De docta ignorantia

Further, our insatiable intellect, most sweetly aroused, watchfully incited by what precedes, inquires how it may more clearly behold this participation of the one maximum, and again helping itself by the example of infinite linear straightness says: it is not possible for the curved, which receives more and less, to be maximum or minimum, nor is the curved as curved anything, since it is a fall from the straight. The being, therefore, which is in the curved, is from participation of straightness, since the most and least curved is nothing but straight. Hence the less curved a curved thing is, as the circumference of a greater circle, the more it participates of straightness — not that it takes a part, because infinite straightness is impartible, but the greater a finite straight line is, the more it seems to participate of the infinite maximum of the infinite line. And just as the finite straight, in that it is straight, into which indeed minimal curvature is resolved, participates the infinite according to a simpler participation, and the curved not so simple and immediate, but rather mediate and distant, since through the medium of the straightness which it participates, so some beings participate the maximal beingness subsisting in itself more immediately, as simple finite substances are; and there are other beings participating beingness not through themselves, but through the medium of substances, as accidents — whence, that diverse participation notwithstanding, still, as Aristotle says, the straight is the measure of itself and of the oblique, just as the infinite line is of the straight and curved line, so the maximum is of all things participating in whatever diverse modes. And in this is opened the understanding of what is said, that substance does not receive more or less. For this is true in the way that a finite straight line, in that it is straight, does not admit more and less, but because it is finite, then through diverse participation of the infinite, one is greater or smaller with respect to another, nor are two ever found equal. But the curved, as to participation of straightness, receives more and less, and consequently through the participated straightness itself, so the straight receives more and less. And hence it is that accidents, the more they participate the nobler substance, are still nobler. And in this is seen how there cannot be but beings participating the beingness of the first either through themselves or through other beings, just as there are found but lines either straight or curved. And therefore Aristotle rightly divided all things in the world into substance and accidents. Of substance and accident, therefore, there is one most adequate measure, which is the maximum itself most simple, which although it is neither substance nor accident, yet from what precedes it is manifestly clear that it rather takes the name of what more immediately participates it, namely substances, than of accidents. Hence the greatest Dionysius calls it more than substance, or supersubstantial, rather than superaccidental, since it is much more to say it is supersubstantial than superaccidental; therefore that is more fittingly attributed to the maximum. But it is called supersubstantial, that is namely non-substantial, because this is below it, but above substance, and thus it is a negative more truly fitting the maximum, as we shall say below concerning the names of God. One could inquire from the foregoing many things concerning the diversity and nobility of accidents and substances, of which this is not the place for treatment.