De docta ignorantia

Who is a juster judge than he who is justice itself? For Christ, the head and principle of every rational creature, is the maximal reason itself, from which is all reason. But reason is a judgment making discretion. Hence deservedly he is the judge of the living and the dead, who with all rational creatures assumed the rational human nature, remaining God, who is the remunerator of all. But he judges above all time through himself and in himself all things, since he embraces all creatures, since he is the maximal man, in whom are all; for God, as God is the infinite light, in which there are no darknesses; which light indeed illuminates all, so that all in that light are most manifest unto the light itself. For this infinite intellectual light above all time enfolds the present as the past, the living as the dead, as corporeal light is the hypostasis of all colors. But Christ is as the purest fire, which is inseparable from the light, and does not subsist in itself, but in the light; and that fire is of spiritual intellectual life, which as it consumes all things receiving all within itself both proves and judges, as the judgment of material fire, examining all. But in Christ all rational spirits are judged, as the ignible in fire, of which one is persistently transformed in him into the similitude of fire, as the best and most perfect gold; thus it is gold and so vehemently ignited, that it appears no more gold than fire, and another does not so much participate in the intensity of fire, as purified silver or bronze or iron. All nevertheless are seen transformed into fire, although each in its own degree. And this judgment is of fire only, not of the ignited, since whatever ignited thing in whatever ignited apprehends only that most ardent fire and not the difference of the ignited, as though we, if we beheld molten gold and silver and copper in the maximal fire, would not apprehend the differences of the metals, after they are transformed into the form of fire. But if that fire itself were intellectual, it would know the degree of perfection of each, and unto how much according to those degrees the capacity of the intensity of fire is differently disposed in each. Hence, as certain ignibles are persevering incorruptibly in fire, capable of light and heat, which are transformable into the similitude of fire on account of their purity, and this differently according to more and less, but certain others are those which on account of their impurity, even if heatable, are yet not transformable into light, so Christ the judge according to the one most simple and undivided judgment in one moment most justly and without envy communicates as in the order of nature, not of time, the heat of created reason, that with heat received he infuse from above the divine intellectual light, so that God be all in all, and all through him the mediator in God, and equal, as much as this according to the capacity of each shall have been possible. But that certain, for this reason, that they are more united and pure, are perceptible not only of heat, but also of light, and others scarcely of heat, but not of light, happens from the indisposition of the subjects. Hence, since that infinite light is eternity itself and truth, it is necessary that the rational creature, which desires to be illuminated through it, convert itself unto true and eternal things, above these mundane and corruptible. In a contrary way corporeal and spiritual things behave. For the vegetative virtue is corporeal, which converts aliment received from without into the nature of the fed; and the animal is not converted into bread, but conversely. But the intellectual spirit, whose operation is above time as on the horizon of eternity, when it converts itself unto eternal things, cannot convert them into itself, since they are eternal and incorruptible; but neither does it so convert itself into them, that it ceases to be an intellectual substance, but is converted into them, that it be absorbed into the similitude of eternals according to degrees nevertheless, so that the more and more fervently converted unto them, the more and more profoundly it is perfected by eternals and its being is hidden in that eternal being. But Christ since he is the immortal embrace and lives and is life and truth, who converts himself unto him, converts himself unto life and unto truth; and the more ardently this, the more he elevates himself from mundane and corruptible unto eternal things, so that his life is hidden in Christ. For virtues are eternal, justice remaining for ever and ever, life and truth. Who converts himself unto virtues, walks in the ways of Christ, which are the ways of purity and immortality. True virtues are divine illuminations. Hence who in this life converts himself through Christ, who is virtue, when he is absolved from this temporal life, will be found in purity of spirit, that he may enter unto the joy of eternal apprehension.

But the conversion of our spirit is, when according to all its intellectual potencies it converts itself through faith unto that purest eternal truth itself, to which it postpones all, and chooses and loves that truth alone as alone to be loved.

For conversion through most certain faith unto the truth, which is Christ, is to desert this world and trample it in victory. But to love him most ardently is to proceed into him through spiritual motion, for he is not only lovable, but charity itself. For while the spirit proceeds through degrees of love unto charity itself, it is poured into charity itself not temporally indeed, but above all time and all mundane motion. Just therefore as every lover is in love, so all loving the living one are in Christ; and as every lover is loving through love, so all loving the truth through Christ are loving it. Hence no one knows the truth, unless the spirit of Christ have been in him. And as it is impossible for a lover to be without love, so it is impossible for anyone to have God without the spirit of Christ, in which spirit alone we can adore God. On account of which unbelievers not converted unto Christ, incapable of the light of the glory of transformation, are already judged unto the darkness and shadow of death, averted from the life, which is Christ, of whose fullness alone all in glory are satiated through union. Of which below, when we speak of the church, from the same foundation we shall subjoin some things for our consolation.