De visione Dei

How Jesus is the consummation.

But what is this, Lord, which you send into the spirit of the man whom you perfect! Is it not your good spirit, which, wholly in act, is the power of all powers and the perfection of the perfected, since it is he, who works all things. For as the solar power descending into the vegetative spirit moves it to be perfected,, and by a most grateful and most natural concoction of celestial heat there comes to be a good fruit through the medium of a good tree, so your spirit, God, comes into the intellectual spirit of the good man,, and by the heat of divine charity concocts the virtual potency that it be perfected,, and become for it a most grateful fruit. We experience, Lord, your simple spirit, infinite in power, to be taken manifoldly. For it is taken otherwise in one where it effects a prophetic spirit,, otherwise in another where it makes a skilled interpreter,, and in another where it teaches knowledge; thus otherwise in others. For its gifts are various. And those are perfections of the intellectual spirit, as the same solar heat perfects various fruits in various trees. I see, Lord, that your spirit can fail no spirit, because it is spirit to spirit,, and motion of motions,, and fills the whole orb. But it disposes all things which have not an intellectual spirit through the intellectual nature which moves heaven, and through its motion all things which are subject to it. But disposition and dispensation in intellectual nature it reserved to none but itself. For it espoused this nature to itself,, in which it chose to rest as in a house of dwelling,, and a heaven of truth. For nowhere can truth be taken per se, except in intellectual nature. You, Lord, who work all things for your own sake, created this whole universe for the sake of intellectual nature. As a painter who tempers diverse colors, that at last he may depict himself, to the end that he may have an image of himself in which his art may delight and rest. That though he himself be one and unmultipliable, yet in the way in which it can come about he may be multiplied in the closest likeness. But he makes many figures, because the likeness of his infinite power cannot be unfolded in a more perfect way except in many. And all intellectual spirits are apt for every spirit whatsoever. For unless they were innumerable, you, infinite God, could not be known in a better way. For each intellectual spirit sees in you, my God, something which, unless it were revealed to others,, they would not attain to their God in the best way in which it could come about. Therefore they reveal their secrets to one another, spirits full of love. And from this the knowledge of the beloved grows,, and desire toward him,, and the sweetness of joy burns bright. Nor yet, Lord God, without Jesus your Son, whom you anointed above his fellows, who is Christ,, would you have completed the complement of your work. In whose intellect rests the perfection of creatable nature. For it is the last and most perfect unmultipliable likeness of God. And there can be none but one supreme such. But all other intellectual spirits are likenesses through the mediation of that spirit. And the more perfect, the more like to it. And all rest in that spirit,, as in the last perfection of the image of God, of whose image they have attained a likeness and some degree of perfection. I have therefore, by your gift, my God, this whole visible world,, and all scripture,, and all ministering spirits for aid, that I may profit in knowledge of you. All things excite me to turn to you. All scriptures strive to do nothing else, but to show you. Nor do all intellectual spirits have any other exercise, but to seek you,, and, as much as each has found of you,, to reveal it. You gave me above all things Jesus as master,, way,, life,, and truth, that wholly nothing may be lacking to me. You strengthen me with your holy spirit. Through him you breathe holy choices, desires of life. You allure me through foretaste of the sweetness of glorious life,, that I may love you, infinite good. You snatch me, that I be above myself,, and foresee the place of glory to which you invite me. Many most savory dishes you show me, drawing me with their best savor: you let me see the treasure of riches,, of life,, of joy,, of beauty, the fount from which flows every desirable thing, as much in nature as in art you uncover.¹ You hold back nothing secret. The vein of love you do not hide, nor of peace,, nor of rest. All things you offer me, most wretched, which you created from nothing. Why then do I delay? Why do I not run in the odor of the ointments of my Christ? Why do I not enter into the joy of my Lord? What holds me? If ignorance of you, Lord,, and vain delight of the sensible world has held me, it shall hold me no more. For I will, Lord, since you give that I will,, to leave these things which are of this world, since the world wills to leave me. I hasten to the end; I have all but completed the course. I anticipate bidding it farewell, because I pant for the crown. Draw me, Lord, for no one will be able to come to you, unless drawn by you. That, drawn, I may be loosed from this world, and joined to you, absolute God, in the eternity of glorious life. Amen. Of the books on the vision of God or on the icon, by the Reverend Father Nicholas of Cusa. The end.