De docta ignorantia

We have a few things concerning the greatest triangle; let us likewise add concerning the infinite circle. The circle is the perfect figure of unity and simplicity. And it has already been shown above that the triangle is a circle. And thus trinity is unity. But this unity is infinite, as the infinite circle. Hence it is, if one may speak so, more one or more identical than every expressible unity and apprehensible by us, through infinity. For so great is the identity there that it even antecede all relative oppositions, since there other and diverse are not opposed to identity. Hence since the maximum is of infinite unity, then all things which befit it are itself without diversity and otherness, so that its goodness is not other than its wisdom, but the same. For every diversity in it is identity. Hence its power, since it is, so to speak, most one, is also most strong and most infinite. So great indeed is its most-one duration that the past is not other than the future, and the future is not other than the present in it, but they are a most-one duration or eternity without beginning and end; for there is so much in its principle that the end too is in its principle. But all these things the infinite circle without beginning and end shows: eternal, indivisibly, most one, most capacious. And since that circle is greatest, its diameter is also greatest. And since there cannot be several maxima, that most-one circle is infinite in that diameter is circumference. But the diameter of the infinite has an infinite middle. But the middle is the center. It is evident, therefore, that center, diameter and circumference are the same. From which ignorance is taught that the incomprehensible maximum is that to which the minimum is not opposed, but in it center is circumference. You see how the whole maximum is most perfectly within every simple and indivisible thing, because infinite center; and outside everything embracing all, because infinite circumference; and penetrating all, because infinite diameter. The principle of all, because center; the end of all, because circumference; the middle of all, because diameter. Efficient cause, because center; formal, because diameter; final, because circumference. Giving being, because center; governing, because diameter; conserving, because circumference. And many like things. You apprehend therefore through intellect how the maximum is the same as nothing nor diverse from anything, and how all things are in it, from it and through it, because circumference, diameter, and center. Not that it is either circle or circumference, diameter or center, but the maximum alone most simple, which is investigated through these paradigms and is found to embrace all things that are and are not, and so that not-being in it is maximal being, just as the minimum is maximum. And the measure of every circulation, which is from potency into act and returning from act into potency, of composition from principles to individuals and of resolution of individuals to principles, and of perfect circular forms and circular operations and motions upon themselves and returning to their principle, and of all like things, whose unity consists in a certain circular perpetuity. Many things could here be drawn concerning the perfection of unity from this circular figure which, since they can easily be drawn by anyone according to what precedes, I pass over for brevity. Note only this, when being admonishes, how every theology is circular and posited in a circle, so much so that even the words of the attributes are verified of one another circularly, as highest justice is highest truth and highest truth is highest justice, and so of all — from which, if you would extend the inquiry, infinite theological things already evident will be able to become most manifest to you.