De docta ignorantia

If we extend with subtle consideration what has been manifested to us through learned ignorance in the premises, from this however that we know all things to be the absolute maximum, or to be from it, many things about the world or universe, which I wish to be only the contracted maximum, will be able to lie open to us. For the contracted or concrete itself, since from the absolute it has all that it is, then imitates as much as it can that which is the maximum, the maximally absolute. Therefore what in the first book became known to us concerning the absolute maximum, as then they befit it absolutely as absolute in the maximal way, those we affirm to befit the contracted contractedly; but let us unfold some, that we may prepare an entrance for the inquirer.

God is absolute maximality and absolute unity, preventing and uniting difference and distance, as are contradictories, of which there is no mean: which absolutely is that which all things are, in all things the absolute principle and end of things and entity. In whom all things are without plurality, the absolute maximum itself most simply, indistinctly, as all figures are in the infinite line. So likewise the world or universe is the contracted maximum and one, preventing opposites contractedly, as are contraries: existing contractedly that which all things are; in all things the contracted principle and contracted end of things, contracted being, contracted infinity, that it be contractedly infinite; in which all things without plurality are the contracted maximum itself with contracted simplicity and indistinction, as the maximal contracted line is contractedly all figures. Whence, when contraction is rightly considered, all things are clear. For contracted infinity or simplicity, or indistinction, descends through the infinite into contraction from that which is absolute, so that the infinite and eternal world falls without proportion from absolute infinity and eternity, and one from unity. Whence absolute unity is absolute from all plurality; but contracted unity, which is the one universe, although it be one maximum since it is contracted, is not absolute from plurality, although it be only one contracted maximum. Hence, although it be maximally one, yet its unity is contracted through plurality, as infinity through finitude, simplicity through composition, eternity through succession, necessity through possibility, and so of the rest, as if absolute necessity communicated itself without admixture and were contractedly terminated in its opposite, as if whiteness had absolute being in itself without abstraction of our intellect, from which white were contractedly white: then whiteness would be terminated through non-whiteness in the white in act, so that this were white through whiteness, which without it would not be white. From these the investigator will be able to elicit many things. For as God, since he is immense, is neither in the sun nor in the moon, although in them is that which they are, absolutely, so the universe is neither in the sun nor in the moon, although in them is that which they are, contractedly. And since the quiddity of the sun is not other than the absolute quiddity of the moon, since it is God himself, who is the absolute entity and quiddity of all things, and the contracted quiddity of the sun is other than the contracted quiddity of the moon, since as the absolute quiddity of a thing is not the thing itself, so the contracted is nothing other than it itself. Hence it is clear that, since the universe is contracted quiddity, which is contracted otherwise in the sun and otherwise in the moon, hence the identity of the universe is in diversity, as unity in plurality.

Whence the universe, although it is neither sun nor moon, is yet in the sun sun and in the moon moon, but that which is sun and moon, without plurality and diversity. Universe says universality, that is, unity of many. On this account, as humanity is neither Socrates nor Plato, but in Socrates is Socrates, in Plato Plato, so the universe to all things. Since, however, it has been said that the universe is only the contracted principle, and in this the maximum, it is clear how through simple emanation of the contracted maximum from the absolute maximum the whole universe proceeds into being. All beings, however, which are parts of the universe, without which the universe, since it is contracted, could not be one, whole and perfect, proceeded into being together with the universe, and not first intelligential things, then the noble soul, then nature, as Avicenna and other philosophers wished; as in the artificer's intention the whole, say a house, is prior to the part, say a wall, so we say, since from God's intention all things proceeded into being, that then the universe proceeded first, and in consequence of it all things, without which neither the universe nor the perfect can be. Whence, as the abstract is in the concrete, so we consider the absolute maximum priorly in the contracted maximum, that it be consequently in all particulars, since it is absolutely in that which is all things contractedly. For God is the absolute quiddity of the world or universe. The universe, however, is contracted quiddity itself. Contraction is said to something, as to being this or that. God therefore, who is one, is in the one universe; the universe, however, is contractedly in universals. And thus it will be able to be understood how God, who is the most simple unity, existing in the one universe, is as it were from consequence through the medium of the universe in all things, and the plurality of things through the medium of the one universe in God.