De docta ignorantia

From these considerations it is most clearly established that the absolute maximum is unintelligibly intelligible and unnameably nameable, as we shall set forth below a fuller teaching on this point. There is nothing nameable than which a greater or a smaller could not be given, since the names attributed to such things belong to the motion of reason, which admits of exceeding and being exceeded. And since all things are in the best mode in which they can be, without number there can be no plurality of beings; for with number removed, the distinction, order, proportion, and harmony of things, and even the very plurality of beings, cease. But if number itself were infinite, since it would then be the maximum in act, with which the minimum would coincide, all the aforesaid would likewise cease. For it comes to the same thing whether number is infinite or least.

If, then, by ascending among numbers one arrives in act at a maximum, since number is finite, one still does not arrive at a maximum than which a greater cannot be, since that is infinite.

Hence it is manifest that the ascent of number is finite in act, and that it will be in potency toward another, and number would behave likewise in descent, so that, given any small number whatever in act, a smaller would always be obtainable by subtraction, just as in ascent a greater by addition; and it would still be the same; for no distinction of things, nor order, nor plurality, nor exceeding and exceeded would be found in numbers — indeed, there would be no number.

Therefore it is necessary to arrive in number at a minimum than which there cannot be less, as unity is. And since there cannot be less than unity, unity will be the minimum simply, which coincides with the maximum through what was just shown.

But unity cannot be a number, since number, admitting of exceeding, can in no way be the minimum simply nor the maximum simply; but it is the beginning of all number, because the minimum, and the end of all number, because the maximum.

Absolute unity, therefore, to which nothing is opposed, is absolute maximality itself, which is blessed God.

This unity, since it is maximal, is not multipliable, since it is everything that can be.

It cannot, therefore, itself become number. See how we have been led through number to this: to understand that absolute unity befits the unnameable God more closely, and that God is so one as to be in act everything that is possible. Therefore this unity admits neither more nor less, nor is it multipliable. The Godhead, then, is infinite unity. He who said: 'Hear, O Israel, your God is one; and one is your master and father in heaven,' could have said nothing truer; whoever would say that there are several gods would most falsely affirm that neither God nor anything at all of the universe exists, as will be shown in what follows. For just as number, which is a being of reason fashioned by our comparative power of distinction, necessarily presupposes unity as the principle of such number, so that without it number cannot be: so the pluralities of things, descending from this infinite unity, stand to it in such a way that without it they cannot be; for how would they be without being? Absolute unity, moreover, is entity itself, as we shall see later.