De visione Dei

How it is universal and particular alike: and what the way to the vision of God is. I marvel, Lord, after¹ you look upon all and each at once, as this painted image too which I gaze upon portrays: how in your power of vision the universal coincides with the singular? But I note that my imagination does not grasp how this comes about for this reason: that I seek your vision in my own power of vision, which, since it is not contracted to a sensible organ as mine is: I am therefore deceived in judgment. Your gaze, Lord, is your essence. If therefore I look to humanity, which is simple and one in all men: I find it in all and each man, and although in itself it is neither eastern nor western, nor southern, nor northern, yet in eastern men it is in the east, and in western men in the west. And so although neither motion nor rest belong to the essence of humanity: yet it moves with moving men, and rests with resting men, and stands with standing men at once and together for the same now, because humanity does not desert men: whether they move, or do not move, or sleep, or rest. Whence this nature of humanity, which is contracted, and is not found outside men, if it so holds itself that it is no more present to one man than to another, and thus perfectly to one as if to no other: much more highly the uncontracted humanity, which is the exemplar and idea of this contracted nature, and which is as the form and truth of this form of contracted humanity. For it can never desert contracted humanity in individuals: for it is the form giving being to the formal nature itself. Without it, therefore, the specific form cannot be: since it has not being of itself. For it is from that which is of itself: before which, there is no other. That form therefore which gives being to the species: is the absolute form. And you are that, God: who are the maker of heaven and earth and all things. When therefore I look to contracted humanity, and through it to the absolute, namely by seeing in the contracted the absolute as in the effect the cause, and in the image the truth and exemplar: you meet me, my God, as the exemplar of all men, and man of himself, that is, absolute. But when likewise in all species I turn myself to the form of forms: in all things you meet me as idea and exemplar. And since you are the absolute exemplar and most simple: you are not composed of many exemplars, but are one most simple exemplar, infinite, so that of all and each that can be formed: you are the truest and most adequate exemplar. You are therefore the essence of essences: giving to contracted essences that they be what they are. Outside you therefore, Lord: nothing can be. If therefore your essence penetrates all things: then also your gaze, which is your essence. As therefore nothing of all that are, can flee its own proper being: so neither your essence which gives being of essence to all, nor therefore your gaze. All and each at once, therefore, you see, Lord: and with all that move you move, and with those that stand you stand. And since those are found who, while others stand, move: then you, Lord, stand and move at once, proceed and rest at once. For if moving is found at once in time with resting in diverse contracted things, and nothing can be outside you, neither is motion outside you nor rest: to all those at once and together and wholly to each you are present, Lord. And yet you neither move, nor rest: for you are superexalted and absolute from all those things which can be conceived or named. You stand therefore and proceed: and neither stand, nor proceed at once. This depicted face shows me this very thing. For if I move, its gaze appears to move: because it does not desert me. If, while I move,, another who

MARG: Humanitas.

gazes upon the face stands: likewise its gaze does not desert him, but stands with the one standing. Yet properly it cannot suit the absolute face, from these regards,, that it stand or move: for it is above all standing and motion in most simple and most absolute infinity, after which infinity indeed is motion and rest and opposition, and whatever can be said or conceived. Whence I experience how I must enter the darkness, and admit the coincidence of opposites above every capacity of reason: and seek truth there where impossibility meets me. And above all that intellectual highest ascent, when I arrive at what is unknown to every intellect, and what every intellect judges most remote from truth: there you are, my God, who are absolute necessity. And the more that dark impossibility is known as more obscure and impossible: the more truly necessity shines forth, and the less veiled it is present and draws near. Wherefore I give you thanks, my God,, for you lay open to me that there is no other way of approaching you: except that which to all men, even the most learned philosophers, seems utterly inaccessible and impossible. Since you have shown me that you cannot be seen elsewhere: than where impossibility meets and opposes. And you have encouraged me, Lord, who are the food of the great: to do violence to myself. For impossibility coincides with necessity. And I have found the place in which you will be found unveiled: girt with the coincidence of contradictories. And this is the wall of paradise: in which you dwell, whose gate the highest spirit of reason guards: which unless conquered, the entrance will not lie open. Beyond the coincidence of contradictories, therefore, you can be seen: and nowhere this side of it. If therefore impossibility is necessity in your gaze, Lord: there is nothing which your gaze does not see.