held to be
immanent. God indeed in himself is supersensuous and incomprehensible,
for he transcends all things--mind as well as matter. When not sought
to be defined by negatives, God is to be thought of as Absolute Being,
and all existence, as deriving from him, is to be accounted divine,
although in diverse degrees.
The manifold manifestations which God makes of himself in nature are
referred to a single dispensation or mode, the mode of the Plenitude of
Substance, which comprises all other modes or dispensations in their
endless diversity, patterns or types of all things that be having
been present in the mind of God before they were in themselves. An
architypal universe is therefore assumed as having existed before the
actual world came into being, and this, says Servetus, is the Logos
of Scripture and Philosophy--the Divine Reason, wherein reflected
all things showed themselves visibly. _Ea ipsa erat λὀγος erat ratio
mirifica in qua omnia visibiliter relucebat._ The Logos--Divine
Word, Divine Wisdom, God himself, in fact--it is that is revealed
or manifested in Creation, as in the fulness of time it also became
incarnate in Christ; for, even as before Creation the world existed
ideally in God, so before the incarnation was Christ potentially
present in the Divine mind as the Divine word, in the same way as the
future plant is extant in the seed. From the beginning, therefore, it
was a virtual or potential Son, not any actual co-eternal Son, who
existed beside the Father, the Son first acquiring form and substance
in the womb of the Virgin Mary, and being made participant of the
Holy Spirit at the moment of his birth when he began to breathe; for
Servetus assimilated the abstraction entitled Spirit to breath or wind:
God, say the Scriptures, breathed into the nostrils of man and he
became a living soul.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account