De visione Dei

God: unless he is triune he cannot be perfectly seen.

You have shown yourself to me, Lord, so lovable that you could not be more lovable. For you are infinitely lovable, my God. Never therefore could you be loved by anyone as you are lovable, except by an infinite lover. For unless there were an infinite lover, you would not be infinitely lovable. For your lovableness, which is the capacity to be loved infinitely, exists, because it is the capacity to love infinitely. From the capacity to love infinitely and the capacity to be loved infinitely arises the infinite bond of love of the infinite lover himself and the infinite beloved. But it is not multipliable. You therefore, my God, who are love, are loving love, and lovable love, and love, the bond of the love of lover and beloved. I see in you, my God, a loving and a lovable love. And from the fact that I see in you a loving love, and a lovable love, I see the bond of each love. And this is nothing other than what I see in your absolute unity, in which I see a uniting unity, a unitable unity, and the union of each. But whatever I see in you, this you are, my God. You are therefore that infinite love which, without a lover, and a beloved, and the bond of each, cannot be seen by me as natural and perfect love. For how can I conceive the most perfect and most natural love without a lover, and a beloved, and the union of each! For that love is a lover, and a beloved, and the bond of each, I experience in contracted love to be of the essence of perfect love. But what is of the essence of contracted perfect love cannot be lacking to absolute love, from which contracted love has whatever perfection it has. And the simpler love is, the more perfect it is. But you, my God, are the most perfect and most simple love. You therefore are the most perfect itself, and most simple, and most natural essence of love. Hence in you, love, the lover is not one thing, and the beloved another, and the bond of each another, but the same: you yourself, my God. Since therefore in you the beloved coincides with the lover, and being loved with loving, then the bond of the coincidence is an essential bond. For nothing is in you which is not your very essence. Those therefore which occur to me as three, namely lover, beloved, and bond, are the most simple absolute essence itself. They are therefore not three but one. That essence of yours, my God, which occurs to me as most simple, and (so to speak) most one, is not most natural and most perfect without the three aforenamed. It is therefore a threefold essence, and yet there are not three in it, because it is most simple. The plurality therefore of the three aforenamed is plurality in such a way that it is unity. And unity is unity in such a way that it is plurality. The plurality of the three is plurality without plural number. For plural number cannot be simple unity, because it is plural number. There is therefore no numerical distinction of the three, because that distinction is essential. For number is essentially distinguished from number. And because unity is threefold, it is not the unity of singular number. For the unity of singular number is not threefold.

O most marvelous God, who are neither of singular number, nor of plural number, but above all plurality and singularity, one-and-three and threefold-one.

I see therefore in the wall of paradise where you are, my God, plurality coinciding with singularity, and you dwelling beyond, exceedingly remote. Teach me, Lord, how I may conceive as possible what I see as necessary. For there occurs to me the impossibility that the plurality of three, without which I cannot conceive you as perfect and natural love, should be plurality without number. As if one who says, one, one, one says thrice one, does not say three, but one, and this one thrice. But he cannot say thrice without three, though he does not say three. For when he says one thrice, he repeats the same and does not count. For to count is to make one other, but to repeat one and the same threefoldly, is to pluralize without number. Whence the plurality which is seen by me in you, my God, is otherness without otherness, because it is otherness which is identity. For when I see the lover not to be the beloved, and the bond to be neither lover nor beloved, I do not so see the lover not to be the beloved, as if the lover were one thing, and the beloved another, but I see the distinction of lover and beloved to be within the wall of the coincidence of unity and otherness. Whence that distinction which is within the wall of coincidence, where the distinct and the indistinct coincide, anticipates every otherness and diversity that can be understood. For the wall encloses the power of every intellect, though the eye looks beyond into paradise. But what it sees it can neither say, nor understand. For its love is a secret treasure, and hidden, which when found remains hidden. For it finds within the wall of coincidence the hidden and the manifest. But I cannot be drawn back from the sweetness of the vision but that I should still in some way report to myself the revelation of the distinction of lover, beloved, and bond. For the sweetest tasting of it, however small, is in some way foretasteable in figure of what is seen. For you so grant, Lord, that I see love in you, because I see myself loving. And because I see myself loving myself, I see myself lovable. And I see myself to be the most natural bond of each. I am the lover, I am the beloved, I am the bond. There is therefore one love without which none of the three could exist. I am one who am the lover, and the same who am the beloved, and the same who am the bond arising from the love with which I love myself. I am one, and I am not three. Suppose therefore that my love were my essence, as in my God. Then in the unity of my essence there would be the unity of the three aforesaid. And in the trinity of the three aforesaid, the unity of the essence. And all things would be in my essence contractedly, in the way I see them to exist in you truly and absolutely. Then the loving love would not be the lovable love, nor the bond. And this I experience by this practice. For through the loving love, which I extend to another thing outside me, as to a beloved extrinsic to my essence, there follows the bond by which I am bound to that thing as far as lies in me. Which thing does not join me with that bond, because perhaps it does not love me. Whence though I love it, so that my loving love extends itself over it, yet my loving love does not draw with it my lovable love. For I am not known as lovable to it. For it cares not for me, though I love it greatly. As a son sometimes cares not for his mother, who loves him most tenderly. And so I experience the loving love not to be the lovable love, nor the bond, but I see the lover distinguished from the beloved and the bond. Which distinction indeed is not in the essence of love, for I cannot love, whether myself, or another thing than myself, without love. Thus love is of the essence of the three. And thus I see the most simple essence of the three aforesaid, though they are distinguished among themselves. I have expressed, Lord, in likeness whatever foretaste of your nature. But spare, merciful one, for I strive to figure the unfigurable taste of your sweetness. For if the sweetness of an unknown apple, remains unfigurable by every picture and figure, and inexpressible by every word, who am I, wretched sinner, who strive to show you, the unshowable, and to figure you, the invisible, visible, and presume to make savory that infinite and utterly inexpressible sweetness of yours which I have never yet deserved to taste. And by the things I express I make it small rather than great. But so great is your goodness, my God, that you even allow the blind to speak of light, and to proclaim its praises. Of which they know nothing nor can know, unless it be revealed to them. But revelation does not reach taste. The ear of faith does not reach the tasteable sweetness. But this you, God, have revealed to me, that neither ear has heard, nor has it descended into the heart of man, the infinity of your sweetness, which you have prepared for those who love you. Paul, your great apostle, has revealed this to us, who beyond the wall of coincidence was caught up into paradise, where alone you can be seen revealedly, you who are the fount of delights. I have endeavored to submit myself to the rapture, trusting in your infinite goodness, that I might see you invisible, and the revealed vision unrevealable. To what point I have arrived, you know, but I know not, and your grace suffices me, by which you render me certain that you are incomprehensible. And you raise me in firm hope that under your guidance I shall arrive at the fruition of you.

MARG: Paulus.