Theologicae regulae

God is an intelligible sphere, whose center is everywhere, whose circumference is nowhere.

This is proved by that rule in which it was said that the monad alone is alpha and omega: for from the fact that God lacks beginning and end, he is called a sphere; for it is proper to the spherical form to lack beginning and end. But he is not a corporeal sphere, but rather an intelligible one. For when we say that God is a sphere, we ought not to be led to imaginations, so as to imagine him to be a sphere in the likeness of bodies; but, with understanding as our guide, we should understand by this reasoning that God is a sphere, because he is eternal. Whence in Martianus, eternity is said to have a diadem, because this signifies that it lacks beginning and end. Whence, the lack of beginning and end is called a diadem, as it were two "demes," that is, beginning and end. There follows: whose center is everywhere, whose circumference is nowhere. O what a great difference between a corporeal and an intelligible sphere! In a corporeal sphere the center, on account of its smallness, is scarcely thought to be anywhere; the circumference, however, is comprehended in many places. In the intelligible sphere, however, the center is everywhere, the circumference nowhere. The creature is called the center, because just as time compared to eternity is reckoned a moment, so the creature compared to the immensity of God is a point, or a center. The immensity of God, then, is called the circumference, because by disposing all things it is in a certain manner carried around all things, and embraces all things within its immensity. There is also this other difference between a corporeal and an intelligible sphere, that the center of a corporeal sphere is immobile, the circumference mobile; in the intelligible sphere it is the opposite, because God, remaining stable, causes all things to be moved.