De visione Dei

How Jesus is understood as the bond of the divine and the human nature. You show me, unfailing light, that the greatest union, by which the human nature in my Jesus, is united to your divine nature: is not in any way like the infinite union. For the union, by which union you, God the father, are united to God your son: is God the holy spirit. and therefore it is an infinite union. For it reaches into absolute and essential identity. Not so: where the human nature is united to the divine. for the human nature: cannot pass into essential union with the divine. as the finite: cannot be united infinitely to the infinite. for it would pass into the identity of the infinite: and so would cease to be finite, when what belongs to the infinite were verified of it. Therefore this union by which the human nature is united to the divine nature: is nothing but a drawing of the human nature toward the divine in the highest degree. so that the human nature itself, as such: cannot be drawn more highly. and therefore the union of that human nature as human: toward the divine is the greatest: because it cannot be greater. but it is not simply the greatest and infinite: as the divine union is.

I see therefore from the kindness of your grace in you, Jesus son of man, the son of God: and in you son of God, the father. In you, son of man, I see the son of God: because you are so son of man, that you are also son of God. and in the drawn finite nature: I see the drawing infinite nature. I see in the absolute son: the absolute father. for the son cannot be seen as son: unless the father is seen.

I see in you, Jesus, the divine sonship, which is the truth of all sonship: and likewise the highest human sonship, which is the nearest image of the absolute sonship. As therefore the image, between which and its exemplar no more perfect image can mediate, subsists nearest in the truth whose image it is: so I see your human nature subsisting in the divine nature. I see therefore all things in your human nature, which I also see in the divine: but I see those things to be humanly in the human nature, which are the divine truth itself in the divine nature. The things which I see to be humanly in you, Jesus: are a likeness of the divine nature. but the likeness is joined to its exemplar without medium: so that nothing more like can either be, or be thought.

In the human or rational nature: I see the human rational spirit united most strictly to the divine spirit, which is absolute reason: and so the human intellect to the divine intellect, and all things in your intellect, Jesus. For you understand all things, Jesus, as God: and this understanding, is to be all things. you understand all things as man: and this understanding, is to be the likeness of all things. for a thing is not understood by man: except in likeness. a stone is not in the human intellect as in its own cause or reason: but as in species and likeness. There is therefore in you, Jesus, a human understanding united to the divine understanding itself: as the most perfect image to the exemplary truth. as if in the mind of the craftsman I considered the ideal form of the chest, and the species of the chest made most perfectly by the master himself according to the idea: as then the ideal form is the truth of the species and united to it as truth to image in one master: so in you, Jesus, master of masters, I see the absolute idea of all things, and likewise the likeness-bearing species of the same united most highly.

I see, good Jesus, you within the wall of paradise. for your intellect: is truth and image alike. and you are God and creature alike: infinite and finite alike. and it is not possible: that you be seen on this side of the wall. for you are the bond of the divine creating nature and the human created nature.

But this difference I see between your human intellect and that of any other man whatever. that no man knows all things which can be known by man: because the intellect of no man is so conjoined to the exemplar of all things as likeness to truth, but that it could be conjoined more nearly, and be constituted more in act. and therefore he does not understand so many things, but that he could understand more by approach to the exemplar of things from which everything actually existing has actuality. but your intellect, understands in act all things intelligible by man: because in you the human nature is most perfect, and most closely conjoined to its exemplar. on account of which union, your human intellect exceeds every created intellect in perfection of understanding. All rational spirits therefore, are far below you: of all of whom you, Jesus, are master and light. and you are the perfection and fullness of all: and through you they approach the absolute truth as through a mediator. for you are the way to the truth and at the same time the truth itself. you are the way to the life of the intellect: and at the same time life itself. you are the scent of the food of joy: and at the same time the life-giving taste. Be therefore, sweetest Jesus, blessed forever.