Breviloquium

From the foregoing, moreover, it can be gathered that the creation of the world is as it were a certain book, in which the Trinity that fashioned it shines forth, is represented, and is read according to a threefold degree of expression, namely, by way of vestige, image, and likeness; so that the character of vestige is found in all creatures, the character of image in intellectual beings alone, or rational spirits, and the character of likeness in the deiform alone; from these, as it were through certain ladder-like steps, the human intellect is naturally led to ascend gradually to the supreme principle, which is God¹.

The reason for understanding the foregoing is this: since all creatures bear a relation to and dependence on their Creator, they can be compared with him in three ways, namely, either as with a creative principle, or as with a moving object, or as with an indwelling gift. In the first way every effect is compared with him, in the second every intellect, and in the third every spirit that is just and acceptable to God. For every effect, however little being it possesses, has God as its principle. Every intellect, however little light it possesses, is naturally led through knowledge and love to grasp God. But every just and holy spirit has the gift of the Holy Spirit infused into it².

And since the creature cannot have God as its principle without being conformed to him according to unity, truth, and goodness; nor have God as its object without grasping him through memory, understanding, and will; nor have God as an infused gift without being conformed to him through faith, hope, and charity, or the threefold endowment³; and since the first conformity is distant, the second near, and the third nearest: hence the first is called the vestige of the Trinity, the second the image, and the third the likeness.

The rational spirit is therefore midway between the first and the last, so that it has the first below, the second within, and the third above. And therefore, in the state of innocence, when the image was not corrupted but made deiform through grace, the book of the creature sufficed, in which man exercised himself in contemplating the light of divine wisdom; so that he would thus be wise when he saw all things in himself, saw them in their proper genus, and saw them also in art; according as things have being in three ways, namely, in their own matter or nature, in created intelligence, and in eternal art; according to these three Scripture says⁴: God said: Let it be; he made, and it was made.

On account of this threefold vision, man received a threefold eye, as Hugh of St Victor says⁵, namely, of flesh, of reason, and of contemplation: the eye of flesh, by which he would see the world and the things that are in the world; the eye of reason, by which he would see the mind and the things that are in the mind; the eye of contemplation, by which he would see God and the things that are in God; and thus with the eye of flesh man would see the things that are outside him, with the eye of reason those that are within him, and with the eye of contemplation those that are above him. This eye of contemplation does not have its act perfected except through glory, which it loses through sin, but recovers through grace and faith⁶ and through the understanding of the Scriptures, by which the human mind is purged, illuminated, and perfected for contemplating heavenly things; to which fallen man cannot attain unless he first recognizes his own defects and darkness, which he does not do unless he considers and attends to the ruin of human nature.