De visione Dei

God is seen as absolute infinity. Lord God, helper of those who seek you: I see you in the rising of paradise, and I know not what I see, for I see nothing of visible things. And this alone I know: that I know that I know not what I see, and can never know. And I know not how to name you: for I know not what you are. And if anyone should tell me that you are called by this or that name: by the very fact that he names it, I know that it is not your name. For the limit of every mode of the signification of names is the wall beyond which I see you. And if anyone should express some concept by which you could be conceived: I know that concept is not the concept of you. For every concept terminates at the wall of paradise. And if anyone should express some likeness and say that you are to be conceived according to it: I know likewise that likeness is not yours. So if anyone should set forth an understanding of you, wishing to give a mode by which you may be understood: he is still far from you. For you are separated by the highest wall from all these things. For the wall separates from you all things that can be said or thought: for you are absolute, apart from all these things that can fall into the concept of anyone. Hence when I am raised most high, I see you as infinity. For this reason you are inaccessible, incomprehensible, unnameable, unmultipliable, and invisible. And therefore one who approaches you must ascend above every limit and end and finite thing. But how will he reach you, who are the end toward which he tends, if he must ascend beyond the end? He who ascends beyond the end: does he not enter into the indeterminate and confused, and thus, as regards the intellect, into ignorance and darkness, which belong to intellectual confusion? The intellect must therefore become ignorant and be placed in shadow, if it wishes to see you. But what, my God, is this ignorance of the intellect? Is it not learned ignorance? You cannot therefore be approached, God who are infinity, except by him whose intellect is in ignorance, who namely knows that he is ignorant of you. How can the intellect grasp you, who are infinity? The intellect knows itself ignorant, and that you cannot be grasped, for you are infinity. For to understand infinity is to comprehend the incomprehensible. The intellect knows itself ignorant of you: for it knows that you cannot be known unless the unknowable is known, and the invisible is seen, and the inaccessible is approached.

You, my God, are absolute infinity itself, which I see to be the infinite end. But I cannot grasp how the end becomes an end without end. You, God, are the end of yourself: the end, for you are whatever you have. If you have an end, you are the end. You are therefore the infinite end, for you are the end of yourself. For your end is your essence; the essence of the end is not limited or finished in something other than the end, but in itself. The end, therefore, which is the end of itself is infinite. And every end which is not the end of itself is a finite end. You, Lord, since you are the end that gives end to all things, are therefore the end of which there is no end. And thus an end without end, or infinite — which escapes all reason. For it enfolds a contradiction. When therefore I assert that there is the infinite, I admit darkness light, ignorance knowledge, the impossible necessary. And since we admit that there is an end of the finite, we necessarily admit the infinite, or the ultimate end, or the end without end. But we cannot not admit finite beings; so we cannot not admit the infinite. We admit therefore the coincidence of contradictories, above which is the infinite. That coincidence, moreover, is contradiction without contradiction, as an end without end. And you say to me, Lord, that as otherness in unity is without otherness, because unity, so contradiction in infinity is without contradiction, because infinity. Infinity is simplicity itself: there is no contradiction without alteration. But otherness in simplicity is without alteration, because simplicity itself. For all things said of absolute simplicity coincide with it, for there having is being. The opposition of opposites is opposition without opposition, as the end of finite things is an end without end. You therefore, God, are the opposition of opposites, for you are infinite. And because you are infinite, you are infinity itself. In infinity there is the opposition of opposites without opposition.

Lord my God, strength of the fragile: I see you to be infinity itself. Therefore nothing is other to you or different or opposed. For infinity does not admit otherness along with itself. For since it is infinity, nothing is outside it. For absolute infinity includes all things and embraces all things. Therefore if there were infinity and something else outside it, it would not be infinity, nor would the other be. For infinity can be neither greater nor smaller. Nothing therefore is outside it. For unless infinity included all being in itself, it would not be infinity. But if there were no infinity, then there would be no end either, nor then anything other or different, which cannot be without the otherness of ends and limits. With the infinite removed, therefore, nothing remains. Infinity therefore is, and enfolds all things, and nothing can be outside it. Hence nothing is other or different to it.

Infinity therefore is all things in such a way that it is none of all things. No name can suit infinity. For every name can have a contrary. But for unnameable infinity nothing can be contrary. Nor is infinity a whole to which a part is opposed. Nor can it be a part. Nor is infinity great, nor small. Nor any of all the things that can be named either in heaven or on earth. Above all those things is infinity. Infinity is greater than none, nor smaller, nor equal. But when I consider that infinity is not greater or smaller than anything that can be given, I say that it is the measure of all things, since it is neither greater nor smaller. And so I conceive it as the equality of being. Such equality, however, is infinity; and thus it is not equality in the mode in which the unequal is opposed to equality, but there inequality is equality. For inequality in infinity is without inequality, because infinity. So too equality in infinity is infinity. Infinite equality is an end without end. Hence although it is neither greater nor smaller, it is not on that account equality in the mode in which contracted equality is taken, but it is infinite equality which admits neither more nor less. And thus it is not more equal to one thing than to another, but as equal to one as to all. As equal to all as to none of all. For the infinite is not contractible but remains absolute. If it were contractible away from infinity, it would not be infinite. It is therefore not contractible to a finite equality, although it is unequal to nothing. For how would inequality suit the infinite, to which neither more nor less suits? The infinite therefore is neither greater nor smaller nor unequal to anything given whatever. Nor on that account is it equal to the finite, for it is above every finite. This is through itself: then the infinite is altogether absolute and incontractible. O how exalted you are, Lord, above all things — and with this lowly, for you are in all things. If infinity were contractible to something nameable, as line or surface or species, it would draw to itself that which would be contracted. And that the infinite is contractible involves a contradiction: for it would not be contracted but would draw to itself. For if I should say that the infinite is contracted to a line, as when I say an infinite line, then the line is drawn up into the infinite. For a line ceases to be a line when it has no quantity and end. An infinite line is not a line; but a line in infinity is infinity. And as nothing can be added to the infinite, so the infinite cannot be contracted to anything so as to be something other than the infinite. Infinite goodness is not goodness but infinity. Infinite quantity is not quantity but infinity. And so of all things. You are a great God, whose greatness has no end. And therefore I see you as the unmeasurable measure of all things, as the infinite is the end of all things. You are therefore, Lord, since you are infinite, without beginning and end. You are beginning without beginning, and end without end. You are beginning without end, and end without beginning. And thus the beginning which is the end. And thus the end which is the beginning. And neither beginning nor end, but above beginning and end,¹ absolute infinity itself, forever blessed.

MARG: Socrates