De docta ignorantia

It is fitting to speculate further a few things concerning the infinite sphere. We find in the infinite sphere three greatest lines of length, breadth and depth concurring in the center. But the center of the greatest sphere equals the diameter and the circumference. Therefore with those three lines the infinite sphere equals the diameter and the circumference. Therefore with those three lines the infinite sphere equals the center. Indeed the center is all those, namely length, breadth and depth; the maximum will therefore be most simply and infinitely all length, breadth and depth, which in it are one most simple indivisible maximum. And as the center precedes all latitude, longitude and profundity and is the end of all those and the middle, since in the infinite sphere center, thickness and circumference are the same, and just as the infinite sphere is altogether in act and most simple, so the maximum is altogether in act most simply. And just as the sphere is the act of line, triangle and circle, so the maximum is the act of all things. Hence every actual existence has from it whatever of actuality exists, and every existence exists in act for as much as it is in that infinite act, and hence the maximum is also the form of being, or the greatest actual beingness. Hence Parmenides, considering most subtly, said: God is being, to whom to be whatever is, is to be everything that is. Just as, therefore, the sphere is the ultimate perfection of figures, than which there is no greater, so the maximum is the most perfect perfection of all, so much so that everything imperfect in it is most perfect, just as the infinite line is a sphere, and in it curvature is straightness and composition simplicity and diversity identity and otherness unity, and so of the rest. For how could there be anything of imperfection there, where imperfection is infinite perfection and possibility infinite act, and so of the rest? We now see clearly, since the maximum is as the greatest sphere, in what manner it is the single most simple most adequate measure of the whole universe and of all things existing in the universe, since in it the whole is not greater than the part, just as the sphere is not greater than the infinite line. God is therefore the single most simple reason of the whole universe, and just as after infinite circulations the sphere is reached, so God, as the greatest sphere, is the most simple measure of all circulations; for all vivification, motion and intelligence are from him, in him, and through him, with whom one revolution of the eighth sphere is not smaller than infinite ones, because he is the end of all motions, in whom every motion rests as in its end. For he is the greatest rest, in which every motion is rest; the greatest rest is the measure of all motions, just as the greatest straightness of all circumferences and the greatest presence or eternity of all times. In him all natural motions rest as in their end, and every potency is perfected in him as in infinite act. And since he himself is the beingness of all being, and every motion is toward being, therefore the rest of motion is he himself, who is the end of motion, namely the form and act of being. All beings therefore tend toward him. And since they are finite and cannot equally participate the end, in comparison to one another, then some participate this end through the medium of others, just as the line is led through the medium of triangle and circle into the sphere, and the triangle through the medium of the circle, and the circle into the sphere through itself.