Thomas Gallus was a Franciscan friar, a member of the School of St Vincent in Paris, before travelling to Italy to found the monastery of Vercelli, of which he was abbot until his death in 1246.
He wrote commentaries on Dionysius the pseudoAreopagite, and was a contemporary of St Thomas Aquinas and St Bonaventure, and was an influence on the theology of the latter.
Gallus taught that the structure of the celestial world is reflected in the human soul according to the triple distribution of the three angelic orders. The higher of the three is the rchangel of the soul, with its threefold order of Throne, Cherub and, the highest, the Seraph.
Each of the “angelic” stations of the Heaven of the soul defines a degree of knowledge and a mode of spiritual realization.
Above the theoretical intellect (intellectus theoricus), which seems to correspond to the "Cherubim of the soul", and whose object is the intelligible, there is the "supreme point", the “spark of synderesis”, the "ground" where union is achieved (with the One and therefore “unification” of the soul): “it should be noted that if our mind has the power to understand – by which it perceives the intelligibles – it also possesses the union which transcends the natural capacity of our mind and by which it is joined to the realities which exceed it. It is according to this union that we should understand the divine realities, not according to ourselves, but established in a total dispossession of ourselves and entirely deified” (Commentary on the Divine Names, chapter 7).
In this union, the most secret Essence of the Deity communicates its most secret Name to the most secret of the soul according to a perfectly ineffable knowledge, beyond all revelation. “Here, in the Seraphim of the soul, the hierarchical intention is completed, if possible, that is to say assimilation and union with God (Commentary on Isaiah). This “unnameable” Name is the one spoken of in Revelation (2:17): “To the victor, I will give him hidden manna; I will also give him a white stone and on this stone a new Name is written, which no one knows except the one who receives it.”
He observes in fact that to Moses' question ("What is his Name?") God responds in two different ways (Exodus 3:14): "'èhyèh 'ashèr 'èhyèh". And he said: This is what you will say to the Israelites: Who is ('èhyèh) sent me to you." Thomas treats these two answers as two different Names, which we could call respectively the Esoteric Name and the Exoteric Name. The first, which he also calls the "Unitive Name", concerns only Moses who, in the Seraphim of his soul, becomes one spirit with the divine Spirit, and who, having crossed the court of the Being has entered into the mystery of the "Over-Essence". But this Name is inaccessible, incomprehensible, and as if non-existent for any other who is not established in the same state as it.
This is why God gives him another Name, a name which is “to be said to the Israelites: He who is”. To the Israelites, that is to say to the people who are unaware of the transcendence of union, but who can recognize “He who is”. For it is indeed a sign of recognition that Moses asks for the people, a Name which can be made a natural sign of recognition because it is inscribed in the natural substance of intelligence. This Name is that of Being: “the notion of being becomes for us, and so to speak at the root of our thought, the memorial of the one who is”. Indeed, the Cherub of the soul, the speculative intellect, is naturally attracted to and oriented by Being, and conceives nothing beyond. This being, for profane philosophy, embraces the whole of reality; this philosophy conceives “nothing supra-ontological (supersubstantialiter) above the order of beings”. Which means that the category of being – “subject of metaphysics” – “envelops both the created and the Uncreated”.
Such is not the knowledge of sacred wisdom, but is only obtained in supra-intelligible Silence and perfect union with the “Entity” of being, the superessential Deity. Then the Name is ineffably revealed of which the Song of Songs tells us: “Your Name is oil that pours out” (1:2). This oil, which is that of the hidden science of the divine mystery, spreads from hierarchy to hierarchy, from the Seraphim who tastes by experience the superessential happiness, on the lower degrees, Cherubim and Throne. But, in another way, this Name also spreads “in Itself”. Indeed, says Thomas Gallus, the Name Ego sum qui sum is that of the Being which is reflected in Itself, it is that of the Being returned into itself, is the revelation of the “circularity” of the divine Essence, that of the Trinitarian Circumincession: “It is,” says S. Dionysius the Areopagite, “as if it were an eternal circle: the Supreme Good turns in a immutable round, proceeding from Good in Good towards Good” (Divine Names, 712 D).
The divine Name revealed to Moses in the Ego sum qui sum is therefore that of the “eternal and quasi-circular trinity”, the supraconceptual secret of the unitrinary entity, a secret which is only received in the fine point of the soul , the spark of synderesis, the ground, “united to eternity”.
(from Jean Borella, Of non-being and the seraph of the soul)
He wrote commentaries on Dionysius the pseudoAreopagite, and was a contemporary of St Thomas Aquinas and St Bonaventure, and was an influence on the theology of the latter.
Gallus taught that the structure of the celestial world is reflected in the human soul according to the triple distribution of the three angelic orders. The higher of the three is the rchangel of the soul, with its threefold order of Throne, Cherub and, the highest, the Seraph.
Each of the “angelic” stations of the Heaven of the soul defines a degree of knowledge and a mode of spiritual realization.
Above the theoretical intellect (intellectus theoricus), which seems to correspond to the "Cherubim of the soul", and whose object is the intelligible, there is the "supreme point", the “spark of synderesis”, the "ground" where union is achieved (with the One and therefore “unification” of the soul): “it should be noted that if our mind has the power to understand – by which it perceives the intelligibles – it also possesses the union which transcends the natural capacity of our mind and by which it is joined to the realities which exceed it. It is according to this union that we should understand the divine realities, not according to ourselves, but established in a total dispossession of ourselves and entirely deified” (Commentary on the Divine Names, chapter 7).
In this union, the most secret Essence of the Deity communicates its most secret Name to the most secret of the soul according to a perfectly ineffable knowledge, beyond all revelation. “Here, in the Seraphim of the soul, the hierarchical intention is completed, if possible, that is to say assimilation and union with God (Commentary on Isaiah). This “unnameable” Name is the one spoken of in Revelation (2:17): “To the victor, I will give him hidden manna; I will also give him a white stone and on this stone a new Name is written, which no one knows except the one who receives it.”
He observes in fact that to Moses' question ("What is his Name?") God responds in two different ways (Exodus 3:14): "'èhyèh 'ashèr 'èhyèh". And he said: This is what you will say to the Israelites: Who is ('èhyèh) sent me to you." Thomas treats these two answers as two different Names, which we could call respectively the Esoteric Name and the Exoteric Name. The first, which he also calls the "Unitive Name", concerns only Moses who, in the Seraphim of his soul, becomes one spirit with the divine Spirit, and who, having crossed the court of the Being has entered into the mystery of the "Over-Essence". But this Name is inaccessible, incomprehensible, and as if non-existent for any other who is not established in the same state as it.
This is why God gives him another Name, a name which is “to be said to the Israelites: He who is”. To the Israelites, that is to say to the people who are unaware of the transcendence of union, but who can recognize “He who is”. For it is indeed a sign of recognition that Moses asks for the people, a Name which can be made a natural sign of recognition because it is inscribed in the natural substance of intelligence. This Name is that of Being: “the notion of being becomes for us, and so to speak at the root of our thought, the memorial of the one who is”. Indeed, the Cherub of the soul, the speculative intellect, is naturally attracted to and oriented by Being, and conceives nothing beyond. This being, for profane philosophy, embraces the whole of reality; this philosophy conceives “nothing supra-ontological (supersubstantialiter) above the order of beings”. Which means that the category of being – “subject of metaphysics” – “envelops both the created and the Uncreated”.
Such is not the knowledge of sacred wisdom, but is only obtained in supra-intelligible Silence and perfect union with the “Entity” of being, the superessential Deity. Then the Name is ineffably revealed of which the Song of Songs tells us: “Your Name is oil that pours out” (1:2). This oil, which is that of the hidden science of the divine mystery, spreads from hierarchy to hierarchy, from the Seraphim who tastes by experience the superessential happiness, on the lower degrees, Cherubim and Throne. But, in another way, this Name also spreads “in Itself”. Indeed, says Thomas Gallus, the Name Ego sum qui sum is that of the Being which is reflected in Itself, it is that of the Being returned into itself, is the revelation of the “circularity” of the divine Essence, that of the Trinitarian Circumincession: “It is,” says S. Dionysius the Areopagite, “as if it were an eternal circle: the Supreme Good turns in a immutable round, proceeding from Good in Good towards Good” (Divine Names, 712 D).
The divine Name revealed to Moses in the Ego sum qui sum is therefore that of the “eternal and quasi-circular trinity”, the supraconceptual secret of the unitrinary entity, a secret which is only received in the fine point of the soul , the spark of synderesis, the ground, “united to eternity”.
(from Jean Borella, Of non-being and the seraph of the soul)
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