De docta ignorantia

With these few things premised concerning the universe, how it subsists in contraction, to the end that concerning the absolute maximum alike and contracted Jesus Christ always blessed we may learnedly and ignorantly inquire some things in augmentation of faith and our perfection, further to your admirable industry as briefly as possible I shall disclose the concept concerning Jesus, invoking him that he be the way to himself, who is the truth through which now through faith and hereafter through attainment we be vivified in him through him, who also stands eternal life.

In the first book it is shown that the one absolute maximum, incommunicable, immensurable, and incontrahible to this or that, persists in itself eternally, equally, and immovably the same itself. After this, in the second place the contraction of the universe is made manifest, since this and that exist in no other way than contractedly. The unity of the maximum, therefore, is absolute in itself; the unity of the universe is contracted in plurality. The many, however, in which the universe is actually contracted, can in no way agree in supreme equality; for then they would cease to be many. All things must therefore differ from one another either in genus, in species or number, in species and number, or in genus and number, so that each subsists in its own number, weight, and measure. Hence all things are distinguished from one another by degrees, so that none coincides with another. No contracted thing, therefore, can participate with precision in the degree of contraction of another, so that necessarily each exceeds or is exceeded by any other. All contracted things stand therefore between the maximum and the minimum, so that, any being given, a greater and a lesser degree of contraction can be given, without this process going on to infinity in act, because an infinity of degrees is impossible, since to say that infinite degrees exist in act is nothing other than to say that there is none, as we said of number in the first book. The ascent or descent among contracted things cannot therefore be unto the maximum or minimum absolutely. Hence just as the divine nature, which is absolutely maximal, cannot be diminished so as to pass into the finite and contracted, so neither can the contracted be diminished in contraction so as to become wholly absolute.

Every contracted thing, therefore, since it can be less and more contracted, attains the limit of neither the universe, nor the genus, nor the species. For the first general contraction of the universe is through the plurality of genera, which must differ gradually. But genera do not subsist except as contracted in species, nor species except in individuals, which alone exist in act. Just as, therefore, no individual can be given according to the nature of contracted things except within the limit of its species, so too every individual cannot attain the limit of the genus and the universe. For among the several individuals of the same species a diversity of degrees of perfection must fall, hence according to the given species none will be most perfect, than which a more perfect cannot be given; nor can one so imperfect be given, than which a more imperfect cannot be given. No one attains the limit of the species, therefore.

There is therefore but one limit of species, of genera, and of the universe, which is the center, circumference, and connection of all; and the universe does not exhaust the infinite absolutely maximal power of God itself, as though it were simply the maximum terminating the power of God. The universe does not attain, therefore, the limit of absolute maximality, nor do genera attain the limit, nor species the limit of genera, nor individuals the limit of species, so that all things are what they are in the better way within the maximum and the minimum, and God is the beginning, middle, and end of the universe and of singulars, so that all things, whether they ascend or descend or tend unto the middle, approach God. But the connection of all things is through him, so that all things, though different, are also connected. Hence among the genera contracting the one universe there is such a connection of lower and higher that they coincide in the middle, and among the diverse species there is such an order of combination that the highest species of one genus coincides with the lowest of the immediately higher, so that there is one perfect continuous universe.

But every connection is gradual, and one does not arrive at the maximal, because that is God. Diverse species of a lower and a higher genus are not connected, therefore, in some indivisible admitting no more and less, but in a third species, whose individuals are gradually different so that none participates equally in both, as though composed of them, but it contracts in its own degree one nature of its own species, which, referred to the others, seems composed of the lower and the higher, yet not equally of them, since no composite can be precisely of equals, and, falling in the middle between those species, it necessarily prevails according to one, higher or lower namely, as examples of this are found in the books of the philosophers, in oysters and sea-shells and others.

No species descends, therefore, so as to be the least of any genus, since before it arrives at the least, it is changed into another before it is least. In the genus of animality the human species, while striving to attain a higher degree among sensible things, is rapt into a mixture with the intellectual nature; the lower part prevails, however, according to which it is called animal. Perhaps there are other spirits, of which in the end of the books of conjectures, and these indeed are loosely said to be of the genus of animality on account of a certain sensible nature, but since in them the intellectual nature prevails over the other, they are called spirits rather than animals, although the Platonists believe them to be intellectual animals. Hence it is concluded that species proceed in order after the likeness of number, which is necessarily finite, so that there is order, harmony, and proportion in diversity, as we showed in the first book, and one must arrive at the lowest species of the lowest genus, than which actually there is no lesser, and the highest of the highest, than which likewise actually there is no greater and higher, to which nevertheless a lesser and a greater could be given without process to infinity; so that whether we count upward or downward, we take our beginning from the absolute unity, which is God, as from the principle of all, so that species proceed as if to the encounter of number, from the least which is the maximum, and from the maximum to which the minimum is not opposed; so that there is nothing in the universe which does not rejoice in a certain singularity, which is found in no other, so that none surpasses all things in all respects or diverse things equally, just as with none can it at any time be equal in anything, even if at one time it was less than it and at another greater, it makes this passage in a certain singularity, so that it never attains precise equality, just as the square inscribed in the circle passes unto the magnitude of the circumscribed, from the square which is less than the circle unto the square greater than the circle, without ever arriving at one equal to itself, and the angle of incidence from less than right unto greater ascends without the mean of equality, and more such things effectively in the book of conjectures.

For the individuating principles cannot concur in one individual in such harmonious proportion as in another, so that each is one through itself and perfect in the way it can be. And although in any species, e.g. the human, at a given time some are found more perfect than others and more excellent in certain respects, as Solomon surpassed in wisdom, Absalom in beauty, Samson in strength, and those who surpassed others more in the intellective part deserved to be honored above the rest. Yet because diversity of opinions according to the diversity of religions and sects and regions makes diverse judgments of comparisons, so that what is praiseworthy according to one is blameworthy according to another, and those dispersed through the world are unknown to us, we do not know who is more excellent than the rest of the world, since we cannot know even one of them all perfectly. And this indeed was done by God, that each be content in himself, though admiring others, and in his own homeland, so that the native soil seems sweeter both in the customs of the kingdom and in language and the rest, so that there is unity and peace without envy, as much as this can be possible, since it cannot be altogether, except with those reigning with him, who is our peace surpassing all sense.

It is well enough evident that the universe is many only contractedly, which actually are so, that none reaches the simply maximum. I will add further: if a contracted maximum actually subsisting for a species could be given, then it would actually be, according to the given species of contraction, all things which could be in the potency of that genus or species. For the absolute maximum is all possibles in absolute act, and in this it is most infinite absolutely; the maximum contracted unto genus and species is likewise in act the possible perfection according to the given contraction, in which, since a greater cannot be given, it is an infinity embracing every nature of the given contraction. And just as the least coincides with the absolute maximum, so too the contracted coincides with the contracted maximum. The clearest example of this is the maximal line, which suffers no opposition, and which is every figure, and the equal measure of all figures, with which the point coincides, as we showed in the first book. Hence if any maximum individual of contraction of any species could be given, it would necessarily be the fullness of that genus and species, as life, form, reason, and truth in the fullness of the perfection of all things which would be possible in that species. Such a contracted maximum, existing as the final limit above every nature of that contraction, enfolding in itself every perfection of it, would hold with any given thing above all proportion the supreme equality, so that it would be greater than none and less than none, enfolding in its fullness the perfections of all.

From this it is manifest that the contracted maximum itself cannot subsist as purely contracted, according to what we showed a little before, since nothing such can attain the fullness of perfection in the genus of the perfection of contraction. Nor would such a one, as contracted, be God, who is most absolute, but it would necessarily be the contracted maximum, that is, God and creature, absolute and contracted, by a contraction which could not subsist in itself except in the subsisting absolute maximality. For there is only one maximality, as we showed in the first book, through which the contracted could be called maximum; if the maximal power united the contracted unto itself in such a way that it could not be united more, natures being preserved, so that it is such a one, the nature of the contraction being preserved, according to which it is the contracted and created fullness of the species, on account of the hypostatic union God and all things; this admirable union would excel all our intellect; for if it were conceived as diverse things are united, it is an error. For the absolute maximality is not other or diverse, since it is all things. If it were conceived as two, first divided, now conjoined, it is an error; for the divinity is not disposed otherwise according to prior and posterior, nor is it rather this than that; nor could the contracted before the union have been this or that, as an individual person subsisting in itself; nor as parts are joined in a whole, since God cannot be a part. Who then could conceive so admirable a union, which is neither as form to matter, since the absolute God is unmixable, not informing matter? This would indeed be greater than all intelligible unions, where the contracted would not subsist, since it is maximum, except in the absolute maximality itself, adding nothing to it, since it is the absolute maximality, nor passing into its nature, since it is contracted. The contracted would subsist in the absolute in such a way that, if we conceived it as God, we would be deceived, since it does not change the contracted nature; if we imagined it to be a creature, we would be deceived, since the absolute maximality, which is God, does not abandon the nature; but if we thought it a composite of both, we would err, since composition of God and creature, of contracted and absolute maximum, is impossible. It is necessary, therefore, to conceive in mind such a one to be God in such a way that it is also creature, and creature in such a way that it is also creator, creator and creature without confusion and composition. Who, then, so excellent could be elevated so as to conceive in unity diversity and in diversity unity? This union would therefore be above all intellect.

It will readily be inquired consequently unto these things, of what nature the contracted maximum itself ought to be. For after it is necessarily one, as the absolute unity is the absolute maximality, and with this contracted unto this or that; first indeed it is manifest that the order of things necessarily demands that some things be of inferior nature in comparison with others, as are those which lack life and intelligence, some of superior nature, which are intelligence, and some in the middle. If therefore the absolute maximality is the entity of all things most universally, so that it is not more of one than of another, it is clear that what is more common to the universality of beings is associable with this maximum of his. For if that inferior nature itself is considered, and one of such beings is elevated unto maximality, it will be God and that, as is given in the example of the maximal line. For since it is infinite through absolute infinity, and maximal through maximality, necessarily that to which the maximal is united will be God through maximality, and will remain a line through contraction, and thus will be in act all that can come from a line. But a line includes neither life nor intellect. How then could a line be assumed unto the maximal degree itself, if it does not attain the fullness of natures? For it would be a maximum than which a greater could be, and it would lack perfections. Likewise must be said of the supreme nature, which does not embrace the inferior, except in such a way that the union of the inferior and superior is greater than the separation. But to the maximum, with which the minimum coincides, it belongs so to embrace one thing that it does not dismiss another, but all things at once. Hence the middle nature, which is the middle of the connection of the inferior and superior, is alone that which can conveniently be elevated unto the maximum by the power of the infinite maximal God. For since it enfolds within itself all natures, as the supreme of the inferior and the lowest of the superior, if it ascends according to all of itself unto union with maximality, it is established that all natures and the whole universe have arrived in it in every possible way unto the highest degree.

But the human nature is that which is elevated above all the works of God, and made a little less than the angels, enfolding the intellectual and sensible nature, and constraining all things within itself, so that it is reasonably called the microcosm or little world. Hence it is that which, if elevated into union with maximality, would be the fullness of all perfections of the universe and of singulars, so that in that humanity every highest would attain its degree. But humanity exists only contractedly in this or that. Hence if it were not possible for more than one true man to ascend unto union with maximality, and this one would certainly be man in such a way that he is God, and God in such a way that he is man, the perfection of the universe, holding primacy in all things, in whom the least, greatest, and middle natures united unto the absolute maximality would coincide, so that he himself would be the perfection of all, and all things, as they are contracted, would rest in him as in their perfection, whose measure would be of man and of angel, as John says in the Apocalypse, and of singulars, since he would be the universal contracted entity of singular creatures through union with the absolute entity, which is the absolute entity of universals, through whom all things would receive the beginning of contraction and the end through him, who is the contracted maximum, would proceed from the absolute maximum into contracted being, and would return into the absolute through the mediation of the same as through the principle of emanation and the end of reduction. But God, as he is the equality of being all things, is the creator of the universe, since it is created toward him. The supreme and maximal equality of being all things absolutely, therefore, is that to which the nature of humanity itself would be united, so that God himself through the assumed humanity would thus be all things contractedly in that humanity, just as he is the equality of being all things absolutely. That man, therefore, since he would subsist in the maximal equality of being itself through union, would be the Son of God, as the Word, in whom all things were made, or the equality itself of being, which is called the Son of God, according to what was shown before; nor would he cease to be the son of man, just as he would not cease to be man, as will be said below. And since to the best and most perfect God these things are not repugnant, which can come about through him without his variation, diminution, or lessening, but rather befit the immense goodness, that all things be created by him and toward him in the best and most perfect congruous order, and then, when with this way removed all things could not be more perfect, no one except one denying either God or the best itself will be able rationally to dissent from these things. For all envy is banished far from him who is supremely good, whose operation cannot be defective, but as he himself is maximal, so too his work, as much as this is possible, approaches the maximum. But the maximal power is not terminated except in itself, since nothing is outside it, and it is infinite. In no creature, therefore, is it terminated, but, any being given, that infinite power can create a better and more perfect one. But if man is elevated unto the unity of that power itself, so that he is not a man subsisting in himself as a creature, but in unity with the infinite power, that power is not terminated in the creature, but in itself. But this is the most perfect operation of the maximal infinite and interminable power of God, in which it cannot fail; otherwise neither creator nor creature would be — for what would a creature be, contracted from the absolute divine being, if that contraction were not unitable to it? — through which all things, as they are from him who is absolutely, exist contractedly, and they, as they are contracted, are from him, to whom contraction is supremely united, so that first there is God the creator; second God and man, with the created humanity supremely assumed into the unity of himself, as the universal contraction of all things hypostatically and personally united unto the equality of being all things, so that thus through the most absolute God, by means of the universal contraction, which is humanity, in the third place all things proceed into contracted being, so that thus they can be unto that which they are in the better order and way. But this order must not be considered temporally, as though God preceded in time the firstborn of the creature, or that the firstborn, God and man, preceded the world in time, but by nature and the order of perfection above all time, so that he, existing prior to all with God above time, in the fullness of time, with many revolutions past, would appear to the world.

Since indeed we have now been advanced by such reasonings with undoubting faith unto this point, that hesitating in nothing we firmly hold the premises to be most true, we add in subjoining that the fullness of time is past unto Jesus ever blessed, the firstborn of every creature.

For from those things which he himself, existing as man, divinely wrought above man, and from others which he himself, found truthful in all things, affirmed concerning himself, with those also who conversed with him bearing witness in their blood, with invariable constancy long since proved by infinite infallible arguments, we justly assert that he is the one whom every creature to come in time awaited from the beginning, and who through the prophets had foretold that he would appear in the world. For he came to fulfill all things, since he himself by his will restored all unto health, and taught all the hidden and secret things of wisdom as one powerful above all, taking away sins as God, raising the dead, transmuting nature, commanding spirits, sea, and winds, walking upon the water, establishing the law in the fullness of supplement unto all laws. In whom according to the testimony of that most singular preacher of the truth, Paul, illuminated from above in rapture, we have the perfection of all, redemption and remission of sins; who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature, for in him were created all things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, dominations, principalities, or powers. All things were created through him and in him, and he is before all, and all things stand in him, and he is the head of the body of the Church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that he himself hold primacy in all things, for in him it pleased that all fullness dwell, and through him all things be reconciled unto him.

Such indeed and many other testimonies of the saints are borne concerning him, since he himself is God and man; in whom that humanity itself is united in the divinity itself unto the Word, so that it would subsist not in itself, but in him, after humanity in the highest degree and every fullness could not otherwise be, except in the divine person of the Son.

And unto this, that above all our intellectual comprehension as in learned ignorance we may conceive this person, who united man unto himself, ascending in our intellect let us consider that, since God is through all things in all, and all things through all in God, as we showed above in a certain place, then, since these must be considered together copulatively, namely that God is in all, that all are in God, and since the divine being itself is of supreme equality and simplicity, hence God, as he is in all, is not in them according to degrees as communicating himself gradually and particularly. But all things cannot be without gradual diversity. Hence in God they are according to themselves with diversity of degrees. Hence since God is in all, so that all are in him, it is manifest that God without his own change is in unity in the equality of being all things with the maximal humanity of Jesus, since the maximal man cannot otherwise than maximally be in him, and thus in Jesus, who is thus the equality of being all things, as in the Son in divine things, who is the middle person, the eternal Father and the Holy Spirit exist, and all things as in the Word, and every creature in that highest and most perfect humanity universally enfolding all creatable things, so that all fullness dwells in him. We are led equally unto these things by this example: sensitive cognition is a certain contracted cognition, on account of which sense attains only particulars. Intellectual cognition is universal, on account of which with respect to the sensitive it exists as absolute and abstracted from particular contraction. But sensation is variously contracted unto various degrees, through which contractions the various species of animals arise according to degrees of nobility and perfection, and although it does not ascend unto the simply maximal degree, as we showed above, yet in that species which is actually supreme in the genus of animality, namely the human, there sense makes such an animal, which is so animal that it is also intellect. For man is his own intellect, where the sensitive contraction is in a certain way supposted in the intellectual nature, the intellectual nature exists, a certain divine separate abstract being, with the sensitive remaining temporal and corruptible according to its own nature. Hence, as far as is allowed by a remote similitude, so must it be considered in Jesus, where humanity is supposted in the divinity, since otherwise it could not be in its maximal fullness.

For the intellect, since with sense it is most perfect existing wholly in act, cannot be personally supposted except in the divine intellect, which alone is all things in act. For the intellect in all men is all things, growing gradually from possibility into act, so that the greater it is, the less it is in potency. But the maximal, since it is the limit of all potency of intellectual nature, existing fully in act, can in no way exist without being intellect in such a way that it is also God, who is all in all, as if, were the polygon inscribed in the circle the human nature, and the circle the divine; if that polygon must be maximal, than which it cannot be greater, it would in no way subsist in finite angles through itself, but in the circular figure, so that it would not have its own figure of subsisting, even intellectually separable from that circular and eternal figure.

But the maximality of the perfection of human nature is attended in substantial and essential things, e.g. that it have intellect, which the other corporeal things serve, and hence the most perfect man must not be eminent in accidentals, except in respect of the intellect. For it is not required that he be either giant or dwarf or of this or that magnitude, color, figure, and so of the rest of accidentals; but this only is necessary, that the body decline from extremes in such a way that it is the fittest instrument of the intellectual nature, which it obeys and complies with without resistance, murmuring, and fatigue.

Our Jesus, in whom all the treasures of knowledge and wisdom, even while he appeared in the world, were hidden, as light in darkness, is believed to have had unto this end of the most eminent intellectual nature a most apt and most perfect body, as it was handed down to memory by the most holy witnesses of his conversation.

Further it must be considered that, since the most perfect humanity supposted on high, since it is the terminal contracted precision, does not at all exit the species of that nature. But like is generated from like, and hence the generated proceeds from the generator according to the proportion of nature. But the limit, since it lacks a limit, lacks finitation and proportion. Hence the maximal man is not generable by the way of nature, nor yet can he wholly lack the principle of the species, of which he exists as the ultimate perfection. Partly, therefore, he proceeds according to human nature, because he is man, and since he is the highest principiate most immediately united unto the principle, then that principle itself, from which he is most immediately, is as creating or generating, as father, and the human principle is as passive, ministering receivable matter; hence from a mother without male seed. But every operation proceeds from a certain spirit and love, uniting the active to the passive, as is shown in a certain place above. And hence the maximal operation above all proportion of nature, through which the creator is united unto the creature, proceeding from the maximal uniting love, exists without doubt necessarily from the holy spirit, who is love absolutely, through whom alone without the aid of a contracted agent the mother could conceive within the latitude of the species the son of God the father, so that just as God the father formed all things by his spirit, which from non-extants proceeded from him into being, so he principally did this by the same most holy spirit, when he operated most perfectly. As that our ignorance be instructed by an example, while some most excellent doctor wishes to disclose his intellectual and mental word to his disciples, that they be spiritually fed with the conceived truth shown to them, he acts so that such a mental word of his put on voice, since it is not showable to the disciples otherwise, if it does not put on a sensible figure; but this cannot otherwise be done except through the natural spirit of the doctor, who from attracted air adapts a vocal figure conformable to the mental word, to which he so unites the word itself, that the voice itself subsists in the word itself, so that the hearers through the voice as medium attain the word. By this, though most remote, similitude we are elevated a little in our meditation above that which can be understood by us, since the eternal father of immense goodness, wishing to show us the riches of his glory unto all fullness of knowledge and wisdom, the eternal Word, his son, who exists as these things and the fullness of all, having compassion on our infirmities, since we could not perceive otherwise than in a sensible form similar to us, manifesting him according to our capacity, clothed him with human nature through the Holy Spirit consubstantial with himself, which spirit indeed, as voice from air attracted through inspiration, wove from the purity of the virginal fecundity of blood that animal body itself, adding reason, that he be man, the Word of God the father, and so inwardly united, that he became the center of the substance of human nature. And all these things were done not serially, as in us the concept is temporally expressed, but by a momentary operation above all time, according to the will conformable to the infinite power.

But that no one must doubt this mother, so full of virtue, ministering matter, to have exceeded all virgins in all perfection of virtue, and to have had among all fruitful women the more excellent blessing. For she, who through all things was preordained unto so great and so excellent a unique virginal birth, had to lack from debt all things which could have hindered either the purity or the vigor at once and the unity of so pre-excellent a birth. For if she had not been apt without male seed? If most holy and superblessed she had not been by the Lord, how would she have been made the shrine of the Holy Spirit, in which he would fashion the body for the son of God? If after birth she had not remained virgin, she would not previously have communicated to the most excellent birth the center of maternal fecundity in its supreme perfection of limpidity, but divisively and diminutely, not as it was owed to so great a unique and supreme son. If therefore the most holy virgin offered herself wholly to God, to whom by the operation of the Holy Spirit she also wholly communicated all the nature of fecundity, there remained in her the immaculate virginity before birth, in birth, and after birth, incorrupt above all common natural generation.

From the eternal father, therefore, and the temporal mother, namely the most glorious virgin Mary, God and man Jesus Christ was born, from the maximal and absolute father most fully, from the mother with the fullest virginal fecundity, replete with supreme blessing in the fullness of time. For he could not be man from a virgin mother except temporally, nor from God the father except eternally; but that temporal nativity required in time the fullness of perfection, as in the mother the fullness of fecundity.

When therefore the fullness of time came, since without time man could not be born, then he was born in the time and place fittest unto this, yet most hidden to all creatures. For the supreme plenitudes are incomparable to other daily experiences, hence no reason could apprehend them by any sign, although by a certain most hidden prophetic inspiration certain obscure signs were handed down, shadowed with human similitudes, from which the wise could reasonably have foreseen the Word to be incarnated in the fullness of time. But the precision of place or time the eternal genitor alone foreknew, who ordained that, while all things held the middle silence, then in the course of the night the Son descend from the supernal citadel into the virginal womb, and in ordained fitting time manifest himself to the world in the form of a servant.

It is fitting to premise a small digression unto the expression of the intent, that we may more clearly attain the mystery of the cross. There is no doubt that man exists from sense and intellect and the middle reason, which binds both. But the order submits sense to reason, reason to intellect. The intellect is not of time and the world, but absolute from them; sense is of the world under time, existing subject to motions. Reason is as on the horizon, with respect to the intellect, but on the height, with respect to sense, so that in it coincide those which are below and above time. Sense is incapable of supertemporal and spiritual things. An animal therefore does not perceive those things which are of God, since God is spirit and more than spirit, and on account of this sensitive cognition is in the darkness of ignorance of eternal things, and is moved according to the flesh unto carnal desires through the concupiscible power and unto repelling what impedes through the irascible. But reason, surpassing in its nature from participation in the intellectual nature, contains certain laws, through which as ruler it moderates the passions of desire, and reduces them unto the equal, lest man, putting his end in sensible things, be deprived of the spiritual desire of the intellect.

And the chiefest of laws is, that one not do to another what one would not be done to oneself, and that eternal things be preferred to temporal, and clean and holy to caducous and unclean; and unto this cooperate the laws elicited from that reason by the most holy legislators, according to the diversity of place and time, promulgated as remedies in the reason of sinners. The intellect flying higher sees that, even if sense were subjected to reason through all things, not following the passions connatural to it, man through himself could nevertheless not arrive at the end of intellectual and eternal affections. For since man is generated from the seed of Adam in carnal pleasures, in whom that animality according to propagation conquers spirituality, then that nature itself, immersed in the root of origin in carnal delights, through which man proceeded into being from his father, remains utterly impotent to transcend temporal things for the embrace of spiritual things. Hence if the weight of carnal delights draws downward reason and intellect, so that they consent to those motions by not resisting, it is clear that man, thus drawn downward and averted from God, is utterly deprived of the fruition of the best good, which is intellectually above and eternal. But if reason dominates sense, there is still need that intellect dominate reason, that above reason it adhere through formed faith to the mediator, so that thus it can be drawn through God unto glory. No one was ever potent of himself above himself and his own nature thus originally subjected to the sins of carnal desire to be able to ascend above his own root unto eternal and celestial things, except he who descended from heaven, Christ Jesus — this is he who also ascended by his own virtue — in whom that human nature itself, born not from the will of flesh, but from God, had no obstacle to returning potently unto God the father. In Christ, therefore, that human nature itself was exalted through union unto the highest power, and rescued from the weight of temporal and burdening desires. But Christ the man willed all the deeds of the human nature of men, drawing us unto earthly things, in his human body not for himself, since he did no sin, but for us utterly to mortify, and by mortifying to purge, that all men of the same humanity with him might find in him all purgation of their sins. The voluntary and most innocent, most shameful and most cruel death of the man Christ on the cross was the extinction, satisfaction, and purgation of all carnal desires of human nature. Whatever can be done against the charity of neighbor by human nature is abundantly fulfilled in the fullness of the charity of Christ, whereby he gave himself even for enemies. Humanity in Christ Jesus, therefore, supplied all defects of all men. For since it is maximal, it embraces the whole potency of the species, so that it is the equality of being such of any man, in that much more than a brother and most special friend it is conjoined to each. For this the maximality of human nature effects, that in each man adhering to him through formed faith Christ is himself that same man, by a most perfect union, with the number of each preserved. Through which this is true which he himself says: Whatever you did unto one of the least of mine, you did unto me; and conversely, whatever Christ Jesus merited by his passion, they merited, who are one with him, with the difference of degrees of merit preserved, according to the difference of degrees of union of each with him through faith formed by charity. Hence in him the faithful exist circumcised, in him baptized, in him dead, in him made alive again through resurrection, in him united unto God and glorified. Our justification is not from ourselves, therefore, but from Christ, who since he is all fullness, in him we obtain all things, if we have him; whom when in this life we attain through formed faith, we can be justified in no other way than by that faith itself, as below in a certain place we shall say more extensively. This is that ineffable mystery of the cross of our redemption, in which, beyond those things which have been touched, Christ showed how truth and justice and the divine virtues must be preferred to temporal life, as eternal to caducous; and that in the most perfect man there must be the highest constancy and fortitude, charity and humanity, as the death of Christ on the cross showed those and all other virtues to have been maximally in the maximal Jesus. The more, therefore, man ascends in those immortal virtues, the more like unto Christ he will be; for the least coincide with the greatest, as the maximal humiliation with exaltation, the most shameful death of the supremely virtuous with glorious life, and so of the rest, as all these things the life, passion, and crucifixion of Christ manifest unto us.

Christ the man, passible and mortal, could not otherwise arrive at the glory of the father, who is immortality itself, since he is the absolute life, unless the mortal put on immortality. Which could in no way be done apart from death, for how could the mortal otherwise put on immortality, unless it were despoiled of mortality? How would it be absolved from it, unless the debt of death were loosed? On account of which the truth itself says: that they are foolish and slow of heart who do not understand that Christ must die and so enter into glory. But since above we showed that Christ died for us with a most cruel death indeed, it must consequently be said that, since it was not fitting for human nature to be translated unto the temple of immortality otherwise than through the victory of death; hence he underwent death, that with him human nature might rise again unto perpetual life, and the mortal animal body become a spiritual incorruptible one.

A true man could not be except mortal, and he could not carry mortal nature unto immortality, unless despoiled of mortality through death. Unto which the truth itself speaking of this beautifully instructs us, when it says: Unless the grain of wheat falling into the earth have died, it remains alone; but if it have died, it brings much fruit. If Christ therefore had always remained mortal, even if he had never died, how would a mortal man have bestowed immortality on human nature? And if he himself had not died, he would have remained alone mortal without death. It behooved him therefore to be freed by death from the possibility of dying, if he had to bring much fruit, so that, thus exalted, he might draw all things unto himself, when his power would be not only in the corruptible world and earth, but in the incorruptible heaven. But this we shall be able somehow to attain in our ignorance, if we have held in mind those things which were often said. We showed in what went before that the man Jesus the maximal cannot have in himself separately from the divinity a person of subsisting, because maximal. And on account of this the communication of idioms is admitted, that human things coincide with divine, since that humanity, inseparable from the divinity on account of the supreme union, as clothed and assumed through the divinity, cannot personally subsist separately; but man is united of body and soul, whose separation is death. Since therefore that maximal humanity itself is in the divine suppositing person, it was not possible for either soul or body, even after local division, in the time of death to be separated from the divine person, without which that man did not subsist. Christ died not, therefore, as though his person had failed, but without even local division a certain center, in which humanity was supposted, remained hypostatically united unto the divinity, and according to the inferior nature, which according to the truth of its own nature could suffer the division of soul from body, a temporal and local division was made, so that in the same place and at the same time soul and body were not together in the hour of death.

Hence in body and soul corruptibility was not possible, since they were united unto eternity, but the temporal nativity was subjected to death and temporal separation, so that with the circle of return completed unto solidity, with the body embraced absolved from temporal composition, from these temporal motions the truth of humanity, which is above time, as united unto the divinity remaining incorrupt, as its truth required, would unite the truth of the body unto the truth of the soul, so that thus, with the shadowy image of the truth of man dismissed, who appeared in time as true man, absolved from all temporal passion he might rise; so that the same Jesus, above all temporal motions, embraced never to die, might most truly rise through the union of soul unto body above all temporal motion. Without which union indeed the truth of incorruptible humanity would not most truly have been hypostatically united unto the divine person without confusion of nature. Aid the littleness of thy genius and thy ignorance by the example of Christ in the grain of wheat, where the number of the grain is corrupted, with the specific essence remaining sound, by means of which nature resuscitates many grains; but if that grain itself were maximal and most perfect, dying in the best and most fertile soil, it could bring not only the hundredth or thousandth fruit, but as much as the nature of the species embraced in its possibility. This indeed is what the Truth says: How it would bring fruit; for finite multitude is without number. Understand therefore keenly: for the humanity of Jesus, by that very fact that it is considered as contracted unto the man Christ, is simultaneously understood as also united through him unto the divinity; as it is united unto it, it is most absolute; as Christ the true man is considered, it is contracted, that through humanity he be man; and thus the humanity of Jesus is as a medium between the purely absolute and the purely contracted. According to this, therefore, it was not corruptible, except in a certain respect, and simply incorruptible. It was corruptible, therefore, according to the temporality, unto which it was contracted, and according to that whereby it was absolved from time, and above time, and united to the divinity, incorruptible. But the truth, as it is temporally contracted, is as it were the sign and image of the supertemporal truth; so the truth of the body, temporally contracted, is as it were the shadow of the truth of the supertemporal body; and so the truth of the soul is contracted as the shadow of the soul absolved from time; for sense or reason is seen rather than intellect, while it is in time, where without phantasms it does not apprehend, and the intellect, elevated above time, is free and absolved from these. And since that humanity itself was inseparably rooted above in the divine incorruptibility, then, with the corruptible temporal motion completed, no resolution could be made, except toward the root of incorruptibility. Hence after the end of temporal motion, which was death, with all these things removed which temporally acceded unto the truth of human nature, the same Jesus rose not in a heavy, corruptible, shadowy, passible body and the rest which follow temporal composition, but in a true, glorious, impassible, agile, and immortal body, as the truth absolved from temporal conditions required. And this union indeed the very truth of the hypostatic union of human nature with the divine necessarily demanded. Hence it behooved blessed Jesus to rise from the dead, as he himself says: Christ had to suffer so and on the third day rise from the dead.

With these shown, it is easy to see that Christ is the firstborn from the dead. For none could rise before him, when human nature, not yet having arrived in time at the maximum, was united in Christ unto incorruptibility and immortality. For all were impotent, until he should come, who says: I have power to lay down my soul and to take it again. In Christ, therefore, human nature put on immortality, who is the firstfruits of them that sleep. But there is only one indivisible humanity and specific essence of all men, through which all particular men are men distinct numerically among themselves, so that the same humanity is of Christ and of all men, with the numeral distinction of individuals remaining unconfused. Hence it is manifest that the humanity of all men, who temporally were or will be before or after Christ, put on immortality in Christ. Hence this reasoning evidently concludes: Christ the man rose; hence all men shall rise through him, after all temporal motion of corruptibility, so as to be perpetually incorruptible. And although the humanity of all men is one, yet the individuating principles contracting it unto this or that supposit are various and diverse; so that in Jesus Christ there were only the most perfect and most potent, closest to the essence of humanity, which was united unto the divinity, in whose virtue Christ was potent to rise by his own virtue; which virtue indeed came unto him through the divinity itself, on account of which God is said to have raised him from the dead; who since he was God and man, rose by his own virtue, and no man except him will be able to rise unto heaven, except in the virtue of Christ, who is God. Christ is therefore he through whom human nature contracted immortality according to the nature of humanity, and through whom also above time we shall rise into his likeness with motion ceasing, we who were wholly born under motion; this will be at the end of the ages. But Christ, who only as he proceeded from his mother was temporally born, did not await the whole flux of time in resurrection, because time did not wholly apprehend his nativity. Mark that nature put on immortality in Christ; on account of which indeed all, whether good or bad, shall rise, but not all shall be changed through the glory transforming us into sons of adoption through Christ the son of God. All shall rise, therefore, through Christ, but not all as Christ, and in him through union, except those who are of Christ through faith, hope, and charity. Thou seest, unless I err, no perfect religion leading men unto the ultimate most desired end of peace, which does not embrace Christ the mediator and savior, God and man, the way, the life, and the truth. Come, how absurd is the credulity of the Saracens, who affirm Christ the maximal and most perfect man born of a Virgin and translated alive unto the heavens, and deny God. They are blinded indeed, for they assert the impossible. But to one having intellect it can appear clearer than light, even from such premises, that no man can be through all things most perfect and maximal, born of a virgin above nature, who is not at once God. Those are without reason persecutors of the cross, ignorant of its mysteries, whose divine fruit of redemption also they shall not taste, nor from their law of Mahomet, which promises nothing other than the fulfilling of the desires of pleasure; which in the death of Christ are extinct in us, awaiting those things unto which we hoping aspire to the apprehension of incorruptible glory.

The Jews equally with them confess a maximal, most perfect, and immortal Messiah as man, whom they deny as God, held by the same diabolical blindness; who also do not hope for, as future, the supreme beatitude of the fruition of God, otherwise than we the servants of Christ, so neither shall they obtain it. And what I judge more marvelous is that both the Jews themselves and the Saracens believe the general resurrection to come, and do not admit the possibility through a man, who is also God. For although it were said that, with the motion of generation and corruption ceasing, the perfection of the universe could not be without resurrection, since human nature is one essential part of the universe, without which it would be not only not perfect, but not the universe, and that on account of this it is necessary, if motion ever ceases, that either the whole universe perish or men rise unto incorruptibility, in whom the nature of all intermediates is completed, so that it is not necessary for other animals to rise, since man is their perfection; or if the resurrection were said to be future on that account, that the whole man receive from the just God the condign retribution of merits; yet above all these it is necessary to believe Christ man and God, through whom alone human nature can arrive at incorruptibility. Blinded therefore are all believing the resurrection and lacking Christ the medium of its possibility, since the faith of the resurrection is the affirmation of the divinity and humanity of Christ and of his death and resurrection itself, who is the firstborn from the dead, according to the premises. For he rose, that thus he might enter into glory through the ascension unto the heavens. Which ascension I deem must be so understood; for since according to the divinity he is everywhere, yet there his proper place is said to be, where there is never any change, passion, sadness, and the rest which befall temporality. And this place of eternal joy and peace we name to be above the heavens, although it is not apprehensible, describable, or definable by place. He himself is the center and circumference of intellectual nature, and, since the intellect embraces all things, he is above all. Yet in holy rational souls and intellectual spirits, which are the heavens narrating his glory, he rests as in his temple. Thus above every place and all time unto the incorruptible mansion, above all that can be said, we understand Christ to have ascended, in that he ascended above all heavens, that he might fulfill all things; who since he is God, is all in all, and he himself reigns in those intellectual heavens, since he is the truth itself, and not according to place sitting rather in the circumference than the center, since he is the center of all rational spirits, as their life. And on account of this he himself affirms this kingdom of heavens to be also within men, who is the fount of the life of souls and their end.

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.

That no mortals comprehend that judgment and the sentence of that judge is manifest. Since it is above all time and motion, it is not expedited by comparative or presumptive discussion and vocal prolation and such signs, which take delay and protraction; but as in the word all things were created, since he said and they were made, so in the same word, which is also called reason, all things are judged. Nor is there anything between sentence and execution, but this is what comes to pass in a moment, namely that both resurrection and the different apprehension of the end, glorification in the translation of the sons of God and damnation in the exclusion of the averted, are distinguished not even by an indivisible moment of time.

The intellectual nature, which is above time and not subjected to temporal corruption, enfolding within itself from its own nature incorruptible forms, e.g. mathematical in its own abstracted way, and also natural ones, which are hidden in the intellectual itself and easily transformed, which are to us leading signs of its incorruptibility, since the place of incorruptibles is incorruptible, would be moved by a natural motion unto the most abstract truth, as unto the end of its desires, and unto the ultimate most delectable object. And since such an object is all things, because God, the immortal and incorruptible intellect until it attain it, is insatiable, since it is not satiated except in the eternal object. But if the intellect, absolved from this body, in which it is subjected to opinions from time, does not touch the desired end, but rather, while it appetites, the truth, it falls into ignorance, and while with ultimate desire it desires nothing other than to apprehend the truth itself not in enigma or signs, but with certainty face to face, then, since on account of its own aversion from the truth in the hour of separation and conversion to the corruptible, it falls to the desired corruptible, to uncertainty and confusion into the tenebrous chaos itself of mere possibility, where nothing certain is in act, it is rightly said to have descended to intellectual death. For to the intellectual soul to understand is to be, and to understand the desired is to live for it. On account of this, as eternal life is for it to apprehend the ultimate desired stable eternal, so eternal death is for it to be separated from that stable desired and to be precipitated into that chaos of confusion itself, where it is tortured with perpetual fire, in its own way, not intelligible otherwise by us than as it is tortured deprived of vital aliment and health, and not of those only, but also of hope of ever attaining, so that without extinction and end it ever dies agonizing. This is the calamitous life above what can be thought; which is so life that it is death, which is so being that it is non-being, which is so understanding that it is ignorance. And since in what went before it is proved that above all motion and time and quantity and the rest subjected to time is the resurrection of men, so that the corruptible is resolved into the incorruptible, the animal into the spiritual, so that the whole man is his own intellect, which is spirit, and the true body is absorbed in spirit, so that the body is not in itself, as in its corporeal qualificative and temporal proportions, but translated into spirit, as in a contrary way to this our body, where the intellect is not seen, but the body, in which the intellect itself appears as incarcerated; but there the body is so in spirit, as here the spirit is in body, and on account of this as here the soul is burdened by the body, so there the body is lightened by spirit. Hence, as the spiritual joys of intellectual life are maximal, which also the glorified body itself participates in spirit, so the infernal tristesses of spiritual death are maximal, which also the body receives in spirit. And since our God, who apprehended is eternal life, is comprehensible above all intellect, then those eternal joys, exceeding all our intellect, are greater than can be handed down by any sign. In like manner also the punishments of the damned exist above all thinkable and describable punishments. Hence among all those musical harmonic signs of joy, gladness, glory, which, as signs known to us, are found handed down by the fathers for thinking the judgments of eternal life, there are certain most remote sensible signs distantly through the infinite from those intellectual things perceptible by no imagination. So too with infernal punishments, which are assimilated either to elemental sulfurous fire and pitch and other sensible tortures, they have no comparison to those fiery intellectual miseries, from which may Jesus Christ, our life and salvation, deign to preserve us, who is blessed for ever. Amen.