De visione Dei

where the invisible is seen: the uncreated is created. You have appeared to me, Lord, at one time as invisible to every creature: for you are the hidden, infinite God. But infinity: is incomprehensible by every mode of comprehending. Then you appeared to me as visible to all: for a thing is inasmuch as you see it. And it would not be in act: unless it saw you. For vision bestows being: for it is your essence. Thus, my God, you are invisible alike and visible. You are invisible as you are: you are visible as the creature is, which is inasmuch as it sees you. You therefore, my invisible God: are seen by all and are seen in every vision, through every seer in every visible thing, and in every act of vision you are seen: who are invisible and absolute from all such, and superexalted to infinity. I must therefore, Lord, leap over that wall of invisible vision: where you will be found. But the wall is: all things and nothing at once. For you who meet me as if you were all things and nothing of all at once: dwell within that high wall, which no wit can climb by its own power. At one time you meet me: that I think you see in yourself all things, as a living mirror in which all things shine. And since your seeing, is knowing: then it meets me that you do not see in yourself all things as a living mirror. For thus your knowledge would arise from things. Then you meet me: that you see in yourself all things: as a power by beholding itself, as the power of the seed of a tree, if it beheld itself: would see in itself the tree in power. For the power of the seed: is the tree virtually. And after this it meets me: that you do not see yourself, and in yourself all things, as a power. For to see the tree in

MARG: Semen.

the potency of power: differs from the vision by which the tree is seen in act. And then I find how your infinite power is beyond the mirroring and the seminal, and the coincidence of radiation and reflection of cause and caused alike: and that that absolute power is absolute vision which is perfection itself, and is above all modes of seeing. For all modes which explain the perfection of vision, are without mode your vision: which is your essence, my God. But permit, most merciful Lord: that a vile creature still speak to you. If your seeing is your creating, and you see nothing other than you, but you yourself are the object of yourself (for you are the seer, and the visible and the seeing), how then do you create things other than you? For you seem to create yourself: as you see yourself. But you console me, life of my spirit: for although the wall of absurdity meets me, which is of the coincidence itself of creating with being created, as if it were impossible that creating coincide with being created (for it seems that to admit this is to affirm a thing to be before it is,¹ for when it creates, it is: and is not, for it is created), yet it does not hinder. For your creating: is your being. Nor is creating alike and being created other: than to communicate your being to all, that you be all in all: and yet remain absolute from all. For to call to being what are not: is to communicate being to nothing. Thus to call is to create: to communicate, is to be created. And beyond this coincidence of creating with being created: you are, God, absolute and infinite, neither creating nor creatable, although all things are what they are because you are.

O height of riches: that you are incomprehensible! As long as I conceive the creating creator: I am still this side of the wall of paradise. So as long as I conceive the creatable creator: I have not yet entered, but am in the wall. But when I see you absolute infinity, to whom neither the name of creating creator, nor of creatable creator suits: then I begin to behold you unveiled, and to enter the garden of delights. For you are by no means anything such as can be said or conceived: but to infinity above all such absolutely superexalted. You are therefore not creator, but more than creator to infinity: although without you nothing is done or can be done. To you praise and glory through infinite ages. AMEN.