which two are signified in the one bridegroom of the Church, Jesus Christ, who is at once neighbor and God, at once brother and lord, at once also king and friend, at once the Word uncreated and incarnate, our former and reformer, as Alpha and Omega; who is also the supreme hierarch, purging, illuminating and perfecting the bride, namely the whole Church and every holy soul. 6. Concerning this hierarch and the ecclesiastical hierarchy, therefore, is the whole of Sacred Scripture, by which we are taught to be purged, illuminated and perfected, and this according to the threefold law handed down in it, namely of nature, of Scripture and of grace;
or rather according to its threefold principal part, namely the Mosaic law that purges, the prophetic revelation that illumines, and the evangelical instruction that perfects; or most of all according to its threefold spiritual understanding: the tropological, which purges unto honesty of life; the allegorical, which illumines unto clarity of understanding;
the anagogical, which perfects through mental ecstasies and the most sweet perceptions of wisdom, according to the three aforementioned theological virtues and the reformed spiritual senses and the three aforesaid ecstasies and the hierarchical acts of the mind, by which our mind returns to interior things, that there it may behold God in the splendors of the Saints, and in those same splendors, as in resting-chambers, may sleep in peace and rest, the bridegroom adjuring that it be not awakened until it proceed by His will. 7.
Now from these two middle degrees, by which we enter to contemplate God within us as in the mirrors of created images—and this as it were after the manner of wings spread out for flying, which held the middle place—we can understand that in divine things we are led by the hand through the powers of the rational soul itself, naturally implanted, as regards their operations, dispositions and scientific habits; as appears from the third degree. We are also led by the hand through the reformed powers of the soul itself, and this by the gratuitous virtues, the spiritual senses and the mental ecstasies; as is evident from the fourth.
We are nonetheless led by the hand through the hierarchical operations, namely of purgation, illumination and perfection of human minds, through the hierarchical revelations of the Sacred Scriptures given to us by the Angels, according to that saying of the Apostle, that the Law was given by Angels in the hand of a Mediator. And finally we are led by the hand through the hierarchies and hierarchical orders, which have to be arranged in our mind after the likeness of the supernal Jerusalem. 8. Our mind, filled with all these intellectual lights, is inhabited by divine Wisdom as the house of God, made the daughter, bride and friend of God; made a member of Christ the head, His sister and coheir;
made nonetheless the temple of the Holy Spirit, founded by faith, raised up by hope and dedicated to God by holiness of mind and body. All of which the most sincere charity of Christ effects, which is poured forth in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us, without which Spirit we cannot know the secret things of God. For just as the things which are of man no one can know but the spirit of man which is in him, so also the things which are of God no one knows but the Spirit of God. Let us therefore be rooted and grounded in charity, that we may be able to comprehend with all the Saints what is the length of eternity, what the breadth of liberality, what the sublimity of majesty and what the depth of the judging Wisdom. 1.
Now since it falls to us to contemplate God not only outside us and within us, but also above us—outside through vestige, within through image, and above through the light of eternal Truth, since 'our very mind is immediately formed by Truth itself'—those who have been exercised in the first mode have already entered into the court before the tabernacle; those, however, in the second, have entered into the holy place; while those in the third enter with the high priest into the holy of holies; where above the ark are the Cherubim of glory overshadowing the propitiatory; by which we understand two modes or degrees of contemplating the invisible and eternal things of God, of which one is concerned with the essential attributes of God, the other with the proper attributes of the persons. 2.
The first mode first and principally fixes its gaze upon being itself, saying that 'He who is' is the first name of God. The second mode fixes its gaze upon the good itself, saying that this is the first name of God. The first regards most fittingly the Old Testament, which especially proclaims the unity of the divine essence; whence it was said to Moses: 'I am who am.' The second regards the New, which determines the plurality of persons, baptizing in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Therefore our Master Christ, wishing to raise the young man who had kept the Law to evangelical perfection, attributed the name of goodness to God principally and precisely. 'No one,' He says, 'is good but God alone.'
Damascene, therefore, following Moses, says that 'He who is' is the first name of God; Dionysius, following Christ, says that 'the good' is the first name of God. 3. He, therefore, who wishes to contemplate the invisible things of God as regards the unity of the essence, let him first fix his gaze upon being itself, and let him see that being itself is so most certain in itself that it cannot be thought not to be, because the most pure being does not present itself except in the full flight from non-being, just as nothing does in the full flight from being. As, therefore, utter nothing has nothing of being nor of its conditions; so, on the contrary, being itself has nothing of non-being, neither in act nor in potency, neither according to the truth of the thing nor according to our estimation.
Now since non-being is the privation of being, it does not fall within the intellect except through being; but being does not fall within it through another, for everything that is understood is understood either as non-being, or as being in potency, or as being in act. If, therefore, non-being cannot be understood except through being, and being in potency only through being in act; and 'being' names the very pure act of a being: therefore being is what first falls within the intellect, and that being is what is pure act. But this is not particular being, which is analogous being, because it has the least of act, in that it least is. It remains, therefore, that that being is the divine being. 4.
Wondrous, therefore, is the blindness of the intellect, which does not consider that which it sees first and without which it can know nothing. But just as the eye, intent upon the various differences of colors, does not see the light through which it sees all the rest—and if it does see it, takes no notice of it—so the eye of our mind, intent upon particular and universal beings, does not advert to Being itself, which lies beyond every genus, even though it is the first thing to present itself to the mind and through it all other things are known. Hence it appears most truly that 'as the eye of the bat is disposed toward the light, so is the eye of our mind disposed toward the most manifest things of nature'; for, accustomed to the darkness of beings and to the phantasms of sensible things, when it gazes upon the very light of the supreme Being, it seems to itself to see nothing;
not understanding that that very darkness is the supreme illumination of our mind, just as, when the eye sees pure light, it seems to itself to see nothing. 5. Behold, therefore, the most pure Being itself, if you can, and it will occur to you that it cannot be thought of as received from another; and thereby it is of necessity thought of as in every way first, which can come neither from nothing nor from anything. For what is through itself, if Being itself is not through itself nor from itself? It will also occur to you as wholly lacking non-being, and thereby as never beginning, never ceasing, but eternal. It will also occur to you as having nothing in itself except that which is Being itself, and thereby as composed of nothing, but most simple.
It will occur to you as having nothing of possibility, since everything possible in some way has something of non-being, and thereby as supremely most actual. It will occur as having nothing of defectibility, and thereby as most perfect. It will occur, lastly, as having nothing of diversity, and thereby as supremely one. Being, therefore, which is pure being and being absolutely and being unconditioned, is primary being, eternal, most simple, most actual, most perfect, and supremely one. 6. And these things are so certain that one who understands Being itself cannot think the opposite of them, and each necessarily implies the other. For because it is being absolutely, it is therefore absolutely first;
because absolutely first, it is therefore not made by another, nor could it be by itself, and so it is eternal. Likewise, because first and eternal, it is therefore not from other things, and so most simple. Again, because first, eternal, and most simple, there is therefore nothing of possibility in it mixed with act, and so it is most actual. Again, because first, eternal, most simple, most actual, it is therefore most perfect; to such a being nothing whatever is lacking, nor can any addition be made. Because first, eternal, most simple, most actual, most perfect, it is therefore supremely one. For that which is said by reason of an all-encompassing superabundance with respect to all things—'whatever is said absolutely by superabundance, it is impossible that it should belong to any but one alone.'
Hence, if 'God' names primary being, eternal, most simple, most actual, most perfect, it is impossible that it be thought not to be, or to be other than one alone. Hear, therefore, O Israel, the Lord thy God is one God. If you see this in the pure simplicity of the mind, you will in some measure be flooded with the illumination of the eternal light. 7. But you have grounds to be lifted up into wonder. For Being itself is first and last, it is eternal and most present, it is most simple and greatest, it is most actual and most immutable, it is most perfect and immense, it is supremely one and yet all-embracing. If you marvel at these things with a pure mind, you will be flooded with greater light, when you see further that it is last precisely because it is first.
For because it is first, it works all things for its own sake; and therefore it must of necessity be the ultimate end, the beginning and the consummation, the Alpha and the Omega. Therefore it is most present, because it is eternal. For because it is eternal, it does not flow from another, nor fail from itself, nor run from one thing into another; therefore it has neither past nor future, but only present being. Therefore it is greatest, because most simple. For because it is most actual, it is therefore pure act; and what is such acquires nothing new, loses nothing it has, and thereby cannot be changed. Therefore it is immense, because most perfect. For because it is most perfect, nothing better, nobler, or more worthy can be thought beyond it, and thereby nothing greater; and everything of this kind is immense.
Therefore it is all-embracing, because supremely one. For that which is supremely one is the universal principle of all multitude; and thereby it is itself the universal efficient, exemplary, and final cause of all things, as 'the cause of being, the ground of understanding, and the order of living.' It is therefore all-embracing, not as the essence of all things, but as the most superexcellent and most universal cause of all essences; whose power, because it is supremely unified in essence, is therefore supremely infinite and manifold in efficacy. 8. Returning again, let us say: because, therefore, the most pure and absolute being, which is being simply, is first and last,
because eternal and most present, it therefore encompasses and enters all durations, as if existing at once as their center and circumference. Because most simple, it is therefore wholly within all things and wholly outside them, and thereby 'it is an intelligible sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.' Because most actual and most immutable, it therefore 'remaining stable, gives movement to all things.' Because most perfect and immense, it is therefore within all things, not enclosed; outside all things, not excluded; above all things, not lifted up; below all things, not cast down. But because it is supremely one and all-embracing, it is therefore all in all, although all things are many and it is but one;
and this because, through its most simple unity, its most serene truth, there is all exemplarity and all communicability; and thereby, from it and through it and in it are all things; and this because it is omnipotent, omniscient, and in every way good, which to see perfectly is to be blessed, as was said to Moses: I will show thee all good. 1. After the consideration of the essential attributes, the eye of the understanding is to be raised to the contemplation of the most blessed Trinity, so that the one Cherub may be set beside the other. But just as in the vision of the essential attributes Being itself is the radical principle and the name by which the rest are made known, so in the contemplation of the emanations the Good itself is the most principal foundation. 2.
Behold, therefore, and attend, since the best is that which simply is, than which nothing better can be thought; and such a being is so that it cannot rightly be thought not to be, because to be is altogether better than not to be; it is so that it cannot rightly be thought without being thought as three and one. For 'the good is said to be self-diffusive'; the supreme good, therefore, is supremely self-diffusive. But supreme diffusion cannot be unless it is actual and intrinsic, substantial and hypostatic, natural and voluntary, free and necessary, unfailing and perfect.
Unless, therefore, there were in the supreme Good an eternal production, actual and consubstantial, and a hypostasis equally noble as the producing one, by way of generation and spiration—so that there is an eternal co-principle of an eternal principle eternally co-originating—so that there should be a beloved and a co-beloved, a begotten and a spirated, that is, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; it would by no means be the supreme Good, because it would not diffuse itself supremely. For diffusion in time in a creature is but central or punctual in comparison with the immensity of the eternal goodness; whence too a diffusion greater than that can be thought, namely one in which the diffuser communicates to another its whole substance and nature.
Therefore it would not be the supreme Good if it could lack this, whether in reality or in understanding. If, therefore, you can behold with the mind's eye the purity of goodness, which is the pure act of a principle loving in charity with a love both gratuitous and due and mingled of both—which is the most full diffusion by way of nature and of will, which is the diffusion by way of the Word in whom all things are spoken, and by way of the Gift in whom all other gifts are given—you can see that, through the supreme communicability of the good, the Trinity of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit must necessarily be.
In whom there must necessarily be, on account of the supreme goodness, the supreme communicability, and from the supreme communicability the supreme consubstantiality, and from the supreme consubstantiality the supreme configurability, and from these the supreme co-equality, and thereby the supreme co-eternity, and from all the aforesaid the supreme co-intimacy, by which one is necessarily in the other through the supreme circumincession, and one operates with the other through the all-embracing indivision of substance and power and operation of the most blessed Trinity itself. 3. But when you contemplate these things, see that you do not deem yourself to comprehend the incomprehensible.
For you have still in these six conditions something to consider which vehemently leads the eye of our mind into the stupor of wonder. For there is supreme communicability with property of the persons, supreme consubstantiality with plurality of the hypostases, supreme configurability with distinct personality, supreme co-equality with order, supreme co-eternity with emanation, supreme co-intimacy with emission. Who, at the sight of such marvels, would not rise up in wonder? But all these things we understand most certainly to be in the most blessed Trinity, if we lift our eyes to the most superexcellent goodness. For if there is there supreme communication and true diffusion, there is there true origin and true distinction;
and because the whole is communicated, not a part, therefore that which is possessed is given, and the whole: hence the one emanating and the one producing are both distinguished by properties, and are essentially one. Because, therefore, they are distinguished by properties, they have personal properties and a plurality of hypostases and an emanation of origin and an order not of posteriority but of origin, and an emission not of local change but of gratuitous inspiration, by reason of the authority of the one producing, which the sender has with respect to the one sent. But because they are substantially one, there must therefore be unity in essence and form and dignity and eternity and existence and incircumscriptibility.
While, therefore, you consider these things one by one in themselves, you have whereby to contemplate truth; while you compare them with one another, you have whereby to be suspended in the highest wonder: and therefore, that your mind may by wonder ascend into wonderful contemplation, these things are to be considered together. 4. For the Cherubim also signify this, who looked one upon the other. Nor is it without mystery that they looked toward each other with faces turned toward the mercy-seat, so that what the Lord says in John may be verified: This is eternal life, that they may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.
For we ought to marvel not only at the essential and personal conditions of God in themselves, but also by comparison with the most wonderful union of God and man in the unity of the person of Christ. 5. For if you are a Cherub contemplating the essential attributes of God, and you marvel that the divine being is at once first and last, eternal and most present, most simple and greatest or uncircumscribed, wholly everywhere and never comprehended, most actual and never moved, most perfect and having nothing superfluous nor diminished, and yet immense and bounded by no limit, supremely one and yet all-embracing, as containing all things in itself, as all power, all truth, all good;
look toward the mercy-seat and marvel that in it the first principle is joined with the last, God with man formed on the sixth day, the eternal is joined with man in time, born of the Virgin in the fullness of time, the most simple with the supremely composite, the most actual with the one who suffered supremely and died, the most perfect and immense with the lowly, the supremely one and all-embracing with an individual composite distinct from all others, namely the man Jesus Christ. 6.
But if you are the other Cherub contemplating the properties of the persons, and you marvel that communicability is with property, consubstantiality with plurality, configurability with personality, co-equality with order, co-eternity with production, co-intimacy with emission—since the Son is sent by the Father, and the Holy Spirit by both, who nevertheless is always with them and never departs from them—look upon the mercy-seat and marvel that in Christ there stands a personal union with a trinity of substances and a duality of natures;
there stands an all-embracing concord with a plurality of wills, there stands the joint predication of God and man with a plurality of properties, there stands a joint adoration with a plurality of nobilities, there stands a joint exaltation above all things with a plurality of dignities, there stands a joint dominion with a plurality of powers. 7. In this consideration is the perfection of the mind's illumination, when, as on the sixth day, it sees man made to the image of God.
For if an image is an expressive likeness, when our mind contemplates in Christ the Son of God—who is by nature the image of the invisible God—our humanity so wondrously exalted, so ineffably united, seeing at once in one the first and the last, the highest and the lowest, the circumference and the center, the Alpha and the Omega, the caused and the cause, the Creator and the creature, that is, the book written within and without; then it has already arrived at a certain perfect thing, so that together with God it may, in the sixth degree as on the sixth day, reach the perfection of its illuminations, and nothing further now remains but the day of rest, on which, through a transport of the mind, the keenness of the human mind may rest from every work that it had wrought. 1.
Having therefore run through these six considerations as through six steps of the throne of the true Solomon, by which one comes to peace, where the true peaceful one rests in the peaceful mind as in the interior Jerusalem; as also through the six wings of the Cherub, by which the mind of the true contemplative, filled with the illumination of heavenly wisdom, may be borne aloft; as also through the six first days, in which the mind must be exercised, that at length it may come to the Sabbath of rest; after our mind has beheld God outside itself through vestiges and in vestiges, within itself through the image and in the image, above itself through the likeness of the divine light shining over us and in that very light, according as is possible in the state of the wayfarer and the exercise of our mind;
when, in the sixth degree, it has come to this, that it may behold in the first and supreme principle and mediator of God and men, Jesus Christ, those things the likeness of which can in no way be found in creatures, and which exceed all the keenness of the human intellect: it remains that, beholding these, it should transcend and pass over not only this sensible world, but even itself; in which passing over Christ is the way and the door, Christ is the ladder and the vehicle, as it were the mercy-seat placed above the ark of God and the sacrament hidden from the ages. 2.
Whoever looks toward this mercy-seat with full turning of his face, gazing upon Him hanging on the cross through faith, hope, and charity, devotion, wonder, exultation, appreciation, praise, and jubilation, makes the Pasch with Him, that is, the passover, so that through the rod of the cross he may pass over the Red Sea, going from Egypt and entering the desert, where he may taste the hidden manna, and rest with Christ in the tomb as if outwardly dead, yet feeling, so far as is possible in the state of the wayfarer, what was said on the cross to the thief cleaving to Christ: This day thou shalt be with me in paradise. 3.
This was also shown to blessed Francis, when in a transport of contemplation on a lofty mountain—where I pondered in my mind these things which have been written—there appeared a six-winged Seraph fixed to a cross, as I and several others heard there from his companion who was then with him; where he passed over into God through the transport of contemplation; and he was set forth as an example of perfect contemplation, just as before he had been of action, like another Jacob and Israel, so that through him God might invite all truly spiritual men to this kind of passing over and transport of mind more by example than by word. 4.
But in this passing over, if it is to be perfect, it is necessary that all intellectual operations be left behind, and that the whole height of affection be transferred and transformed into God. This, however, is mystical and most secret, which no one knows except him who receives it, nor does anyone receive it except him who desires it, nor does anyone desire it except him whom the fire of the Holy Spirit, which Christ sent into the earth, inflames to the marrow. And therefore the Apostle says that this mystical wisdom is revealed through the Holy Spirit. 5. Since, therefore, nature can do nothing toward this, and effort can do little, little is to be given to inquiry and much to unction; little is to be given to the tongue and very much to interior joy;
little is to be given to word and writing, and all to the gift of God, namely the Holy Spirit; little or nothing is to be given to the creature, and all to the creative essence, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, saying with Dionysius to the Triune God: 'O Trinity superessential and superdivine and supremely good overseer of the Christians' divine wisdom, direct us into the super-unknown and super-shining and most sublime summit of the mystical sayings;
where the new and absolute and unchangeable mysteries of theology are hidden in secret, according to the super-shining darkness of the silence that secretly teaches, in the most obscure, which is the most superlatively manifest, the most super-resplendent, and in which everything shines forth, and which super-fills the invisible intellects with the splendors of the invisible super-goods.' This to God. But to the friend for whom these things are written, let it be said with the same Dionysius: 'But thou, O friend, concerning mystical visions, with the journey strengthened, abandon both the senses and the intellectual operations, and the sensible and the invisible, and all non-being and being, and, as is possible, restore thyself unknowingly to the unity of Him who is above all essence and knowledge.
For by the immeasurable and absolute transport of a pure mind, freed from thyself and from all things, abandoning all things and loosed from all, thou shalt ascend to the superessential ray of the divine darkness.' 6. But if you ask how these things come about, ask grace, not doctrine; desire, not understanding; the groaning of prayer, not the study of reading; the Bridegroom, not the teacher; God, not man; darkness, not clarity; not light, but the fire that wholly inflames and bears one into God by ecstatic unctions and most ardent affections. Which fire indeed is God, and its furnace is in Jerusalem, and Christ kindles it in the fervor of His most ardent passion, which he alone truly perceives who says:
My soul hath chosen hanging, and my bones death. Whoever loves this death can see God, for it is undoubtedly true: Man shall not see me and live. Let us die, therefore, and enter into the darkness; let us impose silence upon our cares, our desires, and our phantasms; let us pass over with Christ crucified from this world to the Father, so that, the Father being shown to us, we may say with Philip: It is enough for us; let us hear with Paul: My grace is sufficient for thee; let us exult with David, saying: My flesh and my heart have failed; thou art the God of my heart, and the God that is my portion forever. Blessed be the Lord forever, and let all the people say: So be it, so be it. Amen.