De visione Dei

O great multitude of your sweetness which you have hidden from those who fear you. For it is an inexplicable treasure, most full of joy and gladness. For to taste your very sweetness is to grasp, by experiential touch, the delight of all delightful things in its source. It is to attain the reason of all desirable things in your wisdom. To see, therefore, the absolute reason which is the reason of all things is nothing other than to taste you, God, with the mind, since you are sweetness itself of being, of life, and of intellect. What else, Lord, is your seeing, when you look upon me with the eye of mercy, than your being seen by me? By seeing me, you grant that you be seen by me, you who are the hidden God. No one can see you except insofar as you grant that you be seen. Nor is your being seen anything other than your seeing the one who sees you. I see in this image of yours that you are inclined, Lord, to show your face to all who seek you. For you never close your eyes; you never turn them elsewhere. And although I turn myself away from you when I turn myself wholly to something else, you nonetheless on this account change neither your eyes nor your gaze. If you do not look upon me with the eye of grace, the fault is mine, for I am divided from you by turning away, and turning toward something else which I prefer to you. Yet you do not turn yourself away wholly even then, but your mercy follows me, to see whether I might at some time wish to return to you, so that I may be capable of grace. For your not looking upon me is because I do not look upon you, but I reject and despise you. O infinite mercy: how unhappy is every sinner who abandons you, the true life, and seeks you not in yourself, but in that which in itself is nothing, and would have remained nothing if you had not called it forth from nothing! How insane is he who seeks you who are goodness, and while seeking you recedes from you and turns his eyes away? Every seeker, therefore, seeks nothing but the good,¹ and everyone who seeks the good and recedes from you recedes from what he seeks. Every sinner, therefore, wanders from you and goes farther away. But when he returns to you, without delay you run to meet him. And before he looks upon you,² you cast the eyes of mercy upon him with a father's affection. Nor is your having mercy anything other than your seeing. Your mercy therefore follows every man as long as he lives, wherever he goes, just as your gaze deserts no one. As long, therefore, as a man lives, you do not cease to follow him, and to urge him with sweet and inward admonition to cease from error, and to turn to you that he may live happily. You, Lord, are the companion of my pilgrimage. Wherever I go, your eyes are always upon me. But your seeing is your moving. You are moved, therefore, with me, and you never cease from motion as long as I am moved. If I rest, you too are with me. If I ascend, you ascend. If I descend, you descend. Wherever I turn, you are present. Nor do you desert me in the time of tribulation. As often as I call upon you, you are near. For to call upon you³ is to turn myself to you. You cannot fail him who turns himself to you. Nor can anyone turn to you unless you are present first. You are present before I turn to you.⁴ For unless you were present and were urging me, I would be wholly ignorant of you. And being ignorant of you, to whom would I turn?

You therefore are my God, who see all things. And your seeing is your working. You work all things, therefore. To us, therefore, Lord, not to us, but to your great name, which is theos, I sing eternal glory. For I have nothing which you do not give. Nor would I retain what you have given, unless you yourself preserved it. You therefore furnish me with all things. You are the mighty and merciful Lord, who give all things. You are the servant who serves all things. You are the provider, and you have care, and the preserver. And all these things you work by your one most simple gaze, you who are blessed forever.