De docta ignorantia

Although an understanding of the church of Christ can be had from what has been said, yet I shall subjoin a brief word, that nothing be lacking to the work. Since it is necessary to receive faith in diverse men as unequal in degree and from this to receive more and less; hence unto the maximal faith, than which no greater can be in potency, no one can arrive, as likewise not unto the maximal charity. For the maximal faith, than which no greater could be in potency, if it were in a wayfarer, it would be necessary that he be also at once a comprehensor. For the maximum in any genus, as it is the supreme limit thereof, so is it also the beginning of the higher. On account of which the simply maximal faith can be in none, who is not at once also a comprehensor; so too the simply maximal charity cannot be in a lover, who is not also at once beloved. On account of which neither maximal faith nor charity simply belongs to another than Jesus Christ, who was wayfarer and comprehensor, loving man and beloved God. But within the maximum all things are included, since it embraces all. Hence in the faith of Christ Jesus all true faith is included, and in the charity of Christ all true charity, with degrees nevertheless always remaining distinct. And since they are distinct within the maximum and above the minimum, no one can, even if in act, as much as in him lies, he have the maximal faith of Christ, attain unto that maximal faith of Christ itself, through which he comprehend Christ God and man; nor can one so love Christ, that Christ cannot be loved more, since Christ is love and charity and therefore lovable to infinity. Hence no one in this life or the future can so love Christ, that he himself on that account be Christ or man. All who are united unto Christ either through faith in this life and charity, or comprehension and fruition in the other life, with gradual difference remaining, are united in such a way that more, with that difference remaining, they cannot be united, so that in himself no one subsists without that union, and through union does not fall from his own degree.

Hence this union is church or congregation of many in one, as many bodies in one body and each in its own degree; where one is not another, and each in the one body, through the mediation of which it is united with each, where none can have life and subsistence without the body, although in the body one is not all except through the mediation of the body. Hence the truth of our faith, while here we peregrinate, cannot subsist except in the spirit of Christ, with the order of believers remaining, that there be diversity in concordance in the one Jesus. And while we are absolved from this militant church, when we shall rise, we shall be able to rise in no other way except in Christ, so that thus there is also one church of the triumphant, and each in his own order. And then the truth of our flesh will not be in itself, but in the truth of the flesh of Christ, and the truth of our body in the truth of the body of Christ, and the truth of our spirit in the truth of the spirit of Christ Jesus, as shoots in the vine, that there be one humanity of Christ in all men, and one spirit of Christ in all spirits; so that each be in him, that there be one Christ of all. And then who in this life received one of all, who are of Christ, received Christ, and what is done unto one of the least, is done unto Christ. As one wounding the hand of Plato wounds Plato, and who offends the least particle, offends the whole man, and who in the homeland rejoices over the least, rejoices over Christ, and in each sees Jesus, through whom the blessed God. So will our God be through his Son all in all, and each in the Son, and through him with God and all, that joy be full without all envy and defect. And since in us faith can continuously be augmented, while here we peregrinate, likewise also charity, although in act each can be in such a degree, that in a greater, next after himself, he cannot now be in act; yet while he is in one degree, he is in potency unto another, although to infinity such progression cannot be made through the common foundation. Hence our possibility we must labor, by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, to be led unto act, that thus we be walking from virtue unto virtue, and from degree unto degree through him, who is faith and charity, without whom from ourselves, as much as from ourselves, we can do nothing, but all things which we can, we can in him, who alone is potent to fill those things which are lacking to us, that we be found a whole and noble member of him in the day of resurrection. And this grace of the increase of faith and charity, by believing and loving from all strengths, by assiduous prayer we can, no doubt, impetrate, approaching his throne with confidence, since he is most pious, and suffers no one to be defrauded of holy desire. If thou hast meditated these, as they are, with profound mind, thou shalt be suffused with admirable sweetness of spirit, since with the inner taste thou shalt scent the inexpressible goodness of God, as in the highest most aromatic, which passing it will minister unto thee, of which thou shalt be satiated when his glory appears. Thou shalt be satiated, I say, without disgust, since this immortal food is life itself. And as ever grows the desire of living, so the food of life is ever eaten without being converted into the nature of the eater. For then the food would be disgusting, which would burden and could not bestow immortal life, since in itself it would fail and be converted into another.

But our intellectual desire is to live intellectually, that is, continuously to enter more into life and joy. And since that is infinite, continuously the blessed are borne with desire into it. They are satiated, therefore, as thirsting ones drinking from the fount of life; and because that drinking does not pass into the past, since it is in eternity, they are ever blessed drinking and ever are satiated and never drank nor were satiated. Blessed be God, who gave us intellect, which in time is not satiable, whose desire, since it takes no end, apprehends itself immortal above corruptible time from the temporally insatiable desire, and knows that it cannot be satiated with the desired intellectual life, except in the fruition of the best maximal good never failing, where fruition does not pass into the past, for appetite does not decrease in fruition. As, to use a corporeal example, if one hungering sat at the table of a great king, where food is ministered to him from desire, so that he appetites no other, whose nature of food is such, that by satiating it sharpen appetite, if this food never failed, it is manifest that the eater is ever continuously satiated and continuously appetites the same food, and is ever borne desirously unto food; ever therefore would he be capable of food, whose virtue would be to be borne, the fed one, continuously into food with inflamed desire. This therefore is the capacity of intellectual nature, that, receiving life into itself, it be converted into it according to its convertible nature, as air, receiving into itself the ray of sun, is converted into light. On account of this the intellect, since it is a nature convertible unto the intelligible, understands only universals and incorruptibles and permanents, since incorruptible truth is its object, unto which it is borne intellectually, which truth indeed in quiet eternal peace it apprehends in Christ Jesus.

This is the church of the triumphant, in which is our God blessed for ever; where with supreme union Christ Jesus the true man is united unto God the son with so great a union, that that humanity itself subsists only in the divinity itself, in which it is so with ineffable hypostatic union, that, with the truth of the nature of humanity remaining, it cannot be united otherwise and more simply. Then every rational nature unto Christ the Lord, with the personal truth of each remaining, if it have been converted unto him in this life with highest faith and hope and charity, exists so united, that all, both angels and men, subsist only in Christ, through whom in God with the truth of the body of each absorbed and attracted through spirit, that each of the blessed, with the truth of his own being preserved, may be Christ in Christ Jesus, and through him God in God, and, as God, with the absolute maximum remaining, may Jesus himself be in Christ Jesus all in all through him. Nor can the church be in another way more one, for church says the unity of many, with the personal truth of each preserved, without confusion of natures and degrees. But the more one the church is, the greater. That church, therefore, is maximal, the church of the eternally triumphant, since a greater union of the church is not possible. Here therefore contemplate, how great is this union, where the maximal absolute divine union and the union in Jesus of deity and humanity and the union of the triumphant church of the deity of Jesus and of the blessed is found. Nor is the absolute union greater or less than the union of natures in Jesus or of the blessed in the homeland, since it is the maximal union, which is the union of all unions, and that which is all union, receiving neither more nor less, proceeding from unity and equality, as is shown in the first book. Nor is the union of natures in Christ greater or less than the unity of the church of the triumphant, since, when it is the maximal union of natures, then in this it receives no more and less. Hence all diverse things, which are united, obtain their unity from that maximal union itself of the natures of Christ, through which the union of the church is that which it is. But the union of the church is the maximal ecclesiastical union. Hence since it is maximal, it coincides above with the hypostatic union of natures in Christ. And that union of the natures of Jesus, since it is maximal, coincides with the absolute union, which is God. And so the union of the church, which is of supposits with that, which although it is not seen to be so one, as the hypostatic, which is of natures only, or the first most simple divine, in which nothing of otherness or diverse can exist, is yet resolved through Jesus into the divine union, from which also it has its beginning, and this indeed is seen more clearly, if it is adverted unto that which is often repeated above. For the absolute union is the Holy Spirit. But the maximal hypostatic union coincides with that absolute union itself; on account of which necessarily the union of natures in Christ is through the absolute, which is the Holy Spirit, and exists in it. But the ecclesiastical union coincides with the hypostatic, as is set forth; on account of which in the spirit of Jesus is the union of the triumphant, which is in the Holy Spirit. Thus the Truth itself says in John: The glory, which thou gavest me, I gave them that they be one, as we are one, I in them, and thou in me, that they be consummated in one. That the church be in eternal quiet, so perfect, that it cannot be more perfect, in so inexpressible a transformation of the glory of man, that in all there appears none but God. Unto which with so great affection with triumph we aspire, praying God the Father with suppliant heart, that through his Son, our man Jesus Christ, and in him through the Holy Spirit, he be willing by his immense piety to bestow it upon us, to enjoy him eternally; who is blessed for ever. Amen.